It tumbled, finally coming to rest against the leg of the coffee table.
Four black dots faced the ceiling.
“Evens,” Turks said.
“Evens,” Cooper echoed. He grinned around the room, though everyone else’s face was somber.
“Amen,” said Pauline.
“Amen,” said the others.
Turk slipped his thumbs into the pockets of his pants and looked almost sympathetically down at David. “It’s you, old hoss. Good news is, your daughter’s safe. We’ll keep her here with us for a time. No worries about that at all. Seems like she and Sam get along just fine, way I see it. And you’re a big fella. Should hold us off for a while.”
Bronwyn cleared her throat and said, “Should we—”
But she was cut off as another series of loud thumps—much more agitated than the previous two—reverberated down through the ceiling. This was followed by a piercing shriek that caused Turk’s son, Sam, to slam both meaty hands over his ears.
“Jesus,” Tre whispered, staring at the ceiling. It was the first thing David had heard him utter.
Jimmy’s agonized howls funneled through the vents.
“He’s worse, Turk,” Pauline said, obviously concerned. Turk held a hand up, silencing her. He cocked his head, as if to listen for the faintest sound, but there was no need to strain himself: Jimmy’s cries came again, the wails of a banshee, causing Pauline’s eyes to moisten and Sam to groan as if in pain himself.
Ellie’s grip tightened around David’s hand. She was staring at the vent in the ceiling directly above her head. Motes of dust spiraled down and powdered her hair. She didn’t even blink her eyes.
Then—whump! The sound of a sledgehammer whacking against the trunk of a large tree. It came over and over again, steady as a heartbeat—whump! whump! whump!
“He’ll hurt himself,” Pauline said. Her voice was low and hardly audible over the sickening sound emanating from upstairs. Then she shouted it at Turk: “He’s hurting himself!”
“Goddamn it,” Turk growled. He spun around, charged out of the living room, and bounded up the stairs. Momentarily, his heavy footfalls competed with the throbbing heartbeat that shook the walls.
“What’s he doing?” Bronwyn said. She stepped partway out into the hall and peered up the stairwell.
“He’s slamming his head against the wall up there,” David said. “If I had to guess, anyway, that’s where I’d put my money.”
Pauline glared at him, teeth clenched. “You don’t know nothing,” she growled at him.
“Probably smashing his face to pieces,” David continued. His mouth was dry; his tongue felt like a fat sponge sticking to the roof of his mouth.
“You cut it out!” Pauline shouted. She pointed at Cooper. “You shut him up!”
“Mama!” Sam bawled. He still had his hands clamped to his ears.
“You shut your mouth, buddy,” Cooper said, threatening David with the muzzle of the gun.
“Or what?” David said. “I’m dead anyway, right?”
“Just shut it.” Flecks of spit sprang from Cooper’s lips.
The banging upstairs reached a steady fever pitch—
whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump
—until Pauline shrieked and covered her own ears. Bronwyn made a high-pitched whimpering that sounded like air hissing from a deflating car tire. The gun in Cooper’s hand began to shake.
And then the banging stopped. The silence that followed was as loud as an explosion. Sam was sobbing against his mother while Pauline, fists still balled against her own ears, stared at the ceiling, wet tracks sliding down her cheeks.
“They’re okay,” Cooper said. He was staring right at David now. So was the gun. “They’re okay, Pauline. Just relax.”
“That sound,” Pauline moaned. She dropped her hands and hugged her boy.
Bronwyn stepped over to the foot of the stairs; David could see her terrified expression from the living room doorway. She called, “Turk? Turk?” Then her face appeared to collapse. She brought a hand up to her mouth, which seemed to have come unhinged. A high-pitched whine escaped her.
Turk descended the stairs. Cradled in his arms was the limp body of his son Jimmy. When Turk reached the bottom of the stairs, he staggered into the doorway of the living room just as Pauline began to cry. The look on Turk’s face was one of utter shock. The look on Jimmy’s was worse—a slack, pale face, juxtaposed by streamers of dark red gore smeared across his nose and mouth. The boy’s eyelids were open, but the eyes themselves were bright red Christmas balls filled with blood.
Turk surveyed them all, helpless and lost. There was a sound like cloth being slowly torn in half, which David realized was actually the sound of blood spilling from some orifice of the boy and pattering to the floor.