Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (96 page)

C
HAPTER 35

J
ack Simpson had reached the top floor. He found a young woman and four men huddled together in a law office. They told Simpson where Parker and Hill had gone, and he told them to take the elevator down to the lobby.

With everyone safely in the elevator, Simpson pulled out his .357 and trotted to the stairway door. He carefully opened it and walked in. Pausing briefly, he strained to hear anything that might give a clue as to what was happening. Nothing. He proceeded up the stairs, his revolver out in front pointing to the ceiling.

At the top of the steps, Simpson found the cooling body of Gus Spillman and stepped over it. He took a deep breath as if preparing to dive into a pool of alligators and entered the mechanical room.

Nothing moved. Darkness. He took a second to search the wall for a light switch but could find none.

*-*-*

The five Dobermans heard him enter. Trotted toward the doorway. Moved behind large boxes. Stood quietly. Waited. Licked their snouts. Showed their teeth. Waited.

*-*-*

Simpson saw the open stairs leading to the outside access of the roof. That was the way he had to go to find Parker.

A flash of lightning, and the crash of thunder closely following, caused Simpson to look to the window.

A figure outside on the scaffold was struggling to stand up. Parker.

Simpson rushed toward the window to see what he could do to help his friend.

Growls came from the darkness, loud and vicious.

Simpson halted. A figure appeared in the shadows between two large boxes, just to one side of his intended path. Strobing lightning revealed the dark shape as it showed its murderous fangs in a demonic grin.

Simpson raised his gun quickly, preparing to calm the beast with

a .357 slug.

Another growl came from the left, interrupting his aim. The lightning illuminated yet another figure, materializing from the darkness, standing motionless, snarling. It stood on a six-foot wooden crate five feet away.

Simpson replaced the first Doberman in his sights with the closer one.

Three more growls from behind. He looked over his shoulder as three additional shadows appeared in another pulsing flash of light, all showing their deadly weapons from underneath curled and snarling snouts.

They had him surrounded. He could only stop one, with luck, maybe two, by gun. They poised to attack at any instant. If he fired his revolver, they might run—or they might attack. He would have to shoot and run. But
where
could he run?

Simpson took short breaths from between parted lips. Sweat beaded on his already wet forehead. He’d shoot the closest target; the easiest shot—the one on the crate.

Movement from behind. A sort of clicking noise. The dogs were moving.

Simpson turned.

The three dogs that were behind him had disappeared as phantom-like as they had come.

He turned back to the front.

Lightning flashed. The other two dogs had also vanished.

Simpson moved closer to the window, his eyes searching the dark, shadowy surroundings. Another lightning flash and thunder explosion distracted him. He saw Parker trying to get to his feet outside.

“Tony, Tony! I’m here. Hold on!” Simpson cried out, now within eight feet of the window.

The storm and the thick glass prevented Parker from hearing.

Clicking from behind. A lot of clicking.

“The dogs!” he said, under his breath.

Now, a growl. Now, several. A chorus.

A scene from his childhood flashed through his mind. His brother was being mauled by the neighbor’s mastiff. The bicycle crashing. The terrible struggle. His brother screaming, crying for help. Vicious fangs. Flesh ripping. Blood. Desperation. No way to help.

*-*-*

Outside on the scaffolding, things were fuzzy and hard to figure out in Parker’s head. He started to get up, but his hand slipped, and his head bobbed over the edge of the scaffold. A window squeegee fell. The squeegee seemed to fall for eternity. Nearly out of sight, it bounced spastically on the ground.

His eyes blurred. He saw double. He felt nauseous. His head throbbed hard.
Concussion
. Parker struggled, finally coming to his feet. He gazed up the suspending cables to where Hill stood. The controls to raise and lower the scaffold still smoked from the lightning strike, fused together and useless.

A sudden bang on the large window made Parker hug the scaffold cables, startled. Simpson had been pushed face first into the window. His revolver had hit the glass at the same time and caused a crack to grow across it. Parker gaped at Simpson’s horrified face only inches away, pressed against the glazing, distorted from the blur of the rain and the dizziness in his head.

“Tony, help!” Simpson pleaded, his muffled cry barely heard through the glass and over the raging storm.

All five dogs were on him. They ripped and tore at his body. One tried for his jugular, but he knocked it away with his forearm. Two replaced it, thrusting with their terrible incisors at his neck. He held his hands to his throat. Instead they went for his groin and legs. Their powerful jaws clamped onto his body, and their sharp fangs punctured his flesh, ripping, tearing, chewing, tugging and shaking when they had a fast grip on a mouthful of Jack Simpson.

“Oh, God, no! Jack!” Parker pleaded back, his face pressed up against the glass, opposite Simpson’s. He beat on the glass as Simpson slid below the window, eyes bugging with pain. An all too familiar fever enveloped Parker’s body. It excited him with overwhelming anger. His cold joints stiffened, and the wound on his neck was afire.

“No, no, no, no!” Parker demanded.
“Jack!”

He watched, enraged. He could no longer see Jack in the dark room. A dog’s head or back occasionally flipped into view as the dogs swarmed like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

He looked up the cables, this time grabbing one without thinking twice. With his feet against the side of the building, he tried to climb up the slippery steel cable, hand over hand and foot over foot against the side of the building. But on every attempt, he slid back after only making a few feet. On his last try, he fell back to the scaffold hard and kicked into a bucket hooked onto the side. A thin nylon rope was attached. If he could throw the bucket up to Hill and have her tie the rope off, he’d stand a much better chance of climbing up.

“Stand back!” he ordered.

He swung the bucket around like a lariat and then slung it up and over the railing to Hill. Hill’s head ducked back as the bucket came over. She quickly reappeared with a questioning look.

“Tie it off!” he told her.

He gave her a few seconds to secure the line and then tugged twice to check it before trying to climb. Once again, Parker’s attempts were thwarted. The rope was too thin and slippery. Parker cried out in anguish as he slipped down beside the window. All this time wasted while the dogs ripped Jack apart.

C
HAPTER 36

P
arker gritted his teeth and took two more steps up the side of the building, holding onto the thin rope. He started slipping again, but now, he knew what he must do. He’d seen it many times in the movies and on TV. Bruce Willis and Batman did it.

Parker wrapped the rope around one hand for a better hold and then bent his knees, squatting on the wall. He shoved off with his legs while holding tight to the rope. He swung out. Coming back hard, he hit feet first against the window. The glass shattered and Parker swung in, ready to begin a melee of dog bashing. Glass and rain poured in through the broken window. He lost his grip on the rope and fell flat on his back beside Jack Simpson.

The dogs were gone. He leaned over onto his side and looked at Simpson’s blood-seeping body. There were wounds too numerous to count.

The roof door slammed and the metal steps rattled as Sarah Hill ran down. She sprinted over to Parker and Simpson.

“Get out of here, now,” Parker said. “Go get help.”

Hill obeyed and ran to the stairway door. Parker watched her until she made it through, making sure the dogs didn’t follow her.

He knelt beside Simpson. He was surprised when Simpson feebly opened his eyes. He was mortally wounded, it was obvious. Blood ran from a multitude of wounds: neck, face, arms, stomach and sides, legs and groin. He lay with his head and shoulders against the wall below the large, broken window.

“Hey, Tony,” he said faintly, “that was one hell of a kick you gave that Dobie. You know he landed on my hood? Nobody blocked that field goal.”

Parker smiled what little he could muster, trying to comfort his dying friend. He couldn’t hold it for long.

“Jack, come on now. This isn’t any way to die.”

When Simpson smiled back at him, Parker flashed back to the day they met. The big game, the field-goal attempt that Simpson blocked and robbed from him, and the fight afterward that ended in a long and very loyal friendship.

“I’m sorry, Jack!” Parker said, shaking his head.

“You’re sorry? What for, ol’ buddy?” Simpson asked.

“For calling you a—
nigger
.”

“What? Tony, that was over twenty years ago, and if I remember right, I called you an ignorant, white-trash asshole.”

They both chuckled until Simpson coughed up blood.

“Tony, do me a favor?” Simpson’s face was serious.

“Sure, Jack.”

“Don’t mess around on Julie. She’s the best thing you ever had.”

Simpson’s concern surprised him. “Sure, Jack, I know she is.”

“And one more thing. Look after Sadie and the kids, will you?”

He patted Simpson’s hand and then squeezed it. “Of course, Jack. You know you can count on me.”

Simpson’s gaze faded to a blank stare. For a moment, Parker thought he was gone.

Simpson’s hand and arm moved underneath his side. He pulled out his gun. He’d been lying on it. He quickly aimed it over Parker’s left shoulder.

A deafening explosion from the revolver made Parker flinch and his ears ring. He heard a yelp and turned to see cardboard boxes shifting fifteen feet away. He turned back to Simpson.

“Here, take this,” Simpson said, placing the gun into Parker’s hand. “You might need it.” Simpson coughed and winced.

Parker hadn’t fired a gun since Vietnam and didn’t ever want to again, and he knew Simpson was well aware of it.

Parker looked deep into Simpson’s eyes. The life was running out. He wanted to stop it, to put it back into his friend’s body. But the life leaked from too many wounds until it emptied from his body.

Simpson was dead.

In a stupor Parker looked down at the gun in his hands. He was still dizzy from the concussion or from something much more horrifying. The fever still blazed. Hot flashes surged through his body, joints ached. His stiff neck stung with the wound afire. He looked about. The surroundings were surreal. Like a dream, a nightmare. His head became light and began to spin. He felt ready to faint. Steadying himself with one arm, he tried to maintain control of his consciousness.

A snarl came from behind.

Adrenaline shot through Parker’s body. His back straightened. The pain disappeared. He had no thought of fear. This time, revenge.

He turned to see a single Doberman with a red gash parting the hide on its forehead where a bullet had glanced off. The animal that was preparing to attack Parker was instead about to be attacked. Parker eased toward the dog to get into a better position to murder his prey. The dog seemed startled by the look in Parker’s eyes. It lowered its head and licked its chops, licking some of its own blood that had rolled down its head to the corners of its mouth.

Parker sprang. With one quick movement, he slammed the side of the revolver down across the top of the dog’s skull.

The dog gave a short yelp.

Parker stood to his feet, picked the stunned animal up by its collar and one hind leg and raised it high in the air above him.

It was all coming to a head. The frustration, the anguish. It exploded inside him.

“
Aaaaah!
” he yelled, bringing the dog down hard, back first, across his knee.

The dog’s spine gave way with a snap like Alvarez’s wooden pencil. Parker raised the dog over his head once more. He faced the window and then hurled the dog’s body through it. It struck some of the broken shards of glass hanging down from the aluminum window frame as it passed through.

S
arah Hill ran down the two flights of stairs to the next floor. A noise came from the stairs below. It was the police coming to rescue them, maybe. She paused at the door into the twenty-second-floor elevator area. The sound came closer, maybe one floor below. She realized what it was. The dogs. They must have started their way down the stairs, then when they heard Hill, turned and now raced back up.

She swung the door wide and ran to the elevator controls. Fortunately, one opened quickly. She stepped in and pushed the lobby button and then frantically pushed the
door close
one. Four dogs got through the stairway door before it closed. As the snarling killers charged in and came up to within a few feet of the elevator, its door closed, and the dogs jumped against it.

*-*-*

On the street, the police weren’t letting the media in the building. The news crews set up outside in the rain. Channel Two was on the northeast side, and Henry Haskins stood facing the camera with umbrella in hand.

“Here we are, bringing you live coverage from the Epic Center of the tense standoff between six Doberman dogs and the Wichita police and Sedgwick County animal-control officers. Thus far in this horrible drama unfolding on the city over the last four days, the police and animal-control officers have been completely impotent in their battle against these vicious beasts. Today we have six very dangerous and deadly Doberman dogs, trapped with an unknown number of officers and civilians on the top floors and roof of this, Kansas’ tallest building.”

Suddenly, the body of a dead Doberman crashed onto the sidewalk directly behind Haskins amidst shards of chiming window glass.

Haskins ducked. He turned to look at what had taken place.

A faint roar came from far atop the building.

Haskins turned back to the camera. “And as you can see it’s raining glass and dogs out here.”

The cameraman shook his head and frowned.

*-*-*

Parker glared out the window, panting with drool stringing from his mouth. To the side, Roary Rapids still clung to the same girder he had earlier. He stared at Parker, not saying a word. Parker wiped his sleeve across his face and then bent down to Simpson. It was a struggle, but finally, he picked up Simpson’s large, limp body, cradled his beloved friend in his arms and turned and walked toward the door. He paused, glancing at Rapids, his lip curled in a sneer.
Let someone else help him.
Rapids looked back with surprise.

*-*-*

In the first-floor lobby, Lt. Hardessy finally had his gear on and situated. He had a 10mm, Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol in one hand and Hero’s leash in the other as he stepped onto the elevator.

He and Hero stood ready when the elevator hit the twenty-second floor and the door slid open. The four remaining Dobermans were also ready.

They snarled and growled as they rushed in, taking a supposedly prepared Hardessy off guard. He hadn’t had a chance to fire a shot. The dogs were all over Hero and him. With his pistol knocked to the floor, the only thing Hardessy could think of to do was to push the button to the first floor.

*-*-*

Parker opened the door from the stairway to the twenty-second floor elevator area. He saw the dogs rush inside and the slaughter begin before the elevator door closed. He hurried to the elevators, still carrying Simpson, and poked the button several times for another car.

*-*-*

Hill stood back in the far corner as at least two-dozen police officers milled around in the lobby on the first floor, waiting for instructions from Lt. Hardessy. Several of them stood around the elevators. One of the cars was coming down already.

Outside, a fretting woman pushed through the police line. She was a tall woman in her mid-forties, wearing a bright orange pantsuit.

“My daughter is in there. She’s a receptionist on the twenty-second floor,” she yelled, shoving her way to the revolving door.

A bell announced the arrival of the elevator to the lobby. The door opened to the floor full of anxious police officers.

The Dobermans bolted out with great surprise to all.

They seemed to realize they were greatly outnumbered and ran to escape. Lt. Hardessy lay in what looked like a pile of bleeding gunnysacks, trying to get to his feet. His dog lay beside him, dead and bloody.

The officers cleared a path, and the dogs ran toward the revolving door. The cops drew their guns. What followed sounded like a battle.

As the dogs ran down the gauntlet of police on both sides, the guns thundered. Shot after shot rang out.

The last three dogs were nearly ripped apart by the volley. Red spots appeared on their backs, necks, and legs as they fell separately and slid across the floor, ending their desperate run. An officer on each side of the line fell to the floor. Poorly aimed bullets had hit one in the shin and the other in the foot.

The fourth dog made it to the revolving door and was trapped opposite the lady concerned for her daughter. A tall officer with sergeant’s stripes walked over and held the door in place with his foot to ensure no escape. He held his hand up to stop the frightened woman and pointed his revolver at the dog, now snarling back up through the glass panel.

The gun reported with a pop, and the tempered safety glass fractured into a million pieces but held its place in the door as blood splattered and drew into the cracks. He moved his foot out of the way and pushed the door to allow the woman in without looking over to her. She slid down to the floor, fainting.

A bell announced yet another elevator car’s arrival. The officers lined up again.

The door opened. Amongst a multitude of pointing pistols, Parker staggered out lamely with Simpson in his arms. He stood cut, bruised, and bleeding. Hill rushed to him. This seemed to snap the trance, and the officers holstered their weapons.

The lobby was a mess of bodies, blood and dogs. A gurney lay by a glass door next to the revolving one, and Parker laid Simpson on it. He patted Simpson’s hand and then pulled a folded sheet from under Jack’s legs and placed it over his friend.

Parker found new strength and walked briskly from the building and Hill had to run to catch up.

“Well, if it isn’t Tony Parker, the animal control director,” Haskins said. “Care to say anything to our viewers at home about the slaughter you allowed inside?”

Hill was closer to Haskins and saved Parker the trouble. A swift kick placed squarely between Haskins’ legs sent him bent over to the ground and was sure to leave him wordless for the rest of the evening.

“Did you get it?” Hill asked the cameraman.

The cameraman smiled back. “I got it!” he said, giving her a thumbs up.

“Here, Tony, I’ll drive,” Hill said, taking the keys from Parker’s hand when she noticed him stagger. “I’l
l take you where you want to go but, after that, it’s straight to the hospital.” She knew where Tony was going, and nothing would stop him. She drove straight to Sadie Simpson’s and waited outside.

*-*-*

The doctor wanted to keep Parker, but as soon as Julie showed up, he told them he was leaving. The dizziness, stiffness, and hot flashes had subsided some and could have been contributed to the nasty bump on the head. It couldn’t be rabies. It couldn’t be.

Parker had to promise he’d not go to work for the rest of the week, though, and he would check in the next Monday. Sarah and Julie’s eyes met as Tony and Julie started to leave. For the first time since they’d met, neither of them glared.

With the medication the doctor gave, Parker went right to sleep when he hit the bed, and nothing would disturb him. Nothing outside his head, that is.