End of Days (10 page)

“And you broke into that house and didn't even steal anything. All those priceless antiques. I don't care if he was a friend of yours, you could have made a fortune. Kids these days . . . Useless . . . You're worse than that Porsche-stealing vagrant down the hall.” Mr. Entwistle's voice rose as he spoke.

I glanced quickly at the kid, who blanched and looked away.

“Don't worry, neighbor,” the old vampire shouted, pointing a finger. “I'll get to you in a minute.”

The escort swung his baton forward. It extended like a telescope into something the length of his arm. “Back upstairs,” he said to Mr. Entwistle. “You're not visiting anyone tonight.”

Officer Lumsden stepped away from his desk. Meanwhile, Mr. Entwistle looked back at me and shook his head as if he were totally disgusted.

“I hope they throw the book at you, boy.” Then he turned to the two guards. “As a thief and a murderer, that kid is a total failure. I tell you, when they stopped strapping kids in school, this country went straight down the tubes.”

He gave me one last look, then stumbled past both officers to the barred gate. He stood there, waiting for them to buzz it open, then bent over and started gagging as if he were going to throw up. Officer Lumsden glanced over at me, then pressed a buzzer to open the door. Mr. Entwistle gripped it by the bars and started pulling it toward him. A second later, he stumbled backward and fell to the ground. It ripped the bars of the gate right out of the wall.

“Oops.” He stared at the ruined mess of twisted metal in his hands. “Made in China—I'd bet my hat.”

Officer Lumsden put his hands over his head. Parts of the ceiling and wall pulled away. It filled the hall with dust and bits of concrete. The escort recovered sooner. He swung with his baton. Before it made contact, Mr. Entwistle dropped the gate, spun, and grabbed
his arm. Then he tossed the man up against the wall. The old vampire kept a hand on his chest and forced out all of his air. The officer started to wheeze, then passed out. Mr. Entwistle eased him down. Then he kicked the ruined bars against the wall, walked over to the desk, opened the top drawer, and smiled.

“Almost forgot my booze.” He took out his whiskey. “Hard to stay drunk without it.”

Officer Lumsden reached under the desk. I heard a click. When he looked up, the surprise on his face was comical. Mr. Entwistle was holding a gun. He must have taken it from the other officer. How he did it without my seeing, I have no idea.

“Not a good idea—bringing guns down into a jail.” The old vampire was suddenly sober. “All kinds of vermin down here. You never know what might happen.”

Officer Lumsden put his hands up slowly. “Now don't do anything foolish.”

“A bit late for that, wouldn't you say?” Mr. Entwistle waved the gun at me. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

I lifted my foot. Underneath was a key. I bent down and picked it up, then undid the cell door and waddled into the hall.

Mr. Entwistle reached into his coat and pulled out another set of keys. When Officer Lumsden saw them, I thought he was going to fall over. While he gawked in despair, Mr. Entwistle undid all three of my manacles. Then he stepped aside so I could make my exit, but not before turning down the hall to address the kid in the far cell.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Shawn, taking advantage of an elderly man.”

The boy, Shawn, stood and grabbed the bars of his cell. He looked as if he was about to have a meltdown. “But you told me I could take it,” he shouted. “You told me . . .”

Mr. Entwistle paused. “Did I . . . ? He scratched the side of his head with the gun barrel. “You know, I think you're right. I did tell you it was all right to take it. That must explain why I gave you the keys. Sorry, neighbor. I take back what I said—and all that stuff about your parents, too. I guess I'll have to drop the charges.” Then he turned to Officer Lumsden. “Don't even think about calling up or setting off an alarm.” He waved the gun for emphasis.

“Pull an alarm. Are you out of your mind?” Officer Lumsden said. “You're on closed-circuit TV. There's cameras all over the place down here. Everybody in the station can see you. They'll bust down here in about two seconds.” He still had his hands up. He pointed one at the ceiling where two cameras were glued to both of us.

“Sneaky. I usually charge an arm and a leg to make a television
appearance.” Mr. Entwistle raised his hat to the cameras, then turned to me. “Do I need to say it?”

“Say what?”

“Run!”

I bolted past the broken gate and down the hall. What else could I do? My life had become too absurd to make any rational decisions. We rounded the corner. About a dozen officers were waiting at the bottom of the stairs. They were moving forward cautiously, guns out, all decked out in gas masks and bulletproof vests. The first two were carrying big see-through shields. A can of tear gas came bouncing down the hall. I started coughing. An officer started shouting from behind the shield men. He was holding a megaphone.

“Drop the gun. Down on your knees. Hands behind your heads. This will be your only warning.”

Mr. Entwistle came to a stop right beside me. I couldn't see much else. I was hacking and my eyes were useless. Billows of yellow gas filled the air. The wall of police officers ahead of us became one big smear. I got down on my knees and put my hands on my head. I was getting good at this. In an instant officers were in front of me with shotguns. They were looking for Mr. Entwistle. He'd disappeared.

Several more cans of tear gas bounced down the hall and the two officers beside me started coughing. Their masks were gone. One got upended. The other turned and shot a cloud of bullets into the wall behind me. Another officer stepped forward, then flew into the air as if he'd stepped into the basket of an air balloon. I could barely see. The other officers were shouting at one another: “Where did he go?” and “What the . . . ?” and finally “Who's throwing that tear gas?”

Another can and another and another were suddenly bouncing along the cement floor. Half a dozen of them were pouring thick yellow vapor into the air. A gas mask landed near my feet. I put it on, then had to duck as a body went flying past me. Then someone grabbed hold of my collar and tossed me through the air. I flew over the other officers, the ones who were crouched at the far end of the hall. My appearance was so sudden, several had to duck to
get out of my way. One shot at me with a pistol, and a bullet grazed my shoulder. Then I hit a door and took it right off the hinges.

I got up running. Somehow my gas mask was off. I'm guessing my unexpected trip through the door had ripped it loose. More shots echoed behind me. As I approached a set of stairs, a second bullet nicked my thigh. I stumbled. I might have tumbled down the steps, but Mr. Entwistle took hold of me again and I shot forward toward another set of doors. I was about to stumble through them, but they exploded into pieces just in the nick of time. Mr. Entwistle had darted past at the last second and taken them off the hinges. He was now in front of me, dressed like a one-man assault team, body armor and all. In the haze, with a gas mask on, he looked like one of them.

“The hall turns left,” he said.

I slowed to take the corner.

“Oh, no, you don't.” Mr. Entwhistle grabbed me by the arm and pushed me forward. “The hall goes left, we go straight.”

We did. Right into the wall. I turned and took most of the impact on my shoulder. A sharp jolt shot down my arm and I fell to my knees. Then Mr. Entwistle started a Bruce Lee routine that would have seen him nominated into the martial arts hall of fame. He hit the wall furiously with his fists. Cracks appeared in the mortar, then he rammed several cinder blocks out of place. In an instant, he'd made a hole. He widened it with his foot until it was big enough to duck through, then he grabbed me by the back of my shirt and pulled me along behind.

I found myself in an underground parking lot. Police cars were everywhere: SUVs, vans, cars, and paddy wagons.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I had landed face-first on the pavement. Pain shot down my arm, and the bullet wounds in my leg and shoulder burned. I groaned.

“Is that
aaahhhhh
as in
good,
or
aaahhhhh
as in
bad
?”

“Bad,” I muttered.

He reached down to help me to my feet. “Well then, boy,” he
whispered in my ear, “let me make it up to you. Pick any car in the lot, any car, and it's yours.”

I took a quick look around. I remembered our last ride together. It had ended with the car falling apart and the two of us spiraling into the Otonabee River.

“You leaning towards another Ford Mustang?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He snorted. “Been there, done that, eh? Well, I can respect a man who learns from his mistakes. I try to do likewise. The Ford does have muscle, but perhaps we need something with a little more heft. Just give it a minute, I'm sure the car you want will leap out at you any second now.”

No sooner had he spoken than I heard a rumble like an earthquake. The garage doors in front of us burst inward. Something enormous punched through and bounced over the front end of a cruiser. It looked like a cross between a monster truck and an armored personnel carrier, the kind you see troops driving in missions overseas—angled plates of thick metal. Dust, cement, glass, and steel went flying everywhere. The car was coming straight for us. I fell to the pavement. Right beside me was a Humvee. I tried to roll underneath it, but the only person I know who can move fast after he's been shot twice is Will Smith. Then the armored car skidded to a halt in front of Mr. Entwistle.

He tucked the gun behind his back. “You coming?”

I didn't answer. My mouth was hanging open. He helped me to my feet. “This is yours?”

“Yup.” His eyebrows rose and he smiled. “A testament to my near infinite capacity to err and learn. Quite something, isn't it?”

“I'll say.”

He looked at me and laughed. “Well, just wait till you see my chauffeur.”

The old vampire reached down and took hold of my pants at the waist. Then he tossed me on top of the car. An instant later, he landed beside me. A round hatch was between us. He twisted a handle and pulled it open, then lowered me inside. The air smelled like motor oil and steel. I looked around. There, in the driver's seat, grinning ear to ear, was Charlie.

“Man, you look awful,” he said. “Don't tell me you tried the prison food?”

I felt awful. Before I could say so, Mr. Entwistle dropped down between us.

“How did I do?” Charlie asked him.

“Ten out of ten, boy. You're a natural disaster.” Then Mr. Entwistle turned and helped me over to a row of seats along the inside wall. “See. Told ya you'd be impressed.”

I was incredulous. Charlie was the last person I expected. I didn't know he could drive.

“Here. Sit down.” Mr. Entwistle eased me onto one of the molded side benches, careful to avoid the blood stains on my shoulder and thigh where the two bullets had grazed me.

“They're just nicks,” I told him.

“The bleeding hasn't stopped on this one.” He was looking at my leg. “I'd better take care of it.” Then he turned to Charlie. “Get us out of here.”

Charlie sat down. There was no windshield, just two viewers, each
like the butt end of a pair of binoculars. Charlie pressed his eyes up against one, then reached down and took hold of two handles that stuck up from the floor, one on either side of his chair. “It's just like Cyber Sled,” he said, laughing. That was a video game with two joysticks, one for each tread of your tank. The engine revved. It sounded like a hungry crocodile. Then it started pinging. I wondered if it was about to explode.

“What's that noise?” I asked.

“Bullets. They're shooting at us.” Mr. Entwistle must have seen the concern on my face. “Don't worry, boy, the only thing that can penetrate this armor is parked in my underground garage.”

Was he kidding? Before I could ask, Charlie pulled one lever and pushed the other. The car spun. The sudden movement pressed me hard against my seat. Then we lurched forward with a deafening rumble. Mr. Entwistle swayed on his feet, then turned and started nosing through a red case that was stuck to the wall. He pulled out a bandage, wrapped it carefully around my thigh, and cinched it tight. As I was figuring out how to quietly scream, he pulled a harness down around my shoulders, the kind stock car drivers wore on TV. I felt like a space marine. I looked at him. He smiled and winked.

“I thought you were dead!” I told him.

“I thought so, too. But it turns out, I was only at the Olde Stone Brewing Company. Best beer in town. You can't imagine my disappointment when I learned it wasn't heaven.” He walked to the front, waved Charlie out of the seat, pulled a harness over his shoulders, then took over the controls.

“Didn't my uncle blow you up?” I asked.

“He tried. But why bother having visions if you can't see when the building you're in is going to explode?”

Visions. Mr. Entwistle sometimes saw glimpses of the future. And the past, too, if my memory was correct. It was his talent. I'm not sure how it worked exactly. He glanced back at me and smiled again. “You've been drinking the good stuff, I see.”

The good stuff. With Mr. Entwistle that could have meant one of
two things, human blood or Crown Royal. My guess was, he meant blood. When he met me in the mental ward last year, I'd never fed as a true vampire. Ophelia kept me alive feeding me hemoglobin from farm stock. Mostly cows. But the human stuff takes us to the next level. The longer we drink it, the tougher we get.

My friend walked back and strapped himself into a seat across from me.