how long has it been?
– About a month and a half.
– Didn’t you take the test?
Alexa covered her trembling lips with the back of her hand, and then answered:
– I’m afraid.
– Come on. What is there to be afraid of? We need to know for sure.
Alexa wiped away the tears that had accumulated in her eyes, and then said:
– We need to discuss this with parents. I’m afraid to tell mine. My father will kill me. I wanted to ask if yours could help?
– You want…
– Yes. Think by yourself. What future awaits us? Me? I can forget about university education. There is only one way out.
The guy thought for a moment and said decisively:
– Why do we even need to tell the parents? We will decide everything ourselves.
– Jerry, we are two seventeen-year-old teenagers. We don’t yet have the brains to understand what and how.
After a pause, Jerry said:
– Perhaps you’re right. – After a short pause, he added: – I really don’t know…
Jerry’s voice was interrupted by a certain hum coming from somewhere behind and gradually turning into the roar of an engine. Soon the scarlet lights of the headlights appeared. A black car drove onto the beach and stopped right next to the van. The engine stalled. The headlights went out.
– Do you know who is it? – Alexa asked anxiously.
With some trembling in his chest, Jerry shook his head negatively several times.
The driver’s door of the Dodge opened. His foot landed on the sand. Then the second one. Soon a dark silhouette emerged from behind the door. The stranger walked around the door, leaving it open and headed towards the teenagers.
– Sit here – Jerry said and walked towards the stranger. Alexa stood up and remained standing there.
As he approached, Jerry began to more clearly examine the Racer’s appearance. One meter eighty centimeters. Oversized shoulders. He was wearing a dark green leather raincoat that reached his knees, a black jumper and black jeans. His hands were hidden under leather gloves, and his face was hidden under a black mask. There were cutouts for the eyes, but inside there was complete darkness. His steps were long, but unhurried. There was a sense of firmness and determination in them.
– Can I help you? – Jerry asked.
The Racer suddenly quickened his pace as he passed Jerry and continued towards Alexa.
– What’s the matter? Hey!? – Alexa shouted at the end and reflexively began to back away, without taking her bulging eyes off the Racer.
But the Racer did not stop, but only continued to speed up his pace.
Alexa turned around in fear and ran along the shore about twenty meters past the boat station office, after which she stopped and turned around. She hardly swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat, continuing to look at the Racer walking on her heels.
– Hey guy? Don’t touch her! I’m talking to you! – Jerry shouted, chasing after the Racer. He ran up to him from behind and said, grabbing his shoulder: – If you have something to say, say it…
His voice broke as the Racer grabbed his hand and squeezed it with his powerful fingers. He shredded all the bones in Jerry’s palm, clenching his fingers into a fist. Jerry’s face was hidden under a grimace of silent but hellish pain. Soon he could not stand it and a scream was heard. At that moment, the Racer grabbed Jerry by the neck with his other hand and lifted him, tearing his legs off the sand.
– JERRY! – Alexa screamed in hysterics through her tears, unable to take even half a step towards.
The Racer made a sharp movement with his hand and a loud crunch was heard in Jerry’s neck. Then he lifted the guy’s immobilized body a little more and threw it to the side with some ease. Jerry’s body flew through a steel mesh fence and into the boathouse office window. There was a crash of breaking glass, which fell into many pieces. Jerry’s head, arms and torso were inside on the other side of the broken window, while Jerry’s legs were left dangling outside. His body remained hanging on the windowsill.
Alexa screamed even louder. This scream did not become quieter even after she continued to run away, noticing how the Racer continued to follow her at a fast pace. He did not run, but his steps were long. Each imprint of his shoes on the sand seemed to leave a trace of death, which was already rushing towards the inhabitants of Heartstone. Alexa felt the full weight of these steps. Her chest was squeezing and her heart was pounding against her ribs. She continued to run in hysterics until she ran into the fence that separated the boat station area from the public beach. The steel mesh was attached to iron pipes of small diameter. Alexa jumped onto the mesh, hooked her fingers on it and began to desperately crawl up it.
She screamed something incoherent and called for help. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and the trembling in her voice made the scream not as loud as she would have liked. Before her eyes there was still Jerry, flying over the fence, as if he had jumped from a trampoline.
Three meters of the fence separated Alexa from entering the territory of the boat station. She caught on to the very edge of the fence mesh and had already begun to drag her body over the pipe to which the mesh was attached. Suddenly she felt something grab her left leg, like a ring that was squeezing like a vice. Feeling this touch, the girl experienced a coldness that sent a shiver through her entire skin from her heels to her head. The Racer’s hand held Alexa’s leg in a death grip. The girl’s screams became stronger, but immediately stopped as soon as the Racer sharply pulled her leg down, as a result of which the end of the pipe entered the soft tissue in the lower jaw, passed into the oral cavity, pierced the palate and reached the inner surface of the skull through the brain. Alexa’s pupils disappeared, sharply rolling upward, leaving the whites of her eyeballs in their place.
16. When God and death come together
John Minton was carving up freshly killed nutria carcasses while Deborah washed the dishes after putting the chicken in the oven. After dinner, she planned to start working on the cake so she could let it soak overnight. But Ursula was still not there.
– This monkey is stuck in the supermarket again – said Deborah. Then she looked at the digital clock on the kitchen set and added: – She’s been gone for two hours now.
– Come on – John answered, cutting the nutria’s ribs with pruning shears. – As if you don’t know how much she loves to talk. Shop across the street. She didn’t go to the other end of the town. I’ll finish now and go get her.
Deborah finished drying the dishes and looked at the watch once again. Then she turned to husband:
– John, go get her. I’ll cut up the nutria.
John handed the pruning shears to his wife and went into the hallway. He looked at the marks that were left on the T-shirt from the meat and decided to wear a shirt instead.
He went outside and thought about how suspiciously cool the nights were this summer. Having lived in Heartstone all his life, he didn’t remember anything like this. It seemed to him that if he had known in advance what the temperature was outside, he would have wanted to throw on something warmer. But it was not far to go. John crossed the road and entered the supermarket, which was soon to close. Entering the trading floor, he saw one working cash register, on which Cassandra Bello was dozing. He walked up to her and gently placed his hand on the girl’s shoulder. But she still got scared and jumped up with a slight exclamation:
– No, no, I don’t… I don’t, it’s…
– Quiet, quiet.
Only