Read Online The Orchid Eater by Marc Laidlaw - Free Book Online Page B

pounding on the wood. It sounded as if they were using mallets.
Mike could feel the jarring in his feet.
    “Gonna kill
you!” whispered a deep voice.
    “Shit,”
Kurtis whispered, “did you see? Those guys had nunchuks.”
    “You’re dead
in there,” said another voice.
    “Dead!”
promised another.
    “Must be
like twenty of ’em,” Howard whispered. “Oh, we picked a good night to hassle
Sal. A real good night.”
    “They
probably have swords, too,” Kurtis said. “Like, those big Bruce Lee machetes?”
    After a
minute, Sal’s gang left off pounding. The whispers of the seven fugitives
sounded loud in the empty house. Mike went halfway down the stairs, listening
to a thudding too far away to be his heart. He felt fairly sure that someone
was running down the stairs between the houses.
    “They’re surrounding
us,” he announced.
    “What are
you talking about?”
    Before he
could explain, they heard hammering and pounding in the depths of the house.
It sounded like the Diaz gang was about to shatter the sliding glass doors on
the ground floor.
    “Where’s the
light?” Howard asked.
    “No, keep it
off,” said Scott. “They can’t be sure we’re in here. Maybe they’ll try another
house and get somebody really pissed off.”
    “Oh, fuck,”
Howard was saying. “We’re going to die, man, we’re really going to die!”
    Craig:
“Everybody! Just shut the fuck up! Especially you, Howard.”
    It was worse
in silence, because they could clearly hear whispering outside, all around
them, along with the sound of feet scurrying up and down the stairs and
hillside. There were no more noisy threats, only the quiet persistence of
determined assassins.
    “Whose idea
was this anyway?” Kurtis said.
    “Yours,”
said Mad-Dog.
    “But who the
fuck threw that avocado?”
    Mike
swallowed apprehensively. He couldn’t believe Kurtis was trying to blame this
on him. He’d only been joining in the spirit of things . . . hadn’t he?
    “Forget it,”
Edgar said. “Let’s check the balcony.”
    Edgar, Scott
and Mike crossed the living room, opened the sliding glass door, and went out
on the deck. The only illumination came from streetlights along Shoreview Road, far away at the edge of the canyon. Mike leaned over the railing and saw
shadows moving around the base of the house. Big shadows. It took him a moment
to realize that they were cast by the eucalyptus tree. He tried to look between
the houses, but it was pitch black in there. He was sure he heard whispering
and bootsteps crunching in earth. Suddenly three shapes rushed out from under
the house, where they’d been busy in the little fern grotto. Mike jerked back
abruptly.
    “I can’t see
anything,” Scott said, from the other side of the balcony, “but I can hear
them.”
    “They’re
definitely down there,” Edgar agreed.
    As they went
back in, rocks and gravel began to pelt the sides of the house, rattling on the
windows and sliding glass doors. Mike prayed they wouldn’t throw anything too
big, but that prayer only opened the gates to deeper levels of hopelessness. He
never should have fled to the house. He’d be better off out in the street, free
to move without putting his house at risk. What if they busted windows? What if
they spray-painted the walls? What if they broke down the door and massacred
everyone? He had promised his mother he wouldn’t go in after dark, and instead
he had attracted the wrath of a gang of marauders.
    “What do we
do now?” Howard said.
    “Gimme a
minute to think,” said Craig.
    “I wish Hawk
was here.”
    “He’s not,
so forget about it.”
    “Call him,
Edgar,” Kurtis said.
    “There’s no
phone,” Mike said. “I’m not even supposed to be here.”
    They ignored
that.
    “We gotta
get Hawk, that’s all there is to it,” said Kurtis.
    “Oh, and how
the fuck do you plan to do that?”
    “Somebody
has to go get him, that’s all.”
    Suddenly the
pounding started up again at the front door. They