Silent Prey

problem . . . .”
    “I’m going,” Lucas said. He looked at Fell. “What about you?”
    “I’ll cover, or go in, whatever . . . .”
    “God damn it, you’re gonna get our asses shot,” the sergeant whispered.
    “Give me the sledge,” Lucas said.
    “Listen to me.”
    “Give me the fuckin’ sledge . . . .”
    “Ahhh, shit . . .” The sergeant shook his head and hefted the hammer. “I’ll swing it, you assholes back me up. I’m going to hit that fucker once, and then I’m on the floor.”
    “Let’s do it,” said Fell.
     
    Bekker wandered through the murky basement, trying to remember why he was going to the couch. A song went through his head:
    Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  . . .
    Sung at a funeral, sometime, way back, he could remember a bronze coffin that sat higher than his head and the choir singing. It was all very sharp, as though he’d just stepped into the picture . . . .
    A spider brushed his cheek, tickling, and Bekker snapped out of the funeral picture. Something thumped overhead. That was it. The noise. He had to go to the couch because of the noise overhead.
    The couch had been pushed out from the wall, and he stepped behind it and sat down on the rug. The gun was waiting, cheap chrome steel. Loaded. Two shots. He picked it up. Said, Hello, put it in his mouth, sat, like a man with his pipe, then took it out and looked down the barrel.
    Hello  . . .
    His finger tightened, he felt the pressure of the trigger, took up the slack . . . and his mind cleared. Clear as a lake. He saw himself, huddled in the corner of the basement. Saw Davenport come in. Saw himself, hands crossed over his chest, shoulders pulled in, head down.
    Saw Davenport coming closer, screaming at him; saw himself rocking back and forth on his heels. Felt the pistol in the bottom hand on his chest, concealed. Saw Davenport reaching out to him, ordering him to turn; Davenport unaware, unknowing, unthinking. Saw himself reach out with the derringer, press it to Davenport’s heart, and the explosion and Davenport’s face . . .
     
    The sergeant looked at Lucas, raised an eyebrow. Ready? Lucas nodded. The sergeant took a breath, raised the hammer overhead, paused, then brought it crashing down. The door flew inward, and the sergeant hit the ground. There was no immediate fire from the darkroom, and he scrambled back past Fell to the stairs, groping for his gun.
    “Too fuckin’ old for this shit,” he said.
    Lucas, focused on the room, said, “Flashlights.”
    “What?”
    “Get some flashlights . . . .”
    With quick peeks around the corner, they established that the interior of the basement wasn’t quite dark. A light was on somewhere, but seemed to be partially blocked, as though the thin illumination were seeping through a crack in the door, or coming from a child’s night-light. Lucas and Fell, looking over the sights of their weapons, could see the blocky shapes of furniture, a rectangle that might be a bookcase.
    “Got ’em,” the sergeant said.
    “Poke them around the corner, hit the interior, about head high. Keep your hand back if you can. Tell me when you’re going, I’ll shoot at a muzzle flash,” Lucas said. He looked at Fell, saw that she was sweating, and grinned at her. “Life in the big city.”
    The cop nodded. “Ready?”
    “Anytime.”
    “Now.”
    The cop thrust the light around the corner, and Lucas, four feet below, followed with the muzzle of his gun, and his arm, and one eye. No movement. The sergeant leaned a bit into the hallway, played the light around the interior.
    “I’m going,” said Lucas.
    “Go,” said Fell.
    Lucas scrambled across the floor to the apartment door, then, flat on the floor, eased his head and shoulders through the door, reached up, flicked a light switch. A single bulb came on. Nothing moving. He crouched, and Fell eased down the hall.
    “What’s that?” she whispered.
    Lucas listened.
    Jesus loves me  . . .
    Not a child’s voice. But not an adult’s, either—nothing human, he thought. Something from a movie, a special effect, weird, chilling.
    For the Bible tells me so.  . . .
    “Bekker,” Lucas whispered. “Over there, I think . . .”
    He was inside the apartment, duckwalking, the .45 in a double-handed grip, following his eye-track around the apartment. Fell, behind him, said, “Covered to the right.”
    “I got the right, you watch that dark door . . . .” The