Free The Z Club by J.W. Bouchard Page B

trunks and his gold watch as he sipped a mojito.
    “Your father wants to know what this boy does for a living,” her mother had asked.
    “He’s a cop,” Becky had said and waited for a reply.  She heard her mother whispering to her father.  “He’s really nice,” she added.
    That was when they got disconnected.
    He’s really nice? she thought.  Well, it was the truth wasn’t it?  It occurred to her then that this was what Ryan had been talking about: that he wouldn’t measure up.  Becky had to admit that perhaps (if it was her parents doing the judging) he had been right.
    Becky picked up the phone and listened for a dial tone and got nothing but dead air.  She checked her cell phone.  Full signal, she thought.  Must be something wrong with the landlines.
    An explosion outside startled her.  She went into the kitchen and looked out the window to the street below.  An SUV had jumped the curb onto the sidewalk and grazed a telephone pole.  It had tipped over and come to a rest on its side.  Becky saw people coming down the street toward the vehicle.  At first, she thought they were coming to the driver’s aid, but then something struck her as unusual: they were walking .
    When the group reached the SUV, they began pounding and clawing at the roof of the vehicle.  Smoke billowed out from underneath the SUV’s dented hood.
      One of them climbed up on the side and tried to open the driver’s side door, but either the door was locked or the accident had caused it to be jammed shut.  Another person, an older man who appeared to have a severe limp, stooped down and picked something up from the ground.  It was too far away for Becky to see what it was, but from a distance it looked like a rock or a chunk of cement that had crumbled away from the curb.  The old man smashed whatever it was against the SUV’s sunroof.
    It’s on fire, Becky thought, and they can’t get to the driver.
    At that moment, she was still under the assumption that the people were trying to help the SUV’s driver, who appeared to be trapped inside.
    The man struck the sunroof again, and this time the safety glass shattered into an intricate spiderweb mosaic.  The old man dropped the rock and pried at the glass, tearing it away.  He squeezed through the sunroof, and some of the others followed after him.
    What are they doing?  Why are they all going in?
    Becky took out her cell phone and dialed 911, never taking her eyes from the scene outside the window.  She held the phone to her ear, surprised when all she got was a busy signal.
    The old man crawled back through the sunroof, but now he was dragging a woman behind him.  There was blood on the side of her head, and Becky guessed she must have been injured during the accident.  The old man wasn’t gentle as he dragged her out either.  He’s probably afraid it’s going to explode any second now, Becky told herself, but her fear worsened as the old man slid her along the pavement and stopped.  The rest of the group gathered around the unconscious woman.
    Don’t just stand there – do something!
    Becky undid the latch and slid the window open, ready to call down to the people below, but…
    Suddenly, the old man went down on his knees, the others following suit ( are they praying, Becky wondered), and their hands clawed and dug and tore at the woman’s body.  The woman regained consciousness and screamed once before she was silent again.  Her sweater was ripped from her body, her stomach was clawed open.  The old man went straight for the woman’s head, grabbing a fistful of hair and repeatedly slamming her head onto the street until a geyser of blood jetted from her nose.  He thrust his hand into her eye socket, forcing it through until his wrist and lower forearm disappeared into her skull.  He brought his hand back out, and it was clutching a chunk of her brain.  He stuffed it into his mouth.
    Becky screamed.  The old man and the other people on the street