Shoot to thrill, p.20
Shoot to Thrill, page 20
part #5 of Midnight Rider Series
I made it across the house’s foundation. Gabe and Stacks had been yelling something at me as I moved from what was once one room to the next, but my heart was beating so loudly in my ears, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The stand of trees behind his house had been smoke-smudged. Some of their dry and dead branches were half-burnt and soggy now from the firemen trying to keep them from catching and setting the whole neighborhood on fire. There was a “No Trespassing” sign that Tags had stretched on aircraft cable between two trees when the neighborhood kids wouldn’t stop driving their four-wheelers through his clearing. The sign was metal and smeared with smoke at the edges but someone had wiped a clean spot in the center and something brown had been smeared across it. I moved towards it, my steps growing faster as I started to realize what it was.
“Sons of bitches,” I shouted. I heard the other three scrambling over debris behind me as they approached.
It was a fucking bloody smiley face.
“The cannibals,” Gabe said. “But I thought the Angelic told Vince and Mick that it was demons?”
I shook my head. “Unless it is demons and they’re jerking us around, Sister Smile’s fucking crew did this.”
“Column A is just as bad as Column B,” Stacks muttered.
“Do you think they kidnapped Tags too?” Noah asked behind us. We all turned to look at him. “I mean, like they did with Festus and...and Joel?”
A tiny sprig of something like hope was trying to work its way to my heart. Maybe he was safe. At least for now. Maybe he was with Joel and they were working on a way to keep alive. Maybe.
The sound of tires on gravel behind us made us all swing around to look back at the road. It was a patrol car. The cop behind the wheel looked like he was early-twenties.
“This scene hasn’t been released,” he called over to us as he got out of the car. “You can’t be here.”
We all started back across the lot, skirting the house foundation. I was clinging to that tiny ray of hope that Tags had been kidnapped, not blown apart. Now we just had to get out of town and find the cannibals before they decided to eat him. If we had to make nice with Deputy Dog to do it, the sooner we got it over with, the better.
“What happened here?” I called to the officer as we approached, hoping I just sounded like a nosy passerby.
The officer shrugged. “Fire Chief said it looked like it was electrical. Not really sure myself. Happened before my shift. Anyways, it’s not safe. Y'all need to be moving on and I’ll need your names for my report in case something is missing or contaminated.”
We stopped in front of him and we all stood still as we surveyed each other. There was a big zit on the cop’s chin and it took me a minute to drag my gaze away from it, but a flicker of something in his eyes caught my attention. Red. I didn’t think. I just lunged and wrapped my free hand around his throat, Tags’ hat still clutched in my other. I balled it into a fist around the hat brim and I sunk it into his gut. I kneed him in the groin, knocking him back and I fell on top of him.
“Bane! What the fuck!?” Stacks shouted.
“He’s a demon!” I shouted, “Help me hold him!” The demon was fighting me pretty hard and I was trying to hold him with my knees so that I could draw the sword.
“Bane, this isn’t an Empty House,” Gabe yelled, dropping down to help me hold him. With one hand, he folded the cop’s ear forward to show me the blank spot behind his ears. No brand. He was right. This poor bastard was being possessed. I couldn’t run him through.
“Can you exorcise him?” I wheezed as the cop punched me in the gut with his free hand. Gabe grabbed the man’s hand and pinned it under his knee.
“Stacks, help us!” I shouted to him. “Hold his legs still! Noah, grab his other arm.” Noah got slapped upside the head by the cop before he managed to pin the arm down. I looked back up at Gabe. “Let ‘er rip.”
Gabe’s voice boomed into the face of the cop as the Latin poured out of him. The ground beneath us shuddered as he commanded the demon to release the cop and return to Hell. I couldn’t stop the thoughts that were swirling in my head. Was this asshole the non-descript “thing” Walter had seen? Were there more of them here? Were they working with Sister Smile’s crew or were they just looking for us, like the cannibals were?
The cop gasped and seemed to vomit a spray of black flies and smoke. The black cloud gave one unearthly scream and then was sucked into the earth. The body beneath me went slack and I glanced up to see the cop's eyes were closed. I rolled off of him. “Is he dead?”
Gabe put his fingers to the man’s neck. “Nope, just knocked out. Help me get him back into his car.” Gabe and I heaved while Noah ran ahead to open the car door. We got him onto the seat and I let go and turned around, searching the ground for Tags’ hat. Stacks held it out to me and I took it.
“Thanks,” I said.
Stacks hesitated and then reached out and patted my arm awkwardly. “If they took him, we’ll find him.” I knew Stacks didn’t fully believe that, but hearing it out loud definitely helped.
“What now?” Noah asked.
“Well,” Stacks said. “We could wait for him to come around and ask him if he knows of anyone being attacked in the area yesterday or today. Maybe that would give us a lead on the demons or the cannibals.”
I nodded. “In the meantime,” I leaned across the cop whose mouth had fallen slightly open, a string of drool beginning to form at the corner of his mouth. I fiddled with the knob on his radio and turned the volume up. There were a few calls, confirming different patrol locations, and I looked at Gabe. “Are they going to come looking for him if he doesn’t call in?” I asked. Another thought hit me. “What if the local cops are all being possessed?”
Gabe held up a hand and I paused as we listened to a panicky voice on the radio. “This is Officer Potts. I responded to the 10-14 out at the Bowman place north of town. There’s a gang of PCP heads out here and they are tearing shit up. If anyone is in the area, anyone, I need all the backup I can get. Address is 5214 East Road E. Shit they saw me!” The radio went to static. There were a couple of calls that cut through the static asking Potts to reply and then requesting back up to his location.
“Another trap?” Stacks asked. “What if there are more of those red-eyed assholes out there?”
“PCP heads,” I said. “That’s gotta be Sister Smile’s gang.” I looked around at the rest of them. “Right?” They didn’t look convinced. “Worst case, it’s actually PCP heads and we scare the shit out of them with guns, knives, and swords. Maybe a few explosives of our own.” I looked at Gabe. He almost always had a grenade or two in his saddlebags. “Best case,” I continued, “we go get Tags and Joel and fuck up some cannibals.” I tucked the cops’ knees in and closed the driver’s door. I put Tags’ hat on my head and turned back to the street. “Blood and splatter, let’s get at ‘er.”
I sounded a hell of a lot more sure than I felt.
15
It took about ten minutes to get back through town and headed out to Road E. Stacks had some kind of map thing up on his phone and he was directing me. We saw the smoke in the distance as soon as we got out of town. As we turned down the dirt road I was starting to get that horrible gut feeling that we were about to be outgunned. There were four of us, but only two of us had any real hunting experience. Stacks, God love him, was more of a researcher these days. He’d done a pretty good job of holding his own in Sicily and Messina, but I could probably seat him next to Noah in shooting school. My chances of getting shot in the back had just doubled. Gabe was easily the best fighter, but he wasn’t exactly stealthy. The element of surprise might not be a good tactic for us.
I wasn’t feeling great about our plan to gate crash, but the hat on my head felt warm, almost like Tags had just taken it off. His home, his shop, and his truck had been burned to a crisp, but I couldn’t be realistic about him still being alive. I wanted, I had to believe he was still breathing, somewhere.. And if he was out on this farm, we weren’t leaving without him. And Joel too. There was a black Town Car parked half in and out of one of the deep irrigation ditches to one side of the road as we approached the address. I turned into a farmer’s parking spot in front of the field about a quarter-mile from the farmhouse and got out.
“What are we doing?” Noah asked.
“Well I’ve found that a pinch of reconnaissance will often save a pound of blood,” I said, reaching under the seat for the sawed-off. I opened the toolbox and pulled out the duffle bag. I stuffed the pink fanny pack with shells and tucked the machete through one of the duct tape and carabiner holsters I clipped on my belt loops. I holstered the sawed-off and turned to the other two. “Time to nut up or shut up, boys.”
“I’m good with shutting up,” Stacks said.
“Yeah me too,” Noah said.
“Well, then do it and move your asses,” I said. Noah swallowed hard and Stacks gave a heavy sigh before sliding off the seat and out Lucy’s passenger side door. I leaned the seat forward so Noah could pull out the ten-gauge and I grabbed the wooden box. I hesitated. I didn’t want to give Stacks the .45 and then get shot in the back, but I might not have a choice.
I moved to the tailgate and set the wooden box down, flipping the lid open. I turned to look at Noah and Stacks, just as Gabe pulled up next to us.
“Noah, you’ve got the ten-gauge and Stacks, the only other gun I have is the .45. Unless you want the sawed-off.”
“That’s ok,” Stacks said. “I don’t really want a gun.”
“Not an option,” I said. I surveyed the guns trying to figure out what to give him.
“I’ve got him covered,” Gabe said, unholstering a twelve-gauge side-by-side from one of his rifle saddlebags.
“Baby’s First Shotgun?” I asked, noticing it was a simple Charles Daly.
Gabe winked at me. “Took it off of a couple of kids in Virginia who were screwing around with it in the woods.”
“Such a good citizen,” I said. I stuffed extra shells into the cargo pockets on Noah’s shorts, and then I offered the bag of shells to Gabe and Stacks. There were only a dozen or so of the Solomon’s Spice shells left. “We’ll need to make them count,” I said. “Try to only shoot them at demons.”
“So we should drop everything and reload with regular shot if a cannibal is running at us?” Noah muttered. I raised an eyebrow at him and he became very interested in the gun in his hands.
Once we were all locked and loaded, we started down the road walking in the deep ditch so our line of sight was just above the tall grass as we approached the house. Someone was screaming and crying. There was glass breaking and shouting carrying back to us. If they were mid-trance or mid-meal I knew it would be easier to ambush them. There was a police car that had pulled halfway into the dirt driveway in front of the farmhouse before it had been abandoned. The driver’s side door was closed, but I could see the window was broken and there was a sizable blood smear from the window frame down to the county seal decal on the door. It looked like the cannibals couldn’t be bothered to wait and pull him out of the open door like regular slobs. They had broken the window and dragged him out through there. Probably a tug of war situation between two of them. I’d seen it before. Like watching wolves fight over a dead deer. Unfortunately, there was a good chance this poor bastard had still been alive.
I glanced around as we got closer. There was only one black Town Car. Something wasn’t right. Even if she hadn’t been able to get many new recruits in the last month on the run, she should have still had at least two cars, especially with hostages...or meals...in tow. She would never consent to being crammed in a backseat with brand new recruits. But there were only two vehicles here, total. One cop car and one Town Car. I turned to look at the dirt road. There were fresh tire tracks from multiple vehicles going back up the road towards town. I felt something heavy in my chest. We’d missed them. But there was definitely something going on here. There was screaming and crying and shouting. And still one black Town Car. Maybe it was the one we needed. I held onto the image of Joel and Tags tied up in the Town Car’s backseat, while the owners of the Town Car had a difference of opinion with the local smokeys. Or, more likely, with a crew of high-up demons that were wearing the local smokeys like ballet leotards.
There were bullet holes, the length of the black Town Car. We were partially concealed from the hard-packed yard in front of the farmhouse by the Town Car and the patrol vehicle. I held up a hand to stop the other three and we surveyed the yard. There was one cop straddling a woman on the ground. I recognized the tattoos on her bare legs as some of the symbols that Sister Smile’s crew would carve into themselves, their dinner, or the ground during their long-pig potlucks. The cop had a knife and he was singing something as he sliced off bits of her skin and flicked them across the yard. The woman had screamed herself hoarse.
“Where is she?” He shouted over her screaming. “You can make this all end, just tell us where she is.”
“I want that cannibal,” I muttered to Gabe beside me.
“What?” He whispered.
“Why should the demon get all the answers he wants? Plus, what he’s doing to her is just nasty.”
“He’s flaying her like a fish,” Noah said, turning white.
“Peeling her like a potato,” Stacks said. They both looked like they were about to puke.
“Ok, enough of this,” I said. I unholstered the sawed-off and started up the side of the ditch, an exposed root breaking under my weight. At the sound, the cop turned to look behind him at the four of us.
“Howdy,” I shouted at him, and then I pulled the trigger. I’d given the Solomon Spice shells to the other three since I had the sword, but the rock salt hit him in the back and the face, still managing to knock him forward. He screamed and after a second the cannibal underneath him was able to shove him off of her.
I scrambled out of the ditch. “Noah, Stacks, hold her! Gabe, that Latin of yours is about to come in handy again!” Unless he was an Empty House. If that was the case, I had it covered.
The cop had gotten to his feet and was stumbling away towards the farmhouse. Stacks and Noah took a couple of minutes to get out of the ditch and the cannibal was already trying to crawl away into the tall grass. A shot rang out from somewhere to my right and I felt something bite into my shoulder. I hit the ground, crawling behind a water barrel that was connected to the downspout off the front porch gutters. Another shot cracked through the rain barrel and I got an impromptu shower. I heard someone return fire from over by the Town Car and glanced up to see Gabe leveling his own ten-gauge. His shot must have connected with the shooter because there was some demon screaming.
“Nice shooting, Butch!” I yelled to Gabe.
“Go get him, Sundance!” Gabe yelled to me. He climbed out of the ditch and he was heading over open territory for the cop to exorcise him. He was going to be a duck in a shooting gallery if any more shooters were hanging out in the barnyard. I pumped the sawed-off and stared around. There was an old farm truck up on blocks about a hundred yards away. I glanced at Gabe who was about to lose his cover and I went for it. I heard a shot zinging off the dirt and I ran faster, hoping that I could just keep the fire off of Gabe. He was a much bigger, slower target. Hopefully, proximity would make me much more fun to shoot at. I dove behind the farm truck and looked back to see Gabe hustling around the side of the farmhouse.
I took a breath. Noah and Stacks weren’t out in the open either and I hoped they were back in the ditch with the cannibal, but a more likely scenario was that they were laying on their bellies in the tall grass hoping to not draw attention to themselves. I dropped down to crawl under the truck and see if I could get a bead on how many shooters there were. Ahead and to the right of the farm truck, two cops were behind an old compact utility tractor, rifles leveled at the truck, shots zinging off the fenders and grille. I wasn’t sure if they could see me, but the truck body was groaning as the shots ripped through it and I figured I better wrap up the reconnaissance and get out from under it before it fell on me.
I glanced around and saw one more cop. He was a big ole’ boy with aviator sunglasses and a cowboy hat rather than the typical flat-brimmed cop hats the rest of his men were wearing. He had a .45 in one hand and a sawed-off in the other. He was yelling at another cannibal who looked like he had his hands full, holding in his guts. They were right in front of me, hugging the side of the farmhouse. From their extreme angle, there was a pretty good chance that the demon hadn’t seen me dive under the truck.
“Where did your crew go?” He was screaming at the cannibal. The cannibal was shaking on the ground and I recognized shock setting in as his brain realized that his insides were now his outsides. Poor s.o.b. If we were able to send the red-eyed bastards back downstairs, we’d have to just put him out of his misery. The cannibal spit at the cop and a dark stain appeared on the big cop’s shirt. He had guts in more ways than one. The big cop holstered his .45 and slowly took off his sunglasses, revealing his blood-red eyes.
If I fired prone, I knew I was going to hit the cannibal, but he was circling the drain as it was. My best luck for info was the girl. That is if Stacks and Noah had kept her from escaping. I took the shot. The blast hit the cannibal in the top of his head and shoulders where he lay, but the main wad hit the cop about crotch level. The cop bent over, howling in pain and I saw the red in his eyes glow brighter as he stumbled back, his gaze fixed on the truck. More shots from the two cops behind the tractor and I rolled away from them moving back behind what would have been the back tire on the driver’s side. Rifle shots dinged off the body and then a shotgun blast and birdshot rained down on me. Apparently, the ol’ boy wasn’t hurt too bad if he was able to fire.
There was a shot behind the house and one of the cops behind the tractor screamed and the rifle fell out of his hands. He fell back out of sight and the cop next to him swung his rifle around to look for the new shooter behind the house. I pumped the sawed-off and stood up to shoot over the truck bed at the other cop behind the tractor. The shot connected with his chest and he fell back from the blast, taking his rifle with him. I heard a shot from the side of the house and turned to see the big cop fire his .45 into the face of the cannibal. I pumped the sawed-off again and aimed at the big cop. He used the butt of his .45 to break a window next to him and he dove through it, into the farmhouse. I ran around the truck, heading for the same window, hoping I could get one more shot at him and put him down so that I could run him through with the sword before he got away.
