Shoot to thrill, p.8
Shoot to Thrill, page 8
part #5 of Midnight Rider Series
“Sounds like a party,” Gabe said. “So what are you doing dicking around in a parking lot with a minivan and our ghouly friend there?”
“Noah has a tiny bladder,” I said. “We’re at a rest stop about two hours northwest of Messina. We’ve got to get back on the road. You’re not close by, by any chance, are you?”
“Close-ish,” Gabe said. “But there are some Brothers who are closer. I’ll put out the call and we’ll get it cleaned up before Johnny Law makes the rounds. We’ll try to make it look like a random mugging or something not supernatural.”
“Good luck,” I said. “Their faces are missing and so are their guts. The only thing remaining of the kiddos is a...pile of bones and…” There was something very painful squeezing my heart.
I heard Gabe breath out on the other end of the line. “We’ll take care of it. Go get Stacks.” There was a pause and I had the distinct feeling that he had more to say. I knew I did. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Not to Gabe. Time was short enough as it was. Going down that road would just make the end harder.
“Be careful,” Gabe said.
“You too,” and then I hung up. I stared at the tiny sneakers on the floor, thinking of Gabe and I and what could have been. But it wouldn’t have been. I would be seventy now if I hadn’t gone to Hell. We wouldn’t have had a shot then, either. It just wasn’t meant to be. And I had a suicide mission to complete. He had his family’s responsibility. We were screwed from every angle. Still, I couldn’t help myself from reaching out and touching the side of the tiny shoe.
I closed the van up and hustled back to Lucy. I climbed behind the wheel and tossed the phone into Noah’s lap. I went to the toolbox and pulled out a less dirty a-shirt and jeans, stripped off the blood-soaked set, stuffed them in the toolbox, and got re-dressed before climbing behind the wheel. I glanced over at Noah. He’d been further back and I could see dots of blood spatter on his face, but the tie-dye pattern on his shirt was definitely playing in his favor with hiding the rest. I turned the key in the ignition.
“I’m not helping you, sex-chat Gabe,” Noah said with a grin.
“Helping me what?”
“Nevermind,” Noah said. “So how’s Gabe?”
“Alive,” I said. “Text him that his people will need to check the men’s room and probably the women’s room to see if that thing had any appetizers before the minivan massacre.”
Noah punched a bunch of buttons on the phone and the beeping was really annoying. I got us back on the highway and he still wasn’t done.
“How do you people text each other all the time? Doesn’t the fricking beeping make you homicidal?”
Noah huffed in exasperation. “Well, most people don’t have a cell phone that was found when they thawed out a great wooly mammoth. So it doesn’t usually take this long. Also, most people turn their sound off.” I opened my mouth to tell him to do just that when he started shaking his head. “If I turn your sound off, you’ll never answer your phone. Just suck it up. I’m almost done.”
I had the pedal back to the floor and Lucy was barrelling down the highway. Noah tossed the phone back onto the seat and resumed his position of knees-locked, feet-planted on the floor and hands braced on the dashboard.
“So Gabe’s going to have his people just go ‘disappear’ all the bodies from the rest stop? Why? So the police won’t think anything bad happened?” Noah asked, with a distinct air of trying to keep his mind on something other than the tight curves I was taking almost on two wheels.
“Maybe not Gabe. He said he had some Brothers in the area, but he wasn’t exactly close by.”
“Brothers?” Noah asked.
I sighed. “Yeah, Gabe’s from this hoity-toity hunter family and they’re a part of this fancy ‘Order of the Brethren of St. Raphael’. He told me that one of the things the Order does is act like a kind of cleaning company for supernatural disasters. Gabe mentioned making it look like a mugging, but when they get a good look at the mess, I think that option will be out the window. My guess is fire. Burn the bodies in their cars past recognition, then the innocents will chalk it up to a bad car accident and move on.”
“Car accident in a parking lot?” Noah asked.
I cut my eyes to him. “The cars in that parking lot still drive and as it’s the middle of the night, next to a somewhat abandoned highway, it probably won’t be too difficult to stage the car wreck.”
“Oh,” Noah said and he closed his eyes again. “Can we slow down?”
“Sorry Scooter,” I said. “We lost too much time dicking around with the eating habits of ugly s.o.bs back there, so now we have to make it up.”
6
“Oh,” I said, remembering something else Stacks had told me. “It might be just his conspiracy brain talking, but Stacks said that the supernatural shit in Messina might not be over, so we should probably keep an eye out for anything strange.”
I took the exit to Messina and started slowing down as we hit the few street lights on the main drag.
“Can’t be anything too earth-shattering,” Noah said. “Everything still looks pretty normal.”
We pulled up next to a big Dodge pick-up at a light and I glanced over at the driver. He was pale-faced, leaning back against his seat and breathing hard, fogging up his window.
“Somebody had a rough night,” Noah said.
“Roll your window down,” I said. Noah gave me a confused look. “Just do it.” I waved at the driver in the other truck and as soon as the window was down, I yelled at him, “Hey buddy! You ok?” The driver glanced at me and then let off his brakes and rolled through the red light. It happened so fast, we could only watch in horror as a semi coming through the intersection at about forty-five, t-boned him.
“Fuck!” Noah screamed.
The semi was a block down before he came to a stop and by then, there wasn’t much left of the truck’s cab. Traffic going in both directions came to complete stop, all of us craning our necks to look down the road towards the carnage. The semi driver had kicked his door open and I saw a cell phone pressed to his ear. Noah and I were speechless. The longer we sat there, the more certain I was that this wasn’t just a coincidence. Nigel had killed people, using severe depression. Had that been what we’d just seen? Had Nigel somehow survived the beheading of the meat suit he was wearing and now he was back at it? The sound of sirens in the distance snapped me back into the moment. I let off the brake as the light turned green and traffic began to cautiously move forward again. We cruised through the intersection and Noah turned to look at me.
“What about the truck?” Noah asked. “Aren’t we going to go see…”
“See what?” I asked. “Another car full of human confetti? I don’t know about you, but my limit on that is one a day. There’s nothing we can do for him now. Johnny Law’s on the way.”
“Poor guy,” Noah said, turning in his seat to look behind us as we motored down the street. “Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?” I didn’t answer Noah. I decided to keep my gut feelings to myself about this not being a coincidence. At least until we found Stacks. I felt panic seize my heart in my chest. If we could find him and if he hadn’t been taken like Joel. Fuck. Or killed, like Nya. I bit down on my tongue, trying to keep myself from running down a dark road of panic. Don’t think. Just do. Get across town.
We cut through neighborhoods and rounded the familiar corner of Cypress Street. We both turned as one to look at the site where the New Covenant church had been. I pulled to the curb and Noah and I gaped at the carnage. There was no building left. The lot looked like a bomb had gone off on it. There was a smattering of twisted metal emerging from a gaping hole that had been the building’s foundation. Soot-blackened earth stretched outward from the hole and coated the ground. The parking lot was gone except for a few cracked and crumbling slabs of concrete. There was a slight breeze and as it moved over the site, we could still see wisps of smoke coming from the hole.
“This was recent,” I said.
“Holy shit,” Noah breathed. “What could have done this?”
I turned my head to look at the row of houses on Cypress, facing the church. I locked onto the navy blue house in the middle of the block where Nigel had lived. I felt my pulse picking up, remembering what was inside that seemingly normal-looking house. And Stacks might still be inside. Even from this distance, the house was giving me some bad supernatural vibes. I pulled away from the curb and turned down a side street. I wanted to park somewhere less noticeable, in case there were still some die-hard church fans be it imps, demons, or Messina’s finest, that might be interested in our arrival. I parked in front of a white Tudor that sat ass-to-ass with Nigel’s house, separated by a one-lane dirt alley.
“You stay here,” I said to Noah. “I’ll go get Stacks. You just be ready to help me get him in the truck. He might be in bad shape.”
“Like hell I will,” Noah said. “I’m going with you. You step in enough shit with me standing next to you. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if I wasn’t there.”
I thought about correcting him, but I let it slide. I’d hunted solo for a long time and things didn’t really seem to get dangerous until I had a frizzy-haired liability sitting in the cab next to me. I knew he was scared and I knew that he’d feel safer if we stayed together. Even though that meant he was voluntarily walking into the bullshit den.
“Fine,” I said on a sigh. This time, I strapped on the sword. The familiar weight of it being tied into the “otherworld” made the muscles in my back tense and a wave of exhaustion crept over me. I took some deep breaths and tried to summon all of my energy to withstand it. I was not going to be caught without it again. I looked at Lucy’s broken quarter glass window and sighed. It was early morning and the sun was just starting to paint the horizon. Hopefully, all the kids that spent their nights breaking into cars were at home by now, drooling on their pillows, their misdemeanor mischief complete for the night.
I holstered the sawed-off and slid the .45 into the back of my jeans. Noah had the ten-gauge and his pockets stuffed with shells. I met Noah’s gaze and he nodded. He was ready. We strolled back down the block, attempting to not look too suspicious if one of the denizens of the neighborhood stuck their head out to get their paper and spotted us. We cut down the alley behind Nigel’s house, listening for anything that might give us a hint as to what was ahead. Nigel’s back gate stuck and I had to do a double-take to make sure we were breaking into the right backyard. Nigel’s back yard had been dead grass and dirt with a few spindly trees and a dying hedge a week ago. Now, the hedge was a dark green and overgrown to the point that it was partially blocking the back gate.
I was finally able to kick the gate open wide enough for me to squeeze through. Noah had more trouble. He was trying to two-hand the gun and be ready to shoot which made me give him a wide berth. He got stuck halfway through, his shirt catching on a branch and the ten-gauge went off. The blast was deafening in the quiet neighborhood and it was followed by the sound of glass shattering. I looked up to see Nigel’s sliding glass doors were no more.
“Nice of you to open the door for us,” I said to Noah. Noah gave me a dirty look and kept struggling to unhook himself from the hedge.
“Can you help instead of mocking me?” Noah growled.
I looked pointedly at the ten-gauge. “I will if you point that thing somewhere else and take your finger off the trigger.”
He scowled, but he took one hand off the gun and the barrel dropped to point at the ground. I grabbed the scruff of his t-shirt and tugged, feeling the fabric rip a little along with the cracking of the branch that had him, and then he was free.
“Should we hide?” Noah asked. “I mean, if there’s someone in there, they’ll have heard us.”
I rolled my eyes. “If there was someone in there, they would have been out here by now and we would be begging them to kill us before turning our guts into shoelaces.” I glanced around at the houses on either side. “More likely, a bunch of startled neighbors are trying to decide if they actually heard a gunshot or if they all just had a mass-hallucination dream in which some asshole fired a gun in their slice of whitebread paradise neighborhood. Either way, let’s get inside and see what we can see.”
I led the way across the new puddle of broken glass and into Nigel’s living room. I decided not to dwell on what had happened in that room or the kitchen beyond. I tried my best to stifle the shiver that ran down my spine as I remembered the woman lying on the kitchen floor, her wrists slit. Even from where I stood, I could see into the kitchen and I knew the body and the drop cloth were gone. I looked around. Other than that, the house looked undisturbed. Besides the new ventilation hole, courtesy of Noah, where the sliding glass door had been and was now lying on the floor in shards, the house looked the same. No one had even come by to tidy up or right the furniture we’d knocked over when Vix and I had struggled against Nigel on that floor. Whoever the baddies were that broke into this place and presumably did unspeakable things to Stacks, had either cleaned up after themselves or took him somewhere else for the torture and killing. Of course, there was still the basement.
I moved toward the hallway and started pulling doors; linen closet, bedroom, bathroom, stairs. Bingo.
“Found it,” I called to Noah. There was a powerful smell wafting up the stairs from below. The smell of death and decay was surrounding me again. Twice in one day. We were definitely going to have to drive with Lucy’s windows down after this. I knew from experience that the smell of human decomposition didn’t just go away. It was dark in the basement and I felt along the wall for a light switch. I couldn’t find one, so I took a few steps down the stairs, still searching. I could feel the temperature dropping with every step I took. I didn’t feel the switch on the wall until I reached the foot of the stairs. I flipped the switch and a single bulb hanging from a wire in the middle of the room flickered on. I immediately had to fight the urge to turn the light back off. Stacks hadn’t been kidding. The room was full of decaying bodies. I recognized one or two of the rotting faces on the top as members of New Covenant.
“Talk about bringing your work home with you,” I called up to Noah.
“Do I want to see what’s at the bottom of these stairs?” he called back.
“Probably not,” I said.
“Bane?” I slipped on the bottom step at the sound of my name. It had come from somewhere in the pile of corpses. I felt like I swallowed my tongue. I reached back to grab the sword by the hilt and I reached for my .45 with my right hand, training it on the corpses, ready to shoot. I couldn’t find my voice. I could only stand there stupidly and stare as the pile began to shift and a familiar dark head emerged.
“Stacks,” I said, “You know better than to startle me.”
“No,” Stacks said, rolling a corpse off his leg so that he could dislodge it. “I know better than to sneak up on you if I value my testicles.”
“Make sure and share that with the kid later,” I said. “So you want to introduce us to your friends here? Oh yeah, and also explain how you’re perfectly fine? And while you’re at it, explain why you turned your phone off and didn’t call us to tell us you were perfectly fine?” A wave of relief had washed over me as soon as I saw that Stacks was alive and still had all his limbs attached. There was a competing wave of annoyance though that made me want to strangle him now that I knew he was ok.
“Easy Bane, you’ll give yourself an aneurysm,” Stacks said, “Well, there were these three guys here. They showed up right before I called you. Scary assholes too. They were wearing these silver masks and they were looking for something.”
“What?” I asked automatically.
Stacks rolled his eyes. “Nigel’s knitting needles, how am I supposed to know? All I do know is they didn’t find whatever it was. They were pissed.”
“So you what, just dove into a pile of corpses to hide until they left?” I asked.
“No, I,” Stacks paused and glared at me. “Yes. Hey, it worked.”
“Who are you talking to?” Noah called down the stairs.
“Just one of the corpses. He’s a real chatterbox. Can’t get him to shut up,” I said.
“Sounds like Stacks,” Noah said. “Is he perfectly fine?”
I looked at Stacks. “Yep.”
“Tell him he’s an asshole for freaking us the hell out,” Noah called back.
“I can hear you,” Stacks said.
“I’ll bet,” Noah said. “Must be like surround sound with your head so far up your ass.”
Stacks narrowed his eyes at me. “He’s been spending too much time with you.”
I rolled my eyes. “He could have picked up his sass anywhere.” I glanced around the room. “So any ideas on the story behind this mass grave?”
Stacks shrugged. “I’ve been reading a lot about Nergal. He was a bad dude. Old god, I mean thousands of years. He’d take people and suck the life out of them like a kid with a popsicle.”
My lip curled back involuntarily. “Can you pick a different visual?”
Stacks continued. “Looks like Nergal or Nigel or whatever the hell he called himself, liked to do his grocery shopping at New Covenant. It looks like most of the bodies in the pile were church members or the church leadership that had been possessed. He was probably just doing it so slowly, the main red-eyed dickbags didn’t notice or just didn’t ask. Maybe they did know what Nigel was.”
“Lovely,” I said. “So where does that leave Messina?”
Stacks shrugged. “I don’t know, but nowhere good. I expect you saw what happened to the church building?”
I nodded. “Looks like a bomb went off.”
“Yep,” Stacks said, “and that can’t be good.”
“Also,” I said. “It could be a coincidence, but we witnessed a truck and driver try to do a train-dodge in downtown Messina on our way here.”
Stacks’ expression turned to horror. “Did he say anything?”
“You mean, did he yell, ‘goodbye cruel world’ before he gunned it and turned himself into a hood ornament for an eighteen-wheeler? No.”
