Twins of prey 1 3 the co.., p.21
Twins of Prey 1-3: The Complete Trilogy, page 21
Sheriff Henderson knew this was the truth and no matter how much she wished that it wasn’t, she was well aware that Father Niko was not the man that he portrayed himself to be. She knew that the large amount of prescription drugs and various weapons she and Trooper Common found in the trunk of the car she pulled over that night would be missed by someone. Perhaps the Canadian cartel or even some dealers down state, but she would have never thought that Pine Run’s own Father Niko was the king pin of the operation. Yet now, it began to all make sense. Niko was not in the business of saving these kid’s lives. They were merely pawns in his overall game of deceit and corruption.
Securing the boy with his twenty-eight remaining teeth into a holding cell, she headed back to her house. Not yet knowing her full plan of attack or defense at this moment, she had to do something with the body of the other boy. The longer it took Niko to find out about her knowing the details of his planned attack, the better she could prepare.
Henderson figured once home she could gear up for war and go after Niko in the morning. That way if anything else went bad, she only had to call out the medical examiner once to make sure he was bringing enough body bags.
14 Darkness
Henderson pulled into her driveway with her headlights off and quietly rolled the patrol vehicle into the parking lot behind the house. She did not often use this back gravel spot much other than when she had a patrol vehicle to hide. Sometimes it was just easier for people not to know she was actually home and not out on the road working. She entered the house through the screened porch where just hours ago she had taken the life of another young boy. Something that was not getting easier to do with each situation. Even though she always convinced herself there was no choice other than using deadly force, it still weighed heavily on her soul.
Stepping into the room she looked down upon him. Most of the blood was still wet and puddled. What had not soaked into the carpet remained there on the dining room tile floor.
Why? The Sheriff thought to herself.
“What went so wrong in your life that killing me to impress a priest seemed like a good idea?” This time she spoke aloud to the dead boy as if he would answer.
Tiptoeing around his sprawled out arm, Henderson was attempting not to contaminate the crime scene. The thought of this made her laugh because there was no actual crime on her part, in her mind.
Walking through the dining room French doors and stepping into the once grand piano living room Henderson was stopped in her tracks. It was not something she saw or even heard but a peculiar smell emanating from throughout the general area. Drawing in a deep breath through her nostrils she attempted to mentally set aside the metallic iron scent of blood. There was something else in the air, something new, a smell that resembled fresh-cut wood. Henderson had been working on the house long enough to know what the sawdust of the house’s old wood skeleton smelled like when cut. She also knew that she had not worked on the house in days. She took one more step into the room and immediately knew what it was that had been cut.
Falling into the cellar through a five-foot hole that had been roughly cut through the floor boards and then covered back up with a large area rug Henderson came crashing into the hole with the rug in tow. Slamming down onto the ground with her right arm in a reactionary attempt to break her fall did nothing but hyperextend her arm at the elbow. While it was not broken, it was useless as the pain began radiating upwards from her arm and into her neck. Slightly dazed from her fall she was unsure if her vision was blurred due to hitting her head or if it was purely just a cloudy mixture of sawdust and multiple decades worth of house dust that hung about due to her unexpected decent.
She had not turned a light on upon getting home and in this part of the house there were no windows to allow light from the moon which stood full in the sky. Reaching for her hip, she suddenly remembered that her duty belt was still in her back pack which she was holding onto prior to when she fell. Inside the pack would be her phone, gun, and a flashlight. Rustling around in the dark she was unable to find the bag in the small room that now somehow held her captive. Feeling the dirt floor and mortared field stone wall Henderson knew exactly where she was in the house. The old cellar coal room.
The coal cellar was storage for just that, coal. In Henderson House’s fully functioning days, coal was just as abundant as wood and burnt both hotter and longer with less work to heat the house. Feeling around she found the cast iron metal door that led up and out to the back yard, locked. Even if the room was fully lit, getting out of it in this situation would have been impossible. She was locked in the room with only one way out, up. Yet there was no rope and certainly no ladder. Henderson quickly came to terms with the fact that there was no, hope. Reaching around in her pockets with her left hand, she fought back the pain of her dangling right arm that was all but useless due to fall. As she emptied her pockets she knew that there was not much to be found. Car keys, a lighter, and some gum. Hardly enough to use for any type of escape device.
Henderson sat there for a minute trying to deduce exactly what had happened. Had the floor’s age finally caught up to itself and just given way? Or perhaps there was something more going on here. Running her fingers across one of the beams that once was part of the floor joist she felt the cut. Smooth and clean with a ruffled burr on the outer edge. The floor did not break due to old age, she had walked directly into a trap. A trap that had been set in her own house.
Sheriff Henderson immediately flashed back to that fateful day on the river where her brothers described to her how each of her fellow deputies had died. Henderson thought of Coleman, at the bottom of a pit, impaled. She immediately knew her brothers had been inside her house and set this trap. It was clear to her that the lack of spikes meant one thing, for some reason they wanted her alive. As much as she was glad to be alive, she could not believe that the same trap that had captured and ultimately killed a bumbling jackass like Coleman was just as effective on her. She felt violated that the twins were in her house but then she remembered another thing Drake had said to her and although she had never heard Uncle’s voice herself she did now.
Prey feels the safest in places it knows, Uncle would teach the boys. Kill him in his home and he will die without knowing.
Only she was not dead and that meant that so far her brothers had failed to kill her, again.
Taking the lighter out of her pocket she flicked open the silver lid that once was solid brass but had worn over the years of use and rolled her thumb across the striker. She had never been a smoker but always carried a lighter. Not just any lighter but this gold metallic Zippo brand one. It was given to her by an instructor she had in the academy. An old Navy veteran named Don. While Don was not the best teacher in her school, he was her favorite and the feeling was mutual. The click and clacking sound of the brass top as it performed its opening and closing action was soothing to her. The lighter had been a gift and each time she lit it, the smell of its lighter fluid igniting triggered a fond memory. Now was not the time for fond memories, but none-the-less she was glad to have light.
Poking around the room, she took inventory of its contents. Broken wood, her, and the rug was it. Again all hope faded there in the flickering light of the Zippo’s flame. Looking up, she thought about the measurements of the house and knew she had fallen through the kitchen and the basement landing in the cellar. She estimated that the fall alone being almost twenty feet could have killed her, but there she was alone and trapped.
The light went out, Henderson shook the lighter hearing plenty of fluid inside the chamber and struck it again successfully only this time there in the light she saw Drake’s face. Slamming the top of the lighter shut she hurled herself towards him only to slam into the rock wall of the dugout Michigan cellar. Reaching down, striking the wick and illuminating the small room again she saw that she was again, alone. Drake was not there, Drake was never there. Her mind raced in an attempt to make sense of what was happening to her. Had she died, was this Hell or worse yet Purgatory? Was she crazy, was she seeing things?
With each thought she had, the level of hate grew inside of her. How could they do this to her, how could they have turned her into this? A blundering fool at the bottom of a pit. Her only hope was that bag, her gun, and the phone. Calling for help was the only thing that would save her. Yet she knew as the only cop in town, help was miles away. She had to get the bag.
Looking up, straining her eyes in the flickering light, the shadows made it hard to see what exactly was above her. Yet looking up there was a small tingle of something shining and in the dark, her mind told her that it was the zipper of her bag. While she knew that in the dark your mind can turn a tree stump into a ten-point buck, she had to hope that it was indeed the zipper. And if she was seeing the zipper that meant the bag was on the edge.
The only way to make sure it was indeed the bag was to try and cast the light on it in some way. With no other options Henderson tossed the lit Zippo up in the air through the hole with enough force for it to reach the top. The lighter’s path illuminated the walls showing Henderson the entire scale of what she was dealing with. This first toss was nowhere near high enough and it came falling back down to the coal pit. Ignoring the fact that the first attempt did nothing but highlight multiple nails and screws on its way up that could all easily have looked just like the bags zipper, Henderson threw it upward again. Being forced to use her left hand due to the injury on her right meant the tosses were less than accurate; the second one did travel higher than the first, but she was still six feet short of the floor’s opening.
The third toss she put all she had into it and the gold lighter shot up the hole flame intact like a rocket headed to space. This attempt had more than enough gusto to reach the top and she watched as the flame confirmed her hopes. It was her bag laying there on the edge. She now just needed to rig up some way of pulling it over the edge. Holding her hand out to catch the lighter as it reached the pinnacle of its upward motion and began to come back down, the light just hung in the air. As if it was floating, as if she were looking into the sky at the sun. Floating there in the air, not going up, not coming down.
Then a darkness passed between her and the floating lighter as she realized what had happened. Someone had caught the lighter in midair. In the darkness there was a hand, but she could not see the face of her capturer. The hand again crossed between her and the light darkening her tunnel and this time the hand closed the lid putting out the small torch she had relied on for the last few minutes. The lighter was the only thing she had that going for her and now it was gone, along with her hope, again.
Sheriff Henderson knew that either Tomek or Drake stood atop her hole only she did not know which one was there or if it was both of them.
All she knew for sure was that, she was not alone.
15 Sermon
“Hello?” Sheriff Henderson said in an inquisitive manor from her position in the coal room. There was no answer.
“Who is up there?” She asked again and still got no response.
Whoever was above her remained silent for another twenty tense seconds that felt like minutes. The silence and darkness was broken by the clicking of the lighter’s lid being lifted and the roll being dragged to create the spark that ignited the wick’s fuel. This time with the light held up at the top of her living room she would make out the shadow of a figure.
“Just kill me already, if that is what you are here to do, just get it over with you monsters!” Henderson yelled at her brothers.
“We are not monsters,” a voice responded. To her surprise and even her dismay it was not the voice of Tomek or Drake. It was a voice she was unfamiliar with and suddenly she was not sure if that meant she should be hopeful or even more afraid.
“Then what are you?” Henderson asked.
“Angels,” Michael answered this time. Michael’s voice was distinct and memorable. Henderson knew right away who was at the top of the hole. The only thing she didn’t know was if they were the ones who made the trap.
“Then help me?” Henderson asked thinking it was worth a shot.
“Thou shall not murder,” DC said.
“They attacked me,” I had no choice.
“Tower and Jacoby attacked you too I bet didn’t they, bitch,” Gabriel said spitting down into the darkness of the whole. The foaming wad of saliva found its mark hitting Henderson directly on her cheek.
“I did not kill either one of them and Father Niko knows that,” Henderson explained in her defense but through the darkness she knew the angels were not there to hear her side of any story.
“You killed them you lying whore and now you must die.” Again Gabriel yelled at her with a particularly venomous like demeanor.
“Oh yea, what happen to thou shall not kill?” She asked.
Brooks had yet to speak but at this point he chimed in, “Exodus 21:14 tells us that if a man kills ones neighbor, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from my altar, that he may die,” Brooks continued on, “So you see Father Niko says you must pay for your sins and thus, today, is your judgment day.”
“So you are here to judge me then huh?” Henderson yelled back.
“No, we are not. We are here to send you away from this earth so that you may be judged at the gates of Heaven and then sent on to Hell where you belong!” Michael said.
A few minutes passed of silence and all she could hear was the shuffling of feet and quiet talking coming from above. Henderson could tell they were discussing something but had no clue as to what it was. Henderson broke the silence asking,
“What makes you think you won’t go to Hell for killing me?”
“First John chapter five verse nineteen,” DC answered.
“Oh yea more verses huh what’s that one say, thou had a crack whore mother and thus must do as Father Niko says cause I’m a dumb shit ghetto kid that can’t think for himself?” Henderson knew verbally assaulting them was not going to get her out of that hole, but she thought if she angered them enough at least they might kill her more quickly.
Brooks again began quoting a verse from first John, “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
“And, I am the evil one huh?” She asked.
“One of many,” Gabriel answered.
Michael then said, “We are the angels of Lucky Trail. Sent here to serve God’s will under the direction of the honorable Father Niko Allen. Guided by the light of Isiah 13:9 which tells us, Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.”
While professing the word of the Bible Michael took pauses for dramatic effect which was clear evidence of his years watching Father Niko do the same while preaching his weekly sermons.
“Get it over with then, come kill the Devil in the pit, you blasphemous heretics!” Henderson yelled back at them and immediately could tell that they did not like being called that and she may have had finally struck a nerve with the four of them.
“Listen bitch, you are a serpent. This ain’t no Daniel in the lion’s den bullshit. David verses Goliath shall not be comforting to you either. We are not lions and there is no Goliath up here. We are angels so enjoy your hole and shut the hell up.” Gabriel’s response to being called a heretic was somewhat of a surprise to her.
While she knew the boys of Lucky Trail were raised by Niko she never really expected them to have this much biblical knowledge. While of course Lucky Trail was a church-based camp, most of the members where anything but church-like. Did Niko choose these angels due to their outstanding faith in God or were they the ones just dumb enough to place their faith into Niko himself? Was Niko, in fact, their real God? Either way it did not matter to her as the truth would not alter the direness of her situation.
“You know what really sucks about all this?” Henderson asked.
“What’s that?” DC replied.
“Look what you did to my floor, I worked so hard on that room and you messed it all up,” Henderson said trying to cope with her status of near death at the hands of a group of young men yet again.
The group just laughed, “Well, you can thank Old Man Hawkins for that. He sold me this saw, which is gonna come in handy when I need to cut your ass up into pieces before tossing you into the river.” Brooks revealed the plan going forward and now that she was aware of their intentions she again wished they would just get on with it.
“Hey, it is dusty as shit down here. Will you throw me down a bottle of water or something. If I am going to die anyway at least let me get something to drink,” Henderson pleaded in a strong voice.
Again they just laughed.
“Here you go, drink this,” Brooks said.
Henderson didn’t hear anything other than the angels laughing at what Brooks had said and then she felt it. Warm and wet and falling onto her in a stream. Brooks had begun to relive himself into the hole which made his cohorts laugh widely like a pack of hyenas standing over a freshly-captured antelope on the great plains of the Serengeti. Henderson was their antelope.
The laughing stopped as quickly as it began and she looked up still unable to see anything but darkness. The stream of urine was replaced by a rushing of wind as if some form of a backdraft had caused the air pressure in her tiny hole to change. And then she felt it hit her. Solid and unforgiving. Unable to tell what it was they had dropped on her, she only knew it was large and heavy with an irregular shape. The object had slammed onto her head and flattened her to the ground it seemed all in one motion. Henderson figured at the moment that this was their plan. To drop stuff on her or bury her or something to that manner until she was dead. She pretty much knew none of them were brave enough to enter the hole and take her on themselves. Like they had said, they were angels not lions. She was not dead yet, which meant more would be falling down on top of her.
