by JG Faherty
The Hell Riders.
They stole me from my family. Forever.
Sudden rage rose up, more powerful than anything he’d felt when alive, driving out the remorse, the guilt, the sorrow. A tidal wave of black fury, overwhelming all other thoughts.
As if burned away by the heat of his vengeful wrath, a circle of white light appeared.
Heaven? It didn’t seem likely, not with his track record. But something about it drew him. He found himself heading toward it without any sense of physical movement. Or maybe it was just growing larger. He had no way of telling, and he didn’t really care. He just wanted to see where it would lead.
And it wasn’t like he had anything else to do with his time.
Curiosity gave way to fury again when the circle expanded and an image appeared inside it. Like a window had opened, he found himself looking down at his own body.
Charred to something resembling a centuries-old mummy, it shouldn’t have been identifiable, but Eddie was somehow able to see past the flaking, charcoal skin and exposed muscle and tendons, past the empty eye sockets and the stump of cartilage that had once been his nose. See through all the destruction and recognize himself.
And as he did, a horrible thought came to him.
That’s what my mother is going to see when she has to identify me at the morgue.
That vision, even more than his dead corpse, stoked his anger to new heights. He tried to get closer to the body, filled with a seething desire to force his consciousness back into it, to become a living monster capable of exacting vengeance on the ones who’d killed him.
He couldn’t do it.
No matter how hard he tried, how much he focused all his will on re-entering his dead self, he couldn’t get any closer than hovering about six feet above it. He was still trying when two orderlies in blue scrubs entered the room and approached the table.
“This one?” one of them asked, paying more attention to his phone than the corpse.
The other one checked a chart. “Yeah. Eddie Ryder, DOA. Gee, no shit. Fuckin’ guy’s beef jerky. Stick him in locker ten.”
Fuck you, scumbags! Have a little respect for the dead.
Static crackled from the orderly’s phone and he jumped.
Serves you right, asshole.
Ignorant of the disembodied sentience floating over them, the two men wheeled the cart to a wall of storage lockers and slid the body none too gently into one. Then they left the room, the closing door cutting off their jokes about having barbeque for lunch.
Bastards. Go ahead, laugh. I’ll put you on my list, right after those fuckers who did this to me.
That reminded him. The Hell Riders. He had to find them, figure out some way to get them back for what they’d done.
But how?
He willed his consciousness to rise up.
Nothing.
He tried again. No change. He was still sitting just below the ceiling, right above the door to his temporary crypt.
Don’t tell me I’m stuck with my body forever. What’s the point of my spirit hanging around if I can’t fucking move?
Once more, he tried pushing himself back up to the blackness he’d awoken to.
Failure. Again.
Goddammit!
At his mental shout, the lights in the autopsy room flickered on and off before resuming their steady, greenish glow.
Well, that’s something, at least.
Let’s see what else I can do.
* * *
Johnny Ray Jones leaned back in his chair and stared at the paperwork on his desk. For the first time in his twenty-odd years with the Hell Creek police force, including the past ten as Chief, he felt helpless.
And he didn’t like it.
Contrary to what most people thought, Chief of Police in Hell Creek wasn’t an easy job. The town might look like Mayberry’s long-lost twin to the casual eye, but he knew it for what it really was: a place where the real trouble hid below the surface, like a gator floating beneath the scum and algae of a pond, just waiting for the right moment to leap out and grab an unsuspecting victim. As one of the last outposts of actual civilization before entering the wilds of the Everglades, the unincorporated lands around Hell Creek were perfect places for drug dealers and smugglers to use as stepping stones for their trades. Over the years, he’d taken part in more than his fair share of busts, assisting various government and State Police task forces.
Assisted? Ha. Sat around with my thumb up my ass is more like it, he thought, taking a sip of cold coffee and then tossing the cup of vile sludge into the trash. The Staties had no more use for local cops than the Feds did; both saw him and his men as uneducated gophers. Still, being part of the task forces looked good in the papers and sure as shit helped out at election time.
He’d seen people shot, helped pull half-eaten corpses from the swamps, and cleaned up after drunken highway wrecks. He’d broken up more bar fights than he could count, and he’d had to identify more bodies of friends and family than any small-town lawman should have to.
But through it all, he’d felt he was making a difference.
Today was different.
Even if Moselby, who at that very moment was grilling Mouse Bates in the tiny storage area that doubled as the station’s interrogation room, got one or more of the Hell Riders to confess – which was highly unlikely – it still wouldn’t be good enough.
Shit, even if we send all their dumb asses to jail, it won’t be good enough.
Because it wouldn’t bring back Sally Ryder’s boy.
Had it happened a couple of years earlier, he might have felt differently about the whole situation. Back then, Little Eddie was nothing more than a punk, hanging out with other punks, going nowhere fast. Sally was still healthy, and Jones had harbored hopes – slim hopes, but hopes nonetheless – that he might win her heart after she got over Big Eddie disappearing. Something he’d been waiting for ever since he chickened out on asking her for a date back in high school.
Things had changed, though, when Sally took ill. She went downhill fast and there was no longer room in her life for anything except spending time with her boys and trying not to die. At the height of it all, Little Eddie’d gone and gotten himself in real trouble with that robbery. But just when Jones thought the kid would turn into a full-time criminal, Eddie’d turned his life around and actually got things on track. Went to work each day. Kept food on the table for the family. Became the man of the house. Most of all, got free of that damn gang and stayed out of trouble.
And now this.
Goddamn Hell Riders.
No matter how hard he’d tried, he never felt as if he’d done enough to put an end to their troublemaking, never come down on them as hard as he’d wanted to, all the way back to when his own son had gotten involved with them. Did that make Eddie’s death his fault? Maybe a small part of it was. But he’d never imagined they’d amount to more than petty criminals, getting busted here and there for DWIs or dealing, possibly the occasional drunken robbery, like Eddie and Ned Bowman.
Not arson. Or murder.
Mostly they kept to themselves at the clubhouse they’d built way out in the swamps. Out of sight and out of mind, that was how he usually looked at it. Just like everyone else. Folks in Hell Creek preferred not to make a fuss unless it was absolutely necessary.
Besides, a couple of the Hell Riders came from old town families, families who still had a lot of pull. The kind of pull that could cost an elected cop his job. Even if that cop happened to have a son who’d died as a result of their stupid antics.
Was that my fault too?
Another question he’d asked himself for years. Jeff had been fifteen when he’d lost control of his bike, wacked out of his mind on coke and booze.
Could I have stopped it?
Logic said no. The kid had lived with
his mother, out on the edge of town. She and Johnny Ray had never married, and although he’d tried his best to do right by Jeff and stay involved in his life, there’d never been any love lost between them. Their relationship had grown even worse after Johnny Ray married Angelina, although after Kellie was born Jeff had been pretty decent to her. Made sure to show up on birthdays and holidays to give her presents. She’d taken it hard when he died, and that had been a lot of the impetus for Johnny Ray increasing how much attention he paid to the Hell Riders.
Increased, but never to the point where I ruffled feathers among the people who got me elected.
Could I have done more?
The answer was yes, of course. But would it have been enough to break up the Hell Riders?
If I’d tried, I might have gotten the axe, and maybe not been around to help Eddie when he got in trouble. Of course, then he’d be alive now. In jail, but alive.
“Shit.” Jones stood up, the taste of guilt and self-loathing even more bitter than the break room coffee. “I might as well make myself useful now.”
So far, Moselby had only brought in three of the Hell Riders.
Why should he have all the fun?
Chapter Five
Carson Ryder stared at his brother’s grave and reflected on how wrong it was to be burying someone on such a warm, sunny day.
It should be cold and rainy, like you see in movies. People standing around in long, black coats with umbrellas, not baking in the sun and sweating through their shirts as they toss their roses on the coffin and walk away.
Then, as it had so many times during the wake, the burial mass, and even the funeral itself, his mind circled back to the same thought.
Why, Eddie? Why’d you have to be such a jerk? It isn’t fair! What are we going to do now?
Carson knew it was selfish and wrong to think that way, that it wasn’t Eddie’s fault. Chief Jones had told them what happened. Eddie’d been the victim of a crime. But in Carson’s mind, it was Eddie’s fault. He was the one who’d gotten involved with that stupid gang in the first place. He was the one who snuck over to the garage every night, instead of staying home with his family. He was the one—
The one who abandoned us. Who left us alone.
Alone and broke. Can’t forget that last part. With the official verdict of arson on the records, the insurance company had already told them no claim would be paid out until the investigation was complete. Which could be weeks. In the meantime, they barely had enough money left in the bank to cover this month’s mortgage plus household expenses. After that they’d need public assistance to supplement his mother’s meager government check.
The urge to kick over the assorted potted plants and sympathy wreaths ran through Carson so unexpectedly that his foot actually came several inches off the ground before he got control of himself. Even then, his legs and arms trembled as he fought to keep from running amok through the flowers, destroying everything he could get his hands on, a giant-sized temper tantrum that would leave him exhausted and crying but maybe, just maybe, satisfied.
What stopped him was the realization that it was exactly what his brother would have done. Or his father. Flown into a mindless rage.
I’m not like them. I’m not—
“Carson, it’s time to go.”
Carson took a deep breath before turning around. His mother, seated in her wheelchair, her face frighteningly skull-like behind the black veil she wore, waited a few yards down the path. Chief Jones, standing straight and tall behind her, looked super-official in his dress uniform with all the medals and ribbons. Carson knew the honor was more for his mother than for Eddie. Hell, the only other people who’d come to the funeral were his mother’s friends from town and a few patrons of St. Maria’s, the church she still attended whenever she could find the strength.
Not a single person under the age of thirty-five.
That alone showed how unpopular Eddie’d been.
And me, too. None of my friends came.
Not that he’d expected them to. It was a school day, after all, and how many parents were going to let their kids miss school to attend the funeral of a local delinquent? Carson was well aware that’s how the town still thought of Eddie. That much had been evident when only a couple of them showed up for the wake, staying just long enough to be polite before their parents ushered them out. The same parents who’d gossiped about what a loser Eddie was, while still bringing their cars to him for repairs.
Of course, they didn’t have much choice. Unless you wanted to drive twenty miles to Homestead, it was either bring your car to Eddie or use Spencer’s Gas Station at the other end of town. And while Eddie might have a bad reputation, Carl Spencer hadn’t seen a sober day in thirty years. His gas was cheap, but he wasn’t the kind of person you wanted fixing your brakes.
“Carson, we have to go. We have guests coming to the house.”
Guests. A handful of people bearing casserole dishes and platitudes. Semi-false sympathies would be on everyone’s lips. They’d feel sorry for Sally Ryder’s grief, but no real sense of loss over the death of someone they secretly felt she was better off without.
Carson they’d ignore completely.
“Carson!” Not a shout, but enough emphasis on the word to let him know she was getting impatient.
“Coming.” He dropped a final rose on the ground in front of Eddie’s casket and ground it into the sun-baked ground with one dress shoe.
“Thanks a lot, bro. You really screwed us this time.”
* * *
Eddie wanted to smash his non-existent head with his equally non-existent fists as he watched his brother walk away from the casket. The past three days had been hell for him. Whatever he was – soul, essence, ghost – he’d remained a prisoner to his dead body, dragged along as it was sliced, diced, sewn together again, driven to the funeral home, and locked away in the cheapest coffin available. No open-casket viewing, not when you looked like something dredged up from the bottom of a deep fryer. Then there’d been the wake, with his family weeping and his mother’s friends alternately offering condolences and gossiping. That had been a real joy to watch. Even worse was after they’d left, when he’d had to spend the night bored out of his skull staring at a dark room.
He’d tried to repeat what had happened in the morgue, when he’d somehow managed to affect the electrical system. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t make anything happen. All his efforts got him was a headache, which totally didn’t make sense since he didn’t even have a fucking head to hurt.
On the morning of the funeral, his anger had grown exponentially at the thought of spending the rest of eternity staring down at his grave while his killers went on enjoying life. Did this happen to all ghosts, or was it just more of the Ryder family bad luck? Watching his mother cry again and then listening to Carson curse him out hadn’t improved his mood.
Eddie paused his ongoing rant as he saw a young girl approach Carson. They looked about the same age, although he couldn’t get a clear look at her face. Good. Maybe a girlfriend will help him get his head out of those video games.
Then it struck him that he’d never see Carson grow up, never see him graduate high school or college or become a success. Never get the chance to high-five him the first time he scored with a girl or stand next to him when he got married.
It was too much.
All his anger, all his regrets, came rushing up and out in one huge, bellowing scream, a scream only he could hear.
A scream echoed by sudden thunder in the cloudless sky.
* * *
“Carson?”
Carson, momentarily distracted by a rumble of thunder, turned as Kellie Jones, the Chief’s daughter, approached him. He’d seen her standing by her father during the funeral, a familiar face not only from the classes they’d had together over the years but from the times she’d stopped by
the house with her father to drop off food. Not that they were friends. Except for those few visits, they’d never really said more than hello, and when he’d noticed her during the ceremony he’d assumed her father had made her come. It wasn’t like anyone as hot as Kellie would ever give a second thought about a bookworm like him.
Still, he had to be polite, especially with his mother and the Chief right there.
“Hi, Kellie. Thanks for coming.”
She glanced back at her father, who crouched next to Sally, deeply engaged in conversation. Then she turned to Carson and lowered her voice.
“I made my father take me. Told him if he didn’t, I’d just cut school and come anyway.”
“What?” Carson felt as if the world had slipped sideways a few inches. It was a feeling he’d been having a lot since Eddie’s death. “Why would you do that?”
She tilted her head and he missed her next words, his attention focused on the red highlights in her brown hair and the way the sun sparked in her green eyes.
Something hit his arm, and he realized she’d punched him.
“Hey!”
“Hey, nothing. Did you hear what I said?”
Slow fire crept up his neck and into his face. “Umm, I….”
Kellie laughed, a good-natured sound, not at all like the mocking, derisive laughter he usually heard from his classmates. “That’s what I figured. I’ll give it another shot. I came because it was the right thing to do, and ’cause I thought you might, you know, need someone to talk to. If you want.”
She kept smiling at him, and he wondered what she was waiting for.
Then it hit him. She’s flirting with you.
On the heels of that came another thought: Yeah, right.
Not a girl like Kellie. No, she probably just felt bad for him. Or her father had told her to do it. Of course, it would be nice to spend some time with her. And being seen in public with one of the cutest girls in school wouldn’t exactly tarnish his reputation, either. One thing he knew about Kellie, she wasn’t the type to be mean or cruel. Not like a lot of the other girls his age.
