The Abandon Series | Book 2 | These Times of Retribution

by Schow, Ryan

  The frat kid’s body was too far over his legs, and he couldn’t run fast enough to catch the momentum. He crashed face-first into the floor, then pulled himself up and staggered off, cursing Aaron up and down. Just outside the building’s front door, he bent over and puked all over the concrete.

  He turned to Jason. The skinny white kid looked up at him, crying, little chunks of puke and puke-slime all over his mouth and nose.

  “You can’t just kick me out of my own room.”

  Aaron started kicking him, really putting one over on him. “Say it again, Jason! Say I can’t kick you out of your room. Because I just kicked you. And now you need to clean up your mess and get out.”

  Other people were popping their heads out into the hallway, seeing what was going on.

  “Go back to bed!” he roared.

  “Where am I supposed to stay?” Jason asked, blubbering, blood dripping from his nose.

  “Go back to your frat house, stay with your little boyfriends. Request a transfer, check into a homeless shelter, I don’t care.”

  Jason ended up staying at the frat house. But in his haste, he left more than a few things behind. One of those things was a mini Louisville Slugger bat. An eighteen-inch collector’s item. Aaron grabbed the bat, and then he went to his drawer and pulled out his change tray. He fished out a handful of quarters and a few nickels. From another drawer, he fetched a roll of packing tape and some thumbtacks. He stuck a line of quarters on the heavy-duty tape, then wrapped the bat with the tape. He packed on another row of quarters and thumbtacks, the ragged end of the bat now two strips wide. After that, he lined the open spaces with nickels, then he used the packing tape to hold them in place. Standing back, he swung the bat, felt the heaviness of the bat’s head.

  “Almost there,” he said, satisfied, maybe even a bit excited.

  He lined another strip with thumbtacks this time, then put in place so all the little spikes were sticking out. Now it was ready. Holding the bat at his side, he turned to his photo diary of Leighton.

  “All I do is save you, you ungrateful wench,” he said, gently touching her face, his finger gliding along the curve of her jaw. “One day you’ll thank me.”

  Renewed, full of purpose, he left the dorm, walked outside into the rain, the downed trees, and the cold breeze. What few people remained on campus took a wide berth around him as he headed to Leighton’s dorm room. He stepped inside the building, unmolested by RAs or scared girls. He knew the lock on Leighton’s door was broken because he broke it last time he was there.

  The door was shut now, but it wasn’t locked into place. He knelt down, studied the lock in what light there was. Could he get the tongue free of the latch without making much noise? He wasn’t sure. He took the knob in his hand, gave it a little turn, then shook the door ever so slightly to see how much play he had to work with.

  While he was kneeling down studying the lock, the door was suddenly yanked opened and he found himself looking up at the asshole who had chased him down when he interrupted what could have been Chandra’s rape.

  From where he was, Aaron threw an uppercut into the man’s ham house. Bending over, grabbing his balls, the guy backed up with a breathless squeak.

  Aaron scrambled backward and grabbed the bat, but he took a knee to the forehead first, which threw him back into the wall. Frantic, he swung the bat, catching the would-be rapist in the side of the leg.

  He hobbled back fast, spitting out curses.

  Aaron hit him again, but the guy wasn’t running away. He was able to fend off Aaron’s initial attacks, but not for long. Even worse, he was on his feet while Aaron was stuck on the ground.

  Risking everything, he fought to get up, but this whacked-out animal wasn’t having it. He attacked fast and hard. Aaron ate three or four glancing shots to the face, slammed his back into the hallway’s wall, then pushed himself sideways and managed to get to his feet. Aaron was fast, but not fast enough. The guy was on him like stink on crap.

  Aaron somehow caught him with an elbow. He landed the blow right on the side of the creep’s head, which absolutely wrecked him.

  Grabbing a handful of his assailant’s hair, Aaron head-butted him. He felt the man sag in his arms, but he didn’t fall down. Instead of beating this man to death—this guy who looked like he could take everything he gave—Aaron leaned in and took a huge bite of his nose.

  Sinking his teeth into the outsides of each nostril, Aaron clamped down hard and began tearing at the flesh like a rabid dog.

  The man screamed, but he couldn’t stop Aaron from doing what he was doing. When the blood flooded into Aaron’s mouth, he tried not to smile. Instead, he curled his hands into fists, flexed his body, pulled the man in even tighter.

  At this point, he didn’t even feel the punches anymore. They’d either stopped coming or they’d lost their power.

  “Hey!” someone screamed.

  A girl.

  He didn’t care.

  “That guy is eating the other guy’s face!” she screamed.

  “ZOMBIES!” someone screamed.

  Aaron heard the trampling of feet, then he felt little-girl fists beating on him. He refused to let go of this guy’s nose. If anything, the surprise attack made him bite down deeper and shake his head back and forth even harder.

  From the girls, swinging fists became kicking feet, and the vocal warnings became full-scale yelling. He ignored the weak attacks, even when fists became claws and someone raked their fingernails down the back of his neck.

  Through all of it, the man wouldn’t stop screaming. He finally gave up the fight. Did he think he could keep his nose? Did he think submitting would make things easier, that Aaron would just let go? No, it would not.

  Aaron’s teeth finally punched through the flesh, teeth meeting teeth. In a final display of force and dominance, he jerked his head sideways, tearing off the man’s nose completely.

  He spat out the flesh, then turned and started punching the three or four girls trying to stop him. It only took a few shots for the vagina mob to finally run off and mind their own freaking business.

  “You bit off my freaking nose!” the guy screamed, squelching, high-pitched sounds coming from his face.

  He picked up the mini Louisville slugger and began clubbing the nose-less, blood-stained fiend. Under the weight of wood, nickels, and quarters, the man’s skin started to split back to his skull. He staggered backward, collapsed to his knees. He was now crying, it seemed, but he wasn’t fighting back.

  With the outside light casting him in an eerie glow, he looked like he was going into shock. Aaron was just getting started. Two more shots to the dome finally put the man down. But this fairy tale wasn’t over, not by a mile. Aaron struck him again, cracking the bat so hard, it split right up the center. Looking at the fractured bat, he frowned. Then he broke the rest of it over his knee, keeping the sharp half for himself.

  “That girl you were waiting for,” Aaron said, “she’s not yours. Not now, not ever.”

  And with that, he raised up and drove the sharp end of the bat right down into the man’s throat. The old guy just laid there, maybe dead, maybe dying and on the way to dead. Either way, taking no chances, he stomped on his face until he was dead, dead, dead.

  When he turned and looked up, one of the girls was standing in the doorway, the light coming in to frame her. She was like a terrified angel. He faked like he was going after her, which caused her to bolt.

  Turning back to the pig he’d just stuck, he said, “I got you.” He waited in silence in case there was a reply, a gasp, or a gurgle. There was nothing. He got down on his hands and knees, pressed his lips right to the man’s ear, and said, “Did you hear that? I. Got. You.”

  He started to laugh, but then he heard someone screech. Looking up, he saw the beautiful blond he’d been hunting. Leighton.

  “My oh my, my, my,” he grinned. “Looky what we have here.”

  He quickly pawed the blood out of his eyes only to find it was
not her, but someone who looked a lot like her.

  “You’d better get off that man,” she said, scared.

  “Too late, sweetheart.”

  He got to his feet, but by then, she’d turned and ran. He went after her. She flew through doors; he blew through them a second later, broke into a sprint, then caught her a hundred yards later.

  He grabbed her hair, pulled her off her feet, and slammed her on the ground. He started to stomp on her body when he was tackled sideways by some guy he didn’t know. The guy, who looked like a student, punched Aaron two, three times.

  Aaron got to his feet, but he was wobbly and fighting for balance. His vision cleared in time to eat a monster wrecking-ball of a shot right to the kisser.

  The good thing was that he didn’t feel a thing. The bad thing was that by the time he hit the ground, he was already unconscious.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sheriff Lance Garrity

  Halfway through the day, with nothing but chaos raining down upon him, Garrity forgot all about the murders and about how he wanted nothing more than sleep and darkness, and a bit more booze. Instead, he and his deputies were doing everything they could to keep from getting overrun by people needing and demanding help. Crisis management was the catchphrase that kept them moving when they got overwhelmed. Forget about serving warrants, collecting taxes, or dealing with low-level complaints. By the time noon rolled around, the office had stacked up more problems than they could ever hope to get their arms around. Then they got word that the looting and violence had begun.

  Members from the Methodist church across the street came to the sheriff’s office to offer their help and services. He was quick to accept the help, and he was thankful. He and Laura shared a look of relief, both of them looking like they might be able to get things back under control. If anything, the unexpected help gave Garrity and his people a chance to breathe. Looking out into the lobby, he saw about eight people left to deal with.

  “How many of you have crimes to report?” he asked.

  All of them raised their hands.

  He went through the eight of them asking for the location of the crime they were reporting, and then he referred three of them to Nicholasville P.D. on N. Main St.

  “I waited in this line for you to help me,” the man complained, “not for you to turn me away.”

  “These are jurisdictional considerations I can’t ignore,” he said. “Not even in a crisis as severe as this one.”

  “The jurisdictional bullshit thing ain’t gonna work, Sheriff,” one of them said. Garrity didn’t know the man personally. “We need the law. Are you the law or what?”

  “In this jurisdiction, I am.”

  “Well, I’m standing in your damn living room, Sheriff!” the man all but roared. “How’s that for jurisdiction?”

  He knew the man’s anger was directed at him, but only because he needed help. “What brought you here, then?”

  The guy looked at the people around him, then at the sheriff. His frantic eyes were jumpy, his hands trembling at his sides, a nervous shake in his leg. “My neighbor did…things with my…daughter. Things you just can’t do to…you know…”

  “How old is he?” Garrity asked.

  “Forty-one, I think.”

  “What about your daughter?”

  “She’s fourteen.”

  Garrity motioned him over, then motioned him closer still. He leaned his ear toward the sheriff, who said, “Nicholasville P.D.”

  The man pulled back, pissed off. “They’re up to their tits in complaints. You stand in that line, you commit your whole day waiting for them to say they can’t get to squat because no one is in imminent danger.”

  He motioned for the guy to come closer again.

  “No, man. I know you’re working inside each other’s jurisdictions, especially with the defunding project. I’ve seen you working in town, your cars and your deputies.”

  He was right. Because circumstances necessitated it, the Jessamine County Sheriff’s Office and Nicholasville P.D. were working together in the city and county, the same as Mexico and Canada sometimes helped the US out, even though they were over the border and out of their jurisdiction. Not that he wanted to admit any of this.

  “Come here or get out,” Garrity finally said, his temper turning.

  The guy leaned in again, reluctant, mad.

  “Kill him, burn him, burn his whole house down in the middle of the night.”

  The guy stood tall and looked at him with wide eyes.

  “Really?”

  “You see another solution?”

  He shook his head.

  “Next!”

  When he and Laura got through enough of them, Laura leaned in and said, “You didn’t really say what I thought I heard you say, did you?”

  “What did I say?” he asked.

  She just stared at him, clearly shaken, almost like she was speechless and hoping he’d fill the silence with a suitable explanation.

  “I hate pedophiles,” he said.

  “Everyone does.”

  “They’ll have their rights back when we have our power back on.”

  She moved closer, even though there was only one other person in the lobby—a woman who was busy filling out a complaint form. “I can’t hear you say things like that again. Do you understand me?”

  “You can’t hear it, I understand.”

  “I don’t disagree with you, though,” she said. “I just can’t know.”

  “Plausible deniability?”

  She nodded.

  The woman with the complaint form came up. He read it. He looked up at her and said, “Drugs?”

  She fixed her face, almost like she hated the sound of that word. With overly-serious eyes, she moved her head up and down, nodding slowly, solemnly. “Y’all busted these fools before,” she said calmly, “you can do it again.”

  Jessamine County Sheriff’s Office and the local P.D. had made the news recently. A joint task force had formed to clean up the drug problems both in the city and in the county. Two weeks back, over a three-day weekend, they made their largest bust ever. They confiscated enough coke, heroin, meth, and gabapentin to put the city on cruise control for the rest of the year. It was that kind of career-making success that got him noticed by the governor.

  “That was a task force,” he said. “Takedowns like that take months of careful coordination, not days, and not by one guy.”

  “I can tell you where and who,” she offered.

  He took out a slip of paper and a pen, slid them both her way. “Write down the address.”

  Satisfied, holding his eye to see if he was merely pacifying her—which he wasn’t—she gave him that look like she wanted to trust him, to believe him.

  She wrote down the address, handed it to him, then said, “You sure?” It was the unasked question: will you do right by me?

  “I’m positive.”

  She turned and left, and a moment later, he followed her out of the building in dire need of a breath of fresh air. Today was tough, but it would get worse. As soon as the casual users and the hardcore junkies ran out of their recreational drugs, when they started to detox and go bat-shit crazy, Garrity was pretty sure they’d turn into freaking zombies, wandering the streets looking wan, with bloodshot eyes, and gnashing teeth. Maybe they’d fall down in the streets holding themselves, shivering, but maybe they’d turn violent before all that happened. What would he do then? Shoot them?

  “This is unbelievable,” Laura said to Garrity.

  He hadn’t heard her come outside.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Before they could share another word, a three-wheeled ATV—an old Honda with balloon tires and faded plastic fenders—rolled up and parked. The woman riding it pulled her helmet off. It was Deputy Marilyn Reed. He and Laura smiled, both just happy to see her.

  “Did I miss anything?” Marilyn asked.

  Marilyn was not an attractive woman, but she was sturdy and had a tem
per hot enough to keep a healthy store of rage on tap should the situation call for it. He knew he could count on her not just on the streets, but in the office as well.

  The women walked inside while he savored the fresh air and peace. Then the Jeep that ran the Honda Pilot off the road pulled up and he reached for his pistol. When he saw who was driving, he frowned, then relaxed. Colt and Gator climbed out of the Jeep, and honestly, he couldn’t be happier to see them both. They met with handshakes and weary smiles.

  “Man,” Gator said holding his nose, “you stink.”

  “BO or alcohol?” he asked.

  “Both,” Colt said.

  “I’m not in the best shape right now,” Garrity said. “We’ve been overrun since I got here. And I haven’t had a shower in…well, it’s been a minute.”

  The second Gator said he stunk, Garrity covertly smelled himself. He reeked like a homeless person: body odor, bad breath, booze fumes oozing out of his pores.

  “You’re former military,” Garrity said to Gator. “What’s your take on this?”

  “EMP we think,” Gator said.

  “Yeah, but by who?”

  Gator looked at Colt and then back to Garrity. Clearly, this was a point of discussion between them. “We’re not exactly sure, but we have mixed suspicions.”

  “In other words,” Colt said, “we’re not a hundred percent in agreement.”

  The three of them stared at each other, no one really having anything to add. Appraising the Jeep, frowning at it, Garrity said, “Didn’t think this freaking turd would be running after an EMP.”

  “That kind of lends to our suspicions,” Gator said.

  “His suspicions, not mine,” Colt corrected him, almost like he didn’t want to touch the issue with a ten-foot pole.

  Garrity glanced between the two of them then raised an eyebrow.

  Colt continued. “We started kicking around the idea of the Hayseed Rebellion having a hand in this. They’re good on the ground, some of them tactically trained it seems, but I don’t think they have the resources or the reach to pull off anything even close to an EMP.”