"Hello, Jake," Talon said, pretending to ignore their conversation. "How are you feeling?"
"Hey Talon,” Jake said, uncomfortably. “I'm hanging in there."
Talon nodded, listening to Cort and Pam go back and forth. “How's Whisper and Diana doing?" Jake asked.
"They are doing well. I sent them ahead of me to Hometown. As soon as you’re ready to travel we will join them there."
"Good. That's good." Jake stared at the IV in his arm. “It will be nice to see them again.”
“John’s turned, Pam!” Cort yelled from the hallway. “Don’t you understand what that means?!”
“I hope you burn in hell, Cort. I really do. You and Billy and your goddamn war has brought nothing but pain to everyone around you! And now he’s paid the price for it and so has John! And that boy in there, you turned him into a . . . a . . . murderer!”
“Don’t you dare say that!” Cort yelled back. “What was left of Billy was nothing but a monster, Pam! He was already gone!”
“I’m done with you Cort, with all of you Hunters. I’m going home and am going to pretend I never met any of you! You and Talon and Ben and the rest of you can all go straight to hell! I’m done!”
“If you do that you’ll die, Pam. As sure I am standing here right now, you’ll die. You have to get out of the state, out of the territory. The only safe place is across the river.”
“You mean the same river that I begged all of you to cross at least a hundred times? That river?” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Pam . . .” Cort begged, “please.”
“Goodbye Cort,” Pam sobbed. “You stupid son of a bitch. I hope when John turns you that you and your son will be very happy together,” she sobbed again, the pain in her voice ripping a great big hole in Jake’s already broken heart.
Her voice softened to the point Jake had to strain to hear it. “The least you can do is give your grandson a fighting chance,” she said. “Get him out of this shit, Cort. For the sake of whatever is left of your soul, get him out before he murders someone else’s father.”
Jake heard her footsteps echo down the hall then the front door slammed shut hard enough to rattle pictures on the wall.
Cort stepped back into the room his face completely pale. “Talon, please, follow her home. Keep an eye on her for at least tonight.”
“You’ve got it, Cort.” Talon nodded. “I’ve got my cell phone on me, call me if you need anything.”
"What the hell is going on?" Jake asked his voice filled with emotion. "Dad’s still ‘alive’?"
"Later, later," Cort said moving to lift Jake from the bed. "Right now we've got to get you into the truck."
“Screw that!” Jake winced as he jerked his arm away from him. “Stop treating me with kid gloves. Tell me the truth.”
Cort sighed, “I had Henry Anderson check out the farmhouse. John and Pearl’s bodies weren’t there.”
“But that means . . .” Jake stammered.
“It means that there’s a good possibility they are already on their way here,” Talon finished for him.
A sharp violent pain ran through the back of Jake’s head. He grabbed it with both hands yelling out in pain.
“Jake!” he heard his grandfather’s voice call out, then there was only darkness.
Chapter 7
Jake
Somewhere in Eastern New Mexico
September 10, 2001 10:30pm
Jake awoke strapped into the front seat of his father’s truck. In his lap sat a framed picture of himself with both of his parents taken not long before his mother’s disappearance. Mom . . . Dad . . . I’ve lost you both. He stared hard at the picture, burning the image into his brain. The excruciating pain from the wounds in his chest was dull in comparison to knowing he was now an orphan. That coupled with the guilt over killing Billy was almost too much to bear. “Where are we?” he muttered groggily.
Cort nearly leapt out of his seat. “You’re awake!” he said wiping his eyes. “Thank God. I was afraid I’d lost you too.”
“No,” Jake said sadly, “everyone else gets to die while I miraculously live on.”
“I’m sorry about what Pam said Jake. She didn’t mean it, not really. She’s just upset.”
“She meant it,” Jake stated flatly. “And honestly, who can blame her? I did murder her father.”
“You killed a grunt, end of story.” Cort reached into a small bag sitting between them and pulled out a prescription pill bottle. "Take that," he handed the bottle to Jake. "Pam said it should help with the pain."
"Grandpa, where are we going?" Jake asked. He popped the cap and put two little white pills in his mouth swallowing them dry.
"I'll tell you son, just not right now. Let me get out of Dodge then I'll fill you in. Okay? Right now I can only handle one thing at a time. It's taking all I've got just to keep it together."
You’re having a hard time keeping it together? Jake wanted to scream. I’m the one that’s dying! I’m the one that had to cut Billy’s head off! I’m the one that splattered Dad’s head like a damn watermelon! Jake took a deep breath and for the first time saw how bad his grandpa looked. His gray hair, which was always kept combed back, hung loosely over his wrinkled forehead. His cheek was filled with an overly large wad of chewing tobacco. A black and silver flask of what the old man referred to as “holy water” sat open and empty on the dash. Jake had never even seen him openly drink from it before. It was always a bit of a novelty, a joke among family and friends that he carried it in case of an “emergency”.
Cort put his hand on Jake's shoulder gripping it tightly almost knowing what his grandson was thinking. "I’m all right boy. It’s just been one hellaciously terrible day.”
Jake lowered his head gripping the picture tightly. His heart swam in guilt. "It's all my fault. I should have known better. I should have told you about the little girls. I should have recognized Billy, it's just, it was so dark in there and I was so amped up and just . . . scared."
Cort shook his head. "For the last time, Jake, it is not your fault. John was a hunter. Billy was a hunter. They knew the risks. Nothing you could have done would have changed that. Billy, or what was left of Billy, would have to have been put down sooner or later. Believe me you did him a favor. And as for the little girls, you're not the first person those little demons have fooled."
Jake's mind flooded with images of Pearl's blood covered face peeking up from where she’d been feeding on his father. Then he remembered something else, Cort had called her by name. "Wait a second! You knew her name. Grandpa how did you know her name?"
Cort let out a deep sigh. “The oldest one is named Pearl. The one whose head is riding in the bed of the truck was called Anna. I met them, years ago in a small town in Oklahoma.”
“You came across them before and they are still alive? How’d that happen?”
“For a while, back in the mid 60s, I was a member of a pretty large team operating out of Dallas. They were all a bunch of cocky little bastards. Thought nothing could touch them. Hell, I wasn't much better." Cort rolled down his window spitting out a mouthful of tobacco juice. “We'd been trailing a group of Makers that had been terrorizing most of Southern Oklahoma and Northern Texas for more than two months. We caught up with them in an old abandoned school. Huge den. Up until Twister it was the biggest I’d ever seen. We'd kick open a door and one would charge us, kick open another door and three would drop from the ceiling. On and on it went all day. By sundown we’d killed a total of fifteen, all of them Makers. We thought we’d got them all and were about to torch the place when my old partner, Tommy Turner, Buck's grandpa, found two young girls crying under an old teacher's desk. He brought them outside cradled in his arms. “Survivors!” he'd screamed out”
Jake nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought when I found them.”
"Well, the little hell spawns waited until Tommy had taken them outside then started killing us left and right. I can still see Pearl ripping To
mmy's head clean off his body. Only myself, Big Mike Casino, and Billy survived out of nine men. We jumped in our truck and high-tailed it out of there. The others were dead, the sun was down, and there was nothing we could have done. So we tucked our tails between our legs and ran. We didn’t return until the next morning and buried what was left of the others. I learned the little demon's names several years later from an old friend of my dad's. He said he'd come across them back in the 20's. I never saw them again until today.”
“But Grandpa, how could they be that strong?” Jake asked. "Billy, er that grunt, bit right into my neck but couldn’t penetrate the chainmail but that tiny little girl, stuck her claws through both my vest and body suit, and didn't even have to strain!"
Cort seemed to grow angry, “Boy if I ever teach you one thing that you never forget, that’s to never underestimate a Maker. It doesn’t matter if they look old as dirt, or are new born babes, they are unpredictable, powerful, and always, always, always, liars.”
He turned back to the road and the two men sat in silence for a good ten minutes before Jake spoke again. "How in the world did they draw Billy away from Hometown?"
"I have no idea. All I can figure is that it's like Talon said, it had to be a trap. Probably been trying to figure a way to turn one of us for years! Think of the knowledge they'd gain if they turned one of us into a Maker, they’d get the locations of every hunter hideout and safe house the Coalition has."
"Then why'd they turn Billy into a grunt?"
"Maybe something went wrong. Maybe he fought back and turned before they could finish the job. Maybe they just had a grudge against John and me and wanted to make a point. Who knows?"
“I think that was it. Pearl said she was the one that killed Terry, the one that killed Mom. Do you think she was telling the truth?”
Cort furrowed his brows, “Like I said, Makers are liars. You can’t trust anything they say.”
“So you don’t think she was telling the truth about Mom?" Jake asked.
“I don’t know,” Cort answered truthfully. “Maybe she did do all those things. Then again maybe she was just trying to get under John’s skin. There’s no way to know for sure. Anyway, you better get some rest."
Jake stared out the window watching the terrain go by. The image of John's deformed face staring through that burning doorway wouldn't leave him. Before closing his eyes he asked one more question, "Grandpa?"
"Yes Jake?"
"Do you think any part of Dad is left alive in there?"
"No son, I don't," Cort said with a tremor in his voice.
Jake's eyes grew heavy with sleep as the pain meds kicked in.
When he awoke, the moon was high in the night sky and Cort was pulling into a ratty looking, stucco motel with a gas station and bar attached. It was shaped into a type of giant U where all the rooms faced the parking lot. From the look of things there wasn’t another building around for miles. "What time is it?" he managed to say through his dry, parched lips.
Cort looked down at his watch, "It is 12:35am New Mexico time."
Jake tried to sit up straight. "New Mexico?" he said, running a hand over his face. Why are we in New Mexico?"
The Return Motel, the sign read. The lights flashed vacancy in a neon purple light. Below it read Room’s with color TV's now available. Jake shook his head not sure what was going on. "Where the heck are we?" he muttered through his daze. “I thought we were headed to Hometown.”
Cort looked straight ahead as he pulled the truck to a stop in front of the office.
"We are, but not yet. For now we’re stopping at a safe house in a little ghost town called Lonesome Heart. Hopefully this will throw them off of our trail," Cort said, turning the ignition off killing the engine. "Ben and Cat just barely set this one up a couple of months back. It’s a shithole at best.” He yawned deeply. “For us it's a place to hold up for the night. Catch our breaths before heading across country. We’ll try and catch a private flight out of Roswell tomorrow morning or the next day at the latest.”
“Maybe Secretary Hernandez or Colonel Judge can hook us up with a flight,” Jake suggested.
“Maybe,” Cort said not sounding very enthused. “Anyway, there are enough Hunters here that even if a vampire did manage to find it they’d have to be insane to come near it."
"Well at least they have color TV's," Jake said, touching the now very wet bandages on his stitched chest. He looked up at the now empty IV hooked to the coat hanger above him. “Plus I need a refill.”
Cort smiled out of the corner of his mouth, put the truck in park and got out. He leaned in through the opened window and grabbed his pack of chewing tobacco off the dash. "Sit tight. I'll be right back."
"Sure thing," Jake said, too tired and weak to move. He looked around at the dusty, litter covered parking lot. A pile of tumbleweeds nearly five feet tall sat wedged in a corner on the south end near the dilapidated gas station.
Across the lot, near the bar with a bright blue neon sign advertising Co rs L ht, sat a large group of about eight or nine bikers, leaning on their Harleys. They stared quizzically at Jake. Jake stared back completely oblivious to the fact that one of his former best friends, Buck Turner, was among them.
His thought's drifted once again to his dad in that burning house. His eyes filled with rage, terror, and fear. He was so afraid . . . and I just left him there. His ears started ringing and another sharp pain shot through the back of his skull. Jake closed his eyes tight, then turned and threw up in the floorboard. He coughed uncontrollably. Bits of stringy vomit dripped down his chin. He leaned back unable to even wipe his mouth or the tears streaming down his cheeks. “Dad . . .” he cried out weakly.
A few minutes later Cort came back to the truck with a familiar looking Hispanic woman with long brown hair and a pleasant but worried look on her face.
She came to the door, opened it and said, in a deep accent, “You okay?”
Jake nodded weakly then coughed, "Just peachy, Cat.” He looked down at the pool of puke staining the sheet covered floorboard and gave his grandfather an apologetic look. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Cort said, wiping Jake’s mouth the sleeve of his gray sweatshirt. “I don’t think it will hurt the bloodstains much.”
Cat unhooked the IV from the coat hanger then put Jake’s arm around her shoulder and pulled Jake from the truck, "Mi Dios Cort!" she exclaimed, shaking her head. "This boy is burning with fever!"
Cort draped Jake's other arm over his shoulder. Together they walked to a dark green door with the number nine hanging upside down, looking like a six. Cat stuck a key in the lock and with much needed effort managed to open it.
They walked Jake over to a bed with a stained, dirty comforter over it and carefully laid him on it. Cort walked back outside. Cat turned a lamp on above a nightstand with at least two inches of dust covering it and pulled a bright orange chair from the table next to the bed. "Is Chris here?" Jake asked weakly.
Cat pulled latex gloves out of a small box and began examining his stitched wounds. "Sit still Jake," she said, gently removing the blood soaked bandages. "Yeah he's here. Probably typing away on that computer of his. We didn't know you boys were coming in tonight. If we had we'd have had something a little nicer prepared."
Nicer than this? Jake thought, glancing around the room. He couldn’t help but wonder why she had even bothered with the gloves after laying him on the nastiest comforter he'd ever seen. The rest of the room’s décor matched it perfectly. The carpet probably hadn’t been vacuumed since the Reagan administration’s first term. The remote for the T.V. was bolted to the dresser and the air conditioner, that was missing all of its knobs, was held in place by duct tape. If you put a black light on this sucker I bet you could see it from space!
Cat saw the disgust in his face. “I know it's not the Holiday Inn, but it’s got four walls and a bed, and that’s what you need right now. I’d put you in something nicer but all of the other rooms are filled with Hunte
rs.”
"Can’t wait to see the pool,” Jake replied with a weak smile. “Does the bed vibrate if I put a quarter in it?”
Cat swabbed the wounds with alcohol swabs causing Jake to yelp in pain. "You big baby," she said with a wink in his direction. "You're a smart ass just like your old man."
"Yeah well . . ." Jake said, unable to finish.
"I'm sorry Jake. I wasn't thinking. John was one of the finest men I've ever known."
Jake nodded and smiled. "Thanks Cat. Yeah he was. Is Ben here? Does he know?"
Through the grime covered windows Jake saw the taillights of the Ford back up to the door. Cort stepped out and lowering the tailgate began unloading their gear.
Cat frowned, "No he's not here and as far as I know he doesn’t know. He’s working down in Laredo. I’ve told him a thousand times to keep his damn cell phone on him. I guess I’ll just have to call his motel after I'm done with you. He'll be heartbroken to say the least."
"Did Grandpa tell you about Billy?"
Cat grew quiet for a long time. "Yeah he gave me the short version."
Cort came walking in with the last of their gear and closed the door. He turned the deadbolt. Then put a chair up against the doorknob. "How is he, Cat?"
"It’s still too soon to tell. These wounds look pretty well stitched, Cort. Who patched him up?"
"Pam Williams."
"Oh my dear Pam. How did she take it?"
"Not well," Cort said, “Not well at all. I tried to get her to leave town but she wouldn’t budge. Talon’s with her tonight, maybe he can talk some sense into her.”
“I doubt it,” Jake said his voice filled with pain. “I think Pam was pushed right over the edge tonight.”
"She’s hated Billy as long as I can remember,” Cat said. “Blamed him for every bad thing in her life. It’s terrible how hate can eat at a person, consuming their very soul. The things she said after the funeral . . .” she made a clicking sound with her tongue then sighed.
“Pam’s always had a lot of baggage,” Cort leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.
C.O.T.V.H. (Book 3): Extermination Page 9
