In the camp, there were screams. It was a different clamor, one of anger and fear. More shots rang out. Burke's Glock he recognized without question, along with a few shotgun blasts and other small caliber pistols. Castle began to panic. His feet struggled for purchase in the scree and jagged rocks. He pulled recklessly now and tried not to think about the crate smashing completely open. It careened off of the rocks at the bottom of the ditch. Its wood groaned. He threw open the back door of the suburban. The battle in the camp continued. It had spread out. Stray shots zipped overhead, snapping tree branches and splintering trunks.
Castle crouched to raise up the front end of the crate. Fingers again in the chains, he lifted. He strained. Something in his back popped and tendons in his neck bulged as he gritted his teeth. The end of the crate rose up and wobbled. He shifted his weight under it to keep it from falling and slid it forward. The tip rested on the edge of the suburban. Making sure it wouldn't fall, he stumbled to the back of the crate and pushed. It moved upwards, into the back, with agonizing inches. His feet slipped and slid on the rocks. His right foot lost purchase and his knee smashed into a sharp, flat rock. Warm blood trickled underneath his filthy slacks. With his end of the crate just inches from the ground, he gave it one last burst of strength. It slid into the back, cockeyed. Castle slammed the door closed.
He looked up and through the trees saw shapes move about in the camp. There were more screams. These were unmistakably rage. Castle struggled to make his legs work. His arms hanged limply in their sockets as he fumbled with the keys. His back pulsated with pain that radiated down to his toes. Somehow, he managed to climb inside and start the suburban. The engine roared to life. He threw it into reverse, but waited.
"Come on, Burke. Come on."
More gunshots. More screams.
Castle floored it. The SUV blasted away from the end of the arroyo. It careened out of control. The back bumper gouged dirt out of the side of the ditch. He over-corrected, doing the same to the other side. The winding creek bed was harder to navigate moving this fast and backward. The truck bounced out of control. His head smashed into the ceiling. He didn't let up the gas.
Burke appeared at the tree line. He tumbled down the slope, landing face first in the ditch. His glasses were cracked. His jacket was soaked with blood. He looked up as the SUV sped away. His face sagged with betrayal and Castle felt it in his own chest. Castle watched the man's last sliver of hope escape terrified eyes. Burke sat on his knees in the ditch, the fight drained out of him. Behind him, the Black Goats descended with guns and machetes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hank, Bullet, and Nathan looked at the agent. After the story was out, the man shrank and Hank could see every second of the last forty-eight hours take their toll on him. Filthy, bloody, and exhausted, he was a wreck.
Nathan spoke first. "Your friends - this organization - what is it called."
Castle just shook his head. "The less you know - "
Bullet pounced. "Oh, bullshit. Bull. Shit. Spare us your secret agent act. Are they coming to help us or not?"
"I don't know. I . . . I called for help in Warner, but . . . it was a blind box."
"What?" Hank asked.
"A blind box. It's . . . I didn't have the satphone. Burke. Burke had it. So the only way I could get a message to them is by leaving a voicemail at a number in Oklahoma. It's . . . It's unmonitored. It's only used for specific intel operations, not emergencies. They only check it every now and then."
Hank put his head in his hands. "Oh, Jesus Christ, your organization is stupid."
"So what's in the crate?" Bullet asked.
Agent Castle opened his mouth to speak, but closed it, looking down at the floor. "I'm . . . I'm not at liberty to say."
Hank bristled. "You lead them here. You got my patient killed. We're trapped. I think we're owed an answer."
Castle said nothing. He just met Hank's gaze.
"Alright," Hank said. "We'll open it."
Castle jumped to his feet. "You can't do that."
He moved to intercept Hank but stopped short. Bullet had the barrel of the Ruger pressed to the back of his head. He didn't move, didn't look back at Bullet, but said to Hank, "Don't do this."
Hank stepped over to the crate. Castle reached out to stop them, but lowered his hand when Bullet jabbed the barrel into his neck. Hank knelt and looked at the chains. They were huge, the kind of chains that Hank imagined ocean liners used for their anchors, almost as thick as his torso. He struggled with them, trying to loosen them and find the knot. It was a tangle of old metal and judging by the impressions in the wood, had been that way for a while. He twisted and pulled. Finally, he got a few inches of slack. After that, it was easy, almost as if the chains wanted to be loosed. They clattered to the floor and in the shadows were thick serpents lying in wait. Beneath where the chains had been was a carving. It was all swirling shapes and intersecting lines. Hank didn't recognize it, but something in his bones did. It was ancient. It meant something long forgotten, something he could only comprehend on some primal level. Nathan came with an axe.
"Doctor," Castle said to Hank with a measured voice. "If you open that crate, we're all dead."
Hank looked at him and knew Castle believed what he was saying. It showed in the way he set his jaw and tried to keep his entire body from trembling.
"Agent Castle, we're all dead anyway."
He nodded to Nathan. Nathan planted the edge of the axe into a crack and pried the lid open. The wood and nails groaned. Agent Castle's hands covered his mouth. He stepped away, as if the crate would explode. Bullet let him. Her curiosity got the best of her. She lowered the gun and stepped forward to see. Her hand shot up to cover her nose.
It hit Hank and Nathan. The smell of rot and damp earth overcame them. It was the aroma of the seconds before a rain, and death. The inside of the crate was unnaturally dark. It was filled with rich soil and in that soil were gleaming bits of silver. Hank leaned in closer, close enough that the smell stung his eyes, close enough that he could feel it creeping across his flesh, leaving an oily sheen. The glinting in the darkness. Crucifixes. They were planted all around, more than a dozen of them. Each of them was unique, as if gathered up from wherever they could be found. Some were elaborately cast and no doubt worth some money. Others were simple, carved from wood now stained and half-rotted. And they were all ancient. They stuck out at all angles, pins in a cushion. It looked like a toy graveyard and Hank half-expected to see a tiny, plastic Wolf Man running through the diorama.
But there was something else, something that caught his eye. It was a different kind of gleam, the sharp white of bone. Of teeth. Laying in the center, half buried, was a corpse. It was old, more mummy than man. Wisps of white hair hanged from a mostly bald head. Worms writhed in a hollow socket and through holes in blackened skin. Where the skin had given way to time, the bone stood out, looking shiny and new in comparison to the rot. The hands, taloned nails at the end, were at its sides. It looked peaceful, but when Hank looked at the withered face, his breath was stolen from him. He felt as if he were falling into a nightmare. He realized his hands were shaking. Nathan, too, stepped back and clutched at the cross around his neck.
"What in the hell?" Bullet asked.
Agent Castle was gone. Hank spotted him on the other side of the emergency room. His gun was at his side, but ready. Even from where he stood, Hank could see the whites of his eyes and the pallor of his skin. Castle glowed with fear.
"A corpse?" Hank asked. "Human fucking remains?"
He looked back at Castle for an answer, but Castle was still shrinking away, focused on the crate. "Close it," Castle whispered. "Close it."
"Oh God," Hank heard someone say.
He looked up and saw Nathan drop the axe and cross himself. "Close it, Nathan."
Nathan didn't respond. His lips moved in a silent prayer. Hank looked back at the body and the sound of the worms was so loud. A moist, crackling sound. They animated the skin. Th
e worms. They ate. They turned. They ate and moved and shat. And the dark hollow of the eye was bottomless. Past the twisting worms, down into where the brain should be, there was nothing. It was just nothing, as though he could look into a mirror and then through it, past it. And it was cold and vast. It was beautiful and perfect and forever and the teeth. My God. The teeth -
Bullet slammed the lid back onto the crate. The bang snapped Hank out of his terrible reverie and he found that he had been pulling at his coat, twisting the lapels in his hands. His face tingled and everything around him slowly clarified, as if he was coming out of heavy anesthesia. The gunshots outside, the howling and the engines, seemed far away and under water. They grew louder and took shape. Bullet looked up at him as she pressed the lid down firm. Her eyes were wide with confusion. Hank shook his head. "I don't know."
She nodded and he saw her swallow hard. The lid was in place, but she kept pushing her weight it to make sure. On the other side of the crate, Nathan had picked up the axe again. He held it in front of him like a shield. His face was a rictus grin, like a cornered dog.
"Nathan? You okay?"
"Why does he have that, Hank?"
Hank could barely shape words. He just shook his head again, grabbed the chains, and tossed them on top of the crate. "Help me with this. Let's put it . . . somewhere."
Bullet moved to help him lift it. "In one of the rooms?"
"Sure. Anywhere. Just not here."
They carried it past the nurse's station where Rudy and Nurse Otero huddled amid the debris. Both of them let out silent gasps as Hank and the others passed with the crate. Rounding the corner into the west wing, they passed Whitey, who leaned against the wall. He was keeping watch over Sawed Off, but looked lost in thought. In the room, Sawed Off was drugged to the gills, slurring bits of old country songs like a barfly at closing time. The restraints that he pulled weakly against still held. He pulled weakly against the restraints, but they held. Whitey came out of his daze when they appeared, passing by the doorway to his room. His nose wrinkled. "What in the hell is that?"
"We're just going to put this in here for now," Hank said as they shuffled along to another vacant room.
No one spoke. They shoved it into a dark corner of an empty patient room and wiped their hands on their clothes, as if they were soiled. Nathan, Bullet, and Hank stared at the thing, unsure of what to expect. Hank closed the door and immediately, they all exhaled. The three of them stood, waiting for someone else to speak first. "What's happening?" Bullet finally asked.
No one had an answer.
"Is it one of them?" Nathan asked.
"And what does that mean?" Bullet was getting agitated. "Who are they? What are they?"
Hank felt the tingle in the back of his head, the one in his fingertips. It was the absence of a drink in his hand. Or a cigarette. He swallowed it. He swallowed it all. They had all seen human remains, some of them in worse shape than that. They were medical professionals. They'd seen it all. But this was different. He knew it. They knew it. So Hank swallowed that, too. He took a deep breath and just choked it all down, leaving only a stillness. It was the same technique he used whenever some kid mauled by a drunk driver was brought into the ER by a father who knew it was over. It was the same stillness - a metallic, cold one - that helped him tell a family member that they did everything they could. "Guys. Let's be cool, okay? I know we've been through a lot, but let's not start getting superstitious or anything. We may be able to wait this out."
"The fuck we can," Bullet said.
Between his thumb and forefinger, Nathan was rubbing the cross that hanged from a chain around his neck. "I'm not superstitious, you know? I'm not really. I mean, yeah, I believe in God and maybe ghosts, but . . . that wasn't just a body, Hank. What was wrong with it? Why was it buried with crosses? Why does he . . . "
"Listen. We need a plan. We're all scared. We're all tired. But we need to figure out what to do next," Hank said, hoping his voice sounded even and firm instead of betraying the low-boil panic that vibrated at the back of his throat.
Bullet interrupted. "We need to know what we're dealing with. That babbling asshole back there? He was dead when Whitey brought him in. You know it and I know it. It wasn't some mistaken diagnosis. Hell, that Solis kid out there is twelve years old and he could have told us that. The back of his head was gone. And you saw how many shots that skinny motherfucker took and he still moved like . . . like nothing I've ever seen. This isn't right, Hank. There's something going on here that. . . What is this?"
Hank nodded weakly. He buried it all, but she kept digging and whatever he piled up behind the wall in his brain wanted out. It was a blind force, the kind that washes over you and freezes your nerve endings, the kind of chill you get when you first see something you can't explain. His mind had no place for it. So he just nodded and gritted his teeth and tried not to scream or cry. This was his job, like it or not.
"Maybe they'll just get bored. Maybe they'll leave. Or maybe they'll figure out that the police will show up and they'll run," Nathan said.
"Listen," Bullet said, cocking her head to one side. Outside was an orgy of hoots, roaring engines and gunfire. "Does that sound like they're in a hurry? Like they're worried? They're taking their time. They're having fun."
"Then let's just give them the body," Nathan said.
"I don't think that will matter now. They're not leaving until we're all dead," said Hank.
Nathan began to stutter and suddenly, Hank wanted to hug the kid. Because that's what he was now, just a scared kid. Hank could see the ten year-old, tow-headed boy. Quiet. Caring. Probably bullied a bit. And here 'Big Brother Hank' was, standing next to him, too terrified to speak. What he really wanted was to just barge into his old office, find the booze he stashed away, and let Bullet deal with this. After all, he was just some lazy shit who took the path of least resistance. That knowledge was almost worse than the fear itself. It was knowing that he wasn’t good enough for this, that he wasn’t supposed to be in charge and because his failures as a human being, they were all going to die. The men outside were going to murder all of them because he was a piece of shit who couldn’t protect anyone. So he just wanted to go into that office, throw back a few, and hope things were sorted when he sobered up.
"I'm going to go for the ambulance," Bullet said.
And suddenly Hank was awake and present with new fear. "What?"
She nodded. "Yeah. It's our only chance."
"No, Bullet. No," Nathan said.
"Yeah. It's the closest ride. I'll slip out. I can get there. I'll radio Fort Huachuca. Or drive there." She stared off into space, putting the pieces together as she spoke.
Hank put a hand on her shoulder. "Bullet. Jan? No. There are too many. They'll gun you down before you're halfway across the parking lot."
"How many are there?"
"I don't know. Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? It doesn't matter. They've all got guns and we're completely surrounded. There's no way to get to it."
"Wait," Nathan said. "There's a way."
He nodded, mostly to himself.
"Guys? No. This heroic bullshit is . . . bullshit!" Hank felt the contents of his brain begin to tremble.
Nathan looked at Bullet. "Give me the keys."
"No! I'm going, Nathan."
"I can do it. I have a plan."
"What's your plan?"
"Just give me the keys, Bullet. I can make it."
"It's my ambulance. I know how it handles. It makes more sense if I go."
"Neither one of you are going," Hank said.
Nathan's jaw set. He nodded again. "Yeah. Yeah."
He turned and walked halfway down the west wing.
"Where in the hell-" Hank said. "Stop. Nathan. Seriously. Stop."
Nathan pulled his keys from his pocket, found the right one, and unlocked the door to the storage closet. He ducked inside. Hank and Bullet followed.
The closet was roomy, but crowded with old boxes of records never c
onverted to digital, excess or damaged supplies, surplus tanks of oxygen and ether, and assorted junk. Nathan made his way around the clutter and reached up to the ceiling. He pulled on something. Dust drifted down into his eyes. He looked away and pulled harder. With the shriek of old metal, it came loose - a ladder. He shook the dust and rust from his blonde hair. "It goes to the roof. I can sneak across that way."
He extended an open palm to Bullet. "Ms. Boulet?"
Bullet thought about it. She looked at Nathan hard, at the ladder, then back at him. She grudgingly put the keys into his hand. "Okay," she said, her voice barely audible.
Nathan pocketed them and started to climb. Hank stopped him halfway up. "Nathan, let's give it a little more time. Let's . . . just wait."
"For what, Hank? For them to decide it's time to come in here and kill us? I have to go, I . . . I need to get away from that thing." He gave a wry grin and climbed.
At the top, he reached up and struggled with the latch. Finally, the bar slid and sunlight broke into the room like a blade. Bullet and Hank winced and Hank found himself surprised it was still daylight outside. After the shutters were sealed, time had stopped. Nathan scanned the rooftop through the crack in the hatch. Satisfied, he gently opened it, looked down at them, and said, "Wish me luck" before disappearing through the hole. He lowered the hatch closed and the room was dark and quiet again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
4:01 PM
Nathan crouched on the flat roof and was struck by how naked he felt, how blue the sky was, how cool the breeze, and how he felt like the entire world could see him. To the northwest, the Huachuca Mountains and their mesquite and soapberry trees caught the long rays of the afternoon sun. It was beautiful up here. He'd come up here to read or write in his journal on his breaks. He could see past the flat decay of Tribes and never had to look far. There wasn’t much to miss. Just past the trailer park and the abandoned shops, was the flat desert, and beyond that, the mountains. A small needle of regret jabbed him. It was the regret that seeing the mountains brought and remembering he was supposed to be there this weekend and from where he stood, he could almost make out the old caves that honeycombed the base of the Huachucas. The caves were cold, quiet, and peaceful, and it was tempting to just lay there on the roof and get lost in the memory of that silence.
The Black Goat Motorcycle Club Page 8
