Broken Heartland

by J. M. Hayes

  She walked over for a closer look. It wasn’t locked. She could see from here that both the driver’s and passenger’s windows were down. Some duly appointed law enforcement officer ought to check the vehicle out, she decided. She knew just the one for the job. Every other law enforcement officer had gone elsewhere. A couple to the courthouse. Two to patrol streets for Chucky. One, with Doc, to collect the bodies in the basement. And the others, with Captain Miller, to make sure Chucky wasn’t still in the abandoned school.

  The Taurus had experienced a close encounter with something that creased the left rear fender. Hood, trunk, and top were dimpled, like the surface of a golf ball—hail damage—a condition that wasn’t uncommon in Benteen County. The interior was clean, though. Or mostly. A stack of books and a notebook lay on the front seat. She let herself in and checked. They were Chucky’s. Nothing very interesting, until she found the bookmark in his English text. It was stuck in a section explaining gerunds—not something to uplift your spirits, but hardly likely to have started Chucky on his killing spree.

  The bookmark, though, that was interesting. It was a plain business-sized envelope with Chucky’s name neatly penned on the outside. No address or return address, no stamp—it hadn’t been mailed.

  Something else had been written on the reverse. This penmanship was tight and jerky and hard to read, but she managed to puzzle it out.

  “We’re so proud of you,” it said. It was signed, “Mom & Dad.”

  The envelope had been neatly slit along the top. Heather wished she had some gloves, but she didn’t, and she wasn’t about to let that stop her now.

  A single sheet of paper was within. It was folded exactly the way they told you professional communications should be.

  She was disappointed, at first. There was no logo, no indication of who it was from. But this message was printed. Times New Roman, if she knew her fonts. Easy to read.

  Rejoice. You may help a man “take up his pallet and walk.” You have been tested and found pure. At the hour of midnight on the 5th of November you will gather with the faithful in the selected place. From there, go forth unto the holy man. You are not the chosen, but you are first among the successors. You shall help “roll away the stone,” should the chosen one prove unable. Come with great joy, for you are most righteous and you shall be rewarded on earth and, eternally, in Heaven.

  Easy to read, maybe, but not easy to understand. She thought she got some of it. Chucky had scored high on those medical tests at the Bible camp. His name had ranked first among the best matches for a transplant. If she understood this Bible babble, someone else had been chosen to make the donation, but Chucky was being invited to come act as a backup. Jeez, talk about your unwanted honors. Well, she would feel that way about it. And maybe Chucky had, after the accident. Especially if the dead kid in the station wagon with the stem cells had been number one.

  Had Chucky decided to decline the offer? Had people tried to force him? Was that why he’d gotten the gun and started shooting? Or was she misreading this and giving it more weight than it deserved?

  Whatever, she was sure the “selected place” had been the Bible camp. Going forth to the holy man, that must be the journey that had been interrupted by this morning’s accident. If she wanted the answer to the rest of her questions, she could ask Chucky. Or she could ask the driver of that bus, Galen Siegrist.

  Doing either would be a problem, except that Chucky hadn’t appeared to care what happened to his parents’ car after he took the trombone case into the high school. That must be why he’d left the keys in the ignition and provided Heather with the transportation she had been lacking.

  She got behind the wheel and turned the key and, in spite of the absence of any court orders, confiscated the evidence.

  ***

  “I thought about staying home this morning, going down by the creek to practice singing,” Pam said, “maybe take a dip.”

  “Would have been a better choice,” Mad Dog said, rubbing his sore shoulder.

  “Except I wouldn’t have finally gotten to know you,” she said, making him feel much better than the situation warranted.

  They were alone now, in the same room where they’d been frisked and blood tested. The door was a solid core type with quality hardware that would resist being broken through. Oddly, all that hardware faced the wrong way. This was a room you locked people into, not out of. Besides, a professional gunman was nearby and, Mad Dog thought, prepared to do what was necessary to keep them from leaving. Before the guy locked them in, he’d told them not to bother trying to break out. He and the door would hold them, and the window, he said, was bulletproof glass. Mad Dog had tested the window, which faced on the front yard. He’d taken a running start and lowered the shoulder that was sore now. The window hadn’t budged and he’d gotten a muffled “I told you so” from the guard in the hall.

  Pam took over rubbing his shoulder and bent and whispered in his ear as she did so.

  “Where’s Hailey, now that we need her?”

  Hailey had disappeared before they ran into Galen for the first time. Then she’d gone again, right after rescuing them from the bin and alerting them to Mark’s presence. Where? What was she up to?

  “She’s my nisimon,” he told Pam, also whispering. “That’s a Cheyenne thing, kind of like a witch’s familiar.”

  The girl nodded, as if she’d expected as much and ran into guys who had supernatural partnerships with their pets all the time.

  “And you’re right, actually. She might be able to help us get out of here.”

  Pam nodded again. “It would be nice if she could open that window the way she opened the door to the grain bin.”

  “Maybe she can, or maybe she’ll help us another way, if I ask her.”

  “How?”

  “Like this.” Mad Dog sat on the carpet and folded his feet under him. It was similar to the lotus position he used to assume when he wanted to be one with the universe back in his Buddhist period. Fortunately, Cheyenne stopped short of that, since Mad Dog could no longer get both feet on top of his thighs these days.

  “Would it help if I joined you?”

  “Sure,” Mad Dog said, “but maybe if you stay out of sight. Looking at you won’t help me focus my thoughts where they’re needed.”

  “How sweet,” she said, and bent and kissed his ear before going around behind him and lowering herself to the floor. “Just tell me what to do,” she said.

  “No more of that.” The ear thing had nearly made him forget why he was sitting there. “Uh, just think of Hailey,” he said. “And the situation we’re in. Close your eyes and try to find her and tell her we need help.”

  Mad Dog closed his eyes and thought of how Pam felt in his arms back in that grain bin. No, the kiss hadn’t helped at all.

  “Do I need to chant or anything?”

  “Just try not to distract me.”

  She didn’t say anything, but he glanced over his shoulder and watched as a grin spread across her face.

  He closed his eyes and tried again. The look, the feel, the smell of her…. He slapped himself upside his spiritual head and started over. He was too old for this foolishness, to say nothing of being in the wrong circumstances for it. They’d stumbled onto some kind of secret medical activities. An organ transplant, or transplants, if the nurse was to be believed. Who for? There were sick people, dying people in Benteen County, of course. But none of them would be involved in using unwilling donors to prolong their lives. Well, maybe a couple of them. But who could afford it? And how did you go about importing a private surgeon with a personal army? No, this had to be about outsiders. Except Galen, though maybe this explained how Siegrist Farms had financed its aggressive expansion.

  Getting his mind off Pam helped. Gradually, he managed to focus on the spirit world instead of his surroundings. He’d done this before in difficult circumstances. He’d contacted Hailey, and she’d helped him. He searched for the pure, sharp brilliance of her essence. White
-hot, crystalline, burning…there. She was there.

  Someone shouted from the hall. “That car’s back!”

  His eyes popped open and Pam was leaning over his shoulder, pointing.

  It was a silver compact. Something Japanese and moving slow.

  “Isn’t that one of the Heathers?” Pam asked.

  Sweet Jesus! It did look like Heather. And Heather Lane drove a silver Toyota Camry exactly like that. But Heather was in Albuquerque. Wasn’t she?

  Apparently not. The girl behind the wheel was his niece, Two of Two.

  Someone on foot entered their field of vision. It was one of the gunmen in suits. Another one, actually, since this one was blond. That made three of them, at least. How many were there?

  “Go, Heather, go,” Pam said. And Mad Dog suddenly understood why. The new guy in the suit was holding a weapon in his hand, sort of masked from Heather and the road because he was half turned toward the house. The gun was much too big to fit in a shoulder holster, though the end of the barrel didn’t hang much below his knee. What was really scary about it was the magazine, a shaft of dark metal nearly as long as the barrel. It was some kind of automatic weapon.

  Mad Dog silently echoed Pam inside his head. Heather continued driving past, way too slowly, her head turned toward the house as if she were looking for something. She didn’t seem concerned about the guy with the gun. And then she waved at him and started speeding up again, gradually, as if she’d been looking for someone and finally realized this was the wrong house.

  Mad Dog and Pam had stepped up and pressed their faces to the window. Not that Heather would be able to see them. You couldn’t see into the house from outside because the windows were covered with reflective film.

  The guy with the gun waved back at Heather. Left handed. He kept the submachine gun down, pressed against his leg.

  Mad Dog started to breathe again. “She’s going to get away,” he said.

  Suddenly, another face pressed against their window. This time from outside. It left a nose print exactly opposite the one Mad Dog was making.

  Hailey!

  Bad timing, because Heather saw her. The Toyota’s brake lights came on.

  “Stop her,” a voice in the hall said. The guy with the comb-over, Mad Dog thought. The man in the front yard brought his automatic weapon up. He had a device in his ear, too, and he’d heard. His weapon started chattering.

  The Toyota accelerated, foot to the floor. A tire blew. The car wobbled and veered toward the ditch.

  The man with the gun pivoted. He’d seen the wolf at the window. He aimed down the barrel.

  “Duck!” Mad Dog yelled, throwing himself across Pam and away from the glass.

  “Run, Hailey!” Pam screamed.

  They hit the floor and the gunman fired.

  The window glass might be reinforced, but it wasn’t really bulletproof.

  ***

  The bodies were in the family room. The scene was every bit as bloody as the sheriff had expected, but even though there were two corpses, it wasn’t as horrible. Chucky Williams had killed his parents, but he’d done it from behind—a quick burst from that automatic weapon he was carrying. It appeared they’d never known what was coming. The sheriff had expected to find an execution here. Instead, it felt more like a mercy killing.

  Chucky’s parents faced a television displaying a blue menu screen waiting for instructions. Mrs. Williams had been on the sofa. There was knitting in her lap. Mr. Williams had been in his wheelchair, of course. It was parked beside a table containing his medications and a cup with a bent straw. The Lou Gehrig’s disease had progressed to the point that Mrs. Williams or Chucky would have had to hold the cup for him.

  The wall behind the TV was a mess, spoiled by bullets, blood, bone, and flesh. But the room was otherwise undisturbed.

  It wasn’t at all what the sheriff had expected. Rage—wasn’t that what an act like this required? He had thought the house would be torn apart, terrible things done to Chucky’s parents and the home they cherished. Instead, the place was undisturbed but for that single burst. The living room was neat as a pin. The kitchen, except for this morning’s unwashed dishes, was equally clean. Beds had been made, clothing was neatly on hangers or in hampers. Even in Chucky’s room. Aside from the bodies, the sheriff only found three things out of place. There was a gun cabinet down in the basement. It had been locked. If Chucky had known where the key was, he hadn’t had the patience to go after it. The glass and wood of its door was broken. A screwdriver had been taken from the tools that lined the nearby wall and used to pry the bar that secured the weapons within. One gun was missing, replaced by a shiny trombone whose case had been needed for another purpose.

  On the floor beside the gun cabinet, the sheriff found the TV remote, apparently the one that controlled the menu screen in the room above. That was curious. Why would Chucky have brought the remote down here?

  The sheriff had thought the menu screen on the TV in the family room would wait a very long time for instructions. Now he wasn’t so sure. He picked up the remote and went back upstairs. Everything was as he’d left it, neat, clean, and organized, with just a touch of gore.

  He hated remotes. Fortunately, he didn’t watch much TV. In fact, he didn’t spend much time at home anymore.

  He should have brought Heather after all. Either one of his daughters could make this thing work in a heartbeat. And then he found the rewind button, reversed to the start, and hit play.

  Someone had made a recording in this very room. The camera was just behind the sheriff’s head and to the left. He turned and found it on a bookshelf, almost unnoticeable amongst a profusion of gewgaws and bric-a-brac.

  “Come talk to my husband.”

  He turned back to the screen in time to see Mrs. Williams lead a man into the room. It was eerie, hearing the dead talk while their wrecked bodies sat just in front of him.

  Mrs. Williams took the seat she would continue to occupy until Doc Jones could come collect her. Mr. Williams, of course, stayed in his wheelchair. The room was unchanged but for the bloody disaster that had befallen it.

  The man who followed Mrs. Williams was a stranger, a small man with a good suit and bad hair. Long wispy strands had been arranged in a hopeless effort to disguise an advanced state of baldness.

  “You promised we’d have our stem cell therapy this morning,” Mr. Williams said. His voice was soft, hoarse, and faintly slurred.

  Stem cells. Hadn’t Heather said something about finding stem cells? And storing them in the beer cooler over at the old Texaco?

  “You’ll get them,” the little guy said. “Our shipment was lost in this morning’s accident. More are on the way. Right now, I need your son.”

  “And the money. We haven’t seen that, either.”

  “The money and the therapy were in exchange for your son’s cooperation. Now, he’s disappeared. He ran from the bus. Then a couple of Gamble’s boys were going to bring him right from school. He ran from them, too. In God’s name, Mr. Williams, we need your boy right now.”

  “You had him. He was on that bus this morning, just as we agreed. What happened after, we had no more control over that than you. You better deliver. We got insurance if you don’t come through.”

  The little man ran his fingers through his oh-so-sparse hair. “Proof of what, that you sold your son? Where is Chucky, Mr. Williams?”

  “We have been obedient to God’s wishes. We did our part. Perhaps we did sell our son, but you promised to heal me and fix up my wife’s Alzheimer’s. And make it so’s we could get out of debt. Where are our cures? Where’s our money?”

  The little man shook his head. “You’ll get your therapies and we’ll double your money if you give me Chucky right now.”

  “He’s gone.” Mrs. Williams finally entered the conversation.

  “Gone?” The little man took a step forward and, for a moment, the sheriff thought he was going to strike her.

  “I don’t remember where,
” she said.

  Mr. Williams laughed. “She don’t remember nothing. But he is gone. We gave him to you people and you lost him. If he comes home or we hear from him, we’ll let you know. But we’re dead people here, both of us, if you don’t keep your bargain.”

  “No Chucky, no deal. You don’t have to die these awful deaths. We can still heal you, but the price is your son.”

  “I beg you, sir,” Mr. Williams said. “I got no control over the boy, not since the accident bumped him to primary. He’s scared, and I don’t blame him, but I’d give him to you in a heartbeat for those cures—if I knew where he was.”

  “Then I’m afraid you’ll continue to rot away, Mr. Williams, your body weakening along with your wife’s mind. Find the boy and salvation is still available. If not….”

  Mrs. Williams looked up at the man and extended her hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?”

  “You know where to call,” the man with the bad hair said.

  Mr. Williams whispered something. It sounded like “Siegrist’s,” but the other man had turned and stormed from the room. The sheriff heard him slam the door on his way out. And then Chucky entered the room from somewhere behind the camera. He had the AK-47 and he appeared to be crying.

  Mrs. Williams saw him. “Let me fix you some breakfast,” she said, but she turned around and took up her knitting.

  Chucky, tears streaming down his face, turned toward the camera and the TV screen went back to its menu. The sheriff was glad Chucky had turned the camera off. His imagination was more than adequate to show him what happened next.

  ***

  Mad Dog hit the window with the same shoulder he’d used before. It didn’t hurt as much this time because the window gave. The line of holes the automatic weapon had made hadn’t shattered it, but they hadn’t done its structural integrity any good. The pane folded along the line of holes and collapsed into the neat row of dwarf evergreens just below, with Mad Dog sandwiched in the middle.