Broken Heartland

by J. M. Hayes

  ***

  Pam felt helpless. She was in a big, square, empty room. She’d gotten a brief glimpse of it before they slammed the door on her and left her in the dark. And it really was dark. The door sealed tight, even against the concrete floor. Maybe they’d shut off the light out in the basement hall, but there’d been a casement window at the end and it was daylight outside. She should be able to see something around the door frame. She couldn’t.

  It was because there was a rubber seal. She had to use her hands to find it. It was a good one. She couldn’t get a decent hold on it to pull it loose. She couldn’t even get a grip on it to pull it aside and let in a little light. Well, a little, once, when she got a fingernail under there, but long nails were inconvenient when you played a lot of piano and a little guitar. One brief glimmer, and then her nail had slipped before she’d been able to turn around and try to make out any weaknesses in her cell. No matter how hard she’d tried, she hadn’t managed to get a nail under there again.

  Cell, that was the right word for the room. It was like it had been prepared to hold someone—similar to that room where she and Mad Dog had been taken upstairs, only better.

  There was nothing in here. She’d felt around for light switches or furniture or anything. Nothing. Just flat, smooth walls. And there didn’t seem to be any casement windows in here. Only concrete or plaster where windows might have been.

  Had Galen converted this room into a prison? She supposed it was possible. She’d always thought he was freaky. A religious fanatic who didn’t like girls as people but lusted for their bodies. Were these rooms for…? No. There weren’t any girls who’d gone missing in the county. Or nearby. She hadn’t heard about anyone who’d been kidnapped and abused, then released. Besides, this room had a new feel to it. As if it had been prepared for something that hadn’t happened yet. Was she that something?

  She shook her head and tried to shut down her imagination. It didn’t work. Not with all the spooky things that were going on. Maybe Galen hadn’t built this room to imprison her, specifically, but it appeared he had built a prison.

  She tried kicking the door. She tried shouting. She tried scraping at the plaster with her fingernails. None of it accomplished a thing. Not even when she jumped up and pounded her fists on the ceiling. Well, she did manage to crumble a little plaster and get particles in her hair and eyes.

  Where was Mad Dog? He’d gotten away through that window. Then he’d sneaked back into this house. Why? Because they were still holding her, that’s why. Had they caught him? Was he still looking for her?

  Waiting here in the dark, both mentally and physically, was taking a toll. She wanted to scream, but what good would that do? If they heard her, it might make her captors smile. Or it might remind Galen of how helpless she was, and how desperate to escape. No, she wouldn’t scream.

  What would Mad Dog do? Well, she knew that. She’d seen him do it. He’d communicated with Hailey, asked for his wolf’s help. And he’d gotten it. Sort of. Hailey had found them. She’d seen Hailey’s nose appear on the glass exactly opposite Mad Dog’s. Maybe Hailey really did have some kind magical abilities. And it wasn’t like Pam had anything better to do.

  She sat on the floor and assumed the lotus position. Wasn’t that what Mad Dog had done? Remembering made her smile, because he’d had so much trouble getting her out of his head in order to concentrate. She had the same difficulty with him. He had wrinkles and scars and a bit of a belly, but more muscles than any of the guys she’d dated recently. And such a cute butt to go with his fascinating outlook on life. Did he like the way she looked as much as she admired him? Judging from his reaction in the grain bin, she thought so.

  But this wasn’t the way to contact a spirit. Not considering how Mad Dog had struggled to get her out of his mind when he tried for a connection with Hailey. She cleared her mind and tried to focus. She wished she’d paid more attention in those yoga classes she’d taken while she was at Ft. Hays State.

  She made herself concentrate on a spot inside the middle of her head. She forced it to glow. That was her, Pam Epperson. That was her essence. Now where was Mad Dog’s essence? She was surprised when she thought she recognized it. And not far away. She was pretty sure he was frightened about something. For her? For himself? She couldn’t tell. She wasn’t very good at this.

  Where was Hailey? Mad Dog had told her Hailey’s spirit was blinding, fiery. It burned in the psychic darkness like the comet whose name the wolf almost shared. Like, like something she suddenly thought she perceived. Right there. Just a few feet away.

  Her eyes shot open and found only darkness. Darkness and disappointment. And a scratching sound. Right where she was looking.

  She climbed to her feet and felt her way across the room. The scratching came from the wall opposite the door, up near the ceiling.

  She reached up and found more concrete there. No. The consistency was different. And she could feel a vibration, as if something was scraping against it on the other side. She tried banging a fist on the spot. It was softer than concrete. It gave a little, and showered her with dust and particles—more plaster.

  She banged again. And again. And the scratching on the other side got more frantic. And then there was a hole. Light. A wolf’s muzzle. The upper half of Hailey’s mouth came through, snatched plaster, and tore a hole that revealed dirt and fur and what had once been a casement window. And, with only a little more work, a path to Pam’s freedom.

  ***

  In retrospect, Deputy Heather thought she should have come up with a better strategy. Well, any strategy, really. What she’d done had simply been a reaction to events.

  She’d come around the corner of the warehouse and seen the gunman she knew had been ordered to stop her father from getting to Galen Siegrist’s house. And he was running in that direction. Englishman’s truck, hard on the heels of a white Ford, was coming down the road, heading her way. And so she’d shot. And missed. And ended up on her butt in time to watch the Ford tear into the driveway and disappear in the vicinity of the garage. Her dad followed it, a bit wider through the curve, so he seemed headed for the front of the house. Englishman’s Chevy disappeared to the accompaniment of a metallic crump that made her think he’d rammed something. Her angle was wrong to know for sure. She couldn’t see around the west side of the building to know what might be happening in the front yard. And so she scrambled to her feet and ran, as hard as she could, to the northwest corner of the house. It was only after she got there that she realized she’d been a wide-open target if anyone inside had been doing sentry duty on the stretch of gravel she’d crossed.

  There was a lot to see from the corner. A black Chevrolet was parked just short of the front door. Its doors were open but no one was inside.

  Her dad’s battered blue pickup was just beyond that, only inches short of filling the doorway. Judging from the way its front end was freshly crumpled, it had made contact before bouncing back. One of its doors was open and her dad wasn’t in the pickup. He was sprinting along the front of the house toward that window where the glass was missing. She watched, relieved, as he dived in. No one shot at him on the way. No one shot at him after he was inside. In fact, it was eerily quiet at the edge of Galen’s house, considering all the firepower she had reason to believe was guarding the place.

  What now? It was a question she was becoming all too familiar with. There were too many windows in the front of the Siegrist place for her to cross the yard and join her father without getting caught or shot. Actually, there were too many windows on the side that faced the warehouse she’d just come from, but apparently no one had been looking out of them. Or no one had wanted to shoot her just then. That didn’t mean they might not change their minds.

  The nearest window had some holes in it. Ones she’d put there a few minutes before. She was willing to bet no one was behind it. Or, if they were, they’d be keeping a very low profile. Besides, she was short on options.

  The window with the
holes had the same reflective film as the rest of the glass in the Siegrist house. But one of the holes was down close to the corner nearest her. She took a deep breath and stuck her eye to the hole and tried to make sense of what was inside. Dark, mostly. Especially after the cheerful autumn sunshine on her side of the window. Then shadowy shapes began to make sense. That was a bed. And there was a dresser. And over against the far wall—that had been a TV before one of the bullets she’d put into the room turned it into hazardous waste. There didn’t seem to be any people in there.

  She stepped back and slammed the butt of her submachine gun against the glass. One of the cracks radiating from the nearest hole lengthened a few inches. The shock of the blow numbed her hands a little. Nobody shot at her, but it was going to take a lot of pounding to get in that room. That or a few more shots focused on that weakened corner. That would make a lot of noise and tell them she was coming.

  Heather considered her cell phone. It was probably time to get those troopers on their way here. She flipped it open and began to punch numbers. And stopped, because there was a strange noise from back among the warehouses. A kind of rumbling sound, heavy and metallic, with an underlying hum that sounded like a big engine working.

  She flattened herself against the wall and checked the warehouses she could see. Nothing moved out there. Nothing but a tumbleweed out for an afternoon stroll. And then metal screamed and the wall of one of those long metal buildings buckled, deformed, and collapsed. A monstrous metal blade appeared in its place, followed by a Caterpillar tractor. She hardly had time to take that in before the thing swung on its nearest set of treads and pointed itself and its blade straight at the house. The blade was raised a couple of feet off the ground, just far enough to make it impossible to see who was piloting the thing. She thought she knew, though. She’d seen that green corduroy shirt up close several times today. Chucky, it seemed, had found a surer way to get into the house than she had.

  ***

  Mad Dog lay in the timeless dark. He was no longer on the floor. The nurse had assisted the doctor in lifting him onto some kind of gurney. Then they’d raised it and wheeled him somewhere more convenient. Some place well lit, if the glow on the other side of Mad Dog’s eyelids was an indication.

  “You want me to cut him out of these grubby clothes,” the nurse asked. “Scrub him? Get him ready for surgery?”

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “Let’s clean him up in case our other donors fail to arrive. He’s not a good match for our primary patient, but we’ll make do if we have to.”

  Mad Dog heard a snipping sound. Felt cool air wash across his leg, his hip, his side. The nurse was cutting him out of the coveralls.

  “Catheter?” the nurse asked, as the last of the fabric was pulled away.

  “Shouldn’t be necessary.”

  A cool, damp cloth touched Mad Dog’s face. His pre-surgical scrubbing had begun.

  “Don’t neglect his eyes,” the doctor said.

  Something chattered far away. An automatic weapon, maybe. After a few moments, he heard it again, slightly louder. That was followed by a thump, also distant, but somewhere in the house. Then a second thump, louder, nearer.

  “I hope that’s our donor,” the doctor said. “I’ll go check. Put our guest on a monitor. Make it look good.” The man didn’t seem to have noticed the gunfire. Had it been gunfire? Mad Dog wasn’t sure, but he suspected he was more attuned to strange noises than his companions, considering the other sensory limitations he was experiencing.

  Footsteps left the room. The respirator attached to Aldus P. Goodfellow whispered. The nurse continued his ministrations.

  “Big fellow, aren’t you?” the male nurse said. “I can see you’ve taken care of yourself. That’s a benefit, though I suppose not for you anymore.”

  He washed everything, coolly, impersonally. It was about as pleasant as undergoing a major physical exam. Not that Mad Dog had trusted himself to western medicine in recent years. Not even to his friend Doc Jones.

  While it went on, Mad Dog tried to take himself somewhere else. He’d managed, in that room upstairs, to establish some sort of contact with Hailey. He looked for her again. The touch of the damp cloth made the effort difficult. He fought for it, though. Not that he wanted Hailey to come for him again. There were too many guns in this house and, even if she managed to find him now, he couldn’t move. There was no way she could get him out of this. But Pam….Pam was in danger because he’d brought her here. Maybe Hailey could rescue Pam. And for just a moment, he thought he touched both of them. The fire that was Hailey, the fresh vitality that was Pam. And then they were gone and he was just a helpless old man lying on a gurney as a nurse scrubbed him from head to toe.

  After swabbing Mad Dog’s feet, the man slid something soft and, no doubt, absorbent under Mad Dog’s rear and up between his legs, then velcroed it on both sides.

  “You may survive this,” the nurse said as he attached leads to Mad Dog’s torso and wrapped a cuff around an arm. “With a great deal of luck.”

  Light flashed in Mad Dog’s right eye. He caught a glimpse of some kind of lamp and a shadowy figure hovering over him, and then eye drops spoiled his vision before his lid was closed again. He was ready when the procedure was repeated on the left eye, but ready didn’t allow him to adjust to the light or focus before it was completed.

  “Looks like you’ll keep your heart and lungs. Liver and kidneys, too.” Mad Dog was glad to hear that. But not what came next.

  “Having your eyes harvested, though,” the nurse said, “that will not be fun.”

  ***

  The sheriff was at a moment of indecision. He had lots of them, every day, but most didn’t come with quite such deadly consequences. Should he go back out that window into what could easily be a killing zone? Or should he waste some of the precious few bullets he had in his .38, blowing the locks off that door separating him from what could be an equally hazardous area inside the house?

  His mind was made up for him when someone released the dead bolt and a voice he recognized spoke from the other side of the door. “Don’t shoot, Sheriff, it’s only us.”

  He recognized their faces, too. Two old men in baseball caps, one pulled low to mask the hairlessness of advanced chemotherapy, the other, because that was the fashion for Kansas farmers these days. They were the blind man and the dying one, the pair Doc had rustled up for him when he desperately needed help covering exits so he could go into the high school after Chucky Williams. Lord, had that been just this morning? With all that had happened since, it seemed like years ago.

  “What are you two doing here?” the sheriff asked.

  “Come in that Ford you was following,” the blind one said. He must not be able to see worth a damn, because he was pointing his shotgun at the sheriff’s belly. English tried to edge aside, but the old man and the shotgun swiveled right along with him.

  “How? I mean, I thought there were more bad guys in that Ford, not help for me.”

  “Bad guys depends which side you’re on,” the cancer patient said. “And it troubles me to tell you this, Sheriff, but you’ve made a mistake.”

  The sheriff didn’t like the way this conversation was progressing. “But you two came the minute Doc found you. Risked your lives to help me stop Chucky. Why would you do that if…?” Hell, he didn’t know what “if” was.

  “It shames us, Sheriff, but there’s this miracle worker here. A doctor who don’t follow the rules. He’s promised to give me my sight back.”

  “And cure my cancer,” the other old-timer said. “We paid pretty near every cent we’ve got for this, then your crazy deputy ran that car off the road before he hit the bus this morning and spoiled everything.”

  “We was over to Klausen’s to recover the body,” the blind one said, “the one from the wreck. See if anything could still be salvaged. Doc come by there to get his gun. Told us you was looking for Chucky, so we come along ’cause….”

  It was starting to make s
ense. “’Cause Chucky was the back up,” the sheriff said. “The donor who would stand in, just in case.”

  The cancer patient raised his deer rifle until it was centered on the sheriff’s chest. “I always said you’re a lot sharper lawman than this county deserves. I told these folks we’re working with not to underestimate you. Well, now we need to relieve you of that pistol. Take you downstairs for some tests. See if you maybe match up with his eyes or my bone marrow.”

  A terrible metallic shriek penetrated the room. It was a distant noise, but so unnatural that they all reacted to it. The old man with the deer rifle started to swing toward the open window. The sheriff dropped his pistol and stepped in and got one hand on the rifle and the other on the shotgun and managed to put his body inside the reach of either weapon’s muzzle.

  “Drop your guns,” someone yelled.

  The blind man discharged his shotgun, instead, tearing a hole in the plaster.

  Another gun answered. Two shots.

  The blind man’s face exploded. He would need more than eyes, now. And the sheriff needed something to wipe the results off his face.

  Both the shotgun and the rifle came free in the sheriff’s hand. He swung toward the cancer patient only to discover the man had suffered similar damage. There was a hole leaking blood just in front of one ear. The other side of his face was splattered over the door they’d come through.

  The sheriff turned toward the window, the only place the shots could have come from. He was still trying to grasp what had happened. How could two old farmers have turned so desperate that they were willing to kill for a chance at health? And how could their lives have ended so suddenly, just as he was about to disarm them?