Malevolent

by Searls, David

  “Drop your gun,” Melinda yelled behind him, and then the shooting began.

  Tim reached the kitchen door as her warning was being issued. He swung it wide so that the entire little room was exposed, the only way his bizarre plan had even the slightest hope of success.

  The odor of hissing gas hit him like a wall, his eyes tearing up immediately so that everything took on a filmy, bleary cast. His stomach quivered, sending up to his throat the urge to retch. The fire exit was two steps into the room, and that seemed like two too many. Tim held his arms out before him, palms extended to the height of its crash bar.

  The bullet whumped into him as his hands found the bar. The first of many tearing at his flesh if the door didn’t open.

  More bullets whined, slapping the walls, clanging into the stove and almost immediately throwing a spark that turned to a fireball as he knew it would.

  The steel door grunted open as he crashed into it, and he stumbled into the night, his back feeling the intensity of the growing firestorm and his legs going rubbery and undependable. Just before he had the good sense to slam the metal door shut behind him, Tim heard a whump of sound and fury that sucked all of the oxygen out of the galley kitchen behind him.

  He pitched to the soft ground where he listened to the muffled roar of the gas-fed fire behind the door at his back.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  She found him lying facedown in the church’s backyard, not far from the red-hot steel door. She knelt beside him and placed a hand gently on his cheek. “They’re moving a stretcher back here right now,” she told him quietly. He groaned. Smacked his dry lips. “Big crowd?”

  Such an odd question. Melinda nodded, though his face was turned away..

  He grunted, groaned as he rose to support his upper body shakily on his elbows. He looked like a baby exhausted from crawling. “Shit,” he muttered to the dirt. “It’s gonna be embarrassing getting wheeled by on a stretcher like this.”

  Her eyes fell once more to the blood pooling on him. She had the good sense to say nothing.

  “The son of a bitch shot me in the ass,” he said between clenched teeth.

  As if that wasn’t obvious. The hole in his khaki shorts was perfectly centered on his left buttock and ringed by a big, red wet spot.

  He twisted his neck to catch sight of her, his breath quickening with the effort. “What happened to him? Vincent.”

  His question returned Melinda to her own private pain. Her mind raced mercifully fast through the scene she’d never forget.

  Entering the church ahead of backup help—a cardinal sin of the department, but she felt she had no choice—encountering an armed Vincent Applegate and ordering him to throw his gun away. Hesitating only a split second as the minister got off several quick shots toward Tim, who’d flitted into the kitchen, and letting go a fusillade of her own as Vincent had wheeled to confront her, gun now pointed her way.

  Oddly, she felt guilty both at having shot the minister and for not shooting him a second sooner.

  She said, “Vincent’s being treated in the front yard. He had to be dragged from the church. He’s alive, but…”

  She didn’t have to finish.

  As the paramedics wheeled a gurney to the back of the church, Tim overheard one saying to the other, “We’d better hurry. This building’s going down.”

  Melinda could feel heat waves emanating from the structure, the steel door behind her literally glowing with the flames it tried to contain.

  Tim contorted his entire body, moaning at the pain it cost him, until he could see the structure behind them. Each window glowed orange in the night. The steel fire door seemed on the verge of melting.

  “Good.” It was the last thing he remembered saying before consciousness withdrew.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  It had only been a suggestion, the mere possibility that weapons or explosives might be stored in the church. But the tip, spoken by an experienced Cleveland Police Department sergeant to her lieutenant had been enough to get the firefighters pulled and the crowd moved back far enough to let the building burn to the ground.

  It made sense, after all, that the obviously very troubled minister, whom Melinda had been forced to shoot after he’d fired on Tim, might have turned his church into an arsenal. Melinda highly doubted it to be the case, but her warning had the desired effect. The church should be little more than ash by dawn.

  “You remember Griffin and Patty,” Tim said glumly.

  He’d come back to groggy consciousness once again, his attitude due less to pain—he’d been shot up with painkillers already—and more to the fact that he was strapped down, ass up, on a gurney, and the paramedics seemed to be taking their time loading him into the back of the ambulance. In the meantime, he was surrounded by hundreds of people drawn to the fire, the sirens and the flashing lights of dozens of fire vehicles, cop cars and the ambulance five feet away.

  The two people to whom Tim had introduced Melinda had somehow been admitted within the circle of onlookers. They looked nearly as battered as the wounded man.

  Griffin had limped toward them and Patty was now leaning heavily on him in such a way that it was hard to tell if she was providing him support or getting it. In the erratic light of the numerous emergency vehicles it looked like Tim’s girlfriend had a thick ring of bruises around her neck.

  Tim, who didn’t have a good view of his surroundings from his facedown position, said, “Please tell me there are no cameras out there.”

  “A couple news stations and the Plain Dealer,” said Griffin cheerfully. “Not to mention maybe fifty people with cell phones. Guns, fire, ghosts, serial killer…we’ve definitely hit the big time.”

  Patty wore the glassy expression of someone who’d seen too much. There was a huge splotch of black blood on her shirt.

  “Honey, are you hurt?” Melinda asked the woman.

  She stared dead ahead, but Griffin answered for her. “It’s not hers.”

  “You two need to talk with the investigators,” Melinda said softly. “And get to the hospital.”

  She watched Griffin pull Tim’s wounded girlfriend—ex-girlfriend?—closer, and wondered what that was all about.

  “Hey, guess what?” Griffin told them all. “I saved Patty’s life. I was great, wasn’t I?”

  In this way he coaxed the tiniest of smiles from the woman leaning heavily against him.

  “Way to go,” said Tim. His eyes were falling shut, his voice lazy, starting to be carried away by the medication coursing through his bloodstream. As she watched, Tim’s eyes reopened to tiny slits. They found Patty and he beckoned her toward him with a small hand motion. She bent toward him and he said, “I hope you’re happy.”

  Melinda thought he was being sarcastic, and Patty might have too. She stood suddenly and Melinda watched Tim’s gaze flutter briefly to Griffin and back to Patty. A wan smile touched his pale face. “And you will be, Patty. You’ll be happy. He’s a great guy.”

  Patty was leaning on Griffin again by now. She looked at him, not much taller than herself, and they both smiled slightly.

  Tim’s eyes drifted shut again, but he could be heard adding, “Course, you’re probably going to get fired for leaving your job. And ’cuz your boss’s kid’s birthday party didn’t go so well.”

  “That’s nothing,” Patty said, “compared to burning down a church.”

  Tim’s eyes remained closed, but he chuckled. “Yeah. I figure you gotta get in trouble for something like that.”

  Melinda turned at the loud crashing sound, and watched sparks bellowing out of the building as its roof collapsed. Some in the crowd cheered and the police barked for everyone to move back.

  Melinda offered Tim her hand as reassurance and she felt him squeeze it. She squeezed back.

  Off in the distance, she saw her boss and several others on the force talking with a clearly numb Sandy Applegate. Her lieutenant raised his gaze and scanned the night. Soon he’d find her, and she’d be interview
ed by Internal Affairs regarding her use of deadly force. She’d be taken off active and assigned office duty until the investigation was over.

  The worst part would be facing the new widow and her two fatherless children.

  Tim squeezed her hand again when she needed it most. It wouldn’t be easy, but she supposed she could love this man. She squeezed back and felt no pain anywhere.

  About the Author

  David Searls lives in Cleveland, Ohio and also wrote the Samhain novel Bloodthirst in Babylon.

  Look for these titles by David Searls

  Now Available:

  Bloodthirst in Babylon

  Coming Soon:

  Yellow Moon

  Seize the day. Survive the night.

  Bloodthirst in Babylon

  © 2012 David Searls

  They say if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. But folks across the country are desperate. Jobs are hard to find these days. So when the small town of Babylon offers work and even low rent at the local hotel, no one wants to look too closely. But they should. Babylon wants more than a workforce. Much more. There’s something horrible behind the friendly smiles of the townspeople. Unfortunately, by the time the unlucky visitors realize that, it’s too late. The trap has sprung. No one gets out of Babylon…alive.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Bloodthirst in Babylon:

  The frozen-limbed mannequins still creeped Doyle out as he groped his way to the employees’ exit, this time alone. He made it safely and turned to search the shadows for the on-duty manager who was supposed to lock up after him.

  Doyle saw and heard no one, but he’d been told to leave, so he shrugged and stepped partially out of the doorway and peered at the parking lot. It stood nearly empty in the foggy yellow glow of a pair of tall sodium vapor lights. Past the lot, on Main View, traffic moved fairly steadily. It was a few minutes after nine, and dark.

  “I want to get home before dark.”

  Now what the hell had the fool girl meant by that? Doyle pushed his way out and clanged the metal door closed behind him. His ears perked for even the smallest sounds. Habit, most likely, from the Badlands. He took a sharp right onto the pavement in front of the three-story building, then another onto the sidewalk of well-lit Main View Drive.

  It was like day out here, people of all ages but mostly older, strolling and eating ice cream cones and walking dogs and gazing into lit store windows displaying shoes, hardware, rugs, books, banking and dry cleaning services, jewelry, food and coffee.

  Nothing like his neighborhood, where folks really did need to get home before dark.

  A car horn sounded and someone on the sidewalk playfully yelled at the driver.

  Both sides of the street were lined with birch and maple saplings tethered to tree lawns to form skimpy green arches in front of the brick and wood-frame storefronts.

  “…home before dark.”

  Funny, a young girl like that, afraid of walking alone with all these folks out on the streets.

  “What a night.”

  The voice chilled him, nearly stopping him in his tracks. An old lady passed, dragging a yellow poodle that walked as though its feet hurt. Not her. The voice was young, insolent and male.

  The blond-haired man came from nowhere to sidle up to Doyle. Said nothing now. Just smiled brightly in the streetlight.

  He fell in and matched Doyle's pace. They wound their way through outdoor tables filled with ice-cream eaters and coffee sippers.

  The street looked less well-lit the next block down.

  The blond man snickered. He slowed, fell behind until Doyle couldn’t see him without a glance over his shoulder. Jason Penney, in his early twenties, couldn’t have gone more than one-fifty sopping wet. Doyle could take him easy if he had to—but where were Purcell and the others? He had to know.

  An extended family out for a stroll made room for Doyle and the trailing Penney in front of a tire store still open for business. With the incandescent light leaking from a display window fully illuminating the scene for brief seconds, Doyle saw what looked to be four or five generations of a family, one member more wizened and slow-moving than the one before. Their lively chatter died as the two groups passed.

  Penney laughed like he’d been expecting that reaction. “Finally some respect from this goddamn town,” he said. He had a high, tight voice that would have seemed insolent just commenting on the weather.

  Doyle said nothing. He watched a white-eyed figure on a painted bench. As he got closer, it became a slender, raven-haired young woman with a cigarette dangling between her lips. She caught his gaze.

  “There you are,” she said.

  Huh?

  She drew the cigarette from her lips, tapped out the ash on the ground and grinned as Doyle hurried on.

  Another shadow, smaller than the girl, disengaged itself from a tree larger than the saplings in the previous block, and a boy in his early teens made Doyle veer. The boy snorted.

  Footfalls. More pairs of feet than just Penney's following him like echoes. He forced himself to maintain a steady pace and not look back. He was nearly to Third Street. Half a block away, four elderly people sipped cool drinks at a café table set up in front of a bookstore. Three younger men drew around the seated figures and the four hurriedly rose and finished their drinks.

  “Stay awhile, Grandma,” one of the newcomers called out and the others hooted.

  His deep rumble identified him immediately as the notorious Purcell.

  Doyle had seen him with the cop, McConlon, on other nights. Just hanging, the two of them with heads together. Purcell's rigid face was now blue with stubble.

  “How ya doing, Doyle?” Purcell said, eyes locked in on him as the old folks scuttled away.

  Doyle wouldn’t have even guessed that Purcell knew his name. Bro; that's all he'd heard from them before now.

  “Hey, Duane, don’t he look like the dude on TV?”

  Coarse laughter. Lots of it.

  Doyle whirled to see too many young men. They came closer, clustered around him in a claustrophobic circle. No, not just men. There was the slender dark-haired girl with the cigarette, and the younger boy. And still others coming at him from out of the darkness.

  “You mean the comedian dude?” said Purcell. Then to Doyle: “Say something funny, bruthuh.”

  Doyle jerked backwards as something touched his foot. He looked down in disgust as he felt the rat’s cold belly and sorry-assed tail slithering across his shoe and touching up against one bare ankle. He stepped back quickly as the thing ambled into the night.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  The town was full of the things.

  More wild laughter. Keep walking, he told himself. They wouldn’t do anything with all these town folks out. Doyle had been stopped just out of the business district, and most of the strolling townspeople seemed to have found other placed to be, but he still saw the occasional car on the street out front and hand-holding couples quickly squeezing past the crowd on the sidewalk. It was too busy out here for him to be in any real danger.

  Besides, The Sundown was just a couple more blocks to the east. Not far at all in a car. Course, he was on foot. And currently surrounded by eight or ten townies who didn’t look like they were there to safeguard his way back.

  Purcell broke from the circle and sat at the outdoor table the two elderly couples had hurriedly vacated. He made a quick hand motion and someone from the back of the cluster dropped something heavy onto the tabletop. He grunted at the effort and the glass-topped table shuddered.

  Doyle swallowed to wet the cement that had formed in his throat. “Okay, a suitcase,” he said, trying to keep it light.

  Yeah, a scuffed leather suitcase that—

  “Hey,” he said in the next moment. “That’s mine!”

  Something squealed as more fat, long-tailed bodies rolled across his feet. Doyle tried to back up, but he’d run out of space. He could feel hot breath huffing down his neck, and smelled the strong
scent of rancid meat.

  “What the hell?” he snapped, anger momentarily overruling fear.

  He moved in to snatch the suitcase—his luggage—but Purcell swatted it off the table. It fell heavily and someone scooped it up and made it disappear in the crowd.

  Something about the feeble streetlight out front made Purcell’s eyes shine white-hot.

  “How did you…?”

  Doyle’s anger had already started to turn to leaden dread as he considered what it meant that Purcell had his things. First, that they’d broken into his room at The Sundown, and had obviously packed his bag. Where was Carl during all this? Had they hurt him?

  He could hear the sound of a zipper unzipping, and then the slender-haired girl said, “Check this out.”

  She’d opened his suitcase and now held up a pair of his wildly patterned undershorts, drawing hoots of laughter.

  Catching quick peeks at the street, Doyle could see a few cars cruising by without slowing to investigate the sidewalk mob. Maybe even speeding up.

  “So now you’re all packed up with nowhere to go,” said Purcell, still seated.

  “You broke into my place.”

  “Not me,” said Purcell. “Friend of mine, this afternoon. And he didn’t break in. He used a key. Left the place looking as neat and tidy as he found it.”

  Doyle’s fury got him moving. He wheeled and headed straight for the nearest body, determined to steamroll through it if he had to. But he didn’t. The crowd unexpectedly parted. That’s all they wanted to do, just tease him. Freak him out, scare the scary black man away.

  Their plan had worked to perfection. He wouldn't even go through the motions of filing a police report. Let them keep his underwear and toothbrush and ragged suitcase. Small price to pay. He’d be out of there by morning. Carl could tag along if he wanted. Or stay. That was fine, too.