by Osborne, Jon
skin: the white power murders
A DANA WHITESTONE THRILLER
BY JON OSBORNE
PUBLISHED BY JON OSBORNE BOOKS
COPYRIGHT © 2013
COVER BY LAURA MICHELE
([email protected])
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OTHER BOOKS BY JON OSBORNE
KILL ME ONCE
A GAME OF CHANCE
THREE TIMES A LADY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
PART II
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
PART III
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
PART IV
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
CHAPTER 97
CHAPTER 98
CHAPTER 99
CHAPTER 100
CHAPTER 101
CHAPTER 102
CHAPTER 103
CHAPTER 104
CHAPTER 105
CHAPTER 106
CHAPTER 107
CHAPTER 108
CHAPTER 109
CHAPTER 110
CHAPTER 111
CHAPTER 112
CHAPTER 113
CHAPTER 114
CHAPTER 115
CHAPTER 116
CHAPTER 117
CHAPTER 118
CHAPTER 119
CHAPTER 120
CHAPTER 121
CHAPTER 122
CHAPTER 123
CHAPTER 124
CHAPTER 125
CHAPTER 126
CHAPTER 127
CHAPTER 128
CHAPTER 129
CHAPTER 130
CHAPTER 131
CHAPTER 132
PART V
CHAPTER 133
CHAPTER 134
CHAPTER 135
CHAPTER 136
CHAPTER 137
CHAPTER 138
CHAPTER 139
CHAPTER 140
CHAPTER 141
CHAPTER 142
CHAPTER 143
CHAPTER 144
CHAPTER 145
CHAPTER 146
CHAPTER 147
CHAPTER 148
CHAPTER 149
CHAPTER 150
CHAPTER 151
CHAPTER 152
CHAPTER 153
CHAPTER 154
CHAPTER 155
CHAPTER 156
CHAPTER 157
CHAPTER 158
CHAPTER 159
CHAPTER 160
For my mother, Della, who inspired my love of reading, and my father, Richard, who inspired my love of writing.
PART I
“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.” – The Fourteen Words, by David Lane, deceased leader of the terrorist white-supremacist organization known as “The Order”.
CHAPTER 1
“You’re going to die out here tonight, nigger. This isn’t some fuckin’ game. This here’s the real goddamn thing.”
Angel Monroe’s heart pounded in her chest like an angry sheriff at the door with an eviction notice in hand as her unconsciousness gave way to hellish waking reality and she took stock of her surroundings hazily; her muscles aching from being restrained this long. Her brain felt like pizza dough that had been manipulated by a sadistic Italian chef possessed of especially strong forearms. Her left eye pulsed in its socket like an irregular heartbeat; mostly swollen shut by the thick knuckles that had cracked her in the face earlier in the night. But what Angel could make out definitely wasn’t good.
The hostile words were coming from a white hood. The fat one in front. A dozen more white hoods flanked the man on either side, angled off in a V like a flock of oversized Canada geese. Most were holding torches. Off in the distance, the mournful howl of a single heartbroken coyote pierced the stillness of the pitch-black night.
All in all, not exactly her first choice of company for a sultry Saturday evening.
“How you like your accommodations there, shine? Best we could come up with on such short notice. Next time you really should call first before dropping by.”
Angel gagged on the dirty rag shoved in her mouth. It tasted like a mechanic’s handkerchief, and not one who was especially keen on doing laundry, either. She looked down at her feet and felt her stomach lurch. Nightmare scenarios didn’t come much more horrifying than this for black folks.
She was tied to a sturdy wooden cross, its thick base cemented into a barbecue pit behind the Brotherhood’s white-supremacist compound deep in the woods of Creek Run, Mississippi. Positioned on the map some forty miles south of Tupelo and a million miles in any direction from what might reasonably be considered civilization, Creek Run represented the preferred gathering place for the white-power set – a sort of “Club Med” for the racist vacationer. You bring the hate and we’ll take care of the rest.
Ratty lengths of rope sliced deep into Angel’s wrists and ankles, cutting off her circulation and opening up nasty-looking abrasions that had already begun to ooze blood in places. A teepee of kindling leaned up against her bare shins, expertly arranged for maximum burn time once they got the fire going. She almost threw up when s
he saw what the kindling was made of.
Human bones.
There were femurs, ulnas and vertebrae shaped like tiny horse-collars. Tibias and fibias stacked neatly together. Something that looked like part of a broken clavicle. Something else that looked suspiciously like a shard from a bashed-in skull.
Angel closed her eyes and fought back the overpowering urge to vomit. Stomach acid swam up from her gut and seared the thin lining of her esophagus before flooding into her mouth and wearing away the enamel on her teeth. Along with the bones, the semicircle of scorched earth around her bare feet let her know that she wasn’t the Brotherhood’s first guest in the barbecue pit. And at this rate, she highly doubted she’d be their last.
The mountain of a man in front was staring at her hard, his beady little pig eyes glowing excitedly in the flickering torchlight. The glassy sheen in his bright green eyes let Angel know that he was really starting to enjoy himself now (and more than just a tad bit drunk at the moment). She instantly felt sorry for any stray kittens that might’ve crossed his path when he’d been a kid.
Still, she felt a hell of a lot sorrier for herself right now.
Thousands of strange-looking bugs flittered in from the enormous trees surrounding them, on suicide missions to the irresistible siren-call of the flaming torches, their only goal in life now to throw themselves upon the fires in a final white-hot flash of agony. Pops and crackles filled the night air while their hard carapaces split and burned at consistent two- and three-second intervals.
Deep inside the pit of her stomach, Angel knew that it wouldn’t be very long before she knew exactly how they felt. Because pretty soon that would be her carcass over the fire.
The fat man’s breathing sounded labored, like a starving hog rooting around in the woods for a mouthful of tasty truffles. This didn’t surprise Angel in the least. From the look of him, she doubted he got much exercise other than the occasional hate crime or two. Unfortunately for her, however, tonight seemed to be exercise night.
And he was just getting warmed up.
The fat man stepped forward and yanked the dirty rag from her mouth, flooding delicious air into her lungs like cold water from a burst levee. Sweet oxygen rushed to all parts of her body in frantic waves and kept her from passing out again. But just barely, and just for now. If she’d had a gun pressed up against her temple, though, Angel couldn’t have sworn with absolute certainty that she wanted to stay conscious for this. Not tonight. Not with these people. And certainly not in the hopeless position in which these animals had her tied down.
Not to mention the fact that she just so happened to be wearing her nicest skirt that night – which hardly marked an insignificant consideration, at all.
“You ready to bleed, nigger?”
Angel jerked another ragged breath deep into her lungs and winced as her tongue found an oily slick of blood on her badly swollen lower lip; courtesy of the world-class ass-kicking she’d taken just a few hours earlier. “I’m already bleeding,” she coughed, forcing out the words around the painful lump of fear lodged in her throat even though it hurt like hell to talk. “My time of the month and all. Can’t we can just leave it at that?”
To her surprise, the fat bastard actually smiled at that. She knew this only because she could see his dull brown teeth staring flatly back at her through the hole that had been cut out for his mouth. The man’s teeth looked long and crooked, sharp and broken in places – just like a wolf’s.
His derisive snort filled the night air. “That right, nigger? It’s your time of the month, huh?”
“Something like that.”
The electric sound of mating cicadas echoed in the branches to their right as the fat man threw back his head on his wide shoulders and barked out a short, ugly laugh. Turning his head, he called out to his hillbilly buddies in a thick drawl ripped straight out of central casting for three-hundred-pound racist rednecks.
“Hear that, boys? It’s this little nigger’s time of the month. Ain’t that just the sweetest thing you ever heard in your whole fuckin’ life?”
A cacophony of whooping and hollering joined the hiss of torches in appreciation of his hilarious little joke. Rural Mississippi’s very own version of Chris Rock. Personally, Angel didn’t what was so funny about the whole thing, but maybe it was just the heat frying her brain.
The sun had slipped below the dogwood-lined horizon a little more than an hour earlier, but the muggy night air was still clinging to her skin just as insistently as a drunken frat boy’s hands clinging to a giggling co-ed’s chest during a Spring Break kegger that was still raging on the beach long after dark. Unfortunately for Angel, though, this wasn’t Daytona Beach and she wasn’t kicked back on a collapsible nylon beach chair sipping ice-cold Mai Tais through a multicolored plastic straw while digging her freshly manicured toes into the soft sand in front of her with a gentle ocean breeze fluttering through her long black hair. Far from it. This was Creek Run in late July, and it didn’t even come close to featuring that mythical beast known as a dry heat. At least, not for this somewhat-sheltered Northern girl who’d never before stepped a high-heeled foot south of the Mason-Dixon line.
A warm bead of sweat snaked down the back of her neck as the fat man stretched his own massive neck, snapping the line of vertebrae stationed there like a long string of Chinese firecrackers. Angel’s breath hitched in her throat as he reached inside the folds of his flowing white robe and his ham-like fist emerged again a moment later holding a sharp silver blade that glinted wickedly in the crackling orange torchlight. The knife was the kind that featured a serrated edge, the kind that was perfect for gutting a fish.
Angel cut her eyes down to the ball compass bobbing around in the hollow plastic handle. No doubt there was some fishing line and waterproof matches stuffed inside, all neatly rolled up in a convenient little plastic baggie for added protection.
A survival knife.
Needless to say, she didn’t find the irony that he was the one holding it in the least bit funny.
“Your time of the month,” the fat man repeated disgustedly, lifting the sharp blade to her face and brandishing it in front of her eyes. “I should pluck out your goddamn eyeballs for saying some stupid shit like that. That’s exactly the problem with you mongrels, now ain’t it? You’re always breeding.”
The fat man leaned in even closer, boring his beady little pig eyes into Angel’s again. The overpowering stench of stale whiskey and freshly smoked cigarettes on his rancid breath flooded into her nostrils and practically melted all the tiny hairs, causing the sickness to brew in her gullet again.
“But we know how to care of that little problem, don’t we, nigger? If you got a problem you just cut it out. Ain’t that how it goes?”
Angel didn’t respond. She thought it wise considering the circumstances. After all, intelligent discourse didn’t seem to be the main thing this guy was after. But when she didn’t immediately answer him he reached up with his free hand and suddenly gave her left breast a violent wrench.
“I asked you a question, nigger!”
Bright white stars danced in front of Angel’s eyes. The man’s thick fingers felt like heavy fabric scissors slicing hard through her tender nipple, shredding the paper-thin areola and reducing the sensitive flesh surrounding it to tattered ribbons of destroyed flesh. Several long seconds passed before she realized that the hoarse screams bouncing off the trees and back into her ears were coming from her own raw throat.
“Jesus Christ!” she screamed. “Get your fucking hands off me, asshole!”
But Mr. Fat Ass just kept on twisting, grunting hard the entire time, the starving hog in the woods again. Tiny black squiggly lines danced in front of Angel’s eyes, replaced quickly by little green lines, then purple, then blue as her aching breast rotated another half turn. More stomach acid crept up her throat and blistered the already traumatized lining of her oesophagus. Her world blurred. Her stomach cramped. Her temples ached. A split-second before she was sur
e her areola would twist right off like an old-fashioned pop-top, a redneck in back mercifully hacked out a phlegmy laugh.
“Fuck this shit! Let’s fry that nigger up already, Buck!”
Several assenting opinions punctuated the night air at once, each hillbilly voice agreeing that it was high time to start up the barbecue. The one they called Buck nodded and gave Angel’s breast a final, painful twist before lowering the edge of the serrated knife between her thighs.
Angel shuddered violently as the sharp steel inched slowly up her thighs, ice-cold goose bumps rocketing up her legs and directly into her crotch as the awful smell of his hot breath invaded her nostrils again. Every time he opened up his mouth he might as well have been opening a thirty-year-old coffin with the decayed corpse still jammed inside. “Gotta keep the boys happy, honey,” he grunted. “But first we gotta do a little surgery on you. Gotta teach all them other uppity nigger bitches out there a lesson. This is a white man’s country, and that’s the way it’s goddamn well gonna stay.”
Angel swallowed hard as the satin of her Chanel skirt slid up her thighs. Then she took a deep breath through her nostrils to steady her nerves. Fuck it. If she were going to die out here tonight, it sure as hell wouldn’t be without a fight. Granny Bernice wouldn’t have expected anything less from her.
“Not even gonna buy me dinner first, Rambo?” she asked weakly – a so-so 1980s movie reference that she most likely could have improved upon had her brain been functioning properly at the moment. Still, not half-bad, considering the circumstances.
The survival knife paused between her legs. The fat man snapped off the words with his broken teeth like so many pieces of peanut brittle, and Angel blinked hard and refocused her vision. Hell, she could practically see the crumbs of the man’s rotten teeth falling from his mouth with every foul word he spoke.
“I’m afraid you’re out of luck there, nigger, because I don’t buy dinner for filthy whores.”
The faint sound of wind chimes tinkled in the slight breeze, reminding Angel of hot summer nights spent listening to baseball games on the front porch with Granny Bernice. Those days seemed long gone now, and from the look of things they were never coming back again.
So – since she clearly had nothing left to lose now – she might as well go out in style.
She barely recognized the sound of her own trembling voice as the words came tumbling out. “Well, if you don’t buy dinner for filthy whores then I’ll bet that ugly redneck wife of yours must be getting awfully hungry by now, Buck. Better get home and feed the bitch before she starves to death. Hurry, fat boy! Run!”
