by Mark Tufo
He marched back down the street, checking the opposite side, flashing his light into the buildings for intruders. When he reached the end, he flashed his light into the Doc’s old office window and nearly drew his weapon on Eckerson.
Jeff had hidden inside Doc’s office waiting for Jon to show up and as soon as he flashed the light in the window, he flashed his light up under his chin with his eyes open as wide as he could and his mouth open in a mock scream.
“You son of a bitch!” Jon yelled as he jumped away from the window. “I could have shot you.”
“Seriously?” Jeff laughed. “Shooting a ghost? Do you think bullets would do any good?”
“Man, you are seriously off, you know that?” Jon shot back at him.
“And you are wound way too tight.” Eckerson chuckled. “You really need to learn to relax a little and find ways to enjoy yourself.”
“Being a cop is a serious job. It’s no place to be a practical joker.”
Eckerson paused and gazed at the younger man. “Seriously, Jon, if you don’t learn to relax, you’ll drop dead of a coronary before you’re thirty. Don’t believe me, ask Justin.” He turned and walked away.
Jon watched him a moment then jogged to catch up with the older veteran, “What did you mean by that?”
Eckerson made it back to the Charger and opened the door. “His dad used to be the sheriff here. He was always Mr. Serious. My first two years as a deputy were under him.” He sighed and shook his head as his mind tripped down memory lane. “Justin was still in high school, but his old man had this massive coronary. He wasn’t even forty.”
“Was it his diet or—”
“The man never allowed himself to have fun. He had zero sense of humor. He tried to raise Justin to be that way, but it didn’t stick.” Eckerson pointed to himself. “Lucky for him, he had me.” Jon nodded and started to get in. “Hey, untie the Charger first.” Jon started to get back out then realized what he said and stood glaring at him while Erickson shot a cheesy grin at him.
“You really are an ass.”
“I do try.”
*****
“So, Stan, are you going to deliver my prize to me, or do I have to come and get it myself?” Miller asked.
Ingram sighed into the phone. “You’ll get it, Jerrod,” he said, the anguish in his voice palpable. “I tried a Hail Mary but it fell through.”
“Aww, I really feel for you, buddy, I really do,” Miller lied. “So, again, I ask, are you going to deliver it or—”
“You know I can’t bring it to you. We both have the keys to the storage locker. You’ll have to meet me there.”
Miller smiled. “I figured you would have picked my lock a long time ago and replaced it with one of your own by now.”
Ingram snorted on the phone. “I’m not that sleazy, Jerrod, but I wouldn’t put it past you.”
Miller gave a hearty laugh. “Right, because you’re so trustworthy. I gotcha. Just meet me at the storage locker at midnight.”
“I’ll be there. Don’t be late. You keep me waiting and I’ll turn around and go back home.”
“Sure you will,” Miller said. Stan hung up and Miller stared at the clock, counting down the minutes until midnight.
He stared at his collection and the trophy case in the middle section that just waited for the Earp memorabilia. “Soon. Very soon.”
He got up and went down the hallway to his bedroom. He pulled out his favorite jeans and shirt and turned the water on in his shower. After stripping down and leaving his clothes in the floor for Maria, he stepped back into the bathroom and was greeted by the rising warmth as the hot water began to pour into the shower and build up a nice head of steam; he ran the sink full and wet the brush to his shaving cup. He may have had the money to afford the best of the best, but he still preferred to do some things the old fashioned way. A straight razor and soap cup, he felt, gave the best shave, and he wanted to look his best when one-upped his rival tonight.
He swirled the brush over the round disc of soap in the cup until he had a nice thick foam and brushed it across his face. Holding the straight razor with the dexterity of a surgeon, he angled it perfectly and dragged the blade across his face, shaking the foam filled with whiskers off in his sink. He continued the motion until his face was as smooth as a baby’s butt. He drained the sink and rinsed his razor, drying it on the soft cotton towel, then rinsed out his soap cup and stored it upside down.
He stepped into the shower and scrubbed himself head to toe, paying particular attention to his pits and naughty bits. By the time he was finished, his skin was bright pink and he felt rejuvenated. He stepped from the shower and went to the sink to brush his teeth. He whistled a little tune to himself as he gooped toothpaste on his brush and wet the brush with cold water. He grabbed a towel to wipe at the mirror as was his habit and froze in mid-motion.
There, scrawled across his wall-length mirror in dirty letters was a four letter word that he had not expected to see…and it struck him dumb. He dropped his toothbrush in the sink and stepped back from the mirror, gasping at the dirty letters now scribbled across his mirror, the moisture just now starting to form droplets and beginning to run down the mirror in dark brown rivulets.
He bumped into the back wall of his bathroom and continued to stare. It read simply, ‘SOON’.
*****
Alethea stretched out on the couch with Brian cuddling next to her. He kept rubbing her shoulder and playing with her hair, letting his finger gingerly touch the edge of her earlobe. Neither of them paying attention to the DVD playing on the big screen in front of them.
“Are you sure your parents won’t be home until Sunday?” He nuzzled the edge of her jaw as he said it.
She craned her head away to give him more room. She nodded slightly. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
She was trying so hard to be coy and smooth, but inside she was scared to death. Brian was a senior and the star running back for the football team. She was so surprised when he started paying attention to her and even more startled when he asked her out on a date.
She was mortified when her mom said she couldn’t go out on a real date, ‘unsupervised’ with a boy until she was seventeen and absolutely refused to budge, regardless of who the boy was. She almost felt bad for sneaking a date with him to the movies, but convinced herself it wasn’t really lying because she did technically ride to the movies with Jennifer Rhodes. Spending the rest of the night at the back of the movies with Brian was just a little icing on the cake.
He began to kiss her neck and moved his hand to her waist. She scooted closer to feel his body next to hers and moaned ever so softly as he pulled her to him.
“We need to move this upstairs,” he whispered.
She shivered and he felt that he had her where he wanted her, but inside, Alethea was panicking. She wanted to make out with Brian, but she wasn’t ready to do much more. She knew that he had a reputation of being a ladies’ man, and she had heard more than a few rumors of his conquests and even of his abilities, but she still wasn’t mentally prepared to take that final step.
She pulled back and stared at him, trying to catch her breath, but when she stared into those baby blue eyes and he smiled at her, all she could do was nod.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He stood up and she saw his excitement bulging at the crotch of his jeans and her stomach knotted. Her hand trembled as he took it and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her deeply in front of the couch. She could feel that bulge pressing against her midsection and the butterflies in her stomach turned into a dogfight. Two pit bulls were hard at it trying to tear their way out and for a moment she feared that at any moment, she would throw up all over them both.
He pulled away and led her up the stairs, her legs shaking the entire way. Her mind raced with each step, hundreds of thoughts fighting for position, none able to take root in the frontal lobe of her cortex, ‘does he really love me’, ‘will he respect me in the mo
rning’, ‘will it hurt’, ‘does he have protection’, ‘do you even need protection the first time’, ‘will I look different afterward’, ‘will my friends be able to tell’, ‘will I walk funny’, ‘my god he has HUGE feet’, ‘did I remember to feed the cat’, ‘oh, my God, I’m really thinking about the stupid cat at a time like this’. Her thoughts were interrupted when Brian pushed open the door to her parents’ room.
“Oh, um, Brian, no. This is my parents’ room. We can’t…”
“Why not? They have a huge bed.” He gave her a sly smile.
She blushed and lowered her face. “I’ve…I’ve never…”
He lifted her face with his hand and kissed her again. “That’s okay. I’ll teach you. It’s easy. Just do what comes natural.”
“Just not here, okay? It just seems gross to me.”
He nodded and pulled her down the hall. “Which one is yours?”
She blanched. “Not mine.” She kept thinking of her bright pink and white room with the boy band posters and Hello Kitty trinkets. “We have a guest room with a queen-size bed.” She pointed to the door across from her parents’ room.
“Nice.” He pulled her to him again and kissed her neck. She could feel her hands trembling as he pulled her toward the room.
He fumbled for the door and finally pushed it open with his rear. He continued backing into the room, pulling her with him until he backed into the bed. Wrapping his arms around her, he fell back onto the bed and pulled her down on top of him, grinding her onto his erection.
Alethea panicked. Her moment of truth had arrived and she wasn’t sure what she could possibly do to avoid the inevitable. She went with the moment while her mind continued to race. It was difficult to think with his hands wandering her virgin body and when his hand slipped under her bra and twisted her nipple, she flipped out.
She spun and pushed him away. “I’m on my period!”
Brian pushed away and gave her a puzzled and breathless look. “What?”
“Yeah. I’m on my period, so we better stop before we get too far ahead of ourselves.” She started to get up from the bed when he grabbed her and threw her back down. HARD.
The force of the throw caught her off guard and her head snapped, causing a sharp pain in her neck. Before she realized what was going on, he was on top of her. His hands were pushing down on her shoulders and his legs had straddled her waist.
“No you don’t.” Now he was breathing hard. “I don’t mind a little blood.” He sneered at her in the darkness. Leaning down close, he whispered, “Besides, you said you’d never done it before. You’ll bleed like a stuck pig anyway.”
“You’re hurting me, Brian,” she said, her eyes wide, “Get off.”
He slapped her hard across her face and yelled in her ear. “I plan to!”
He fumbled with his pants as she gasped in shock and tried to wiggle out from under him, fear rising up in her heart in tandem with the bile in her throat.
“Stop moving, you little bitch.”
Alethea’s tears flowed freely as she realized just how badly she messed up. She kept begging him to stop, just please, stop. Her pleas turned to prayers while he worked at his belt and tried to wedge his knee between her legs.
“Open those legs, you little tease. I am not going home with blue balls tonight.”
She continued to sob and cry, pressing her knees tighter together and pulled them to her middle, begging him to get off of her when the casement window in the room flew open, banging against the wall and knocking down an antique picture frame in the process. Brian barely looked up long enough to register that the curtains were fluttering before turning his attention back to Alethea.
“You will give it up if I have to rip you out of these damn clothes, girlie,” he growled.
He grabbed her t-shirt and jerked at the neckline trying to make it give. The thin cotton material was stronger than it looked and he accomplished only giving her a friction burn along the back of her neck as he tugged and pulled to either side.
“Please, Brian, stop!”
“Then stop fighting me!” he screamed, showering her face with spittle.
A great gust of wind blew through the room nearly pulling the sheers from the rod at the window, and blew over their bodies on the bed. As the wind blew past them, bits of dust and debris came with it, hitting him in the face and blinding him momentarily.
As the wind blew past his ears, Brian heard a distinct voice whisper, “Do-o-o-o-o-o-n’t!”
He jerked his head up as the wind settled and looked around the room. The only sound was Alethea under him sobbing. “Did you hear that?”
“Please, Brian, I won’t tell anybody what happened, just please, stop…”
“Shut up, you stupid bitch.” He bent back over, his attention drawn back to her.
He drew his hand back to hit her once more and found himself thrown against the ceiling, the wind knocked from him. Brian stayed pressed to the ceiling, unable to breathe as an unseen force continued to press him to the sheetrock. He could feel his ribs bending inward with the pressure, his lungs burning with the desire to suck in air, his eyes wide with stark terror that something he couldn’t see was holding him against his will. He could see the stupid girl still curled on the bed below, drawing her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them in a protective ball when she should be trying to pull him down from—
The force didn’t drop him to the floor, it threw him to the floor and Brian felt his collarbone snap when his shoulder impacted next to the bed. For just a brief moment he was able to suck in air and he pulled in a lungful of dusty, dirty, gritty air before he was picked up and thrown once more, this time to the back wall of the bedroom, crushing the desk along the wall with the small of his back.
Brian crumpled to the floor and grabbed at his shoulder. “Oh, God! Alethea, help me!” He lay still a moment, assessing his pain, then rolled to his side to try to get to his feet. “You worthless bitch,” he mumbled.
He glanced over the edge of the bed and saw her sitting at the headboard, eyes wide, fear painted across her features, her bottom jaw trembling. His eyes narrowed on her and his anger flared for a moment before he realized, she wasn’t looking at him, but behind him. He tried to turn to look over his shoulder, but his collarbone prevented the act. He shifted his weight and tried to turn his body when something grabbed him around the middle and pulled him, screaming, through the second story window and into the night.
6
It had taken Jon a while to figure out that Eckerson was testing his patience, trying to find if the rookie officer had a melting point or a sense of humor, whichever would rise to the surface first. Once Foo realized this, Jeff’s little quips became much easier to take.
“I’m still not seeing what it is the complainant is talking about,” Eckerson finally stated.
“Let’s go ask. I’m tired of walking these old buildings and scaring up field rats.”
“A little Hanta virus never killed anyone.”
“Actually, it’s killed plenty, but, point taken.” Jon pointed to the last section of the ghost town. “Is that all that’s left?”
Eckerson turned off the spotlight on the Charger and folded it back down. “Yeah. These two sections of the town, and there’s an old church further out.”
“Well, we’re here. Might as well check it out, too.”
“Yeah, might as well.” Eckerson fired up the Charger and they drove slowly through the old ghost town. “I drove by it the other night but I didn’t see anything then either.”
“No taggers or kids partying?”
“Nah. Figured whoever she saw was long gone by the time I got here.”
“Hard to believe as fast as you drive.”
Jeff smirked to himself. “You’re learning, kid.”
“What? How not to catch bad guys?”
“How to avoid paperwork,” he stated. “No sense in spending the whole night filling out paperwork over a couple of teenagers who come
out to the old ghost town to knock back a few beers, is there?”
“It’s still a crime. It’s state property, it’s clearly marked ‘no trespassing’ and if they’re minors…”
“You were never young?” Jeff asked.
“I didn’t do anything illegal.” He finally cracked a smile. “My mom would have killed me.”
Eckerson pulled the Charger next to the old Missionary Baptist Church and turned on the spotlight again. “I’m not seeing anything, do you?”
Jon shook his head. “Nope. I don’t see…wait. Hold on.” He opened the door and got out, drawing his Maglite.
Eckerson followed suit, leaving the spotlight on the church door.
“What do you see?”
“There are fresh tire tracks in the dirt over here. They aren’t yours. Looks like a truck or other off-road vehicle.”
Jeff shook his head. “Goes ins or goes outs?”
Jon shook his head. “Not sure yet. Looks kinda like both. Look here. The grass is crushed both directions.”
The two walked into the property holding their flashlights away from their bodies in case anybody was still there and opened fire on them; the fire would be directed away from center mass.
As they approached the church, Jon turned to Eckerson. “Do you smell that?”
Jeff nodded. “Yeah. Fresh tilled dirt.”
“Drugs?”
Jeff shook his head. “I don’t think so. Pot growers don’t usually dig them up. They just cut them at the base, then hang them upside down.” The pair moved further in and stepped up onto the remains of the porch of the church.
Jon went to the right and Jeff went to the left. After a moment Jon came back. “I’m not seeing anything out there.”
Eckerson stood tall, slowly panning his flashlight left to right, then slowly right to left again. “What do you have?” Jon asked.
“A great big fucking mess.”
Jon came up alongside the older man and panned the area with his flashlight. “Oh, my God.”
