This time when he went to sit up, Father Carter didn’t hold him down. The smile on his face, however, faded. A bout of dizziness hit Jared as he struggled to bring himself to a seated position. Once again, the father’s hands steadied him.
“Jared,” he said slowly. “We will find Corina, I can promise you that.”
Jared, eyes closed again, couldn’t help but guffaw at the words—after all, that was all they were: words. What could this priest possibly do to find Corina that he couldn’t?
Faith wasn’t one of his strong suits, and if it hadn’t been for Corina wanting for some bizarre reason to stick around in Askergan after being pulled from the basement, he wouldn’t have even been at the church. Still, he was a man searching answers, and after all this time when even the internet continued to draw blanks, there were only so many places that someone as desperate as he could go.
“I’m not a normal priest, Jared.”
The man’s eyes were serious, and for some reason Jared had an inclination to believe him. After all, before he had been shot, the sermon that Father Carter had delivered had been anything but normal.
“And my friend here?” he continued, drawing Jared’s eyes to the other man, the man with the stern expression and the strange name. “He’s no normal altar boy. He can... he can find people, amongst his many talents.”
Jared’s mind flashed to the way Pike had so easily dispatched the biker in the church.
Many talents.
“Stick with us, Jared. And we’ll find Corina. I promise.”
Jared realized that the priest was holding out his hand.
His eyes darted from Pike to Carter and back again.
No, these were definitely not normal church people, and this place was no normal church.
Without thinking, Jared reached out and grasped Father Carter Duke’s hand.
Only finding Corina mattered now; his only link to the past, his family. And if these men could help, then he would forge any deal he had to in order to find her.
Still, when the smile returned to Father’s face, Jared instinctively wondered what sort of agreement he just bound himself to.
48.
The sheriff awoke with a splitting headache. At first he didn’t remember what had happened, let alone where he was, and he just lay on the ground, staring at a bath towel.
A towel. Nancy’s towel.
It all came flooding back and Paul tried to jump to his feet. But when he placed his arm on the floor, a searing pain shot from his right shoulder all the way to his fingertips.
“Shit,” he swore, recalling that he had been shot. He glanced down at his arm, and was relieved to find that the bullet had only grazed him, creating a flesh wound that had only bled a little. Some minor prodding with his other hand suggested that the bleeding had even stopped for now.
Nancy.
He used his other arm to push himself to his feet. For a second, his entire world spun and he thought he would come crashing down again. But squeezing his eyes shut somehow forced his equilibrium back to true, and the sensation passed.
Standing now, he probed his head next, and found a nasty lump on his forehead right above his left eye. With a grimace, he quickly searched the rest of his body, from his chest to his naked legs, for any signs of injury.
Nothing seemed out of place.
Yet he couldn’t help but think that he shouldn’t be alive.
But he was, and so was Nancy, at least for now... or at least that was what his intuition told him.
Sheriff White quickly grabbed his pants and pulled them on; they seemed lighter than usual, and it took a moment to realize that his gun was no longer in the holster.
Fuck. The biker must have taken it.
How could I have been so careless? How could I have let the man sneak up on us?
But that wasn’t quite fair, and he knew it. After all, the man had been camped out in the closet for... well, for God only knows how long. And the fucking creep had just been sitting in there, waiting and watching... the fucking guy had watched them have sex.
Still, he should have been more prepared; after what Dirk had told him, he should have been ready for anything.
Paul swallowed hard.
The Crab has plans for you yet.
He did up his fly and buttoned his pants.
“Yeah, I’ve got plans for you, too, bud. You and your biker crew.”
Head still pounding, the sheriff fled his and Nancy’s house, not bothering to lock the door behind him. He surveyed the road, squinting into the dusk.
I must have been out for a good few hours, he thought.
There were no cars on the street, and he didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. He supposed if there had been some motorcycles there, it would definitely have been a bad thing. A thing that would have prevented him from getting to the station and rounding up his hodgepodge team of civilians and criminals to go get Nancy back.
After all they had been through, after all of the unbelievable things they had seen over the past week, the last thing that he would let happen was to let a group of drug-dealing bikers fuck up his life—their lives—or Askergan.
Nancy’s face flashed in front of his eyes, her pretty face still damp from the shower, her hair wet and stringy.
I’m sorry, she had mouthed.
Paul wondered for what. After all, this wasn’t her fault—none of it was her fault. This was his fault.
How had he let things go so far south since Sheriff Dana Drew had passed? How had he not been able rein things in? Even before the crackers had invaded, there had been signs of the town going to shit, that drugs had started to infiltrate everything from the church to the schools.
And not just the high schools, but the fucking middle schools.
“I’m sorry, Dana,” he said to empty air.
Askergan County’s sheriff pulled his cruiser door open and he stepped inside. It was like an oven in there, having baked in the sun all day, but he didn’t bother turning on the AC or rolling down the window. With gritted teeth, he backed out of his driveway and tore back down the street. The irony of retracing his steps, of racing out here to make sure that Nancy was okay, only to lose her and then race back, was not beyond him.
But that was beyond his control.
He couldn’t control the townsfolk, who were spiraling into a deep, dark hole; he couldn’t control the bikers that had stolen Nancy from him; and he questioned whether he could control even his newly appointed deputies.
The one thing he could control, however, was himself. And he just prayed that it was enough. Enough to save Nancy, and enough to save the godforsaken county.
“Stay alive, Nancy. Keep it together. I’ve got some crab hunting to do.”
49.
“Jesus fuck.”
Seth was staring at his ruined face in the mirror.
His nose was a mess, the usually straight and narrow reflection a flat mush on his face. He tried to wipe the blood away from beneath his nostrils, but it was quickly replaced by fresh liquid. But while his nose was bad, his eye was probably worse. It was pushed back from his face, a little further than the other one. The pupil was wide, and the upper eyelid sagged over top of the sunken globe. A dark purple and red bruise was already starting to form on nearly the entire half of his face.
“Fuck.”
Seth looked away; staring at himself would only serve to either make him sick or make him question what he was doing.
Neither would do, not now.
Probably not ever.
Get the girl.
Seth went to the bed, his gait awkward as he bent to his left, trying to insulate what he was certain was at least two, maybe even three broken ribs.
He was convinced that if the girl on the bed—the girl—hadn’t awoken during their struggle, that there was a close to zero chance that picking her up would wake her.
Grinding his teeth against the pain, he reached down and threw the blanket off the girl. To his surprise, she
was dressed in a pale blue dress that went to just below her knees.
He hadn’t been expecting that; he had been expecting a hospital gown, or maybe scrubs... not a neat blue dress. His eyes flicked to the man that lay unconscious on the ground, a small trickle of blood leaking from a cut on his forehead.
He must have put that on her... What is he? Her boyfriend, maybe?
A cursory glance revealed no rings.
Not married.
And what is so special about this girl?
She didn’t look like anything special, what with her thin, pale face and black hair swirling about on the pillow beneath her head. He surmised that she might have once been pretty, but now she was just skin and bones.
Get the girl.
The voice was loud now, and Seth immediately snapped out of his stupor.
First he yanked out the remaining cords and tubes that still hung from the woman and then, in one sweeping motion, he leaned down and draped the woman’s thin arm behind his neck. Wheezing through the pain, he readied himself. Then, with a cry, he hoisted her body over his shoulder and across the back of his neck, like a fireman carry.
She was lighter than he’d thought, much lighter, and he found that when he straightened out, the pain in his side receded back to a dull grind.
He slid his right foot forward, wondering if, as light as she was, he would be able to support his weight and hers.
His ribs flared, but relief washed over him when he thought he could manage. He tried another step, and was again met with success. With a grunt, he took another two steps. Before he knew it, he was walking by the woman at the front desk who lay face down in a pool of her own coagulated blood.
Got the girl, he thought. But why was she chosen?
He spat a glob of blood.
Why was I chosen?
50.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to leave, then?”
“Yup.”
Reggie threw his arms up.
“And what am I supposed to do here all by myself? What if your biker buddies come around?”
Dirk scowled, and he pointed a nub at the much bigger man’s chest.
“First of all, they aren’t my buddies. They’re—they’re—” He thought about it for a moment.
What the hell are they to me?
“They’re a means to an end, I guess. And now, thanks to you and whatever this place is, I’ve found my end.”
Reggie grunted.
“What, the priest?”
“Oh, he’s more than a priest,” Dirk said with a sneer. He turned his hand to show the other deputy his missing fingers. “He took these from me, and that was only the beginning.”
Reggie pushed his lips together, but he stepped away from the saloon-style doors separating their desks from the general lobby area of the station.
“We’ve all lost something in this battle... everyone in Askergan has lost something. And you’re a deputy, for Christ’s sake.”
If he was trying to guilt him into staying, it wasn’t going to work.
“I’m not from Askergan, fella. And a deputy?” he laughed. “For a minute. You too, by the way.”
“A minute or an hour. Either way, you accepted the responsibility.”
Dirk shrugged.
“Why are you sticking around?”
The man got a far off look in his eyes.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m here, I agreed to serve, and I’m staying.”
There was a story there, but Dirk figured it unlikely that he would be able to extract it from the man this night. Besides, he had heard enough stories for one day.
He shook his head.
“Look, I get it. And I’m not trying to be a dick, but you don’t understand how long I have been chasing this guy.”
“The priest—Father Carter Duke?”
“Carter Duke, Chris Donovan, whatever his name, if he is as smooth a talker as you say, it can only be the one guy. I’m sorry. Really, I am.” He reconsidered his previous words. “This is a dick move, no doubt about it. But I have no choice.”
Dirk unclipped the deputy star from his shirt and placed it down on the desk.
“What about the uniform? The gun?” Reggie asked, indicating the pistol still on Dirk’s hip.
“The uniform I’ll dry clean and ship back to you, what do you think? But the gun, I think I’ll keep that.” He tapped the butt of the gun with the flat of his hand. It was on the wrong hip, he realized; with only two fingers on his right hand, not only would holding the gun pose a problem, but shooting it would be next to impossible.
He made a mental note to switch the holster over as soon as he left the station. Dirk slid past the other man, making sure to keep his eyes on him as he continued to back toward the door. He didn’t much like the way the man’s arms, after he had put them down, had started to creep toward his own gun.
If the man drew now, he would have no choice but to surrender his weapon.
And he needed that gun. He needed it for Father Carter Duke.
“Look—” he began, but the door behind him suddenly opened, and if it weren’t for the large body that burst through, he might have fallen out. Dirk went to turn, but he felt one large hand grab his shoulder, while the other grasped his gun. In one fluid movement, the gun was unclasped and it was removed from the holster.
Evidently, whoever had just entered the station had no problem with their right hand.
“You can leave if you want,” a voice he recognized said in his ear. “But you can’t take this with you.”
51.
After Seth had started his legs moving, carrying Alice to the car was the easy part. It was lowering her into the back seat of the stolen car that was difficult.
His ribs were definitely broken, and his nose was a mess. But it was the sharp pain in his side, behind his broken ribs, that was the most worrisome. It felt as if someone was poking him in the lungs from the inside. He knew very little about medicine, but he knew enough that this was bad. And if it got any worse, he would be at risk of puncturing a lung.
Still, he was the chosen, and she was the girl.
With this in mind, he bore down against the pain and bent over. Seth cried out as he flipped the girl from his shoulders and onto the backseat. Breathing quickly through his mouth, on the verge of hyperventilating, he stood up straight, stretching his back to ease the pressure on his side.
He took one hitching breath, and then bent over again and quickly shoved her entire body inside, not caring when she only slid forward a few feet before her legs simply folded inside the vehicle.
“Arghh!” he shouted as a sharp pain ripped through his side.
He slammed the car door closed, but this time when he went to stand up straight, he felt something pop in his side, and then it was as if someone had driven a branding iron right through his body. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and it was all he could do to keep from collapsing in a heap.
Grunting and gasping, he managed to slither into the driver seat without changing his posture all that much. And then, like before, he was off, not questioning where he was going, only allowing himself to be led.
Less than an hour later, the stolen Ford careened onto the curb in front of two parked motorcycles. The vision in his one remaining eye had gradually dissipated to nothingness, and it had been many miles since he had seen the road clearly. Twice he had struck something, once hard enough to send the girl in the backseat airborne.
Somehow he managed to put the car into park, and the engine hissed in the hot sun.
Seth closed his eye and lay with his head against the headrest, his hair matted in sweat, his breathing still coming in bubbles.
Even when someone opened his door, he didn’t move.
And when a voice spoke, he remained similarly still.
“He looks dead.”
Warm fingers pressed against his neck.
“No, still alive. Barely.”
“Can you move him? Put him in the passenger seat?”
There was a pause, punctuated by one of Seth’s moans.
“Dunno. Don’t think so. Looks pretty beat up.”
“I’ll call in a tow, then.”
Seth heard the crackle of a radio, and a message was relayed to another man with a gruff-sounding voice.
“There’s a girl in the backseat.”
“Yep, I see that.”
There was some sort of silent exchange, then Seth felt someone pat him on the shoulder. The sensation was nondescript, like a generalized pressure on his numb body that he could barely locate.
“Hang in there. The Crab has been expecting you.”
And then everything faded to black.
52.
Dirk raised his arms and turned to face the man who had just pulled the gun from his holster.
Sheriff Paul White stared back, his expression grim. For a second, none of the three men in the room spoke—or even moved. It was as if they were all expecting something to happen, an act of God, a giant hand sweeping down, perhaps, one that would pick them all up and scoop them out of the hell that was Askergan and drop them down in a unicorn-and-rainbow-fueled utopia.
And then, unbelievably, something did happen. But while the intrusion was highly unexpected, it wasn’t the act of a savior.
The door to the police station was thrown open, and a man with a red beard that Dirk had never seen before stepped inside.
His face was bruised and battered, and he was accompanied by the smell of blood.
“They took her!” the man gasped. “They took Alice!”
And then he collapsed, and the sheriff barely reacted in time to prevent him from falling to the floor.
53.
Donnie Wandry watched as the unconscious man with the battered face was carried into the room, his frail body laid across one of the biker’s arms.
“He’s here,” the biker announced, and the Crab turned, a smile growing on his face.
The man had only recently removed the skin suit that he had been wearing—Sabra’s skin, Donnie had learned—but he wasn’t sure that what was beneath was any less disgusting.
Parasite Page 22
