Nowhere USA: The Complete Series: A Psychological Thriller series (Nowhere, USA)

by Ninie Hammon

  “Like I said, write on the wall or the floor or …?” Cotton said.

  “I don’t think anything we do here would … it doesn’t sound like what happens here is visible there,” Jolene said. “Wherever they are, it’s in a different … place. We’d have to communicate somehow with something that’s already in both places.”

  “Nothing left in any house or building in this whole county except what was on the walls — like maybe it was part of the building somehow,” Cotton said. “Everything else inside the buildings is … on their side, I guess. It’s not on ours.”

  “Which is why the blackboard worked,” Jolene said. “Both worlds.”

  “And the map,” Cotton said.

  “Soooo …” Jolene wondered aloud.

  “So we take the blackboard off the wall in Charlie’s mother’s kitchen and the map off the wall in your father’s living room and we take them to that meeting room, put them on the wall there. And leave a message on them. Sometime … eventually, I have to believe there’ll be another meeting there, people in the room. and maybe … maybe the messages will communicate.”

  “I think that’s worth a shot,” Cotton said, “but I’m going to try something else.” He scratched his head. “The creature, the beast that Moses encountered … pure evil, black, raging anger …” Cotton paused. “So I’m thinking, ‘How did that little girl get all chummy with the thing?’ Lily Topple. She talked to it and it talked to her. We need to know more about that. I’m going back to have another talk with Rose, see if she can tell me why. And maybe tell me what the thing said to her mother.”

  “Jolene and I’ll move the blackboard and the map while you—”

  “We’ll have to go back, you know that, don’t you?” Jolene’s voice was tight with fear. “Out there, to Gideon. All the roads lead there. That’s where … it is.”

  “Face it down? High Noon on Main Street – something like that?” Stuart said.

  “Yeah, something like—”

  “I need to go home now,” the old man interrupted. His voice was soft, the commanding quality absent. He was in a daze, just sitting there at the table with them, and they’d pretty much forgotten about him.

  “Moses, you aren’t in any shape to go anywhere,” Jolene said. “You can’t hold a coffee cup; how can you drive a car?”

  The man became unexpectedly hostile.

  “Well, I suppose I shall just have to figure it out, won’t I.” He got to his feet, steady, like maybe his anger had firmed up his spine. “I was glad to come and give you a hand and all that, but I really must be getting back to Nashville now.”

  He stopped and the bluster left him.

  “I want this … all of this, everything out of my head!”

  Stuart got it then. The old man knew that as soon as he crossed the county line, all his memories of what had happened here would be wiped away.

  “You want to forget, don’t you?” Stuart put his hand on the old man’s arm.

  No hostility now, he looked pleadingly into their faces.

  “Yes, oh my yes. I want it gone. I want to go home and not remember any of this happened to me.”

  “I get that, but still …” Jolene didn’t like it, but it wasn’t her decision to make.

  They talked about it, decided that it would be best if Jolene wrote a note for Moses to carry with him explaining to him that they’d spoken and some weird things had happened that he wouldn’t remember, but that he should go on home and she’d give him a call and explain the whole thing in a few days.

  Once he’d made up his mind, the decision apparently caught his pants on fire because Moses Weiss was suddenly in a great hurry. Jolene quickly scrawled the note and the three walked him out to his car. They didn’t have any scotch tape, so they used the surgical tape Cotton had gotten for Jolene’s bandages, and taped the note to the center post of the steering wheel where he couldn’t miss it.

  “Moses, are you sure you’re up to—?”

  “Certainly. Just so. Absolutely sure. I must go, now. So sorry to leave you here with all this, but I can’t … I can’t be here any longer.”

  The old man shook hands all around, got into his car and drove away a little too fast down Chimney Rock Pike toward Elkhorn Road. Cotton’d given him directions. Stuart hoped he remembered them.

  Jolene said softly, “I don’t like this.”

  “Neither do I,” said Cotton.

  “Three of a kind,” Stuart confirmed, then turned to go back into the house for his car keys. “But we have work to do.”

  Cotton followed. Jolene stood where she was, watched until Moses Weiss’s car disappeared around a curve.

  The world had stopped spinning, and the pain points Malachi felt brought reality into crisp focus. There was likely a goose egg the size of a medicine ball on the back of his head, where he had slammed down on the rock. There was a stabbing agony in his shoulder. He might have landed on it. He recognized the agony. He had dislocated his shoulder before and this was perilously close to that.

  Maybe bruised ribs, hopefully not broken.

  He could see up and to both sides without moving his head. Could see the top of the ridge above him. He’d obviously hung up on a rock outcrop.

  Duncan Norman? He could be nearby, in a bush or hung around a tree or a rock. But it was much more likely he was down there, two hundred feet below the top of the ridge in the Rolling Fork River that Malachi could hear bubbling far below him. The man had leapt outward, had sprung off the cliff like those cliff divers in Acapulco. Malachi had banged down the face of the cliff, bouncing off it on his way down, but Duncan probably didn’t hit anything in his descent. Until he hit the rocks in the river.

  Slowly, Malachi moved his head to look at his swollen left shoulder and realized it hadn’t totally dislocated, had just hyperextended, pulled the ball painfully away from the socket, but not totally out of it.

  He also realized that his head was below the level of his feet, which had given him a distorted sense of the slope of the rock. He eased to the right slowly, taking the pressure off his left arm twisted beneath him, and with a groan of pain felt the arm shift back into the socket. Now, he needed to scoot slowly on his back, reorient himself, get his head above the rest of his body, and hope that when he did, the heartbeat whum, whum, whum in the lump on his skull would ease off.

  Take it slow. Just scoot. It probably took him ten minutes but he was finally lying level, horizontally on the slanted rock with the rock face on his right. Then he continued to scoot until his upper body was next to the rock face and his lower body was below him. The incline was too steep to even attempt to get to his hands and knees, but he had spotted a crack, a large fissure in the rock that ran up the cliff face. He inched that way across the rough surface of the rock and the tangle of vines that covered it. The vines were not strong enough to hold his weight, but grabbing a handful at least helped him balance, gave him a — probably false — sense of stability.

  The crack in the cliff face ran alongside the slanted outcrop where he lay. When he reached the edge of the outcrop, he felt around with his right hand until he found the edge of the crack — and grabbed hold. He could hold onto the rock, wasn’t going to slide downward as long as he held on.

  He lay there, luxuriating in the sense of stability — not false, this time — that his hand hold granted him. Then he scooted a few more inches, shoved his hand down into the crack and made a fist. His fist held him firm.

  He unclenched the fist and walked his fingers spider fashion up the inside of the crack, it was jagged, provided hand holds, and he was able to pull himself up, slowly, inching his way, until he was in a sitting positing on the slanted rock, his feet out in front of him, his right arm jammed into the crack with his fingers holding onto a shelf of rock.

  He slowly turned this head then and for the first time looked over his left shoulder, let his eye travel down the slanted rock surface. It wasn’t nearly as big a slab of rock as he’d thought and he was grateful
he hadn’t realized that. He could see off the edge of it, but it blocked the view directly below it. Maybe that’s where Duncan had landed because he was nowhere Malachi could see.

  Panting, sweating, Malachi quickly realized that trying to climb down was not an option. If he dared try to move down the rock face, he would slide right off the end of it and drop … onto whatever was below it.

  Nope. The only escape was up.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sam heard the commotion out in the hallway, shouting voices, angry and frightened. The door to Rusty’s room burst open and Raylynn got out only a couple of words, “Viola Tackett’s here and her daughter—”

  Then Neb Tackett shoved her aside.

  “It’s Essie, she’s hurt, bleeding real bad!” He was wearing only a pair of jeans, no shirt. And a shirtless fat man was never an appealing sight even without the smears of blood that covered Neb’s chest. “You got to see to her!”

  A flush of anger rushed over Sam at the demanding tone. She wouldn’t be commanded to leave Rusty by Neb Tackett or anybody else.

  “Take her into Exam B. Raylynn will show you where to—”

  Viola Tackett appeared in the doorway beside her son. Must be Sam’s Viola Tackett day — this was the woman’s third appearance. But she looked very different now. The swagger and self-assurance were gone. Her face was pale, drawn, and scared. And the front of her shirt was soaked in blood.

  “Essie’s been shot,” she announced without preamble. Viola Tackett didn’t mince words. “She needs help. Com’on — now!”

  Sam snapped.

  “I don’t take orders from you, Viola Tackett! Maybe the rest of the world does, but I don’t. My son needs me, too, and—”

  The change in Viola’s demeanor was stunning. She looked surprised at the outburst. Then shot her eyes to the bed and back to Sam.

  “I didn’t mean no harm. I’ll sit with the boy if needs be, but my Essie’s bleeding bad. Gut shot.”

  I’ll sit with the boy if needs be?

  Surely, Sam had heard her wrong.

  But the words “bleeding” and “gut shot” got Sam moving. In truth, she had refused to leave Rusty’s side not because he needed her but because she needed to be there. She couldn’t do a thing for him but look at him, hold his hand, will him to open his eyes.

  “Is Judd Perkins out there?” It was about time for the E.J. shift change and Sam thought she’d heard Judd’s voice in the hallway.

  Viola turned and looked down the hall, called out, “Yo, Judd. Come here. Sam needs you.” Sam came out of Rusty’s room, brushed past Viola and Neb and said to Judd, who was hurrying her way, “Would you sit with Rusty? Come get me if … just sit there.” She didn’t wait for a reply, just said to Raylynn, who was standing in the suddenly crowded hallway, “Is Malachi back yet?”

  “No, he—”

  “Then, would you take E.J.?” She didn’t wait for an answer to that question either, just turned to Viola. “Where’s Essie?”

  “She’s out front in the bed of the truck.”

  Sam took off for the waiting room and the chubby woman kept up with her long stride step for step.

  “What happened? How did—?”

  “She was sitting on the porch and somebody come by and shot her.”

  Shot? Shot! What was wrong with people? All the violence — shootings, bashed-in skulls — why …?

  Then Viola answered the question Sam hadn’t asked. “I don’t know who t’was done it, but I will find out!”

  Bursting out into the squinty-bright sunlight, Sam found a fancy black pickup truck she was sure the Tacketts had stolen from somebody. The tailgate was down and Essie Tackett was lying on her back in the bed of the truck. Obie was on his knees beside her, holding her hand.

  Sam climbed up into the truck and knelt beside the girl. She was pale, her breath shallow. Sam took her wrist to feel for a pulse, didn’t count it, just wanted to see if it was strong. It wasn’t. It was faint, rapid and thready. She didn’t touch the wad of cloth — a tee-shirt, maybe, which would explain why Ned was bare-chested. The cloth, held to the girl’s midsection by a buckled belt, was soaked in blood.

  Sam scooted out of the truck to the pavement.

  “Bring her inside,” she told Essie’s brothers. Then she ran into the building to make sure there were enough of the supplies she needed in the exam room — the one with a metal tray table designed so it’d be easy to clean off dog pee instead of a padded table covered in white paper.

  As one part of her mind ticked off the specifics of bandages and other things she’d need, another part was speaking harsh truth. Even under the best of circumstances — with a trauma center, surgery and surgeons — a shot to the belly was about as bad as it got. Depending on the caliber of the bullet — well, actually, that hardly mattered. Whatever the bullet, it had torn through the girl’s intestines — coils of them, so there would be multiple entrance and exit wounds, all of them releasing fecal material into the body cavity. It was almost impossible, even for a surgeon, to suture multiple sites of damaged tissue and not miss one, and then clean the area well enough to prevent infection. E. coli infection, but there’d be others. Sepsis.

  Sam had seen it once — a little girl had come into the emergency room of the University of Kentucky Medical Center. She had been camping with her family, tripped, fell and impaled herself on a tent stake, which punctured her abdomen almost all the way through to her back. She was in surgery for nine hours. They’d pumped enough antibiotics into her to … but it didn’t matter. Infection set in. She died, and it was a grizzly death.

  Essie needed surgery to … everything. To stop the internal bleeding. To disinfect the area. Sam couldn’t help her. A sense of helplessness washed over her so profound that her step actually faltered and she stumbled before regaining her balance.

  She couldn’t help E.J. No rabies vaccine.

  She couldn’t help Douglas Taylor. No snakebite antivenom.

  She couldn’t help Rusty. No … whatever he needed.

  And she couldn’t help Essie Tackett. The girl would die. There was nothing Sam could do to prevent it. If she somehow managed to survive the gunshot wound, she would die of the resulting infection.

  Stopping at the supply closet, she began grabbing extra bandages and tape. Suddenly, Viola Tackett was beside her.

  “She gone die, ain’t she.”

  It was more a statement than a question. Viola’s voice was almost emotionless. Sam charitably chose to believe she was holding onto her feelings, not that she simply didn’t have any.

  She turned to face the old woman, marveled at how she had produced a son who resembled her, and yet the features were muted to make his face as strikingly handsome as hers was homely.

  “You don’t got to say nothing. I can see it in yore eyes. You can’t fix her, can you?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “How long’s she got?”

  Sam knew she had to provide some kind of answer. The girl’s mother was entitled to that, though the stark truth was that Essie might be dead already, or she might live a couple of days.

  “My guess — and it’s just a guess, Viola, there’s absolutely no way to know — but I’m thinking … hours. Two or three, maybe. I can’t stop the internal bleeding, so it depends on how much damage the bullet did.”

  “She gone bleed to death — that the way of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she in pain? Essie ain’t good at telling you when—”

  “I’m sure she is in pain. But we have” — she paused only briefly but the pause wasn’t lost on Viola — “Oxycontin, and we can make her comfortable. It’ll make her sleepy, too, of course, so she probably won’t be able to talk—”

  “She can’t talk even when she ain’t on drugs. That big fat ole tongue in her mouth, it garbles everything she says.”

  “But if you talk to her, she’ll hear you. You can hold her hand and talk to her while I clean the wound.” />
  “What you cleaning the wound for if she’s gone die anyway?”

  “Because that’s what I do!” Sam snapped. She took a breath. “It’s not much, but it’s all—”

  “I get it. You clean her up and bandage her. I’ll be in there directly.”

  Viola turned on her heel and went to the door of the exam room where Essie’d been taken, crowded by the large bodies of her three sons, and said something. Zach came to the door and she walked down the hallway with him, talking rapidly, gesturing with her hands. Then Viola turned around and went back into Essie’s exam room and Zach went down the hallway toward E.J.’s office. That was odd, but Sam let it go. She had bigger fish to fry.

  As soon as Sam stepped into the exam room she evicted Obie and Neb. They were so large they made the room seem airless. Besides, she did not need the sight of Neb’s bare belly right now and both of them smelled bad. Particularly Neb, who smelled like … urine. Viola was on the far side of the exam table, holding Essie’s hand.

  “I need my Malachi to be here. You know where he’s at?”

  “It’s like I told you before. He took Reverend Norman out to Scott’s Ridge to get his car.”

  “Shoot, it don’t take all morning to get to Scott’s Ridge and back. He musta gone some place after. Where might that be?”

  Sam shrugged. But she’d been thinking the same thing. What was taking Malachi so long?

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Malachi Tackett owed his life to a crack in a rock.

  A big crack in a big rock.

  The rocky face of the cliff that Duncan Norman had leapt off, dragging Malachi along with him, was cracked and fissured. One crack in the rock ran in a jagged line up the rock face from below the point where Malachi had slammed down onto a narrow rock outcrop to within twenty or thirty feet of the top of the cliff. It varied in width from a couple of inches to a couple of feet.

  Malachi was not a sport rock climber. He had endured the rock-climbing aspect of Marine training that some recruits turned into an activity they enjoyed for years afterward. He’d gone along with friends a couple of times. Not his gig. And the sport of rock climbing differed in significant ways from “desperation” rock climbing, which was what Malachi was practicing as he struggled to inch his way up to the top of the cliff face on Ironwood Mountain.