Legion of Despair: Book Three in The Borrowed World Series

by Horton, Franklin

  They had not yet noticed her. She sucked down her fear and let her anger rise. How dare these men try to rob her home? What if her children had been there?

  “Don’t fucking move!” she shouted, her voice as loud and authoritative as she could make it.

  The men flinched, startled. She could see their eyes moving, their brains spinning for traction. With the masks on, only their eyes and close-cropped heads showed. She saw now that the masks were like those that SWAT teams wore on raids to conceal their identities.

  “What are you doing behind my house?”

  One of the men was whispering under his breath. She couldn’t make out what he was saying but she knew he was talking to the other men. She hoped they weren’t planning something crazy. She didn’t want to have to kill them, but she would. She snapped the safety off, wanting to be immediately ready to fire if she had to. This did not go unnoticed, the slight metallic click carrying loudly enough across the silence of the yard.

  As she drew a breath to tell them to leave while they still could, they all heard the sound of a lawnmower start up. While she didn’t take her eyes from the men, the sound distracted her for the briefest moment, delaying her reaction. The men took this opportunity to dive into the tall grass and scurry away. They were only visible for seconds before they disappeared into the thicker brush at the edge of the yard. She had no doubt that she could have put easily put buckshot pellets into painful locations as they crawled away but she couldn’t make herself do it. Instead, she raised the barrel just over their heads and fired into the trees. She pumped the action and fired again, then a third time. She hoped that the sound of pellets crashing over their heads and dropping leaves on them would make the men think twice about returning.

  What she hadn’t considered was the immediate effect that the shotgun blasts would have on everyone else in their neighborhood. As she retreated back to the front yard, she found that her father and Will had abandoned the mower and were running across the yards as fast as they could, pistols in hand. Beyond them, she could see her brother-in-law Dave sprinting toward them with an AR-15 in his arms. While she could barely make out their faces, she could see their eyes wide with fear.

  The Mossberg had a sling and she threw it across her back, raising both arms to wave toward the approaching men that she was okay.

  Will was the first to reach her. “Are you okay?” he practically shouted. “What happened?”

  “I’m okay,” Sara said.

  Gary took in Sara’s appearance, seeing no blood and no obvious injury. “What’s wrong?” he gasped. “Why were you shooting?”

  Sara felt a change in her body chemistry when she opened her mouth to speak. A second ago she’d been completely calm, cool, and collected. Now, she felt like she was going to pass out and burst into tears all at the same time.

  “Do you need to sit down?” Gary asked, his father’s intuition going off. “It’s the nerves baby. You’ll be okay.”

  Will led Sara to the front steps and she sat down. As she did, she noticed that her legs were shaking uncontrollably.

  “Tell us what happened, Sara,” Gary said.

  “I saw three men out the kitchen window,” Sara said, fighting to keep her voice from quavering. “They were in black and wearing these creepy skull masks.”

  “Did they hurt you?” Gary asked.

  Sara shook her head. “After you all left, they came out of the woods and were watching the house. They came down into the yard and were looking like they were going to break in. I got the shotgun and surprised them.”

  “Did they have guns, baby?” Will asked, rubbing Sara’s back reassuringly.

  “Not that I saw. They were just crouched there in the backyard watching the house. When I got around back, they came a little closer. I had the shotgun on them but they took off running when you all started the mower.”

  “Did you hit any of them?” Gary asked.

  “No, I…I tried not to. I shot over their heads. I just wanted to scare them. Make them think twice about coming back.”

  “Good girl,” Gary said. “I’m going to take a look and make sure I don’t see any blood.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Will said.

  Gary shook his head. “No, you stay with Sara. She needs you right now. Dave can go with me.”

  Dave trotted up about that time, panting and heaving, the AR dangling from the single-point sling over his shoulder.

  “Dave, come with me,” Gary said.

  Too winded to speak, Dave bobbed his red face in a nod.

  “Take this, Dad,” Sara said, extending the shotgun toward him. “There should still be four or five rounds in there.”

  Gary leaned over to kiss his daughter on the head. Then he turned to Dave. “Let’s go.”

  Gary led the way back to the corner of the house where Sara had confronted the intruders. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he advanced through the scattered straw and sparse grass to the weeded perimeter of the yard. Keeping the shotgun in a ready position, he scanned the brush carefully but didn’t see anyone. What he did see, though, was what looked like a well-worn trail leading away from their property. Where the trail ended at the edge of Will and Sara’s yard, there was an area of flattened weeds where several people had obviously sat. There were beer cans and crushed cigarette butts. Some of the cigarette butts were stained from having sat there through rain. Gary knew it meant that people had been watching them for a while. It was an unsettling feeling.

  “Stay here, Dave,” Gary said. “I think I know where this trail comes out but I need to make sure.”

  “Are you sure?” Dave asked. “What if they’re waiting on you?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Gary assured him. “You just stay here in case something happens.”

  While Dave was thinking that over, Gary trotted off down the trail. His intention was not to catch up with the men who’d been lurking here but to verify where the trail came out. He walked the rough trail, finding himself concerned that there was even a trail at all. Trails required frequent travel to stay beaten down. He knew that there had once been a shortcut from the public housing development to a nearby convenience store that had cut through their property. When their neighbor Scott first bought this hillside to build his home, he’d had a few encounters with trespassers who’d been intent on continuing the practice of cutting across the hillside.

  Eventually, though, folks realized that dealing with Scott was more trouble than it was worth and found another way to get there. With that, the trail should have grown back over and merged with the forest but that was clearly not the case. Some folks were apparently still using it. It made Gary think back carefully to things that had turned up missing over the years: a shovel, a water hose, some toys. While he’d always assumed that he or the kids just misplaced them, had people been stealing from him all along?

  In less than five minutes, his question as to the trail’s destination had been answered. The trail brought him out in the woods behind the public housing development. He remained in the woods and scanned the grounds but saw no one out moving around. He saw no men that might have been their visitors, nor anyone who might have witnessed them returning. He withdrew back into the woods and walked back.

  When he and Dave rejoined the others in front of Sara’s house, they found that their neighbor Scott was also there, his revolver tucked into the waistband of his pants. Gary nodded at him.

  “Find anything?” Scott asked.

  “A well-worn trail between here and those apartments,” Gary said. “There’s also some trails beat down in other directions. It’s practically a highway back there.”

  “I wonder who’s been using it?” Scott asked.

  “Besides today’s visitors, I’m not sure,” Gary said. “I’ve never noticed people back there before. It does concern me, though.”

  “It makes my decision a little easier,” Scott said.

  “What decision?” Gary asked.

  Scott looked around at th
e group. “We’re leaving,” he announced.

  Gary thought this over. “I hate to hear that,” he said. “I was kind of hoping that we might be able to work together to put a little better security in place around here.”

  Scott shrugged. “I’m sorry, Gary, but I just don’t know if there’s much we can do about that. This place is too close to town. There’s probably ten thousand people who could get here in less than a fifteen minute walk. How do you protect against that?”

  Scott was telling Gary what he already knew. “I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Gary admitted. “So where are you going?”

  “Our church has a camp in the woods,” Scott said. “We do revivals and retreats there. There are cabins and bunkhouses, showers, a dining hall – everything we need. It’s even got spring water and outhouses. It’s on about two hundred and fifty acres over in Bland County. Some of us are going to go over and open the camp up. More folks will probably come out after we get it going. We’re going to pool our fuel together and try to make a few trips in the church bus so that we can haul more people. Some of us are thinking that pooling our resources will be the best way for us to survive this. Otherwise the elderly and the shut-ins won’t make it much longer.”

  Gary knew he was right about that.

  “When are you going?” Will asked.

  “Today,” Scott replied. “No use delaying it. Everyone is packing up right now. I went through every gas-operated machine and vehicle I own and scraped together enough fuel to fill my truck up. We’re going to load all our stuff into that old horse trailer and fit all the people in the bed of the truck. It’ll be a load but hopefully we can get there with no problems.”

  “And no trouble,” Gary warned. “I hope you’ve got more than that revolver to protect yourself.”

  “We do,” Scott said. “My sons are armed. They’ll be watching while I do the driving. The men of the church know to bring their weapons as well. Our camp will not be relying on prayer alone for protection. There’s also a time and place in God’s world for Smith and Wesson.”

  Gary extended his hand. “Good luck, Scott. We’ll try to keep an eye on your place but I’m not sure we’re even going to be able to keep an eye on our own places.”

  Scott smiled at him. “Don’t worry about it, Gary. Without the people I care about inside it, it’s just another house. Remember that.”

  Gary nodded. He would have to make sure his family remembered that. Scott shook Will’s and Dave’s hands, then hugged Sara. He made Gary promise to give his goodbyes to the rest of the family, hitched his pants up, spat, and walked off.

  Things were quiet for a moment, then Gary turned to his family. “So these guys had masks on, Sara?”

  She nodded. “They were those kind of masks like soldiers wear. Like tubes that you pull over your head, but they were black with a skull print on the front.”

  “Have you all seen those folks before?”

  “No,” Sara said.

  “No,” Dave replied. “Not me.”

  Will was hesitant.

  “Will?” Gary prodded.

  “Yes,” Will admitted. “It’s the guys with the dirt bikes. They were in creepy black clothes with those masks when they rode up here before. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to scare anyone. It’s why I’ve been so jumpy, though. People don’t hide their faces unless they’re up to no good.”

  “Right,” Gary said. “I guess we need to get back to work. I don’t want anyone working outside of the house again without radios. We probably have a dozen cheap walkie-talkies with plenty of batteries and we’re not using them. I thought about it last night and meant to get them out first thing, then we got busy. That’s just the kind of dumb decision we can’t afford to make anymore. If Sara had one, she could have called us. We got lucky this time. We can’t count on luck to save us every time. Let’s get those radios before we do anything else.”

  Chapter 5

  Boyd’s House

  Bluefield, VA

  Alice sensed it was mid-morning but only the faintest light filtered into the basement. Outside, the hills were steep and the houses crammed closely together, blocking out all but the overhead light of midday. The tiny basement windows were so grimy she doubted they had ever been cleaned. The insides were smeared with a greasy film that diffused the light. The outsides of the ground level windows were crusted with grass clippings and splashed mud.

  The house above her had been silent all morning. She had nothing to occupy her physically so all she could do was obsess on her plight. She thought of her son and husband, how they must miss her, how they must wonder what had happened to her. She didn’t know if she’d ever see them again. It was impossible to know. Nothing could be certain in this violent and unpredictable world. She also thought of Boyd. Why had he taken her? What did he want from her? Would she end up like Rebecca, brutally stabbed and bled out until her skin was white as paper?

  At some point in the morning, the floor creaked above her and she heard the solid clunk of a sliding deadbolt being thrown. The door at the top of the basement stairs opened and a pair of feet made their way into her limited line of sight. As she expected, it was Boyd, and he was carrying a bucket of water and a wadded up towel.

  He set them on the floor near her, then reached behind his back and withdrew a knife, looking at her expressionlessly. She moved her eyes from his and looked at the knife. Her dad had owned many knives and had told her that you could tell a lot about a man by the knife he carried. Was it a tool? Was it a weapon? Was it a cheap, flashy knife that would not hold up to use? Was it a serious, no-nonsense tool?

  This one looked like an older hunting knife, the handle made of antler. She knew from her father that many of those older hunting knives were made of a softer grade steel than modern knives. Though they would not hold an edge as long, they could be honed to cut like a razor. It was impossible to look at such a knife in the hands of someone so obviously crazy and not feel your guts curdle with fear. It was a knife designed for skinning and flesh removal.

  Was that what he had in mind for her?

  “Stick out your hands,” Boyd croaked, his voice raspy from disuse.

  Alice hesitated, then did as he said. Boyd slipped the blade between her hands, tugged upward, and easily cut the ties that held her hands. They fell apart. She rubbed her wrists, trying to massage life back into them. There were marks where the zip ties had cut into them which would take a long time to go away.

  “You fucking stink,” he said. “As my grandfather would have said, you’d knock a buzzard off a shit-wagon. Clean yourself up.”

  Alice looked down at herself. She was filthy. Her clothes were disgusting, stiff and caked with body oils, sweat, and urine.

  “Do you have something else I could wear?” she asked.

  Boyd stomped up the stairs, and returned in a moment with his arms wadded full of clothes. He’d not had time to search for anything. He had obviously just picked up a pile that was already up there for some reason. He dumped them on her, then turned and went back up the steps without a word. At the top, he slammed the door ridiculously hard, as if trying to make a point that was lost on her, then latched the deadbolt back.

  She could hear him talking as he walked off, although she assumed that he was alone. She’d not heard anyone else in the house. It was likely that he was talking to himself. That was not particularly concerning, a lot of folks talked to themselves, but it sounded like he was arguing with himself.

  Alice rolled the stack of clothes off of her and reached carefully for the bucket of water. In the dim light, she could see tiny things floating in it, as if the bucket had not been washed before being filled. It was clear, though. She leaned over it and smelled. There was no odor to it. Thirst overtook her and she tilted the bucket to her lips, gulping at the water. It ran down her face. There was a slight pain in her shrunken stomach as it received the water. When she could drink no more, she turned back to clothes Boyd had left her.

>   They smelled clean, but vaguely stale, as if they’d been stored for a long time. It was like the smell of an old steamer trunk. In the dim light, she sorted the stack. They reminded her of the clothes she’d seen in pictures from the 1960s – knits, polyester, silky floral blouses. They were the clothes of women with beehive hairdos and long cigarettes. Toward the bottom of the pile she found a shapeless cotton dress that had probably never been in style, even when it was new. Of all the clothes, it was the only thing that would fit her comfortably.

  Although maneuvering was awkward with the heavy chain still zip-tied to her neck, she undressed as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, she was wearing a button-up shirt, otherwise she’d have had to tear it loose since she couldn’t pull anything over her head. When she was naked in the killer’s dark basement, she felt as vulnerable as she’d ever felt. Despite that feeling of vulnerability, she found no room for terror in her heart. At this point, she had little control. Her only choice was to go with what happened until she could find a crack and hope that she could exploit it.

  When Alice had cleaned herself as best she could, she set the bucket and towel to the side and dressed herself. She was glad that she didn’t have a mirror. With her unwashed and uncombed hair, wearing this old and ill-fitting dress, she was certain her own appearance would have brought her to tears.

  She sat down at the base of the support pole, her chain held in her hands to keep the weight from pulling at her neck, and waited for Boyd. Unaware of how long she waited, the shadows slowly changed direction and eventually evening came.

  She must have nodded off because a sound startled her awake. She sat up and listened. She heard the sound of the steel bolt unlocking, the door creaked loudly, and then the stairs groaned.

  “Are we all ready?” Boyd called down. He almost sounded like a game show host, throwing a playful lilt into his voice

  Alice wrinkled her brow. Ready? For what? “Yes,” she said brightly, not wanting to anger him.