Ash: Return of the Beast

by Gary Tenuta

  Ravenwood shook her head. “Okay, you’re losing me here. What the hell did he say?”

  Tocho hesitated and surrendered a quiet laugh. “He said, ‘When you return, bring me the raven’.”

  CHAPTER 49

  The Next Day…

  11:50 a.m.

  After four hours on the plane from Albuquerque, Ravenwood and Tocho arrived in Guatemala in the middle of Fiesta de la Virgen de la Asunción, the city’s annual celebration of the Virgin of the Assumption, the patron saint of Guatemala City. Even the airport was buzzing with festivities. The place was a kaleidoscopic frenzy of people laughing, dancing, shouting, singing, many of them adorned in colorful masks and elaborate costumes.

  “Oh, god, get me out of here,” Ravenwood said as they dodged their way through a moving throng of native teenage party animals. As she and Tocho made their way to the exit, she glanced back over her shoulder. “Do they even know what they’re celebrating?”

  “You know kids. Any excuse for a party. Have you forgotten?”

  Ravenwood cracked a grin. She and Tocho had partied plenty when they were teenagers. “Seems like another lifetime. I remember the night of the high school Independence Day party.”

  Tocho’s face lit up. “Oh, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “When I drove my motorcycle into the gym. Everybody stood up and cheered.”

  Ravenwood laughed along with him. “Just as the band was playing Born To Be Wild.”

  Tocho growled out the opening lyrics. “Getcher motor runnin! Head out on the highway! Yeah, was that wild or what?”

  “You set the whole thing up, right?”

  “Yeah, the band knew exactly when I was planning to bust in through the doors.”

  “And Vice Principal Alvarez ran around after you, trying to chase you out. God, that was hilarious.”

  Tocho cracked a grin. “Yeah. Good times.”

  They exited the comfortably air-conditioned terminal and stepped out into a muggy 80-degree Guatemalan afternoon.

  “God,” Ravenwood said, “I can hardly breathe. It’s like trying to suck a milkshake through a pinched straw.”

  Tocho chuckled. “Get used to it.” Then he pointed to a bus that was idling at the curb just few yards away. It was painted in a dazzling array of bright, gaudy colors and black smoke was billowing out from a corroded exhaust pipe. “Hey,” he said, “there’s a chicken bus.” He grabbed Ravenwood by the arm and pulled her along. “Let’s take it into town. I know where we can rent a car for really cheap.”

  She pulled her arm back and followed him. “I don’t care what it costs as long as it gets us where we’re going.”

  “And back.”

  “Yeah. That’d be good, too. What the hell is a chicken bus?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The driver jumped out of the bus and greeted them. He motioned for them to hand over their baggage. They’d packed light with only a canvas travel bag and a backpack for each of them. The driver hefted the bags up onto the top of the bus where they tumbled into position amongst a dozen others. He climbed up a metal ladder on the side of the bus and secured the bags with a rope tethered to a rail. He looked down at them and shouted. “qué estás esperando?” What are you waiting for?

  Tocho took Ravenwood by the hand and helped her into the clattering vehicle. It smelled like a locker room full of sweaty feet. As she turned toward the seats, the first thing to greet her was a chicken. It had jumped out of the arms of an old native woman in the seat nearest the door and it began pecking at Ravenwood’s sandaled foot.

  Ravenwood let out a screach and jerked her foot back. The startled chicken commenced squawking, its wings flapping frantically as if it was under attack. The old woman scowled and––with what seemed to be an effort of great inconvenience––she retrieved the chicken and returned to her seat. She soothed the poor creature with a few gentle strokes over its ruffled feathers, all the while giving Ravenwood the evil eye.

  Ravenwood gathered her composure, smoothed out her white cotton shirt and apologized. “Lo siento mucho. Perdóname.” Then she looked up and noticed at least a half dozen of the other passengers were each hugging a chicken in their lap.

  Tocho nudged her from behind and pointed over her shoulder toward the back of the bus where the only vacant seat seemed to be waiting just for them.

  They sat next to each other on the cracked and crinkled brown leather seat. Whisps of cotton stuffing poked out from the gaps in the seams.

  The driver got behind the wheel and wrestled the gear shift into position. The bus lurched twice, a lock of Ravenwood’s hair flopped down over her eyes, a chicken squawked, and soon they were off to the big city.

  Ravenwood shifted uncomfortably in her seat as the vehicle rattled on down the road. “Chicken bus.”

  Tocho grinned.

  ***

  A light rain was falling as their rental car––an old 1991 sun-bleached-red, 2-door Nissan Sentra––rattled along the stretch of poorly paved road on their way to the small mountain city of San Cristobal.

  Ravenwood fiddled with the air-conditioning knob. It clicked and nothing happened. “Great,” she said, falling back into the seat.

  Tocho shrugged. “What do you want for fifteen bucks a day?”

  Ravenwood cracked her window a couple inches and a light spray of rain blew gently into her face. The air smelled fresh from the lush tropical greenery whizzing by but it wasn’t worth getting soaked. She rolled the window back up. “Doesn’t anybody else take this road? We haven’t seen another car since that taxi passed us a half-hour ago. Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

  “It’s a shortcut. Relax. I know what I’m doing.”

  Two hours into the drive Ravenwood could feel a difference in the air pressure. She yawned wide to unplug her ears. “We’re climbing. We must be getting close. Right?”

  Tocho looked at his watch. It was just after 4 p.m. “Another hour, I’d say.”

  “I thought you said it was a shortcut.”

  “Well, believe it or not, the main road would take… what the––?

  The engine started shuddering. It choked a couple times and the car slowed to a crawl. Tocho steered it to the side of the road where it conked out completely. He slammed the steering wheel. “Damnit!”

  Ravenwood shut her eyes. “This is not happening. Tell me this is not happening.”

  Tocho flung the door open and jumped out. He lifted the hood to take a look but, not being much of a mechanic, he really didn’t know what to look for. He left the hood up, got back into the car and slammed the door shut. “I can’t believe this.”

  “You left the hood up.”

  “I know I left the hood up,” he snapped. “If somebody comes along and sees it, maybe they’ll give us a hand… or a ride… or whatever. Christ, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Well, I know. I know I don’t have time for this, Tocho. We’re sitting here in the goddamn rain, on some god-forsaken…shortcut…” she underscored the word with a cold glare, “…in the middle of nowhere while the fate of the goddamn world is at stake.”

  He looked at her and then turned away. “I’m sorry. Whaddya want me to say?”

  Ravenwood took a breath and turned her face to the window. She rolled it down a crack. The rain splattered in but it cooled her down. “Fifteen bucks. We should have splurged for twenty.” She crossed her arms and sank back into the seat. Then her face lit up. “Wait.” She pulled her cell phone out of the side pocket of her new khaki cargo pants and waved it around. “Shit!”

  Tocho shrugged. “Not a lot of cell phone towers in the middle of the jungle.”

  She snapped the phone shut and tossed it over her shoulder into the back seat.

  The rain was coming harder now. She pushed the button to close the window but it didn’t work. “Can you turn the key on, please? I gotta close this thing before I drown.”

  Tocho shook his head. “It is on. We got nothin’.”

  There really wasn’t
anything more to say. So they sat… and waited.

  CHAPTER 50

  The Same Evening…

  Kane dragged himself into his apartment, turned on the lights and draped his damp blazer over the back of a chair. He moved to the bathroom, grabbed a towel off the rack and dried his hair.

  When he’d left for work that morning there was no reason to even consider the need for a hat or an umbrella. The late evening summer shower now falling on the city was in some ways a welcome change from the unusually long hot spell that had relentlessly seared the Pacific Northwest for nearly two straight weeks. The rain was rinsing the dusty windows and giving the city streets a good washing. The nearly parched summer flowers were drinking it up like thirsty desert dwellers. Their sighs of relief were nearly audible. The only thing the rain didn’t seem to be doing was washing away Kane’s dilemma.

  He tossed the towel into the hamper and moved to the kitchen for a bite to eat but nothing sounded good. He could order Chinese but even that didn’t sound very appetizing. The last beer in the refrigerator seemed to have the most appeal. He popped the cap and sat down at the kitchen table and took a sip as he watched the little trails of raindrops drizzling down the kitchen window. He leaned back in the chair and let out a long sigh, glad to be away from the job, at least for the night.

  The horrendous secret he was keeping made every minute at the office increasingly difficult to endure. While everyone else was working hard to come up with something solid that they could use to hang Cowl––or anyone else, for that matter––he alone already knew the truth. There was no question about it. Cowl was their man. But sharing that knowledge with anyone else would mean exposing himself to the embarrassment of the shameful things he’d done as a child. He slammed the bottle down on the table and scolded himself. No, goddamn it. I didn’t do anything wrong. That bastard did it to me. He pushed the chair back and stood up. He walked over to the sink and stared out the window. Suddenly, he realized something. Something that he found both disturbing and yet strangely enlightening at the same time. He and Rye Cowl had something in common––something so deeply embedded in their own individual psyches that he now saw it as a bond between them. The motivation that was apparently fueling Cowl’s bizarre path of revenge, and the thing that was creating Kane’s own personal dilemma, were one and the same. Stranger yet, it was driving each of them toward the same end: the death of Pastor Pete.

  Or not.

  Kane winced as he felt the dilemma squirming inside his gut, trying to chew its way out. He felt sick and leaned over the sink. His stomach churned and he gagged––once––twice––but nothing came up.

  He straightened up, wiped the drool from his chin and stared at his reflection in the window. For a brief moment he saw Cowl staring back at him. Shaken by the vision, he pushed away from the sink and looked again only to see his own startled reflection. He laughed. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t funny. Fucking son of a bitch. And where the hell is Ravenwood?

  CHAPTER 51

  The Next Morning…

  Ravenwood twitched and squirmed as she lay curled up in the back seat of the old Nissan. A horde of demons howled and squealed as they gathered around her but she couldn’t hear them. She could only see their animated faces, writhing, twisting into grotesque contortions, mouths gaping, eyes like half-dead creatures hungry for flesh, glaring at her from dark, loose sockets. The vile things had trapped her inside a glass cage. They were swarming around the enclosure, taunting her and tap-tap-tapping on the glass with the nails of their long, gnarled fingers.

  Something awakened Tocho from a fitful sleep in the front seat. Tap-tap-tap. He looked up from his uncomfortable position to see the barrel of a pistol tapping on the glass of the driver’s side window. Oh, Jesus. He froze. “Ro,” he whispered. Then louder. “Ro. Wake up. We got company.”

  The demons scattered as Ravenwood’s eyes fluttered open. She raised her head slightly to see Tocho sitting up with his hands raised. She looked out the window and saw a thin-faced, dark-skinned man, perhaps in his early 30s with a mound of dangling dreadlocks and beady black don’t-fuck-with-me eyes. His brightly colored short-sleeved tropical shirt revealed a thin but muscular torso and both arms were covered with tattoos. He was saying something and motioning with the gun for Tocho to step out of the car.

  Ravenwood thought maybe the man hadn’t noticed her lying low in the back seat. Her first instinct was to go for her gun but that wasn’t going to happen. As an FBI agent, she wasn’t allowed to carry a firearm in a foreign country without a special permit and she’d had no time for that before leaving the States. Her second instinct was to utilize her acting chops and play a role that had worked for her more than once in sticky situations with bad guys. If there was an Oscar for playing a helpless dumb chick, she could be at the top of the list of nominees.

  Thinking quickly, she unbuttoned her shirt, revealing a pastel pink Victoria’s Secret bra. She knew it would come in handy for something. She just never thought it would be something like this. She sat up slowly, her hair a tousled mess, and cast a doe-eyed look out the window at the stranger.

  Her movement caught his eye. A gleaming white grin lit up his dark, narrow face.

  She tilted her head and gave a pained smile with a look that clearly said please don’t hurt me.

  He pointed the gun at her and then back at Tocho. “Both of you, out of the car. Now!”

  Tocho stepped out and the stranger shoved him against the car. “Get on the ground. Face down. Hands behind your head. Do it!”

  Tocho glanced at Ravenwood. She nodded for him to comply with the stranger’s command.

  Tocho hesitated. He wasn’t keen on giving in to this thug but he finally decided to play it safe. Reluctantly, he got down on the ground. Maybe Ravenwood knew what she was doing. He sure as hell hoped so.

  The stranger looked down at him and then pointed the gun at Ravenwood. “Don’t move,” he told Tocho, “or I’ll put one through her.” His voice sounded much lower than Ravenwood had expected and the British lilt to his accent was unmistakably South African. “You, lady. Out.”

  Ravenwood pushed the front seat forward and squeezed out of the car, making sure her shirt fell open just enough for the stranger to get a good look.

  “Well, now,” the stranger said, “looks like this be my lucky day. You and me, lady, we gonna have a good time.”

  Tocho raised his head. “No, wait…”

  The stranger turned quickly toward Tocho, pointing the gun at him and Ravenwood saw her chance.

  In one swift move, she disarmed the stranger with a flying kick. The gun flew into the car through the opened door, landed on the backside of the tilted front seat and slid down onto the back floor. The stranger rushed Ravenwood and sent her flying backward with a massive head-butt to her midsection. Tocho scrambled to his feet and tried to get to the gun but the stranger shoved him away and ducked into the car, reaching for the firearm. Before the stranger could back himself out of the car, Tocho slammed the door on the man and leaned against it, trying to trap him. The stranger heaved himself backward against the door, knocking Tocho to the ground. The stranger wheeled around, gun in hand, but Ravenwood was back up and running at him. She got off another flying kick. The effort dislodged the gun from the stranger’s hand but not before he got off two fast rounds. Tocho let out a yelp. Ravenwood whirled around a full three-sixty, her right foot expertly landing a solid blow to the side of the stranger’s head. He went flailing backward and landed on top of Tocho. Tocho gasped as the air was knocked out of him. The stranger struggled to his feet, his beady black eyes drilling holes through Ravenwood. They stood, staring at each other and then he lunged toward her. She briskly stepped aside and let the stranger’s own momentum carry him past her like she wasn’t even there. He slammed into the side of the car but quickly recovered and turned around to face his opponent. She stood her ground, legs spread, body tensed and ready.

  The stranger flashed his gleaming white teeth as b
lood trickled from his mouth and dripped down the side of his chin. Breathing hard, he lowered his head and put his hands up to acknowledge he’d had enough. “Okay, lady. Okay.”

  “I guess this don’t be your lucky day after all.” She shot a glance toward his car. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  The stranger nodded, wiped the blood from his mouth and started toward his car.

  Tocho groaned.

  Ravenwood turned to see if he was all right. He raised his arm and pointed. “Behind you.”

  Ravenwood looked back to see the stranger coming at her with a blade in his hand. She spun around and landed a kick in the man’s groin that sent him stumbling backward. He recoiled, writhing in pain. Then, suddenly, he straightened up and looked as if he was about to lunge for her again. She didn’t wait to find out. She ran toward him and left the ground with both legs straight out in front of her. Both feet struck a thundering blow to the man’s chest and sent him flying. He landed with a dull thud and his head cracked like a melon against a large rock.

  Ravenwood caught her breath, ready for more, then she realized it was over. She approached the body, cautiously, and knelt down to check his pulse.

  Tocho struggled to his feet and came over to join her. He peered over her shoulder. “Is he dead?”

  She nodded. “I sure as hell hope so.”

  “Well, is he, or isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he’s gone.” She went through the dead man’s pockets looking for identification but found nothing. “Mr. Nobody.” She stood up and looked at Tocho. His arm was bleeding but not badly. “Lucky. The bullet just grazed you.”

  “Yeah. How about you? You okay?”

  “I’m fine. A little sore.” She stood up and stretched her legs. “I need to spend a little more time at the gym.”

  “So when the hell did you become the Karate Kid?”