Black Bird

by Greg Enslen

  The cop, dazed, listened to her as she identified herself and told him that in the absence of an organized police response, she was taking charge of the scene and would need his help. They’d walked to his car and climbed inside, and after the initial disbelief of the dispatcher had been overcome, Julie had begun giving orders and trying to, in some way, organize a scene that veritably defined the word “disaster”.

  First, the firemen and paramedics had to be directed in to the scene. She was able to get all of the emergency services units onto the same frequency so that she only had to say things once instead of four or five times for each different group. All five squads of the town’s volunteer fire department arrived and began trying to put out the fire while others pulled the injured from the smoking ruins of the school. Civilians began helping, too, assisting the firemen in their rescue efforts and taking direction from anyone in a fireman’s hat. After a short span of minutes the fire was doused and smoldering, and the firemen and paramedics turned their full attention to helping the wounded.

  Julie also contacted the local hospital to assess how much they could handle. The woman manning the Emergency Room’s radio quickly estimated exactly how many wounded they would be able to help, and Julie advised her to have every medical staff member of the hospital paged or called - unfortunately, a lot of those people were probably dead now, victims of the explosion. The ER nurse also volunteered to call the other three local medical facilities, all small clinics located in strip malls scattered around town, and begin coordinating medical services with them.

  Normally in cases like this, towns were able to rely on the hospitals in neighboring towns to help out, but the storm and the flooded-out bridge eliminated that option. Anything that Liberty was going to do, it had to do for itself. A triage protocol was established at Liberty Hospital to sort the incoming injured and categorize them by priority, but there weren’t going to be nearly enough beds, or doctors, to help them all. Some of them would die waiting for surgery. It was the county hospital, but not a big one and not one designed to help a hundred seriously injured patients all at the same time.

  Julie sat back in the police cruiser, exhausted. Others were helping now, the injured were being transported for medical care, and several of the town’s police force had reappeared, along with Lieutenant Blake, who had escaped behind her though the Girl’s Locker room exit.

  He leaned against the open door of the car and then climbed in, taking the driver's seat. “You did well, especially for someone without any formal training in emergency response.”

  She nodded, tired. David and Bethany were okay and leaning against the hood of the cruiser, talking. David had told them about Norma, and Julie was deeply saddened by the news, even though she had only met the woman this morning. She looked over at Blake, handing him the microphone. “Thanks, but it shouldn’t have happened at all. We were pretty sure that Jasper Fines was back, but the Sheriff thought I was wrong, and now a lot of people are dead.”

  Blake nodded, taking the microphone and hanging it back on its hook on the dashboard. “Yeah, it looks like you were right. He wanted to get as many as he could, and that was almost perfect. I only wish I could get some of my boys in here so we could catch this guy.”

  Julie nodded, suddenly feeling very depressed. Jasper Fines had killed and killed and now he had caused a massive explosion that had killed hundreds, and he was still out there, running around free. She wondered if he would ever be caught. If he was half as smart as she thought he was, the guy was long gone.

  Blake leaned a little closer and lifted her chin, looking into her eyes. “Hey, you did everything you could. Remember that.”

  She nodded again, this time feeling a little better about it. “Well, one way or another, this town is going to be cleaning up for a long time.”

  They both looked out at the rain as it came down around them, falling on the injured and the dead.

  Jack collected his things from the hotel room and stowed them in his van. He had a small collection of new things to put into his van, putting things in their places with quiet contemplation. He had finally won, and this war was over, and now he could move on, getting past these memories and the ghost of Sheriff Beaumont. He could relax, and as he was driving off of the hotel property and turning towards the freeway, he thought about the quiet years ahead of him in L.A.

  There were some initial concerns, still, to be sure. He had heard that some of the roads were washed out, and the guy at the front desk had just told him that the County Line Bridge had been washed out, so it would be difficult to get out of town, but he was sure he’d be able to manage. He’d gotten alternate directions out of town from the desk clerk.

  In the aftermath of the explosion, his heart was warmed with an expansive feeling of omnipotence, as if nothing could go wrong ever again. He had defeated a memory that had plagued him for years, and now things were perfect. He hadn’t felt this good since he’d walked up that roadside hill so many years ago, gunning down the deputies as they had scattered before him. He felt like a god.

  On a whim, he decided to take one last look at the carnage at the high school before leaving town. One more look at his greatest triumph couldn’t hurt, and his spirits were so buoyed by his success, he was sure nothing could go wrong. He was on his way to sunny California, the memory of this pissy little town forgotten. He was the victor.

  “Let’s go to the car.”

  She pulled away from him and looked up into his eyes. “Don’t you think we should stay and help?”

  David looked around him, seeing the cars and the firemen and the paramedics as they fought the rain and the wind to collect the injured and move the dead to a temporary morgue that had been set up in a Methodist church across the street from the school. He could see Julie and Blake inside one of the patrol cars, coordinating the rescue efforts and directing the incoming paramedics and firemen to the places where they could be most useful. They had everything under control, or at least as much as anyone could control a disastrous situation like this. He looked back to Bethany and saw the concern for all of these innocents in her clear eyes, and, impossible as it seemed, he felt even more love for her than ever before. “No, I think we’ve done everything we can. Julie and the State Police guy are coordinating things now, and I should get you in out of the rain.”

  She nodded, looking at him. There was more to this than what he was admitting to, some other motivation behind his eyes. “You sure that’s it?”

  He glanced at her. “Well, actually, I’d like to drop you off at your house and drive around and look for him. I know it was him that did this, and he’s probably still here in town, but he’ll be leaving soon. He thinks I’m dead. And I know what he looks like, and I know he’s been here for at least a week, so I want to try the motels and describe him to the people working there. Maybe someone will remember him.”

  He looked out at the paramedics and the injured, watching as volunteers carried a woman past them on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance - one of her legs was covered with blood. “And if I can find him, I can call the cops and they could finally catch this bastard.”

  She saw in his eyes something that had not been there before, a look of anger and defiance that seemed to light his eyes from within. She nodded, keeping to herself her fear for his safety if he went off to look for this crazy killer, and they headed off toward his car. They had arrived too late to park in the school’s main parking lot and were instead parked along the street that ran alongside the school, the curb submerged in several inches of water that raced for the sewer drain. Looking back on it now, it was lucky they had parked where they did - several minor accidents still plugged most of the main parking lot’s exits, and it would’ve taken them hours to get out.

  Jack Terrington turned onto the main street that ran parallel to the school, a street packed with cars. Further down the street by the entrance to the school there were several ambulances and police cars blocking traffic. He was too busy staring at the hi
gh school, or what was left of it.

  The gym was gone, blown in every direction. Where it had stood was only a empty shell of its former self, twisted pieces of metal and wooden bleacher intermixed with thousands of bricks

  glorious destruction

  from the gym’s facade. Some of the wooden bleachers pointed at the rainy sky with broken wooden fingers.

  Jack was amazed by the sheer power of the explosion and what it had done. The boiler had blown in a much more powerful explosion than he had anticipated, but that was fine: the more of these people that died, the better. The Sheriff, the city council, that State Police Lieutenant from Richmond, and all of those townspeople that Beaumont had died to save

  lots of them dead maybe two hundred

  they were all gone. And his kid, too - that was the best part. Creepy how much the kid had looked like his old man - there for a minute, Jack had thought that the Sheriff had come back from the grave or something.

  Jack told himself that he couldn’t have planned it better if he’d spent years setting this up. Everything had gone off perfectly, and now, this town would never forget him. He had finally won. He finally had his victory.

  Jack was busy staring at the smoking ruins of the school, and that was why he didn’t see the two people walking hand in hand in the middle of the wet street until it was almost too late.

  He kicked the brakes, sliding to a stop on the wet pavement, and eyed them. They must’ve been spectators who had come over from the surrounding houses to see the carnage - there was no way that anyone could’ve made it out of there and still be walking around.

  They turned around and looked at him, and Jack’s mouth dropped open.

  It was David Beaumont.

  no

  Their eyes locked for a moment. Jack felt electricity in the air.

  They were again face to face, and even the rain falling between them or the ticking of the van’s engine were blocked out - all that Jack could see and hear was the face of David Beaumont and the rushing of blood in his ears as his heart suddenly sprang into a fierce pulse.

  David stared back, seemingly ignorant of all around him, staring into the eyes of this man who could be only one man. It was him, David suddenly knew, and some part of his mind wondered what his dad would’ve done in this situation.

  Jack saw out of the corner of his eye the girl next to him - it was the same girl from inside the gym - and Jack thought he saw the boy’s face curl up slightly.

  To Jack, it almost looked like a smile.

  no no it couldn’t be

  The kid was dead - was this another ghost to torment him?

  kill him kill them both

  Jack floored it.

  The girl screamed and the boy looked up and saw the van coming and pushed her out of the way. The front grill of the white van struck him hard, throwing him backwards. He landed roughly on one side and slid on the wet pavement before coming to a stop, grasping at his right leg and curling up in pain.

  Jack’s mind raced as he popped the door open and climbed down, the rain and wind curling around him. There were people and cops around - he couldn’t kill the boy here, as much as he wanted to.

  Jack walked around the front of his van and crazily, even in the heavy rain he could clearly hear the clinking of the short metal chains on his rattlesnake-skin boots

  clinking, just like before, clinking in the rain

  as he walked over to the Beaumont boy. There were the headlights behind Jack, and the rain was coming down, and the kid looked so much like his father that for one crazy second Jack was sure he was back on that Interstate 18 years ago, standing over Beaumont.

  you can’t kill him here

  But no, he was here, and it was now, and the boy was holding his leg like it was broken, but Jack saw no blood or anything. And it was the same leg, the right one, where Jack had shot his father.

  It was all so strange…but he didn’t want the boy dead, not yet.

  David Beaumont looked up at him and started to get up, but he felt the heavy weight of one of Jasper’s boots on his chest, pinning him. The foot was clad in an odd-looking boot, one made of rattlesnake skin and shiny with rain. It was suddenly cold on his chest, cold and heavy and it made it very hard to breath.

  Jack smiled, looking down at him.

  “Well, boy, I have to give you credit - you are one resilient son of a bitch. But your father was a tough bastard, too, and I got him, just like I’m going to kill you.” Jack glanced around, but no one was paying them any attention yet. “God, this is so familiar! Too bad you’re not wearing a star.”

  Jack lifted his foot off of David and kicked him hard in the ribs. David squeaked and rolled over onto one side, holding his chest for a moment. When he rolled back over, he saw Jack grab Bethany roughly and shove her inside the van. She slapped at him a couple of times until he’d punched her hard in the chest. David watched as the Killer pushed her inside the van and then pull away, waving casually at David.

  David Beaumont laid there on the rainy wet pavement of the road, helpless, as the van drove away. The last thing he saw before the van disappeared into the rainy-swollen darkness was the twin red taillights, fading into the night like the eyes of a demon.

  The pain was excruciating. Shivers and bolts of hot pain shot up his leg every time he pressed down on the gas, and he could feel bones grinding and cutting and tearing away inside him. It was like his leg had been filled with sharp knives, each cutting and scraping at the others, and with each movement came a renewed torrent of pain. He knew that his right leg had been broken when he’d been hit by Jasper’s white van.

  David tried to ignore the pain and just drive, but the pain was winning.

  The streets of Liberty were covered with a sheen of water several inches thick, sluicing off into the gutters and sewers, spilling over into vacant lots and ditches. There was just too much water for the system to handle, and the water was backing up, filling the streets and flooding low-lying areas. The baseball field between the gym and the road was a muddy lake, second base a square island in the water. Trees and power lines brought down by the hurricane-force winds littered the streets and lawns of the town, and lines hissed and sparked and threatened to catch fire. They probably would have had it not been for the torrent of water falling from the sky in thick, angled sheets.

  David thought he knew the direction the van had headed off in, but he couldn’t be sure. The Mazda groaned as he popped the gearshift out of gear and coasted to a stop at the red light.

  He was at the unofficial entrance to the school, the road that bordered the western edge of the campus. There was the Methodist Church directly in front of him at the junction, where the paramedics had set up a makeshift morgue, and crazily David remembered that back in High School he had visited that church once when there had been a bomb threat called into the school. Anybody who had been on the southern side of the school had been evacuated to this church, only a quick walk over the baseball field and across Highway 132.

  Here, Highway 132 made a T. He could either go left or right; the street he was on ended at this intersection. Left meant east, out towards the Interstate and the Mall and out of town. Right meant west and further into town. There were no tracks or anything to follow, and he could not see far enough in either direction to see the van.

  He had to guess.

  Okay, which way? East meant out towards the Mall, out by the freeway where Jasper Fines had killed David’s father. And west, was heading towards town and the Food Town and the other locations where he had abducted people. West also meant towards his Aunt’s house, but would he go back there?

  David didn’t know. He’d read a lot about the guy, had read his father’s handwritten notes and read Julie’s FBI psyche profile. He had read about the other cases that Julie thought he had been involved with, and he tried to remember everything the cases had described.

  Three cars ahead of him, the light turned green.

  Which way? If Julie was right, the gu
y would want a confrontation with David to settle this whole thing, once and for all. If the guy had wanted David dead, he could’ve just ran over him with the van or shot him there in the street when he’d been standing over him - surely the man carried a gun everywhere he went. There was enough confusion to cover it, and there would’ve been plenty of time for the man to get away. So why hit him and grab Bethany and run?

  Bait. Bethany was bait, just like killing Aunt Gloria had been bait to get him to come back. Now Bethany was bait, and Jasper had to know that David would follow. And he wanted David to follow. He wanted a confrontation.

  So, where was the signal? Jasper had to assume that David would follow, and to make sure things happened exactly as Jasper wanted, he would leave something to direct David to him. But which way?

  The cars started rolling, and he lifted his foot off the brake and pressed gingerly down on gas. Pain shot up his leg like a bolt of hot lightening, and his foot tingled against the gas pedal. The car rolled forward.

  East? West? The man would want a confrontation, somewhere where he could beat David and end the whole thing. He’d taken Bethany to insure the deal, forcing David to follow. And if Julie was right, it would be a private confrontation, just like the man had had with David’s father.

  When he rolled into the intersection, he turned east, towards the mall. Just a quarter mile or so up the road, David saw a car down off the road in the ditch, up to its hood in brackish muddy water. The driver’s side door was smashed in, and from the torn-up mud of the bank of the ditch, it looked like the car had been run off the road.

  The road took him past a few subdivisions and out of town, and he had to go slowly - there were branches and pieces of wood in the road, big enough that he had to slow down and go around them. The water was getting deeper, and as he passed through the last light and out of town, he saw more signs of the hurricane’s power. A house just outside of town was smoldering, thick black smoke rolling out of it. It looked like it wanted to catch fire and burn, but the rain falling on the house kept it from breaking out into a full-blown house fire - now, it just smoked as the people who had lived there watched from a muddy front yard.