Max would have tried for another, there were certainly many tracks in the snow for him to follow, but his hip was aching badly so he dug a small trench in a bank of snow and curled into a tight ball to wait out the night.
Four hours later the dogs attacked. Max killed the first three and the two that followed. They advanced in pack formation closing from several directions at once, but still, Max slaughtered them. Close on their heels came the men.
They broke from the trees in a ragged circle, converging as one on the sounds of the dying dogs. Max was finishing the last of the hounds as the humans entered the small clearing. They held lights and weapons; clubs, and guns and something else.
Max curled his lip but made no sound. He had never fought a man. He’d been chased by farmers and herders after killing their chickens and sheep, but none ever came close to catching him.
These men were different. They were not farmers or herders. They were hunters. Max saw it in their eyes, smelled it sweating from their pores. They had come for him.
The closest of the men pointed something and there was a popping sound. Twin darts of barbed steel trailing hair thin wires whipped at Max. But he was too fast. He jerked to the side, dragging the hound still held in his jaws, and harpoon shaped darts hit the dying beast, one in the shoulder, the other the hip. There was a strange crackling sound and Max felt every muscle in his body convulse. All thought was blanked by a white sheet of agony. His legs buckled and he started to fall, but the movement ripped his forgotten prey from his teeth and the instant he lost his grip the pain stopped.
Max staggered back, shaking his head.
A second man ran forward and aimed a Taser at him. Max jumped at the sound of the pop and ducked low, charging the man as the darts flew harmlessly over his head. He caught the man on the side, fury adding additional strength to his already terrible bite.
The man screamed and struck at Max with his light. Max ignored the scream and the powerless blow and allowed his weight to pull him back behind the man, twisting Max’s neck and ripping jagged furrows through the man’s coat and shirt and flesh. Max released and landed lightly in the snow, instantly charging again and slashing the man’s hamstring. The man screamed again.
Chaos.
The men were all trying to run toward their fallen comrade, their lights casting weird shadows on the snow and trees and brush. There were yells and cries, and all of it worked in the wild dog’s favor.
Max flew from the short range of their lights into the forest, sprinted thirty yards to the north, cut to the left and then straight back at them.
The hunters had just become the hunted.
They were all huddled around the fallen man, their eyes blinded to the dark by their own lights. Max ran in, the sound of his paws and chest breaking path through the snow masked by the men’s confusion and running mouths.
His grip caught the man at the farthest end of the group at the base of the skull, his teeth covering nearly ear to ear. The force of the hit shoved the man face down in the snow. Max turned and shot straight up into the next nearest man’s crotch. The man croaked like a giant bullfrog and tried to shove his hand into Max’s face. Max released the man’s crotch and tore off his thumb and two fingers.
A club grazed Max’s head and he spun about on his attacker, teeth bared. This man was huge, maybe as tall as the bear Max had fought, with a bushy blond beard and mustache and wild thick eyebrows. He swung again with the club, his long arm, lashing out like a striking snake.
The club missed. Max didn’t.
Only the man’s thick coat saved him from a severed brachial artery. As it was, all four canines punctured the man’s bicep.
The dog was just about to go for the man’s, now exposed, throat when he heard the pop sound again. He tried to jump and spin, but his injured hip cost him a fraction of speed and the barbs punched into his side and neck and the white sheet of pain was all he knew until a darkness, deeper than the night, stole upon him.
13
Gil
Max’s new friend sat on my left, his bleeding shoulder pressed against the door. Skull Shirt was on my right, a swollen goose egg purpling nicely on his temple. The pimple faced kid, Kevin Burbank (I had all their driver’s licenses and cell phones in my pocket) was back in the driver’s seat.
Actually, I was now thinking fondly of them as The Three Stooges, and had considered renaming them Larry, Curley and Moe.
There are two main routes to Castle Rock from where we were, the first being C-470 east to I-25 south. I chose the second way, C-470 to Santa-Fe, and Santa-Fe to the I-85 exit, where the outlet stores are. There’s a few more lights going this way and slower speeds, but it cuts enough miles off the trip to more than make up for it.
I had to leave Max back with my car, under the shade of the tree. I have a kill switch so I can let her run, and a Life Saver package in case the interior of the car overheats. If that were to happen, the back windows would automatically roll down and an alarm would go off on my pager.
The shotgun was back in its rack. I’d have liked to keep it with me, but I had no way of knowing what type of surveillance they might have deployed, so I played it safe.
My .45 rode reassuringly along my lower spine. I kept it put away for the same reason I didn’t take the Remington. Besides, without their weapons these stooges weren’t going to cause me any trouble, and if they tried I’d shove Shoulder Wound into the door, and give Skull Shirt, (AKA Curly), some noogies and a good ol’ whoop-whoop-whoop, nyag-nyag-nyag, and finish him off with a two-finger eye-poke.
Wise guys, eh?
I was worried about Shane. I hoped he was okay, but that queasy feeling down low in my gut wouldn’t go away.
The Three Stooges smelled really bad. Stale tobacco, sweat, blood, I think there was even some nasty foot odor thrown in there somewhere. Max was lucky I hadn’t brought him.
I ran possible scenarios through my mind. It’s an old trick that can save your life. You can never be totally ready for any given situation, but you can minimize the shock value by playing through scenes and deciding beforehand how you will react to them.
I imagined a Gold Finger type character, complete with Odd Job body guard meeting us at the gas station. Gold Finger would pull out a gun, only I’d be a touch faster. I’d shoot, turn, knowing Odd Job was even now spinning his razor-brimmed bowler at me. It would miss by inches and I would take him out with one shot.
I would cover Gold Finger with the gun, having just winged him; after all I needed him alive to tell me where Shane was.
Shane.
Please, Lord, let him be alive.
What was Shane mixed up in? Identity theft? Gambling? Porn? That garbage is everywhere these days. Although for the life of me I couldn’t come up with what that could have to do with the burglary of his house.
Small enough to fit inside a book cover.
Something a teenaged boy would be into.
Something bad enough to bring in pros — which meant money — big money.
Pros who used petty underlings to keep their identity secret, and who were willing to kidnap and maybe even murder to get whatever it was they were looking for.
It didn’t add up, no matter how I figured it. Too many pieces of the puzzle were missing.
We turned left onto Founders Parkway. The gas station was a half mile east on the right side of the street.
Pimple Face took the turn and drove around to the back of the small convenience store and shut off the engine. He looked scared. So did the others.
I felt a little scared myself. The unknown has that affect.
Would Batman be scared? Would Superman? Would Gilligan?
This wasn’t helping at all.
I looked at Skull Shirt. “What now?”
“I don’t know. He said to just wait in the car.”
“I need a doctor,” said Bleeding Boy, from my other side.
“Yes you do.”
The side and back mirrors gave me a pretty go
od view of the immediate surrounding area. I scanned them constantly.
Now that we weren’t moving, the smell was worse. Even with the windows open, the stagnant air in the car was bloated with their odor. Don’t these guys ever take a bath?
It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but the oppressive close quarters of the car made me feel claustrophobic and itchy. A line of sweat ran down the back of my neck, giving me a shiver.
I wonder if super heroes ever get the shivers?
This wasn’t helping my confidence.
How long had we been here? I looked at my watch — nearly ten minutes. What were they waiting for? Had they spotted me somehow?
Two teenage girls walked out of the store sipping sodas through straws. They were both dressed in halter tops and shorts.
Man, these guys stunk. It was like a pillow of green-funk was wrapped around my head. Why couldn’t they have instructed them to all wait outside the car? As if kidnapping wasn’t bad enough, they had to nauseate me too?
“Your dog broke my friggin’ shoulder.”
“Cry baby.”
“I mean it, dude. He really messed me up. That was just wrong, siccing him on me like that. It was wrong.”
I smiled. “What do you think that double-ott buck would have done to you…dude? Consider yourself lucky.” Luckier than me. He didn’t seem to mind sitting in the middle of a mustard-gas zone.
Baldy looked shocked. “You would have shot me?”
“I still might. The day is young.”
The two girls started yakking on cell phones at the same time. Maybe they were talking to each other.
A black limo pulled up behind us. The front license plate read NNL-7421. Reading backwards is a talent. There was a small crack on the passenger’s side of the windshield, and some kind of parking sticker low on the driver’s side of the dashboard, but I couldn’t make it out from here. Five men piled out, all wearing black suits and sunglasses.
Men in Black? None of them looked like Will Smith or Tommy Lee or even Chris Hemsworth. I saw one of the jackets pull away in the breeze, revealing a shoulder holster. That left CIA or bad guys.
Wow, bad guys were getting fancy these days. Limos and dress suits.
Two of them stood next to Baldy’s door, two more next to Skull Shirt’s. The fifth guy looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s big brother, maybe six four and running around two eighty, all of it muscle. He had a cute little goatee that went well with his sunglasses, and a very tight buzz cut. He stayed at the rear of the car.
They opened the back doors at the same time and the one nearest Baldy said, “This one’s hurt.”
The one next to Skull Shirt must have seen the knot on his noggin. “This one too.”
“He gave us some trouble,” said Skull Shirt.
I used the opportunity to squeeze out behind Baldy. I gave him a little push, shoving him into the guy who had talked. The man next to him stepped up, grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me around the door. He had a pencil-thin mustache and big, thick legs. I wondered just how strong his knees were. Most knees take about fourteen pounds of pressure to snap from the side. I put my hands up and he turned me around so my back was to him and I was looking down at Pimple Face. The other two bad men were catty-corner from me on the other side of the car. That put me out of their immediate field of fire. The Austrian Oak stood his post at the back of the car.
Mustache Guy started to pat me down. My act and the number of men on his side made him overconfident.
His mistake.
I dropped my left arm — spun — smacking my forearm into his wrist — turning him violently to the side. Before he could react, I had him around the throat from behind with my .45 pressed under his jaw.
The guy I shoved Baldy into let him fall in a lump and grabbed for his piece.
“No-no-no,” I said, cranking the stainless steel muzzle into Mustache’s jaw. “You wouldn’t want your friend’s face to go splat all over, would you?”
His hand stayed on the butt of his sidearm, but he didn’t pull it free. “You kill him, we kill you.” He wore a diamond stud in his right earlobe.
“No,” I said patiently. “I kill him, then I kill you, then maybe your friends can kill me. But that won’t matter to you, because you won’t be here to enjoy it.”
He hesitated. I could almost see the gears working in that brain of his. His hand slowly moved away from the gun.
“That does change the picture, doesn’t it?” I motioned for the others to come around the back of the car. They complied, but I could tell they didn’t like it.
The back door of the limo opened and a sixth man stepped out. And suddenly the picture changed for me.
A Sheepdog always knows the Wolf.
This man was a wolf.
14
Max
Max’s body was still in the Escalade parked under the shady tree, but his mind was a continent away and nearly a year in the past, dreaming of his capture.
Pain, as twin darts punctured his flesh, and then a blinding sheet of white agony as electricity flashed through his being, and finally darkness. When he awoke he found his legs tied together and a thick leather muzzle strapped over his head. He was in a metal cage in the back of an old pickup truck, bouncing along a deeply rutted road. There was no tailgate and Max saw a jeep following them.
His body ached and one eye was completely swollen shut. His mouth tasted of blood and as he came fully awake, he became aware of deep gashes in his shoulders and sides. One nail on his front paw had been snapped below the quick and it felt like fire running up into his ankle. His fur was matted in both fresh and clotted blood.
The truck bumped down the road, walls of trees lining both sides, massive rocks littered about like some giant child’s play things.
Max tried to pull his paws out of the straps. The leather was old and weathered, but wrapped tight with several bands, lacing from his ankles up to his elbows. New streaks of pain splintered through his bones and muscles with each pull and tug.
Panic raced through him.
He scrapped his head along the bottom bars of the cage, trying to dislodge the muzzle. Vainly he tried to bite at the inside of the leather mask.
The panic grew.
Max had never been trapped before, a prisoner, at the hands of man. He smashed the side of the muzzle against the bars, again and again and again, until his ears rang and his nose bled. The swollen eye was caked with dried blood, but this new violence reopened the tear above his brow and a red stream poured into his eye and down his snout.
Every ligament and tendon screamed in agony as he writhed and fought and struggled against his bonds.
The panic squirmed like a living thing inside him.
His heart hammered in his chest, his breath chugging in and out of his lungs like pistons blasting at full throttle. Adrenaline surged through his body, giving greater strength to his muscles and renewed energy to his fear.
The truck lurched roughly to one side, going up high on a rut, then fell hard on the other side, sliding the cage across the bed where it crashed up against the half-wall. The impact smacked Max’s head against the metal bars so that he almost lost consciousness.
Nausea followed the adrenal dump and he threw up in the muzzle. Most of the vomit leaked out through the holes in the mask, but some of it splashed back into his nose and eyes and mouth.
He heaved again, another hot torrent surged up from his gut, burning his throat like acid. This time, the mask couldn’t empty fast enough and he aspirated some of the decaying contents into his lungs. He coughed, hacked, coughed again, a weak sounding wheeze that left him feeling dizzy.
The truck scraped against a tree trunk, snow from the branches falling into the bed and over his cage, sprinkling pure, white flakes over the bed of the truck and all its contents. Max tried to smell them, something clean in the midst of the filth, but all he could smell was the putrid stench of his own blood and vomit. The truck dipped forward, the tail end following wi
th a heavy thud that again bounced his head off the bars. Max saw the snow near his face turn from white to pink to red as his blood spread and soaked.
The fear was gone now, replaced by a listless, crackling rumble that seemed to emanate from his chest, his throat and somewhere deep inside his head all at the same time. His muscles lost their rigid, rock-hard consistency, going loose and then limp, his tongue lolling from between his teeth, his stomach’s contents oozing past his jaws and filling the front of the muzzle.
Golden sparks flashed behind his eyes like exploding suns and everything grew dark at the edges of his vision, funneling in like a tornado preparing to touch down. The rough grumble and roar of the truck’s engine droned down to a monotonous hum that echoed hollowly in his ears as though from far away.
He tried once more to pull his legs free and a memory of pain staggered up his nerves to his graying brain. His un-swollen eye rolled up under the lid and the last thing he heard was the laughing of the men in the truck.
It was almost dark when he woke for the second time. Hours had passed. The swollen eye’s lid was so crusted that it hurt to even try to open it.
His body was a mass of pain. His legs were stiff from being tied so long and his paws felt like inflated chunks of cold meat. The tears in his flesh and the deep bruises throbbed in unison with his heartbeat. His breathing still had that scary crackling that made him feel as if he were suffocating a little more with each breath.
The muzzle, tacky and filled with a horrible smelling mixture of bile and blood, scrapped roughly against the soft skin of his snout.
Max had lost control of his bowels while unconscious and the cage stunk of that as well. His stomach, back legs, and tail were smeared in waste.
Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set Page 6
