by J. R. Ayers
The Thing knew there would be more cops coming, so it pushed Charlie in the direction of the courthouse. Why wait for them, it thought. Nothing like a surprise attack I always say.
The courthouse wasn’t a very large building. It housed two court rooms, a City Clerk’s office, a records section, the city jail, and a Sheriff’s office, which was no more substantial than three cubicles and a small corner office with Plexiglas half walls and two uncomfortable looking chairs in front of an ancient desk. Sheriff Tom Broderson sat behind that desk listening intently to the chatter coming from a hand held radio. When Charlie suddenly appeared at his open door, he looked up expectantly. “What—?”
Charlie unloaded two rounds into Broderson’s face and fired another one into his chest before he tipped out of his chair and slumped to the floor.
Pausing briefly to reload both guns, Charlie moved on the Clerk’s office in hopes of finding Janet Cooper busily writing up tax bills for the good citizens of Stephenson West Virginia. He had to change his plans, though. He had forgotten that it was Saturday and all the city offices were closed. So he walked on down the hall, crossed at a set of double doors and continued on to the cell block. No one there but an older woman mopping up piss and sweat from the drunk tank floor. Charlie shot her twice in the chest and she fell face first into the bucket of dirty piss water. “We having fun yet, Charlie?” the Thing said giggling.
Back at the front entrance, Charlie sat down on the floor of the small lobby and waited for the other three deputies to show up. A Sheriff and four deputies was all the voting, tax-paying citizens of Stephenson would authorize. Just as well, the Charlie-Thing figured. That much less to have to get rid of.
Two of the cops arrived ten minutes later, guns drawn, faces white as fresh milk. Charlie shot one before he made it through the front door. He had to chase the other man out to the parking lot where he put two magnum rounds into his lower back. Paralyzed and ravaged with pain, he lay on the hot black top screaming like a little child. The Thing had a good grin and calmly reloaded Charlie’s pistol.
A radio crackled on the deputy’s belt and Charlie heard a female voice asking someone named Rob for his location. “Answer that,” the Thing said.
Charlie picked up the radio and said, “Hey, baby, where are you?” A brief silence, then,
“Rob?”
“No, not Rob. But I can do you much better than Rob can. What say you hurry your pretty little ass on down here to the courthouse? I got a big ole gun waitin’ on you. The big gun in my boxer shorts.”
The radio fell silent and the Charlie-Thing figured he had approximately five minutes to prepare himself for an encounter with the female cop. “Women can shoot just as straight as any man,” the Thing reminded him.
There was a five foot high brick wall traversing the west side of the courthouse parking lot. “Looks like as good a place as any, Charlie.” He was on his way to the wall when he heard a loud bang and a sharp pain pierced the back of his right thigh. He spun around in time to see a man pointing a rifle in his direction. “Son-of-a-bitch, even the citizens want to be fuckin’ heroes,” he said between gritted teeth. Sighing, he took careful aim at the rifleman and shot him in the chest before he could get off another round. Two other men stood in the distance holding long guns, but neither of them made a move in Charlie’s direction.
Smirking, Charlie made his way to the wall and settled in for the fight he hoped was coming. “Let’s just see if that cunt has bigger balls than the chicken shit men in this town,” the Thing said, ripping up Charlie’s shirt to make tourniquets for his new wounds.
Three minutes later, Deputy Lori Mackay rounded the curve by Homer Day’s gas station and drove slowly toward the courthouse. She was within a hundred yards of the parking lot, when she was flagged down by a local. After a brief conversation, she continued on to the south side of the parking lot and pulled in behind a city asphalt truck.
The Charlie-Thing watched her get out of her squad car and walk back to the trunk where she donned a bullet proof vest and retrieved a black twelve gauge shot gun very similar to the one Charlie owned. Even at a distance, Charlie recognized her. The Thing in him could see that she was young and pretty; all blue eyes and yellow hair. The Charlie side recalled that she had a nice smile and a kind word, but the only part of her the Thing was interested in was hidden by the material of her uniform pants. A familiar feeling stirred in its groin and Charlie had to remind him that now was not the time.
The Deputy approached the wall without hesitation, the shotgun leveled in front of her. Damn, she does have a pair, the Thing thought. She stopped briefly to check on the wounded deputy. There was nothing she could do for him; an ambulance was on the way from Beckley. With any luck, they’d make it on time.
Charlie waited until the deputy was within twenty yards of his location before firing the first round. The .357 slug struck her in the vest just below the sternum bone. She went down in a heap, groaning as her head slammed into the black top.
Grinning, Charlie hopped over the wall and approached the woman with utmost caution. “She looks dead,” the Thing suggested. “But, there’s no blood. Where’s the blood Charlie?”
She was much quicker than Charlie would have guessed. The barrel of the shotgun was in his face before he could even blink. The Thing saw the pellets rushing toward Charlie’s head in vivid slow motion. “Oh, shit, this is gonna hurt,” it said a split second before Charlie’s head exploded into a watery mist of red goop.
Chapter Six
Jackie Hobbs was by no means a full blown law breaker. He'd never killed anyone, and he rarely stole anything more than a grape or two from a grocery store fruit counter. He wasn't given to lying and he even went to church now and then when they advertised a pot luck or if one of the gospel music groups he liked was making a personal appearance at the Pentecostal Holiness Church where he was a member in good standing.
Yet, he was about to purposefully and blatantly break the law and he felt completely justified in doing so.
The State of West Virginia said it was illegal to shoot a deer until the season opened in November, and then he could only take a buck. Jackie found that law particularly repugnant. Who the hell were the tight ass State officials in Charleston to tell him he couldn't hunt for meat to feed his family anyway? Maybe they could afford the overpriced, tasteless hamburger and pork chops at the local Piggly Wiggly, but he damn sure couldn't. His cousin once suggested he apply for State aid, food stamps and such, but Jackie Hobbs wasn't that kind of man. As far as he was concerned, they could keep their SNAP program and Obama Care and anything else they gave away in hopes of enslaving a man. No, he'd do what was necessary to provide for his family on his own terms, including hunting the woods of southern West Virginia for meat, even if it did mean he had to break the law at times.
Trouble was, he'd pretty much hunted out the squirrels in the area and rabbits were so full of warbles this time of year that they weren't fit to eat. Groundhogs and raccoons were an option, but it took a lot of time and a good dog to tree them or trap them in a hole. Too much time in the woods, too much noise and way too much jaw muscle to chew up the damn things to make hunting them worth wile.
But this time of year the woods were full of white-tail deer, a lean, tasty source of protein. He'd been watching them for over a week as they moved along the tree line parallel to Route 16 grazing for hickory nuts and wild clover buds. Most were does with five month old fawns tagging along, but Jackie saw a sizable amount of spike bucks rummaging around in the thick underbrush beyond the road bed.
Just this morning his wife had informed him that they were down to three squirrels, a couple of jars of canned tomatoes and two bunches of leather britches, a type of dried green bean. Two little ones, a boy and a girl had stood by their mother's side looking at him with big blue eyes that asked—you ain't gonna let us go hungry, are you daddy?
So, here he was, headed up the highway to the spot where he'd seen at least eleven deer jus
t a day earlier. He approached a dirt road and veered off the highway, his eyes checking the review mirror of his old Ford Bronco for signs of law enforcement. He didn't expect to see the State boys or the County Sheriff on the road, but there was always the chance that a Game Warden or two might be slinking around somewhere waiting to bust a careless deer poacher.
The path he chose was an old logging road that snaked through the rhododendron bushes and blackberry thickets just off the highway. He bumped along in the Bronco, his eyes scanning the timberline in front of him. Gradually the forest closed in and he was soon surrounded by stands of Poplar, Hickory, White Oak, and Walnut trees that seemed to rise out of the ground like giant, gnarled fingers.
His destination was a natural clearing about a mile from the main highway. There he could park the Bronco under a copse of White Oak trees and trek his way through the underbrush to a pre-selected hiding spot. With any luck, it wouldn't be long before a nice spike buck ventured along in search of acorns or hickory nuts to eat.
Jackie found his parking spot and went about unloading his gear—a small fanny pack containing a canteen of water and two biscuits his wife had baked that morning, as well as a jar of camo face paint, a bottle of deer scent, a Cabela Regulator compound bow and a half dozen Easton Fall Stalker aluminum arrows with titanium heads. A quick makeup job, a spray or two of scent and he was on his way.
The blind he chose was a grouping of new growth evergreens situated between a run of white Poplar. He settled down on a rock in the middle of the pines and loaded an arrow into the Ripcord Code Red arrow rest attached to the bow.
Nothing to do now but wait.
He didn't have to wait long. Leaves began to crunch a few yards to the left and a spike buck came into view, his nose low to the ground in search of acorns. Jackie took his time, waiting for the deer to stand still before letting go a shot. The arrow struck the animal in the lower neck and it was off like a shot, crashing through the thick underbrush in pure panic mode. Jackie was hot on its tail. He loaded another arrow as he ran, careful to note the direction the deer had taken. He knew it wasn't uncommon for a wounded deer to run a great distance before succumbing to its injuries. He prepared himself for a long search and an even longer trip back to the Bronco with a hundred and forty pound deer on his back.
What he wasn't prepared for was the sight of three human bodies lying in a clearing up ahead. Stunned, he stopped in his tracks and lowered the bow to his side. The wounded deer cut sharply to the right, crossed the road in front of the bodies, and disappeared into the deep shadows of the trees beyond the clearing.
For a moment, Jackie thought about running back to the Bronco and getting the hell out of there as fast as he could. His curiosity got the better of him, though, and he approached the first body with extreme caution. It was what was left of a man, naked from the waist down, his face and the top part of his skull completely obliterated. A blood-soaked rock lay next to him, covered with flies and large black ants.
Jackie felt the red eye gravy he'd eaten that morning creeping up his esophagus. He moved on to the next body, a woman, every bit as naked and mutilated as the man. The third body had the biggest impact on Jackie. Even with her face bashed in and her throat swollen like a balloon, he could tell she was young, no more than a child, actually. She too was naked and Jackie had no doubt that someone had savagely raped her. “Oh, Lord,” he murmured. Then he threw up all over his Bighorn GTX hunting boots.
The trip back to the Bronco was both swift and painful. Not bothering to avoid low-hanging limbs and blackberry brambles, Jackie ran through the forest as quickly as he could. He dropped the bow and arrows somewhere along the way and his camo hat became snagged in a tree limb prompting him to loosen the strap and fling it to the ground.
Jackie didn't own a cell phone, or even a home phone for that matter, but he knew he had to get to a phone somewhere as soon as possible. Thoughts that the authorities might fine him for illegally hunting briefly crossed his mind, but, damn, how could he not report something as horrific as the scene he'd just witnessed. He hopped in the Bronco, hung a quick u-turn, and sped off down the logging road leaving behind a trail of broken limbs and a cloud of thick dust.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into a little bait shop just off Route 16 and hopped out of the Bronco. An old man sat on a stack of empty soda cases looking at him with unpretentious apathy. “Phone,” Jackie said breathlessly. “I need a phone, quick.” The old man pointed to the front door and went back to studying his fingernails.
Jackie hurried inside, grabbed the pay phone receiver and dialed nine-one-one, breathing a sigh of relief when someone answered right away. “What's the nature of your emergency?”
“Is this Stephenson?”
“No sir, this is the Mullins dispatch. Stephenson is out of service at the moment. What is the nature of your emergency, sir?”
Jackie proceeded to tell the operator about the bodies, giving her a detailed description of the general location. When the dispatcher asked for his name, he hung up immediately.
The old man walked into the shop and stepped behind a counter full of spinner bait and plastic worms. His tired, rheumy eyes played over the green and black paint on Jackie's face. “You been a huntin'? he asked casually. Not wanting to implicate himself to a stranger, Jackie shook his head and said,
“No sir, but somebody sure as hell has.”
Chapter Seven
The burgers were just about done, the Mountain Dews were on ice, and the inflatable pool in the back yard contained just enough air to support five inches of water and one six year-old girl. Chandra sat in the kiddy pool valiantly blowing up an inflatable Sponge Bob Square Pants floaty thing. Joe Nash couldn’t help but smile at the strained, puff-cheeked expression on his daughter’s face. He was thrilled that he had her for the entire weekend for a change. He’d finally talked his Troop Commander into letting him have a Saturday and Sunday off to spend with his daughter. His ex-wife hadn’t liked the idea one bit, but too bad, he had joint custody and, by damn, he was going to spend a long weekend with his little girl before she had to start first grade in a couple of weeks.
“Bout got that thing blown up?” he asked. She nodded and blew more air into the pool toy. “Good, those burgers are smellin’ awfully good. You gettin’ hungry?” Another nod, another huge puff and then she closed the nozzle and dropped the toy into the water.
“Daddy, can we see a movie later?” she asked. Joe shrugged and turned off the grill.
“I don’t see why not. It’s your day, sweetie, whatever you want.”
“What about a pony?”
“Except that.” They shared a giggle and Joe scooped the burgers onto a paper plate.
His cell phone rang and he was instantly sorry he hadn’t turned it off. Force of habit, he reminded himself. You are a State Police Sergeant after all. Still, there was Chandra. . .
“Nash here.” Sure enough, it was the State Police dispatcher calling from Beckley.
“Aw, really? I’ve got my daughter this weekend.” The call center guy said he was just relaying a message from the Captain.
“Yeah, I know, sorry. What have you got?”
The dispatcher relayed the details of a triple homicide at a rural location off Route 16. Joe ducked inside for a pen and paper and wrote down the information. “Three, huh, we haven’t had a triple murder around here in years, Decades even.”
“Give me a break,” the dispatcher said, “I’m just the messenger.”
Joe hung up and went back outside where Chandra was busy assembling a hamburger. “Got bad news, kiddo.” She looked up with ketchup on her lip and said,
“I know, you got work.”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Your phone rang. You always got work when your phone rings.”
A twinge of guilt killed the tentative smile on Joe’s face and he looked away from the disappointment in his daughter’s eyes. “You mind staying with the neighbors until your mom show
s up?” he asked. Chandra shook her head and dropped the burger into a waste basket beside the grill.
“I don’t mind,” she said quietly. “Mrs. Dillon never gets phone calls. She doesn’t work either. She says she’s disabled, but I think she’s really not.” She began to cry, not openly, but Joe could see tears shimmering in her eyes.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” She shrugged and slipped on her sandals.
“It’s okay, dad. Mom says you can’t help it. She says you have your priorities all messed up, whatever that means.”
She went inside for her things and Joe placed a call he dreaded more than anything; his ex-wife Tina.
“So, you’re dumping her on the Dillon’s again, huh?”
“Look, Tina, I. . . I don’t have a choice. Dispatch called—”
“Dispatch! Dispatch! It’s always friggin’ dispatch. What about your daughter, Joe? This is why I didn’t want to let her stay with you this weekend. You always run out on her and end up breaking her heart. That’s why we. . . that’s why it’s no good between us anymore.”
“Look, I don’t want to fight with you on the phone. I have to go, so please come over to the Dillon’s and get her as soon as you can.”
“Oh, I’ll come get her alright. And that’s the last time she’ll be spending any time with you. I swear, Joe, I’ll go back to court if I have to I’ll—”
Joe hung up before she could say another word. He felt bad enough without listening to Tina berate him for being a terrible husband and father. Knowing that she was right about the father part only served to compound the growing irritation and self loathing he felt.
After dressing in his police uniform and dropping Chandra at the neighbors, Joe hopped in his Ford cruiser and drove straight to Halpren’s bait shop in Cleardale just off Route 16. Although it was trending toward twilight, the temperature and humidity still held in the high eighties, making long sleeves and a Smokey-the-Bear hat feel mighty uncomfortable.
