by Thomas Scott
It also gave him hope.
Virgil wasn’t the least bit religious, but if he’d been listening just then, he would have heard himself saying, ‘Please God, please,’ over and over and over again, the face mask puffing in and out with each word, the crinkle of the paper and the sound of his breath like a backing track of a repetitive chant.
The humming noise wasn’t humming at all. It was buzzing. The entire room was filled with flies. They swirled around him and bounced off his face and body like pieces of ice in a hailstorm. He tried to wave them away with his free arm but it was like trying to hold water in the palm of your hand. The flashlight drew them in and they looked like little bullets whizzing past.
The flies and maggots covered the body of a large deer that had crashed through the back kitchen door. The glass sliced the deer along the side of its neck and it had bled out while trying to free itself. The carcass hung suspended in the center of the door, the deer’s eyes wide with fear and glazed with death.
He spun around in a circle to get the flies off himself and the beam of his flashlight caught the glint of the lock and hasp on the door. And Virgil thought: Basement.
He yanked on the lock but it held fast. He beat on it with the butt end of his flashlight a couple of times before realizing the only thing he was going to accomplish with that maneuver was the purchase of a new flashlight. He pounded on the door with his fist and kicked it with his boots, calling out Patty’s name. When he got no response, he ran back out to his truck to get the shotgun to blast the lock from the door.
Virgil lined up along the edge of the door, the shotgun no more than two feet away from the lock and hasp. When he fired, the blast lit up the room and blew chunks of the door and frame away. He pumped the action and fired again. This time the lock and hasp flew away and clattered to the floor next to the deer’s hooves. Virgil leaned the gun against the wall and yanked open the door.
And the smell slapped him all over again.
When he turned his flashlight into the well of the basement he saw the walls were covered with sound-proof foam. Despite the smell he ran down the steps, turned the corner, and stopped dead in his tracks. Virgil, who’d been a cop his entire adult life, who’d seen the worst of what other human beings could do to each other, who’d thought he’d seen it all discovered he had not. When he saw what was left of Patty Doyle, he couldn’t help it. He dropped to his knees and choked out a sob.
Patty Doyle sat on a cot, munching on a pickle. “I’ve been locked down in this hole for over a month by my count,” she said. “Can you get me out of here, please?” She threw the pickle on the floor and wiped her hands on her shirt. She was filthy, her clothes had turned to rags that barely covered her body and her hair was plastered against the sides of her face. Had Virgil not seen a picture of her, he would have thought she was someone else.
He pulled the mask from his face and told her who he was. “How did you survive down here for so long?”
She held up her wrist, the one that had been shackled to the chain. Her hand was swollen, her thumb wrapped in a homemade splint. “I ran out of food and water about two weeks ago. I’d been severely rationing it, but eventually it was all gone. I knew I had to get free or I was going to die, except I couldn’t get loose from that steel band locked around my wrist. Then one day I noticed that I was losing weight. I was getting skinnier and skinnier, but not enough to get that damned band off.”
Virgil looked at her hand. “You broke your own thumb? How bad is it?”
“It’s pretty bad. Do you have any aspirin or anything?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a first-aid kit. C’mon. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Once they were outside, Patty sat down on the front porch steps and Virgil brought the first aid kit to her, along with a bottle of water and a blanket. She took four aspirin and drank the entire bottle of water. Virgil carefully removed the homemade splint and taped a finger brace on her thumb.
“Not my best work,” he said when he was finished. But it’ll hold until you get to the hospital.”
“Thank you.”
“You said you ran out of food, but you were eating a pickle.”
“Once I got free of the shackle the first thing I tried to do was break through the door. But I couldn’t do it. I only had one good arm to work with and the door opened inward. I couldn’t get any kind of leverage at the top of the steps. So I started looking around the rest of the basement and found a root cellar or whatever they’re called. It was fully stocked. Unfortunately, it was fully stocked with pickles. I’ve been eating pickles and drinking pickle juice for almost two weeks.”
Virgil thought if there were more young women like Patty Doyle around, the world would be a better place. “You ready to get out of here?”
“What do you think? Although I’d like to go a little slow if you don’t mind. I need to get my head on straight before I go rushing back into the real world.”
They got in the truck and Virgil took it slow down the long drive and off the property. He’d run her back up to Indianapolis and get her some medical attention…and a much needed bath. Along the way they talked about Virgil’s cases and he told her everything about how he tried to find her. He wanted to keep her talking…keep the conversation going so she wouldn’t go into shock. He told her about the bomb and his land. He even told her about getting kicked out of the Co-op.
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s not,” Virgil agreed. “The truth of it is, there’s tens of millions of dollars worth of natural gas out there, but I refuse to ruin two thousand acres of perfectly good land by pumping a bunch of poison into the ground to get it out.” He pulled up to the intersection of the highway and stopped.
“What if you didn’t have to…ruin the land to get the gas out?”
Virgil laughed. “That’d solve a lot of problems.”
“So let’s take a little drive. There’s someone we both need to see anyway.”
Virgil was confused. “Who?”
Patty seemed to consider her answer. “When I was locked down in that basement…I don’t quite know how to explain this, but I knew you’d find me. Not you, specifically, but someone like you.”
Virgil was interested. “What, exactly is someone like me?”
“Somebody who doesn’t quit. Somebody who sees things sometimes that no one else can. Somebody who has faith, not only in himself, but others. ”
Virgil felt himself swallow.
Patty wasn’t finished. “Turn left and we go to Indy. Turn right and we go to Kentucky and you can keep the faith. Radiology, Inc. isn’t the only company my uncle owns. Ever heard of something called sonic drilling technology?”
Virgil had no idea what that was. “No.”
“That’s because it’s brand new. My uncle, Rick Said? He holds the patent. It’s going to change the way natural gas is pulled out of the ground.”
Virgil was interested, but Patty was his priority in the moment. He turned on his left blinker. But when Patty spoke again she said something that changed his mind.
“I’ll bet getting kicked out of that Co-op was a gift. In fact, I’d say bank on it.”
Virgil looked her in the eye for a long time. Then he thought, why not? He turned right. After a few miles of silence he said, “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”
Patty scooted over as close as she could and leaned her whole person against Virgil. She grabbed his arm with both hands and began to cry. It was all coming out now, and Virgil knew in the moment it was exactly what she needed. He buzzed the window down. In the close confines of the truck her smell was so overwhelming he had to turn his head away and watch the road out of the corner of his eye.
Patty Doyle, still turning…well, you get it.
…and the story continues.
Virgil and the gang are back in State of Exile.
As Delroy would say, “Yeah, mon!”
You’ve felt the Anger. You’ve experienced the Betrayal. Yo
u’ve taken Control. You've faced the Deception. Now…it’s time to accept the Exile!
Grab your copy of State of Exile Today!
Also by Thomas Scott
The Virgil Jones Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Series of books, available in ebook, paperback and audiobook:
State of Anger (Virgil Jones Series - book 1)
State of Betrayal (Virgil Jones Series - book 2)
State of Control (Virgil Jones Series - book 3)
State of Deception (Virgil Jones Series - book 4)
State of Exile (Virgil Jones Series - book 5)
State of Freedom (Virgil Jones Series - book 6)
State of Genesis (Virgil Jones Series - book 7)
State of Humanity (Virgil Jones Series - book 8)
Updates on future Virgil Jones novels available at:
ThomasScottBooks.com
About the Author
Yeah, I used to have hair…
Thomas Scott is the author of the Virgil Jones series of novels. He lives in northern Indiana with his lovely wife, Debra, his children, and his trusty sidekicks and writing buddies, Lucy, the cat, and Buster, the dog.
Thomas loves to read and is a self-proclaimed regular guy. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot Rating, is a former airline pilot, Chief Pilot, and Director of Flight Operations for a private corporation.
You may contact Thomas anytime via his website (thomasscottbooks.com) where he personally answers every single email he receives. Be sure to sign up to be notified of the latest release information. Everyone who signs up receives a discounted price on newly released novels.
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