The Subway

by Dustin Stevens

If in his position, it was hard to tell if she even would have given that amount.

  It wasn’t like she’d exactly been gushing forth about her own circumstances, personal or professional.

  “So are they out there somewhere looking for you?” Davis asked.

  “Don’t know,” Tim replied. “Most likely. They have a strong record, take this stuff pretty seriously.”

  Falling silent for a moment, he again glanced at his hands before looking over to her.

  “Look, I know it’s bad. I shouldn’t have disappeared, shouldn’t have been poking around at that cabin, but this man was the only family I had left in the world. That one phone call was the single tether I had to the first thirty years of my life.

  “If I didn’t at least try, if I didn’t come back and look the bastards in the eye that did this, that meant it specifically as a message for me...”

  It was obvious there was so much more he could add, untold numbers of things he wanted to say, but he pulled up short.

  Not that he needed to, most of it etched across his face, in the fine lines bunched tight around his eyes, the set of his jaw, the way his breathing had become pronounced.

  All of which Davis recognized instantly, most of it being exactly the way she felt.

  Which was good enough.

  Tugging back on the gear shift, she let the Bronco idle forward out of the grass on the opposite side of the street. Tires finding asphalt, they moved just a short distance before making a right into the driveway.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  The smell of blood and cordite competed in equal measures for the top scent in the house. Emanating from the rear living room, they rose into the direct path of the vent of the air conditioner, the rattling coils shoving them throughout the space.

  Standing in the open doorway connecting the living room and the kitchen, Radney Creel stared in disbelief, his gaze moving between the two bodies sprawled across the front carpet. Each with a pair of bullet holes in their chest and a third between their eyes for good measure, the rear wall behind them resembled a monochromatic Jackson Pollack painting, blood spatter tossed liberally across it.

  Mixed in were tiny flecks of brain and bone matter, texture against an otherwise smooth surface.

  Beneath them, twin pools of blood seeped out, their progress impeded by the thick carpeting they were sprawled on, the heavy shag loops absorbing the viscous liquid, so saturated they were almost black.

  “What the hell?!” Creel asked, his gaze moving from the bodies to Elijah Pyle, an incredulous stare on his face.

  Calmly tilting back the top of his weapon, Pyle extracted an oil rag from his rear pants pocket. Running it up the length of the barrel, he did the same for the noise suppressor screwed tight on the end before twisting it away.

  “Boss said to end it,” Pyle replied, as calm as if discussing the weather. “Why do you think he had you give me the phone?”

  In the moment, Creel hadn’t thought much of it. He’d figured that Baxter just wanted to speak with each of them in the wake of his own screw-up, bringing the kids in to begin with.

  Never would he have thought that’s what he had in mind.

  “And you think end it equates with mow them both down?” Creel asked.

  Pausing, Pyle turned to look at him, annoyance on his face. “What else would it mean?”

  Tucking the suppressor into the same pocket the rag had just emerged from, he went to work on the opposite weapon, performing the same sequence.

  “You saw what happened earlier,” he said. “Damn kids didn’t know what they were doing, went and left a witness. They couldn’t be trusted. Loose lips sink ships.”

  Not in the mood for hearing any of the man’s condescension, or retread clichés, or even his voice, Creel turned on a heel. Despite what had just taken place, they still had just a handful of minutes before needing to take off.

  Except, now they also needed to be a bit more thorough in their evacuation, the pair of bodies in the front room meaning there was no chance they could leave behind so much as a fingerprint.

  In the system since being picked up for shoplifting as a kid, it wouldn’t take much more than a preliminary pass through the place for the cops to get an ID on him.

  He could only imagine that the same would be true for Pyle.

  With his back turned, he stopped for just an instant, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the scene that had just transpired.

  “We need to be going.”

  “I’m ready,” Pyle replied.

  Opening his mouth to respond, Creel thought better of it, knowing that any further interaction between them would only heighten what was already a festering situation.

  Opting for silence, he moved into the back room and grabbed up his few personal belongings, most of them still damp with sweat. Ignoring the stench, he crammed them into a grocery sack and made his way forward, getting as far as the kitchen before a sound caused him to pull up short.

  Faint but distinct, it sounded like a single squeal, like two artificial surfaces rubbing against each other, the sort of thing that nature would never be capable of producing.

  Dropping the sack onto the table, he eased his way into the front room. Looping around wide, he made sure not to leave so much as a shadow behind the lace curtains as he came to the same spot in the corner he’d used just a half hour earlier.

  That time, he’d seen the oversized yellow rig that was being driven by the team of unwanted help Baxter had sent.

  As much as it had infuriated him, it was nothing compared to what he felt at the sight of their newest visitor.

  Dropping the curtain back into place, Creel rose up onto the balls of his feet. Padding silently across the room, he made his way back to the living room, finding Pyle still working at the guns, oblivious to the macabre scene splayed out on the ground by his feet.

  “We need to go.”

  “I know, I’m on it,” Pyle said, his earlier annoyance a bit higher.

  “No, I mean we have guests. We have to go.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  “You hear that?”

  I had my head cocked toward the passenger window, my eyes narrowed. After the conversation we’d just had, I’m sure Lou thought it was nothing more than a diversion, some way for me to push us past any further discussion of WITSEC and my disappearance and all that.

  But it wasn’t. Not by a stretch.

  “What?” she asked, her features drawing tight, as if she were trying to focus in on it as well. “The engine?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. Reaching, I released the catch on the passenger door, stepping out to the ground. “It sounds almost like a generator. Or maybe...”

  Across from me, Lou exited as well, her feet crunching on the ground masking all sound before falling silent.

  “An air conditioner,” she finished.

  In unison, we cast a glance over the hood of the Bronco, our features both drawn tight, registering what the sound meant.

  Here, in this dilapidated and seemingly deserted farmhouse, somebody was present.

  Reaching toward her hip, Lou touched at the base of her weapon. In short order, I could see a host of thoughts and conclusions all pass over her features, each much the same as what I was feeling.

  Anybody inside had to be there because they were hiding. Knowing already that this was at bare minimum a relay point for the signal, that meant whoever it was was working with Baxter.

  If it wasn’t Baxter himself.

  At the same time, this was private property. Just because the place looked to be in a state of disrepair and was receiving a wireless signal did not exactly give us probable cause to roll up, weapons drawn.

  “Stay behind me,” Lou said. “And for the love of God, leave that backpack of yours behind.”

  No part of me wanted to do that. After seeing what happened on the road earlier, the thought of being anywhere near Baxter or his henchman without a weapon wasn’t something
I was overly keen on.

  Matching her gaze for an instant, I leaned back into the truck, unzipping the top of the bag. Placing it down on the floorboard, I extracted the Beretta from within, the magazine replaced with a fresh one after my earlier shooting.

  Tucking it into the small of my back, I slammed the door shut, Lou watching me the entire time, her expression telling me she wasn’t amused.

  “I saw that.”

  “Wasn’t trying to hide it,” I countered. Walking around the front of the Bronco, I stopped beside her, focus on the front door. “You only said leave the bag.”

  A small smirk was her only response, a sarcastic retort just barely audible.

  I didn’t care.

  “We doing this or what?”

  Keeping my gaze forward for a few moments, I eventually rolled my focus toward her, her features hard as she glared back.

  Which she could do all she wanted. I understood she was a deputy and had to at least consider protocol, but she had to remember these men had tortured Uncle Jep and tried to kill us both.

  I was long beyond concern with public perception.

  “Behind me,” Lou said, turning for the door. Keeping her upper body angled so her fingertips were no more than millimeters from her weapon, she followed the narrow concrete path, ending with three short steps.

  Staying just behind her, my body cocked so I could see across the front and over the driveway, I assumed a similar stance, ready to draw if need be.

  Raising her fist, Lou made it as far as a single knock before all hell broke loose.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  The wooden door of the garage offered little resistance to the oversized yellow machine that had tried to run us down earlier in the day. With a single rev of the engine and a squeal of rubber peeling against polished concrete, there wasn’t but a split second of warning before it exploded out of the garage, a shower of smoke and splinters spilling out in a wide arc.

  Rotating toward the sound of it, I dropped to a knee, reaching with my right hand for the small of my back, my left for Lou beside me. Flailing twice, on the third stab I was able to grab a handful of leg meat, my fingers wrapping around her calf, tugging her down.

  For a moment, I could feel the striated muscles tense beneath my grip, as strong as cabled steel, before she lowered herself beside me, both of us with weapons drawn.

  No more than ten feet away, the truck engine revved again, the deep and angry sound of concentrated horsepower rolling out across the yard.

  Aiming for the front tire exposed to us, I squeezed off a pair of quick shots, the ping of my rounds hitting metal echoing out, sparks flashing from the glossy paint of the body.

  Beside me, Lou did the same, rattling off a half-dozen shots, peppering the truck as fast as she could squeeze.

  Ignoring both of our efforts, the driver revved again, cutting a diagonal path across the driveway.

  “No,” Lou said beside me, her voice a strained yell. “No, no, no!”

  Continuing our shot pattern, neither of us could do anything as the truck set a course for the Bronco sitting at the end of the drive. Aiming the front grill toward the exposed corner of Lou’s ride, one last rev could be heard, a belch of black smoke burping from the stack behind the cab.

  The Bronco never stood a chance.

  Buckling beneath the heavy weight of the reinforced monolith before it, the headlight crumpled on contact, the sound of glass shattering obvious. Following in order was the front corner, the bumper and tire both folding in on the engine, an accordion being returned to home position.

  With each inch it crumpled, the angry wail of metal could be heard, the sound working in a two-part harmony with the engine bearing down on it.

  Rising to my feet, I raised my left hand to serve as a base, firing off a fresh pair of shots. Twin spider webs sprouted along the rear windshield of the truck, the driver never once slowing as he shoved the Bronco to the side, tossing the smaller vehicle into the ditch lining the road.

  Plowing forward until it was turned parallel to the street, it braked hard, taillights flashing, before twisting a hard left.

  Sweat ran down over my face, dripped across my deltoids, as I jogged a few steps forward, snapping off two more shots, each slamming into the bed of the truck, as inconsequential as the previous shots I’d fired.

  Feeling the hatred I had for the situation, for the men that had killed Uncle Jep and kept coming after me, I continued pulling even after it was clear I was doing no good, shooting for nothing more than to release the animosity I harbored.

  Round after round I fired, my focus on the enormous yellow phallic symbol, oblivious to the world around me.

  Right up until I felt Lou slam into me from behind, knocking me to the ground.

  And looked up a moment later to see why she’d done so, a second vehicle having emerged from the garage, the barrel of a gun visible through the passenger side window.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Talula Davis knew exactly how Tim was feeling. Seeing the big yellow truck aimed at her Bronco, looking to finish the job it had started earlier in the day, she felt every last emotion she’d had in front of Charbonneau well to the surface.

  And multiply by a factor of ten.

  A sneer forming on her features, she stopped shooting only for fear of hitting Tim, seeing him rise to his feet and begin marching forward on the truck. Absent of any fear of reprisal, his focus was solely on the response, retaliating for the situation he was in, for the havoc this group had brought upon them.

  Just a few feet behind him, it was only through pure luck that she even happened to hear it.

  A second small squeal, the low hum of an engine.

  Having no more than a split second to process it, to register what it represented, Davis knew in an instant what was happening.

  Earlier in the day, there had been three men inside the truck. One, Tim had shot. The other, presumably, was behind the wheel, intent on finishing the job on her Bronco it had started already.

  That left one more.

  One that was about to tear out of the garage, Tim left standing out in the open before it.

  Shoving herself off her back leg, Davis shot forward, moving in parallel to the car as it appeared from the garage. Mid-sized, black in color, she registered a middle-aged man with red hair behind the wheel just before launching herself forward at the exposed back of Tim.

  Hitting him square, she buried her shoulder into his lower back, wrapped her free hand around his waist.

  Not expecting the blow, his body pitched forward, the firing stopping as his arms flailed before him, his palms barely catching their weight, breaking the fall as they landed in a tangle on the sidewalk.

  Releasing her grip on him, Davis rolled to the side, brittle grass scraping across her skin as she came up on a knee, seeing the driver leaning across the passenger seat, a gun trained their direction, a smile on his face.

  Holding the pose for a moment, he met her gaze before raising the front tip of his weapon to the ceiling and speeding off, leaving nothing in his wake but a shower of debris that used to be the garage door and the last remnants of tire smoke from his partner’s exit.

  Maintaining her pose, Davis held off on return fire, watching as the car exited, disappearing in the same direction as the yellow truck. For almost a minute she stayed that way, adrenaline coursing through her in an amount that was almost strong enough to induce paralysis, every muscle taut, before she released a breath.

  With it came the break from tension she needed, her weapon slowly lowering before her.

  A few feet away, Tim did the same, perspiration on his skin, veins bulging the length of his arms, showing his body was reacting in the same way as hers.

  “Nice hit, Keuchly.”

  In no mood for it, Davis slid her gaze from the road to Tim.

  “Luke Keuchly is the-“

  “I know who Luke Keuchly is,” Davis snapped. Running her gaze the length of him, she added, “Yo
u’re welcome.”

  Returning the gesture, he nodded, adding, “You’re welcome, too.”

  For an instant, neither said a word, both silently acknowledging they had helped one another, that it didn’t mean a whole lot considering they were no closer to finding their guys than they were an hour before.

  Shifting, they both looked to the road.

  “Those weren’t the same two guys we saw,” Tim said, flicking a glance her way before taking a step toward the garage.

  “No?” Davis asked, watching him go forward before following, the front yard crackling beneath her feet.

  “Remember the guy you met at the hospital?” Tim asked.

  Thinking back a moment, Davis recalled the brief glimpse she’d gotten of the guy. Thick and full, if she had to encapsulate him in a single word, it would have been young.

  Most certainly not the first thing to come to mind with either of the two that just sped past.

  “You’re right,” she said, her voice low, more of a thought than a statement. Raising it slightly, she added, “And these guys had their truck...”

  Making his way to the corner of the garage, Tim glanced back her way, bringing both hands together, his Beretta poised before him.

  “So where are the other two?”

  As fast as it had ebbed away, Davis felt a spur of adrenaline rise up within her. Jogging a couple steps forward, she could feel her uniform shirt clinging to her skin, sweat pouring from every opening.

  Coming up behind him, she circled in front, passing through the interior of the garage, nothing but a twin pair of dark smudges and an awful stench left inside. Feeling the smoke of their dual exits burning her eyes, she moved in a sideways crouch, going for the rear door.

  Stopping alongside it, she pressed a shoulder against the wall, turning back to Tim.

  “You breach, I’ll clear.”

  A quick flash of a smile appeared in one corner of Tim’s mouth as he lowered his weapon, his hands returning to his sides. Walking in a straight line for the door, he extended a hand, grasping the handle, and said, “I think if there was anybody left alive inside, they would have either left with them or shot us down out front, don’t you?”