Desperate Creed

by Alex Kava

  At first, Brodie tried to keep up, listening and nodding, but now her heart was pounding too loudly. Her ears were filled with a rushing sound. She glanced at her mother to see if she could hear the thumping. Olivia James’ lipstick was too perfect. Her fingernails were trimmed and painted. Not a single chipped one. No jagged skin.

  Under the table, Brodie looked at her fingernails. Several were bitten to the quick. She fought the urge to take care of a cuticle on her thumb. Unable to bring it to her teeth, she started to pick at it.

  Olivia James’ hair was pretty, too. There were highlights of gold and the ends swished softly under her chin. Both sides were even. Brodie resisted forking her fingers through her short-cropped hair. Only recently, had she tried to stop cutting swatches of it out. In her mind, long hair was what had attracted attention. It was one of the reasons she was taken. Iris wanted to replace her daughter Charlotte, and Charlotte had always worn her hair long.

  Brodie had hated the dirty, unwashed strands clinging around her neck like a noose. As soon as she had access to a pair of scissors, she started to cut it and didn’t stop until it was shorn so close she could see her scalp in places.

  Those scissors...she remembered now, the image flashing before her. She had driven the metal blades deep into Aaron’s neck. Above the rushing sound in her ears Brodie could still hear his howls of pain. She could still feel his warm blood splatter her face. She didn’t attempt to pull the blades back out. No, if anything, she pushed harder.

  She gave her head a small shake, wanting to get rid of the image. She looked up to find Hannah and her mother staring at her.

  When had Hannah stopped talking?

  Brodie could see the concern lined on her forehead. Her mother was watching her like a person watching a scary movie and not knowing what came next. Brodie wanted to tell her that this was exactly what she was getting herself into. She wasn’t her innocent, little girl anymore. She didn’t care about pretty things or old toys. Now she was thrilled to have a draw full of socks and warm blankets and chocolate chip cookies. She wanted to tell her mother that she was as strange as she looked with sunken cheeks and skinny legs. She was inappropriate. She ate with her hands...hands that were still ragged, fingers manicured by teeth.

  But instead of saying any of those things what she said next surprised her as much as it surprised Hannah and her mother.

  She blurted out, “I killed a man.”

  45

  JUST SOUTH OF MONTGOMERY, Alabama

  Creed and Jason geared up. They grabbed helmets and added extra batteries for the flashlights already inside their pre-loaded daypacks. Creed squeezed in a couple more water bottles in case someone needed water. Both of them had wrap-around sunglasses to protect their eyes from falling debris, but they also had goggles for themselves and for the dogs.

  Grace didn’t mind goggles, but it was impossible to get her to accept boots. Most of their dogs came to them after being abandoned. As a result some had particular issues, and Creed took all of those issues into consideration when he began training. Lately, he regretted that he hadn’t tried harder to get Grace to wear protective footwear.

  As Jason put Scout’s all terrain boots on, Creed applied a breathable wax balm to Grace’s pads. This, she allowed. It protected her from the hot asphalt and toxins, keeping her pads strong. But it wouldn’t protect her against sharp objects like Scout’s boots would. Creed had tried to put Grace in all different kinds of footwear available, even the less obtrusive ones that Dr. Avelyn, his veterinarian had recommended, but instead of resisting or chewing or tugging them off, Grace simply sat. She wouldn’t move. She refused to move.

  They put the dogs’ vests on and attached short leashes. Creed checked the GPS devices to make sure the batteries were full before zipping one into each dog’s vest.

  Jason and Scout headed down one street. Creed and Grace took another. They agreed to meet back at the Jeep in hour. The dogs would need a break. The sun beat down and the air was already heavy.

  Creed was always amazed by how people reacted to dogs in a disaster zone. Dogs brought normalcy back to their lives. Some even stopped and asked to pet Grace, despite the shock in their eyes or the blood on their clothes. Grace’s presence, her prancing and genuine joy to meet people and get to work, also gave him as sense of calm. Still, he could feel the tension as they walked through these very personal and private ruins of strangers. He couldn’t help but feel like a trespasser.

  After a natural disaster, the primary search for first responders had to be for surface victims. It would keep them busy doing triage and getting survivors to hospitals. But Creed and Grace had to concentrate on those victims trapped, buried, or pinned beneath the crushing weight of their demolished homes.

  Time was never on their side. Structures already compromised by the storm could collapse completely. It wasn’t just the structures they had to worry about. There would be power lines down, possible gas leaks and flooding. Life threatening injuries could quickly turn a rescue into a recovery.

  “She must be in here,” a woman was screaming.

  Two men were on top of a mountain of debris that just hours ago had been a house. They were ripping up layers of shingles, beams and drywall. They tossed down bent window frames with pieces of glass flying as the frames hit the pavement. The younger man stopped and waved at Creed.

  “Mr. Creed. Deputy Mitch Huston. I was out at the interstate site yesterday.”

  Without his uniform, Creed didn’t recognize the man. Truthfully, there had been dozens of responders, and he’d only met a handful, but he pretended to remember.

  “This your neighborhood, deputy?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m across the street. We were lucky. Unbelievably lucky.” He sheepishly pointed to one of the houses that escaped damaged, survivor’s guilt already taking hold. “These are my neighbors, Bud and Alice.”

  “My mom is somewhere in this mess,” the woman said to Creed, gesturing to him with a cell phone in her hand.

  “She was home. I was talking to her on the phone when it hit. She’s in there somewhere.”

  She tapped her phone’s screen and few seconds later everyone stopped at the muffled sound of a phone ringing. It came from deep inside the debris pile. Creed could tell they’d already done this, call the number and heard the ringing. They knew where they needed to dig, but now, they all stared at him, watching, waiting.

  He ventured closer. Toward the back, another of section of the house had collapsed into a mess of broken boards and drywall. Creed found a tangle of clothes and shoes. Carefully, he tugged free a canvas tennis shoe. He held it up, showing it to Alice.

  Now, she was speechless, suddenly overcome with emotion. She simply nodded before he asked if it belonged to her mother.

  “Hey, Mister.” it was Bud calling down to him. “No disrespect, but we could sure use a hand up here. It sounds like her phone is straight down underneath us.”

  “Sir, hold on a minute,” Creed told him.

  Then he squatted down in front of Grace. He presented the shoe to her, allowing her to sweep her nose over it. She sniffed the surface then dipped her nose into the shoe. He could have chosen any of the woman’s clothing. If she had worn the item recently there would be skin rafts with her individual scent. But Creed trained his handlers to choose shoes if they had a choice. Few people laundered shoes, so the scent stayed longer.

  He could feel all three of them watching. Most of the time, he’d insist family members move away while his dog did her job. A family’s emotions could distract the dog. Sometimes they physically got in the way or simply asked too many questions. But last fall Creed had found himself in the position of being one of those family members and defending his right to be included. At the time, they were searching the graves of a madman, and believed they might find the remains of his sister. So he knew how it felt to be pushed out of way. For all he knew, Grace would alert to the exact spot where they were already digging and confirm the woman’s l
ocation.

  But that wasn’t at all what Grace did.

  She poked her nose in the air. Circled once. Then she turned her back on the mountain of debris and headed in the opposite direction.

  46

  SOUTHERN BLESSINGS

  Just South of Montgomery, Alabama

  Frankie felt the crushing weight but couldn’t see what was on top of her. There was a lot of scrambling in the dark. Flashes of blue light as people found their cell phones. Someone was crying. It was better than the screams from a moment ago. And the fact that she could hear again should have brought relief that the storm above them had stopped. Actually, it had stopped so suddenly Frankie didn’t trust that it was finished.

  “Are you okay?” Someone asked. Before Frankie could respond, someone else answered and she realized they weren’t talking to her.

  Could anyone even see her? It was so dark she could barely see. Her back was against the cold concrete floor. When had she fallen down? She tried to move and pain shot up her leg.

  “Oh my God, you’re bleeding!”

  This time the voice was too far away, and Frankie knew it wasn’t directed to her.

  The chaos around her didn’t seem to include her at all. More flashes of blue and white light as more cell phones came on.

  “I can’t get a signal,” a woman said.

  Then suddenly a stream of light hit Frankie in the face.

  “Frankie? You okay?” It was Maggie O’Dell, though she couldn’t see the woman on the other side of the blinding light. Finally, the stream moved down. “Can you move?”

  “I’m stuck,” she said as she lifted her head to see what the light revealed. It made her stomach lurch, and she tasted bile in back of her throat. Her legs were pinned underneath one of the steel beams that had been holding up the basement ceiling. It looked like part of the building had also caved in on top of her. In a panic, she twisted and wiggled and tried to pull herself out.

  “Hold on,” Maggie told her with a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, I need some help over here!” she yelled over her shoulder.

  Frankie pointed to Maggie’s forehead, “You’re bleeding.”

  She swiped her fingers over the wound and wiped the blood on her trousers.

  “I think it’s okay,” she told Frankie. “Probably just needs a couple stitches.”

  The older man who Frankie remembered had been at the counter before the storm, was the first to respond. Except his jaw was bloody now, and his salt and pepper hair glittered with glass and dust. His white shirt with his carefully rolled up the sleeves was torn and stained with blood.

  “Do you think we can lift it” Maggie asked him. She didn’t wait for his answer. She was waving someone else over.

  He crouched down and stared at Frankie as if it were important for him to know who exactly he was helping before he even glanced a look at the beam. Frankie guessed he was in his sixties. Close up, his skin looked weathered from too much sun, and his hair was more salt than pepper. But just glancing at his forearms she thought he looked lean and in good shape. And yet, Frankie almost sighed with relief when she saw the giant of a man over Maggie’s shoulder.

  It was the truck driver who had helped her earlier. He had kind eyes and muscles that looked like he could lift a car off a person. But there was blood running down his arm and his shoulder hung at an odd angle.

  “Wait a minute,” Maggie told him when she noticed his arm, too. “What’s your name?”

  “Ronald.”

  “Ronald, turn around.”

  She pointed her cell phone’s flashlight at his back. Frankie saw the shard of glass, and panic quickly replaced any relief. A four-inch chunk stuck out of his shoulder blade. It didn’t help matters when Frankie saw Maggie’s response. The woman looked visibly shaken. Was it the blood? It did look gross. But she was an FBI agent. Didn’t she see worse stuff?

  “We need to take care of you, Ronald,” Maggie told the man. “You can’t help. You need to sit down” She grabbed the edge of a bench and dragged it over. Then she turned back around and called out, “Hey, anyone know first aid? I’m talking major wound. And I need some muscle over here.”

  “We’re trying to pry open the door,” a voice called back. Frankie thought she recognized it as Hank’s.

  Maggie looked down at the older man who was still kneeling next to Frankie.

  “What do you think?” she asked him “Can the two of us lift this?”

  “If it was just the beam. But all this other stuff. Maybe we should wait for paramedics.”

  “What’s your name, Sir?”

  “Friends call me Gus.”

  “I’m Maggie. How about we give it a try, Gus,” Maggie told him.

  Despite Maggie’s best attempt to hide it, Frankie heard the urgency in her voice, and it kicked up Frankie’s anxiety. Did she think they couldn’t wait until the paramedics arrived? The pain was almost unbearable now. She bit down on her lower lip. The beam had most likely broken at least one of her legs, if not both.

  Gus shrugged then nodded. He looked for someplace to put his hands. Maggie did the same.

  “You ready, Gus?” Maggie asked. “On the count of three. One. Two. Three.”

  The beam didn’t budge. It didn’t shift even a little bit. It simply didn’t move.

  Frankie tried to concentrate on breathing. They were going to try, again. She breathed in. Then out. Another breath in and out.

  It still did not move.

  Frankie stopped. She held her breath this time. Then she sniffed the air and her eyes darted to Maggie’s. She smelled it, too.

  “Don’t panic,” Maggie told her.

  How could she not panic? The storm had broken a gas line and now the fumes were filling their small, incredibly crammed area.

  47

  JUST SOUTH OF MONTGOMERY, Alabama

  Grace led Creed across the street. Her nose was working the scent. Her tail curled up over her back. Deputy Huston had skidded down the debris pile to follow. Alice was close behind. Her husband, Bud had stayed.

  “My mom was in the house,” Alice shouted at their backs. “She didn’t leave the house.” But she still trailed behind them.

  Grace strained at the end of the leash. Once she shot a look back at Creed to hurry up. He cringed as she trotted over broken glass. She threw her head back and sampled the air without stopping. Her breathing grew rapid and her eyes fixed ahead. He tried to steer her around oily puddles and two-by-fours with nails.

  “This is the little dog that found that baby,” Deputy Huston was telling Alice. “He was thrown out of the car. It had to be over 200 feet.”

  Creed tried to tune them out. He thought about stopping and asking them to stay back. But at this point, he didn’t want to stop Grace. And the deputy brought up a good point. Tornadoes threw people around. But at the same time, he wanted to warn them that the storm had thrown the woman’s belongings around, too. There was a chance that Grace could be tracking something that Alice’s mother had been wearing.

  She led them between rescue vehicles and through groups of first responders. Most hardly noticed them. Creed glanced over his shoulder. They were cutting a diagonal line that already crossed two streets. They came around a debris pile almost two-stories high and now, Creed could see where Grace was taking them. Jason and Scout were already there with a team of fire firefighters. Grace tugged even harder now.

  The small park and half a dozen huge live oaks had survived although all the leaves and some of the bark were stripped away. Under the second tree, Scout jumped at the trunk and peddled the air with his front paws. Then he sat down. Creed could see Jason already pulling out Scout’s rope toy to reward him.

  The block of white glistened against the stark black and brown. Cradled in the branches above was a bathtub.

  Creed stopped and turned around, putting a hand up to stop Deputy Huston and Alice.

  “Hold on a minute,” he told them. To Grace, his said, “Good girl.” She was already staring up at h
im, waiting. His fingers fumbled with his daypack’s zipper. He found the pink elephant and handed it to Grace. Pleased, she took it in her mouth and made it squeal again and again.

  “I don’t understand,” Alice said.

  “Where did your mother usually take shelter?” Creed asked.

  “Very few of us have basements. Bud and I have a closet under the steps. Mom usually goes to the bathroom and gets—” She stopped and her eyes flicked over his shoulder and up at the tree. “No. It can’t be.”

  They let the firefighters do their job. They were supposed to wait for a fire truck to maneuver its way through the downed power lines. There was no secure way to climb up and look inside the bathtub without a ladder. And yet, the men were already tossing a rope over one of the few branches that weren’t bearing the weight of the bathtub.

  The youngest of the firefighters was striping out of his gear, tossing off anything and everything that might obstruct his climb.

  To Creed, he asked, “Can your dog tell...” He stopped himself and checked to see if the family members—by now Bud had joined Alice—were back far enough to not hear him. Deputy Huston had made sure of that. The firefighter continued, “Can your dogs tell if she’s dead or alive?”

  It was complicated. Creed didn’t want to get into a lengthy explanation of how fresh this scene was. Both dogs were trained for search and rescue but both had also been trained for recovery. There was a distinct difference in the scent of a live person and a decomposing body. But a person who may have died only hours ago?

  “No, sorry,” Creed told him.

  “But you’re sure someone’s still in there? Isn’t it possible she was inside and is gone now, but her scent is still there?”

  “I guess anything’s possible,” Creed said. He’d seen stranger things. But he trusted his dogs. “Both dogs believe she’s still there.”

  The man simply nodded. To the other firefighters, he said, “Okay, lets do this.”