A Troubling Turn of Events

by Darrell Maloney

  He was the minister at the First Baptist Church, the largest Baptist church in Kerrville.

  About as trustworthy a witness as could be found in Kerr County.

  “We buried him in his back yard. I presided over the service. Would you like to see his grave?”

  “No sir. That’s not necessary.”

  They were back to square one.

  They went back across town, to Katie’s neighborhood, and picked up again where they’d left off.

  But they lost two hours of their day chasing down the false lead.

  But it was what it was. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Their witness genuinely believed their suspect was someone he knew.

  That’s the way police investigations work. Sometimes a thousand false leads are run to ground before an accurate one finally pays off.

  It’s the part of the job which gives police detectives gray hairs.

  And makes patrolmen, like Charlie Sikes, wish they could leave the detective work to somebody else and go back on the streets.

  At days end Sara reminded him she was off the next day. The sheriff would be helping Charlie do the canvassing in her absence.

  “Oh, great,” Charlie moaned. “That means I’ll have to actually behave myself tomorrow.”

  “Well, I hope you don’t find the guy until I come back,” Sara told him. “I want to help catch the bastard.”

  She didn’t know, as she waved goodbye and drove off toward the highway, that she’d meet their suspect long before Charlie did.

  -34-

  Sara was like most people on a Friday.

  No matter what happens on a Friday, it’s still Friday. The weekend is right around the corner.

  This particular day was a Tuesday. And she only had one day off to look forward to instead of two.

  But it still counted.

  As she cruised down the highway with both windows cranked all the way down, the wind blowing her hair all over the place, she tried to come up with a scheme which would let her and Jordan sleep late the next morning.

  If Tom was going to be there he’d ask him to take young Charles and Christopher fishing. Tom liked to leave at the crack of dawn, because he caught the most fish in the hour right after sunrise.

  But Tom wouldn’t be there. He’d be halfway to work, on his way to meet up with Charlie when the sun started to rise.

  She could ask her father-in-law Scott to take them. But Scott never left to go fishing until after he drank four cups of coffee and had breakfast.

  His philosophy differed from Tom’s.

  In Scott’s mind anything that required him to roll his lazy butt out of bed when it was still dark outside wasn’t a recreational activity.

  It was a chore.

  “I might not catch as many fish as you, Tom. But I get a lot more beauty sleep. It’s why I look so much better than you do.”

  Odds were Scott would still be working on his second cup of coffee when Christopher crawled into bed with his mom and dad and asked, “Mommy are you awake?”

  “No, honey. Mommy’s still sleeping.”

  “Oh.

  “Then how come you’re talking?”

  “Mommy sometimes talks in her sleep.”

  “Oh.

  “Do I talk in my sleep too?”

  By that time Sara would be wide awake.

  By the time she took the exit for Highway 83 she’d come up with a new option.

  She’d ask Linda if Christopher could crawl into bed with her and Tom. He loved snuggling with his grandma and “kinda grandpa.”

  She’d suggest to Charles that he dig out his sleeping bag and crash in the back yard.

  Charles loved to sleep under the stars.

  And she knew he wouldn’t wake up until the morning sun started to warm his face.

  Problem solved.

  Then she detected a new problem.

  She knew what it was as soon as she felt the truck start to vibrate on the right ride.

  She wished she was imagining it, but it was hard to avoid the sensation the vehicle was leaning slightly to the passenger side.

  The tell, though, was the way it started pulling toward the shoulder of the road.

  “Damn it!”

  It was the perfect end to an already crummy day.

  She pulled onto the shoulder not because she expected to be in anyone else’s way. For in all probability there wouldn’t be anyone else driving either way on Highway 83 until morning.

  It was more out of habit.

  She was a young driver, sure. But she wasn’t a rookie. She’d broken down a couple of times before the lights went out and even had a couple of flat tires.

  She knew the first response in such situations was to move to the side of the road where she didn’t pose a danger to others.

  Once the pickup rolled to a stop she pounded the steering wheel with her fist and cursed a blue streak.

  Then she reached over to the glove box and took out the flashlight Scott had given her from his Faraday barn.

  She turned it on to test it and it almost blinded her.

  It was, to be sure, a very good flashlight.

  Jeff was on the shoulder a hundred yards away and walking toward her.

  He wouldn’t have been so bold, but knew she couldn’t see him in the inky blackness.

  The flash of light from the interior of the truck surprised him.

  It almost looked like a flashlight.

  But flashlights didn’t work anymore.

  Then he thought about it and reasoned, vehicles weren’t supposed to be working anymore either. Yet here, on this lonely stretch of highway, was a fully functional Chevy Silverado.

  By the time the pickup door opened he’d closed the gap between them by half.

  He stepped off the shoulder and ducked into the heavy shrubbery.

  Sara stood next to the almost-flat tire and listened to the hiss as the last of the air escaped.

  She lit it up with the flashlight and ran her hand around the tire, which was hot to the touch, trying to find the hole. But she couldn’t find it.

  Actually there were two holes, but she didn’t know that. They were on the bottom of the tire, almost on the pavement. Close enough to the pavement to keep her fingers from feeling their presence, but not flat against the ground where the weight of the truck would press them against the pavement and stop any further air from coming out.

  She drew her hand away, deciding it didn’t really matter where the leak was.

  The damage was done.

  She looked at her hand in the beam of light.

  It was black.

  Yuck.

  Yes, she was an independent woman. Independent enough to resist the urge to call Tom on his radio and ask him to send Jordan out to change her flat tire for her.

  Independent enough to resist calling on the radio to Charlie, who was probably in his apartment in Kerrville by now, to ask for his help.

  She was independent enough to change her own damn tire, just as she changed her own oil and checked her own fluid levels.

  But besides being independent enough to change her own tire on a dark night miles from anywhere, she was still a woman.

  And she still hated getting her hands dirty.

  -35-

  Sara lowered the tailgate and placed the flashlight upon it.

  It was bright enough to light up the entire bed, including the spare tire which was bolted upright just behind the driver’s seat.

  She climbed into the bed and pulled out the tool box which was wedged behind the spare.

  There was a wrench to remove the spare from the truck bed. But no lug wrench and no jack.

  Crap!

  She scrambled out of the bed and dropped onto the pavement below, then opened up the cab and looked behind the driver’s seat.

  There she found what she needed, attached to the floor with snap clips: the jack and a four-way lug wrench.

  She was in business.

  As she unbolted the spare tire she kicke
d herself for not verifying all the tools were there when they issued her the pickup.

  Water under the bridge. What was done was done, and she had everything she needed so there was no harm done.

  She rolled the spare to the end of the bed, climbed down and dropped it to the ground.

  It bounced a couple of times, but that was okay. She knew that was the best way to verify it wasn’t flat as well.

  It was her step-father Glen who taught her how to change a flat several years before.

  It was one of the few useful things the bastard taught her.

  She knelt on the pavement next to the flat and loosened the lug nuts, stopping at one point to look behind her. She’d heard a twig snap fairly close by.

  But it didn’t distract her for long.

  She was experienced enough in the outdoors to know things went scurrying through the brush all the time. And that at night when the air was still, every little sound in the forest or the scrub brush was magnified ten fold

  In all likelihood it was a rabbit, or a coyote tracking one.

  And as dark as it was, she couldn’t see ten feet in front of her anyway.

  If it had been Bigfoot himself, she wouldn’t know it until he wrapped his hairy arm around her and dragged her kicking and screaming into the woods.

  She laughed at the thought and refocused her attention on the task at hand.

  She woudn’t realize until much later how close that thought was to reality.

  The lug nuts were loose now. She positioned the jack on the pavement and began to raise the vehicle.

  Jeff Barnett wasn’t Bigfoot, although which was the smarter of the two was probably a toss-up.

  He didn’t have hairy arms either for that matter.

  At least no hairier than any other man’s.

  And he wouldn’t wrap his arm around her and drag her kicking and screaming into the woods either.

  She was only half his size, yes.

  But he’d seen tiny women who were trained in the martial arts and could beat a man his size into the ground.

  He hadn’t been as successful as he was as a serial killer by not thinking through his plan.

  So yes, he’d sneak up behind her.

  And yes, he’d drag her into the woods.

  But she wouldn’t be kicking and screaming.

  One couldn’t kick or scream when one was unconscious.

  He pulled out the can of ether from his pocket.

  It was actually a spray can of starter fluid. Drivers used it to spray into the carburetors of older cars to help them start.

  It wasn’t medical grade.

  It was never intended to be used on humans. In fact, there was a warning label on the can which stated, in no uncertain terms, that it wasn’t to be inhaled.

  But it did contain ether and that was good enough for Jeff.

  He’d used it before and it worked like a champ. Only one of his victims never regained consciousness. He suspected she inhaled too much and died of a heart attack, but he couldn’t be sure.

  He sure as hell wasn’t going to drag her to the coroner and request an autopsy.

  If the same thing happened to the little deputy it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

  He’d rather have her alive, for his own gratification and for the pleasure of killing her slowly.

  There was just something about watching the panic in a woman’s eyes when she was in great pain that turned him on.

  But if she died, she died. He wouldn’t cry about it.

  He’d just chalk it up to bad luck and go find another victim.

  And either way, whether he took her alive or dead, he’d still rid the world of the only one who saw him near his last crime scene.

  And that would allow him to ply his hobby in and around Kerrville a bit longer before he got bored and moved on.

  Sneaking up on the deputy was incredibly easy.

  She’d already heard noises behind her and discounted them. Any other noises he might make as he closed the gap between them would similarly be ignored.

  The flashlight was on the ground next to Sara’s foot, but it was pointing directly at the flat tire.

  Jeff was totally in the dark.

  Best of all, Sara was focused totally on the task at hand.

  She never saw him creep up behind her.

  She never heard him creep up behind her.

  The only clue he was there was the very strong smell of ether in the air in the fraction of a second before he wrapped one arm around her throat and pressed the ether-soaked rag onto her face.

  He needn’t have worried.

  Sara hadn’t been trained in the martial arts.

  She didn’t know how to free herself from his grasp.

  She held her breath, but only for a couple of seconds. For when he grabbed her she’d just exhaled and her lungs were empty.

  When they refilled they were full of the ether.

  And she went limp almost immediately.

  -36-

  At the exact moment Sara collapsed to the ground, and exactly one hundred miles away, Tillie Burgess was nearing the city limits of San Antonio.

  She was downright giddy with excitement.

  She’d done it. She’d traveled all the way from Alpharetta, Georgia on her own, with no help from anyone. Along hostile highways and past brutal men who’d killed for things as trivial as a bottle of water.

  Tillie would be the first to admit she was surprised.

  Just before she left a friend asked her what she considered the odds she’d make it.

  “I don’t know. Maybe one in a hundred. Maybe not even that good.

  “But I have to try.”

  She had to try because she was tired of being all alone in the world.

  When the blackout came and wiped out most of the earth’s population it gave the survivors a new perspective.

  Those who were lucky enough to still have relatives realized just how precious they were. And they felt a drive to protect them at all costs.

  Those who’d lost relatives, and there were a lot more of them, knew how fragile life was, and how cheaply life was valued by those who took at the end of a gun.

  Tillie was a tiny thing. Her dad called her “Peanut” when she was young, and the name stuck. Her brother David stood head and shoulders above her and always protected her from bullies.

  And from dogs.

  Tillie had cynophobia: a fear of dogs.

  David was a proud member of the United States Air Force and was stationed at a base in San Antonio when the power went out and the world went black.

  All communications went down.

  There was no way for Tillie to contact David to make sure they were okay.

  No way to tell him she was setting out on foot, over a thousand miles away, to join him and his family.

  No way for Tillie to know that David and his wife Rachel didn’t survive the violence which followed the EMPs.

  She didn’t know she had only one relative left in the world: a precocious niece named Millicent.

  Millicent had always adored her Aunt Tillie. It was mutual.

  While whiling away the days at a makeshift orphanage Millicent dreamed of Tillie coming to rescue her.

  That never happened, and the youngster was eventually adopted by Sara Harter and taken north and west to Junction.

  Millicent was loved and well cared for and was happy in her new home.

  But at night when her eyes closed, she often dreamed of Tillie and wondered.

  Wondered what became of her.

  Wondered why Tillie never came for her.

  Wondered if Tillie was even still alive.

  The truth was, Tillie did come.

  Not to rescue Millicent, for she wasn’t aware she’d been orphaned. But rather to reconcile with David and his family.

  To relocate to San Antonio and to be with her remaining living relatives.

  To get the family together again, for mutual protection and peace of mind.

&
nbsp; Tillie was way too late.

  But she didn’t know that.

  As she walked along Highway 281 just north of the city limits, she saw in her mind’s eye a joyous reunion. David would pick her up and twirl her around, just as he did when they were kids, and would tell her how glad he was she’d made the journey.

  Then he’d chew her out, for surely he knew what a peril that journey was.

  Tillie would do the same to Millicent. Picking her up and twirling her around, that is.

  There’d be laughter and hugs and tears of happiness.

  The family would finally be together again.

  Tillie always looked up to her brother in more ways than one.

  From an early age she always wanted to impress him. Always wanted him to tell her he was proud of her.

  From that perspective, she couldn’t wait to introduce him to her new partner.

  A German shepherd named Hero.

  Hero came to her rescue when she collapsed on a desolate highway hundreds of miles east. She ran out of blood pressure medication and a combination of dehydration and stress caused her to black out.

  She came to several hours later to find Hero standing guard over her. Protecting her from a pack of other dogs.

  Wild dogs, who wanted to tear out her throat and feast on her bones.

  Hero seemed to sense she was not only frail but vulnerable as well.

  He also knew instinctively she was terrified of him.

  He didn’t understand why, but he respected her feelings and kept a healthy distance.

  Gradually the distance grew smaller and she finally allowed herself to reach out and pet the big dog.

  She still slept very fitfully at night.

  Still had nightmares of the dog pack returning and ripping her to shreds.

  And occasionally Hero led a prominent role in the nightmares, as the leader of the pack.

  On those nights in particular, Hero would lie awake and would watch her in the dark.

  He couldn’t understand why she moaned in her sleep. Why she appeared to be afraid even as she dreamed.

  But he was there for her. He’d make sure no harm came to her.

  And when the nightmares passed and her eyes opened, the first thing she did was to reach out to Hero. To scratch him behind his oversized ears and to thank him for being a loyal friend.