The Bear

by Dustin Stevens

  Inching his way forward, Reed could see that most stood empty, the floors swept clean, the only sign that animals had ever been inside being the gnawed edges of the wooden structures and the added smells of sawdust and manure.

  The opposite side of the building was partitioned into two floors, wooden support beams spaced every ten feet or so. Stacked high on the second story were the remains of last year’s hay and straw, the dwindling supply hinting that a new crop was set to be cut at any time.

  On the first floor beneath it was a handful of smaller machinery all in a row, mowers and ATVs and such. Beyond them, Reed could just make out a workbench running the length of the place, tools of every variety hanging from a pegboard mounted to the wall.

  Reed took in and inventoried each item in short order. Not as concerned about the particulars of what the place held, his gaze swept to every darkened corner, seeking out wherever someone might be hiding, looking for the various implements that could be used as weapons.

  Finding nothing too obvious, his attention eventually shifted to the middle lane.

  To the major attractions waiting there.

  Parked right up front was an oversized truck with a round bumper and circular headlights. It was backed in so it was facing outward, ready to be started and driven through the main gate in the morning. The cab was painted glossy red, a perfect restoration of a truck made decades before.

  Sitting behind it was a tractor of some sort, a hulking machine of red and black. Looking like something from a Transformers movie poster, a glass box was set up high, enclosing the steering column and controls. Along the front was a series of metal discs placed on edge, a pair of long metal arms bent upward crossed behind the control booth.

  Staring up at it, Reed could feel the temperature inside the barn crawl ever higher. Sweat dripped from his jaw, dotting the front of his shirt. It burned his eyes as he rotated in quick circles, constantly monitoring their surroundings.

  A few feet ahead, Billie paid none of it any mind. Her body pitched forward, she worked her way down the middle path, swinging between the horse stalls on one side and the vehicles parked to the other.

  Watching her work, Reed followed as they eased past the front of the smaller truck. Sidling up alongside it, he saw that the metal bed had been stripped away as part of the restoration project, replaced with wooden slats running horizontally from the cab to the rear bumper.

  Crossing one foot over the other, Reed placed one hand on the top slat. Using it for leverage, he hoisted himself up a few inches, peering down inside the bed.

  “Son of a bitch,” he whispered.

  Palpitations rippled through Reed’s chest as he stared down to see every square inch already packed tight with produce. Representing the full gamut of the color spectrum, everything from tomatoes to heads of cabbage to purple onions was separated into bins, already washed and ready for the next morning.

  Peering in on it, Reed felt his jaw tighten. His lips pressed into a tight line, a bit more acrimony seeping into his system.

  Since the moment they’d left Muskogee, he’d felt like this was the place. He’d wanted this to be it, their final destination, where they could finally find Serena Gipson and put so many others at peace.

  But he hadn’t known. Not really, anyway.

  Already they’d faced so many false starts, the path as winding as that of any case in recent memory.

  This confirmed things, though. This finally brought it all full circle, the one last string that could be pulled on, drawing everything together.

  Whether this truck was loaded and bound for Checotah as Prairie View Farms or Tulsa as Spring Meadow Farms or Alaska as Hell’s Garden didn’t matter.

  What mattered was that Reed finally had a concrete visual of everything he, Wyatt, Martin, Deke, and so many others had been digging at for days.

  At last, there was clarity.

  Even if it did last only an instant before Billie pulled herself into a taut line fifteen feet ahead, a single sound rolling out from deep in her diaphragm, letting him know that she had finally found the scent.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Upon entering, Reed hadn’t been able to see the van, which had been pulled in behind the tractor, completely hidden by the wide berth and heightened stature of the machine. Not until Billie had called for him, pulling him away from the spread of produce in the back of the truck, drawing him further into the barn, had he even noticed it was there.

  But the moment he did, there was no mistaking the boxy stature and dark color, the vehicle undoubtedly the same one he had seen pulling away just two nights before.

  The same jolt that had just passed through Billie, supercharging her form, now roiled through Reed, igniting him from within. He raised his pace to a sprint, racing toward his partner, both of them arriving along the back wall at the same time.

  “Pause.”

  Jerking his attention in either direction, Reed saw a door matching the one they’d entered through tucked into the far corner. Slapping at his thigh, he pounded toward it, shoving it open and stepping out behind the barn just an instant before Billie. Lowering himself into a crouch, he gripped the baton, holding it before him as if it were a sword, checking either direction repeatedly.

  Blinking rapidly, he waited for his eyes to adjust, his pupils dilating to the lowered light. Cool air swept around him as he continued to stare out, seeing nothing but even rows of corn lined up to within a few feet of the barn.

  “Search!”

  Much like the first time, the instant the command was issued, Billie took off fast. Picking up the scent without pause, she hooked hard to the left, moving just short of a full run, as she went for the edge of the barn, hurtling past it without slowing.

  With his arms formed into ninety-degree angles, Reed gripped the baton as if he were a member of a relay team and pounded along behind her. His wind grew short and sweat poured over his features, his head working to either side as much as possible, the world passing by in a blur.

  On their left, two smaller greenhouses passed by. Next in order came a small wooden structure, a miniature version of the barn they’d been in just moments before.

  Not once did Billie so much as glance over as they went, her body pulled taut, tension spurring her onward.

  For more than a full minute they tore along, moving in tandem through the night, before Billie pulled up abruptly, stopping so suddenly that Reed overshot her by a few steps.

  Sliding to a stop, he retraced his step, and his gaze lifted, taking in where she had delivered them.

  The speedy journey had finally deposited them at a single-story outbuilding made entirely of concrete block. Recently painted, it was bright red with a silver metal roof, small windows with frosted glass lining the top portion of it.

  Comprising the far end of the cluster of buildings, fields abutted the back and side, the width of it obstructing the house and any light from the security stanchions from view.

  Leading them directly to the rear corner, Billie had refused to go any further. Letting out a small whine, she turned a quick circle, practically hopping in anticipation, letting Reed know that the trail had ended, the place they needed to be right before them.

  Inching closer, Reed again checked their surroundings. Seeing nothing unusual, even rows of corn stretched in multiple directions, he crept on, ignoring the sweat streaming over his features, his pulse thundering through his temples.

  In the darkness, the spot that Billie had found was just barely visible, slowly taking shape as Reed eased forward. Tucked along the base of the building, he could see it was nothing more than a concrete footer, slanting downward from the side of the building to the ground at a low angle, a metal door laying flat atop it.

  On the side was a polished silver hasp, normally used to thread a lock through, securing it in place.

  A hasp that was now peeled back, the lock meant to keep it in place tossed into the grass a few feet away.

  Chapter Seventy-Eigh
t

  It wasn’t like it was the first injury that had ever occurred in the holding cell that needed medical attention. Over the years, dozens of things had happened, ranging across most of the spectrum in severity.

  Sometimes it was as simple as the brand, some burn ointment and wraps being all the treatment that was required. Other times, a broken finger needed to be set or an open wound stitched shut, The Bear having amassed a fair bit of medical supplies over the years.

  Just, never before had he needed to dip into them for himself.

  Seated on the rolling chair in the middle of the room, The Bear’s left leg was extended at an angle before him. Throbbing, already it was too swollen to bend more than a couple of inches. By morning, he would be unable to move it at all, underlying structural damage present that would require serious treatment and lengthy downtime.

  Matching the injury in painful intensity was the side of his skull, every beat of his heart flushing more blood through the area, threatening to cause it to explode from the pressure of the swelling. Each time he moved his head, he could feel the dried blood on his skin tugging, already beginning to harden into a mask.

  What he must look like, he didn’t much want to consider.

  Using the heel of his right foot, The Bear rolled himself forward. Crossing over the small space, he pulled up in front of the shelving unit along the wall, grabbing up a basket from the lowest level and balancing it across his right thigh.

  Diving in with both hands, he tossed gauze wraps and bandages to either side, littering the ground around him, rummaging toward the bottom. Finding what he was after stowed in the back corner, he extracted a vial of pills and popped the top, pouring the ibuprofen straight down his throat and swallowing an indeterminate number.

  They weren’t what he would have preferred, not by a long shot. If given a choice, he would have opted for Vicodin or Percocet or a dozen other things, but that was all he had. The basket was meant for working on the girls, and over-the-counter ibuprofen was the most they warranted.

  This situation just the latest example of why.

  Taking them dry, he coughed twice, one of them shooting out of his mouth, a tiny brown projectile skittering off the wall and across the floor.

  Unable to muster the energy to give a shit, The Bear let it go. Upending the vial again, he took down two more before tossing it back into the basket and shoving it to the floor.

  Landing with a loud smack, it toppled onto a side, more items spilling out, bouncing across the concrete floor.

  Again, The Bear hardly even noticed. Instead, his attention went back in the opposite direction, caught by the computer monitors balanced on the tables.

  And the signs of movement flashing across them.

  His jaw falling open, he sat and stared at the signs of life before him. As he did so, his heart rate increased, heightening the throbbing in his head and knee.

  Hardly able to grasp what he was seeing, let alone believe it, The Bear watched as the girl twisted herself up off the floor. Her limbs moving in slow concert, she worked to upright her damaged body, each inch stilted, her muscles firing out of pure memory and nothing more.

  Sitting and staring, The Bear felt hatred rise.

  Pain continued to course the length of his body. With injuries on opposite ends, they seemed to alternate firing, one traveling the length of him, registering with his pain receptors, before the next one followed in order.

  Knee.

  Head.

  Knee.

  Head.

  An unending loop, each new pass managed to heighten the disdain he felt. It pushed his mood past anything he had registered before, wrath settling within him.

  He had lost girls before. Many of them. Usually it came from them being too weak to last, the conditions eventually breaking them. Sometimes, it was his own decision to withhold that helped hasten the process.

  The last girl had even managed to take her own life, choking herself to death.

  But never had he actually passed into outright killing them. Not once had he struck them down or wrapped his hands around their throat, no matter how much they might have deserved it.

  If given the chance, he would have with Molly, but never those who came after.

  That would have defeated the purpose.

  The idea with this – all of it – from the very beginning, wasn’t sadistic pleasure. It wasn’t for the sport of abusing them.

  The point was to rehabilitate them. To do something that he never could with Molly, making them the type of woman his mother had been, the sort of woman he deserved.

  He had loved Molly. He still loved her. He had spent every moment he knew her trying to get her to reciprocate, had spent the last seven years trying to make someone in her image who would.

  That, all of it, ended now.

  Swinging his gaze around the room, The Bear felt the cocktail of adrenaline and animosity, pain and rage, pour into his system. It heightened his every sense, every feeling, as he searched for something, anything, to help him finish the job.

  Under the combined effects of so much flooding into his system, barely could his mind latch onto anything, the images flashing before his eyes hardly registering. Hands flailing, he reached out, desperate for something to bring it all to an end.

  His fingertips eventually landing on the coiled steel of the brand still resting on the edge of the table.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Three thoughts reached Reed’s mind simultaneously as he stared down into the gaping maw before him. A standard storm cellar, the kind found on most every home constructed in Oklahoma – especially on the prairie – in the last hundred years, what little ambient light there was showed a narrow concrete staircase descending straight down into the darkness.

  The first notion to hit was that he should step back. Pull his cellphone from his pocket and call for backup. Based on the lock lying in the grass, the fresh beer spilled on the floor of the kitchen, and Billie leading them where they now stood, there was a better chance than not that Edward Gaines was currently below.

  All they had to do was swing the door shut and lock it, keep the man from escaping, and they had their guy.

  The second thought to arrive was an extension of the first. From this position, he could even sprint around the side of the barn, covering the couple of hundred yards to alert Martin before returning within a matter of minutes or less.

  More likely, he wouldn’t even need to make it all the way there. He could just get within shouting distance, summoning aid, before turning and heading back.

  Both moves made sense. He had the baton in hand, but that would be no match for the potential arsenal that was squirreled away in the space below.

  There were no vehicles nearby. If Gaines tried to escape on foot, Billie would track him down instantly.

  Not that any amount of logic held up to the third thought to land at the front of Reed’s mind.

  Billie had brought them to this point because she had picked up the scent of Serena Gipson. She hadn’t been tracking the man as he left the house, the place too saturated with his scent to even bother, likely leading them on a winding path that would be too difficult for her to unfurl.

  In its stead, they had sought out the girl. They had been focused on her, because that’s the reason they were here. It was why Wyatt had believed their story two nights before, had asked for their assistance even in the face of overwhelming denial from his chief.

  It was about her, the scent Billie had caught in the back of the barn and followed to where they now stood.

  Serena Gipson was down there. What state she was in, what the man was doing to her, what had caused him to drop his beer and knock the back door off the hinges in getting there, Reed didn’t know.

  But he knew she was there. Billie and the truck of produce and the picture in the living room were all too much for her not to be.

  And he damned sure wasn’t going to make her spend another minute that way while he went off to get
help.

  For more than a year and a half, he and Billie had patrolled the toughest precinct in Columbus, one of the worst handful in the entire state. Together, they had faced down kingpins with guns and killers with samurai swords, and they had even jumped into the icy waters of the Olentangy River in the dead of winter.

  Not once had they backed down, especially when they knew a victim was in need.

  On leave or not, they weren’t about to let this be a first.

  “Slow,” Reed hissed, making the command just loud enough to be heard.

  Moving to the left edge of the stairwell, Reed turned his body sideways, his baton gripped in both hands before him. Lifting one foot across the other, he slowly lowered himself into the opening, Billie falling in line beside him.

  Not a sound passed from either as each step took them a bit further into the clutches of the cellar. Overhead, the small square of sky that was still visible disappeared, thrusting them into total darkness as five stairs became ten, and then fifteen.

  Barely able to breathe, air catching in his chest, Reed continued to creep forward, his pace steady.

  Right up to the moment when, for the second time in three nights, he heard Serena Gipson scream.

  Chapter Eighty

  Just like two nights before, there was no mistaking the cry or its underlying intent. Loud and shrill, it shattered the quiet of the space, Reed’s chest lurching at the unexpected sound, a half-bark rolling out of Billie in response.

  Hurtling at them from the darkness, it reverberated off the concrete walls, bouncing along the narrow staircase, before bursting past them and escaping out into the night.

  And just like two nights before, the moment the scream registered, pure instinct took over.