Of all the crazy things going on, the two freezers in town that he cared about had lost power leaving everything around him going bad. He hoisted the trashcan up and poured the spoiled meat into the dumpster behind the store. A horde of hungry rats dove in on it and began to devour it. Apparently, they’d come in out of the rain too. Gross, he thought as he slammed the lid shut.
“Enjoy, ya filthy mongrels,” he called to the furry frenzy.
He sloshed back into the store, dripping wet from the sheets of rain coming down now. Time to let the boss know. He tapped out a message and read it three times.
-Oscar. Generator failed. Meat is bad. Saved four pounds. Maybe we can use something else to make the chowder.
He looked at the message again. Can’t send that. I’d be fired before tomorrow, he sighed. Use something else…but what else was there. Need meat. Probably should’ve just made the chowder with the spoiled meat. Hell, it smelled pretty fishy as it was…nobody would’ve figured it out anyway. But it was too late for that now; the rats had probably finished it off. Shit, another mistake.
He resigned himself to letting the boss know tomorrow. He’d bring his keys in and take his medicine. He figured with his new knife, he could probably pick up more side work at the docks to make ends meet. He clicked the lock and walked away.
The street leading into the trailer park was flooded with the heavy rain coming down and he splashed through as best he could…trying to avoid deeper puddles. He was soaked by the time he bounded up his steps.
“It’s gotta go!” A voice he recognized as old lady Witherington’s called from behind him.
He turned to see her standing in the deluge under a bent and broken umbrella.
“What?”
“The meat you’ve got rotting away in that freezer back there,” she pointed a finger at the rear side of his trailer. “Too many complaints. It’s gotta go tonight.”
“Are you shittin’ me?” Barry raised his hand and let the heavy rain splash off it. “Tonight?”
“Tonight. Get the meat gone or your gone.”
She turned away from him. He opened his mouth to say something and then inspiration hit. Meat. He needed meat. Surely between the two girls, he could come up with enough meat that hadn’t rotted too much. It was gruesome, but it just might work. Just like cleaning a fish down at the dock, he thought as he jerked his trailer door open.
He jogged back to his bedroom. The cardboard box his new sword had shipped in lay on his bed. He smiled as he gently lifted the top off. Even in it’s very used condition, leather grip tattered and torn, it gleamed brightly. He wrapped a hand around the hilt and lifted it up. The weight was good, precisely balanced to make wielding it a breeze. The blade was marked with a few dings and a little corrosion, but he’d have that fixed up in no time.
He decided it was time to test this baby out. He walked out the door to his RV in a light sprinkle of rain. No one was around and the trailer park was pitch black. No sneaking necessary tonight. He walked to the back of his trailer and the smell from the freezer hit him. The seals must’ve been bad for it to have this much odor coming out of it. He couldn’t get closer to it without pulling out a red bandana and tying it around his face to cover his nose and mouth. The awning of his trailer barely shielded him from the rain, but he figured he’d be sweating anyway.
Inside, the bloated, puffy, bodies of the girls were scrunched together in pretzel-like twists. Their arms and legs intertwined in odd angles. The bottom of the cooler had a standing pool of dark, black blood that had drained from their necks. He grabbed one of the girls —he though it might be Dana’s — legs and pulled it up toward him. He laid it across the top of the freezer. Looking around to be sure no one was watching, he raised his new sword high in the air an slammed it down on the hip joint. It bit into the skin and a squirt of pus and gore oozed out, but it wasn’t a good cut. He swung the sword again and it had much the same effect. He rubbed his thumb across the blade’s edge.
“Dull as shit,” he muttered. “It’s gonna be a long night.”
Riley Carr shivered in the dark sheets of rain and ran into the lane where Barry had said he lived. It was pitch black. No lights of any kind shown in any of the trailers or RV’s and it looked like a ghost town. She jogged down the lane and realized she couldn’t see the numbers on the sides of the trailers, so she had no way of knowing which one belonged to Barry. To make matters worse, in the dark, she couldn’t even peek inside and catch a glimpse of him. She slowed and ducked under an umbrella poked up from the middle of a picnic table.
She pulled her phone out and jabbed out a text asking him to come meet her outside. After a few minutes, she decided that he wasn’t texting back and made a plan to knock on a door and simply ask a neighbor. She ran to the RV that seemed to belong to this picnic table and banged on the door. Rain pelted her and slicked her hair down to her head. She imagined that she looked like a vagrant, but at this point, she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting indoors.
An old man, short and stocky came to the door. He had on a wife-beater tank top with stains of red and yellow on his melon-sized belly. Tufts of silver and black hair sprouted from the neck of the shirt. His boxer shorts were pale blue and thin...they looked to be about as old as the man was. And the flap didn’t quite close all the—Oh God, thought Riley as she caught a glimpse of the opening and what lay beyond. She snapped her eyes up at the man and realized he was holding a half eaten chicken leg in one hand and had a paper towel in the other.
“What the hell is it now?” the old guy grunted and grease from the chicken dripped down his bottom lip onto his stubbled chin.
Riley froze. She tried desperately not to look down, but it was like a train wreck and his boxers somehow magnetically drew her eyes. Gah, no! She made herself stare at the man’s forehead, which apparently he noticed.
“Are you blind or somethin’?” he demanded.
“Uh, no, um…sorry. I’m looking for Barry. Do you know where he lives?”
“Ha, do I?” He said sarcastically. “Basically, all ya gotta do is follow the smell.”
Riley held out a hand and the rain pooled in her palm.
“All I can really smell right now is rain.” She matched his sarcastic tone.
“Next trailer.” The man hooked his thumb toward the RV next to his. “Good luck. And tell him if that freezer ain’t empty by tomorrow, rain or shine, I’m callin’ the cops.”
Riley shrugged. “Okay.”
She had no idea what the man was talking about, but she didn’t wait around to find out. She jogged the ten feet to the next trailer and knocked on the screen door. It rattled against the brown aluminum door inside it, but didn’t make much noise. She waited. Nothing.
“Barry!” she shouted as she banged again.
Still nothing. The rain, as impossible as she thought it was, came down harder. She looked around. No sign of anyone out at all…and still no lights. She took a deep breath and turned the handle of the door. Luckily, it opened and squeaked inward. She breathed a sigh of relief to be in out of the soaking weather. Glancing around, she realized she couldn’t see very well. The windows were covered with thick curtains and the cabin was dark.
“Barry?” she called nervously toward the back of the trailer.
No answer. She inched down the hall, certain that she was going to be attacked at any second. That was how it always happened in those cheap horror movies. There wasn’t much to search, a small bathroom, a closet and a bedroom. There was no one here.
Then she remembered Barry’s text about having to run into work. Maybe he hadn’t gotten back home yet. She glanced down at her phone. Still no message from him. She tapped out a new text to him.
-Found your place. I’m inside waiting.
She sent it. Nothing came back, but she thought he must be working and either didn’t hear his phone or didn’t want to touch it with fish guts and gore all over his hands. Out of habit, she reached into the bathroom and flicked the
switch. Of course, nothing happened.
“Power’s out, you idiot,” she reminded herself.
Fumbling around, she found a towel and dried herself off as best she could. She couldn’t see her reflection, but she knew she must look ridiculous. Oh well, not the best first night together, but what the hell. She wrapped the towel around her head and wandered back into the bedroom. She felt excited, nervous, scared, and thrilled all at the same time. She didn’t know what they would do together, but it was partly the unknown that made her feel this way. She sat down on the bed and pushed a big cardboard box out of the way. She laid back and rested her head on his pillow. Looking at the ceiling, she listened as the rain pounded away on the metal roof. It was rhythmic, slow, steady, and even. Actually, very even…like a metronome.
Wait, she thought, that doesn’t sound like rain.
She listened as the sounds came for a minute, then stopped, then resumed in exact cadence. Weird. She determined that the sound was coming from outside the bedroom window rather than the roof. She crawled across the bed and pulled back the curtain.
Outside, she saw the white edge of a cooler lid propped up against the window obscuring the lower half of her view. Above it, she saw Barry. She had found her rhythmic sound. He was swinging something up and down, up and down. Whatever he was doing, she couldn’t see it because of the freezer lid.
Pecking on the window, she tried to get his attention. She called his name, but it soon became obvious that he couldn’t hear her. She slid down off the foot of the bed and pulled open the closet door. She screeched a few hangers back and forth and found that apparently he didn’t own a raincoat. She pulled a sweatshirt off a hanger and threw it over her own wet T-shirt…at least she’d be a little warmer.
She walked to the door, unwrapped the towel on her hair, and draped it over her head and shoulders. She swung open the door and jogged around to the back of the trailer. When she rounded the corner, she saw him.
He had his shirt off and was soaking wet, his red hair slicked down almost into his eyes.
“Hey!” she yelled. “I’ve been trying to get—.”
She froze as his eyes snapped up at her. He looked like feral animal. As she took in more of the scene, she saw that he held a long sword in one hand that had red blood running down the blade. He took a step toward her.
That’s when she saw what he had in his other hand. He held a bloody leg, severed just below the knee. And the skin was peeled back in a long sheet. Riley bent over and threw up.
“What the frick are you doing here?” He demanded taking another step toward her.
“I…we…you said to come…didn’t we have…”
She was backing away as she tried to form a complete sentence. He took another step, faster this time, almost lunging at her. She jumped backward and slipped. She fell and landed hard on her butt, and he leapt on top of her. She felt the weight of his body slam down on her and the breath left her lungs.
She opened her mouth to scream…but nothing came out.
Part II
A Knife And A Nudist
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
-Warren Buffett
14
Thunder And Lightning
Troy shook Meira’s shoulders lightly as the rain began falling in heavier and heavier sheets. She was dead to the world…perhaps one beer too many. Lightning flashed in the distance and a boom shook the beach under them. Afghanistan had been hard for a lot of guys, but not so much for Troy. He’d basically spent his time in the war shuttling around the top brass, but there had been a few rough spots. Harry Nedman had lost his life in one of those rough spots. Sometimes the blast that ripped his friend’s legs off came back to him.
There was something in the sound the thunder made that shook Troy. Strange how these episodes always seemed to come at night, but he guessed that was because all the terror in wartime happened at night. He felt a cold sweat bead up on his forehead under his hat. Heavy curtains of rain began to soak them, but Meira only groaned and leaned into his shoulder.
It might have been the motions he was going through, or the continued booms of thunder that sent him into an episode, but suddenly he was back in the war.
Harry’s legs were gone; the bomb had torn them off. Troy’s ears rang with the sound of the blast and he felt a sharp pain in his knee. He looked down and saw his old desert camo soaked with blood. Shrapnel.
“We’re gettin’ outta here, Harry,” he said to a figure lying on the ground.
He hooked his hands under the person’s arms and heaved. Another boom came as he hauled his companion up onto his shoulders, their arms wrapped around his neck. He sloshed through the sand toward the…chopper? No, it wasn’t the chopper…a Humvee? No, it was a pickup truck.
Strange to see one out here in the desert, but he didn’t care. They were taking fire and Harry needed a medic.
“Hang on, buddy,” Troy said to the figure slumped on his shoulders.
He trudged through the last few dunes and jerked open the door of the white truck. He threw his friend in and slid in behind the wheel. He reached down to start it and another flash hit close. The thunder was deafening. Fear sliced through him. He wasn’t sure if it was rain, sweat, or tears in his eyes.
He reached for the ignition. No keys. Dangit. He checked his pockets. Nothing. He had no keys for the truck. Another flash and boom and he fell down behind the wheel, huddling as low as he could under the dashboard. He checked the slumped body of his friend beside him. Harry? He couldn’t tell if his friend was still alive or not, but he knew he needed attention right now.
Out the window of the truck, the rain eased up enough that Troy could see down the sand. Water? The river, he thought. We must’ve made it to the Panj River. He scanned the shore and could see a small rowboat. It was a long shot, but it might be the only way they’d get out of here alive. He waited for the next flash and bang, but it never came. Maybe the enemy had gone past, thinking they’d killed them all.
He cracked open his door and slunk out. He crouched low and ran around to the passenger door. He pulled his friend out, still unconscious. They must’ve got Harry bad.
“Don’t worry. I gotcha.” Troy hauled his friend up, this time like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder. “Hang on. I’ll get us out of here.”
The sand was loose here and his footing was hard. Somehow, Troy saw he’d lost his boots and now had only sandals on. He must have gotten them from a local. No matter. He hiked down the beach to the shore and found the rowboat. He dumped Harry in and shoved it out into the water. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he knew they had to get away.
A distant boom sounded and he flinched. It wasn’t as close…they were moving away. He rowed hard, his muscles straining. He did his best to point the boat north and rowed as hard as he could. The effort was oddly relaxing and he began to feel confident they were going to make it. Rain still pounded down on them making visibility next to nothing on the rough water.
He rowed for what seemed like an hour and suddenly the small boat thumped hard onto something. He turned and was shocked to see another, much larger boat. It was dark and there was no sign of anyone on board. He grabbed a rope that must have been attached to the boat’s anchor and hauled his rowboat up close.
This bigger boat had a tall mast and a white hull. It looked like a sailboat. Strange for this part of the world. In another distant flash of light, he saw a ladder hanging off the back. Slowly, he pulled his smaller dingy around to the rear and tied it off on the ladder. With his last bit of strength, he picked up his unconscious friend and climbed aboard the sailboat. He slipped in the rain and the person he’d been carrying tumbled down on the deck.
She moaned when she hit the slick wood.
She? Troy squinted his eyes. It wasn’t Harry. God, something weird was going on here. The body lying in front of him was decidedly female. He shook his head trying to clear his mind. He fell to his knees and
flung his hat off. He buried his face in his hands and cried.
This wasn’t Afghanistan at all. Harry was long gone. He was in Nags Head, North Carolina. For a long time, he sat there letting the rain wash the episode away. That was a bad one. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. A chill raced through him. He reached down and cradled Meira’s head in his hand. He felt her pulse in her neck and could tell she was still breathing. If he’d done something to hurt her, he’d never forgive himself.
She took in a deep breath and moaned. “Can we go inside?”
Her eyes were still closed. Troy found the strength to pick her up and cradle her in his arms. He eased down the steps, opened his stateroom door, and laid her onto his bed.
He fell down on the floor beside the bed and darkness took him.
Meira Carr woke to the gentle sloshing sound of waves hitting the side of the boat.
“The boat!” she called out in surprise, jerking upright.
She then immediately grabbed the sheet that had been covering her, as she realized she was completely naked. No one else was in the room, but even with her runner’s body, she was still demur. She stumbled out of the bed careful to wrap the sheet around her. Phone, phone, phone, she thought, where the hell is my phone? She found it sitting on the bedside table. Clicking it on, she found that she still had plenty of battery life, but absolutely zero signal. She tried to put a call through to Riley anyway, but of course, it wouldn’t connect.
“Okay, calm down, Meira,” she said to herself. “Assess the situation.”
Her fears last night about Troy possibly being the killer and trapping her out here on his boat were suddenly back. Glancing around the room, she searched for something to use as a weapon. A couple of pillows, a small table lamp, and her flip-flops, there was nothing that could do any damage. She jerked open a nearby closet and found only a few T-shirts and one navy windbreaker. Propped in the back corner she found an old wooden tennis racket. She grabbed it and swung it a few times to test the weight. Shrugging, she gripped the racket tight in her right hand, held her sheet up in her left and crept to the door.
Skull Wave (A Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Book 5) Page 10