“Claimed by the bog, as it was also ordained. Don’t feel sad, child. Their bodies will nurture the forest which in turn nurtures us. So, in a sense, they’ll be here with you always.”
Danni clamped a hand over her mouth and sank onto the hard pallet that served as her bed. Though she didn’t want to cry in front of these monsters who masqueraded as men, she felt the tears begin to fall regardless. Derek, Francis – they’d both been so good to her, heroes to be admired. They didn’t deserve this.
She looked up, blinking away the tears long enough to see Ezekiel smile at her once more before turning away, toward the cage across from hers.
Abby whispered, “Please, no more,” as the three converged on her cell.
“Kindly collect my wife,” Ezekiel said to the two others. “Sarah’s ripe and ready for my seed.”
He turned and began to walk away, but not before calling over his shoulder, “Be quick about it, boys. I’m in a sharing mood tonight.”
CHAPTER 24
Derek heard the sound of another engine approaching. Though he was groggy from blood loss and pretty certain he was on the verge of passing out again, the noise perked him up.
They had to be close to Shilough by now, even moving as slowly as they had been. He needed to get back, make a plan, and return in force – a concentrated effort by the police to comb these woods and weed out the Lesterfields, wherever they were holed up.
The sound of the approaching ATV grew closer and Julia applied the brakes, gently bringing them to a halt as they spied headlights closing in on them.
She was helping Derek to the ground when Mitchell parked and came racing over to them. “What the hell happened?”
“He’s hurt,” she replied.
“I can see that. And you are?”
“She’s a friend, Mitch,” Derek said, every part of him hurting. Pain was good, though. It was when everything went numb that he’d have to worry.
Mitchell unshouldered his pack and began to pull out supplies. While doing so, he glanced back up at Julia. “Thank you for helping him.”
“I did my best.”
“That’s all anyone can ever ask.” Mitchell pulled back the gauze of the field dressings to inspect Derek’s wounds. He grimaced as he examined them. “Call me crazy, but it looks like you were shot.”
“Give that man a prize,” Derek wheezed.
“You trip and fall on your own gun again?”
“Not quite.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Julia asked.
“Yeah. Keep that flashlight on us.”
“You got it.” She did as asked, then added, “They were ambushed.”
“Ambushed?” Mitchell turned toward her, eliciting a grunt of pain from his patient as his hand slipped. “Sorry about that.”
Derek let out a tired sigh. “No problem.”
“So who did this? I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume the devil was fake after all.”
Derek shrugged. “Nope, he’s real.”
“You got ambushed by a monster with a gun?”
“More like ... his family.”
“Okay, this is starting to get weird. Where’s Danni and Frank?”
“Don’t know.” Mitchell moved to take something from his pack, but Derek grabbed him by the jacket. “We need to regroup.”
“You need a hospital.”
“That too.”
Mitchell turned to Julia. “You’re going to need to get him back. I’ll go after the others.”
“No,” Derek said, putting as much authority into his voice as he could. “You don’t get it. There’s too many. Can’t ... go alone.”
“But...”
“You won’t be helping them if they get you, too.”
Mitchell looked torn. Derek completely understood the sentiment. He wanted nothing more than to rearm himself and go hunting these monstrosities, but he couldn’t help anyone if he dropped dead of his injuries first.
“Fine,” Mitchell said after several seconds, kneeling down and starting to work on bandaging Derek up again. “I’m going to give you something for the pain and you’ll ride back with me. Don’t die in the meantime.”
“No promises, but I’ll try.”
“I won’t lie and say it’s going to be a comfortable trip, but we’ll take it slow.” He turned to Julia. “You got a name?”
“Julia Wilhelm,” she replied.
Mitchell made a face as if he wanted to say something, but then apparently thought better of it. “You follow right behind us. Keep an eye on him from the rear.”
She nodded.
Mitchell glanced at the ATVs, then back to Derek. “And you ... next time I tell you we should ask for a couple of Side by Sides in the budget, I want you to remember this moment.”
♦ ♦ ♦
One eternity later, or at least it felt that way, the ATVs rolled out of the forest and into the outskirts of Shilough. Derek tensed up as they left the tree line. Ezekiel’s museum was close by. There was no telling how many in this town were members of the Lesterfield family or whether they were driving into another ambush.
He couldn’t help but envision worst-case scenarios: returning to find Zeist’s people dead, or their SUVs gone and them surrounded.
A few minutes later, though, found him nearly overjoyed to be proven wrong. Over Mitchell’s shoulder he saw the lights from their small caravan of vehicles, right where they’d left them.
“Son of a bitch!” the medic cried.
“Huh? What?” Derek asked, suddenly wishing he had a gun in his hand.
Mitchell ignored him and continued onward until they saw Eric Zeist and his men waiting for them.
“I thought I told you to call 9-1-1,” Mitchell said as he killed the engine.
“I alerted the governor. He said no ambulances.”
“Are you a freaking...? No. Hold that thought.” He pointed to two of Eric’s men, then at the closest of the SUVs. “Clear the back of that one and put the seats down. We need to get him in there.”
The men hesitated for a moment, but then their boss nodded and they got to work.
“Help me with him.” Mitchell got off the ATV, careful to not dislodge Derek.
Eric, however, stepped past him toward Julia. “Who the hell are you, and what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She looked him defiantly in the eye. “If you’re not going to call an ambulance, then I will.”
“No, you’re not.” With a quick movement, he snatched the phone from her hand and tossed it away. “You’re under arrest.”
“What? You can’t do that,” she and Mitchell said simultaneously.
“Watch me.” He dragged her off the ATV, leaving the medic to help Derek by himself.
“What should we do?” Mitchell asked in a low voice.
“Keep ... an eye ... on things,” Derek whispered. “If he does ... anything but ... detain her, shoot him.”
“I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”
“Neither ... can I,” Derek replied before promptly passing out.
♦ ♦ ♦
Derek awoke again when the SUV hit a pothole, stirring him from a troubled sleep in which he’d been surrounded by those things, helpless to save his friends.
His eyes opened and he saw Mitchell leaning over him, with Julia on the other side. She was holding a saline bag attached to an IV in his right arm.
“Why don’t you try driving on the road,” Mitchell growled at whoever was upfront.
“Sorry,” Eric replied. “That’s your New Jersey tax dollars at work.”
“Wh-where...?” Derek asked.
“Don’t talk,” Mitchell ordered. “I’m doing what I can while we head back.”
“Back?”
“To Rutgers,” he said, a grimace of distaste on his face as he produced a large syringe. “Now hold still.”
“What’s that?”
“A cocktail of antibiotics designed to stave off flesh-eating bacteria. You aren�
�t going to be much help if I have to saw your arms off.”
“Lovely.”
“It’s not exactly FDA approved, so apologies if you start hallucinating ... or grow a second head.”
Derek raised an eyebrow, then turned to Julia. “How ... are you doing?”
She glowered down at him. “These bastards are looking at the biggest lawsuit I can throw at them. I’m going to own the governor’s mansion once this shit is finished.”
Derek smiled, but said no more. He was too tired, not to mention he didn’t have the heart to tell her there would be no lawsuit. Though he would have loved to see the governor try to explain his actions in court, he knew she’d be stifled by the same mountain of paperwork they had to give to everyone they rescued in the course of their jobs, the irony being that she’d been the one to rescue him. Regardless, his superiors weren’t about to let a reporter shine a flashlight on this. If she tried, they’d do whatever they could to discredit her, whether it was true or not.
That was a concern for later, though. Once they got back and his body was no longer being bounced around like a basketball, he needed to call Norah and request backup. Try as Yarlberg might to keep a lid on this, there wasn’t much he was going to be able to do once a unit of armed ATF agents were out in the woods.
The thought brought a smile to his lips as he once again closed his eyes and waited for them to reach their destination.
CHAPTER 25
After a time the silence, broken only by the never-ending drip of water, became too oppressive. Danni stood and approached the bars, straining to see on either side of them. The way looked clear so far as she could tell, but that didn’t mean anything. “Are you there, Sa...?” She hesitated, realizing she had almost said Sarah. “Sophie, can you hear me?”
After a few moments, the other woman replied, “Yes.”
Though she didn’t want to ask what she’d been thinking, she found the words forming on her lips regardless. “You said there was another woman here. That she was close. What did you mean by that?”
After several long seconds had passed, Danni feared she wouldn’t answer. That she was perhaps reaching the same fugue state that Abby had been in, a place where a person became so damaged, so terrified, that they retreated deep into themselves, the only safe place left for them.
But then Sophie spoke up. “They took her away to give birth. She ... Sarah’s been here longer than the rest of us.”
“Don’t call her that. It’s not her name.”
“It’s the only name we have here,” came the bleak reply.
“I told you. I have friends.”
“And what good is that? My husband worked for the state.” Sophie’s voice broke. “Have they come looking? Have they found us?”
Danni considered her next words carefully, but then realized the truth probably didn’t matter. What could they do to her? Punish her for saying it? They’d have to find her first. If so, she’d gladly welcome whatever they decided to do to her in retribution. “The state is why me and my friends are here. They called us in to search for you. We’re a ... special team. We have guns.”
“Didn’t seem to help you much.”
Danni wanted to punch the bars in frustration at her response, but she knew the other woman was right. “They caught us by surprise, an ambush. We were searching for one ... perpetrator. We didn’t realize there were so many.”
“And soon there’s going to be even more,” Sophie replied. “That’s what they use us for. We’re just livestock to them, bitches to be bred.”
“I’m nobody’s bitch.”
“You say that now, but you can’t fight them. They’re too strong. Whatever it is that’s been done to them, however it is they’ve been born, it makes them strong, tough. The one they call Noah, I fought him when they brought me here, fought with everything I had. Raked my nails across his face, figured I’d take a chunk out of him while I could. Nothing. I didn’t even draw blood. We can’t win. All we can do is ... hope they finish with us quickly.”
By the end, Sophie’s voice became devoid of everything, all emotion, all hope. It was like listening to a voice from beyond the grave, chilling Danni to her very bones.
Soon, all became quiet in the dingy prison again, except for the dripping water and occasional low sob from Sophie’s direction.
Unsure what to say, Danni looked across from her at the now empty cell. She hadn’t dared ask what their captors had planned for Abby, mainly because she realized a part of her didn’t want to know.
What she’d heard from them had been more than enough to turn her stomach. She could only hope that it was quick for the young woman and that they didn’t hurt her – a sentiment which echoed Sophie’s spoken despair.
That was little more than a pipe dream, though. These bastards had already hurt her, done far worse if her suspicions were correct. Danni had only spoken a few words to the girl, but it was enough to know she was broken, possibly beyond fixing. Whatever they were doing to her now, it obviously wasn’t the first time she’d been taken from her cage to whatever torture they had in store for her.
Danni had never considered herself a particularly religious person. Nevertheless, she said a silent prayer to God – not for herself, but in the hope that he might show mercy to Abby, Sophie, and anyone else stuck in this hell.
♦ ♦ ♦
“You must be the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet,” Mitchell said. “No fragmentation, a couple of clean exit wounds, and the rest all small caliber ... or this.” He held up what appeared to be a musket ball.
“And yet,” Derek replied, lying on the conference table that currently served as a makeshift bed, “somehow I don’t feel like it.”
“Let the pain meds kick in, but don’t expect to feel like a million bucks anytime soon. Hell, don’t expect to feel like a buck-fifty either.”
“I can live with the pain, but I can’t live with...”
“Being a normal person and taking the next several weeks off? Yeah, I figured that.”
“Hate to say it,” Derek said, wincing as he gingerly sat up and swung his legs off the side of the table. “But the governor’s yes-man might be doing us a favor. Pretty sure a hospital wouldn’t be too keen on letting me walk out right now.”
“And they’d be right. There’s all sorts of complications that could happen between now and...”
“Hand me my shirt, please.”
Mitchell did as asked. “I don’t suppose I should waste my breath telling you to let the rest of us handle this.”
“There isn’t any rest of us,” Derek replied. “At least until we get some backup.”
“Then it’s a good thing I stitched you up extra well. Gonna leave some scars, though.”
Devil Hunters (Tales of the Crypto-Hunter Book 2) Page 19