Evil Harvest

by Anthony Izzo

  “Yeah.”

  She pulled the truck off the shoulder, taking one more look in the mirror. The woods glowed orange, as if a giant sun were setting in the center of the forest. Sirens whooped and fire trucks blatted their horns in the distance. She hoped for the firemen’s sake that all of the attackers were dead. If not, they were in for one hell of a surprise.

  They drove the rest of the way in silence, arriving at South Buffalo Mercy in half an hour, Harry shifting his weight back and forth the whole time, trying to keep the pressure off his back.

  She pulled up to the main doors where a statue of the Virgin Mary stood, arms splayed, palms up, as if inviting all to come. The inscription on the statue’s base read Mercy For All. Two women in bland hospital scrubs sat smoking on a bench.

  Harry stumbled out of the truck and the women in scrubs gave him a funny look. But they continued smoking. Both of them looked fresh out of nursing school, much like Jill.

  She leaned across the seat so they could hear her.

  “How’s about giving my friend a hand into the ER?”

  “We’re on a break,” the pudgy one said.

  “Well, end it right now. This man needs help.”

  The pudgy one rolled her eyes, flicked her cigarette to the ground and got up as if it were the biggest chore in the world. She took Harry by the arm and led him through the automatic doors.

  Jill parked the truck in the neighboring parking ramp and walked back to the main entrance. She entered the lobby; a white sign with a blue arrow said EMERGENCY ROOM.

  She walked down a corridor and into the waiting room, where a sallow girl of about sixteen rocked a wailing infant back and forth. The only other people in the waiting room were an elderly man and woman, the man holding an ice pack to his head while the woman thumbed through a National Geographic.

  The nurse sitting at the desk in triage stood up and asked Jill if she needed help. She was tall and bony, with curly red hair packed tight by barrettes.

  “They just brought my friend in. Harry Pierce.”

  “You two were in a fire?”

  Jill wondered for a second how she knew that then remembered Harry looking like he just came out of a coal mine.

  “Yeah. There was a small barn fire. He’s also got a puncture wound on his back. Pitchfork fell and got him.”

  “We’re treating him right now. Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll let you know when you can see him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Just then a dark-skinned doctor with a heavy mustache poked his head through the set of double doors.

  “Are you Jill?”

  Jill came out Jeel.

  “Yes.”

  “How did your friend injure himself? The wound on his back? He says he does not remember.”

  “It was a pitchfork. He got hurt in his barn.”

  “Okay. Thank you. He will need a tetanus shot then.”

  The doctor disappeared through the doors.

  She sighed in relief and then took a seat in the waiting room. Her head throbbed, her body ached and all she could think about was Matt.

  She buried her face in her hands and cried softly, the tears coming against her will. If anybody noticed, they didn’t say anything to her, and she really didn’t give a shit if they did.

  The hospital treated Harry for smoke inhalation, cleaned and dressed his wound, and released him five hours later.

  While Harry was being treated, two auto accident victims and a stabbing were brought in to the ER. She knew the scene well; doctors and nurses in a frenzy, wheeling gurneys around, hooking up IVs and cutting away clothes. Harry was all but forgotten, and no one second-guessed the story about a barn fire.

  When they walked out the main entrance, daylight had broken.

  Both Harry and Jill agreed they needed rest, and despite being only ten miles from Lincoln, they agreed to stay in the city. Even though it was closer than they wanted to be to Rafferty and Lincoln, they could disappear in the city, affording them some security.

  They wound up checking into a Best Western. Harry used his Visa to pay for two single rooms against Jill’s objections; she was trying to save him money by getting one room.

  They took the elevator to the fifth floor and found their rooms, Jill in 515 and Harry in 517.

  “I need some sleep,” Harry said.

  “You said it.”

  “Why don’t we sleep until around one and then get up and figure out what the hell we’re gonna do?” Harry said.

  She wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower and collapse on the bed. “Sounds good.”

  “Hey Jill?”

  “Hey Harry.”

  “Thanks for sticking around up there. You could’ve taken the truck and bolted, but you didn’t. For all you knew I was dead in that cabin.”

  “I wouldn’t leave a friend behind,” she said.

  “You would’ve made a good Marine.”

  She gave him a tired salute and he grinned. Jill took out her key card and unlocked her room. Harry unlocked his and slipped behind the door.

  The room had a lush burgundy rug, with bedspreads done in hunter green and white. An ice bucket with a stack of wrapped plastic cups sat on the dresser.

  She entered the room and faced the bed, admiring a pen and ink sketch of Buffalo’s Central Railroad Terminal depicting a steam locomotive pulling away from the monster train station, a fifteen-story tower in the background that served as New York Central’s offices.

  She peered at herself in the dresser mirror. Like Harry, her face was smeared with smoke, only lighter gray, for she hadn’t actually been inside the burning cabin. A spiral of hair stuck straight up and she smelled like a combination of campfire and stale sweat.

  And me without my deodorant.

  She forced a laugh, which quickly snowballed into a sob, wet tears dribbling down her cheeks.

  Donna was dead, Matt was in all likelihood dead and they still had to contend with Rafferty and the others. Rafferty had probably killed Matt. Jill thought it was naïve to think that a devil like Rafferty would show any mercy, especially to someone who had done him harm.

  She sniffed, wiping away tears with her right hand and feeling about as attractive as a bag lady. She looked in the mirror; her tears had made tracks down her cheeks, cutting through the dirt and smoke.

  “Jill, you look like some sort of crazy raccoon,” she said, and broke into laughter.

  She needed a shower, both to cleanse the dirt from her body and refresh her.

  After stripping off her clothes, she took a hot shower, scrubbing her skin pink and clean. When she was done, she towel-dried her hair, wrapped another towel around her body and curled up on the bed.

  She fell asleep instantly.

  Jill heard hollow rapping on the door, and rose from the bed, still fuzzy and half asleep. She was almost to the door when she looked back and saw her towel in a pile on the floor.

  “Who is it?”

  “Harry. I’ve got food!”

  “Hang on.”

  She put her clothes on, still damp with sweat and smelling of smoke. She looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand; it read one twenty. Harry was early.

  Once she was dressed, she went to the door and peered through the fisheye lens, knowing it was silly but not taking any chances after the nightmare that was last night.

  It was Harry, pacing back and forth, a brown grocery bag cradled in one arm. She slid the chain over, turned the lock and pulled the door open.

  Harry said, “There you are. I was getting worried.”

  “I was fine.”

  “You took a while to answer.”

  “I was also naked.”

  “Oh shit, I mean, I’m sorry, I mean—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Harry. What you got there?”

  “Oh, this.” He came in and set the bag on the dresser, then began to unpack it, whistling the theme to The Andy Griffith Show. He pulled out two Styrofoam containers, two take-out bowls with plas
tic lids and two twenty-ounce Pepsis.

  “You like turkey?” He said.

  “I’m here with you, aren’t I?”

  “Smart-ass,” he said, grinning.

  They feasted on roasted turkey sandwiches, served on crusty French bread and dripping with spicy mustard. Jill only ate half of hers, for Harry had also bought a mound of curly-q fries and a bowl of minestrone soup with each sandwich.

  Harry cleaned out his containers to the last crumb. When he opened his mouth to speak, a belch rumbled out, and he slapped his hand over his mouth. Jill laughed. Harry rolled his eyes as if to say, What did I do?

  “I called Liza.”

  “How’s she doing?” Jill said.

  Harry licked mustard off his fingers. “She saw through my story. I told her I was going to the cabin to make some repairs before hunting season came along. I wound up telling her everything that happened. Can’t get nothing past that woman.”

  “You shouldn’t be lying to your wife, anyway.”

  “Oh, I don’t. Not often, anyway.”

  She had been bottling up a thought and finally said to Harry, “We have to go after Matt.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that too.”

  “Then you think he’s alive then?”

  “Yeah. And let me tell you why.” He cleared his throat. “Rafferty’s a real son of a bitch, agreed?”

  Jill nodded. No argument there.

  “Matt almost killed him. Probably the only person who’s come close.”

  “How do you know he’s alive? Rafferty, I mean.”

  “He organized that attack. They wouldn’t have come after us like that without his okay. He’s their leader, and he rules with an iron fist. I’m positive he’s alive.”

  Jill threw the garbage from lunch in the trash can and went to the mirror. She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling here and there, trying to bring it to some type of order. It looked like a mess of coiled springs, the curls taking on a life of their own.

  She turned to Harry. “He’s got him locked up somewhere. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.”

  “I think you’re right. He’ll try to make an example out of Matt.”

  “We have to get him out.”

  “I agree, but I don’t think they’ll give us a warm welcome. How do you propose we get him out?”

  “Can you get more weapons?”

  “Liza can bring them.”

  “Then get her on the phone.”

  Hard concrete pressed against his cheek. Matt lifted his head. He opened his eyes to a harsh, white light.

  What the hell happened?

  It came to him slowly, like remembering a vivid nightmare upon awaking. He had gone into the burning cabin after Harry and swallowed more smoke than most firemen do in a career.

  He sat up and looked around. He was in a jail cell. The accommodations weren’t exactly five star: a look at the bed revealed a thin, yellowed mattress, and from the smell of it, the toilet had backed up long ago and never been fixed.

  He stood up and moved to the bed, rubbing his temples, trying to ease the splitter of a headache that ran down the center of his head. He coughed, spat some blackish phlegm on to the floor.

  After a moment on the bed, he approached the bars and scanned the cell block. He wanted to get an idea of the layout. It was rectangular in shape. At the right end was the door to the interrogation room where he’d been taken after his families’ death. In the center of the block another door, and still another at the far right end. That one probably led into the station.

  He sat down on the bed.

  A door creaked open and the click of shoes echoed on the concrete floor. Rafferty appeared in front of the cell. He folded his arms and looked down on Matt with a self-righteous grin.

  “How do you like the place?” Rafferty asked.

  “It isn’t the Hilton.”

  “I see you’ve got the cell with the air freshener. I like to leave the toilet like that to discourage people from returning.”

  The sight of him standing there acting like the king of the world made Matt want to gag. “I should’ve finished you off when I had the chance.”

  “When I was lying there I heard you and your bitch of a girlfriend talking. You mentioned cutting off my head. That would’ve done it, but you were in too much of a hurry.”

  A cockroach scuttled across the floor, bumped into Matt’s foot and darted away in the opposite direction.

  “I have to give you and your friends credit. You killed nine of us. I don’t think that’s ever been done before.”

  “I’ll kill more of you before I’m done.”

  “Tough talk. Like I said, I give you credit, but you’ll still have to die. The girl and the fat one too. We got the blonde, though, didn’t we?”

  Until now, Matt had kept his head down for most of the conversation to avoid Rafferty’s smug expression, but now he raised his head and looked into Rafferty’s eyes. “She was worth a hundred of you.”

  “When will you accept the fact we’re superior to you? I survived wounds that would’ve killed a man.”

  “Just how did you find us?”

  “The local yokels know everyone up there. All it took was one of my officers asking some questions at the local minimart. Plus, like I said, I heard you two talking about your escape at the apartment.”

  Matt stood up, deciding that he didn’t want Rafferty having the upper hand, standing over him and looking down. He stopped two feet short of the bars and looked up at Rafferty, who was a good six-five to Matt’s six feet.

  If Rafferty were a man, Matt could’ve taken him, despite the size advantage. He had a paunch, and his pants were too tight, clinging to his thighs. Had there not been a demon under that skin, Rafferty would be nothing more than a slow, flabby middle-aged man.

  “Why did you pick my family?”

  “We needed to feed. You know, I liked killing your father. He screamed like a woman.”

  “Just like that? You kill for the hell of it?”

  “No. I told you we’re superior to you. It’s not just for the hell of it. It’s a need to hunt, to kill, to eat.”

  “So basically it’s hunger.”

  “More than hunger. It’s a drive. Did you ever want sex so bad you were about to explode? I mean, say you hadn’t done it in six months and your woman starts teasing you?”

  “So you’re reduced to base urges? I don’t see how that makes you superior to us. We can control urges.”

  “I could kill you with one bite to the throat. Or maybe the back of the neck, snap your spine.”

  “In that case big cats would be superior to men. I’m sure a tiger could do the same thing to me.”

  Rafferty frowned. “Enough of this! I’ve got plans for you and the other two. I’ll dare them to come help you, and they will. Your kind is always rushing to help each other. It’s pathetic if you ask me.”

  “That’s what makes us superior, asshole.”

  “You won’t be talking so tough when you find out what I’ve got in store for you.” He pulled his nightstick from his belt and raked it across the bars. “Sleep tight, sweetheart,” he said, and strolled down the hallway.

  The bastard was planning something to draw Harry and Jill in and Matt had to warn them before they walked into an ambush. He couldn’t let them die, especially after what happened to Donna. Dying ten times would be preferable to letting any harm come to Jill.

  Maybe she and Harry took off, headed farther south, or maybe they crossed the Peace Bridge into Ontario, Matt thought. At least they would be safe, and that gave him some comfort.

  But he knew different. Harry and Jill were made of good stuff (as his father was fond of saying about people he admired). They would come for him, and that troubled him.

  What was Rafferty planning?

  CHAPTER 30

  “That man’s gonna be the death of me.”

  Liza finished packing the weapons into the trunk of her sister’s Honda Accord, includi
ng two shotguns, an M-16 rifle, and some C-4 with the necessary blasting caps and radio detonator. There was also Harry’s blue steel forty-four and enough ammunition to arm a third world nation. If her sister knew what was being stowed in her car, she would get her tit in the wringer about it right quick. Liza told her she was taking the car to do some grocery shopping.

  She had the Accord parked in their garage, connected to the gun shop by a breezeway. The wind chirped through a hole in the concrete near the garage door and climbed up Liza’s leg, chilling her. Harry was fond of calling the breezes snow snakes because they crawled up your leg in winter and nipped you on the ass.

  She closed the trunk and hugged herself, shivering. Her circulation was poor to begin with, and she never went anywhere without a cardigan, even in the summer.

  I was never cold like this when I was a girl. Getting old is really hell, she thought.

  It didn’t help that the temperature had gone from the nineties and sweltering to the chilly fifties in the space of two days. The dampness made it feel like someone was twisting corkscrews through her kneecaps.

  Getting old was hell.

  She slammed the trunk and hobbled over to the door.

  Harry’s favorite red-and-green flannel shirt, a pair of socks and Wrangler jeans rested on the passenger seat. She patted around her rib cage, feeling the blunt hardness of a thirty-eight comforting her like an old friend.

  Old Harry had really gotten himself in deep now, and when she met him, she never bargained for what she was getting into.

  He started ranting about the hidden monsters shortly after they were married, and she seriously thought about a divorce. He made her promise to be careful when she went out and gave her a thirty-eight revolver to carry. That wasn’t a problem because her father taught her how to shoot back on their farm in Indiana when she was a girl.

  After about six months of warnings to watch out for “Them,” one day she packed her suitcases and waited for him to come home from the gun shop. She showed him the packed bags and told him she would be on the next Greyhound back to Indiana if he didn’t stop. That was the end of it. Harry didn’t mention another word about “Them.”

  She quietly wondered about his sanity until she saw one herself.