by Paul Sating
“Okay,” she said. Hope was still there. In the deputy's expression. “I appreciate it. Patch wouldn’t hurt a fly. I know that. The people at the reservation, they adore and respect him. We went there to meet with their leader, and I saw how they looked at him. That’s not how respectable people treat an abuser. Your records are wrong. If you give him a chance, I know you’ll understand why we need to find him. He’ll be able to help.”
“Those records are all we have,” Deputy Rodgers said. “There’s no way to disprove them after all these years. It’s there in fading black and white. Surely, you’re not asking me to launch an investigation into a fifty-year-old car accident? I told you I would think about—”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” she pleaded. “The Black Suits caused the accident. They killed Patch’s family. Just like they killed those men at the plant.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
His eyes narrowed as he tapped the desk again. “You keep saying that.”
“What?”
“The plant.”
“So? That’s where this started…for Patch, at least.”
“Serenity.” Deputy Rodgers sighed. “There never was a metal plant in Rotisserie or in all the Tri-Counties.”
For a moment Serenity was sure she was going to pass out.
19
“That—that’s not true.” Serenity’s last word was impotent. She probably sounded like some kid to the deputy. She was losing this fight; his expression confirmed her that.
“It is.” Deputy Rodgers gave her an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry, but it is.”
“But Patch said…”
“Patch said,” Rodgers said in a kind voice. “Don’t you see? This is just a story, an elaborate one, I’ll give him that, but still a story. Patch has a bad history, and it’s not a stretch to imagine him fabricating something to cover a sordid past. People like Patch do it all the time.”
“Other people, fine. But Patch wouldn’t do that,” she shot back.
He sat up a straighter. “How do you know that?”
“He has no reason to! What good would it do him? He’s an old man, alone, with nothing to lose. Why would he make up some huge story just to help people who are in real danger? It doesn’t make sense.”
Deputy Rodgers leaned back and rubbed his neck. Closing his eyes, he said, “It might not, but that doesn’t change the fact that Patch’s record speaks for itself. I’ll dig into it, but the foundation of your belief in him hinges on something that doesn’t exist. That’s a problem, Serenity. I’m worried about your safety.”
“I’m trying to follow information that’s going to help save my brother’s life. My life!”
“You’re chasing ghosts.”
Her shoulders slumped. He wasn’t listening. He didn’t want to.
“I can take you to City Hall as soon as one of the other deputies come back to cover me,” he said.
“What would that do?”
“We can put in a public records request, see if this plant ever existed.” He extended his arms, palms up. “Would that put this to rest?”
She didn’t have time. Running around Rotisserie, combing through scores of old documents. The Black Suits could have expunged anything they wanted, like how they wiped human beings out of existence. Absence of evidence didn’t mean the plant never existed. Like it didn’t matter what old police reports said. It didn’t matter if the mayor himself came back from the dead and swore that the metal plant was never part of the area. Serenity wrapped her fingers around the arms of the chair, gripped and rotated, rubbing the plastic until her skin warmed. She may be a “dumb kid” in everyone else’s eyes, but she was smart enough to know that people and history could be manipulated.
“No.”
“I’m sorry?”
Serenity sighed. “We don’t need to try to prove Patch’s stories are nothing more than lies. I know what I saw, Deputy Rodgers. The Screecher, twice. It killed a man right in front of my eyes. I heard its…I heard what that thing sounded like, and I’ve met men who have lived through things I never want to imagine for anyone. Showing me some old newspapers or maps, or whatever you think we could find down there to prove the plant didn’t exist isn’t going to convince me Patch is lying,” she said. “I came to you because I thought you would be the one person I could turn to when I had no way out. You always appeared to be sensible. I guess I was wrong.”
Despair pulled on her heart as she got up and walked out of the office. It was a lonely walk down the quiet hallway. The same path she’d walked that first night after the first run-in with the Screecher. The building was quiet; any sound she made would carry down both ends of the hall. She picked up her pace. The pressure didn’t alleviate until she approached the front door, giving it a firm thrust.
Back out in the heat underneath the searing sun, Serenity paused. Now what?
She would take action without worry what her mother, or anyone else in this damn world had to say about it. They all could kiss her–
The sheriff’s office door opened behind her, the ringing of the bell cutting off her internal rant. She didn’t turn around.
“Serenity,” Deputy Rodgers said, “I’m sorry.”
She turned now, and what she saw reaffirmed her faith. Rodgers’ deep expression was one of genuine concern, the face of the man she’d believed in before things fell apart inside his office. A series of triangular skin folds arched up between his eyebrows. His shoulder’s slumped, and he was rubbing his hands before pushing one through his short black hair.
“I’m so jaded by this job,” he said. “The darker side of human nature has broken me, I think. Listen, you’re right. Something strange is happening here. Something killed a man. I could follow your advice and do my damn job. Start turning over rocks and finding the truth.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t doing your job.”
“No.” He shook his head. “But you might as well have, because I wasn’t doing it back there.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You came for help and I basically gave you all the reasons why I wouldn't. That was wrong. I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know Patch like you do.”
“So, you’ll help me?”
He nodded and a weight lifted from her chest.
“Thank you. Can we—”
A revving engine cut off her comment. They turned to see a cruiser taking the corner of Michaels Avenue too fast. The cruiser popped a tire over the curb when the driver tried to correct course. It was a good thing no one was using the sidewalk.
“What the hell?” Deputy Rodgers yelled at his peer as if the driver could hear him.
The brown and white cruiser, no lights flashing, sped into the parking lot, slamming on its brakes and screeching to a halt nowhere near a striped spot. The engine was still running when the driver door flung open. A deputy leapt out, waving wildly. “Rodgers, call…an…ambulance. Out of County.”
“Wha—Mike, why?”
“There’s…casualties! Just…do…it!” With each word, the new deputy looked closer to fainting. Mike placed his hands on the trunk to support himself.
Rodgers spun and flung the front door open. “Lisa, get an ambulance on the way! Something’s happened. Mike—” He stopped, noticing his peer now on the ground behind the cruiser. Deputy Rodgers raced to his fallen partner. Serenity joined him.
Eyes flickering, Deputy Mike coughed. “Scales…”
“Jesus, Mike, you’re bleeding.” Deputy Rodgers’ eyes scanned the length of his fellow deputy’s body. Blood darkened his brown uniform shirt. A lot of blood. “What happened? Why didn’t you radio in?”
Deputy Mike’s mouth moved a few times, but no sound came out. His eyes flickered toward the open sky before refocusing on his peer.
“Radio…out. No…signal. Static.” Deputy Mike coughed specks of blood that landed on his cheeks and above his eyes. “Bastard…got…us…”
“Mike.” Rodgers grabbed the man
’s shoulders, giving them a slight shake. “I need you to stay with me. Where, Mike? Where is everyone?”
Serenity had never seen death creep like this. The deputy's death was so much different from watching the Screecher rip a person in half. This slow expulsion of life was somehow more grotesque.
“Oh my God,” Serenity moaned as the man’s eyes lost focus.
And then he was gone.
“We need to get moving.” Deputy Rodgers stood. His voice was flatter, darker. “Grab the keys and open the trunk. There’s a blanket in there. I don’t want him laying out here like this. He…deserves better.”
She did as he bid. A large wool blanket lay folded in the corner. Serenity pulled it out and handed it to the deputy.
He whispered his thanks. “Tell Lisa to send the ambulance out to the Scales.”
“What about him?”
Deputy Rodgers looked down. “There’s nothing they can do for him now. We only have two operating ambulances and they're going to be needed out there. We’ll take care of him.”
“We?”
“Yes, we’ll carry him inside. Please, go.”
Serenity raced inside with no idea where to find Lisa. She didn’t have to look long. The heavy woman was moving as fast as she could through an obstacle course of desks. All color drained from the dispatcher’s face when Serenity informed her Deputy Mike was dead in the parking lot and an emergency required all ambulances at the Scales. Lisa stared at her. Serenity wasn’t sure if the woman blinked.
“Go!”
Lisa yelped and snatched the phone from its cradle.
Business done, she ran back to help the deputy. He’d covered his peer in the wool blanket.
“Okay.” He squatted by the fallen deputies’ head, reaching under his shoulders and hooking his arms through his armpits. “Grab his ankles, wrap your arms outside-in. Be sure to tuck his ankles tightly into your armpits or you might drop him. He’s going to be heavy.”
They lifted, proving Rodgers correct. Serenity grunted. The dead deputy’s legs felt like they were filled with cement. Within a few feet, she was already panting. By the time they got to the foyer, she was gasping for air. Lisa stood, her mouth covered by a hand, holding the door open even after they were inside.
When they’d laid Mike down, Deputy Rodgers told Lisa where to direct the EMTs. Then his shoulders slumped.
“Are you ready?” he asked Serenity with a big breath.
“For what?” Her spine tensed. “I—I can’t go to the Scales.”
His lips straightened and thinned. She watched his eyes close in slow motion. “I’m not taking you to the Scales.”
“Then where are we going?”
He snagged his keys from his pocket, gripping them in a tight fist. “To find Patch.”
20
“He isn’t here,” George said.
“Where’d he go?” Sheriff Rodgers asked, the corners of his lips pulling down.
George pulled away in surprised. “You don’t know?”
“Come on, George,” Deputy Rodgers pressed.
The two young men escorting George stiffened. One growled.
Rodgers put up his hands. “Sorry, but I’m pressed. There is a—”
He approached George and the two minders stepped forward. George waved them back with a crippled hand.
Rodgers resumed, “There’s a lot of bad shit going down and I’m…suffocating, George. Pressed for resources, time, and deputies who aren’t dead.”
That caught Serenity off-guard. They’d just left a dead man in the front foyer of the sheriff’s department.
George’s eyes never left the deputy’s face. “He’s gone to the Scales.”
“When?”
“Alone?” Serenity cried, simultaneously.
“Help me sit,” George ordered, and his two escorts complied.
Serenity could feel her throat begin to burn again. Whether this was a delay tactic or his desire to converse again, it didn’t matter. The last thing she wanted to hear right now was one of George’s stories. One side of her jaw popped before she realized she was clenching her teeth.
“People are dying!” she yelled.
George’s frail, crooked hand reached for the teacup on the end table. Drawing it to his mouth, he took a slow sip before setting it back. Serenity stared dumbly. Is he trying to antagonize me?
“I’m aware of what’s happening, young lady,” George said as if the world were at his feet. “Why do you think Patch has gone to the Scales? I’d go myself but” —he made a sweeping gesture from his chest to his knees, about as far as his reach extended— “I cannot.”
“So, you’re not going to do anything?” she challenged. “Just sit back and sip tea while people are being killed?”
The corner of George’s lips turned up as if he was about to smile.
If he does, I don’t care how many bodyguards he has.
“I don’t expect you to understand our position,” George said. “After all, it was you who refused to hear the full story of the Screecher.”
The jab made her suck her breath.
“A man died in front of us,” Deputy Rodgers pleaded. “George, I need your help. I need to know what’s going on and what we’re up against.”
George examined the deputy. His chest filling out, George released a slow breath and capped the top of his cane with both hands. “I realize the position this puts you in and, trust me, you do not have the time to listen to my justifications. But” —he pointed a crooked finger before Rodgers protested— “I would not mislead you in saying that I, we, cannot help you with this.”
“George” —the deputy’s voice cracked— “you can’t mean that.”
The old man nodded. Defiant. “I do. For reasons beyond your understanding, there’s nothing we can do for you. I’m truly sorry.”
The two men looked at each other, silently challenging the other to yield. They were wasting time here.
She tugged on the deputy’s shirt. “We need to go. We’re doing nothing for those people by standing around here, begging.”
“Yeah,” Deputy Rodgers agreed without taking his eyes off George. “I’m sorry. I thought you were a better person than this.” He eyed the two body guards. “I thought all of you were.”
George didn’t respond until Serenity and the deputy reached his front door. As she opened it, the aged voice spoke, rising at her defiance, “Careful to judge that which you do not understand. It is as much of you as you are of it. Serenity, when you’re ready again, we can finish what has been started.”
Without acknowledging the leader of the first people of the Tri-Counties, Serenity walked away, setting the course for her next showdown with the monster that was haunting its people. Her heart was racing. Two times now, she’d faced someone her mother would have demanded her to respect, and she stood on her principles of right and wrong.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
Deputy Rodgers adjusted with his campaign hat. After they’d crossed the scorched sand to where he’d parked, Rodgers looked back at the house, keeping the cruiser door closed. He didn’t click the remote key to unlock it either. Instead, he stood there, looking at the house as if he was willing George to send a cavalry to the rescue. “I’m sorry, Serenity.”
“For?”
He shook his head. “Now I know what you were going through at the station. Come on.” He slapped the roof of the cruiser. “Let’s see what we can do.”
Deputy Rodgers slowly pulled through the reservation. Two times in two days. Two visits to the reservation. Walking away twice without George’s help.
Why did Patch think so highly of someone so resistant to helping? Even if George wanted to, it was only under his terms, and good people didn’t do that. Good people did as they were now, heading to help, even if it meant putting themselves at risk.
Deputy Rodgers planned to go to the Scales to help, and she didn’t tell him about Patch’s warning that anyone tagged needed to be careful abou
t going into the desert. Being at the reservation was frustrating, but she didn’t feel the fear she had yesterday. But this was different. The deputy didn’t understand what he was asking her to do.
But people were hurt and needed help. And Patch was there. And if he was there, safe, then the Scales had to be safe for anyone tagged.
Serenity bit her lip.
Regardless of how this day finished, one thing was for sure; if she lived to see tomorrow, she’d never return to the reservation. George could kiss her ass. Everyone could. After everything she’d been through, she was done tolerating intolerance. It was time for some people, a lot of people, to evolve.
Serenity ground her teeth as they pulled out of the reservation. Its secretive buildings and hidden people faded into the background. So much selfishness, so much apathy all around the Tri-Counties. The area becoming the monsters they’d fought against.
Tears threatened to spill from her eyes as Serenity turned to look back, hoping to see a caravan of first nation people racing up behind. Instead she saw nothing but decaying buildings….
… and a black sedan.
Serenity gasped.
“What?” Deputy Rodgers asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I—”
She squinted through the blinding sun and heat haze. The sedan was nowhere—a mirage, a trick of the dying landscape.
The world was upside down.
Nothing was right.
Nothing made sense anymore.
In two weeks her entire life had changed. Reality had. Normality didn’t exist in a world where monsters straight out of horror books were real, where secret organizations made people disappear, and where people couldn’t care less about helping their fellow humans.
“Nothing,” she finally said, knowing it was the most unconvincing thing she’d ever said. “Let’s go help who we can, if it’s not too late.”