by Paul Sating
Within a few strides, Serenity had overtaken him toward the front door. Deputy Rodgers was the start. From now on, anyone who stood in her way was going to move or get run over.
They stepped out of the building and into the morning. The sun was still climbing in the cloudless sky.
A clear day; a clear mind.
One way or another, today would be the first day of a new life in Rotisserie. If she had to do it alone, she would. She would change it forever.
25
“This isn’t good.” The creases in Patch’s face ran deeper than Serenity remembered them, like he’d aged a decade in the past day. Patch paced back and forth, gaining glances from the couple across the park who were trying to entertain their unhappy toddler. “Not at all. We have to find them now!” Patch stomped a foot, kicking up a tiny cloud of dust, most of which avoided his already-dusty boots.
Exhausted from a night in the desert and spending two hours searching for Patch, Serenity needed Patch to be stronger than he’d ever been. All she wanted was a clear direction from him, and then she’d do the rest. Alone, if necessary.
But she wasn’t alone. Not at all.
Patch would help her fix this and, now, she was ready to listen.
“Tell me everything,” Patch urged.
“We don’t have time—” Deputy Rodgers started.
“We have all the time this requires.” Patch trudged back to the bench and slowly lowered himself. “Because we have to make the time. It’s that important.”
Serenity sat next to him and recapped the events from the previous night. About Hilliard and the team of Black Suits, anything she remembered about the conversation, including the cryptic messages. She swallowed back the rush of sickness at not knowing whether Jerrod and her mother were alive or dead.
When she finished, Patch stared at the dirt path between his feet. A stray sliver of mulch rested against Patch’s foot. He pushed it around with the battered toe of his boot.
“Patch?” Serenity leaned closer, touching his forearm, “I need your help to find my mother and brother.”
He nodded, still focused on that piece of mulch. “They’re going to be fine.” His statement wasn’t icy, but Serenity jerked back just the same. Of all the responses he could have given, something so calm wasn’t what she expected.
“How do you know?” Deputy Rodgers asked.
The wrinkled corner of Patch’s mouth quivered as he pursed and relaxed his lips in quick succession, like he was chewing on the response he was about to give. “Because the Black Suits need information about the Screecher.”
“How do you figure?” The deputy's voice was tight.
“If anyone had listened for decades, you’d already have your answer.” Patch sounded more discouraged than frustrated.
“Except that I’m not that old.” Deputy Rodgers’ retort was as equally edged.
“You’re not, and I’m sorry. That was unnecessary and undeserved. It ain’t your fault people haven’t been listening. I’m still tired from yesterday. I think we all are, ain’t that right?” Patch paused, his shoulders slumping with his lowered head. “Twenty-six people, deputy. When will we get serious?”
Deputy Rodgers crossed his arms. “I am very serious, Patch. This ends now.”
Serenity bit her lip, feeling the momentum shift, but she had no idea what to do with it.
Patch examined the deputy for what seemed like an eternity. Serenity bounced her leg until her thigh burned, the best way to alleviate the anxiety surging through her while she waited for Patch. No matter how encouraged she was by the sense of shared determination, this was still just all talk. She was ready for more and she needed them to be too.
Patch’s eyes pinched together. “Then you got to convince the people of the Counties to go back into the desert less than a day after they were thrust into mourning. The Black Suits won't harm Serenity’s family. They’ve been struggling to find the Screecher since they lost it. Ain’t been doing too well in that department, in fact. Been so long since the Screecher’s been this brazen. Most of those men wearing those suits ain’t actually ever seen it. No sir, these men wouldn’t know the Screecher if’n they fell face-first into a pile of its dung. Serenity’s family? That’s what the Black Suits want, and they need them alive.”
Relief fell over Serenity, but she still needed to understand. “Why?” she asked.
“How can you be sure?” Deputy Rodgers said at the same moment.
“Because, Serenity, your family has the answers.”
“What do you mean?”
It was as if Patch didn’t hear her. “To save ‘em, we be needing to go back into the desert, and we need to be well-armed.”
“And you know where they are?” Serenity moved to stand directly in front of Patch.
“I have a promising idea,” Patch said firmly. “But we need to get to George first.”
This time Serenity had no swell of pressure in her chest born of frustration or heat rising in her cheeks at the mention of Patch’s friend. Even though she was exhausted by Patch’s dependence on his long-time friend, she had to trust him.
Two particularly important people depended on her.
“You’re asking a lot, Patch,” Deputy Rodgers said. “I don’t have much in the way of resources and, after what happened, rounding up a bunch of armed citizens won’t be easy. That thing ripped apart the department yesterday. Our town is mourning. Two innocent people abducted by some secret government cell only you knew existed? Which do I do first? Because I can’t be everywhere at once and the clock is ticking.” He caught himself with only a brief glance in Serenity’s direction. “Sorry.”
“You get the town together and Serenity and I will go to the reservation. We’ll need a car.” Patch slapped his thighs and stood after considerable effort.
“You can use one of the patrol cars.” Rodgers ran his hand over his head. “Nuts. But I guess that sort of shows where we’re at, doesn’t it? Let’s go before I change my mind.”
Calmed by a sense of executing a plan, the thumping in Serenity’s neck faded. They were doing something. Finally. And Deputy Rodgers was correct, even though he tried to protect her from his slip-up. Time was running out.
“Let’s go,” she urged the deputy. He didn’t argue.
***
“Stay on that channel.” Deputy Rodgers jabbed a finger at the digital display. “But only use it for essential information. These Black Suits could be scanning channels and we don’t want to tip them off. And, honestly, the town doesn't need to be riled up any more than it already is. That’s only going to get worse once I put word out and I don’t need a few hundred armed civilians jacked on adrenaline making bad decisions. Everything needs to be set first.” He examined them for a second. “You remember the code for the meeting place?”
Serenity nodded, reciting what he told her. “Harvest.”
“Good,” he said and backed away. “Radio it when you’re ready to go. If I do it—”
“I know, I know,” Serenity said. “It means you are.”
The deputy’s chest heaved with a patient sigh. “Whoever receives it will need to radio the confirmation. Then we’ll rendezvous at the gymnasium at your high school. Not until then. Good?”
“Got it,” she answered.
He turned his attention to Patch. “Do you think George will help this time?”
Patch leaned forward. “That’s what he’s been doing all along.”
Rodgers stuttered, “That’s not what I meant, I just—”
“I promise, deputy, George ain’t gonna let us down,” Patch said and sat back.
“Okay. Be careful.”
“We will,” Serenity said. “My family needs them. Please tell them we’re very thankful.”
Deputy Rodgers looked like he wanted to say something, something that might even be disagreeable, an unspoken phrase outlined with a dark border that lingered in the way his face twitched. He quickly composed himself. “Hurry along now. We�
�ve got a lot work to do.” With that, he slapped the door and stepped out of her way.
Serenity didn’t wait. The time for talking was over.
As she turned onto the street, she glanced at Patch. “Do you think George will help?” She wanted to believe in Patch’s lifelong friend, but she was now beginning to understand, on a deeper level, how serious this was. This wasn’t stuff of fables or the whimsical ravings of a crazy homeless man, no matter how much everyone in the Tri-Counties pretended it was.
The Screecher. The Black Suits. Disappearances and deaths. This was the story of Tri-Counties.
A legacy of a people.
It didn’t take a historian to understand what all this meant. Generations of stories handed down weren’t needed to predict what lay at the end of this journey.
“He will,” Patch said, his gaze never veering.
With that, Serenity set her mind to the task ahead. Never one for confrontation or revenge, a steely fire burned inside her. Soon, she’d be with Patch and George, hatching a plan. The deputy was rounding up a small army of vengeful citizens who didn’t yet realize that today’s fight was Serenity’s, but tomorrow it would be theirs. The choice was still in their hands.
Life had chosen for her.
I was never going to Pepperdine.
“What is it?” Patch asked.
“Huh?”
“You’re scowling. What’cha thinking about?”
The answer came to her easily. “Destiny.”
26
Serenity turned off the highway and onto the narrow patch of hardened sand that constituted a road. The reservation lay off in the distance; the path bordered on both sides by the Screecher’s hunting grounds. But Serenity wasn’t worried about the open expanse of desert, unobstructed by nothing more than a few sturdy plants that refused to give in to the oppressive regime of perpetual sun and lack of rain. She wasn’t even worried about the Screecher at the moment because she finally trusted in Patch. And he’d promised no harm would come to her mother and brother because the Black Suits needed information.
He didn’t answer her when Serenity asked what would happen once they got the information.
The Screecher could wait. Before long, it would be her top concern again. That day wasn’t today, or any day until her mother and Jerrod were safely home. Until then, her focus and fear were squarely on the Black Suits.
“When is this going to be over? If we do this, if we’re successful, how do we know they won’t send another group from wherever?”
“We don’t,” he answered. “That’s why we’ve got to make it too costly for them to come back.”
Fire burned in her. At the Black Suits’ need to weaponize a creature like the Screecher. More destruction. More death.
It wasn’t only her family involved. Everyone on the mountainside that day had been tagged, Patch guessed. The men who survived the attacks yesterday. Dozens just in Rotisserie might be tagged. If she’d picked up anything from trying to decipher the George-Patch code, that many people meant a more aggressive predator. If it was tagging so that it could be sure to find those who had crossed its path, to ensure its secret died with them, then the entire Tri-Counties was at risk.
The Screecher might be coming to the Tri-Counties after all.
This was everyone’s fight.
“Why haven’t you warned everyone?” she asked. Patch’s enfolded hands popped off his chest where he’d been resting them.
“I’ve tried.” There was a bitterness in his voice she rarely heard. “But no one wants to listen. That's people. So fearful of the unknown, of those things they don’t be understanding, that they’ll do anything to avoid having to recognize facts, even when those facts are right in front of their faces. Don’t matter what we do. If people don’t want to be believing something, then they ain’t going to…right up until the end. Don’t matter if we’re talking about God, the environment, abuses by the government, or even something like the Screecher.”
“Ignorance is bliss,” Serenity mumbled, drawing a defeated laugh from Patch.
“That saying didn’t just come from nothing,” he said. “There’s tens of thousands of years of human history in those three words. The less people know about something, the happier they are. Easy as that. How else do you explain why people don’t do more to help those with mental health problems, starving kids across the ocean or the homeless?” He laughed. It sounded bitter. “We got all the science in the world telling us we’re killing the planet, but some corporations roll in with millions of dollars to pay off publications to give ‘em good PR, appealing to what people already want to believe. They don’t ev’n have to break a sweat. Ain’t no different with all this. Take that tree planting event, the second time you saw the Screecher. I tried to warn everyone when I heard it was happening. Most didn’t even open their doors for me. One even ran from me when I saw her outside the grocery store. Couldn’t follow her if’n I wanted to. The truth is scary, Serenity. People’d much rather remain oblivious. They’ve fooled themselves into believing it’ll help them cope in a world they don’t understand and are powerless to change.”
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Mitzie had proven that already with her reaction to the reality they all faced. They put loved ones in harm’s way because they chose not to believe the Screecher existed!
The plastic on the steering wheel groaned in protest at Serenity’s rotating grip.
“You can’t help everyone,” Patch said tenderly, leaning over to pat her hand. “Some have to learn for themselves.” He paused. Serenity sensed his gaze. “Sort of like you with George.”
The barb stung, deserved though it was. Serenity’s head snapped to face him. “Not this time,” she said with determination.
***
Before they pulled into the circle yard, Serenity had checked the approaching reservation for a hidden unmarked car. The Black Suits wouldn’t be sloppy, but they also wouldn’t expect her to be in a sheriff’s car. It was the perfect cover because Hilliard and his men would avoid contact with authorities, and she could move around Rotisserie out in the open. The advantage went unused. If the Black Suits were here, their cover concealed them.
As soon as she parked, Patch’s hand was on his door handle. “You ready?” he asked and groaned as he climbed out of the car.
The same man who greeted them during their first visit stepped out of the meeting building. “Patch,” he said carefully as he neared.
“We need to see George, my friend.”
The man crossed his arms, not moving closer this time. “He’s resting.”
“It’s an emergency,” Patch pressed.
The man refused to unlock his arms. “Doesn’t matter. He’s not taking visitors. Especially those who’ve already wasted his time.”
Serenity stepped forward, a gesture that required all the energy she could muster. In her loudest voice, she shouted, “The Black Suits came to my house last night and attacked my family. I don’t know if my mother and brother are alive or dead. I don’t even know where they are. Patch said he might know where they’ve been taken. I need help.”
Still nothing. The man didn’t move. No sign of George. Even the air was still.
She was done being ignored and not taken seriously. She was fucking eighteen years old, earning her way to a wonderful out-of-state university. Raising herself, practically raising her older brother, holding down the house while doing well in school so her abandoned mother could financially support the family. Excellent grades. Scholarships. No one gave her anything, so everything she had was earned through hard work. No more!
Strength, a boundless energy begging to burst from her, threatened to roar uncontrollably to life. When she spoke again, her voice boomed. “Twenty-six people died yesterday. Probably tagged dozens more!” George was in one of these buildings, and she planned to let him know she was not going to leave until they heard what she had to say. “The last time I was here, a black sedan was hiding next to a building. Are
you working with them? You’ve got ten seconds to come out or I’m coming in and your body guards will have to pull me off you. By that time, I’ll have the information I need. Don’t test me on—”
“Okay, okay.” A shaky voice rose from inside the doorway of the long building where Serenity had watched Patch treat George like a king. Seconds later, George appeared in the doorway, pointing his finger at Patch. “You’ve really had an influence on her, old friend.”
“Don’t blame me,” Patch said with a smile. “This is all her. I’d take her seriously if I were you.”
“Come in, it’s too hot out here.” George waved them forward and stepped back inside without waiting.
Patch waved Serenity forward to take the lead, but she was already past him, following George inside. The room was stuffy and devoid of the people that filled it the first time. Dozens of large olive drab bags took the places of the tribe. Forty or fifty of them neatly lined the center in two columns.
“What are those?” Serenity gestured with a jerk of her head.
“A-bags,” George said. “Standard military-issue duffel bags.”
“What are they—” Serenity stopped when she looked past them toward stacks of what looked like enough military equipment for a small army. Helmets were piled in two separate but equally unsafe looking stacks. Bulletproof vests were stacked on top of one another in an assortment of leaning towers. Rifle magazines, hundreds of them, made a massive black pile. In the corner of the room, dozens of rifles leaned against the wall.
“Looks like you were expecting us,” Patch said.
A cloud passed over George’s aged face, temporarily wiping away his determination. “We heard about yesterday.” George squared to Serenity, resting both his hands on the handle of his cane. “Long before you shouted loud enough to wake our ancestors.”
“Sorry about that,” she lied.
“You shouldn’t be.” George shook his head. “Honestly, I wondered how long it would take for you to get upset enough to come learn how to defeat the Screecher. Defeating the Black Suits only happens once you’ve defeated it. Otherwise, they’ll keep coming back, least as I can tell.”