Drynn

by Steve Vera

  Killer on the loose…bodies decapitated…dismembered…skinned alive.

  Kevin tried another scream but all that came out was a gurgle.

  Chapter Ten

  Skip had escaped.

  No easy task, considering his FBI “protection,” but with the right plan and a little diversion from Stan the man’s repertoire, he’d slid out like smoke through a steam vent.

  Ahanatou, of course, would be very upset. Such was life. If Ahanatou thought Skip wasn’t going to be involved in this investigation, he was sadly mistaken. Skip was not overly partial to getting impaled by flying spurs, or whatever the hell they were calling it, even less partial to being bumped out of things that concerned him directly. His railroad of stitches across his cracked chest could attest to that.

  Or just protest.

  Skip closed his eyes as Stan hit a pothole full speed.

  “We’re going to be arrested,” Stan chattered nervously as they sped southbound down U.S. Route 2. “Ahanatou’s the type.”

  Stan’s Jeep Wrangler hurtled toward Rolling Creek at a pace that threatened the sound barrier. The sooner they got back to Skip’s turf, the better.

  “We didn’t break any laws,” Skip assured him. “Besides, I’m the one who’s accountable, not you.”

  “Yeah, but I’m an accomplice.”

  “True.”

  Their eyes met. “You suck.”

  Skip managed a smile. “No charge.”

  Stan shook his head. “It’s good to have you back, Chief.”

  Maybe, if he pushed up with his legs, he could get a half lungful of air here. He grunted. “Good to be back. That hospital was downright depressing.”

  Yep. Exactly half a lung. His body was going on an oxygen diet. The thought of that sent a mild current of panic through him.

  “I can’t believe Jessie’s little hiked-skirt trick actually worked,” Stan was saying.

  “She’s good.” Skip nodded. “Killer legs, too.”

  For several minutes there was only the drone of tires on highway. The radio was off. “Don’t suppose you have any theories about what’s going on?” Stan finally asked.

  “Not a one.”

  Stan looked at Skip, derailed. “Not even a hunch?”

  “Get your eyes back on the road,” Skip grumbled. Evidently, cracked ribcages and lacerated chest muscles made him grumpy. “Poke around if you’re so curious,” Skip said.

  “I can’t.”

  Skip’s turn to be surprised.

  “The feds shut this investigation to everyone—media, state police, scientists even.”

  Skip worked for his breath ration. “Child’s play.”

  “Child’s play, huh? What do you have in mind?”

  “Stan, just get me home to my medicine cabinet, hmm? Not to worry, the Skipster’s got a plan.”

  *

  The Skipster had a little secret.

  Unbeknownst to anyone, there was a very small, state-of-the-art digital camera completely undetectable beside the streetlight overhanging the intersection of Main Street and Cloverdale. It had been there for a few years now. The camera was set on a motion sensor and fed, via infrared waves, directly into Skip’s personal laptop. If Skip’s calculations were correct (and they always were…mostly), he should have a nice shot of Mr. Shades. There was only one road to the Blackburn Memorial Cemetery.

  When he’d come to Rolling Creek three years ago, he’d despaired of the town’s archaic technology. Coming from Iraq, Afghanistan and the beats of Philadelphia, it was like crossing into the Wood Age. As chance would have it, his new town was in an uproar about a couple of poachers who’d begun to wage war on the natural habitat of Rolling Creek, and they wanted to see what the new blood in town proposed to do about it. The poachers had exterminated the family of bald eagles that had taken residence right on the fringes of Glacier Forest, not two miles from the town’s border. They hadn’t even poached, really, just killed for killing’s sake. Sacrilege to the hunter. Skip knew the type.

  Thirteen bears, all four eagles, seventeen deer, two timber wolves and a decapitated elk. Decapitated why? Because they were sick bastards, that’s why. Up until that point, nobody had been able to catch them—the carnage continued for seven months straight. Skip installed the camera and caught them in two weeks. Unfortunately for the two lads, a little vaycay at St. Thomas had been required.

  Trials and tribulations of resisting arrest.

  And just like that, Skip was a hero. No waiting a decade to be accepted as one of their own. As for the camera, he’d never taken it down. Skip was a ferret when it came to having aces; he liked to stash them all over the place.

  If ever there were a time to pull them.

  Stan dropped him off with promises to check on him later.

  Skip bluffed he’d be fine and shuffled into the kitchen to put on some coffee. His French Vanilla would be frozen in his truck, which was still at the cemetery for all he knew.

  He sighed.

  He flicked the coffeepot off, grabbed a bottle of water and palmed the hallway wall to the bathroom. He needed his medicine cabinet. Now.

  There. His precious Percocet. He carried the bottle back with him to the bedroom, working the top off.

  His uniform was still lying crumpled in the corner of his room and his bed was rumpled from two days before. On the bedroom bench that doubled as “the spot” for his accumulations his laptop waited patiently, king of the hill among a pair of mismatched socks, a belt and an unfolding T-shirt. He opened his computer, hit the power button and waited impatiently for the screen to come up from hibernation. And for the drugs to kick in.

  “Say cheese, bitch.” Even in a pixeled digital photograph, the kid seemed ominous, glowering over the steering wheel like Medusa’s younger brother.

  Skip contemplated the effort of building a peanut butter and raspberry preserve sandwich. He was pretty sure there was still a half bag of Honey Barbeque Twists in the cupboard. Yeah, that sounded kinda delicious.

  His reverie was interrupted by the intro of “Paradise City.” Skip looked down at his cell phone. The dreaded 202 area code of Washington D.C. stared up at him. He groaned. Definitely not “Paradise.” With a sigh, he hit answer.

  “Hello?” Skip sang cheerfully.

  “Walkins,” Ahanatou growled. “Where the hell are you? You were not authorized to leave that hospital.”

  “Didn’t know I needed it,” Skip replied, gripping his side.

  “I wasn’t done with you yet.”

  “Well, I was done with you. Last I checked, it was America.”

  Ahanatou’s sigh rushed across the sound waves. “You seem to think this is some kind of game.”

  “Six butchered human beings is no game.”

  “Seven. They found pieces of some kid strewn across Marquette County, Michigan, this morning.”

  Skip was silent. Reality bit…hard. He took half a breath.

  “Did you hear what I said, Walkins?”

  “I heard you.”

  “That means if you’re holding out on me, you’re just as good as an accessory.”

  “Gimme a break,” Skip muttered with a roll of his eyes.

  “Where are you?”

  “Mardi Gras,” Skip said, irritated despite his pain.

  “You’re home. Don’t go anywhere,” and then the 202 number was flashing.

  Guess I’ll be seeing him soon. From beside him, his Sealy mattress beckoned seductively. Fighting back, Skip clicked on Pandora and was rewarded with Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads declaration of rock ’n’ roll’s immortality.

  That’s right, you bastards. You can’t kill
rock ‘n’ roll.

  He eased himself in front of his computer and hit Print. Six seconds later, his Canon photo printer activated by the side of his dresser and released a color photograph. “Who are you?” he asked the photo.

  Only one way to find out. Skip hit speed dial number twenty-six.

  “Who’s this?” came a gruff greeting.

  The weight in Skip’s chest lifted. “Is that any way to speak to your guardian angel, Frankie?”

  “Well, what do you know? Mr. Everett Walkins.”

  “Chief Walkins,” Skip corrected. “Charming as ever, I see.”

  “I thought you were in the hospital.” Frank Delgado was not a warm and fuzzy guy, but it was good to hear some real concern from a comrade. Stan was a little shy on the sympathy. Too rattled, Skip supposed.

  “Not anymore.”

  “I heard you were in a coma.”

  Skip rubbed the seventeen stitches across his chest gingerly. He’d forgotten how much cracked bones sucked. “C’mon, it’s gonna take more than a little impalement to put the Skipster down.”

  “Impalement?”

  “Very unpleasant.”

  “Well, tell me what happened, dammit.” Though Frankie’s concern was genuine, Skip detected an underlying current of…“something” lurking beneath.

  “I’m in the process of figuring that out. That’s where you come in.”

  “Oh, how silly of me to think that this was a social call.”

  “Very silly.”

  “Is this going to get me in trouble?”

  “Of course not,” Skip said. The first tendrils of the Percocets blessedly wafted through his body.

  Frank started laughing, and Skip could hear more of his old friend. “All right, Chief Walkins, what do you need this time?”

  Skip held up the picture of Mr. Shades. “I’m gonna fax you a picture. Stick it in one of your fancy-shmancy computers and tell me what you get.”

  “Why don’t you do this yourself? You have access.”

  “You have better access.”

  “Something tells me a certain wiseass got bounced from a certain investigation,” Frank said.

  “Ever the sharp tack, I see. You should work for the NSA or something.”

  “I should, shouldn’t I?”

  “You know anything about a Special Agent Ahanatou?”

  Frankie’s voice took on a more business tone. “Yeah, he’s over at FBI. Major prick, but he’s good. Tell me you didn’t lock horns with him.”

  “More like he locked horns with me.”

  “It’s amazing you’ve made it this far in life with that personality of yours. You still haven’t answered my question. How did you get stabbed in the chest?”

  Skip sobered. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Frankie.”

  “Skip, I’d believe anything you told me.” The sentence was delivered with complete sincerity.

  He hadn’t been expecting the declaration and Skip was actually touched. He’d wondered if being in the National Security Agency wouldn’t go to Frankie’s head, turn him into an asshole or something. Good to see that some things hadn’t changed. Much.

  “Thanks. As soon as I figure out what the hell is going on around here, you’ll be the first to know. Gimme a number I can fax you at.”

  “You’re such a dinosaur. Why don’t you just email it to me?”

  “Because I don’t trust computers. They’re hackable.”

  “Like a fax machine isn’t?”

  “Just humor me, huh?”

  “I take it you want me to keep this on the low.”

  “There you go being brilliant again.”

  “All right,” Frankie said, shifting on the other side of the line. He rattled a Baltimore area code, which Skip studiously wrote down. No sense sending it to the wrong place. He stayed on the line until Frank confirmed that he’d gotten the picture.

  “That’s odd,” Frank said. “This guy matches perfectly the description of the man every cop in the world is looking for.”

  “Crazy, huh?” Oh yeah, the Percs were kicking in real nice now.

  “How did you manage—never mind. Skip, I can’t just sit on this.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “No, I can’t. This is big, Walkins. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill serial killer we’re talking about here. I’ve seen the reports.”

  “I know it’s big, Delgado. Why the hell do you think I’m asking for your help?” The silence on the other side of the line made Skip nervous. Please don’t let me have overestimated you.

  “Well, I do owe you, don’t I?”

  “That you do. Three times.”

  “Two times. I paid one of those back.”

  “You’re forgetting about Mosul.”

  “Aw shit, that’s right. Okay, I’ll give you twenty-four hours then I’m pouncing.”

  “Forty-eight.”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “Fine,” Skip said. “Thirty-six. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know something. Pasta-boy.”

  Frank snorted a laugh. “You’d think it was me who was the older one.”

  “You’d think. The quicker the better, Frankie—get me some good news.”

  “Copy that.”

  And then he was alone again with his diminishing pain. Skip stared down at his phone.

  He sure hoped Frankie hadn’t turned into an asshole.

  Chapter Eleven

  The creature was smart.

  Instead of wasting its energy on flapping its wings or metamorphosing into that black comet of vapor, it had plopped itself on an eastbound freight train and had covered close to eighteen hundred miles in fifty-two hours. It was moving in an undeviating direction.

  East.

  A simple equation based on its present trajectory told Donovan its course was approximately 104 degrees, starting from Rolling Creek to the east coast. He couldn’t be sure of course, as there were too many variables, but his logic was supplemented by his instinct. The creature had a purpose and was moving in the quickest and most efficient path. As the crow flies. Or the train rolls.

  The first time the image pulsed into his mind, it was like a halogen bulb turned on three inches from his face. Unappreciated while driving. Forced to pull over to the shoulder of the scarcely inhabited highway, Donovan had kept his eyes closed, locking in the image of the invading supernova. He could only surmise it was coming from the creature.

  The vision was simple and vivid—a young man, armored like some version of a medieval knight, attacking with a sword burning with blue fire. The image faded, though the starburst lingered behind his eyes and then came again, brighter, harder, only this time…the vision had been decapitated.

  Some sort of memory? A dream? Donovan erected a mental barricade around his mind, should another vision-burst assault his mind. Nothing surprised him when it came to dealing with the Whisperer. Once he could see again, Donovan got back on the road.

  Twelve miles later another one came, but this time it broke against his defenses like snowball against a window. In this vision, another knight screamed, clad in identical armor, face contorted into such rage and anguish that Donovan could actually see its colors, its soul.

  Through a memory.

  The images possessed the freshness and clarity of an LSD flashback, and came in closer succession the farther he drove east. He became so familiar with them that he began to see colors within the colors, a pale nimbus of silver interwoven through the bands or their souls.

  It was the first time Donovan had ever crossed such a nimbus, and he felt an immediate hostility, felt his lips pull away from his teeth in a snarl h
e hadn’t initiated. Donovan didn’t much care for “involuntary” anythings when it came to his actions. He filed it for later contemplation. Right now he was a heat-seeking missile converging on a target.

  I bet both your balls you’re the one who stuck him in that grave, he thought to the vision now ingrained in his memory. There was no way he could verify it, of course, no way to know if this “knight” was lurking somewhere out east, but the creature seemed to think so and if Donovan knew where it was going…he could already be there. Waiting.

  His lips cracked into a smile. He’d be waiting, all right.

  Chapter Twelve

  They were parked in front of two trees, an oak and a maple. Just beyond was the West Hartford reservoir, surface choppy and sullen by the gray drizzle. This was where he’d first kissed her.

  “Gavin, you have to say something,” Amanda said softly. Half of her wanted to strangle him and the other half was scared out of her gourd. She’d never seen him like this.

  “I know what I have to do,” he said. “I just don’t want to.”

  “Why? What’s so hard?”

  Most of the maple’s leaves had already succumbed to autumn’s caress, forming a blanket of bright orange-yellow around its trunk. The oak on the other hand was far more patient in the shedding of its denizens; its foliage was a more subdued rusty brown. Two thirds of its leaves held fast to their perches. Early autumn.

  “I have to leave,” he said, gaze transfixed on a single branch where two stubborn leaves refused to surrender their ground, defiant against the change of season.

  “And go where?” she asked quietly, tracking his gaze.

  “I’ve thought about how to tell you this a thousand times,” he said, massaging his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. “And I still don’t have the slightest idea of how to begin.”

  “Why don’t you just try spitting it out?”

  He looked at her sideways and gave her a ‘what do you think I’m trying to do over here?’ look. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “If I tell you what’s happening, if I tell you the truth, you do exactly what I tell you, no questions asked.” He finished his statement by drilling her with his eyes.