Griffin got out of the truck and crossed through the humid air to the front door. Once inside he ignored Martha Lewis so that no one would know she was his source. He spotted Tadpole in a booth near the back of the place. He was sitting by a slightly heavy blonde woman and across from a younger, slimmer version of the same woman. He was grinning at the girl, probably telling some tall tale. The grin faded when he saw Griffin.
Griffin walked up to the booth and slid in beside the young girl. He said, “Hey Tadpole. How goes things?”
Tadpole sat very stiff. He licked his lips and said, “What do you want?”
“Who the hell is this?” the blonde woman said in a high-pitched voice.
“Oh I’m a friend of Tadpole here, ma’am,” Griffin said. “Well, friend might be too strong a word. Saw him sitting here and just had to come over and say hi.”
Tadpole said, “Well now you’ve said it. You can go.” He was trying to sound tough and failing.
“Tadpole,” Griffin said. “Is that any way to talk to me? I go out of my way to be friendly and this is what I get. So, were you telling these ladies about your hobby?”
“What hobby?” said the older blonde.
“Oh you know. The one where he cons underage girls and their mothers and then sells the girls to low-rent brothels to have sex with older men.”
“Let me out of the booth, Tadpole,” the woman said. Her eyes had gone wide.
“Don’t listen to him Lisa. The guy’s out of his mind.”
Griffin said, “No, do listen to me Lisa. Tad wants to fuck your daughter, then turn her out so lots of other men can fuck her. He’s done it to plenty of other girls before.”
The girl beside Griffin had started to cry and Lisa was trying to get past Tadpole and out of the booth. She said, “Let me out you sick bastard! Let me out!” She managed to get past, and Griffin slid out of the booth to let the daughter go, keeping an eye on Tadpole as he did so. The man wasn’t likely to be carrying a gun, but ‘not likely’ got you killed in Griffin’s line of work. Lisa grabbed her daughter’s arm and practically dragged the girl toward the door.
“Pete’s going to kill your fucking ass.”
“Pete’s not here, Tad,” said Griffin.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. I was considering shooting you and dumping your body in Tatum’s Swamp.”
Tadpole’s eyes widened and Griffin could see sweat beginning to slide down his face. “You wouldn’t do that in here. There are witnesses.”
Griffin smiled. “You have to leave here sooner or later. But don’t worry. It’s too hot and you stink too damn bad, so for now I’m just going to keep seeing that you don’t recruit any more girls.”
“Pete ain’t going to like this,” Tadpole said.
“I’m counting on that.”
Griffin walked back toward the door, ignoring the stares of the startled diners and keeping an eye on Tadpole. Tadpole sat very still. Pete Blankenship would indeed not like this. He’d already shown his displeasure at Griffin twice. Be interesting to see what he would do now. Griffin hadn’t meant to get involved in any of this. All he had wanted to do was find Lynn Traylor. But that was before he had seen what Blankenship and his people did to girls like Irene Chandler. He still hadn’t saved her, but he wasn’t going to let a piece of shit like Tadpole victimize anyone else. He was still trying to do things Carl’s way. But if that didn’t pan out, there was always Tatum’s Swamp.
* * *
Six in the goddamned morning and the phone rang. The thing about being sheriff, about working any sort of emergency work, is that you are seldom off duty. You never know when an emergency is going to pop up. Lot of people took that with a grain of salt. Carl did not have that option. And those who worked for him and failed to respond properly to emergency calls often found themselves either unemployed or wishing desperately they hadn’t pissed off the Sheriff of Brennert County.
He saw Tammy’s name on the caller ID. “Yeah?” His voice was raspy.
“Carl?”
“It’s me, Tammy.” Who the hell else would it be? Mike Perkins? Was that the name of prick she cheated with? It had been a long time ago and he’d been trying to forget. Trying and mostly failing.
“I need you.”
“You have an emergency situation, call the office, Tammy.” He sat up in bed and felt his stomach twist and turn and seethe. How could she do that with a damned phone call? How could she cripple him that fast? How in the name of God had he ever given her that sort of power over him?
“I don’t need a sheriff, Carl. I need you.” Her voice broke and his heart echoed the gesture. Damn her.
“No, honey, you don’t. You made that real clear to me.” His voice shook and he hated that sign of weakness almost as much as he hated her at that exact moment. Almost as much as he loved her.
“I do. I was wrong. I do need you.”
He closed his eyes and kept them closed. “Well, that really sucks. I’m sorry, Tammy, I am. But I guess maybe I’m over you. I’m done with this.” He ended the call and then turned his phone down to mute.
The sun was not up, but it was heading in that direction. Carl got dressed in his running shorts and t-shirt and then pulled on his sneakers. He made it to the driveway before he saw the headstone parked in his yard, lined up with the six-foot threat, but in comparison to some of the other shit going on in his world, it just wasn’t that scary.
Unless someone had dropped a body in there. Yeah, that got the blood running a little colder.
“Shit. Now I gotta go check.” He sighed the words and then walked carefully over to the hole, looking cautiously down into the depths. Nothing. Just dirt. He breathed a bit easier.
The jog was off. Instead he went back inside, called the office and told them he needed another CS unit to come print the headstone, just in case anyone was dumb enough not to wear gloves. On the one hand it was only vandalism, but on the other it was also an implied threat against a government official and despite not wanting to, he had to take the threat seriously.
Bullshit and more bullshit. There was always something. Still, he needed to not think about Tammy. And there was that whole congregation of dead people wanting to eat living people to consider.
Yeah.
That needed to be attended to. So he called Wade.
Wade answered on the second ring. “You up?”
“I am now.” Cranky. Wade was being cranky. That was allowed.
“Need to go back to that place we were at yesterday. I have a few things to discuss with you in private.”
Wade was not stupid. He got the idea. “See you there in around an hour?”
“We can meet and head over there together if you prefer.”
“I’ve got a few things to finish up with, Carl. Let’s meet there in an hour.”
“You got it.”
They met an hour later. Wade looked like maybe he’d slept a little less than usual. That was nice. Carl hated to feel like he was ahead of the curve.
Wade walked over carrying a bundle in a blanket. The bundle made metallic rattling noises.
Carl nodded and pointed to the bottles he’d filled with gasoline. While the two of them chatted, he took the lids from the bottles – carefully separated within a crate – and stuffed rags in their tops. He worked with evidence gloves on his hands, because you never know.
“Thought we might have a barbeque.” Carl looked toward the church as he spoke.
Wade unrolled the blanket, revealing the machetes inside. The blades had recently been sharpened. “Thought we might need a little something. Just in case.”
Carl nodded and then thought about Tammy and spat. “Ready for this?”
Wade looked at the building that sat like a bloated toad in the sunlight. “Nope. So let’s get going.”
C
arl reached for the crate of bottles. “Got a light?”
Wade nodded. Neither of them smoked. Both of them normally had a lighter. Because, really, you just never know when you might need a fire.
* * *
Griffin fished the lighter out of his pocket but then stopped short of handing it to Carl. When Carl shot him a puzzled look, Griffin said, “It’s the Traylors. I’m wondering if they’re here somewhere.”
“If they’re in that church you know what they are now,” Carl said. “Best thing we can do for them is put them out of their misery with the other poor bastards.”
“Yeah, but what if they’re still alive? They could be in one of those outbuildings.”
“I suppose so. Guess we better have a look. But let’s make it quick, Wade. I want to get this over with.”
“Same here,” said Griffin. Together the two men crunched across the gravel parking lot. The day was turning into another scorcher. Griffin could hear the buzz of insects in the surrounding woods, an incongruous sound, too normal by far considering their errand.
As they passed the church Griffin saw that a new chain and lock had been put on the door. Good. Maybe that would make things easier. They rounded the corner and came to the first of the two outbuildings, the one built like a dorm. Griffin figured if the reverend had any living guests, this was where they would find them.
The front door was closed but not locked. Griffin hefted his machete, then swung the door inward and stepped into the dim hallway. Even as he entered, Griffin knew they wouldn’t find anyone. The building felt empty, the way an abandoned house feels empty. Still they made their way through the place, looking in all the rooms. The building was definitely a dorm. Many of the rooms held cots and chairs and small tables. None of the rooms were occupied.
They left the building through a side door and checked the other structure. That took even less time as they could see right off that the place was mostly used for storage.
“Satisfied?” Carl said.
“Yeah. Let’s do what we came here to do.”
They walked back to Carl’s truck and Griffin handed Carl his lighter. For a moment Griffin wondered why Carl had bothered with the Molotov cocktails when Griffin could have brought some more serious explosive, but almost as quickly he realized the answer. There would be no tracing a bunch of broken bottles. Anyone could make one of these deadly little missiles. And they were about to break the law. Again.
“I’ll light and you throw,” Carl said. “We want to hit the place with several of them quick.”
Griffin nodded and pulled on a pair of cotton gloves. Carl lit the first cloth fuse and Griffin grabbed the bottle, whirled, and sent the cocktail straight through one of the dark stained glass windows. In rapid succession he threw four more, each spinning through a window. The fifth he lobbed at the front of the church in case anyone tried to come out that way.
The first would-be escapee lurched through one of the windows Griffin had broken. He was a tall, lanky man with brown hair. That hair was ablaze and the man was howling as he stumbled away from the church.
Griffin said, “You ever decapitate anyone, Carl?”
“No.”
“Not as easy as it looks. These machetes are very heavy and should get the job done, but you have to strike hard and fast. Best if you can get a slight downward arc to the swing.”
“I don’t want to know how you know that.”
“No, you don’t.” Griffin rushed toward the lanky man. The man heard him coming and looked up. He hissed, showing a mouthful of teeth like razors. Griffin lunged and made a cut just like the one he had described to Carl. He felt the blade shudder as it hit bone, but he twisted his hip, getting his weight behind the stroke. The vampire’s head rolled from his shoulders and the body toppled.
“There’s another one!” Carl yelled.
Please don’t be a kid. Please.
A second man came weaving out of the acrid smoke. Griffin could feel the heat washing off the church in waves. All that old wood was going up fast. Griffin leaped at the second man, aiming at the side of his neck. The second vampire must have seen Griffin coming because he jerked aside at the last moment.
Griffin’s cut came in at a bad angle and though the machete bit deep, the head wasn’t severed. It dangled at an impossible angle as the vampire aimed a backhanded blow at Griffin’s face. Griffin rolled with it, but the impact still sent him sprawling.
The vampire staggered after him, eyes gone pale and jaws working spasmodically. A second later Carl drove his own machete into the same spot Griffin had hit and this time the head rolled.
Griffin scrambled to his feet. “Thanks, man.”
Carl gave a short nod. He stared at the machete as if unable to believe what he had just done.
The old church was blazing high now and Griffin thought he could hear a high pitched screaming over the roar of the fire, but that might have been his imagination. He hoped it was. He kept thinking of those people, sitting in the pews in their Sunday best. He and Carl watched for a long time, but no one else came out of the church.
Carl walked as close to the fire as he could get and tossed the last of the Molotov cocktails into the blaze, turning his head as the homemade bomb went off. Then he stripped off his gloves and threw them into the flames. Griffin did the same.
“Think that did it?” Carl said.
“We can only hope. Charon seemed sure that fire would kill a vampire.”
“Doubt if we got all of them. I’ve got a bad feeling that Cotton wasn’t among his flock,” Carl said.
Griffin said, “Still got most of them. That buys us some time.”
“The gravel will keep the fire from getting out of hand, but I’m going to call the closest fire department. When they get here, you and me were out for a ride and we saw the smoke. When we got here we were too late to do anything.”
“That works,” Griffin said. “What about the bodies?”
“What bodies?” said Carl nodding to where one of the vampires had fallen. Nothing there now but a pile of ashes that were swiftly being dispersed by a fire born-wind.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Deep down in the cold shadows, locked away from where anyone would ever easily find him – even Fry, whom he trusted with most things – Lazarus Cotton lay as still as the grave.
But inside, oh, locked away from the world and hidden by those same frigid shadows, a rage bloomed within his heart.
Had anyone seen his cold, dead body where it rested, they’d have thought the Reverend Cotton at peace. They would have been so very dreadfully wrong.
For now there could be nothing. For now he was silent and still.
But sooner or later, as was always the case, the sun would set.
Can you say Amen?
* * *
The lights were on. The shades were drawn, but the lights were on.
She took no comfort from that fact.
“I did what you asked.” Her voice hitched as she spoke, and the breath she let out afterward was a long, shuddery affair. Had she ever cried so much in her entire life? She was not certain. It surely didn’t seem she could have.
“I know.” The hand that caressed her forehead was cool and soothing and she closed her eyes for a moment and merely listened to the calm voice and felt the gentle, nearly loving touch. “I know you did. I’m grateful.” The hand vanished and she opened her eyes. The look of disappointment was enough to wound her. “But it wasn’t enough.”
“Please. Please, please, please…” Her vision broke apart, lost behind the broken prism of falling tears. Hot streaks ran down her face.
Another voice. The voice of the one with the brutal scars on his face. “Should we… I dunno. Should we clean her?”
There was a long pause and two of them lifted her from the ground, holding her arms with too much strength to be ign
ored. She wanted to struggle, but knew it would do no good. They’d done something. Given her something. Or maybe it was the way she’d looked into her eyes. There was something there. Something not right.
“No.” The tiniest shake of the head and she wouldn’t even look at her any more. “No. I think the tears add… authenticity.” How the Hell could she be amused? Didn’t she understand how much this hurt?
“So what now then?” Scar-face’s voice chilled her to the core.
One last look over the shoulder. She felt control start edging back into her muscles but it was a slow process, like waking from anesthesia.
“Just let her go.”
She did not fall far. But it was enough.
Oh how she kicked, how she struggled, but it was already too late and she knew it.
And she hated it.
And she hated that he was the last thing she thought about when it was all said and done.
* * *
It’s all processes, isn’t it?
Carl nodded and waved for Allan Chambers to take the lead. Allan wanted this, badly, and Carl could understand that.
Two knocks, loud and proud, and a bellow of “Sheriff ’s department! Open the door!” Then the sound of people scrambling. Always with the trying to get themselves together. Bob ‘Burly’ Campbell hit the door with the battering ram and blew the damned thing inward. No surprise, no one was waiting on the other side to let them in.
In a lot of the movies the guys inside would have been wearing suits and playing poker, maybe smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey and looking like proper underworld thugs.
Instead they got four men who were dressed in baggy pants and shirts that were layered to help them strip out of one outfit into the next in an effort to blend in. Like wearing five different shirts in the hellish heat wasn’t a sign they were up to shit.
There was a back door and one of the losers tried for it. Chief Stack was waiting for him. He didn’t take the loser down gently. Stack had two sons, no daughters, but he had nieces he adored. They were the right age for these bastards to consider.
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