Scratch. Purr.
“Now damnit!” Bartlett said.
He walked to the door and jerked it open. Nothing. He looked up and down the corridor. It was empty. Then the doctor took a deep breath of air and instantly regretted it.
“Phew!” Calvin said, the stench filling his nose. “Time to call the plumber!”
He shut the door.
Scratch. Purr.
The sound was coming from the other side of the room.
“Sick and tired of this,” the doctor muttered, as he walked past the table, heading for the opposite side of the room. “Wow!” he yelled, jumping about two feet in the air as something gave him a sharp goose right in the crack of his ass.
“All right,” Calvin said, rubbing his butt. “Who’s in here playing games?”
Scratch. Purr.
Now the sound was once more coming from behind the door leading to the hall.
Calvin was thirty-eight years old and had been practicing medicine in Reeves County since he’d gotten out of school. He was slow to anger and not a person that was easily spooked.
But he was spooked.
He fought back his alarm. Then something moved on the table filled with body parts.
But that was impossible.
He came very close to screaming as his eyes settled on a severed hand.
The hand had closed into a fist, with the middle finger extended.
Old Lady Barstow was giving him the bird.
Chapter 7
“That’s obscene,” Jim Hunt said, staring at the rigid digit from Mrs. Barstow’s right hand. “Did you try to fix it right?”
Calvin gave him a look that would frost glass. “I most certainly did not! Not after she goosed me.”
Jim sighed and shoved his cowboy hat back on his head. Jim’s frame was just about as spare as his small talk, but his leanness was all muscle and gristle and bone. “Now Cal ... that there hand didn’t goose you, boy. And as far as that finger bein’ stuck up like that... well, that’s just the rigors settin’ in, that’s all.”
“Right,” Cal said dryly.
Jim turned around and almost jumped out of his boots.
Old Lady Barstow’s eyes were wide open and staring straight at him. One eyelid dropped in a macabre wink.
Cal smiled thinly. “That reflex is not unknown in death, Jim,” he said, needling the man.
“Gave me a start, that’s all,” the chief deputy mumbled.
“Right.”
Jim sat down. “What about this livin’-tissue business, Cal?”
“It’s not just tissue. I can’t explain the cells. They aren’t human. Or animal, for that matter. There is no discoloration in the mucous membranes of the mouth, lips, or nail beds. There is no lack of corneal reflex. Her eyes move. Now Jim, she doesn’t have any blood in her body, or darn little of it, so that explains the absence of cyanosis. I think,” he added.
“What do you mean you think?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t know what to make of it. Look at her right hand, Jim.”
Jim looked. The middle finger was waggling first at Jim, and then at Cal.
“That old woman was one of them Holy Rollers, Cal. Spoke in tongues and such as that. I’d wager she never made no obscene gesture in her life.”
“What are you getting at, Jim?”
Jim dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “What I’m thinkin’ is too silly to talk about. What about that black stuff I give you?”
“Burned flesh.”
“Say what?”
“Burned dead skin.”
“That don’t make no sense. There wasn’t no fire nowheres close to where we found the body.”
“That’s what it is.”
Jim sighed and looked over at the head. Ermma Barstow gave him another wink.
Jim shook his head, pointed a finger, and said, “She starts talkin’, Cal, that door over yonder is mine!”
* * *
“One thing about you,” Dee pointed out. “You have to be the most patient man I have ever seen.”
Carl drained his coffee mug. “When it starts, Dee, there won’t be much time for resting.” He looked off to the south.
“What’s the matter?”
“Vultures gathering over there. And a lot of them. Something large dead in the woods.”
“Like another dead body?”
“I’d bet on it.”
“You want some more coffee?”
“I think not. I’d suggest a nap. Tonight might be sort of busy.”
“I guess that’s one way of describing it,” Dee replied, her eyes on the circling vultures, about three quarters of a mile from the A-frame, moving closer to the earth.
* * *
The jailer at the Reeves County Jail wrinkled his nose as that foul odor once more drifted to him. He couldn’t figure out the source, but it seemed to be coming from that row of cells where they put the really bad ones. Only one prisoner was housed there now. Josh Taft. The jailer hoped the smell choked Josh to death. Even by Sheriff Rodale’s standards, Josh was a total no-good. Child-molester, wife-beater, rapist, thief . . . the list was as long as your arm.
This time he was in jail waiting trial for rape, and the judge had already said he was going to put Josh away for the rest of his life as an habitual offender. Even the scalawags in the county all agreed that it was about time.
“Hey, lard-ass!” Josh yelled at the jailer, his voice bouncing off the steel and concrete of the cell block. “You gonna do something about this smell? This ain’t constitutional making me sit here and smell this shit! I’ll call my lawyer about this.”
“Shut up, Taft,” the jailer yelled. “We’re workin’ on it.”
“Well, you ain’t workin’ fast enough, John. I’ll sue the county for violatin’ my rights.”
“Screw your rights, you baby-raper,” John muttered, walking to the radio room to answer a call from a county unit. He keyed the mike. “Go ahead, R-10.”
“R-2 there?”
“Ten-fifty. He’s still over at the lab.”
“Buzzards circling over here on the Conners property. ’Bout a mile north from the woman’s house. I’ll be out of the unit to check on it.”
“That’s ten-four, R-10.”
John logged the call, then picked up a can of room deodorant and sprayed the air. It helped, but that awful smell still lingered.
* * *
Mike Randall left his unit and climbed the fence, heading toward the circling buzzards. He felt pretty sure it was a dead deer or hog, maybe, but after seeing what was left of Ermma Barstow, he felt he had to check it out.
The deputy snapped loose the thumb-break leather that covered the hammer of his .357. He had no idea what he might be walking into.
The first thing he noticed was a rifle, a .270 it looked like, wrapped around the trunk of a small tree. It was horseshoed around the tree.
No mortal man could do that. Had to have been a bear, and a damn big one.
Mike jerked his .357 from leather as his nose began picking up the unmistakable and very distinctive odor of death.
Then his eyes found the scattered bits and pieces of the man.
He swallowed hard as bile filled his throat, and he began backing out of the woods. “Steady, boy,” he said, calming himself. “Just stay cool and keep your head.”
His eyes lifted and found the head of the man, jammed on a broken limb, the eyes wide and staring in silent horror.
Mike lost his cool and took off running, back toward his unit. He ran about a hundred yards, losing his hat but regaining his composure. He didn’t want to sound chickenshit when he called in.
* * *
Calvin answered the call, listened grim-faced, and then hung up. “Mike Randall found another one, Jim. On the Conners property. Just north of the house.”
Jim had moved to the table containing the head and various other body parts. He was leaning against the edge of the steel table.
“
Yowee!” he hollered, jumping into the air as cold, bony fingers groped at his crotch. He slapped the hand away, bouncing it off the tiled floor.
“Hi, big boy,” the head of Ermma croaked out hoarsely. “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime? A hard man is good to find.”
Cal put all the body parts in a cooler and locked and sealed it. Jim refused to touch any of the various pieces, especially the head, which did not utter another word nor give any sign that it ever had spoken.
* * *
Dee woke Carl, who had fallen asleep on the couch. “Sheriffs department car just pulled up out front, Carl.”
Carl sat up and stuck the 9-mm back into the leather of his shoulder holster and went out to meet Mike Randall.
Mike, with all the other deputies, had already been briefed by the chief deputy on the tall young man who was staying at the Conners house. He looked with open envy first at Garrett’s Beretta model 92 hanging in leather in the shoulder holster—the model 92 could bang fifteen times before having to change clips. Then Mike looked at Dee, standing by the young man’s side. Envy deepened.
“Sheriff Rodale wanted me to stop by here and tell y’all we got some sort of nut wanderin’ in the woods around here. We found another body.”
“Over where the vultures were circling?” Carl asked.
“Yeah.” He cut his eyes to Dingo. “That’s a mean-lookin’ dog.”
“He won’t bother you as long as one of us is here,” Mike said, assuring him.
“Would you like to come in and have some coffee, deputy?” Dee asked. Mike was one of the nicer people on the Reeves County S.O.
“That would be nice, ma’am. Thank you. It sure has been a long day. Let me radio in my twenty and I’ll be right with you.”
“He dates a real nice girl,” Dee told Carl, as the deputy called in his location. “Judy Radisson. She’s been out here several times. She heads the local writers group. Maybe we could have them out for a cookout.”
“Suits me. You’re the boss.”
She smiled. “All business, aren’t you, Carl?”
He locked glances with her. “I’m susceptible to a little playtime every now and then.”
“Then I’ll invite them here for tomorrow night.”
“I cook a mean steak.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Mike stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted the boxes of .223 ammo stacked in the den, along with the other crates.
“Y’all gonna start a war?”
“The war has already started, Mike,” Carl said. “I just like to be prepared.”
Dee stepped in before Mike could jump on that statement. “What do you take in your coffee, Mike?”
“Uh ... cream and sugar. What do you mean the war has started, Carl?”
“Was the second body much like the first one, Mike?”
Mike thought about that for a few seconds. If he opened his mouth about the case—cases now—the chief deputy would jump all over his ass.
“It’s all right,” Carl said. “I understand that you can’t talk about it. So I’ll tell you: arms and legs and feet and hands and entrails scattered all over the place; the body ripped apart by someone with enormous strength. The heart is missing. The kidneys and liver eaten. Most of the blood drained from the body and the bones cracked open, the marrow sucked from them. I’ve seen it before.”
“I think . . . that you need to talk to the chief deputy, Carl. You seem to know a lot about this.” Mike sat down on one of the couches, setting the coffee mug on the coffee table.
“I’ll be happy to talk to him. Dee has told me that he’s a good, solid, steady man. Not at all like Sheriff Rodale.”
“I can’t say anything about Rodale. But you got Jim Hunt pegged right.” Then the young deputy put it all together. “Is this the way it started in Ruger County?”
“More or less.”
“I never got the straight of what happened over there. I don’t guess anybody did. Miss Conners, don’t judge the whole department by the actions of Harrison and a few of the others. Jim Hunt is gradually getting rid of people like them. Law enforcement is getting better around here. I’m gonna take a chance, Carl. You best not talk to Sheriff Rodale. Whatever you got to say, it better be said to Jim Hunt.”
“All right. You going back up to the crime scene?”
“Right.”
“Would you tell this Jim Hunt I’d like to speak to him?”
“Be glad to. What’s in all these boxes?”
“Oh, just a few supplies I felt we might need.”
“Sure,” the deputy said, his tone indicating that he didn’t believe a word of it.
* * *
“Boxes of .223 ammo, huh?” Jim asked.
“Yes, sir. And a lot of other stuff all crated up. I think he knows something that we ought to know.”
“If he’s anything like his daddy, he’s a good, decent young man. What was your impression, Mike?”
The young deputy didn’t hesitate. “I’d hate to mess with him, Chief. He’s a real soft-spoken sort of guy. So tall and lanky that unless you take a good long second look, you’d guess his weight twenty-five, thirty pounds lighter than it really is. And he’s got a mean look in his eyes. I think he’d be hard to handle you get him stirred up.”
“Just like his daddy. Let’s go.”
* * *
Mike honked the horn to let them know they were outside and to please do something with that cockeyed dog with the head like a bear. Dee came out, petted Dingo, and opened the gate. Dingo took his time smelling Jim, which did nothing to calm the man. The dog finally stepped back and sat down right in the middle of the walkway, looking at the chief deputy.
“I guess we walk around him,” Mike said.
“I knew that without askin’,” Jim replied, stepping off onto the grass.
Dingo beat them to the porch and plopped down in front of the door. Dee manhandled him and dragged him away, then waved the men in.
Mike had never been in the service, but Jim had. He noticed some of the boxes stacked around the room. Grenades.
Dee had made a fresh pot of coffee and she served them just as the sun was sinking, casting long shadows around the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Jim noticed that with the coming of darkness, Carl’s eyes occasionally shifted to the windows. He wondered who the young man was expecting—what might be more like it. He crossed his legs, remembering Ermma’s bony fingers at his privates.
“I told Doctor Cal Bartlett to come on down here,” Jim said. “He ought to be here in about five minutes. I hope you don’t mind, Miss Conners.”
“Not at all, Chief Deputy Hunt.”
“Please call me Jim, ma’am.”
“Only if you’ll quit calling me ma’am and Miss Conners,” she said with a smile. “Call me Dee.”
“I’ll do that, ma’ ... Dee. Cal is the county coroner,” Jim explained to Carl.
“Then I’ll wait until he gets here,” Carl said, his voice soft. “No point is saying things twice.”
“I ain’t familiar with that type of grenade.” Jim pointed to several boxes stacked in a corner. “Except they’re all illegal as heck in civilian hands.”
“Those are Fire-Frag grenades, Chief. Probably the most lethal grenades ever manufactured. Once you pull the pin, you’re holding a pint-sized Claymore.”
“You figure you’ll have to use them things, Carl?”
“Yes.”
Man ain’t too long on words, Jim concluded. And he agreed with Mike’s earlier assessment of Carl Garrett. Carl was very worldly to be so young. It showed in his eyes and mannerisms. But what the hell was he doing with all these explosives . . . and whatever was in all those other boxes and crates? If Rodale was to get wind of all this stuff he’d have him chunk the young man in jail.
What the hell was goin’ on in Reeves County?
A car pulled up outside. Jim looked up, spotting the car through the glass of the storm door. “That’s Cal.”
Dee walked to the door and told Dingo to stay in the house. “I’ll let him in.”
Introductions made and coffee poured, the doctor looked at Carl. “Mike says you described the condition of both bodies without ever seeing them. I’d be interested in knowing just how you did that.”
“I saw the same thing in Ruger County, about four years ago.”
Scratch. Purr.
Dingo raised his head and looked toward the back. He did not growl.
Cal jerked at the noise, almost spilling some of the coffee.
“Relax,” Carl told them all. “There is nothing out there that you can see. Yet,” he added.
Dingo rose to his paws and walked to the back door, the hair on his back bristling. Still, he did not growl.
“We’ll get back to them strange sounds in a minute,” Jim said. “Carl, just what did you see in Ruger County?”
Carl spoke the word without emotion. But it chilled the three men to the bone.
“Hell.”
Chapter 8
After a few questions directed toward Jim and the doctor, Carl began speaking. He spoke for fifteen minutes, nonstop. He was not interrupted at any time. Mike, Jim, and Calvin sat with a mixture of shock and disbelief on their faces.
Carl ended with: “My father didn’t die in vain; he destroyed the Old Ones and temporarily put Pet and Anya out of business. But they’re back.”
“Who’s back?” Jim blurted.
“The girl and her sister. Anya and Pet. That would account for the pieces of charred flesh you found around the bodies.”
“I think you’re crazy!” Cal told him. “The entire tale is insane—impossible.”
“So is a talking head and a severed hand shooting you the bird and grabbing a feel of Jim’s privates.”
Jim blushed.
“I’ve reached the conclusion that neither of us heard that head talk,” Cal said smugly.
“Oh?”
“Yes. We were both under a great deal of stress and our imaginations simply ran rampant for a moment.”
“I’m sure that explains it. And the bizarre actions of that severed hand?”
“The hand fell off the table. It was not a deliberate movement.”
“The waggling middle finger?”
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