DEPTHS
SOUTHERN WATCH
BOOK TWO
Robert J. Crane
DEPTHS
SOUTHERN WATCH
BOOK TWO
Copyright © 2014 Reikonos Press
All Rights Reserved.
1st Edition
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Author’s Note
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Other Works by Robert J. Crane
Chapter 1
Gideon could feel death when he listened closely to the stirring deep within. It was in the distance, maybe even miles away, but he could taste it when it came, and it was almost as good as if he were in the room while it was happening.
* * *
Jacob Abbott had saved for his divorce for years, and the bitch had gone and thwarted him two weeks before he had filed. He still felt sick about it, going on a year later. He’d paid a big shot lawyer down in Chattanooga with installment payments, one at a time, every payday for three years. It was some fucked up shit, too, Hayley going and dying in a car wreck before he’d had the satisfaction of seeing her fat face crumple when she read the papers. He’d planned to have them served while he was there, two weeks after his youngest daughter turned eighteen. He didn’t want to miss it, after all. He’d paid for it, for fuck’s sake.
But she’d gone and gotten herself ground up under the treads of an eighteen wheeler changing lanes on the interstate, and the goddamned lawyer had said that the retainer was non-refundable. He’d had some choice words for that cocksucker, but it still hadn’t gotten him a dime back, which was a shame because he had a funeral to pay for. That was almost as much of a kick to the balls as not getting the money back from the lawyer.
It had turned out all right now, though. Jacob cracked open another beer, sitting in his underwear in the basement of the house they used to share. Back when Hayley was alive, he’d kept the basement as his domain, made it his own. After she died, he hadn’t bothered to take the upstairs over again. The kids stayed up there when they were in town, which wasn’t very often. Jacob just hung out in his basement after work, drank beer, ate his sour cream chips and watched SportsCenter. That suited him just fine.
When the first pains of the heart attack struck him, Jacob didn’t have much time to ponder whether it was the beer, the cigarettes, the sour cream chips, or the last fifteen years in which the most strenuous exercise had been the one time a year or less that Hayley had let him fuck her that caused it. He just knew it hurt like a motherfucker.
It felt like someone had jabbed a flaming sword through his left arm and down into the center of his chest, and goddamn did it hurt. He wheezed and clutched at himself, gasping like he’d been run over by an eighteen wheeler. So that’s what it felt like, he thought.
Jacob jerked like someone had run a hot poker up his ass. That caused him to swipe his hand across the end table at his left. He heard himself hit some things but barely felt them through the pain. He might have worried about what he’d knocked over, but he was too busy screaming between gasps for breath.
He slid out of his chair, spasming, and hit the floor, the agony searing through his chest. He could smell his sour cream chips, like a little taste of home as he lay with his cheek pressed against the tattered grey and brown rug. Chips were spilled all around him, the bowl upended in front of his eyes. Any other time it would have been a welcome scent, like a substitute for someone meeting him at the door when he got home from work at the plant. He loved those damned chips, didn’t even mind when he beat off with the stuff still on his hand and it made his dick smell like them until he showered the next morning.
Now they were just in the way. He rolled, hearing them crunch as he broke them into tiny pieces. The pain had faded just enough for him to start thinking through what he needed to do, and finding the phone so he could call 911 was right at the top of his list.
Jacob had just enough presence of mind to realize that if the chips were on the floor, the phone probably was, too. His thoughts were spinning, the pain subsiding, creeping back to the center of his ribcage. Now it was like someone had left some embers alight in his chest.
He strained to recall if the phone had been sitting where it usually was, on the end table. The ebbing pain left him enough room to think that yes, it probably was. He stretched up, running his greasy, sour-cream-flavored fingers across the end table’s pitted surface. It had a few burns from where he’d set cigs from time to time when the ashtray had been moved on him. He reached across, stretching hard, and the pain seemed to come roaring back, dropping him onto his side. He heard a whimper in his ears, and he realized it was him. It wasn’t like anyone else was here with him, after all.
He made one last effort to raise himself up after he swept his eyes over the field of fallen and broken chips and didn’t see a sign of the phone. 911. Only hope. The words buzzed in his head as he reared up, forcing himself off the floor one last time to look over the table edge.
He fell back, exhausted, a moment later after glimpsing the flat, barren surface of the end table, completely empty of anything. He figured it must have fallen on the back side.
Goddammit.
Jacob fell onto his back, the sound of crunching chips filling his ears, his breaths coming shallower now. For some reason he was reminded of the last time he’d gotten laid, a month ago now, at the whorehouse on Water Street. How that hot redheaded whore had felt as he’d sweated and rolled off her afterward like this, onto his back. He wasn’t breathing as deep, but he’d made some similar noises, he was pretty sure.
The pain grew to an agonizing crescendo, one last swell, and he could have sworn he was screaming for Jesus, the devil, and anyone else in between to make it stop. He wasn’t sure who answered, but they damned sure did.
And just like that, Jacob Abbott knew his ticket was getting punched. It wasn’t an eighteen wheeler, either.
So that’s what it felt like …
* * *
Somewhere across town, Gideon could feel it, feel the life leaving Jacob Abbott. It was strong, that last whisper of agony, the cry of misery that no one could hear but him. It was like the sweetest candy, like the most exciting fuck he could ever imagine. It was a dirty little secret among their kind that demons fucked, just like the filthy humans. Sometimes even with the filthy humans. He didn’t, but that was because he was a greater. He took care of his own needs.
The last echoes of Jacob Abbott’s death sounded deep inside him, the whispers, the s
creams, and even lying in bed it was as palpable to him as if Abbott had died right in front of him. It was so beautiful, the closest thing he knew to sexy. He felt his hard-on and took it in hand when the feeling of death first came on.
It was tantalizing, that sense of death. Like he was standing beneath Abbott, his maw open and ready to devour him. The soul came down, and Gideon tasted it all—the fear, the misery—every drop of it came out as Abbott expired and he absorbed him, ate him up. The steady rhythm of his hand beat faster under the covers, moving up and down his own shaft as the sensation swelled.
Gideon could hear Abbott screaming, begging him to stop. He didn’t. This was the best part, the man’s essence being dissolved into Gideon’s waiting self. It burned in such a good way, and Gideon stroked harder. The screams came louder in his head, and pleasure built to a climax and—
He’d finished by the time Abbott expired. The last bit of essence tore free and Gideon caught it, ingested it. It was a good climax, and little drops of Gideon’s jizz seared holes in the sheets.
Gideon took long, deep breaths, lying on his back like Abbott had, just savoring the sensation. It was good, this feeling. He basked in his own particular kind of afterglow, took another breath, and hoped for another death. Soon.
His hand reached back down to his crotch involuntarily. Really soon.
Chapter 2
“A man moves into the hills of Tennessee,” Hendricks said, looking around the table at the bar. He was up in the hills, coincidentally, at least ten miles out of Midian right now, and the guys sitting with him were hanging on his every word. The beer in his hand was cold but shitty. It had the smell of one of the generic nationwide brands, piss pre-bottled for ease of drinking. If it was up to him he’d just take it and pour it straight in the urinal to save himself the trouble, but it wouldn’t give him the buzz he was after if he didn’t drink it first. “He’s there for, like, a day, before someone comes driving up in an old, busted-up pickup truck. Out of it steps this long-haired, overall-wearing, country-bumpkin motherfucker, the most backwoods son of a bitch you’ve ever seen.”
Hendricks looked around at his audience while he was talking. There were three of them sitting with him, all guys, all dressed pretty damned natty—one in a suit and tie, another in a sweater vest. “The hillbilly comes up to the man and says, ‘I wanted to come over and welcome you to our little corner of the woods. I wanted to invite you to a party, too, seeing as you’re new around here. Give you a chance to meet some of the locals.’ And the hillbilly leans close to the guy and says, ‘But I gotta warn you, there’s gonna be some drinking at the party. You don’t have a problem with drinking, do you?’”
The guy directly across from Hendricks, the one wearing the sweater vest, kind of snorted. Hendricks smiled, took a long, sour pull from his beer and regretted it immediately. At least he could feel a faint buzz forming. He’d gone through half the beer just to get this far, though, and that was a disappointment. “So the new guy says, ‘No, I don’t have a problem with drinking,’ and the hillbilly says, ‘Good! There might be some cussing. You ain’t got a problem with cussing, do you?’ The new guy says, ‘I might have used a swear word or two in my life; nah, I don’t have a problem with cussing.’”
“Is this shit almost over?” The guy on the left asked, his beer sweating in his hand. He was wearing skinny jeans and a polo, collar up, to go with his thick-rimmed hipster glasses. Way too cool for this place, Hendricks figured. At least in that guy’s mind.
“Shut up, I haven’t heard this one before,” the guy on the right said, tossing a nasty glare at his friend across the table. He was a wearing a full suit and tie, but he at least had the top collar of his white shirt unbuttoned. Hendricks had to wonder if he was a stockbroker or something, the way he was dressed. He damned sure looked out of place.
“‘Well, there’s bound to be some fighting,’ the hillbilly tells the new guy,” Hendricks went on, ignoring his heckler, “‘so I hope you don’t have a problem with fighting.’ ‘I’ve been in a scrape or two, the new guy says, ‘so no, I don’t have a problem with fighting.’”
Hendricks smelled the smoke in the air, from the regulars over at the bar pumping it out of their cigarettes like miniature chimneys. “‘Well, this is my party, and there’s always some fucking at my parties. I hope you don’t have a problem with fucking.’” The new guy shrugs and says he doesn’t have a problem with that. ‘Well, good’, the hillbilly tells him, ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow night,’ and then the guy starts back to his truck to leave.”
“Heh,” Sweater Vest said, staring at Hendricks from across the table. Like he’d just let out a preemptive laugh, thinking it was going to be good. And it was, really. Hendricks had told this one before, and it was always a crowd pleaser. He glanced over at the bar, and saw it was having the opposite effect there—that crowd did not look pleased. There were a half-dozen angry faces over there just staring at him.
“So,” Hendricks went on, “the new guy calls out just as the hillbilly is getting to his truck: ‘Wait a minute! What kind of party is this? I mean, what should I wear?’ And the hillbilly just sort of stands there, truck door open, scratches his hairy chin for a minute like he’s thinking it over, and then he says, ‘Oh, I don’t reckon it matters. You and I are gonna be the only ones there.’”
A low guffaw from Sweater Vest spread quickly to a roaring laugh from Suit and Tie. Hipster Glasses on the left sort of winced, throwing a nervous glance at the regulars over at the bar. They were all staring sullenly at the table in the corner, clearly with a bone to pick.
“Gah, that’s probably so true,” Suit and Tie said, picking up his beer for another drink. He wore an easy grin, but his glance over at Sweater Vest told Hendricks that he was looking for approval from his leader. Hendricks made note of the little co-dependent relationship between him and Sweater Vest and wondered how long that had been going on. “It’s probably a true story.”
Hendricks shrugged, keeping an eye on the characters at the bar. If one of them didn’t start moving soon, he had another joke to tell, one that might get a little more provocative.
“Yeah,” Sweater Vest said, nodding his head. “We’ve been down here for … what? A week? Totally feels like that. Bunch of hillbilly fucks around here.” He was talking loud, the booze letting his jaw run away with itself. Hendricks just sat back and let it happen. “It’s all backwoods and backwater shit. Nothing to do—no theater, no culture, no decent restaurants.” He looked around. “And the beer—”
Hendricks inclined his head slightly. “Well, that one I suppose I can agree with.”
“It’s like 1859 down here,” Sweater Vest went on. “You lost the war, guys,” he said, voice carrying. Hendricks watched as one of the boys at the bar who had previously remained facing the bartender turned around at that, bringing his chair around in a slow orbit. “Bunch of racists, just sitting around spinning their monster truck tires and slinging dirt—”
The bartender started over at a slow pace. He was medium-height fellow, a ball cap on his head and a windbreaker that read ‘SM Lines’ on the breast. It was zipped high enough that it revealed only a corner of plaid flannel beneath. He strode over to the table and Sweater Vest shut up, turning to look up at the guy, who didn’t look altogether pleased.
“Yes?” Sweater Vest asked, staring up at him. None of the guys sitting with Hendricks looked like they weighed much over one-fifty. The bartender was a hell of a lot more solidly built than that.
“Sorry to interrupt you fellows,” the guy in the hat said, “but I couldn’t help but overhear you saying some mighty disparaging things about the folks around here.”
“Nah,” Sweater Vest, turning away to face Hendricks and the others at the table, “we were just talking about our experiences around here.” He snickered and the other two followed right along.
“Well, boys, I don’t think you’ve had those experiences around here,” the man in the hat said, “I think yo
u’ve seen Deliverance one too many times and it’s stuck in your brain for some reason.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I don’t like to speculate on people’s motives, and I definitely don’t judge, but maybe it’s because you’ve always had a yearning for a man to take you out into the woods and show you a firm hand.”
“What the fuck?” Sweater Vest said, standing up so quickly he turned over his chair.
“Like I said, I’m not judging, but maybe you ought to control your derisive attitude a little while you’re visiting our home,” the man in the hat said.
“Your home?” Sweater Vest said, the scorn dripping off of him. Hendricks lowered his head, hiding his expression under the brim of his hat. This was going to be easier than he’d thought. “Your home is a rainy, backwards shithole where the attitudes are crap, your people are broke, uneducated idiots, and the culture is all about skinning things.”
The man in the hat took it off, smoothed his thinning hair, and spoke again. “My name is Michael McInness and I’ve got a degree in French Medieval Literature from the University of Minnesota. I own this bar, and I only skin things during hunting season.” He placed the cap back on his head and straightened it. “As evidenced by the fact that I’m not skinning you right now.” He looked them all over. “These are people who have different interests than yours. Show some respect for them as fellow human beings. If you can’t keep a polite tongue in your head while you’re in my bar, I invite you to leave.” He tipped the bill of the hat to them. “Good day, boys.”
Sweater Vest just sat there sort of stunned, sputtering, not really sure what to say next. Hendricks watched, about ready to curse it. He needed a fight to break out, dammit, and polite, carefully thought out responses were not gonna do it.
Depths: Southern Watch #2 Page 1