Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection

by Gordon Kessler

  “Damn!” He slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right as far as he could with his free but slick right hand.

  Hill was thrown forward, and he felt a sharp pain on the end of his middle finger as he pulled his hand back to gain control of the steering wheel. The Jimmy swerved and started down into the ditch as the big cement truck raced by. He pulled it back onto the road, and it bounced and slid to a stop sideways to the roadway, gravel flying.

  Parker sat staring out blankly. Hill did the same momentarily but broke the silence with a giggle.

  “Damn, Tone, was it good for you?”

  “Please, don’t ever do that again while I’m driving.”

  “Hmmm, maybe later then—at my apartment?”

  “Sarah, you know what I mean.”

  “Uh-huh, and you know what I mean.”

  It took a moment for Parker to regain his composure and resume driving. Within a couple of minutes, they could see the small grain elevator that was the landmark for Sand Creek.

  “All right,” he said, “you get the net, and I’ll get the gunny sack. If I can, I’ll try to put the little critter in the sack first thing and avoid getting us sprayed too much.”

  “Okay, Tone. You don’t want me to bring the rifle, just in case?”

  “No, I doubt if we’ll need it.”

  “Are you like afraid of guns or something? I mean, you keep one in the truck—I’m guessing because it’s mandatory—but I never see you get it out, no matter what’s going on. Like last week on that cougar call. I’ve never seen you even look at a gun.”

  Parker was slow to answer. “I had a bad experience once. Vietnam. I shot someone.”

  “You mean the enemy?”

  “That’s what they told us.”

  “That was war, Tony. From what I heard, there was a lot of shooting going on.”

  “War? They told us it was a police action.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  Parker gazed out the windshield. “Yeah.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “Over here, over here!” An excited man in overalls did jumping jacks sideways around the corner of the white, two-story farmhouse. His left cheek bulged, full of chewing tobacco. His bare, meaty shoulders and back were bronzed from the sun, and they shone with perspiration.

  “Oh, relax Eldon, that varmint ain’t goin’ nowhere,” a tall, big boned woman in blue jeans and a crisp, white short-sleeved blouse said, waving him down. “You always get so darned excited.” She turned to Parker and Hill as they parked. “We’re the Bumfields—the ones that called. That’s Eldon,” she said nodding to the animated man. “I’m Pearl.”

  Parker jogged around to the back of the truck, grinned at Pearl Bumfield and yanked open the back window and tailgate. “Tony Parker, ma’am. That’s Sarah Hill.” He pulled out the five-foot-long aluminum-handled net and tossed it to Hill.

  “Don’t get too close, Mr. Bumfield,” Parker said, trotting over to the man. He carried a gunnysack in his left hand and wore a thick, padded-leather glove on the other. Hill followed two steps back, holding the net with both hands.

  “He’s in the garage,” Bumfield said, hanging onto his straw hat with a green visor built into the brim. “I trapped him in there when he came at me. Scared the hell out of me. He’s the biggest, meanest one I ever seen!”

  “You folks stay back,” Parker said, approaching the weathered-gray, single-car garage. His blue, short-sleeved uniform shirt showed evidence of the already sizzling morning temperature by the large dark spots under each arm. His brown leather cowboy boots kicked up a gray dust as he hustled up the dirt driveway, and the gusty wind blew the dust cloud away as soon as it rose.

  Parker stepped to the double, side-hinged doors, taking care not to make any noise that might alert the animal. Hill stayed just behind and to his side, watching close for signals. The old wood frame creaked in the gusty north wind that had already forced it to lean precariously after decades of resisting its constant attack. Parker tried to peek into the unlit garage through the crack between the doors but could see nothing. He turned his head to the side and tried to hear the thing he stalked, but still there was nothing.

  Parker fumbled with the large bolt fit tightly into the rusty hasp on the doors. His gloved right hand made it doubly difficult, but the bolt finally pulled free, rasping loudly against the steel latch. He let it drop to the ground and slowly pulled the left door open by the hasp.

  The cool air was welcome on his face as he looked over the dark room. A greasy, dusty smell filled the dilapidated shack. Then a different scent hit him, a rank odor invading his nostrils, pungent and strong. Parker held his breath and gulped.

  The garage was small and had an earth floor. Buckets full of rusted metal pieces cluttered the ground. Broken shelves hung along the walls, laden with fruit jars filled with nuts and bolts and other miscellaneous parts. A half-assembled, antique tractor engine sat in the far corner.

  “Are you sure he didn’t get away?” Parker asked, with some disappointment.

  “Naw, he’s in there,” Bumfield answered and then spat out some of the brown juice.

  “Grak-ak-ak-ak!” came a strange snarl from behind the tractor engine, and suddenly, a gym-bag-sized blur of black and white torpedoed toward the doorway.

  Hill stepped up and swatted the net down on the angry creature, catching it ineffectively by its hindquarters. She attempted to pin it, but it slipped loose and darted to Parker.

  He reached down with his leather glove and snatched it up before it had a chance to do harm. The skunk struggled frantically, clawing and biting at the glove, drooling saliva as he held it by its neck.

  “It’s okay, I got him,” Parker called out, holding the skunk up high with the gunnysack underneath.

  “Get him in the bag!” Hill said, dropping the net and grabbing the gunnysack with both hands.

  Loud, vicious barking erupted, and a large yellow and gray dog appeared from nowhere and jumped at the skunk.

  Parker stepped back, startled. His grip loosened, and the skunk took advantage of the opportunity. It struggled free and dropped to Parker’s side then scampered like a squirrel up his chest to the side of his throat. Its sharp, omnivorous teeth punctured deep into the base of his neck just under his collar, and it shook its head savagely, setting a firm grip.

  “Jeez-huss!” Parker cried out.

  “Dawg, get back!” Bumfield yelled, running at the dog with a garden rake raised above his head. “Damn fool dog, get out of here!”

  Parker pulled the skunk loose, its teeth tearing away from deep into his flesh, leaving a half-inch hole. Blood immediately leaked from his neck and under his shirt, seeping through the fabric. He dropped the furious beast into the sack, and Hill hurried to tie it shut as Parker applied pressure to the wound with his gloved hand.

  “Oh, for goodness sake! Are you all right?” Mrs. Bumfield cried, running to Parker.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” he said, still wincing.

  “Damn Dawg! Sometimes, I just think we oughta get rid of him,” she said. “Come on in the house, and we’ll get that cleaned up.” Then, insistently, she said, “Come on, now.”

  “All right, sure,” Tony said and began to follow the woman, who was scurrying in front of him. Eldon Bumfield threw his rake down, missing the big dog by a couple of feet. He kicked at the air in front of the animal’s snout. Dawg briefly romped as if in play and then trotted around the corner of the house as Bumfield took Parker by the arm to assist him.

  Sarah Hill sprinted across the yard and yelled back, “I’ll put this little bastard in the truck and be right in, Tony.”

  Oh, great, Parker thought. Now there’ll be an ER visit and lots of paperwork.

  *-*-*

  Tony Parker sat in an overstuffed, forest-green corduroy chair in the Bumfields’ living room with a wet washcloth pressed against his neck. He leaned over a wash pan half full of pink water on the coffee table in front of him. Sarah Hill stooped at his right sid
e with her hands on her knees and concern in her face.

  Parker looked around the room. It reminded him of his long deceased grandmother’s house from when he used to visit her as a young boy. Garage-sale-type items, cookie jars, colored glass and pottery pieces filled the lamp stands and shelves along the walls. Newspapers and magazines cluttered the corners in loose stacks. A tapestry depicting a bunch of dogs playing poker hung crooked on the far wall. One dog was passing an ace to another under the table with his toes.

  Mrs. Bumfield reached over and gently pulled the washcloth and Parker’s hand away from the wound.

  “I think it’s quit bleeding enough to put the bandage on now,” she said. “You’d better go straight to the emergency room. Just send us the bill.”

  “Oh, it’s all right. Don’t worry about it,” Parker assured her.

  “Don’t worry about it?” Mr. Bumfield blurted. “Son, that critter was mad as a hatter.”

  “No, I’m okay. The state requires all the animal control officers to be vaccinated for just about everything. But you need to be careful. Keep a good eye out for any animals acting strange—that’s including your dog. If the skunk was diseased, it could have infected others.”

  As Mrs. Bumfield applied a gauze patch with white tape to Parker’s neck, a girl about four years old peeked around the doorway. She clutched a small, homemade Raggedy Ann-type doll. The little girl’s large dark eyes gazed up from her bowed face. Stubby pigtails made from dark brown hair stuck out high on her head, and she wore a brick-red dress noticeably similar to that of the doll’s. Her wide smile stretched her lips thin and caused deep dimples on her chubby, freckled cheeks as she twisted her body back and forth nervously.

  “Well, hi there, cutie,” Tony Parker said, smiling back.

  “Tony, this is our granddaughter, Tricia,” Mr. Bumfield said. “She’s staying with us until her mama gets settled in with a new job out in Denver. Her mama’s just divorced—you know how it is. But—ain’t she a doll?”

  Tricia leaned back against her grandfather and took forced, choppy steps as he coaxed her closer.

  “Hi, Tricia. I’m Tony.”

  Her thin-lipped smile stayed as she squeaked, “Did the skunk bite you?”

  Parker grinned. “Just a little scratch, sweetheart.”

  Hill chuckled. “I think you’ve got yourself a girlfriend, Tone.”

  “You’ve got a pretty doll, Tricia,” Parker said.

  Tricia raised the doll up under her chin. “Grammy made it for me. Her name’s Raggedy A-yun.”

  Mrs. Bumfield smoothed down a last strip of white tape. She finished up the dressing by kissing her hand and patting it lightly on the bandage. “There, good as new, Tony.”

  Parker took one of the doll’s small hands and shook it. “Glad to meet you, Raggedy Ann. And it’s been a real privilege meeting you, Tricia.” He gently brushed her pretty little cheek with the back of his index finger and then looked up at her grandmother. “Thanks, Mrs. Bumfield. You’re good folks.”

  He stood and pulled a business card from his pocket. He placed it next to the phone on a small table.

  “Be sure to call me if you need anything. My home number’s written on the card below the office number.”

  The Bumfields accompanied Parker and Hill out the door and down the porch steps.

  “Oh no, not again,” Mrs. Bumfield said, as they walked to the truck.

  Parker and Hill turned and Parker feared the worst.

  “Can I ask you to help with one more thing, Tony?” she said, looking up into a large elm tree in the front yard.

  “Sure, if I can,” Parker said, stepping back, trying to trace her sight.

  “Little Pussy’s stuck up in the tree—poor little thing. Dawg probably scared her up there again. This time, she’s way high.”

  Parker looked up to a branch more than twenty feet above. He saw the little gray kitten looking down at them with big, round eyes.

  It pleaded, mewing softly.

  Mrs. Bumfield stood looking into the elm with her hands on her hips. “I can’t climb trees none too good, and Eldon, he’s too darned fat.”

  Mr. Bumfield chuckled. “Hey, watch it there, woman.”

  “Shush, Eldon. This is serious. Tricia’s grown real attached to that kitten.”

  “No problem, Mrs. Bumfield. I’ll get her.”

  Parker hadn’t climbed a tree in years but managed without incident. As they left Sand Creek, a report came in of a buck dear trapped in an east Wichita backyard. They responded, and it took more than two hours to deal with the animal, sedate it and haul it back out to the county to be released. The rest of the day was a jumble of paperwork, stray cats and the rescue of a squirrel that had fallen down a sewer vent pipe and then climbed out of a newlywed couple’s toilet. There seemed no time to visit the emergency room about a simple little bite. Besides, he was confident in his inoculation, and he’d hardly noticed the injury since the morning.

  Completely exhausted, Parker got ready for bed early that night with something Sarah Hill had asked on his mind. “Have you had your serum level checked lately?” she’d asked during the drive back to town. He had, three months ago. It was good. Rabies antibody count had been high, as it was supposed to be.

  Parker looked over to Julie as he walked into the bedroom from the bath. She lay in the king-sized waterbed, studying a Good Housekeeping magazine. She’d probably found a new dessert recipe she would try out soon, or maybe she was reading some clever gardening tips. God, she’s a great wife. He sighed and nodded in affirmation of his thoughts. Julie glanced to him with a grin, but soon a look of concern came over her face.

  She asked, “How’s the bite, sweetheart?”

  “Except for the bandage,” he said, touching the wound lightly, “I wouldn’t even know it was there.”

  “The ER doctor didn’t think you’d have any problems—didn’t give you a prescription?”

  Parker lied. “Nope. Said it’d be as good as new in a couple of days.” Julie worried way too much. He wouldn’t tell her he hadn’t gone to the emergency room. Why have her bothered by such a little thing, now?

  “You go to Via Christi? Who was the doctor? Maybe I know him.”

  “Uh, new guy,” he said. “Some kid, really. But he seemed sharp. I can’t even remember his name.”

  “Hmm,” Julie said.

  Parker couldn’t tell if she was acknowledging what he’d said or she was skeptical. She went back to her magazine.

  Parker went to a roll-top desk opposite the bed. He shuffled through various manila folders in the file drawer, pulled out a jacketed, typed report and rolled into bed beside her.

  Rabies in Humans was typed on the cover. He opened the old thesis he’d written in his veterinary school days and began leafing through.

  One sentence stuck out: Only around forty percent of those bitten by rabid animals actually develop rabies when left untreated, if they were not previously inoculated. Sure, there was a risk, but he’d had the pre-exposure vaccine, even though it was thought to be only eighty percent effective. Figuring it in his head, he came up with the probability: he had an eight in one hundred chance of getting rabies even if the animal was rabid. It was so slim, minute, extremely unlikely. Those were like lottery odds. He’d never won the lottery. He wouldn’t get rabies.

  Parker read on silently.

  Rabies in humans is considered one hundred percent fatal, since once symptoms appear, there is no known cure and death is inevitable. Even treatment administered after exposure and before the onset of symptoms is not completely reliable and neither is pre-exposure inoculation. However, there has been one known survivor in hundreds of thousands of confirmed cases. A twelve-year-old boy in Indiana, bitten on the hand by a rabid bat, survived after months of intensive hospital treatment.

  Transmission of the virus to humans may occur from any warm-blooded animal, including birds, cattle, and horses, but especially from raccoons, skunks, wolves, coyotes, bats, wildcats, domes
tic cats, dogs and even other humans. The virus may enter the body from any open wound or scratch or mucous membrane, from the bite or even the lick of an infected animal. In one instance, the virus was transmitted to a couple of spelunkers in aerosol fashion from bat urine in a cave.

  Human rabies symptoms usually appear within five to fifteen days. However, in unconfirmed cases, the onset of symptoms has been reported to have occurred in as much as a year after infection or in as little as four days. In a few rare and questionable cases, the onset of symptoms was claimed to have occurred within twenty-four hours. It is thought the amount of infection and the proximity of the bite to the brain of the patient are the biggest factors determining the length of time before symptoms occur.

  Parker frowned, thinking of his neck wound.

  Symptoms generally occur in three stages, but they are not always clearly defined. Initially, there may be fever and swelling around the wound. Soon after, there may be times of body fever, headaches, and nausea. A loud and irritating ringing of the ears may occur. The patient may attack others and tear clothing in fits of anger. The male patient sometimes experiences a painful erection. All human patients seem to have a fear of water, or hydrophobia, and experience excruciatingly painful convulsions of the throat at the sight or even the thought of it (unlike popular belief, this symptom is rare in canines). The tongue might swell, and the body’s joints are likely to become extremely stiff and achy. Paralysis is followed shortly by death in the final stage.

  Julie set her magazine on the nightstand on her side of the bed, switched off the light and rolled over to Parker. She snuggled her head on his shoulder. Her hair was soft and smelled fresh and clean. Her hand moved slowly and gently from his stomach to just underneath the waistband of the boxer shorts he wore like pajamas. “How about putting that down and holding me instead?”

  Parker smiled, dropped the thesis to the floor and turned off his light. After much tenderness and considerate love making, they fell asleep.

  *-*-*

  The dark figure crouched close to the five-foot chain-link fence that surrounded the Parkers’ backyard. He looked up at the unlit, second-story master bedroom window with his right eye, a black patch covering his left. Deep, jagged scars disfigured that side of the small Oriental man’s face. He was dressed all in black.