Mrs. Holaday was upstairs with the girls, reading to them. Diesel had gladly accompanied the trio, especially as Lily had fed him a doggie treat after dinner. It was the first week of August, and the girls would have already been planning for school and maybe thinking about Halloween, unlike the current Halloween being carved out by a monster who had their scent burned in his memory.
“I want to take a walk and check on Sister,” Cricket said.
Fritz said, “I’ll let Tony know.”
Tony was in the backyard trying his hand at quiche for tomorrow’s breakfast using the Smokey Joe.
Tony said, “Sure, I’ll roam the yard, check on the girls. Your mom’s real fragile, but she’s got the front of the house. Wearing a pistol like everyone else.”
Fritz said, “We won’t be gone long. I’ll see her before I go.”
Friends and neighbors were still out talking to one another, cleaning up their houses and yards. Armed neighborhood patrols passed Cricket and Fritz several times. The National Guard was a wonderful sight on foot and in troop carriers from the Vietnam era, like the M35 Deuce and a Half, luckily in storage at Guard bases around the state.
At the hospital Sister Marie was dozing, arm in a sling. Cricket and Fritz quietly watched her, and soon she opened her eyes and smiled.
“I feel surrounded by angels. Especially this one,” Sister Marie said, turning to Lawrence in the next cot, just waking up.
Lawrence shyly accepted the raise in rank but looked troubled.
“What are you two doing here? That maniac is after the girls.”
“He’s after all of us, including you,” Fritz countered. “We have Tony and my mom back at the house. We’ll be home shortly.”
“He’s already there,” Lawrence said, and Cricket gasped. “Children are his specialty.”
Cricket and Fritz ran for the exit.
55
Serpent
They started down Fritz’s street running, breathing hard. Tonight the kerosene lamps and the candles looked primitive in peoples’ homes, unable to ward off evil the way electrical lighting, a kick-ass alarm system, and a pistol-grip pump-action shotgun could discourage your average psycho. There was nothing quaint about the loss of electricity or shortage of modern weaponry.
Fritz bounded up the steps and was met by Lee Ann, sporting a wide smile.
“I won Park Place!”
“That’s great,” Fritz answered. Cricket was at his side calling for Tony, leaning over the far end of the porch, straining to look around back. Diesel walked up to her and stabbed his snout into her leg. In the living room the board game was laid out on the floor.
“He’s been walking the perimeter,” Mrs. Holaday said, using a chair to help get off the floor. Lily lay on her stomach slowly kicking her legs, studying the Monopoly board for places to acquire.
“Mom, when was the last time you saw him?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes ago.” She drew close to her son. “Is there a problem?”
“We have to be vigilant. There are plenty of these Brazilian troops left, just roaming about looking for trouble.”
Cricket headed for the back door just as Tony came up the back steps.
“Oh, Tony, am I glad to see you,” she said.
“Me, too,” he said, as an arrow struck the middle of his back with the sound of an enormous hand cracking flesh. The razor-blade tip emerged from his chest gleaming with blood. The fanged red mouth of a serpent.
“Fritz!” Cricket screamed. Fritz came running and so did Mrs. Holaday.
“Mom, stay with the girls,” Fritz said. “Lock the front; stay on the floor!”
Diesel was barking and the girls were calling for Mrs. Holaday and Cricket.
Cricket was still holding Tony, and they both gently lowered him to the floor.
Tony’s eyes were open.
“An arrow?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Fritz answered.
“Weird.”
He calmly looked around the room and at points on the ceiling that seemed to amuse him. His broken lung rattled as he spoke.
“The quiche is on the counter. Diesel’s a good dog … you may want …”
“I’ll keep it covered, Tony,” Cricket said, her eyes full of tears.
“One more thing…” He was choking and Fritz moved him on his side, allowing the blood to flow freely from his mouth. “Tell Sister I’m not just an Old Testament guy anymore. She’ll know…”
Tony’s rattle quickly morphed into shaking and then stillness. They dragged him away from the door, and Cricket closed it with her foot. They both crawled to the living room, where Mrs. Holaday and the girls were in a huddle with Diesel alongside the couch.
“The monster’s here,” Lee Ann said.
“We’ll protect you,” Fritz said. “I promise.”
“Where’s Tony?” Lily asked, shaking against Fritz’s mom. “He’s making us quiche for breakfast.”
“He made a beautiful quiche,” Cricket said. “But he’s gone.”
“The monster—”
“Lily, the monster is a coward.”
“A sneaky person.”
“Yes, and we will survive. Tony died protecting you and your sister—all of us.”
“Can he help us from heaven?”
“You bet he can.”
Mrs. Holaday was crying without a sound, and Lily took a white hankie she got at the med center and wiped her cheeks.
Fritz said, “Mom, can you use that gun if you need to?”
“No one else is going to die. I’d like another if one’s available.”
“I’ll get it. Cricket, come with me. We’ll be right back. Everyone, please be quiet. You too, Diesel.”
Understanding the gravity of the situation, Diesel rested his head on the carpet, snuggled between the girls, a watchful eye on his charges.
In the dining room, Cricket said quietly, “I’m going after him.”
“Are you crazy?”
“He’s not expecting us to take the offensive this soon. And if he did, he’d expect you. And you’d make a lot of noise crawling around out there. A good hunter knows how to stalk, lie still for hours, and then move quickly. That’s me. And I’ve got great eyesight. I just know he’s not expecting me to come after him.”
“My God, Cricket, I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t. I’m going out the front door.”
Fritz said, “I’ll lean a bunch of pots and pans against the kitchen door; booby-trap windows easy to climb through.”
“If I need to come back in, any door, I’ll tap three times and wait, and then softly tap three times again until someone clears a path for me.”
“I love you, Cricket.”
“Yeah, love you with all my heart. I’ll let your mom and the girls know what’s going on. We don’t keep anything from those young ladies.”
She started to crawl away and then turned and whispered with passion, “For Tony.”
“And Grace.”
56
Hunting
Cricket instructed the women to blow out the candles and make themselves comfortable on the living room floor with Diesel. Lily was worried that Diesel would get hurt roaming the house. “He’ll be fine,” Cricket said. “Let him roam. If he goes to a window and stares very long or growls, get Fritz back in here. Mrs. Holaday, close the door behind me.”
Like a cat, Cricket stepped quietly and quickly across the dark front porch and down the steps. She paused in the grass and watched the street and neighbors’ yards and listened. Some bird was poking the night with its song. Something large scampered across the street near the Holadays’, maybe a raccoon or possum, she thought. The shiver down her back spoke to a bigger, nastier creature scaring the other varmints away.
The side of the property was marked by a white fence and bushes. With her right hand she pulled the Glock from its holster. It made crawling more difficult, but then she had to move slowly anyway, to stay invisible. And she did her best to sta
y invisible. All lessons from her dad.
“Thoughts can be heard by animals,” he once said. “Your passions can be felt by them. Any good hunter knows that.”
She knew that Anton had that sixth sense, an animal sense, a strong intuition that he gloried in. He, too, would hear her thoughts if they got too loud. He could smell her fear. And yet Cricket was counting on his arrogance being in full bloom tonight. She’d smell his arrogance, his passion for evil.
She got to the edge of the house and thought of the hiding places he’d take up in the backyard. Other than the large maple and several small fruit trees, the yard was open. The white fence also marked the back of the property, but Anton could very well be in the neighbor’s yard. The arrow that had killed Tony came from a crossbow: a compact weapon with devastating kill power and accuracy. He didn’t need to be close to kill Tony.
The backyard lightened with the overcast breaking up. She looked up to see the moon waning, nearly “half-eaten.” The white fence glowed.
The fence ended before the garage, and both the Holadays’ garage and the neighbor’s faced each other with about ten feet of space between the two structures.
An arrow traveled overhead and broke the window, and the thud said it had found its mark in the kitchen cupboard.
He’s toying with us.
She saw nothing stir in the yard, and had been watching the back of the garage for movement.
A bird flew low, across the driveway, robin size. Something scared it up and she saw movement to her left near a swing set in the next yard. Perhaps he was moving to attack the east side of the house. Cricket was crawling quickly to the dark area between the two garages past garbage cans and an old lawnmower when Anton scrambled toward the front of the house. As big as he was, he moved without a sound, a shadow on the prowl.
She was tempted to stand and run after him but stayed on the ground, gun at the ready. If she had a clean shot, she’d take it from this position and keep shooting as she jumped to her feet. No pause. She thought of the motion required and mentally rehearsed.
She also realized that the dark figure bounding quickly before her and disappearing was not only dressed in black but was wearing a ski mask.
Good, he’ll be sweating and itching and getting eaten up by mosquitos.
She ignored her own bites, which added up to several at the back of her neck and wrists.
The next arrow crashed through a side window. She heard Diesel barking. Again, she wanted to stand and run and resisted, and then she knew:
He was going to double back. Break the back door down.
Yeah, creep, you’re doubling back—gonna shoot not two minutes from now but thirty seconds and charge inside. Maybe sooner.
She finally stood up and braced herself against the garage. Gun now in both hands.
She waited. Nothing. Silence from the house. No voices. No barking.
A minute passed, several minutes. Sweat at the temples. The Glock felt heavy, and she remembered she hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. How could she protect the girls, fight for her husband and Mrs. Holaday, in such lousy condition? A chill shook her—he had created doubt. She was being stalked. She turned quickly to face the Holadays’ backyard and knocked over an old rake leaning against the garage, scratching the wood.
She felt cornered. Crawling around on her belly wasn’t an option. If she emerged from either side of the garage, she could be seen from multiple positions. She beseeched her father for an answer. He was silent.
She calmed herself and remembered the first savage she killed, the one directing the shooter. It had been risky. The shooter could have taken out any one of them, but the leader had to be finished off. It wasn’t luck—and neither was her charge into the night screaming to the high heavens. The first arrow zoomed past her head.
Good, he’s nervous.
She turned and fired several shots in the direction of the arrow. Another arrow came. Missed. And she finally saw him, ski mask off, struggling with the pull cord to pull the bowstring back, swatting at a mosquito, losing time. Both arms extended, she fired several more rounds and he screamed, took a step to run, and fell.
Fritz was outside the house and spotted both her and Anton on the other side of the fence. Finished with the crossbow, Anton pulled out his gun. They both fired and he screamed curses, his bullets hitting the garage behind Cricket. Closing in on the killer, she saw a bloody hand holding the gun at an angle. Shot through the wrist? Nothing was working very well. His legs were twisted at a horrible angle away from his torso, and he was trying to turn the gun toward his adversary, make his hand work.
Cricket squeezed off a shot with every step, striking an arm, a leg, and finally drilling his gut. He was still breathing when she and Fritz stood over him.
“He doesn’t have much time,” Fritz said.
“He has no time.” Anton’s eyes widened and the gun slipped from his hand. He made a desperate effort to open his clawed hands in surrender.
Cricket’s eyes locked on the mortally wounded man. “For what it’s worth, I don’t hate you.”
Before Fritz could stop her, she emptied the magazine into the center of Anton’s chest.
57
A Supreme Moment
Under a hot sun and cloudless sky, the P-51 Mustang sat alongside the grass airstrip, a short distance from the caravan of vehicles, which included Cricket and company’s escort: a tan Deuce and a Half cargo truck, tarp-covered, carrying a half-dozen National Guardsmen for the journey south to Fritz’s grandfather’s farm, outside of Marietta. Cricket and Fritz preflighted the Mustang, checking control surfaces, landing gear, brakes and hydraulic lines, and prepping the cockpit with charts, pencils, and bottled water.
The Barracuda had been found undamaged, parked in the rectory’s garage. Lawrence’s young boys, Ethan and Caleb, stood on opposite sides of the car like Round Table knights holding the seat forward, allowing Lee Ann and Lily to climb into the back of the convertible. Diesel followed and both girls immediately had their hands on him. Lawrence got behind the wheel, and Sister Marie with her good arm—her right arm still in a sling— struggled to close the door until Ethan came to her rescue. Her right hand was no longer bandaged, and the doctor was confident she’d regain full use and feeling in her hand and fingers.
The boys ran to join their mom, Ann Davies, a petite woman with short, swept-back blonde hair. She sat in the passenger seat of a Humvee, a guardsmen at the wheel.
Lawrence turned in his seat and yelled back to his wife, “You and the boys want to switch rides?”
Ann leaned out the open door. “Sorry, hon, your sons just told me that they’re not budging. They love the Humvee. And I want the AC. This is the warmest September ever.”
Lawrence said to the girls in the back seat. “If you ladies like, I think we’ll be able to keep the top down all the way to the farm. Just keep your ball caps on.” The girls cheered in unison.
It would be warmer near the Ohio River for winter, and the Holaday farm had a large underground spring, several above ground fuel tanks, and was well-supplied with canned goods and livestock. According to Fritz and his mom, it was quite beautiful, with a large meadow on the west side for the Mustang and a T-hangar to house the fighter. Cleveland Command had acknowledged Fritz and his wife’s success in the northeast and requested they start patrolling along the river with jet backup from Wright-Patterson if needed. Ann and Lawrence, anxious to remove their family from the mayhem in and around Cleveland, also needed to check-in on Ann’s parents, who lived outside Parkersburg, an hour from the Holaday farm. She had not had any contact with them since the EMP attack.
During the weeks following their rescue, Sister had learned from Fritz’s communication with Cleveland Command that Sister Teresa was alive and well and working out of a hospital on the west side. The other Sisters were scattered throughout the state, working in hospitals and makeshift schools. The motherhouse had been overrun by a local gang shortly after the attack, and its status
remained uncertain. Sister Teresa had asked that each sister find her niche and keep doing God’s work until it was safe to reunite.
Father Danko had returned to Saint Andrew’s, and the drug-addled young people who had camped outside his church were being treated in clinics rushed into existence. Parents took it upon themselves to exercise their authority with everything from a swift kick in the ass to chores and counseling and a warning that they’d end up in jail if they broke the law a single time. Some lost souls found their way to Father’s Monday-evening Bible studies and began building their damaged spirits.
After burying her husband, Judy Holaday was reluctant to leave home, and had invited another widow to live with her. Fritz respected his mom’s decision but still had food and safety concerns for the long winter months ahead. Most of the eastern suburbs to Youngstown were secure for the time being, and the citizens of Little Falls would continue to patrol until the police force could be rebuilt. Natural gas still flowed, and there was the promise that electricity would soon return. Days after the town of Little Falls was rescued, Fritz had led the ceremony for Major Louis, Dennis Hatch, and the mechanics who had lost their lives. Cricket performed the flyover in the P-51 Mustang.
Neither Tony nor Ron had had a child in this life but now had Grace in the next. All three were together at Saint Andrew’s cemetery on the north side of town. Through a county record search Cricket had discovered Tony’s last name—Santoro—and his birthdate for the headstone; Ron’s as well. Sister Marie had sung and played the guitar, and the full force of all the losses had punched a hole in Cricket that would take a long time to heal, if ever. Near the end of the ceremony, Diesel had jumped from the Barracuda and circled the three gravesites in a playful way. He ran and barked and jumped like the trio were throwing him the Frisbee. Cricket felt Diesel had penetrated some invisible veil, saw the other side. More importantly, the spectacle had made Lily and Lee Ann laugh with joy after the tearful burial of their parents only days earlier.
Pulse of the Goddess: American Blackout Book One Page 29