Mangrove Lightning

by Randy Wayne White

  The furnace was almost hot enough now.

  He crossed the room to a bellows suspended next to the forge. The bellows was huge, the size of his chest. The leather had cracked, but the brass seals were good. He pumped it several times. Shielded within a brick chamber, flames responded with a roar. Even he needed gloves to bang open the steel hatch. Inside was an inferno so pure, it reflected light like a mirror. Mr. Bird, looking in at his reflected nakedness and tattoos, smoothed an eyebrow, and thought, The girl will never try to escape again.

  On a table lay Walter’s branding iron. One of his slaves, a Chinese artisan, had forged it and presented it to him as a gift. As thanks, Walter had embossed the man’s eyes, blinding him with a chop of his own creation.

  Chop was a Chinese term for a symbol that represented not just a name but one’s being. Lovely, that strange design. A dancing letter T with plumage and a beak. Perfect for this young female. She wore a perfect canvas that had already been adorned with tattoos.

  The branding iron went into the flames. It would be ready soon.

  Mr. Bird was ready now.

  Outside the door, iron steps spiraled up to the next floor, where Walter’s daughter lived. Or sister . . . or both. Hand on the railing, he bellowed, “Ivy, you lazy toad, it’s feeding time. Bring her to me. No chains. Just the mask. She’ll need her hands or I’ll kill her for screaming. You know how I hate screaming.”

  The young ones could shatter glass.

  Nothing like the baritone wail that was Ivy’s reply after a commotion that caused him to charge up the stairs.

  “Don’t beat me, don’t beat me—it ain’t my fault,” she pleaded.

  Gracie Barlow had escaped again.

  —

  Half the building’s third floor was open to the ground to accommodate steam engine cupolas two stories tall. The only light filtered up with heat from the furnace.

  From the first whiff of smoke, Gracie had known she’d be killed if they caught her. Or worse. On his last visit, Mr. Bird had taunted her with horrendous threats.

  She’d moved quietly, desperate to find a way out, while the crazy woman’s voice raged through the building. Rage transitioned into a series of cries and then a shriek. And then an abrupt silence caused the girl to freeze. Heavy footsteps filled the void. Someone was searching for her. THUNK-THUNK-THUNK. Each step louder as the person drew nearer to her hiding spot.

  Gracie panicked. Wooden supports crisscrossed the plank floor. Boxes of junk and railroad signage materialized from shadows. Her knee snagged something. She fell beneath a clattering noise. Near her face, bold letters warned DANGEROUS CROSSING.

  The footsteps stopped. They backtracked and stopped again near the stairs to her hiding spot on the third floor. The wooden steps were narrow. They creaked under the stress of an ascending weight. Soon, light from below projected a silhouette onto the landing. Only Mr. Bird’s head was that wide.

  God help me, please help me . . . She repeated the words as she crawled toward an open area. When she reached it, she understood. There were no cross braces here because the floor ended in a space wide and high enough to house a train engine.

  She got to her feet and looked down. Three stories below, a grate glowed with orange embers—a forge of some type. Nearby, steel tracks pierced the sliding doors. There was also what appeared to be a film projector. Strange, the milky light it cast. Above her, suspended from the roof, a tangle of rope was draped among pulleys. The girl’s eyes traced the rope’s course over a rafter, through more pulleys, then . . . my god, straight down to a platform next to where she stood.

  A service elevator, she realized.

  Behind her, on the landing, a massive silhouette slid into the gloom and became a hulking shadow. The shadow floated toward her.

  Gracie screamed, “I’ve got a knife, stay away,” as she stepped over and grabbed the rope. The rope was thick, as dry as straw. She gave a yank. Overhead, pulleys banged but the platform didn’t budge. She tried a different angle, then swung her full weight on the elevator’s rope. As she struggled, the familiar clatter of railroad signage created a buzzing in her ears. Mr. Bird was only a few yards away.

  God help me, please help me. She dropped to her knees and began a frenzied search. The elevator had to have a brake or a latch. There was—a pair of L-shaped bars with handles. She pulled one, then the other, too terrified to realize she had failed to control the rope. The floor gave way, yet fell only a few feet before a knot snagged. The platform slammed to a stop.

  Gracie, unsure what had happened, looked up. Mr. Bird grinned down at her, something in his hand. It was a metal rod. The tip of the rod was capped with leather. Wearing gloves, he removed the cover. Sparks rained from the metal tip, which was molten orange and flat like a branding iron.

  “When I’m done with you,” he said, “Ivy goes into the furnace. One of you needs to appreciate why you’re here.”

  He squatted and looked her up and down. “Move your hands—I’ve seen your tits before. Damn you, get your hands out of the way so I can use this. Okay, don’t . . . Then how about the eyes?”

  The branding iron lanced toward her. Gracie rolled away and screamed amid smoke and the stink of her own seared flesh. A coil of rope was the only escape available. She found it and jumped from the platform when he tried to brand her again. After her short free fall, the rope snapped taut and she fell. Landed hard but felt okay, except for a massive throbbing blister on her shoulder that wasn’t okay. The skin was peeling off—a serious burn. I need a doctor, she thought while Mr. Bird yelled, “Ivy! In the foundry room. She’s in the foundry room. Grab her . . . hold the biddy until I get there.”

  The train-sized double doors were nearby but looked unmovable. Gracie ran toward what she remembered as a hallway to the living area. No . . . first there was the kitchen, where pots hung above a woodstove. A second hall branched left and right. She went left, following the sound of wind chimes into a high-ceilinged room that stunk of rats and musty furniture. A lamp on the table showed a few windows, and a front and back door.

  She tried the main entrance first. It was locked—an old-fashioned lock that, coming or going, required a key. She sprinted past a staircase to the back door. Same kind of lock.

  Gracie, who was in shock, began to panic again. It got worse when she heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs.

  She lurched toward a window. That was her escape. She’d break the glass and climb into darkness, where the air was fresh. Beside a couch was a heavy ashtray stand that cradled a strange-looking pipe. She grabbed the ashtray and threw the curtains aside.

  The window was barred.

  Oh my god . . .

  There was another window, but not enough time to try it. On the landing, the hem of a baggy dress had descended into view. A meaty hand with a butcher’s knife appeared next. Gracie hurled the ashtray at the stairs and retraced her steps to the hall.

  The crazy woman screamed, “You got me in trouble, damn little paint slut! There ain’t no escape. Think I’d still be here if there was?”

  A coughing fit of laughter followed the girl through the halls. The woman’s labored footsteps followed, too.

  “Found her, Bird Man! She’s headed toward the foundry. Hey . . . where are you?”

  The man’s response echoed through the building: “Waiting for her.”

  Gracie began to weep as she ran. Ahead, the double doors didn’t offer much hope. Or maybe they did. A huge iron hasp held the doors shut, not a lock. She could barely reach the damn thing. On tiptoes, she used both hands to rip the hasp free. She fell, got up, and put her shoulder to the door.

  Wheel tracks screeched. The door moved a few inches while the woman’s rancid odor invaded the room.

  Again and again, she pushed. Soon a space as wide as her arm revealed darkness and stars outside. Never had darkness felt so delicious, yet escape was
impossible. Gracie confirmed it with a glance. The crazy woman was only a few strides away, coming at her, the butcher’s knife raised.

  “I warned you, by god, I did. You asked for it.”

  Sobbing, the girl flattened herself against the door . . . and then thought she was dreaming when the door glided open. She stumbled backwards and fell into the arms of a man. A large man with wire glasses. He held her close and pointed something—a gun—at the woman, saying, “I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

  The woman turned and ran with the clumsiness of a bear wearing boots. She disappearing into the hall. The man wanted to go after her, Gracie could tell. But he didn’t. She babbled an incoherent, “Thank god. Who . . . who are you?”

  No response, but the man asked her name and other simple questions. A flashlight replaced the gun when he checked her eyes. She felt numb, and wondered, Is this really happening? Light skipped over her nakedness and focused on flaps of skin hanging from her left arm. “Did she do this to you?” he asked.

  The girl shook her head, and whispered, “Uh-uh. It was him.”

  “A man? He’s still inside the building?”

  She nodded.

  Wire glasses sparked as he lifted her off the ground, saying, “You’ll be okay, but you need a doctor. Tomlinson? Tomlinson! Get your butt over here.”

  From the darkness, a second man hollered, “Someone just ran toward the lake. I thought it was you.”

  They hollered back and forth about that. Soon a skinny, long-haired man was attending to her while the one with glasses took off, carrying a bag over his shoulder but without the gun.

  He’d given it to his friend, saying, “If the woman comes back, shoot a round near her feet.”

  11

  Ford crashed his way to the pond, then circled back quietly. The limestone wall provided a view of the machine shop and a couple of sheds. To his left, cypress trees marked the water’s edge a football field away.

  He sat and waited, knife in hand. When he was convinced he hadn’t been followed, he holstered the knife and opened the shoulder bag. Inside was a thermal scope hybrid with amplified night vision. It was flashlight-sized, with a simple switch, and a lens at both ends.

  Ford put it to his eye and focused while scanning the building. Darkness was transformed into high noon through a green lens. This was standard for military night vision. When he activated the thermal sensor, the landscape changed. Heat became a signal flag. It registered as shades that varied from scarlet to pale yellow. The hotter an object, the brighter the color.

  Atop the machine shop, only one of three chimneys throbbed a lucent red. Saffron borders around the windows showed where heat escaped. In the distance, Tomlinson paced, still conversing with the 911 operator. His ruby cheeks suggested that he was pissed about something—probably because they had yet to hear sirens. The area inside, where a furnace blazed, was shaded orange. Trees, grass, and other plants registered as passive blue.

  Superb quality. The technology was new, pioneered by Nivisys, a tactical optics specialist in El Paso.

  Shadow Track, the device was nicknamed, for that was its function.

  Ford stood to view the area near the pond. Specks of cinnamon revealed roosting birds. He swung around and found the sheds. Nothing inside. A man’s heat signature would have registered through wood.

  It’s what he expected, because he’d done a thermal search of the area on his way to the pond.

  So where the hell had the crazy old woman, or whoever it was, gone? Tomlinson had seen someone. It wasn’t a matter of trust. The biologist knew it was true. Using the thermal unit, he’d followed the person’s footprints until a heavy dew had leeched them of heat. That was near the limestone wall.

  Ford backtracked to the wall, seeing his own recent prints as swatches of yellow. He was searching the other side when sirens told him that EMTs and police would soon be here.

  He was relieved. He was a biologist, not a cop. This was police work. But then the girl, Gracie, the look on her face, came into his mind, and what had been done to her. The monster he was tracking had melted the flesh off her arm with a branding iron. Wouldn’t it be nice to catch the monster before there was a need for Miranda rights?

  Five minutes, Ford decided, maybe a little more, were still his. He knew how to use the time. On the way to the pond, he hadn’t searched the sheds because footprints hadn’t led him there. That’s where he was headed, toward the closest shed, when he realized it was sided with iron sheeting, not wood as he’d assumed.

  Dumbass. Thermal imaging couldn’t pierce metal. He stopped and used the scope to do a more careful search around the door seals. The first shed, nothing. But on the second and largest shed, he noticed a sliver of orange heat leaking from beneath the door.

  Someone was inside.

  Ford put the monocular away and crept to the corner of the shed. After listening for a few seconds, he used the knife to tap lightly. “It’s safe now,” he whispered, and waited for the door to crack wide enough for a peek. When it did he lunged inside, buried his fingers in the throat of a man he wrestled outside and slammed him to the ground.

  “Make a sound, I’ll kill you,” he said. Ford’s glasses had been knocked crooked, but he could see that he was choking a very large man who was naked, tattoos all over his body. “Hear those sirens? Wouldn’t you rather talk to me than a cop?”

  The man, bug-eyed, shook his head, meaning he preferred the police.

  This made no sense until Ford saw that his hands and ankles were tied, and a patch of tape covered his mouth. The biologist relaxed his grip, but only until he noticed the sloppy knots, and how loosely the rope was wrapped. And only a piece of duct tape as a gag?

  “You’re a piss-poor actor,” he said. “If you were kidnapped, the shed would’ve been locked, and the knots will tell them the rest.” He meant the police, not the ambulance that had just pulled in, red lights popping.

  The man grunted denials while Ford produced a bandana and a roll of tape. “Let me show you how it’s supposed to be done,” he said.

  —

  Tomlinson told the medic, who was an intern, “I’m kind of worried about my pal. He’s a scientist, for god’s sake—no match for the sort of twisted monster who almost killed Gracie. He ran off after the bastard, and there’s no telling what might’ve happened if they met up. Mind if I have a look around?”

  “Not until the deputies get here,” she said. “A detective, whoever’s in charge, they have to okay it because it’s a prospective crime scene. Those are the rules.”

  When disappointed, Tomlinson had the endearing habit of praising those who disappointed him. “Integrity, good for you. One day, I bet you run the whole shebang. Rules are meant to be followed or we’re talking total world chaos.”

  “Why, thanks. I appreciate your attitude.”

  “Fair’s fair. I just hope my friend’s not out there stumbling around lost, bleeding, maybe—he’s the clumsy type—or trapped inside the house. He’s blind as a mole without his glasses.”

  “How do you know he lost them?”

  “It has to do with a theory regarding random phenomena—unless a four-eyed klutz is involved. They might’ve broken if he caught up with that nutcase. Or, quite possibly, he injured himself by running into a tree. You know how you can’t stop worrying about certain people? My friend’s the bookish type.”

  The medic snuck a look at Tomlinson, noting his outrageous hair and the kindest eyes she’d ever seen. “Give me a minute. I’ll see what my lieutenant says.” She started away but paused. “You gave us your only gun, right?”

  “As requested. But you’re more than welcome to search me.” He threw his arms out to guarantee submission.

  The intern chuckled, and walked toward the ambulance, where two paramedics tended to Gracie, who was coherent but in shock. She lay beneath a blanket on a gurney, an
IV bag attached. The last thing she had said to Tomlinson was, “Can you get in touch with my mom somehow? I want to go home.”

  The first thing the girl had said while watching Ford jog away was, “Please don’t let him do it. Mr. Bird killed my boyfriend and he’ll kill him, too.”

  Mr. Bird.

  Chinese slaves had called Walter Lambeth the Bird Man. The linkage produced a chill, which was silly. Lambeth had died three decades ago. If he hadn’t, the bastard would be more than a hundred and ten years old. Tomlinson’s faith in the paranormal had few boundaries, but what Gracie’s captor had done to her ruled out a vicious old centurion. The burn he’d inflicted was an indecipherable mass of blisters. Other wounds, older wounds, were not.

  The young paramedic returned, pretended to focus on her phone, then spoke: “You can’t use the bathroom inside, but we can’t stop you from using the bushes.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what I told them. Just be back before the deputies get here. Both of you. They’ll want statements.”

  Sirens suggested this would happen soon.

  “Oddly enough, I do need to whiz. Very perceptive. If you’re married, your husband’s a lucky man.”

  “He was until I caught him screwing around,” she replied, then offered a tolerant smile. “Get going. Don’t make me look like a fool, okay?”

  Woman in uniform. This was an unplumbed demographic that, for decades, had been vetoed by Tomlinson’s personal bias. He might’ve felt remorse had he not been so damn jumpy. He hurried to the back side of the property, where there were shadows, and replayed what had happened before they’d encountered Gracie. He and the biologist had come over the wall and split up, Doc saying, “Watch the front entrance. I’ll see what’s going on inside.”

  Stay out of the man’s way, in other words. Then, after a series of faint screams, Tomlinson had sprinted around to find the biologist holding the girl. That’s when he’d seen a hulking figure exit the building and chug off toward the woods. Possibly, the pond. He couldn’t be certain. Nor was he sure who it was. Ivy Lambeth was big enough, but how many old women her size and age could run like a bear?