He carefully slowed the car and then gently accelerated around a curve.
There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t thank his lucky stars for his job as County Sheriff. And, he was still amazed at the fantastic streak of coincidences that had given him his wife, his job and his happiness.
After his release from the Veteran’s hospital, he’d accepted an honorable discharge and headed down to Florida, where a friend had guaranteed him a job on one of his fishing charter boats.
Arriving in Gulf Breeze, he met up with his friend who owned two charter fishing boats. He acquired his U.S. Power Squadron certification and followed this up with studying for and writing the exam to become a licensed charter skipper. He spent the next year hauling fat, cigar-smoking tourists into the Gulf of Mexico where he plied them with cold beer and encouragement as they sought to prove their manhood by reeling in sailfish, marlin and tuna.
Deciding he was heading nowhere fast, Clay answered a newspaper recruiting ad and soon found himself completing the 26-week basic training course at the Florida Highway Patrol Training Academy in Tallahassee. After ten weeks riding with a Field Training Officer, he was a fully accredited state trooper. And, there was little doubt that he’d found his niche in life.
He liked law enforcement with the excitement and challenge of dealing with human situations day in and day out, with no two days alike. But though he’d been judged an exemplary officer by his superiors, it had been observed in evaluation sessions that he seemed almost too fearless in the line of duty. In fact, at times, he showed a reckless disregard for his own safety. His fellow officers noted that whenever they gave aid in takedown situations, he was always first through the door. He charged gun-wielding felons as though he was invulnerable. But he had also received two commendations and the Florida Highway Patrol’s Medal of Valor for saving other officer’s lives through courageous initiatives that placed him at considerable risk.
After one particularly dangerous incident where he’d disarmed a pistol-wielding young woman attempting to take her own life, he suffered a gunshot wound in his arm. While congratulations were definitely in order, his captain also showed concern. He was asked to see the police psychiatrist for an all-round discussion.
It wasn’t long before the doctor had zeroed in on the fact that he could be suffering from a post traumatic form of guilt because his army patrol had died and he had lived. Though the word’s “death wish” had never been spoken, Clay soon found himself on daytime traffic patrol; it was this transfer that ultimately changed his life.
He could still remember the day it happened as clearly as though it was last week. There’d been a three-car pileup on southbound Interstate 75 near Ocala. As he skidded to a stop, light bar flashing and siren dying, he spotted a light green Chevy SUV lying upside down on a partially crushed roof. Flames roared into the air from its undercarriage. Two other automobiles with crumpled fronts and rears were off to the side of the road. He was already on the radio requesting fire and ambulance services before his siren died.
A grey-haired man and a middle-aged lady were lying on the shoulder of the highway being tended by other motorists. The man was trying to stand on an obviously broken leg and yelling that his daughter was inside the burning Chevy. Three men were dashing about trying to get near the overturned vehicle but being driven back by the relentless heat and flames.
Clay grabbed his highway patrol car fire extinguisher and hit the fire with it as he ran in close. The flames dampened slightly, enough for him to throw the empty extinguisher to the side, kick in the remains of the back window of the overturned vehicle and squirm his way inside.
Lying on his belly, with his feet sticking out the rear window, he searched desperately with his hands for the girl. Above, the gas tank exploded and he felt the car rock violently and the heat intensify.
Bystanders were screaming at him to get out! Flames shot skyward from the bottom of the automobile in ever-larger, orange mushrooms. More small explosions rocked the vehicle as fumes from gas puddles trapped in the undercarriage ignited.
Inside, thick, oily, black smoke seeped into the cab. Hot cinders dropped onto Clay’s back, burning through his uniform as the fire reached down to consume the upholstery. He began coughing and tried to shield his nose and mouth with his arm. It didn’t work; he sucked in more smoke and fumes.
Decision time. Either he got out now, alone, or he stayed until he freed the victim; the chances they’d both survive – slim. Clay had always been someone who did the right thing; he wasn’t about to quit now. Besides, there was that survivor guilt to feed.
He heard the girl cough.
She was alive!
He steeled himself against the pain on his back as more flaming cinders fell and his shirt began to smolder.
The girl was thrashing about in the back seat, moaning and coughing as he reached forward and felt a thick tangle of long hair. Gently he touched her face to let her know he was there.
She screamed in fright.
Clay yelled: “Easy...easy...I’ll get you out.”
“Oh God...!” she gasped, went into a coughing fit and then reached back. “Please...help me. My Mom and Dad...”
“They’re out,” Clay said. He felt her hand touch his face but instead of grabbing him in a panic reflex, his presence seemed to calm her and she relaxed. Gently she cupped his face with her hand as though to reassure herself that he was not going anyplace. His own hands traveled down over her chest and to her waist.
Just as he suspected, her seat belt was holding her fast. Eyes streaming from the smoke, he held his breath, and worked at freeing her from the belt. Acrid fumes filled his lungs; he struggled to breathe as he worked at the buckle.
It was bent and jammed!
Another flaming piece of upholstery dropped and seared the exposed back of his neck; he groaned in pain. He couldn’t take the time to lift his hands and brush it away.
Somehow, sensing his hurt, one of the girl’s hands left his face and magically he felt it brushing the fire from his neck; he continued to punch the button on the seat belt. It refused to open. He grabbed his clasp knife from his pocket.
Twenty seconds later, he wormed his way back out of the car dragging the girl with him to the applause of the crowd. They were immediately surrounded and Clay gratefully accepted the ministration of a bystander who dumped a thermos of cold coffee on the back of his smoldering uniform. The burning momentarily subsided.
Clay never forgot the look on the faces of the girl’s mother and father as they sobbed and tearfully hugged their daughter. Miraculously, though bruised and cut, she was otherwise unhurt.
As her father hugged her, she met Clay’s eyes over his shoulder, studying him intently as she murmured reassurances into her father’s ear.
Two bystanders helped Clay sit on the pavement. The smoke he’d inhaled was finally taking its toll. His head swam and he coughed repeatedly. Other patrol cars and a fire truck were arriving. Suddenly the girl, Jody Mathers, left her parents and limped to where Clay sat on the asphalt.
Her face was blackened by soot, her thick, raven-colored hair was a tangled mess and her clothes filthy and ripped. Yet, Clay found himself forgetting all of that and gazing into what must surely be the deepest and bluest eyes on earth.
He swallowed nervously and his heart raced. He guessed her to be in her mid-twenties and noted that her face was a perfect oval with high cheekbones setting off those magnificent eyes. A model’s sculpted nose ended above the fullest, most desirable-looking lips Clay had ever imagined. As she moved towards him he couldn’t help taking in the sway of her full, denim-clad hips, tiny waist and the swell of her breasts straining against a yellow plaid shirt. Even at her worst, Clay decided she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
She stood before him and, for a moment, they lost themselves in a world that seemed to exist only for them. In one tiny nanosecond they exchanged messages of wonder, happiness, and promise. Then she reached down and gen
tly kissed him on the lips. He found himself responding and then hurriedly broke it off when he realized grinning bystanders were applauding again. His face went beet red as she smiled down at him.
“I’m a nurse...let’s see that back, Mister,” she said with authority, moving behind him. He felt his burned shirt being ripped apart as another motorist ran up with a small first-aid kit in hand. In moments, Jody was smoothing a salve over his blistered back.
She coughed and spoke, “You married or engaged, copper?”
Clay tried to look round at her in amazement but she gently pushed his face forward again as she worked on his burns.
“Married?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes...married, hitched, betrothed, promised, a legal ceremony joining man and women, a physically-consummated, paper-approved relationship...notice anything like that in your life?”
Clay couldn’t help smiling even as he winched at her gentle touch. “Afraid not, Miss.”
“Good. Then you won’t mind taking me to dinner.”
Without another word she finished taping two ointment-gauze pads over the most severe burns on his back. As two ambulances pulled up and Emergency Medical Technicians appeared, she patted him on the head and made her way back to her parents.
“Excuse me Ma’am...but I don’t even know you.” Any sting in his words was negated by a good-natured and somewhat silly grin that he knew was plastered across his features. The wail of more sirens came closer.
She smiled back at him: “We’ll work on that too, hero.”
He lost himself in the blue eyes again as she tossed him an impish grin, and with a confidence born of those who know the power of their beauty, she brushed back her long, thick hair, turned and re-joined her parents as EMTs loaded her father onto a stretcher.
In fact, her father turned out to be Sheriff Bill Mathers of Woodstrom, Vermont. He and his wife Nancy, and Jody had been heading for Orlando on a two-week vacation when they’d been cut off by a Chinese Food Supply delivery truck entering the Interstate. Mathers tried to avoid the truck but the SUV hit the gravel and slewed sideways, causing two other cars to have minor collisions. The SUV rolled as the delivery van increased speed and continued down the highway. Clay had been five miles north of them in a southbound lane when he’d received the call.
In the end, Jody’s instincts had been right. One year later, to the day, after an impatient, long-distance courtship, she became Clay’s bride. The same year he finally accepted a job as a Deputy Sheriff of Winder County from Jody’s father and moved himself back to his home state.
Bill and Nancy treated Clay like a son and when Mathers had retired the year before, he’d encouraged Clay to run for his position as Winder County Sheriff.
Clay was liked by the citizens, his fellow officers and had his father-in-law campaigning for him before he’d even made up his mind to accept the nomination. His campaign was treated with more enthusiasm by his campaign team than by Clay himself. He felt guilty, sensing he was, in effect, riding on Mather’s coattails.
Still, he won by a landslide. He couldn’t argue with the voters and reconciled himself to his new position. He knew he was, as a military doctor once called him, one lucky puppy. And right now he had the love of his life waiting for him at home.
“There it is, on the right,” Hitchcock said, breaking into his thoughts and using the patrol car’s spotlight to illuminate the broken shingle with the faded word “Baker” on it dangling from a disintegrating and crooked, cedar post beside the highway.
Clay slowed and turned onto a barely visible road leading up a steep hill towards the house. He lowered the window and listened to the corn starch crunch of the tires on the snow as cool snowflakes melted on his face. He knew that the building was more than a mile up the side of the mountain but the slope and the depth of the snow had their tires spinning within a minute.
“Looks like we go in on foot,” Clay said, picking up the radio microphone. He punched the transmit button. “Dispatch...Unit One...10-23 Baker Estate.” Silence. “Base...do you read me, over?” He let up on the button and was rewarded with a burst of static but no acknowledgement from the dispatcher.
He tried twice more and shrugged: “Damn mountains. We might as well use smoke signals for all the good these radios are up here. Got to get a satellite-based system.”
Hitch chuckled and pulled the upright .30-30 Winchester carbine from its clamp.
“What do we need that for?” Clay asked.
“Squirrels,” Hitch replied with a grin.
“Squirrels!?” he grunted. “How big are your damn squirrels?”
“The two-legged kind,” Hitchcock mused, checking the tube magazine to ensure it was loaded. “Seth Borden said he heard some jackers took a shot at a game warden last autumn.”
“Anybody takes a shot at us, they better make it a good one,” Clay said, his annoyance with the call evident. He slammed his door. Snow flakes landed on the back of his neck and he shivered, zipped up his parka, pulled his Stetson low and his collar up. He glanced at his watch. Five o’clock. The light was fading fast. “Let’s get moving. Jody wants me home for supper on time tonight.”
Wordless they trudged up the darkening, spruce tree-bordered road through the blowing snow.
~ 2 ~
The child tensed.
Something was nearby; danger for her Master. Rosalita must guard him for he would sleep until the last rays of twilight faded and shadows covered the earth. Only then would he rise.
Another sound!
Though she did not know worry...she still retained a sense of fear. The Master slept and would not help her. Still, she must fulfill her mandate to preserve his safety.
She shuddered at the prospect of failure and his resultant anger; the insane rage, which brought bludgeoning attacks and the terrible shame she would feel for having betrayed his trust. If only he would release her from her immortal existence. If only he would let her sleep.
Outside, the winter wind increased again, a mournful howl of protest weeping through trees.
The sound came again.
Intruders!
She rose from where she huddled in the corner of the cold, dark bedroom, her shift pulled over her bare feet. She did not know why she covered her feet with her dress since she no longer felt cold or heat. Perhaps, covering her feet, was a habit from before.
The child debated lighting the rusted, coal-oil lamp sitting on the floorboards beside her. If it were darker, she knew she would see as well as any animal, but the twilight, a time of transition, made sight difficult.
She stood upright and looked around. Once again, the bedroom, devoid of furniture, but with faded wall paper showing cartoon woodland animals, stirred distant, confusing memories; these memories had originally made her choose it as her lair when she and the Master had come to this refuge.
Deep in her still heart, the child knew that she was not like other beings. Yet sometimes in the night, there were images of long ago, ghosts playing across her mind of a childhood filled with happiness and security, picnics in the sun, dolls and a gaily painted rocking horse in an upper room in a large white adobe house. Best of all, however, a mother and father who held her, loved her and made her feel safe.
Occasionally she would see an image of a buckboard wagon filled with ore bearing down on her pitiful small body as she innocently crossed the deeply rutted road. She heard the frantic shout of the driver, felt herself recoiling in terror from the scream of the horses and...suddenly, she was no more.
Until the Master came.
These images would sweep in and out of her consciousness like pernicious mists only to finally slip away like phantoms leaving behind nothing but the mocking music of a child’s laughter or a child’s scream. Then her mind would numb again, and the memories, rootless in any form of reality, would fade into oblivion until the next time. When the memories left she felt a longing together with a deep sense of loss, but she knew not what she missed nor why.
S
he knew only of Adramelech and his needs, needs at rest now as he slumbered in a quasi-sleep deep in the root cellar beside the house. A bloody goat, drained and hanging in the tree outside, served as a warning to those who might stray nearby.
Sometimes, in the still of the night, he would stroke her fevered face and whisper in fetid breath of how he had snatched her back before she reached the Light; how she was now immortal and need not think of death though she might wish for it. Adramelech said he left her with the sense of pain because pain brought obedience and fear; both indigenous to her compliance and self-preservation.
At these times, enraptured by the Master’s power and hypnotic stare, she would forget the fear. Wincing at what was to come, she would spread herself for the pain which was perceived rather than experienced physically, while deep in some cobwebbed corner of her mind, she wailed in despair at the loss of her mortality.
The night was descending fast. Outside, the wind, rather than calming was increasing in ferocity. It moaned as if in agony as it sailed through the mountains and swept down into the valleys. There would be no need for light, she thought as she moved towards the bedroom door to deal with the intruders.
~ 3 ~
Clay and Hitch waded resolutely through the two-foot deep snow. Progress was slow as they slipped and slid their way upward. Most of the time the wind moaned softly through the trees, but periodically, with renewed vigor, it would suddenly gust and send sweeps of snow down on them from above, clouding their vision and making both shiver. After a few minutes, Clay held up his hand.
They paused for a moment and listened in the stillness of the twilight. He thought he’d heard a sound, possibly the wail of a child.
“You hear something?” he asked Hitch.
The deputy shook his head. “Just my stomach growling for Martha’s cooking.”
The Plan Page 10