False Prey: A Wildfire Novella (Wildfire Saga)

by Marcus Richardson

  “It’s been a tad slow around here lately,” the Judge chuckled. “This damn flu scare got everyone all riled up. Yessir.”

  “I understand earlier today you held a closed-door arraignment for a case about a man arrested under charges of espionage? Care to comment?”

  The smile on the judge’s face vanished in an instant. The swivel chair came back upright with a metallic groan. The judge carefully placed his hands on the desk. “Son, there are things that I am not at liberty to discuss. That,” he said with a slow shake of his wrinkled, white-fringed head, “is one of them.”

  “That wouldn’t be on account of this being an election year, and your decision wasn’t very popular with the locals, now would it, Your Honor?” asked Danny, pen hovering over his notebook. He watched in satisfaction as the color rose up the old man’s shriveled neck.

  “That, sir, is an insult—a poorly made one at that,” spat the Judge. He slowly got to his feet. “I think we are through here, young man.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor, I meant no offense,” Danny replied, jumping to his feet. He decided then and there that there was indeed something else going on in Brikston. Screw Mr. Nice-guy. He turned to leave, then turned back, pen in the air, poised almost like a sword.

  “But, just for clarification, the young man that had been assaulted by the police, arrested, then turned loose—on your orders—has been compensated by the city for his mistreatment, correct?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest—”

  “Because, from what I saw at the arrest—yeah, I was there, interviewing the people in the mob, on the phone with Axel Putnam, you know, from CNN. You’ve heard of him, right?”

  The Judge sighed and the effort seemed to deflate the old man. His wide shoulders slumped and he looked truly pathetic enveloped in the flowing black robes of his office. He looked down at the desk and seemed to lean over it for support. “Son,” he said in a tired voice. “I swore, a long, long time ago to always do what is right by the law and my conscience.” He looked up from his desk. His eyes looked rheumy and tired. “I believe I did that today. I have a clear conscious about my decision to turn that young man loose.”

  “Can I quote you on that?”

  The old man drew himself to his full height. “You’re damned right you can. I know this is an election year, but at my age, I’m not going to throw away my principles to win an election—I’ve been in office for fifty-seven years, you know. I’ll be dog-goned if I’m going to start compromising now.” He shrugged. “I truly think that Korean boy is a spy. But,” he said, raising a bony finger. “I was elected to be impartial—and there wasn’t enough evidence to hold him on anything. The only option was to turn him loose.”

  “The people in town seem awful mad about things as they stand…”

  The judge gave Danny the hairy eyeball. “They can go pound sand.” Then his face softened and he sank back into the chair again. “I can’t really blame ‘em, no sir. This flu business,” he said, waving one wrinkled hand in the air. “It’s got everyone scared. They’re worried the old Scorched Lung is back.” He shook his head. “With President Denton dead…the way he died…all the stories about people getting sick all over the country. Can you blame them?”

  “No sir, I surely can’t,” replied Danny, writing furiously on his notebook. “Can you tell me if the officers involved in the situation have been disciplined in any way?”

  The judge smiled, like he was privy to a great secret and wanted to tell but wouldn't because watching Danny try to figure it out would be so much more fun. “Now that’s a question I’ll have to defer to the Chief.”

  “Is he in? I’ll just pop over and ask him, then,” said Danny, hoping the threat would be enough to get more out of the old man. Instead, the judge merely sat back down in his chair and closed closed his eyes.

  He leaned back and opened his rheumy eyes. “He’s just across the hall outside the Clerk’s office. Got anything else for me, Ace? As you said, I’m a busy man…”

  Danny stood. “No, Your Honor. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Danny turned to leave and had his hand on the doorknob when the Judge’s voice caught him.

  “Just do yourself a favor and be careful, Mister.”

  Danny paused and looked at the old man across the oak-paneled chambers.

  “There are…people in this town you don’t want to upset. I’ve survived in office this long because…well, I guess I’m the oldest person in town and people still respect that here. But mostly, it’s because I don’t go upsettin’ the applecart too much, you catch my drift?”

  Danny stared at the judge for a moment. “I do, Your Honor.”

  “Good.”

  Danny raised his notebook in salute. “Thanks again.”

  He closed the door to the judge’s chambers and froze. Standing at the clerk’s desk was Officer Perkins, the great blue gorilla himself, chatting amiably with the overweight, overly-perfumed, overly-flattered clerk. His body language showed he was completely interested in whatever she was saying. His eyes, though, they found Danny’s and were cold as sheet metal left outside in January.

  Danny swallowed and walked forward. As he passed the two civil servants, the cop turned sideways and his wide shoulder brushed Danny’s, throwing him off-balance. The clerk gasped as Danny’s flailing hand knocked a container of pencils to the floor. Danny winced at the sound.

  “Careful, sir,” rumbled the huge cop with a smile as Danny righted himself. His eyes were humorless gray pits. He knelt to pick up the pencils in a long, sinewy movement that had to be calculated to emphasize his coiled strength. “You really ought to watch where you’re going.”

  “Sorry,” Danny muttered and hurried out of the office. As the clerk’s throaty laugh followed him into the hallway, Danny felt a tingling between his shoulder blades. He imagined the cop’s cold stare boring into his back. He picked up his pace and turned the corner, leaning against the cold marble wall and letting it sap the fear from his body.

  “I’m too old for this rookie shit,” he grunted once he had caught his breath. “I’m the reporter. I’m the one with the power to expose these bigots for who they are.” He gathered his dignity about himself like a cloak and made his way toward the police station down a side corridor, his footfalls ringing hollow in the empty hallway.

  As he walked farther away he felt his confidence returning. We’ll see who needs to be careful.

  CHAPTER 7

  The doorknob rattled, jarring Thomas from his painful slumber. He rolled onto his side and groaned at the pain in his ribs then cracked his good eye open to look at the door. The knob rattled again. He heard a whispered voice on the other side of the door. A quick glance at the alarm clock showed the time was just shy of 2pm. Danny Roberts, the reporter—his protector for the time being—had only been gone a few hours.

  “…want any trouble…”

  Thomas sprang fully awake at those three muffled words. It was from a second voice, he was sure of it.

  Suddenly someone pounded on the door hard enough to make a little dust drift down from the top of the door frame. “Hey, you Korean bastard! We know you’re in there! Open up and this’ll go a lot easier on you!” Someone else hooted in the background. That made three.

  Oh Jesus, they found me!

  The door shuddered again. “If you don’t open this door, I’ll bust it in!”

  Fear propelled Thomas to ignore the many screaming nerves in his abused body. He rolled himself off the bed and got to his feet as quickly and quietly as he could. He padded to the bathroom in bare feet, hoping that there was a window or something he had overlooked before. There had to be another way out—

  “…break the window, Carl…”

  “Lemme get my truck, we’ll smash—”

  “Stop it! Please! If you promise not to do anything stupid, here—take the keys…”

  Thomas froze, half-in, half-out of the bathroom. His eyes darted over the spartan room. Two beds, a cheap table, two ancie
nt chairs, an old, low dresser with four rickety drawers, and an even older dinosaur of a TV. Two mirrors, one behind the TV, one in the bathroom. No other exits besides the big window and the front door.

  I’m trapped.

  A key rattled in the lock.

  Where the hell are you, Danny?

  Thomas lurched forward on his badly bruised legs and turned around looking desperately for a weapon, anything he could use to defend himself. No tools, no pieces of wood, no pipes, no nothing. His heart began pounding in his chest, a cold sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades. He grabbed his cell phone off the dresser and backed into the bathroom. With shaking hands, he tried to get the phone to turn on.

  The damn thing didn’t recognize his unlock password. He tried a second time with his swollen fingers. The phone wouldn’t let him get past the unlock screen. Thomas looked at it in utter disbelief.

  “Seriously!?”

  The front door swung open and Thomas looked up, half-crouched with the phone clutched in both aching hands. The light from outside silhouetted the first figure through the door. It was the local man from the church that had threatened him with a knife. Mosby.

  “Well, look who we got here…” The angry man smiled and stepped into the room. His accomplice—the one at the church who’d had a bat—stepped across the threshold behind him.

  “S-stay away from me!” Thomas shrieked, one hand holding the phone like a club.

  Mosby laughed. “What you gonna do, throw it at me?” He looked at his partner and elbowed the bigger man in the ribs to the laughter of the next two men who slipped into the room. They were carrying ropes and one had a roll of duct tape.

  Thomas opened his mouth to scream for help when he heard the phone chirp. He held it in front of him like a shield. “I’m calling the police, right now!”

  Mosby laughed.

  Officer Perkins’ large frame filled the doorway. The cop stepped in and removed his hat. “Don’t bother,” he rumbled. “We’re already here.” The other cop, McCuller, still wearing his flu mask, followed Perkins in through the open door. The locals stepped aside and let the cops move forward, Mosby right on their heels.

  Every step they took into the room, Thomas slunk back towards the bathroom. He reached for the door to seal himself off and missed because he couldn’t take his eyes off the huge man bearing down on him. He yelped in surprise and fell backwards.

  “You promised!” called a voice behind the locals. “No trouble!”

  “Shut up, Chadwick,” Perkins sneered. He easily kicked the bathroom door aside as Thomas tried to close it. “Knock it off, Ping-pong. We only want to talk.”

  Thomas froze. “W-what?”

  Perkins bent down and hauled Thomas to his feet—not very gently, but without causing harm, either. Thomas cowered and tried to escape the giant’s iron grip. He squirmed in silence and settled for keeping his head as far away from Perkins’ face as possible. The cop swung him into the room like a rag doll and forced him to face the locals, one meaty hand on either arm, holding him in a vise-like grip.

  McCuller spoke, the mask moving with his jaw. “The judge made a mistake when he turned you loose. We aim to…correct that oversight.”

  “What?”

  “That all you can say, Ping-pong? ‘What?’” asked Mosby, with a wink for Perkins. The big cop chuckled.

  “My name is Thomas!”

  “Whatever, Ping-pong—or Yap-Yap or whatever the hell your real name is.” The other locals laughed.

  “Be that as it may, we’re here for a confession,” said McCuller with a slight nod of his head. His muffled voice almost sounded reasonable. A murmur rippled through the group as heads nodded and eyes narrowed.

  “See?” asked Mosby, looking at the others. “We only want to talk.”

  Thomas looked at McCuller. “I’m not confessing to anything. You’ve got to get this guy off me!” He glared at Officer Perkins. “My arm is broken already...”

  “Look—we only—” began Mosby.

  “You’re wasting your time. Like I told the judge, I didn’t do anything other than break down in this backwater, shithole of a town!”

  The hands gripping his arm constricted without mercy. Thomas cried out in pain and started to fall, but Perkins held him upright. Fire shot up his arms. He knew one arm was already broken and with the gorilla squeezing his right arm like that, Thomas could see his vision starting to fade with the pain. It was like he was looking down a shrinking tunnel.

  “Well now,” said Mosby, taking a step closer. “We’ll just see about that.” He motioned with his hand over his shoulder. Someone came forward with rope.

  Thomas felt like he was watching everything happen to someone else. He looked on in horror as the locals moved him to one of the rickety chairs and lashed his arms tight to the armrests. When they stepped back to admire their handiwork, he came back to himself and wasn’t sure what hurt more, the pain from his arm where Perkins had squeezed the broken bone, or the ropes bound to the chair so tight he was already losing feeling in his hands.

  “Please,” he moaned. “The ropes…they’re too tight…my hands…”

  “Oh, sorry about that…” said Mosby sweetly. “Let me see here,” he added and took a section of rope from his big accomplice. Mosby looped the rope around Thomas’ ankles in a swift movement that Thomas assumed must have been learned hunting deer—or elk or whatever the hell these hicks hunted. He passed it up under and behind the chair and around Thomas’ neck. His eyes went wide. If he tried to stretch his cramped legs, he would choke himself.

  Crazy bastards—I gotta get out of here! Where the hell are you, Danny!?

  His breath came in ragged gasps as he tried to find a comfortable position. The effort produced a sheen of sweat on his skin and laughter from the locals. The two cops stood beside the bed and watched impassively.

  “Please…” Thomas wheezed.

  Mosby turned the other chair around and straddled it. “Now,” he said, smiling again. “You’re gonna tell me all about your little spy game here in town. Who’s your contact? Where’d you keep the flu? Mmm? Where’d you hide your weapons…money and passports—you know, all that spy shit?”

  “Jesus, Mosby,” said Officer Perkins as he rolled his eyes. “Whatcha think this is, a movie?”

  Mosby’s dark eyes shifted between Thomas and Perkins. “Well…you know…”

  Officer Perkins folded his ape-like arms across his broad chest. “Just get this over with. Judge said to make it quick.”

  Thomas froze. A trickle of sweat rolled between his eyes and down his cheek. The judge—the old man that had ordered them to let him go—he was in on this?

  Oh my God…

  His heart started beating faster, he began straining at the ropes that bound his arms and legs, ignoring the pain and trying to concentrate on working something—anything—loose enough to let him breathe. Fighting back was out of the question—he just wanted to survive.

  “Now just calm down, Ping-Pong. You’re liable to hurt yourself before you tell us anything,” warned Mosby. He opened up a pocket knife. “I hear you Chinks like to stick bamboo under people’s fingernails when you want to torture ‘em…”

  Thomas’ eyes locked on the gleaming little blade as it moved closer and closer to his clenched right hand. He tried to speak but the rope was tight around his neck—he could barely breathe, let alone talk. All he could do was watch in near panic as Mosby inched closer with that knife. He tried hard to pry Thomas’ fingers out of their protective fist but Thomas wasn’t budging. Frustration washed over Mosby’s face.

  “All-righty, have it your way. We’ll just cut your little Korean dick off, how’s that?” He turned the knife around and grabbed Thomas’ crotch. Thomas tensed, moving his legs involuntarily at the feeling of pressure on his groin, which tightened the rope like a noose around his neck. His vision began to blur at the edges again.

  Can’t pass out…God, they’ll kill me…stay awake!

 
; He relaxed his legs and slowly straightened out his shaking right hand. The pressure eased from his groin and the rope loosened enough for him to suck down a few ragged breaths. The spots went away.

  “Now, tell me what I want to know. Still not talking, huh? Well, here’s a little taste to show you we’re serious.”

  Thomas watched in disbelief as Mosby nonchalantly grabbed his pinky finger and inserted the knife just under the fingernail, slicing neatly through the delicate nail bed.. White hot fire erupted from his finger and Thomas screamed in pain. The most intense, world-shattering pain that he had ever experienced. His legs kicked out and his scream died in his throat as the rope tightened. The world around him faded away. Only the fire searing it’s way through his screaming nerves remained.

  CHAPTER 8

  Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Chief Murray,” said Danny, opening his notebook to a fresh page.

  “Make it quick, Mr. Roberts. I got a lot on my plate at the moment,” grumbled Chief of Police August T. Murray.

  Danny nodded, “Of course, sir. And please, call me Danny.” He tried not to look at the Chief’s face—the eyes were just a little too close together, his cheeks just a little too fat. The man looked like a pig stuffed in a blue police uniform covered with service bars and pins. It was going to be fun to skewer the arrogant jerk to the wall. Danny tried to rein in his excitement. This was the part of investigative journalism that he had always found most thrilling.

  “Now, if I may, I’d like to ask you how the town is faring as far as the epidemic is concerned. It seems to me, as an outside observer, that you’ve done exceptionally well keeping the mystery virus that’s affecting so much of the nation at bay. How’d you do it?”

  The question was designed to throw the chief off, to put him at ease and make it seem like Danny was going to lob him softballs. An old trick Danny used to soften up a target before the really hard hitting questions busted the story loose. It had the desired effect: Chief Murray blinked, licked his lips and leaned back in his chair with a smug look on his face.