At first what she saw behind the shack/cabin didn’t register in her brain, like looking at an MC Escher drawing. Her mind got the component parts well enough, but the configuration was all wrong. There was an old oil drum, blackened from years of use as a trash and leaf incinerator. A man in coveralls was bent over at the waist, his upper half disappearing into the drum as if he’d dropped something and had leaned in to get it. There was a fire burning in the drum. She could hear it crackling, feel its heat, and see the smoke now that she was standing a few feet away. She could smell the…
“Barbecue,” Erica whispered and dropped the knife in the grass. She put a hand over her mouth and nose and turned around. A man in filthy clothes stood next to the road. Erica started and wheezed out, “Help. Can you help me?” She gestured over her shoulder. “This man… he—”
She squinted, something was wrong with this guy. He was more swaying on his feet than standing and his mouth was hanging open in a dark “O”. Erica trotted over toward him and stopped. No barbecue smell here. She coughed and put her hand over mouth and nose again. Rot, sharp and active. This guy had something. Maybe they all did. Maybe someone was trying to burn the body of a, a what? A plague victim? And couldn’t finish because he was too weak. That explained it… sort of. Erica’s breath was rasping fast and hot over her teeth. Her heart was fluttering down in the pit of her stomach and the back of her neck tingled as if she were completing a circuit. “Are you okay?”
Cyrus McCoy was far from okay. His face was gray with bluish rings around the eyes and lips. There was a ghastly hole in his cheek that wasn’t fresh and wasn’t even pretending to heal. His eyes were cobweb-white cataracts. His clothes were torn away on the left side of his abdomen and hip. The flesh underneath looked mauled, the edges burned and dotted with tiny black spots. No breath inflated his lungs. No blood moved through his veins. He reached for her.
Erica kicked hard and high, a nonsense word that could have been, “Ya!” exploded from her diaphragm. It was pure reflex action, muscle memory from Body Combat 3.0 classes at the gym. Her heel connected with Cyrus’s forehead with a wooden thock! and his neck snapped back. He staggered a few feet and refocused those empty eyes on her. His brow drew down and something like a smile bent his wide open mouth. Erica screamed. Erica ran.
She pounded hard over the grass toward the most permanent looking structure—the doublewide trailer. If anything would have a phone and a door heavy enough to keep out another… person it would be that. She whipped around the corner with the bloody handprint, noting now the perforations in the siding, tiny black dots in a spray pattern. Her mind was trained to pick-up detail, find patterns and use them to her advantage in the courtroom or judge’s chambers. Those tiny spots were birdshot from a shotgun. Someone had taken a chunk out of the sick man behind her and it had splashed onto the trailer. What the fuck had happened here?
She yanked open the screen door and slipped on the brown linoleum. Heat shot up her inner thigh and in a detached sense she knew it would hurt like the devil tomorrow if she didn’t stretch later. The thought brought a screamy little laugh as she fumbled with the lock and chain on the front door. It was a single piece of wood, what was referred to as “solid core” in B&E cases. That was good. It took an axe to get through one of these, or a really good kick if you didn’t have a deadbolt. There wasn’t one. This was probably the first time this door had even been locked at all.
She risked a look through the small diamond shaped window centered high on the door. He was still out there and shambling toward the trailer. “Fuck me,” Erica hissed. She’d left her cell in the car, but it wasn’t like it had gotten any signal since she left the county seat. She scanned the walls but there was no phone. Maybe in the back. Erica ran down a short hall way and tried the bedroom door. The knob turned, but it would only push in a few inches before something stopped it. She pushed harder, convinced that a phone was sitting on the bedside table. One more good shove and she burst into the back bedroom, knocking over the small, sprung recliner that had been pushed against the door.
Erica clutched a fist to her chest. A woman lay sprawled across the bed. Erica could tell it was a woman because she had breasts and was wearing a housedress. A shotgun bisected her body along the meridian, its barrel ending where the woman’s head used to be. Behind her on the wall… art.
Thud!
Erica whirled. That man was at the front door, trying to get in.
Thud!
She looked around the room for the phone, but ha-ha, there wasn’t one.
Thud!
Jesus, it sounded like he was hitting the fucking thing with a tree trunk. The whole trailer shook. He was going to get in. He was going to get in and touch her. “And what, Erica?” she asked herself. “What?” She was panicking. This guy was obviously sick and needed her help. It looked like someone, maybe this crazy woman on the bed, had even taken a shot at him. Something horrible had happened in this little village and this poor man was the only survivor. He needed her help and she was running away like a freaked out little kid.
Thud! Crack!
Help, her well-toned butt. Sick or not, this guy wasn’t looking for Cipro. He was looking to hurt her.
The door was giving way. She could hear him tearing it to pieces—sounded like a bear tearing apart a wicker chair. Her mother would kill her for acting like this. Erica straightened, even as the sounds of his footsteps on the linoleum reached her ears. She wasn’t some stupid cow who just waited for trouble to find her. She was a smart girl and smart girls thought first, then acted. There, a window in the corner next to the… art. She had it open and had hoisted herself mostly through it when she felt fingers close in a manacle around her ankle. Erica threw herself forward and yanked out of his grip. She tumbled to the grass with a yelp. Her wrist was sprained, but she’d worry about that later. She stood up and risked a look behind her.
He was framed in the small window, sticking his tongue out at her like an insolent child. Erica blinked. There was a huge black wasp perched on it. Its wings fluttered and Erica took off. She didn’t stop until she was sitting in the Subaru, cranking the engine, her breath coming in hot little gasps.
* * *
The good Constable was about fifty pages into The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger when Erica burst into his office like a hurricane gust. Will was getting used to the little mental sputter he always seemed to have in the first few seconds whenever he saw Erica—she was just that beautiful—but he didn’t have it now. She looked wild, a horse in a thunderstorm. Before he had even begun to process her words, his danger meter went into the red and the internal alarms went off. He got up and went to her.
“Erica—.”
“Don’t touch me. Something bad happened in the woods.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Just...” she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Can I steal your chair a minute?”
Will nodded, “’Course, siddown.” She did and he scooched his butt onto the corner of the desk. “You want some water, somethin’?” He was throwing his accent on a little heavy, but that usually had a calming effect on folks. He hoped it would not have the opposite effect on a city person. “Can you tell me what happened? Does anyone need help?”
She looked up at him, eyes showing too much white. There was a smell coming off her like electricity and fresh sweat. “I went to talk with some of the people in the woods,” she said, receding into memory. “I got lost and found, like, a sort of a village?”
“Big white trailer?”
“Yes, yeah. Some cabins, too.” She blinked. “And toys.”
“Yep, the Owens live in the trailer. Rick Becket and his boy Luther stay in one of the cabins. What happened, Erica?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Just take it a step at a time. You were driving around back there,” he’d have to chide her later for doing something so foolish. Even he got lost on those mining roads from time to time, “and you got turned around until you found the trailer. Then
what?”
“I smelled… something.”
She told him the rest of it, her words catching on her teeth at first then flowing over in a great gush of story.
Will shook his head slowly back and forth. “He was just bent over in the oil drum? You sure it was burning? Oh, right, the smell.” He made a face and Erica actually smiled. Will stood up. “Okay, I want you to call George. He’ll come get you.”
Erica sat up straight, the chair squeaked. “Where are you going?”
“I gotta’ go collect Cyrus. Sounds like he’s finally gotten a taste for his own medicine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The man you saw, the ‘sick’ one? That sounds a lot like Cyrus McCoy. He’s our local moonshine fairy.” Will rubbed his jaw. “He don’t normally cotton to the stuff himself, but it sounds to me like he’s gone and burned his brains a little.”
“Just burned his brain a little? Are you kidding? What about those other people? They’re dead, you hick.”
Will looked at her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m freaking out.”
Will put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched but let it be. “I know and you should be.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going up there and I’m going to take care of it. All of it.” He moved around the desk and pulled open the drawer. “’Scuse me a sec’.”
Erica’s eyes widened as he pulled out the biggest handgun she had ever seen. Light ran along the steel for a country mile and the barrel had a maw like a train tunnel. “Hijo de puta,” she whispered.
Will gave her a sideways smile and strapped on the gun belt. “Now, you call George. He’ll come get you, but I need you to stay here with him until I get back. It’s not gonna be fun, but—”
“You need me to identify this Cyrus guy.”
“Right,” Will said and started walking toward the back door. There was an old Jeep Cherokee waiting out there. He only drove it when it rained or he needed to haul something. Looked like he was going to have to haul a person.
“Hey, Constable!”
Will turned, “Hmm?”
“Make sure you Mirandize him,” Erica had gone hard again, thinking of that woman on the bed. “I don’t want that fucker walking on a technicality.”
“Why counselor this is the South. We do everything by the book down here. ” Will flashed a broad grin. “Really.”
* * *
Will stood next to the oil drum forty minutes later. Its rusted sides were still radiating heat and that barbecue smell lingered, but there was no body. The splash of red still marked the Owens’s trailer—that handprint a crossing guard’s stop signal—but there wasn’t anyone inside. The blood and gray matter on the wall over the bed and the upset furniture were the only evidence of foul play, but enough to justify Will calling in the Sheriff’s department and county forensics. But he wasn’t going to do that.
Will walked back over to the Cherokee, the big engine ticking, and leaned against the side. He crossed his arms and scanned the tree line. Someone—most likely Cyrus—had come up here and…what? Gone after these people. They fought back and it looked like Lizzy Owens took a shot at Cyrus with her quail gun before eating it. Will couldn’t be sure who the man in the barrel had been, but it was most likely Bill Owens or Rick Becket. God only knew where the kids were. For that matter, God only knew (God and Cyrus) where the bodies were either. The grass was tramped down all over the place from the ruckus—pre and post Erica’s part in it—but the drag marks were unmistakable. They led to where a pick up truck had been parked not long ago; its old-fashioned balloon tires left distinctive tracks in the dirt.
This was the first battlefield in the fight for Shard. Will still didn’t believe the Pompiliad had arrived, but it would very soon now. Something was preparing the way. Just like Dampf had recruited him, the Wasp was building up his own forces. Will gave one last look over the compound; his eyes rested on the discarded work boot. He spat on the ground and got in the jeep.
Back in town, the sulfur smell was strong. Will rode with the windows down and grimaced. He didn’t usually notice it, like wearing a pair of glasses and forgetting they’re on your face. (He actually saw George do this once and stone cold sober, too. He ran around his house looking for his reading glasses, grumbling to himself, while Will sat at the kitchen table snickering.) Now he was noticing everything: the edges of the gutters along the roofs of houses, the depth of the bark in the oak trees along the lane, the faded blue International Harvester Pickup truck almost hidden around the back of Charlotte Najarian’s house.
Will stopped the jeep. “Holy shit on a stick.” That was Cyrus’s truck. Will gripped the steering wheel and stared at the old Victorian. It looked fine. Empty, but fine. Maybe Mrs. Najarian was out? Bullshit, it was a beautiful afternoon on one of the last few days of summer vacation. She should be in her garden with her big rear in the air, cursing the town’s kids under her breath and decapitating dandelions. What the fuck was Cyrus’s truck doing there?
Will was stalling. His hands were sweating and his ass felt heavier than a fifty pound sack of cement. He looked over on the passenger seat. Smaug sat waiting. Will put his hand on the gun and felt better. He smiled to himself. Funny how a .357 Magnum filled with hollow-points could bolster a man in times of need. Hell with it, he’d charge the place.
Will surged out of the jeep, Smaug at his side, and ran up to the back of the Int’l Harvester. He peeked in the bed. There was liquid in the corner by the gate that might have been blood or motor oil. Will sniffed. Ah hell, barbecue. He set his shoulders and took a breath, if he was going to do this, he had to do this. Will walked as slow and easy as he could up to the front door and rang the bell. Nothing. He listened for someone opening a window or the back door. Nothing. He gave a staccato of loud knocks and waited. A blue jay scolded him from the big oak on the corner, but nothing else. Will tried the knob, but the door was locked.
“Okay,” he said. “Here we go.” He threw his shoulder into the door, aiming for the groove between the frame and door itself. The door popped open with a minimal splintering of wood. Most locks were bullshit. Without a deadbolt you might as well just not even lock it. And that there was strange. No one in Shard locked their doors. You just didn’t think to do it, not even Charlotte Najarian.
The hall was cool and dark and had a smell like Vaporub and microwave dinners. Will knew right away there was no one in the house, but the hair on the back of his neck was up. Something was all kinds of wrong here, or had been. The house was empty now. He walked through the whole thing anyway, checking each room—the closets and under the beds—and finding nothing as he knew he would. The soft squeaks of his Chucks on the immaculate hardwood floors made him jumpy and Smaug felt like it weighed about a hundred pounds.
Ten minutes later, Will walked back out to Harvester and popped the hood. He yanked the spark plugs and walked back to his jeep. For a few minutes, he just sat there and thought, waiting for something to come. It felt like there was a wet wool blanket over his head, suffocating his considerations.
Under the porch, cloudy eyes watched the jeep drive away. Slack faces turned to track its progress like night flowers following the moon. When it was safely around the corner, they returned to their work.
Chapter 20
T.R.’s brain was beginning to itch. It had been four nights since his strange dream about New York and the Metropolitan Museum and with each passing minute, the tension behind his eyes increased. School would start in another few days, but he couldn’t imagine himself sitting in class, pretending to enjoy the lessons, kowtowing to that old pussbag of a teacher. He couldn’t imagine not going Columbine on everyone. But he would have to wait. He had been chosen.
He rolled over in his bed and threw an arm over his eyes for all the good it would do. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours. Every time he closed his eyes he heard a low buzzing. He couldn’t quite place it, but he knew that
damn sound. The first night it happened he’d spent a good forty-five minutes searching around his room for whatever critter was making the noise, but to no avail. By the time the sun rose, he’d given in and realized it was coming from his own head.
Sometimes, he would drift all the way off, but the dream would come—that mummified face dripping with blood, rocking back and forth—and he’d catapult back into consciousness, heart pounding and cock stiff as a fence post. And that was the other thing: he couldn’t get off. It had been four days since his last orgasm, and for a three-to-five-time-a-day man that was a real problem. He could yank at it until his arm got sore and the skin chafed, but for nothing.
He couldn’t eat much either. T.R. had lost close to five pounds off his already wiry frame. His cheekbones were rising into relief and his eyes were sinking like feral animals backing into the shadows. It’s not that he wasn’t hungry, everything just tasted rotten. He’d even nagged his mom into making his favorite chili the other night, but it was like spooning in mouthfuls of hot dog turds.
He knew what he had to do to end his torment. That was more obvious than ever. T.R. had to take a life, a human life. But he had also been chosen by the…by the what? He sighed in the dark and whispered, “The Outrider.” He had to wait until it was time. He wasn’t sure who it was going to be, or how he would do it. Hell, maybe it would be more than one person. T.R. sat up in bed, the moonlight counting off his ribs. Maybe, it would be everyone.
He swung his legs off the bed. He had to go. The house was suffocating him, his room, his skin. If he couldn’t do what he needed to do to end this…this constipation he could at least get out. He could walk. T.R. slid into his greasy jeans and laced up his boots. He knew just where to go.
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