by Robert Brown
The boys edged over to the side of the cave. Nick looked around for the first time. The interior was lit by a couple of flashlights that the boys must have brought with them, as well as by the fading light streaming in from the entrance.
The cave was smaller than Nick expected—only about the size of a large living room. All the trash made it feel smaller. Empty beer cans, candy wrappers, and other junk littered the ground. It was obviously a hangout for the local teens. He looked up and didn’t need to have the Thunderbird pointed out to him. It was carved on the sloping ceiling of the cave, high enough that it hadn’t been vandalized.
It looked just like the image the cultists had made, with broad outstretched wings and vertical lines that created the impression of features. Its rectangular body and triangular head were almost identical to the model made from sticks. Nick snapped a few pictures.
“Let’s leave these kids alone and get out of here,” Nick said.
“Yeah, I guess this scouting mission is a bust. Sorry, boys,” Carl said, slinging his rifle. The kids let out sighs like a series of balloons deflating. If he hadn’t felt so sorry for them, Nick would have laughed.
“Enjoy your beer, kids,” he said.
As he turned to leave, something caught his eye.
An empty bottle of vodka. It was the same expensive brand as the one at the rock shelter they’d visited earlier—not something a bunch of high schoolers would get a big brother to buy for them. Nearby lay several condoms.
Nick took a picture.
On the drive back, they planned their next move.
“We need to set a trap for these lowlifes,” Carl said. “The problem is, we don’t know where they’ll turn up.”
“I guess we’ll just have to keep searching. There are a few old ruins we haven’t checked yet, but we can narrow it down if we assume they’re creating the pattern of a pentagram around Republic. We should focus on that hamlet I pointed out on the map, as well as the spots we already know. Trisha is probably right about them going to the same place more than once.”
Carl chuckled. “That bubble-headed broad did have a point, didn’t she? I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
“We’ll plan it out tomorrow by phone. There are enough of us that we can set up two patrols. That way, we can cover more ground. One problem is, we don’t know when they’ll be out there. We can’t spend every night, all night on vigil. We all have jobs and lives. I suggest we go for a couple of hours before midnight. The ritual we interrupted and the ones that Brandon and Clayton spotted all happened around ten o’clock or a little after. That might be the best time to catch them by surprise.”
Carl looked at him for a moment. “Well, well, well. The witch hunter is sounding like a general.”
Nick gave him an abashed smile. “This whole thing has gotten me kind of carried away. I didn’t realize how bored I was with my life at the university.”
“Life’s gonna get a lot less boring for a while. I have a feeling you’ll miss that boring life before long.”
Carl’s words proved correct the next morning when Nick entered his office, sat at his desk, and opened his blinds as usual.
He froze, the cold clamp of terror paralyzing his limbs.
Hanging from the tree outside his window, level with his gaze, was one of the human stick figures.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nick stared at the stick figure as it turned slowly in the gentle morning breeze. No other figures hung from this tree or any other trees within view. It was obvious that the figure had been placed deliberately in front of his office window.
It was equally obvious that it was meant as a message for him.
He called Clayton. Although it took only three rings before he answered, Nick was almost weeping with impatience before he heard the man’s voice on the line.
“What’s up, Professor? I’m at work.”
“They know who I am and where I work,” Nick said breathlessly. “They hung one of those stick figures outside my office window.”
“Holy shit! How could they know that?”
“I don’t know. Wait. When we surprised them, they turned the camera on us. They recorded us. Remember how scared Matt was that the film showing him with a gun might come to light? They have an image of my face and somehow recognized me.”
“Must be students.”
“Students? I don’t think so. Students don’t know the area well. They’d never find all those ruins. I found the first one only by accident. Maybe it’s the custodial staff. They come in early. They could have put up the figure unseen.”
Clayton said nothing for a moment.
“You need to get a gun.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. If they know where I work, they might find out where I live. I have to protect my wife and daughter! Where’s a good place to buy one?”
“Hold up there, hotshot. What you need is a handgun, something you can carry along with you, and there’s a seven-day waiting period for those.”
“Seven days? I can’t wait seven days!”
Nick couldn’t believe it. He’d always been for gun control and now this redneck state was telling him he had to wait seven days before he could protect his family?
“Look. I get off at five. Why don’t you come on over to the feed mill? We’ll work something out.”
“Oh my God. I don’t know what to do!” Nick moaned.
“We’ll work it out, Professor,” Clayton said in a soothing voice. “Watch your family. They ain’t going to strike during daytime, so we got some time.”
Clayton hung up. Nick’s mind raced. What about Elaine at school? There was a security guard. Cameras. They wouldn’t dare move in on her, not during the daytime. Right? Nick tried to reassure himself. He didn’t quite succeed.
And what about Cheryl? Nick paced the length of his office. Back and forth. Back and forth. A curious glance from a colleague passing by in the hallway made him close the door.
After his initial panic, Nick began to calm down and think it through. The stick figure had been a warning. If the cult members had wanted to hurt him or his family, they would have struck without notice. The step from violence against an animal and violence against a human was a huge one—a step that most people wouldn’t take lightly. Even if they had considered it, they would have known that it would have led to an investigation that would have curtailed their activities. This was the better option—a way to scare him without revealing too much of themselves.
But Nick couldn’t count on that. He couldn’t just let out a sigh of relief and assume that Cheryl and Elaine were safe.
He made an excuse to call Elaine’s school, claiming that she had been feeling ill that morning and he wanted to check on her. The secretary agreed to go check. After an agonizing wait, she returned and said that Elaine felt fine.
“She said she didn’t feel ill this morning,” the secretary told him.
“Oh, kids,” Nick said, laughing a little too loudly. “You know how they forget these things.”
He hung up, flushing a bit when he realized the kind of impression he must have made on the secretary. Focusing on calming his voice, he called Cheryl, purportedly to check on what he needed to buy at the supermarket on his way home. He eased back in his chair as she ran through the list.
After he hung up, he realized he hadn’t written any of it down.
At exactly five o’clock, Nick pulled into the feed mill parking lot. Clayton was waiting for him there, alongside Wayne and Tobiah.
Nick got out and repeated to the three men what he had seen that day.
“So, what did you do with the stick man?” Wayne asked.
“I told campus security about it. They brushed it off as a prank, of course. Then they took it down before I could get it. Messed up any prints that might have been on it, the idiots.”
“Did anyone spot it getting put up?” Tobias asked.
Nick shook his head. “No. The tree is easy to climb, and before eight in the morn
ing hardly anyone is on the quad. They could have done it in a couple of minutes and probably didn’t get spotted. The campus police told me that no security cameras cover that area.”
“Is your address available anywhere?” Clayton asked. “Yelp or some campus directory?”
“No. I’ve been thinking about that all day. We keep our addresses out of view because sometimes students play pranks on teachers or are unstable and try to do something worse. It’s standard practice to keep them secret at universities.”
“What about your wife or kid? Any way they could get the address from them?”
“My wife is a professor too. My daughter is in school. They’re not going to just hand out that information to anyone.”
“They could hurt you on campus, though,” Tobias said. “You or your wife.”
Nick nodded grimly. “That’s why I need your help. I need a gun, and I need training on how to use it.”
Wayne grinned. “You came to the right people, Professor.”
The Guns & Ammo Center was a big-box store on the edge of town. The cheesy commercials Nick always saw when he watched the news on the local ABC affiliate featured redneck twin brothers who advertised, “We can supply all your home defense, hunting, and militia needs. You want an AR-15? Get ‘em before they ban ‘em. Want a pocket pistol for the little lady? We have ‘em in pink. Bow hunting equipment? We’ll get you what you need to bag the biggest buck. We’re open every day except the Lord’s Day. We even got a drive-through.”
They did have a drive-through. Nick’s jaw dropped when he saw it. The three grist mill workers didn’t take him through it, though.
“We want to browse a little,” Tobias said. “Get you learned up.”
They entered what looked like a cross between an armory and a Walmart. Racks of guns of every description lined the walls. Aisles as long as the ones in Nick’s local supermarket held camouflage clothing, gas masks, rations, and camping gear. At one end, a big-screen TV showed some action film dating to the Cold War; in it, a group of middle-aged Americans was fending off a Soviet invasion.
“What am I doing here?” Nick asked. He hadn’t intended to say it out loud. It just came out.
“Being a man,” Clayton said. “You’re an egghead liberal, but your back is against the wall and you know you need to protect your family, so you’re doing the right thing. Come on, this way.”
They led him to a counter where a man with a huge beer gut half covered by a flowing salt and pepper beard stood with his hands on the countertop. Nick recognized him from the commercial. The guy’s posture and attitude reminded Nick of the bartender at the Drunken Indian. Behind him was a large glass cabinet in which hung dozens of handguns. As they approached, Nick noticed a semi-automatic pistol hanging in a holster on the man’s belt.
That made Nick pause for half a second. Guns had always spooked him a little. Then he remembered himself and continued forward.
“How can I help you gentlemen?” the man asked in a nicer tone than Nick had expected.
Clayton spoke up. “Our friend here doesn’t know shit about firearms but there’s been some break-ins in his neighborhood and he wants to get a handgun. Can you give him a starter course?”
“Sure, we got a firing range.”
Nick was about to object. He hadn’t thought this through. Was he really going to fire a gun in a few minutes and then lay down several hundred bucks for a firearm he didn’t even want?
Two pistols cracked in the woods, almost in unison. Nick tensed. Clayton’s shotgun boomed, followed closely by Matt’s handgun. Then the cultists fired again.
Nick blinked, took a deep breath, and straightened his spine.
A strange stick figure man, made of an X and a cross, swung outside his office window.
He wasn’t the kind of guy who owned a gun. But he no longer had that luxury. He had a wife and a thirteen-year-old daughter at home. He had to do this.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice coming out dry and raspy. “I’m worried about my little girl. I need some protection.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” said the gun shop owner. “What kind of handgun do you want?”
Nick looked at Clayton, but it was Wayne who spoke up.
“He’s new at this, so he needs ease of use combined with low recoil and accuracy. Stopping power too, of course. Let’s go for a 9mm. Maybe a Smith & Wesson M&P?”
The man nodded. “That could work. Good basic gun but it has only an eight-round magazine. A Glock G19X G5 or a Walther CCP might be good too.” He turned to Nick. “What’s your price range?”
“Whatever it takes. I have a family to protect,” he replied, his voice more confident this time.
Clayton punched him in the shoulder. “Damn, egghead’s finally getting some bass in his voice!”
“Quit it, Clayton,” Wayne said. “This is serious business. How about we try the Smith & Wesson and the Glock? I used to have a Walther; mounting a light on it is a pain in the ass. He wants to be able to see what he’s shooting at night.”
“We can go with those two. Sound good to you?” the gun dealer asked Nick, who shrugged.
The man unlocked a glass cabinet behind the counter and pulled out two handguns, both semi-automatics. Then he unlocked a drawer beneath the cabinet, pulled out two boxes of ammunition, and said, “Let’s go to the firing range, boys. This way.”
Nick had to sign a waiver and plunk down $80 for a beginner’s lesson before he was led to a back room where the gun dealer, who introduced himself as Gus, fitted them with protective goggles and ear muffs.
Then they went into the loudest room Nick had ever been in.
A line of men and women stood at a counter, firing a variety of firearms down long concrete corridors. Paper targets hung at various distances from each person. Gus led them to an empty space near the back.
He turned to Nick and shouted, “Ever fire a gun before?”
“A hunting rifle a few years ago. Assume I know nothing.”
Gus grinned and gave him a thumb’s up. “You just figured out the first rule of gun ownership—don’t get cocky. All right, this here in my hand is a gun.”
“Yeah.”
“The bullet comes out this little hole here.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“You have to pull this little doodad to make it fire. It’s called a trigger.”
“I said assume I know nothing, not assume I’m an idiot.”
Gus and the others laughed.
“We’re just shitting you, Professor,” Gus said.
Nick gaped. “How did you know I was a professor?”
Wayne put an arm around Gus. “We’re cousins. I told him all about you.”
Nick rolled his eyes as they laughed again.
“We don’t get many folks from the university in here. I had to have the chance to rib one,” Gus said, still laughing.
As Gus readied the weapons, shaking his head and smiling, Wayne moved over to Nick, popped off his ear protection, and said in a low voice, “I didn’t tell him the real reason we’re here. The fewer people who know, the better.”
Nick nodded. If Gus caught wind of cultists sacrificing animals in the ruins around Republic, he’d probably raise a militia and shoot up the whole county.
Over the next hour, Gus took Nick through the basics of gun safety and use. He warned him that this was only an initial lesson and that Nick would need several more before he was proficient. Nick was surprised this rural gun nut would use as complicated a word as “proficient,” but he realized the guy was right. Maintaining, loading, and firing a gun was more complicated than he had ever imagined.
Once Gus led him through the basics, Nick tried shooting the Glock. Gus set a man-shaped target at fifty feet. To his surprise, Nick hit the target every time. He didn’t get a head shot or dead center in the chest, but every single one of the seventeen rounds in the magazine hit the torso or leg. One nicked the shoulder, and some were near the edge of the body, but t
hey were all hits.
His companions cheered.
“Dang, egghead’s got a hidden talent!” Clayton said.
“Don’t blaspheme,” Tobiah snapped. Then he turned to Nick. “The Lord is guiding your hand. He knows you’re doing His work.”
That got a curious look from Gus. Before he could ask what the man meant, Wayne said, “Now try the Smith & Wesson. The Lord helps those who go to the shooting range regularly.”
Once again, Nick did better than he thought he would, hitting with all but one of the eight bullets. Then he reloaded both guns under Gus’s supervision and tried them again. By the end of the hour, he had emptied both guns three times each. He’d even attracted a few of the other shooters over to watch.
His hands ached, his ears rang despite the protection, and his arms were tired, but he basked in their attention. Everyone gave him a high-five as he left the shooting range.
Nick ended up buying the Glock because it felt better in his hands and he’d been a bit more accurate with that model. Plus, it had a bigger magazine. Despite his beginner’s luck, he had no illusions about his talent. The glow-in-the-dark sights and flashlight accessory would come in handy, too. Nick signed the paperwork and paid. Once he was done, Gus shook his hand.
“Welcome to the brotherhood,” he said with some formality.
“Um, thanks.”
“Come back in seven days and you can have your piece.”
I need it tonight, Nick thought. Not seven days from now.
He remembered an old baseball bat that sat in his basement. Perhaps he’d bring that upstairs. It would be better than nothing.
After they left, Clayton insisted they go to the Drunken Indian to celebrate.
“I’m hardly recovered from the last time,” Nick objected.
Wayne laughed. “Don’t worry, Carl’s on the night shift. We’ll have only a couple. You boys go on ahead. I gotta go back home for a minute. I’ll catch up.”
They were almost done with their first beer, their ears ringing with the sound of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” pounding on the jukebox, when Wayne showed up, carrying a small leather bag. He set it down in front of Nick. It made a heavy thud as it hit the wood.