Fallen Giant

by Monica Owens

  “And Colton has everything?”

  “All our stuff is in the truck.”

  “Would you have left me here?”

  The question hung between them and Levi was bothered by it. “Do you think I would have?”

  She shrugged.

  He cupped her face in his hands. “Trish, I’ve never met anyone like you. And I’m not about to leave you behind. Understand?”

  She searched his eyes, his face, probably looking for a lie. When she didn’t find it, she nodded and he pulled her close. His kiss was soft and chaste, but heat flickered behind it. When he pulled back, he felt her sway toward him.

  “Let’s go check this out. Then we’re gone.”

  She nodded again. When she pulled away she was already reaching for her sidearm, checked the clip, then replaced it.

  Made Levi the hardest he’d ever been for her.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Ready.”

  *****

  Miss Trish and Levi didn’t say much when they got back in the truck. Colton sat in the back seat with Henry, the dog leaning over the seat with sad eyes as he drooled on Levi’s shoulder. Levi pulled out of the sheriff’s parking lot and headed toward Miss Trish’s house. When they passed the turnoff, Colton craned his neck down the street.

  “We aren’t going to Miss Trish’s house?” he finally asked.

  “Colton,” Trish half turned to face him. “I’m going to need you to do me a favor.”

  A little thrill went through him. He always like when Miss Trish asked him to help her. He puffed out his little chest and leaned toward her.

  “Miss Trish, I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

  She smiled at him. “It’s going to be really hard…”

  “No, I can do it.”

  She reached her hand back and he took it. He liked how his skin was darker than hers. It made him feel special. The other people in town didn’t like how dark he was, but Miss Trish always told him that he wouldn’t be Colton if his skin wasn’t dark. So he should love it.

  The skin on her thumb was rough when she rubbed along the back of his hand. “Honey, your mom was in an accident.”

  Colton felt the fear bubble up inside of him. He always knew his mom would leave him. He knew it. Now he was alone. Sure, Levi said he could move with him to Vegas, but he knew better. CPS would come and take him, they’d done it before. He’d have to go to some horrible house and live with horrible people and go to a horrible school where they thought he was in the normal grade—

  “Colton,” Levi interrupted his thoughts. The little boy looked over at Levi, who was watching him in the rear view mirror. “Son, you’ve got to listen to Miss Trish.”

  He sucked in a breath and even Henry snuggled down close to him. The big dog put his head in Colton’s lap and just like that, Colton felt better. He took another deep breath and met Miss Trish’s eyes.

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  Miss Trish sighed and squeezed his hand. “Honey, your mom was in an accident but she’s okay. She’s not hurt and she’s waiting for us to pick her up. But I need you to stay in the truck when we get there. Your mom might have to go to the hospital.”

  “She might not be herself,” Levi added.

  Miss Trish gave Levi a dirty look, but she patted Colton’s hand. “Honey, can you stay in the truck for me? No matter what your mom says?”

  Colton frowned. “Is something wrong with my mom?”

  “Let me and Levi talk to her, okay?” Miss Trish asked.

  “She’s my mom, though.”

  “I know. It’s just for a couple minutes. Once we say it’s okay, you can come on out of the truck. Until then, you need to stay in here.”

  Colton bit his lip. He glanced around and saw them heading out of town. Toward that icky place his mom worked. Finally he met Miss Trish’s eyes. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  Miss Trish beamed at him and Colton felt himself flush. His mom always told him to go Miss Trish if he was in trouble. It seemed right that Miss Trish was helping his mom.

  Miss Trish patted his hand again and turned to face front. She pulled her phone out and began tapping away. Levi glanced at her, but said nothing. Henry whined, but Colton rubbed his head to quiet him.

  The first thing he saw was the big tractor trailer jackknifed on the two lane highway.

  “Shit,” Levi breathed.

  “Shit,” Colton echoed.

  Neither of the adults told him not to swear.

  Levi pulled to a complete stop about a hundred yards from the tractor trailer. There were no other cars in sight. Well, except the still smoldering one over near the rock formations.

  “Colton,” Levi said sternly.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You’re going to stay in the truck, right?”

  Just then, a flash of movement caught Colton’s eye. He unhooked his seat belt and leaned forward. Off to the left, sitting on a boulder, was his mom. Crying.

  “Colton?” Miss Trish said.

  “She’s crying,” he whispered.

  “You’re going to stay in the truck, right?” Levi said again.

  But the words were buzzing far off in the distance. His mom never cried. The last time was when Grandma died.

  He scrambled for the back door, the latch plunging down and his door popping open. He slipped past Henry and even slithered out of Levi’s grasp. His mom was crying. His shoes slipped when he hit the sand and rocks by the side of the road and he ignored Levi and Miss Trish yelling for him to stop.

  All he could see was his mom.

  She might not be the best mom in the world, but she was his mom. He loved her. She was crying on the side of the road, what looked like blood on the side of her head. He wanted to sink into her arms.

  She caught him as he launched himself at her.

  “Momma,” he whispered.

  “Baby,” she said quietly. She held him close and patted his curly head. “What are you doing here?”

  “Miss Trish came to help you.”

  His mother’s shoulders became rigid. He leaned back to look at her. She stared over his shoulder to where the crunch of footsteps could be heard.

  “Why is he here?”

  “Levi wouldn’t let Miss Trish come alone.” Now Colton felt the coldness coming from his mother, the strangeness. “Mom?”

  She narrowed her eyes at the two approaching figures, then gave Colton a huge, bright smile. But the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Even when she was high or sick and she smiled at him, she always meant it. Colton tried to scramble backward, but his mother held on.

  “I don’t want him here,” she said while gripping his shoulders tightly.

  “Mom, you’re hurting me…”

  She looked him full in the face, one of her hands now grabbing his chin. “You get him out of here.”

  “Mom…”

  “Get him out of here,” she said again.

  A beetle scrambled out of her hairline and pattered down her face. Colton watched it, horrified. That wasn’t a normal beetle. “Mom.”

  “Out!” she gritted between clenched teeth.

  The beetle stopped and lifted its torso, its front legs waving. Colton tried to pull away…

  The beetle launched itself off his mother’s face and onto Colton’s.

  He screamed and screamed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Levi’s long legs carried him past Trish as they both chased after Colton. Damn that kid was fast, Trish marveled to herself. Colton started screaming two steps before Levi snatched him up and away from Kelly. Trish made it to Levi and Colton just as Levi had quieted the little boy.

  “Ohmygod,” Trish muttered, stopping her hell bent run. She bent over at the waist, one hand to the crick in her side and the other on her knee. Between panting breaths, she managed to eke out some words. “He okay?”

  “Yeah,” Levi said shortly. “Scared.”

  Trish closed her eyes and lowered her head, relieved. Her heart pounded
in her temples and her lungs shuddered. Running that fast from a standing position would kill her one day. Damn. She stood straight and turned her attention to Kelly, her breath still coming fast and her side still aching.

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Bugs,” Colton murmured, still in Levi’s arms. “Bugs.”

  Trish frowned, but didn’t answer. As her breath began to return to normal, she studied Kelly, sitting on a boulder, her thin arms wrapped around her emaciated frame. She hadn’t seen Kelly in a while, but the young girl didn’t look good by any stretch of the imagination. A trickle of blood smeared under her nose, a thick gloop at her hairline, Kelly clearly had been through something traumatic.

  Her side panged her, but she moved closer, still…not too close. Not when Colton whimpered behind her.

  “Kelly,” she said in her best policewoman voice. “Want to tell me what happened?”

  Kelly shook her head and sucked in a stuttering breath. “I needed a ride.”

  When nothing else was forthcoming, Levi snorted his displeasure. “I’m taking Colton back to the truck.”

  Trish listened to the one set of footsteps walking away. Levi must have carried Colton back. Her heart squeezed at the thought. Levi loved that kid, which made Trish love Levi more.

  Wait.

  Love?

  Where had that come from?

  Startled by her own thoughts, Trish almost missed Kelly lifting her head and glaring at the retreating fallen angel. Trish shoved aside the confusion with her feelings and narrowed her eyes at Kelly.

  “You don’t like him?” She gestured to Levi’s retreating form.

  Kelly immediately lowered her eyes. She pulled apart the tissue in her hands. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants my son.”

  “Isn’t it good that someone does?”

  Kelly shrugged. Trish was done with her games. Since she’d come to this town, Kelly had been difficult, drunk, stoned or high whenever Trish needed to speak to her. Now that she was leaving, she wasn’t going to give Kelly the benefit of the doubt anymore. No more “her mother just died.” No more “she’s had a rough life.” No. None of that. Kelly was going to put up or shut up.

  Trish moved closer to her. “Why don’t you tell me what happened last night.” It was phrased as a question, but Trish’s tone did not imply one.

  Kelly’s bottom lip quivered.

  “Look, Kelly, there’s a tractor trailer jackknifed in the road, a burned out sheriff’s vehicle, a dead truck driver and a dead sheriff all within your vicinity. At one time, I might’ve been nice to you, but that time has long since passed. Answer my questions.”

  “I just needed a ride home,” Kelly gulped.

  “So start there.”

  Kelly’s sloe eyes glanced around her at the devastation. “The car was on fire when we came down the road. We both saw it. And then we saw the man, th-the sheriff, I guess, running toward us, on fire.” Her eyes welled with tears and she lifted them to Trish. “I swear the driver tried to stop.”

  The old compassion for Kelly squirmed through Trish again. She was just a young girl. She’d had a difficult time of it lately. Trish sighed and dropped to her haunches next to Kelly, put a hand on her arm. “I’m sure it’s not easy stopping a truck that big.”

  Kelly shook her head, her body trembling. “He really tried, Miss Trish.”

  “So the truck hit the sheriff?”

  Kelly nodded, more lip quivering, and more tears. “I saw the trailer next to us and heard this horrible squealing. He tried to stop and he slammed on the brakes, but we were too close.”

  Trish paused and let Kelly draw in a breath, calming herself a moment.

  “Then the truck hit him,” Trish filled in. “What happened after that?”

  Kelly bit her lip. “The driver got the truck to stop, but the sheriff was underneath…”

  Before Kelly could go off on another crying tangent, Trish patted her arm. “Okay, sweetie. You sit tight and I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” Kelly demanded.

  “To look at the car. It’ll be okay. Just stay here.”

  Kelly nodded and Trish hiked up over the rocks and sand to where the burned out shell of the sheriff’s car sat. Burnt rubber singed the air and the car was still hot to the touch. Amazingly the scrub around the car hadn’t caught fire, probably because of the freak rainstorm of the day before. God, had that only been yesterday?

  Trish walked around the car. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Levi heading back toward where Kelly sat. Colton was safe in the truck, the dog watching over him. Levi’s face was dark and angry. Trish imagined he was livid with Kelly for scaring her son.

  Bugs. Colton had said bugs.

  Trish shook it off. There were footprints leading away from the car. Probably the sheriff’s, judging by the size. Why had the sheriff come out here?

  Puzzled, Trish followed the prints, sunk deep into the sand. The rain must have pounded this area, then flooded the area around the rocks, just like it did during any rainstorm. The prints were easy to follow. What was Grande doing here?

  “Trish!” Levi bellowed behind her.

  She pulled her flashlight and entered the slim hollow between the rocks. The area was claustrophobic, but only for a few feet. Before her the rocks parted further, the footprints leading her into the hidden basin at the edge of this formation. Formed over hundreds of thousands of years, this tiny enclave of trees, shrubs and weeds flourished when the rain came and was protected even in the hottest of summers.

  The area wasn’t that big. Maybe a few hundred yards in either direction? But this was unmistakably where the sheriff had been headed.

  “Trish!” Levi yelled again.

  He seemed further away this time. The size of the rocks and the slim entrance no doubt distorted sound. Trish avoided the still-standing pools of water, the mosquitoes, the slithery feel of the mud around her. She followed the footprints.

  “Trish!”

  Much further away now. Trish glanced behind her, the way she’d come, and could barely see the entrance. Surely this place wasn’t that big? She shrugged. There were a lot of strange things out here in the desert.

  In front of her was a wall of rock, still dripping from the rain yesterday. The sheriff’s steps were leading her closer, until they abruptly turned to the left, toward what must have been a gushing wall of rain now downgraded to pools of mucky water. Trish frowned at the smell. Something dead must have traveled down from the mountains with that rainwater.

  Her flashlight struggled to cut through the gloom. The footprints had halted. She glanced around, unsure where to go next. The silence in this hidden glen unnerved her. There was nothing here. No reason why Grande would have suddenly decided to come out here last night. The area would have been flooded still from the rain. Rocks were known to fall, tumbling down with other debris washed down with the rain. Danger lurked from above.

  Trish cast her flashlight up, but there was nothing but the slow swaying of the trees. She sighed and ran the light down a crevice in the rock, thick with lichen, back down into the mud, along a dark pool covered in insects…

  Bugs.

  What was with the bugs?

  She moved closer, her foot snapping a twig. Now she saw another print, a big one that matched the sheriff’s. She moved forward, the stench of decay wafting over her.

  There she saw it. The faded polyester. The spray of gray hair.

  Trish sucked in a breath, ready to scream for Levi.

  Out of the muck, the mud, the detritus on the ground, a hand lurched toward her and grabbed her ankle.

  Trish squeaked and dropped her flashlight.

  Her hands shook and her heart thundered in her ears. The hand around her ankle yanked and she lost her footing.

  Trish fell forward, all her weight on her hands.

  “Oof!” Now in the mud, she spun onto her butt and kicked at the hand.

  The hand was atta
ched to an arm and a shoulder. The muddy pool of water that had been behind her began to shimmer.

  Trish fought harder. She reached forward and grasped at the fingers clutching her ankle. Her breath came in short gasps but she tried to suck in more air.

  “Levi!” she shouted.

  Was it her imagination or did she hear thrashing through underbrush back the way she’d come? With her blood pounding so hard it was difficult to tell. She scooted backward but the hand, the arm, the thing, yanked her closer.

  “Let me go!” Trish scolded.

  The middle of the muddy puddle trembled. Trish skidded across more mud and debris, closer, closer.

  “No!” She fumbled for her gun. “No!”

  She didn’t aim the first time, just shot. The bullet pinged into the water, plopping like a frog. The arm shied away from the spot, but still pulled her.

  Trish prided herself on remaining calm, but she wasn’t calm. Not now. Not with this thing grabbing her and pulling. Screaming didn’t occur to her, but more shooting did.

  “Whatisthisthing,” she muttered to herself, aiming this time and hitting the arm. Through and through. She saw the bullet enter the flesh, saw the crease of the metal as it went through and hit the mud on the other side.

  No blood.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. Terror flitted through her, making her body numb. Now she screamed. “Levi! Levi, I’m here! Help me!”

  She shot again and again and again. Her body dragged past the remains of what she could see was Mrs. Feeney. She screamed and shot, the gun clicking on an empty chamber. The hand, the arm, the body still pulled her. And the muddy pool loomed closer, the water sickeningly twisting.

  Deep in the pool the mud churned. A head emerged. A head attached to the neck and shoulder and arm of the thing dragging her. Trish threw her empty gun at the thing but it only bounced off a bicep. Her fingers dug into the mud on either side of her. She felt the soft stuff creep under her fingernails and tear along her skin.

  The thing tossed its head back, whipping mud and water across her body. Long strands of blond hair dripped muddy water down what could have been a movie star face. Then It smiled.

  Long bicuspids glared at Trish. Eyes the color of scarlet were narrowed at her.