“Fuck, Dirk, what’s with this shit? Huh?”
Even though Mickey was speaking a little too loudly for Dirk’s taste, he continued walking and didn’t turn.
“Keep it down—and keep moving.”
The man obliged and less than a minute later they had made it to the wall unnoticed.
“Up and over,” Dirk instructed.
Mickey didn’t hesitate. He pressed his palms down on the painted white surface, and in one smooth motion, hoisted himself over the wall.
Dirk quickly followed.
With a slight rise on the other side of the wall, the drop was only about three and a half feet, and yet Mickey had fallen on all fours.
“Mickey?” Dirk said. In response to his name, the man flipped onto his back.
Dirk’s heart sunk. Clutched between both of Mickey’s hands, the barrel staring up at him like a shadowy, cyclopean eye, was a pistol.
Dirk had let his guard down, and now he was the one being held at gunpoint. His own pistol was down at his side, a consequence of maintaining his balance as he jumped. Staring down the barrel, he moved his hands away from his body slowly, indicating that he posed no threat.
“Now, Dirk, tell me what the fuck you are doing back here, what the fuck is going on.”
Dirk shrugged and came right out with it. The way he figured it, either Mickey was going to shoot him or he wasn’t. He doubted he could say anything that would change the man’s mind at this juncture.
Either way, time was of the essence.
“I need to know about the girls… the ones that the Crab took. I need to know where he’s keeping them.”
Mickey blinked slowly. Clearly, Dirk’s frankness, or maybe it was the query itself, had been unexpected.
“What? Why?”
“Because, Mickey, they are very important to the Sheriff and his deputies, that’s why.”
Mickey’s eyes narrowed.
“So it’s true; you were undercover.”
Dirk shook his head.
“No not undercover, haven’t been undercover for years now. But I’m not who you think I am.”
“Then who the fuck are you?”
It was a straight-forward question, one that required straight-forward answer. This wasn’t a calculus exam, but an inquiry by gunpoint.
And yet Dirk didn’t immediately know how to answer.
Who am I? Who am I?
He knew who he had been: he had been a father, a husband, a career driven police officer trying to keep people safe.
But now… but now he wasn’t so much a man as he was an idea. A distilled, concentrated idea driven by a single objective: revenge.
Dirk tried to shake these thoughts, but they persisted.
I’m not a man. I’m an implement of revenge.
“Dirk? I asked you a question… I’m the one with the gun now, remember? Why don’t you—”
“Nobody,” he answered in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’m nobody. Just a man with a vendetta.”
“A vendetta? Against who? The Crab? Sabra?”
“No, someone else. Look, Mickey, I need to know about the girls. Where is he keeping them? Are they still alive?”
Mickey started to stand, making sure to keep the gun aimed directly at Dirk’s chest. And then he suddenly lowered it. Not completely, he didn’t exactly put it away, but it was clear that his fury had been usurped by curiosity. Curiosity and confusion.
“What they did to the reporter lady, that was horrible,” he said softly. “The Krushers were never about kidnapping woman, stringing them up like pieces of meat. Putting their fucking head in a bag. Shit, we were supposed to protect women.”
Dirk nodded.
“I can prevent it from happening to the other two—if they are still alive. You just need to tell me where he’s keeping them. Are they still in the main room? The one that Sabra used to hole up in? Where the Crab—”
Dirk stopped talking when Mickey’s entire body sagged. The gun fell limply at his side, his finger slipping to the guard.
“Take me with you, Dirk—wherever you are going, take me with you. I can’t—I can’t be here anymore.”
Dirk squinted hard. He knew Mickey wasn’t like the others, he wasn’t a thug, not really, but he was a career criminal. The man’s dark beady eyes whipped back and forth, and he wiped at his nose, which was red around the corners.
“This thing, this Crab, he’s going to destroy everything. He’s going to burn everything to the ground, destroy the entire fucking county. He won’t stop. No matter what, as long as he is still breathing and he can control those fucking things, he’s going to keep on killing. The women are just the start. And I want no part of this insanity.”
He stared directly at Dirk.
“Take me with you. No matter what you are up to, where you are going, it has to be better than here.”
“I—I—” can’t, Dirk was about to say, but an image of Carter Duke came to mind with the sharply dressed Pike standing behind him, and he hesitated. Maybe he could use Mickey for something else. After all, you couldn’t have too many allies in this world populated with a fraternity of demons. “I won’t promise, Mickey. But you help us save the girls, and I’ll do everything I can to help. Where are they? Are they still alive?”
Mickey nodded, and for the first time in a long while, Dirk felt something inside him lift.
“They’re alive. And they’re in the room—the crab has got them strung up like cattle, Dirk. Like fucking cattle ready for the slaughter.”
Dirk shook his head in disgust, and then reached for the walkie on his belt.
It’s almost time. After all these years, it’s almost time.
Chapter 22
“What the fuck is this?” Coggins nearly shouted. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Sheriff White couldn’t help but smile, despite himself. He reached into the front pocket of his jeans just as they pulled up to Maselo Tackle. Then he tossed the small teener of heroin onto Coggins’s lap.
The man didn’t say anything; instead, he simply stared at the baggie of heroin, his eyes wide.
“Yep. You’ve lost your mind. Lost your mind completely. You want to get high? You want to get high? Now?”
The way Coggins said the word high gave Paul pause. There was a strange familiarity with the word and an intonation that made it seem like it wasn’t the request that was heinous, but just the timing.
Sheriff White was reminded of the day that he had found Coggins at the biker bar, and although he teased him constantly about being a junior KKK card carrying member, he hadn’t probed the man about why he was really there.
Or what he had done for the past six years, for that matter.
Could he have…?
No, not Coggins.
His thoughts circled back to how overwhelming the job of being a Sheriff was, and he felt increased admiration for what Dana Drew had done. Dana had held the county in check for many, many years. For a long time, the only crime in Askergan was the occasional bar fight, some local yokels getting liquored up and squeezing some girl’s ass a little too tight. Spill a drink on someone’s shoe, maybe, and bite their tongue when an apology was warranted. But now…
It had taken less than a year for things to start going to shit when Paul took over. And now, more than a half-decade later, things had digressed into a big, steaming pile of diarrhea.
Any hint of a smile melted off his face.
“You said it: we need weapons,” Paul grumbled, pulling his squad car up behind Deputy Williams’s. The fact that the car was empty gave him hope that they were inside, that the store wasn’t closed and that they weren’t going to have to force their way in. “The pathologist called and gave me an idea.”
Coggins’s eyes flicked from the bag with the dead Cracker inside to the heroin that he now held in his other hand.
“Maybe you should just ignore that little voice giving you ideas inside your head, Whitey. I mean, what the hell—”
&
nbsp; “Just wait—the pathologist said that she could reanimate the crackers, that they responded to stimulants somehow.”
Paul watched as Coggins moved his right hand, the one with the heroin, away from the other bag. His Adam’s apple bobbed like a goat stuck in the throat of a python.
“And why the fuck would you want to do that?”
Paul shrugged.
“I don’t want to do it, Coggins. Fuck, the last thing I want is for these things to start running around the county again.”
His mind flicked to Mrs. Drew, sprinting from the station, crackers clinging to any and all exposed skin. And then her body was falling forward, a massive crimson hole in the back of her head where the bullet had entered.
“That’s the last fucking thing I want,” he whispered. “It’s just in case.”
Coggins stared at him, unblinking.
“In case of what?”
Paul started to second guess his own idea, and decided to squash the discussion there and then. He reached for the door and opened it, feeling the warm air blow against his face.
“You never fucking know, Coggins.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” his deputy replied. “Well, I’m just going to leave this fucking thing in the trunk, how ‘bout it?”
Paul nodded as Coggins stepped out and did just that. As they made their way toward the front door of Maselo’s, he held the baggie up to the street light.
“Where did you get this, anyway?”
Paul made a move to reach for it, but Coggins moved it just out of reach. The Sheriff let him have it.
“Evidence,” he said simply, before pulling the door wide and stepping inside the dimly lit store.
***
Paul watched as Leon scratched the side of his neck raw. It amazed him that even with his fingernails bitten to the quick, that they could still somehow manage to raise large red welts.
“This all you got? I’ve already told you that tonight I don’t care about licenses or what not. Consider this your one chance for a get out of jail free card. Even better, I’ll pay you for everything we take. Even the fucking illegal ones,” the Sheriff said, his eyes locked on the man who had earned the nickname Shifty Leon.
Shifty lifted his foot and used the toe of his running shoe to scratch his other ankle through his jeans.
“This—this all I got,” he said quickly. “Whatchu need it for, anway?”
Paul squinted, trying to get a read on the man. He wasn’t sure if he was lying, if he was high, or if he was just desperate to get high.
“Don’t you worry about what I need it for. Just show me what else you have.”
His eyes flicked to the weapons that had been laid out on the counter before them. There were three hunting rifles, which he doubted would do them much good, but there were also two semi-automatic Glock 31s, which would definitely be of use, given how depleted their stocks were following the cracker raid. There was also a bolt-action shotgun, along with a couple dozen boxes of ammo, which would be a viable replacement for the one he had lent Dirk.
In the end, it wasn’t the huge cache he had hoped for, but it was something. And every bullet was going to help.
The way Paul figured it, if they had to use their guns, they were going to be in for a world of hurt. And after what they had done to Nancy, he was going to take as many of the fuckers down with him as possible.
I wonder if the thought ever crossed Dana’s mind, he thought unexpectedly.
Williams bent down and picked up one of the Glocks, weighing it in his palm. Then he flicked back the chamber and peered inside.
“Loaded,” he confirmed. He did the same with the other Glock. “Also loaded.”
“Yeah, I need those. I mean, I’m just waiting on the permit. It’s for protection, you know.”
“Protection from what?” Coggins demanded.
Leon’s neck scratching reached a furious new heights, making Paul wonder if he should stop the man before he tore an artery.
He decided against it.
“From when Sabra and his crew comes to collect, isn’t that right, Leon?”
Shifty Leon said nothing.
Reggie suddenly appeared from down one of the aisles, something large in his hand, a massive smile on his wide face.
“Forgot to tell us about this, Leon?” he smirked.
When Leon saw what was in his hand, he stopped scratching, and lunged at him. Shifty didn’t earn his name for nothing; he was surprisingly quick, and he made it to Reggie even before Coggins, who had been standing right beside the man for this very reason, could grab him.
But Reggie was also ready, and he was a very large man. He simply thrust his large boulder-like shoulder forward at the apex of Leon’s dive. There was an audible crack, and then Leon was thrust back the other way, landing hard on his ass.
“You can’t take that! That’s the only one I have!” he shouted.
Reggie turned the M16 assault rifle over in his hand.
“I prefer a flame thrower, but I’m thinking that this might just do the trick.”
“It’s for protection!” Leon wailed.
“It’s also illegal, you fiend,” Coggins spat. He stepped toward the downed man, but Paul moved between them. There was no need to get Leon more riled up.
Their fight was elsewhere.
“We’ll pay you for it,” he said, to which Coggins shot him a look.
“You couldn’t pay me enough,” Leon shot back. “When they come for me, for what I owe…”
“Not our fucking problem,” Coggins replied.
“Easy now. Look, Leon, after tonight. There won’t be any more problems. After tonight, you won’t owe anyone anything.”
This time all three of his deputies looked at him, and he immediately regretted his words.
The plan was to get in, get the girls, and get out. That was it. If they could help it, their guns, either the ones they had just procured or their own, would remain holstered. And they were to avoid Walter at all costs.
Or, in the very least, that was what Sheriff White had instructed them.
But there was Nancy; someone had to pay for Nancy.
Paul realized that he had been grinding his teeth, and he relaxed, feeling the muscles in his jaw sigh as they went slack.
“There will be no more heroin in Askergan, Leon. Not after today.”
Sheriff White had expected relief, but instead, Leon’s blistered face twisted into a snarl.
This time when he lunged, his projectile of a body was aimed at the Sheriff.
Coggins wasn’t taken by surprise a second time. He stepped forward and delivered a perfectly-timed right hook to the man’s jaw, sending him careening sideways.
The man crumpled into a ball on the floor, his eyes closed, his breathing rhythmic.
Coggins shrugged.
“He was bugging the shit out of me, anyway.”
Paul held back a chuckle.
Shifty Leon was bugging the shit out of him, too.
“When are we going to hear from Dirk?” Williams asked.
And then, as if on cue, the walkie on Sheriff White’s hip buzzed.
“Sheriff? Come in, Sheriff.”
Paul snapped it off the clip and brought it to his mouth.
“Yeah, Sheriff White here,” he said, his heart starting to beat a little faster in his chest.
“It’s Dirk… they’re here, Sheriff. The girls are here and they’re in the main room.”
Sheriff White closed his eyes for a moment, the image of Nancy’s head in the plastic bag flashing in his mind once again. It was an image that would be forever burned onto his retinas, a constant reminder of how he had failed her, how he had failed all of Askergan.
But now he was presented with a moment that afforded him an opportunity to begin to make amends.
And that wasn’t something he was going to let pass him by.
Sheriff Paul White opened his eyes.
“It’s on,” he whispered. “It’s on. Get into po
sition, and I’ll call Pike.”
Chapter 23
Peter Glike, the one who all those years ago Father Carter Duke, then Chris Davis, had given the moniker Pike, stood alone atop the hill overlooking what had once been Sabra’s Estate, but now belonged to a monster who called himself the Crab.
He was farther away than when he had spoken to Rodriguez, the gang banger he had met a very long time ago as well, and out of sight of any of the thinning Skull Krusher patrols. But he wasn’t so far that he couldn’t see Dirk approaching the man by the fence. At first it looked as if the other biker had gotten the better of him, and Pike thought he might have had to call in the cartel a little early, but then Dirk regained control.
His thoughts briefly turned inward to his conversation with Father Carter about what role they were going to play in the upcoming war. Sheriff White had been explicit in his instructions: he wanted the girls out, and to wait for reinforcements to deal with the Crab and the bikers later.
But this wasn’t what Carter or the cartels had in mind; their singular vision was to kill the Crab and scatter the bikers. Father Carter wanted the Sheriff, needed the Sheriff, and his men to engage with the Crab. But Carter had also been explicit about one fact: no cops were to die, especially the Sheriff.
The Sheriff had to live, at any and all costs.
As Pike watched Dirk reach for his walkie through the binoculars affixed with the night vision scope, he waited for the one Jared had brought to him to squawk. He had kept it on low, but still didn’t like the idea of it chirping out in the open.
It didn’t.
Pike slithered out of the tall grass, and with his ears perked, listening for any sound that wasn’t of his doing, he slowly made his way away from the compound.
When he was safely back inside his car, he left it off and sat in darkness. As he waited for the signal, he allowed his mind to drift back to another time, back to when he had been Peter Glike and Carter Duke had been Chris Davis.
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