There had been no indication of a bifurcation on the map.
And yet that was exactly what opened before Sheriff White pulled up to now.
A fork in the road.
“The fuck is this?”
Sheriff White pulled the flashlight from his belt and shone it down the two tunnels, alternating back and forth.
The darkness was so complete that he could only see about fifteen meters into each. And they both looked identical.
“Williams? There isn’t supposed to be a split here, is there?” his voice was tight, strained.
When there was no immediate answer, he whipped his head around only to see that Williams rooting around in a backpack.
“What are you doing? Williams! Williams!”
The man lifted his head.
“No, there isn’t supposed to be any fork in the pipe. It’s a straight line shot directly to Sabra’s.”
Sheriff turned back to the fork.
“But there is… there fucking is.”
“Fucking hell,” Williams grumbled. “The city blueprints aren’t in here. I put them…”
“What?” Sheriff White whipped back around as more gunfire erupted from above them.
They sounded closer now.
“They’re not here, I fucking put them in here, but now…”
Sheriff White looked at his deputy as he rummaged through his burlap sack, oblivious to the fact that it was sopping up the foul sludge as it rested on the bottom of the sewer. He thought back to when they had left Maselo’s, and was positive that Williams had rolled up the blueprint and jammed it into the bag with the extra batteries and flashlights. And the bag had been slung over his shoulder up until he—
“Fuck,” Sheriff White said. “Johnny took it. You handed him the bag while you were putting on your helmet and helping Reggie with his.”
Williams screwed up his face.
“Why would he take it? Doesn’t make any—”
Coggins cut him off.
“I knew it… I knew that fucking delinquint was acting funny. Just like Leon—everyone in this fucking county is so hooked on heroin that they aren’t trying to help us, they want to stop us. They don’t give a fuck about the county, about the people in it, all they care about is getting their next fix.”
“But why would he even answer the phone when you called him, then?” Williams interjected.
Sheriff White threw up his hands, but it was Coggins who answered for him.
“How the fuck should I know?”
There was no rhyme or reason to the actions of the man with the bloodshot eyes, the runny nose. There was only a need.
Something that reminded Sheriff White of a shotgun blast, if said blast was muffled by aluminum earmuffs, sounded from above, and he shook his head.
He would deal with Johnny later. If there was a later.
“Doesn’t matter—it doesn’t change anything. We still need to—”
“Sheriff?” Reggie said, a tremor in his voice. “There are some slimy footsteps here, looks like someone has come by here recently, dragging a foot, maybe?”
Reggie had stepped several feet into the tunnel on their left, where the water seemed to have mostly dried up.
“What? You sure?” the Sheriff asked as he walked over. When he was next to Reggie, he squatted on his haunches and shone his flashlight on the ground.
Even though most of the water had dried up in this tunnel, there was still a thin layer of algae coating where he assumed it must have been not long ago. Following his deputy’s finger, he realized that the green slime was indeed disturbed in places folowing a pattern that could be interpreted as Reggie had described it: a man with a limp.
Sheriff White rose to his feet, his mind whirring.
What the fuck is going on here?
His reservations about his plan came roaring back to him then.
Get in, get out. Don’t fire a shot.
Nowhere in the plan was there mention of someone else in the sewers with them.
Sheriff White again tried to look down the tunnel, but the darkness was hungry and swallowed his flashlight beam like a blue whale wolfing down krill.
“It doesn't matter,” he repeated absently. But then he changed his mind. This wasn’t like Johnny the mechanic stealing the blueprints; that didn’t matter. But footsteps in the other tunnel meant something; it meant that someone could ambush them from behind. “Williams, when you were down here to kill rats, which way did you go?”
Williams’s eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t go down here, I was just—”
“Your fucking men, then,” Sheriff White roared, his frustration mounting. “Which way did they go?”
“Th—th—they didn’t go any way!” Williams stammered. “There was only one way! There was no—no fucking fork! There was just one way!”
Paul took a deep breath, trying to keep his emotions in check.
What Williams was saying didn’t make sense; no one just snuck into the sewers and added another branch to the tunnels. Not without someone noticing, anyway.
It didn’t make any sense.
“Fuck, was the estate east or west of the sewer entrance?” he asked, his voice evening out.
Williams bit his lip.
“East. For sure it was east, toward Pekinish.”
Paul nodded, confirming his own thoughts. The tunnel to the right led east, while the other moved west, back toward Askergan. It still didn’t make any sense, but then again none of this did.
Dana Drew becoming some sort of demon, consuming men whole didn’t make sense. Six-legged grabs with tiny teeth that embedded themselves beneath your skin didn’t make sense.
Mexican cartels in Askergan didn’t make sense.
Nancy’s head in a bag didn’t make sense.
None of it made any fucking sense.
He took a deep breath and this time he felt his heart flutter.
For you, Nancy.
Sheriff Paul White made his decision.
“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. Coggins, you and I are going to continue as planned: break into the estate and grab the girls. Reg, you and Williams stay here and guard the tunnels, make sure whoever the fuck went down there, doesn’t come back out again.”
Paul observed his men as he gave instructions, and thought he actually saw relief cross over Williams’s narrow features.
He didn’t blame the man; no one wanted to go to the estate.
Except for maybe Coggins.
“And if they come out?”
Sheriff White’s response was immediate.
“Tear ‘em down.”
Reggie nodded and held out the M16.
“You need this?” he asked. Sheriff White shook his head and subconsciously padded the guns on his hips, while Coggins adjusted the strap of his shotgun, bringing it from the back to his front.
“No, we’ll be fine with these. If you hear—”
There was another smattering of gunfire from above, and Sheriff White grabbed Croggins by the sleeve, and started down the right tunnel.
“If you hear anything, two clicks on the walkie—no words, I want radio silence. Two clicks, got it?”
They were hurrying down the tunnel now, the faces of the other men quickly fading into darkness.
“Got it?” Sheriff White hollered. The backpack over his shoulder slipped, and he adjusted it with one hand.
“Got it,” Reggie called after them. “Go get them back, Sheriff. Go get our girls back!”
Chapter 32
“Yes, it’s me,” Father Carter spoke quietly into his cell phone. “I’m in the middle of a sermon here.”
Pike’s voice was hurried, and he sounded out of breath. Two things that the priest rarely attributed to the man.
“We have a problem. A big problem.”
Father Carter turned his head skyward and swore. Someone murmured behind him, and he plastered a fake smile on his face and turned back to the parishioners.
The
y were all staring at him expectantly.
Carter covered the mouthpeice of the cellphone with his palm and lowered it from his face.
“I’m sorry, but there is an issue with… with the new chapel. Please, forgive me.”
More murmurs, but Father Carter ignored these and with a curt nod he quickly left the pulpit. Less than a minute later, he was inside the office that he had commandeered from the late Father Peter Stevens what felt like eons ago.
He closed the door softly, then brought the phone back up to his ear.
“Pike, what the fuck’s going on?”
“It’s one of the deputies; he messed up the plan.”
“What do you mean? Are the cartels there?” He heard muffled gunfire and his heart started beating rapidly in his chest. “Pike?”
There was a pause, but then the man continued.
“Yeah, they’re here, but they’re early. One of the deputies tipped off the Krushers and now—” more gunfire, this time so loud that the phone erupted into static.
Jesus.
The noise faded.
“—now there’s a full scale war breaking out here.”
Carter swore again. Everything was leveraged on getting Walter out of the picture. Eliminating the crab would mean that Sheriff White would make him mayor, which in turn meant that the cartels would run all of their current and future drug activity through him and the church.
A full out war wasn’t on the docket.
“Can you fix this, Pike? Can you make sure that the Crab goes down and that it looks like the big Sheriff did it all by himself?”
There was another pause and Carter frowned so deeply that the muscles just below his cheekbones started to ache.
Things had been going nearly perfectly since they had arrived in Askergan, but now it looked like his luck might have run out.
An image of a terrible fake one dollar bill fluttered in front of his eyes.
No I won’t go back to doing that again. Scrabbling for a single dollar at the mercy of undercover buck-tooth fucks like Yori? No way. No fucking way.
“You know what?” he said with an exasperated sigh. “I’m coming down there. I’m coming down there and I’m going to make sure that everything works according to plan. Nobody is going to fuck this up for me—for us, Pike.”
Pike’s reply came in his more familiar monotone voice.
“That is definitely not a good idea, Carter.”
As if to affirm the man’s words, Carter heard what he thought was a shotgun blast in the distance.
Father Carter shook his head.
“I’m definitely coming down there.”
Before Pike could get a word in edgewise, Carter hung up. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath.
Nothing will get in my way this time. This is my moment, mom. All my work, from panhandling when I was eight, to stealing the heroin from Pike and betting it all on him to win the fight. And then only to lose it all in Florida, swindled by a man not unlike myself, to finally, after nearly six years of just keeping the tape in my backpack, to watching the horrible acts performed by the late Father Peter Stevens. And then I arrived here, the savior of a shitty county that no one but a slow-witted Sheriff and a bunch of ragtag deputies gave two shits about. This is my time; my fucking time.
With renewed purpose, Father Carter strode over to the safe, crouched, and opened it. The sight of the snub-nosed 9mm pistol gave him comfort, even though he knew that if push came to shove, then it wouldn’t stand up to the shotgun blasts he had heard over the phone.
He grabbed the gun and slipped it into his robes before leaving the office and heading back into the main chapel.
“My people,” he said, a warm smile forming on his lips. “I’m very sorry, but there is an issue that requires my urgent attention. So it is with sadness in my heart that I must leave you now. But rest assured, I shall return to you all.”
There were only about a dozen parishioners in the church—the others were out at the new site, the old Wharfburn Estate, erecting two-by-fours and plywood—but when they gasped, it sounded like a small windstorm in the stale air that hung in the house of God.
“Did someone die?” someone whispered, and Carter smiled even larger.
No, not yet. But there will be deaths tonight, that much you can be assured of.
He clasped his hands together.
“I’m truly sorry, and I realize that this is quite unusual, but I can assure you that everything will be fine. What can I say? It’s a strange time in Askergan all around, wouldn’t you agree?”
Chapter 33
Donnie pulled himself to his feet, still glaring at Corina through teary eyes. The sounds of gunshots outside the estate were nearly constant now, popping like crackers at a Christmas party.
He never thought that it would go this far, that losing his son, losing Kent to this cunt hanging from the ceiling, would take him to see his brother, to setting up shop in a biker den. Dealing heroin.
But it had.
Part of him regretted not slipping the knife into Corina’s soft neck when he had the chance.
“Get the fuck outside!” someone screamed into the room.
Donnie didn’t even bother turning; the shouts were becoming nearly as frequent as the gunshots.
Where the fuck is Walter?
He had expected his brother to be in the room, but when he wasn’t there, he was convinced that he would come back here when the shooting began.
But of all the bikers hurrying back and forth, arming themselves, shouting, spitting, grunting, they seemed to have forgotten about the Crab entirely.
Where is he?
His eyes flicked up to Corina, who had since passed out either from the pain of being yanked by her arms to the ceiling, or she had finally succumbed to the punches he had delivered before she had tried to choke him out.
Fucking bitch.
His eyes moved to the two empty chains beside her.
Wherever Walter was, he wasn’t going to be happy when he saw what that freak Seth had done… that he had taken the girl and fled.
As gunfire continued to drift to him from outside, Donnie debated just killing Corina then and there, before turning the gun on himself.
But this thought was short-lived. He couldn’t leave his brother. Not after what he had done for him, how he had given him his old life back.
What had his brother said?
All of Askergan must pay for what they’ve done to the Wandry brothers. All of them.
If Donnie was to believe the frantic shouts of the bikers in the hallway, then the cartels had arrived. While at first this notion had terrified him, after consideration, Donnie didn’t think it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
After all, if the cartels were here, the Askergan PD couldn’t be far behind.
Sheriff Paul White, Deputy Bradly Coggins, that traitor Reggie. They will all feel our wrath.
Walter was right, his revenge extended beyond just this handicapped girl; they needed to extract revenge on the entire fucking town.
Donnie made his way over to the large desk and swung the chair around before slumping into it.
The massive oak desk was covered with a litany of drugs, everything from huge lines of coke on a mirror to a Ziploc sandwich bag full of heroin.
But Donnie wasn’t so much interested in these. Instead, he opened the top drawer and peered inside.
Good thing Sabra was paranoid, he thought as his eyes focused on the submachine gun.
For some reason, his gaze drifted upward next, but this time he skipped over Corina. Instead, Donnie focused on the skins that he had help suture together. The ones they had peeled from the Sheriff’s girlfriend and the other bikers like moist decals.
A lecherous grin formed on his face, one that grew and grew and grew until his cheeks started to hurt.
Maybe I can use those, too, Donnie thought.
And then his high-pitched laughter collided with the shouts from the hallway.
; Chapter 34
Reggie was leaning against the inside of the sewer tunnel, not caring that the back of his shirt was likely becoming covered in grime. He held the M16 in his hand, but it was lowered by his hip, and his fingers were wrapped around the butt and nowhere near the trigger.
He heard several more pops from somewhere high above them, and he shook his head.
“What do you think’s going on up there?” he asked quietly. Even though he kept his voice down, it still traveled quite a ways in the bowels of Askergan… or Pekinish… or wherever the hell they were now.
Unlike Reggie, Deputy Williams was anything but calm; he paced back and forth in the tunnel, his hand on the guard of his service weapon. His cheeks and forehead glistened with sweat, and his face was pale.
His constant fidgeting was making Reggie queasy.
“Don’t know,” the man said, not bothering to meet his eyes. “Cartels shooting off.”
Reggie looked down at his hands.
He thought that there was something else going on up there, too. Something that was somehow worse than the cartels.
For some reason his mind flicked to his longtime friend Greg Griddle, who had fought beside him when the first wave of the crackers had struck the county. Greg, who had been riding with him, Greg who was so desperate to find Kent, who would do anything for his dead son.
About how he had lost his mind in the church, grabbed Corina and then had either fled or had been taken by the bikers. Or so the story went.
For his sake, Reggie hoped it was the former.
And then his mind switched back to an even earlier time.
He was fishing off the side of the boat, trying to reel in the big one, while Kent and Tyler were at the stern. This was just before his own son, Baird, “fell” into the water. Reggie wondered how crazy he might become if Baird had been the one that had been trapped in the basement, if he had been the one that Corina had been forced to squeeze the life out.
Reggie considered how crazy he might become, what he might be capable of. It was a sobering thought, so while he hoped for the latter, he was starting to lean toward the former… and maybe even something worse.
Stitches (Insatiable Series Book 5) Page 14