The man’s bare upper body was a mess, his chest streaked with hideously thick blue and red vessels of a nature that Donnie had never seen.
And then there were the white spots, the spots of ‘healed’ skin where the tiny white crackers had erupted. Six times Donnie had seen those crackers come forth, and six times he had seen the bikers consumed by them, devoured, before their chests had literally exploded.
There was also the other cracker, the one embedded in Walter’s shoulder, that seemed to thrive on the man’s excessive drug use.
“What should I do with him?” the biker asked.
The Crab indicated the large desk.
“Put him there,” he said through his brown and yellow teeth.
The man nodded and walked over to the desk, laying the man down gently on top of it.
Another man entered the room next, and for an instant, Donnie thought he was experiencing some sort of bastardized déjà vu.
This biker also had a frail body laid across his arms, and the scene was eerily similar. The only difference that Donnie could discern was that this body was that of a woman.
Walter’s smile grew.
“What should I do with this one?”
“Give her to Donnie; have him string her up with the others.”
At the mention of ‘the others’, Donnie turned back to the task at hand. He gripped the heavy chain in both hands and pulled. With a grunt, the chain moved a couple of feet, and then looped it around the hoop in the floor to make sure he didn’t lose the slack. He pulled twice more and then wrapped the chain around the metal stake that he had driven into the solid oak floor.
He realized that the biker was beside him now, and was awaiting further instruction.
“Just put her down, I’ll deal with her,” he instructed, his voice oddly monotone.
The biker did as he was told, and Donnie turned to examine his handiwork.
Two women were strung up by their hands, their naked bodies hanging limply from the heavy chain that he had removed from the chandelier and affixed to the ceiling. Both of them, like the girl on the floor beside him, were unconscious, their hair dangling in front of their faces.
Two women, hanging, bruised, like Askergan itself, no idea about the fate that was about to befall them.
Two women, and soon to be a third.
For a brief moment, Greg Griddle tried to creep back into him, but he forced him away with thoughts of Kent lying on the gurney, his face purple.
Greg was gone—Greg died with Kent. And in his place was Donnie, the boy that was beaten and battered. The one that had his father’s anger buried deep inside. The one that his father had mistakenly thought wasn’t like him, that he was different, kind, compassionate.
But his father was wrong. Donnie was like him. Donnie was like him and Walter.
He was a Wandry through and through.
Running away hadn’t changed that, neither had adopting a new name.
For a time Kent had changed him.
But now Kent was dead.
They will pay for what they did to Kent. All of Askergan will pay.
Donnie wasn’t sure if he had said the thought out loud, but when the Crab spoke next, he was sure that he must have, because the words that exited the man’s mangled mouth echoed those thoughts.
“Askergan will pay. Tonight they shall taste fear more potent than anything they have felt before.”
Donnie nodded and felt a smile creep onto his own face.
And then he set about stringing up the third woman beside the others.
54.
“You can stay, or you can leave. No one is going to force you to hang around.”
Sheriff Paul White scanned his men’s faces.
There were four of them, aside from himself. Reggie, Deputy Williams, the biker Dirk Hannover, and of course Bradley Coggins.
Their faces were all traced with streaks of dirt, sweat, and blood, and it was clear that their sleepless tanks were running on fumes. They should retire for the night, get some sleep before making any rash decisions.
But there was no time for that.
They have Nancy.
They have Alice.
They have Askergan, for Christ’s sake.
The sheriff cleared his throat.
“That goes for all of you. There is something brewing in Askergan, and what you have all experienced was only the beginning. There is a war coming.” He paused and wiped the sweat from his brow. “And, to be honest, I don’t know how we can possibly win.”
Deputy Williams’ eyes dropped to the floor.
“I know what you all must be thinking, because I have thought the same thing. ‘Why fight? Why fight a battle that is futile, that we simply cannot win?’”
There was something akin to relief that washed over everyone’s faces—everyone except for Coggins.
“There is a moment, a moment in every person’s life where they have to stand up against impossible odds. Sheriff Dana Drew did it, as did his wife. And we did it—we did it when the crackers came, and we won... we suffered incredible losses, but we still won. And I know that it is incomprehensible to ask you to do it again, but I am. I’m asking you to do it, to sign on now, to hop aboard. To risk your lives for one of the few things worth saving in this world: a county. A county that has been pretty much ignored, but one that has such passion, that once held so much promise. So, please, it is unfair, unjust, and simply immoral, but before I ask you, please, ask yourself if you want to stand up.”
A silence washed over them, and for a brief moment, the sheriff felt his heart sink.
They are going to leave; they are going to take off their uniforms, lay down their paltry supply of weapons, and go far, far away from here.
Part of him didn’t blame them; part of him wanted to do the same.
But part of him also thought about Nancy, about how her pretty lips had formed those fateful words: I’m sorry.
He, for one, would not be laying down his arms tonight, and probably not ever.
He was in this for Askergan. He was in this for the long haul.
No matter what.
Coggins spoke first, and when he did, his cheeks were pinched in anger.
“I won’t let them have her. They can have me, but they can’t have her.”
Good, that’s two.
Williams was next.
There was another long pause, during which the sheriff kept his eyes trained on Williams, who chewed the inside of his cheek.
“I’m in,” he whispered at last.
Reggie nodded next, and then the man surprised the sheriff by turning to Dirk.
“You know them best; we need you.”
Dirk shook his head almost forlornly.
“You guys—I commend you guys. But I don’t think you understand... Sabra had an army of bikers, a network whose arms reach far greater than Askergan. And these are bad men. I commend you for what you are trying to do here, to stand up to them, I really do, but it is as your sheriff said. It’s futile.”
The sheriff grimaced, and then something in Williams’ face changed, as if Dirk bowing out was giving him permission to do the same.
They all needed to be in, he realized, even if all included a biker who he had just met, a muscular man who was probably just a general contractor or a union man by trade, a deputy whose resolve he had more than once questioned, and a troubled man who had lost everything and then some.
Thinking about the last man, about Coggins, gave him pause. Even though Paul had wanted Coggins to come back around, to rejoin the Department as a Deputy, an equally large part of him also never wanted to see his friend again.
Because not seeing Bradley Coggins again, never again hearing his stupid NHL trivia, would mean that the man had gotten out.
If there was anything that Paul had learned during his tenure as the Sheriff of Askergan, it was that this was no normal County. It had started with the blizzard, or maybe it even predated that, but regardless, once it started, the
horrors that befell them all had snowballed and hadn’t stopped. First the shit that happened with Dana, then the drugs, slowly disseminating throughout the entire County, and then the crackers. It was as if every poison or plague imaginable had been unleashed on this corner of the northeastern United States, the once idyllic and beautiful County bereft of any crime greater than a stolen pack of bubble gum was suddenly awash with terror of the like that was better set in a horror film.
It had all gone to shit—and it had gone to shit on his watch.
Yeah, a big part of him wished that Coggins had gotten out. But another thing he had slowly come to realize about Askergan was that it had an uncanny way of drawing you back in, whether or not you wanted to be here…
This is only the beginning, he thought suddenly. More people are going to die here before the County is rid of the poison that has infected everything.
He swallowed hard.
If—if he could rid the County of the Crab and whatever other fucked up plagues haunted this place.
The sheriff turned back to the men before him.
There weren’t enough of them; four or even five men weren’t enough to take on an army.
He swallowed hard, and opened his mouth to say something, to obey his initial instinct to tell them all to go home to sleep on it, when there was a commotion outside the door.
He raised his gaze, and through the window that wasn’t boarded up he caught sight of dozens of small lights. It took him a moment to realize that they were either torches or flashlights.
“What’s going on?” Coggins asked quietly.
The sheriff pulled away from the group and moved toward the door.
When he opened it, his breath caught in his throat.
There were more than two dozen people standing on the lawn, their faces identical masks of anger and disdain. He recognized a handful of them as citizens that had been part of the crowd in the station earlier in the day, yelling at him to do something. But while then they had been angry and frustrated, they were different now; not just angry, but angry.
And in the center of the crowd was a man with a medium build and a thick, dark beard wearing a priest’s collar.
The man was a priest.
Beside him was another man, one with a polar opposite expression to the man with the beard and the smirk, a man wearing a three-piece suit of all things.
And then there was a third man, the only one of the three that the sheriff recognized. Although his face was drawn, his eyes downcast, it was none other than Jared Lawrence standing beside the two others.
Sheriff Paul White wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad sign.
“Gentlemen,” the priest began, raising his voice for everyone to hear. “It appears as if you are short on manpower, and by the looks of it, firepower.”
With the word firepower, the men with the flashlights flashed the guns—a mishmash of pistols and what looked like hunting rifles—in their other hands.
“Let me introduce myself. My name is Father Carter Duke. I am here to offer my services. I am here to help you guys.”
There was a small uproar as the men on the station lawn shouted their approval.
“I am here for Askergan.”
The affirmative shouts increased in fervor, and something in the sheriff lifted.
He turned back to his men, who had joined him just outside the station doors.
Their spirits too seemed to have lifted. All except for Dirk, whose eyes were burning holes in the priest’s Godly fabric.
But that didn’t matter now; what mattered now was that the sheriff thought that they might just have the men that they needed to at least put up a fight.
Sheriff Paul White turned back to the priest.
“Father Duke, welcome to Askergan. And yes, we could very much use your help.”
The night air unexpectedly filled with the sound of motorcycle throttles. Everyone turned to face the two bikes that made their way slowly down Main Street. They were going too slow to portray any sign of aggression, and the sheriff immediately put his hands out at his sides, indicating for his men to stand down.
He spied Father Duke looking at him, a sly smile on his face, and the parishioners, if that’s what they were, followed his orders.
The way that they had obeyed the priest’s order, and had completely ignored his gesture, gave him pause; his relationship with the strange, smooth-talking priest was going to be a complicated one, he knew, but what choice did he have but to accept his aid?
After all, without him, they were four, maybe five men against… what? A dozen? Fifty? It was hard to know how many of the bikers had stuck around following Sabra’s demise. Clearly, if Dirk’s story had any truth in it, many would have fled. But some would have stayed.
Some definitely would have stayed.
Problem was, even when Sabra was alive he had been an enigma to the Sheriff, and now that he was gone it was impossible to even guess how many men he had at his disposal.
What was a clear, however, was that without the priest, they had no chance. But with him? With him, they might have a fighting chance.
A slim fighting chance, but still a chance.
“What do they want?” Reggie asked out of the corner of his mouth, and the sheriff just shook his head.
He had no idea what they wanted. Instead of answering, he said, “Be ready. Don’t fire first, but be ready for anything.”
In the end, despite Sheriff White’s appeals, they were not ready for what happened next.
The two bikers turned and stopped, their bikes idling on the opposite side of Main Street. When they shut off their lights, all the sheriff could make out were the burning cherries of their cigarettes.
He stepped forward, coming up beside the priest.
“What do you want?” he shouted, his voice cutting through the warm air.
For a moment, no one answered.
“Someone put a goddamn flashlight on them,” Paul grumbled, and several men obliged, bathing the men that were stationed forty or fifty feet away in a dull yellow glow.
It was clear by their shocked expressions that these men had not expected to see so many outside the station. They too, it appeared, were oblivious to the reach of the strange, new priest in town. This shock faded quickly, however, and their lined faces soon hardened.
One of the bikers slowly reached behind him, and the sheriff heard the men around him take a collective intake of breath.
“Stand down,” he said. “Stand down!”
With a flick of his wrist, the biked launched something into the air, some sort of plastic bag.
Several of the priest’s men scattered, and others still raised their weapons as if they were prepared to shoot the thing out of the air like a demented clay pigeon. But when they saw that it was only a bag, a large plastic bag, they thankfully refrained from shooting.
The bag was filled with a solid object that landed on the sidewalk in front of both the sheriff and the priest. As they watched, it proceeded to roll clumsily a few feet before coming to a complete stop.
“A gift,” the man who had thrown the basketball-sized object shouted. “An offering from the Crab—just to show he cares.”
The Sheriff didn’t immediately turn to the object. Instead, he held his ground.
“What does he want?” he hollered back.
The man laughed, then indicated the sheriff with an open palm.
“You,” he said with a chuckle. Then he turned to the priest, a sneer forming on his face. “Him. All of you.”
The other biker chimed in next.
“The Crab wants all of Askergan. The Wandry brothers will rule this town!”
The sheriff made a face.
Wandry brothers? What the hell?
He knew of Walter Wandry, of course, but brothers? What were these bikers talking about?
“What—“
But Paul never got a chance to finish his sentence. The two bikers jammed their feet down in odd synchronicity and their
bikes roared to life.
As they turned and sped off, the sheriff stood in silent confusion for a moment. He realized that at some point during the standoff, Coggins had made his way to his side, while the priest had taken a few steps backward. Together Paul White and his longtime friend moved toward the bag.
“What is it?” Coggins asked, his voice laden with fear.
A horrible feeling started to brew in the sheriff’s guts. For the second time today, he had a sinking suspicion that Coggins would be better off elsewhere—that his friend would have been better off not seeing him today.
Or ever.
“What is it?” Coggins repeated, but the sheriff again abstained from answering.
Instead, he kept walking, crouching down when he eventually came level with the bag. It was filled with something dark, he saw, something that was hard to make out in the dim light offered by the men’s flashlights.
He took the pen out of the front pocket of his shirt and tried to flip the bag over. It was heavier than he might have thought, and his pen bent as he pushed against the spherical object.
Eventually, it flopped awkwardly onto the other side.
“No,” Coggins gasped as he caught sight of the contents. “No!”
The sheriff, fearing that he might be sick, turned away.
“No!” Coggins yelled again. He turned toward the dual taillights of the two bikes that receded down Main Street.
When Coggins pulled his gun, Sheriff White tried to reach out and grab his arm, to keep him at bay.
But he missed, and before he knew it, Coggins was walking down the sidewalk, screaming ‘no’ and emptying his clip at the fading motorbikes.
Sheriff felt tears spill from his eyes and pat softly on the plastic bag.
A part of him didn’t want to get a better look; a part of him didn’t want to know exactly what was in there, what Coggins had so quickly determined, but he had to.
He just had to know.
With his pen, he pushed the bag to one side again, revealing two wide eyes and an open mouth.
He was staring directly into a woman’s face, her decapitated head stuffed into a plastic bag that was bound with several rubber bands.
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