"Nobody in the Bay?"
"Naw, cops looked everywhere, knocked on every door," Roc says.
"With warrants?"
"I don't think they searched the apartments, they just tried to shake down the tenants," Billy says.
"Guess we'll meet you out there," Jaybird says, "From what I've seen driving around, the Bay is covered and just about every cop in the city is looking for this guy right now in the streets and any kind of public area. The woods seem like the best option."
"You wanna hop in the car with us?' Billy asks.
"I'm good, and I sure as hell ain't letting you bums ride in my Escalade," Jaybird chuckles, as do the two hooligans. However, the joke has more truth than fiction.
"Meet us at Devil's rock in about an hour?" Billy asks.
"Sounds good to me," Jaybird says, "I'll grab some burgers from Pete's. I have to pay my respects anyway. Be there in exactly an hour. You two know I don't like to wait," Jaybird and Quinn walk back into the hallway.
* * * * *
Judd walks into Travis' room, "hey, partner he pulls up a chair next to the hospital bed and sits down.
Travis is wired to machines that keep him hydrated and breathing. As well as a mechanism to keep him high from a drug drip.
"We got em, didn't we, Judd?" Travis asks.
"Yeah Travis, we did," Judd puts his hand on Travis' shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Boss, I really am. The last thing I wanted to find in that cabin was her body."
"I know, hoss," the sheriff says softly.
"What's gonna happen next?"
"He's gonna go to trial. Innocent until proven, you know that better than anyone else. I 'spose he's gonna heal up first. And yer gonna get better, come back to the force and take it easy for once."
A nurse knocks on the door, "Sheriff Boesh?"
Judd turns around to look at the pretty caramel colored nurse with the warm Asian eyes.
"Yes, ma'am?" Judd smiles.
"I'm sorry but visiting hours are over."
"Sure thing," the nurse lets the door close.
"Guess I'll see ya tomorrow, hoss," he pats his partner on the shin. He turns from Travis and grabs the door knob.
"Hey, Judd?" Travis asks.
"Yeah?"
"Why'd you cut out your brother's tongue?"
Judd chuckles, "they must got you really doped up, Travis."
"That may be true, but it don't change the fact he was talking to you when we got there, and he went silent moments after you went in the basement."
"Crazy fucker cut it out himself," Judd says.
"He cussed when you shot him. There'd be no way he could cut out his own tongue after that."
"I'm not gonna argue with ya Trav', but I know what I did. Get some rest."
Judd exits the hospital room, cool as a cucumber.
* * * * *
Marley and Daniels search through the woods with their gear on their backs. Both ex-boy scouts, hunters, and lifers on the force, they know how to comb a forest. It's possible that Skaggs high tailed it as far south as possible, but every stone must be turned.
Marley and Daniels are the heart of the Kobe police force.
Sure Judd sticks his neck out and makes sure that justice is done, but he shakes hands more than he arrests low-lifes. He's the sheriff. His main goal is PR work.
It's sufficient to say the two detectives have a special sort of hatred for Skaggs McDermott. Not that the rest of the town doesn't, but they want justice, not death. A trial, a jury, and jail time. By the book. Killing scum like Skaggs only makes it seem like his pain is in the present, and not in the future.
* * * * *
Bert is dressed to the nines in hunting gear with a backpack full of essentials. He throws everything in the back of his pick-up truck and starts the engine.
Ain't no way this asshole's gonna get past me. I'll show all them fuckers who's king-cop in Kobe. And that whore too. She'll be beggin' for me back in no time, but I ain't givin' in, she can keep that dope slangin' cocksucker Jaybird for all I care, I'm gonna get me one of them nice lookin' numbers from Aces, rub it all in that bitch's face.
* * * * *
Charlotte, the mother spider finishes her work and crawls to the ceiling, waiting for Skaggs to wake up.
The process used to take three whole days, but the venom acts as a healing agent and a steroid, the transformation is nearly complete. The razor blades in his fingers are secure. His muscles tighten, swell, and enlarge.
Skaggs' legs at one time looked like sticks, but now they are thick and strong, but not from just muscle. Charlotte's venom causes the bones to double or even triple in diameter making them nearly impossible to break.
She waits as time ticks by.
* * * * *
Austin gets out of bed, Krystal tries to hold him back, but the struggle is too much for her tired body to bear. Ecstasy is a hell of a drug, that's for sure.
He looks down at his... friend of sorts. Her perfect body that accompanies her beautiful mind, she is truly a work of art.
He opens the safe and removes his cell phone. She trusts him completely, at least enough to give him access to a safe in her home. But not access to the title of being her boyfriend.
He scrolls through and sees a zillion text messages and missed calls. He starts at the top with his Uncle Judd. Not that he's in any shape to call him, but he knows it must be important. Judd isn't the type of guy to check up on you.
'Can't nobody make ya be a man, gotta earn it yourself.'
Judd's words trickle down his brain stem from time to time. Austin feels good about the place he's in, as a man. He owes it to the one who raised him along with his two cousins.
By Example.
Not just words out of his mouth that didn't mean anything.
Austin presses on a phone icon next to Judd's name and hears it dial.
Chapter XXII
Forgotten Son
As told by Austin
'Nice guys may finish last, but they get the best reward'. My Uncle Judd always told me that. I call him dad, because, well, Curt didn't play that role. Another phrase that really stuck with me was 'It don't cost nuttin' to be nice to people'. Or however his redneck tongue works. He's a great man. A person I respect and I'm proud to say raised me.
I'm not sure how it happened, or why. It was like finding out about the Easter bunny or Santa Clause, it was just a lie to help me live easier.
I was about ten, Judd didn't say anything about it, but my Aunt Karen wears the pants in the house so she told me. It was hard for her, I know. Telling me my mom left for another life, one without me. That my dad was too fucked in the head to raise me right or just didn't feel like he could do it.
I would go over to Curt's house sometimes, spend the weekend or whatever. It wasn't like I never knew him. We lived in the same town. Well, I guess live is a more proper term, but I don't think he'll be living much longer.
Curt was always busy with work, out of town for meetings or trying to pitch a novel. I don't think he was fit to be a dad after my mom left. But Judd was.
Judd treated me just as well as he did Johnny and Rob. He taught me how to play football and shoot my first gun. He was a great dad and I have it good.
Judd's the damn king of the town, at least one of them, and that means I get special treatment everywhere I go. Is it a bit fucked up? Sure. Would you take a free burger at Pete's? I'll bet you would.
Now it looks a lot different being a Boesh. We got a killer in the family. A fucking psycho shares my bloodline. My biological father killed, and then fucked a girl that gave me free beer.
A girl that took shots with us after close.
I was always weirded out when my dad would hang out waiting for her. He was twice her age. I didn't know they hooked up. I just knew that he would come in and see her from time to time. It never crossed my mind that my dad Ed Geine'd a woman I worked with.
Now talk is stirring that he might've killed my mom. I love Karen,
with everything I got, but it would still have been nice to have a real mom. I did once. Now I find out that instead of running away from me, her secret got her killed.
People cheat because they stop loving someone else, it's not worthy of the death penalty. That's what she got though. At least it looks that way.
Curt can't confess to anything, and no one's found her body yet, so there's still a chance my mom was just a two-bit tramp, and not the dead woman that could've raised me.
Chapter XXIII
Birth of a Monster
The sound of creatures crawling in and out of clay awakens Skaggs from his miniature coma. Although his transformation put him in a fever state, he remembers this place, a bedroom for the reborn.
The spiders left prickly hairs ingrained in his skin, like acupuncture needles. They don't hurt, they're just...different.
Skaggs' five senses combine in the darkness to absorb his surroundings. He smells her sweet venom. Red wine spiked with a few drops of formaldehyde, his new mother.
He killed Tina and the giant Wolf spider has taken her place.
This mother won't bitch at him for not coming home for days, she won't tell him he needs to get a job, or that he's never going to be worth half a shit.
This mother will actually love him. She embraces all of his behavioral traits.
* * * * *
Akmed pulls into his parking spot in front of the Manor. It's just another Monday morning in the Bay. Junkies, pregnant teenagers, wannabe thugs.
Lazy Americans.
None of these customers go out and work hard for a living, they only buy beer and cigarettes, things that shorten their lives and make their already easy existence even easier. Or they buy lottery tickets, a short trip to easy street.
Well, with the exception of Jason Gaines.
Jason is the hardest working man that came out of the government subsidized housing facility. He is also the only person that Akmed trusts outside of his own brother.
The West African walks into the Manor and a bell rings. Mohammed, his brother and co-owner looks up from his inventory counts.
"Come to take over?" Mohammed asks.
"Why? You ready to leave so soon?"
"No, it's only been twelve hours." Mohammed rolls his eyes and looks back down at his counts.
The two have come a long way since they traveled over from Sierra Leon back in the early nineties. A different kind of skill set was utilized in the hot African country. Instead of stocking shelves and counting product they mined for diamonds alongside their father.
Akmed saw the true nature of terror in that mine camp. Children that dared to stop looking for diamonds were given short or long sleeves, a practice strongly upheld by the Revolutionary United Front.
Just to be clear, short sleeves are when a slave driver cuts everything off from the elbow down, and long sleeves are a missing hand.
Nothing will ever replace the sound of a machete barreling through bone. It never went right through. It usually took five or six times for the blade to break through the bone. It all depends on how big the person was, though. Sometimes if the kid was only six years old or so, it could take as little as two.
Maybe that's why you don't hear a lot about basketball players coming out of Sierra Leone. It's easier to play futbol with one arm.
When they were rescued, the refugees were split up and sent across the United States. From a mine camp to a two bedroom apartment in Bayside Commons was a substantial improvement in nineteen ninety-three.
Not many refugees were sent to Kobe, only a few families, so coming to America was not as luxurious as they might have hoped. They were not accepted, they spoke English, but outside of that they had no clue about civilized life. Running water was only a reality in the big cities back in Sierra Leone.
The huts had holes where they would use the bathroom. Kids made fun of them at school and beat them, with the exception of Jaybird.
He stuck up for the brothers when no one else would.
Instead of making fun of them for smelling bad or wearing weird clothes, he taught them the necessity of bathing, gave them nice clothes, cologne, deodorant. The drug dealer molded Akmed and Muhammad into better people.
Akmed understood why he did what he did. He would never in a million years turn Jaybird into the cops, maybe that's how the drug dealer turned legit, common decency and honor protected him like a force-field.
When Akmed first moved to Bayside a Skinhead lived next door to his family. The bigot always wore the same outfit, a white tank-top, black pants and steel toed boots. If Akmed was lucky, he could make it out of the hallway without the Skinhead kicking his ass.
Jaybird broke the racist's nose two or three times, but the idiot never listened. Eventually the Skinhead went to prison for an attempted bank robbery, and was stabbed to death with a shank in the shower.
When Jaybird started buying property he maintained the same generosity and humanity he did when they were kids. Akmed wasn't sure how much Jason bought the Manor for, but he knows it was cheap on account of the previous turnover.
The store could never keep the same owner for more than six months on account of the robberies. Regardless what he paid, he rented it out to Akmed and Mohammed for only six hundred dollars a month for the first few years. They never had a problem with robberies. One time a junkie tried to stick up the store and Mohammed shot him in his shoulder.
That was better than any security system money can buy. From the high degree of profit the brothers were able to buy the Manor from Jaybird. To this day neither Akmed or Mohammed will even let the real estate mogul show his money at the store, let alone spend it. They also give Jaybird a five percent kickback after each quarter.
When Skaggs came in yesterday to purchase bath salts, Akmed complied. He sold him the extra push he needed to kill his own mother. Every dollar is important. It proves that he is better than the racist teachers, and the piece of shit skinheads. It's hard to let go of your anger.
Tina McDermott was a good customer and a nice lady. Even though the world can harden you, it's important to remember to be human, even if you were born in a county without humanity.
Akmed picks up all the different varieties of bath salts, and tosses them into a garbage can.
* * * * *
Jessica hurries into the shower, another late start. Fast as lightning she cleans up and throws on her uniform.
"Rob!" She yells down the stairs. "You up?"
Rob runs up the stairs while putting on a navy blue shirt with the BBQ Pitt's logo on it.
Jessica looks at him strangely, "did you bring clothes with you?" She chuckles.
"Stole it from Austin," he says with a nervous twitch.
When Rob gets near the top of the stairs, Jessica grabs his face with both hands.
"This isn't going to be weird, I promise. I really like you and I know you really like me. Forget the bullshit and just be yourself."
"What about Billy?"
"It's over with Billy," she strokes his jaw line with her fingertips, "we've been over for a while but neither of us wanted to say it," Jessica leans in and kisses him.
He wraps his arms around her and tangles his tongue with hers. Rob's hands slide up her shirt and wrap around her b-cup breasts.
Fuck it, she's been late before.
Jessica playfully pushes him down the stairs and closes the door. About halfway down she turns around and bends over. Her skirt tickles Rob's junk through his jeans. He unzips and presses his dick against her thighs.
"Move my panties over." Jessica grips the carpeted stairs with her sky blue fingernails.
With one hand, Rob tugs the yarn of her red thong out of the crevice of her ass, and maneuvers his pecker. He can't quite figure it out so she reaches underneath to pull him inside.
He'll learn eventually.
* * * * *
Pete's Pancakes is a staple in the small town, they have the best burgers in Kobe. Pete and Zed have an ongoing contest for sales and g
uest count.
The loser buys the winner a shot at poker night. The money just ends up getting stuffed in the bartender's bra either way.
"Hey Pete," Jaybird approaches the counter. He reaches in the pocket of his leather coat and retrieves a money clip. Quinn stands next to him, solemn.
"Hey guys," Pete, an older man with white hair stands at a cash register ready to take Jason and Quinn's order, "sorry about your mom Quinn. I hope they fry that sonovabitch."
Quinn tightens his lip and nods his head.
"You got a place to stay?" Pete looks at the long haired boy, waiting for a reply.
"He's staying with me right now," Jaybird answers for his silent friend, "Tina was a fantastic woman."
"The best damn waitress we ever had here. You guys coming to the vigil tonight?"
"Absolutely," Jaybird lies. No way can he tell Pete the truth. That he's hunting for her killer. The owner talks to everyone and spreads gossip like butter. "Can we get a couple burgers for the road?"
"Sure thing," Pete brings up an order screen on a computer. "What'll it be?"
"Two Rodeo burgers," Jaybird peels off a twenty from his money clip, "on my nickel."
"You know your money isn't good here. For either of you. One of the joys of owning your own business."
"Appreciate it," Jaybird says.
"No problem." Pete sends the order back to the kitchen. "Quinn, I ain't gonna say it'll be okay, cause it never will be, but it'll get to the point where you can deal with it."
Quinn's bottom lip quivers.
"Should be right up," Pete walks away with his head down.
* * * * *
The Wolf spider crawls onto Skaggs, pushing her weight on his chest. She holds him down with her two-inch thick legs, her cephalothorax glides against his chin.
Skaggs struggles but the female arachnid won't let him budge. With her top two legs she peels back his lips.
She rubs her fangs together and then sticks them into Skaggs' mouth. Her venom drips on his tongue. His eyes dilate and his body trembles. Her purple poison slides down his throat.
Like a good mother, she feeds her newest child while displaying dominance.
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