by Glenn Trust
3. The Stalk
He waited patiently, a lion in the grass at the edge of the herd. The herd grazed and moved around him and copulated and birthed and played and fought, and was completely unaware of his presence.
When the moment came, he would spring into relentless, merciless, brutal action. He would be filled. For his prey, it would be terrible.
After a long time, his eyes moved again. She emerged from the bowels of the mall through the bank of double glass doors she had entered an hour earlier. Others passed her going in and coming out. They took no notice of the girl, nor she of them. He noticed them all, alert for any sign that he might lose his prey to some chance encounter she might have.
Moving from one circle of light thrown off by the streetlights to the next, she was careful to stay out of the shadows, as a young girl alone should be. It would not help her.
Coming to the pole beneath which her car was parked, she opened the car door, threw the small bag she now carried into the back seat, and slid behind the steering wheel. A moment later, the car started and the headlights came on. It backed slowly from the space. He could see her twisting in the seat to peer around a truck parked next to her, making sure the way was clear. Careful and attentive to her driving, she was completely oblivious to his presence.
He was unknown and unseen, and she was just one small part, an insignificant member, of the herd flowing through the parking lot and into and out of the mall. Her insignificance made her vulnerable.
They would not be there when she cried out in agony and terror, but they would become aware of her absence, eventually. There would be a search. The herd would ripple with fear, and at the same time, sigh deeply with relief that they had not been the ones taken. Soon the predator and the prey would be forgotten, and the herd would return to its random, frenetic movement grateful that they had not been seen by the predator. What they would not comprehend was that, in fact, they were seen. They had not been selected. That was the difference, the only difference.
4. The Hunter
George Mackey rolled his window down in the cool night air and shot a quick stream of tobacco juice between his teeth and out into the dark. The wind from the county sheriff’s pickup rushing through the night air caused the mix of spittle and tobacco juice to spray back against the door and side of the truck. In the light of day, it shown as a brownish dried stain covering the door and side and was a matter of some discussion and disgust by other deputies who refused to retrieve any item from Mackey’s vehicle by going through the driver’s door. They were not about to touch the brown stained door handle.
The interior of the pickup’s cab was a different matter. It was neat and organized. Deputy Mackey kept a small briefcase with reports, pens, flashlight, notepads, extra handcuffs, extra ammunition for his Beretta Model 92F military version nine millimeter pistol, and other essential items seat-belted in on the passenger seat. These were his tools, and even though some of Deputy Mackey’s personal habits were suspect, even ridiculed by his peers, his law enforcement instincts and abilities were not. Like any good tradesman, he kept his tools clean and in order.
In fact, his only real detractor was the person ultimately responsible for his continued presence with the sheriff’s department. Pickham County Sheriff, Richard Klineman, himself had taken a disliking to Deputy Mackey. Retired from a big-city police department, and resettling in rural Georgia, he had felt it his civic duty to run for sheriff so that he might bring enlightened law enforcement to his rustic and clearly unsophisticated neighbors. Klineman had convinced a wealthy and politically connected county commission chairman to support him as a progressive who would usher the County sheriff’s office into the twenty-first century. Old-timers and old money had bought into the idea, mostly because the sitting sheriff had been a non-political straight arrow unwilling to grant favors to the good ole boys. Klineman, an outsider, but willing to play the game with them, won in a close election.
Not too much had changed under Sheriff Klineman. As it turned out, Mackey and the other Pickham County deputies were pretty good at their jobs and as dedicated as their seasoned, big-city detective cousins; maybe more so, since most of them had lived in Pickham County all of their lives. It was their county.
So the deputies patiently worked their jobs, attended to their duties, and waited. Sheriffs were elected. They came and they went. The deputies would bide their time until the political tides would sweep Klineman out of their lives and bring in the next candidate.
Frustrated, Sheriff Klineman’s cleanup of the county was mostly aimed at George Mackey and the few other deputies like him. The reason wasn’t entirely clear to the deputies. They worked hard, solved cases and helped out around the county. No one really complained about them. They were pretty much just average members of the community who happened to be deputies.
And, in fact, that was the problem, although George and his fellow deputies did not understand it. They were like the rest of the community. Country. Rednecks. Simple. In Sheriff Klineman’s eyes, they were hicks. Their general lack of sophistication was embarrassing to him. Tobacco-spitting, good ole boys in scuffed boots could not be true law enforcement professionals. He was going to change things.
But on this clear autumn night, the world seemed right to George Mackey and worries about his sheriff were far from his mind as he whipped the county pickup into the gravel lot of an old country store–gas station. The building was an old frame structure with faded white paint on the wood siding. It had been standing since the 1920’s and had been operated by a succession of owners. Some had made a go of it, some had not. It had sat empty for a number of years before the current owners bought it as a family retirement business. They were making a go of it, sort of. The fact that old man Cutchins and his wife were retired and had most everything paid off made it a little easier for them; otherwise, their continued occupation of the old building would be a doubtful thing.
The Cutchins place was one of a number of small isolated establishments scattered around the county. George usually tried to stop by and check on the secluded businesses around closing time. Half way through his twelve-hour shift, the visits to the isolated stores broke up the monotony of the night.
From his pickup, he could see short, white-haired Mrs. Cutchins standing behind the counter counting out a stack of bills. Two local boys, sixteen or seventeen years old, were standing outside beside a beat up old farm truck watching through the window. One nudged the other as they muttered back and forth.
George stepped out onto the gravel, closing the door loudly. The boys’ heads snapped around in unison while their arms dropped to their sides in an effort to conceal the cans they were holding behind their legs.
“How you boys doin’ tonight?” George’s tone was firm, the look on his face a stern warning to the young men.
“P-pretty good Deputy,” one stammered.
The other just nodded.
“Well, looks like they’re closing up. You boys head out.”
“Yes, sir. Guess so. See you later Deputy,” The one who was the talker lead the way as they both climbed into the pickup, still trying to hide the cans.
“Boys,” George said, “Pour out the beers before you crank up the truck.”
“Oh…uh yes, sir.” Talking boy looked over at the passenger side. “Better pour it out, Bobby.”
Beer poured foaming into the gravel from the windows of the truck.
“All right now,” George continued. “Head on out. I catch you drinking again tonight, and I’ll be hauling you down to the county jail before I call your daddy. Right?”
Talking boy nodded solemnly, indicating his complete appreciation of the situation. “Yes, sir. We didn’t mean any harm…I mean we’d appreciate you not calling our folks.”
“That’s up to you. Now ya’ll head out.” They both nodded. Talking boy cranked the old truck and pulled out onto the country road. He was careful not to spin his tires in the gravel, and accelerated on the road like a grandm
other going to Wednesday night prayer meeting, causing a small smile to break across Deputy Mackey’s stern face.
5. He Hated Them
It wasn’t the beer either that bothered Lyn. Even in the backwoods Bible belt, everybody drank. It was natural enough to look for a way to sooth the pain of poverty and ignorance. A beer, or even many beers, was one way to make the emptiness tolerable.
Her friends’ fathers drank. They were still good fathers and husbands. If hate was in their hearts, it was for themselves. They hated their failure and not being able to do better for their families, so they drank. Too simple and plain to put into words what they felt, they were still tender with their families in their own way.
Not Daddy though. It was not the poverty or the backbreaking labor. It was them. He hated them. She knew it.
He wanted nothing more than to torment his family. He was mean and ignorant and seemed to take pleasure in his own ignorance.
“I ain’t never been more than fifty miles from Judges Creek in Pickham County, Georgia,” he was wont to say with some pride.
“This here was good enough for my daddy, and I guess it’ll be good enough for you,” he would go on, the words spit out like a threat, warning her not to consider even the possibility of ever having more or wanting more out of life.
Her brother, Sam, had not been able to take it any longer than he had to. When he turned eighteen, he went to Savannah and joined the Army. He never said goodbye to his father, but he had taken Lyn aside one day and told her of his plan to leave. They had cried and hugged each other, Lyn clinging to her brother for a long while. She had known he would leave one day, had dreaded that day, but knew that he had to. Staying, he would have killed Daddy, or been killed by him.
They sat for a long while that day laughing a little about the plan they had when they were younger to run away to Canada, to get away from the meanness of their father and their lives. It was a child’s dream, dreamt by children whose childhood bore the scars of abuse. Sam promised to come back and get her when he could. They would go to Canada. It had become her dream of dreams. Cool, green Canada.
That was two years ago. Sam was buried now, behind the old Pentecostal church in Judges Creek. He had come home a year ago after a bomb alongside a dirt road in Afghanistan had blown up the Humvee he was riding in. Lyn had no idea what a Humvee was, but she knew that the driver of the vehicle lost his legs. Sam lost his life.
The few letters he had written to his sister were hidden in a box under her bed. She kept them hidden from her father for fear that they would disappear during one of his drunken rages. She didn’t blame Sam for leaving, but she missed him badly.
Mama missed him too. Lyn knew that she cried at night over the loss of her only boy. She also knew that Daddy thought it was because of his meanness that Mama cried, and took pleasure in that idea.
No, Daddy was just hateful. Instead of wanting better for them, he just wanted to punish his own family. She didn’t know why and had given up trying to understand. He seemed to be happy only when he could make them unhappy. Maybe that was his way of dealing with the burdens of his shabby life. Maybe.
To Lyn he was just a mean, hateful man who lived in the same house with them. Hating his own family and doing whatever he could to degrade them; he seemed to want to condemn them to the misery that was his life. Right now that meant peeing on Mama’s rosebush.
After a few minutes, she heard him thump up the three steps to the old porch. The warped floorboards creaked under his weight. The screen door screeched open and then clattered shut.
“Where you at?” he shouted.
Lyn heard the floor creak in the next bedroom.
“Right here, no need to shout.” Mama’s voice was tired.
“Get your ass out here. Where’s my supper?”
“Didn’t know when you’d be home. I’ll make you some eggs,” Mama replied softly.
Lyn winced at what she knew was coming. This was almost a nightly ritual. A sick, perverted ritual maybe, but it was their nightly family ritual. She could have repeated the dialogue before they said it in the next room.
“Eggs?” her father roared. “I want some goddamned food!”
“Well, that’s all there is. And at that, it’s more than Lyn and me had.”
“I don’t give a shit what you and that sneaking little bitch had!” He turned towards Lyn’s bedroom door. “You hear me in there you sneaky bitch. I know you’re listening. Afraid to show your face you little pissant! Always sneaking around. Get your scrawny ass out here!”
Mama was getting angry now. It was one thing to abuse her, but leave her baby out of it.
“You leave her be! She ain’t done…” Mama’s words were cut off by a sickening thud followed by a heavy thump resembling a sack of potatoes hitting the floor.
6. He Just Was
Unaware, the girl drove her small car within fifty feet of the silhouette watching in stillness from the nondescript car. It was a curiosity to him. Did she sense anything? Was there a twitch, a ripple of fear or nervousness sliding up her spine with the feeling that she had somehow come close to something very dangerous and menacing? Or, was she completely oblivious of her proximity to the danger and her fate?
Perhaps the tingling at the back of her neck faded as she navigated her car safely through the parking lot, sitting in its safe and familiar interior doing a routine thing in a routine way; the familiarity and the routine pushing the nervous, tingling fear away.
It was more likely that there was no tingling, no psychic connection warning her of the impending, nearness of extreme danger. He was good at that. She would not know of his presence until he wanted her to, until he needed her to.
As she turned to pull out onto the main road, he started his car. It moved quietly, not disturbing the flow of movement around it, but becoming part of that movement, using the flow around it to disguise its driver’s focus on the small Japanese car a hundred yards ahead.
She was young and not driving a great car. No rich daddy or sugar daddy was taking care of her. Likely she was on her own, another important piece of information.
He absorbed the information unconsciously. It was a cunning and instinct within, of which he was not even aware. It just was. He just was. That was enough.
7. The Closest Bug Lost
George watched the two boys disappear down the road in their ragged pickup. They could have been him twenty years earlier; hanging out, under age, sneaking a beer. Things didn’t change much. It was unlikely, he knew, that they would have ever done anything to hurt the Cutchinses. But a few beers might lead to some bad judgment, and then to a bad idea executed on an alcohol-tinged whim.
Watching until the truck’s taillights turned off the road, he walked through the wooden screen door and into the small building. Mrs. Cutchins looked up from her counting. A smile crossed her face.
“Evening Deputy,” she called across the room.
“Evening, ‘Mizz’ Cutchins.” George walked over to the small counter, crowded with racks of chewing tobacco, snuff, lighters, pocketknives, and gum. “Looks like you had a pretty good day.” He nodded down at the stacks of bills she was counting out, separating them by denomination.
“Yep. We did good today. We were due.” She smiled and continued her count, not missing a beat as she sorted bills from her hand into the stacks on the counter.
“Wonder if you could do something for me?”
A wisp of white hair moved around her forehead in the breeze from a small fan behind the cash register as she looked up questioningly. “What is it, George?” she said, laying the wad of bills on the counter with a questioning look in her eyes.
“I would appreciate it if you could do your nightly count in the back room or somewhere but here, where everyone can look in and see what kind of day you had.” He nodded down at the neat stacks of bills on the counter. “Quite a temptation to some young fella wanting to take his girl to Savannah for a big weekend.”
“You th
ink so?” The surprise was evident on her face. It had never occurred to her that someone might be tempted by what she and her old man had.
“Yep. I do,” George said firmly. “Doesn’t take much to tempt some, especially these days. What you got there would be quite a lot to a lot of people; like maybe some young boys out having a few beers.” George looked her in the eye, his face expressionless.
“You mean those Gantry boys. They were in here earlier,” she said nodding, although some skepticism still showed in her eyes. “They’re harmless. Good boys just out passing some time.”
“I mean them and lots of others,” George said. “They may not mean any harm, and ordinarily it wouldn’t even cross their minds, but…a few beers, a wad of cash, a hot night and a pretty girl waiting…it could happen. Probably good boys, but it’d be nice for them to stay that way. No need to put a temptation in front of them that would follow them the rest of their life.”
“Suppose you’re right,” she nodded. “I’ll tell Mr. Cutchins, too.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thanks.” He added a question. “By the way, you wouldn’t know where those Gantry boys got the beers I made them pour out in your gravel, would you? Seems like a waste of good beer. Besides, it’s illegal, them being under age, you know.”
The old woman started to smile, but realized George was serious. “Well Deputy, I make it a point never to lie, especially not to an officer of the law, so I guess it’s best that I just didn’t hear the question.”
George nodded. “Well, I’m not much for lying myself, so I reckon it’s best I don’t hear an answer. Just remember, it’s illegal, buying and selling in this case.”