Madness (Asher Benson #2)

by Jason Brant

  “What was that?” Allison asked. “You tried to hear what?”

  We didn’t have time to explain my situation, so I ignored her question. “There’s no telling how many other people around here are dealing with the same thing.”

  “And we can’t get through to anyone.” Drew nodded at Nami. “The internet is down too.”

  I tossed the towel to the floor and leaned back in the chair. “That’s just great. How’s the sheriff?”

  “Still unconscious. His pulse is erratic too. If we don’t get him some help soon, he won’t make it.” Drew walked around the desk in front of me and leaned forward, putting his hands on the wood. “We need to find a way to get a hold of someone in Washington. The cells, landlines, and internet are all down. They’ve cut us off from the outside.”

  “And they have men with a veritable arsenal watching one of the roads leading out of town.”

  “Exactly.” Drew straightened out and finally took off his jacket. He tossed it on the desk, then rubbed away the sweat that had begun to bead on his head. “They’re either trying to keep us from going out, or stop others from coming in.”

  “Maybe both.”

  “Maybe.”

  I stood and walked over to a large window at the front of the office. The sheriff was out there, still slumped behind the wheel of his cruiser. The door stood ajar, his wounded leg elevated and propped on the armrest. Drew had wrapped white gauze around his thigh, blood already seeping through it.

  Sammy moved beside me and took my hand. The softness of her touch both startled and soothed me. I wanted to pull away because of the filth and blood covering so much of me, but I also craved any kind of affection.

  She gave me a soft squeeze and looked out the window with me. “I’m sorry for what you had to do.”

  “Thanks. I’m sorry I stink.”

  “I’m sorry you stink too.”

  I grinned in spite of myself and looked over at her, shocked at the dig. “Didn’t see that one coming.”

  “What? You think you’re the only one who can crack jokes?” She smiled for a moment, but it faltered as quickly as it had appeared. “What are we going to do?”

  I thought about it as I watched the sheriff’s chest slowly rise and fall. “Judging by the kid in the woods and agents outside my cabin, I doubt we’re the only people who are in the thick of it. Even if we could get away, the others in town probably need help even more than we do.”

  Drew said, “I agree. There has to be a way to make contact with the outside. I already looked around the office and didn’t find a radio. Hard to believe that the sheriff doesn’t have at least a CB.” He turned to Allison. “Is there a hospital around here?”

  “Not in Arthur’s Creek.” Allison snapped her fingers as if she’d just remembered something. “The last call we were able to make was for an ambulance because of my accident. They should have been here a long time ago.”

  “Would they have come in on the road that the men shot you on?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe? There is a more prominent street that runs into downtown that probably would have made more sense for them.”

  Drew’s frown deepened. “What about a fire station? There has to be at least a volunteer fire department around here.”

  “There’s one just off Main Street. The alarm scares me every time it goes off when I’m in town getting a bite to eat.”

  And getting my drinks for the night.

  Her thought slipped through my defenses, and I gave her a quick glance. I hadn’t noticed before, but she had the slightly puffy face and tired eyes of someone who hit the bottle too often.

  I could relate.

  “That should work.” Drew gave me a knowing look and a slight nod. “I figure that’s our best bet.”

  “What’s our best bet? A radio?” Nami hopped off her chair and took her backpack off. “You guys want to try a radio and hope that someone is listening? What is this, the 70s? Does anyone even use that shit anymore?”

  “The fire department does, Short Round,” I said. “That’s why they have them.”

  “And who is going to answer that call, Gigantor? What if we get there, grab the mic, and no one answers?” Nami unzipped her bag and pulled a small laptop out of it. “This thing uses Wi-Fi and high-speed cellular for internet access. Obviously, neither of those are available to us right now. If we can find a house or business that uses satellite internet, I can get it to work with that, no problem.”

  “How can we tell who has it?” I asked.

  “Wow.” Nami smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “You can tell that Drew is the detective and not you.”

  “Kiss my ass.”

  “We look for satellites attached to the roof or the decks. From there, I need to get closer to see what they’re using. It’s easy.”

  Allison said, “There are a few places in town that use it. I know that Fine Cuts Barbershop does. My husband—” Allison paused and licked her lips. “I know someone who used to go there. He told me they were always complaining about their internet and TV going down when it rained.”

  I saw a slight twitch in her eye when she’d mentioned her husband. Her finger didn’t have a ring on it. Either they’d gone through a bad divorce, or something worse had happened. Since the moment we’d met Allison, there hadn’t been time to learn anything about her.

  The loss of a husband would explain the drinking.

  “That’ll do it.” Nami held the laptop up. “I guarantee that I’ll get through to someone with this, which is a damn sight better than your stupid radio plan.”

  Drew shrugged and looked at me. “She’s got a point.”

  “That she does.” I breathed in through my nose and caught the faintest scent of a flowery shampoo from Sammy. God, she even smelled heavenly. I squeezed her hand without even thinking about it, and she reciprocated. “You smell good.”

  “You don’t.”

  I laughed with her that time. It was a nervous, shaky laugh, but it still made me feel better. There was little I liked more than a woman with wit. It helped that she had a body that made it hard not to stare at her all day long.

  “Get a goddamn room.” Nami rolled her eyes with theatrical flair. “You can do it like jackrabbits once we get out of this.”

  “I’m going to fold you up like a pretzel when this is over.” I released Sammy’s hand and faced the others. “I’ll take Short Round with me into town and try to call in some reinforcements. We’ll take the sheriff with us. Maybe the ambulance is just hung up somewhere.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Drew said.

  “No can do. You need to get these two out of here. Take the trail behind the station and follow it until you’re far away from here.”

  “With what’s already happened, there’s no way you can do this alone. Two guns are better than one and you know it.”

  “And what about Sammy and Allison? Are you fine with letting them try to get out on their own? What if another kid is running around out there with murder on his mind?”

  Allison stepped forward. “I know Arthur’s Creek like the back of my hand. You’ll need me to find the barbershop and the fire department. Plus, I know where the medical clinic is. We can take George there.”

  In a split second, I was inside her memories, extracting the pertinent bits about the places Nami and I needed to find. It was a delicate process, because I couldn’t try to remember too much of what I saw inside someone’s mind or I’d start to forget the important parts.

  I could access her thoughts, memories, and emotions, but there was no real way to save them for myself. It was kind of like looking at a bunch of pictures and then trying to remember what was in them a few hours later. If you flipped through several books worth, they all bled together in your memory.

  But if you looked at a handful of images, they were much easier to remember. I needed a Matrix-like button so I could just download everything into my brain and save it for a rainy day.

  After fi
nding what I needed, I was about to release my grip when I stumbled upon a dark, hazy section of her mind.

  I heard the phone call she received on a cool, cloudy afternoon.

  Her husband was dead.

  I saw the funeral.

  Felt the broken heart.

  Slept in an empty bed.

  Tasted the oily barrel of the shotgun she’d put in her mouth one drunken night.

  I hit the sauce to block out other people’s thoughts. Allison drank to blot out her own. She’d been getting by in a drunken, depressed existence that barely classified as living. After the death of her husband, she’d struggled to get through each day.

  When the police had called her and relayed the news, she couldn’t even understand why he’d been an hour outside of town on a road that she’d never even heard of. He was supposed to have been at work.

  Allison later found out that he’d been buying her a puppy for their anniversary. They’d discovered the chocolate Lab beside him.

  She knew the trails running through these mountains well because she’d spent countless hours walking them when she couldn’t sleep at night. She drank and walked and wished the pain would end.

  When I released my mental grip on her, I looked at Allison from a new perspective. We were the same in so many ways. I’d lived her pain and related to it.

  If we made it through the day without some kid kicking at our broken bodies, I planned to have a long talk with her. Maybe we could help each other. If nothing else, we could compare our emotional scars, kind of like they did in Jaws.

  OK, it would be nothing like that at all, but the sentiment stands.

  “I know where everything is,” I said. “And I’m sorry about your husband.”

  Allison’s jaw slammed shut with such force that her teeth clacked. Her cheeks flushed.

  The others stayed silent, looking at us in surprise.

  “You know all the trails around Arthur’s Creek. Help get my friends out of here, please.” I looked over my shoulder at the sheriff, wondering how much longer he had.

  We were stuck in there, trying to hash out a plan, while he was slipping away outside. I felt a pang of guilt for leaving him alone, but it wasn’t like we had much of a choice. Moving him into the station only to take him back to the car a few minutes later would waste even more time.

  “Who are you?” Allison whispered.

  “A friend. All I want is to get all of you out of here and away from me. What’s happening here is probably because I’ve been living just outside of town.”

  The guilt of that admission was something I didn’t want to deal with just yet, but the roots had taken hold and were growing. A shitstorm followed me everywhere I went.

  “But why?”

  “The sheriff is in real trouble out there. We don’t have time to stand here and hash things out. I have to get him help right now.” I looked to Drew for some assistance, but he didn’t offer any. “If we get out of this, I’ll answer every question you have.”

  That brought a deep grimace from Drew.

  Even Nami gave me an are-you-crazy look.

  Sammy jumped in. “If we get into it now, we’ll be here for hours trying to explain everything.”

  Allison glanced at the sheriff through the window. “OK.”

  Drew kept shaking his head at me. “I don’t like the idea of bailing on you.”

  “You aren’t bailing on me—you’re saving them.”

  Nami held her arms up, palms out. “Hey, don’t worry about me. Get Tits McGee to safety, but we’ll throw the geek girl to the wolves.”

  I held my hand out. “Give me the laptop then, if you trust me to figure out how to work it by myself.”

  “You’re technologically retarded.” Nami held the computer to her chest. “You wouldn’t even know how to turn it on.”

  “That’s not very politically correct.”

  “I’m not politically correct. That P.C. stuff is for pussies.” Nami huffed and shoved the laptop back in her bag. “Fine, I’ll go with you. But we’re going to get in and out, right? No hero bullshit?”

  “No hero bullshit.”

  Drew put a hand on my shoulder, then pulled it back with a grimace. Apparently, he didn’t like the grime that covered me. “After I get them out, I’ll come back for you.”

  “With any luck, you won’t have to. Once we get the National Guard on the horn, they’ll come in here and take care of business.”

  After saying a quick round of good lucks and goodbyes, we all got ready to head our separate ways. Only Sammy stayed by my side, giving me a doe-eyed look that was driving me nuts. If only I’d known her in another life.

  “I came here to convince you to come back with me,” she said after everyone else had moved away from us. “I don’t want to leave alone again.”

  I stood a foot away from her, giving her a look that I hoped wasn’t too longing. It was hard for me to judge, because I wasn’t around people all that much anymore, but I thought she might have had a thing for me. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

  My life was a disaster of indescribable proportions, and I smelled like shit. Literally.

  And I was covered in filth at the moment.

  Maybe she was one of those women who liked to date men who had issues so she could save them. If that was the case, I had a laundry list of problems she could get started on right away.

  Searching through her feelings to see what she thought of me would have been a breach of trust of the highest order. Still, I’d be a liar if I said the idea wasn’t tempting just then.

  “I won’t be long.” I took her hand in mine again and raised it to my lips, kissing the knuckle of her middle finger. “Drew will take care of you.”

  Sammy’s cheeks reddened when my lips touched her hand. “I want you to take care of me.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Nami stood in the doorway, waiting for me. She lightly bounced the back of her head off the doorframe three times in rapid succession. “I’m going to get an STD just watching the two of you. Can you do this mushy shit when we don’t have crazy people running around in the woods?”

  Sammy’s cheeks darkened several more shades. “She’s right. We can talk about this when you’re safe with me.”

  “You got it.” I would have given her the most passionate kiss possible for a burly man like me just then, but I was afraid she might gag from my smell.

  Sometimes life kicked you straight in the jewels just for the hell of it.

  “Time’s wasting, ladies,” Drew said. “Keep your head down, Ashley.”

  “Why do you call him ‘Ashley’?” Allison asked. She stood by Drew, waiting for Sammy to come with them.

  “Because he’s a wuss.”

  “That’s kind of sexist, isn’t it? Calling him a woman’s name because he’s a wimp?”

  Drew opened his mouth, but nothing came out. It was one of the rare instances where I’d seen him completely caught off guard. I wished I could have taken a picture of the dumbfounded expression on his face.

  Allison gave him the tiniest of grins. “I’m just kidding.”

  “You’ve got your hands full with that one,” I said. “She’s just like me.”

  “That’s all I need right now.” Drew held his gun by his side, tapping it against his thigh. “And Nami’s right—this isn’t the time for whatever weird romance you two have going on.”

  I took a step toward Nami, throwing one last glance at Sammy’s beauty. My gaze might have locked onto her chest for a bit too long. Sometimes, I just couldn’t help myself.

  That was what happened when you hadn’t been laid in two presidential cycles.

  “See you soon.” Sammy walked across the office and followed Drew down the hall. The spring-loaded back door squealed before slamming shut.

  I looked down at Nami. “You are such a little cock blocker.”

  “Oh, please.” Nami stepped onto the porch and walked toward the cruiser. “The day you get a hottie like that
is the day I punch myself in the face. The only thing I was blocking is the impending embarrassment when you make your move and she shoots you down.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “What, that she shoots you down?”

  “No, that you’ll punch yourself in the face when she and I go out.”

  14 – Gigantor and Short Round Go for a Ride

  It took longer than I’d hoped to get the sheriff moved from the front seat of the cruiser to the back of the government sedan we’d driven there. He had a hell of a gut hanging over his belt, which made the dead weight of his unconscious body even more difficult to maneuver.

  Nami weighed all of eighty pounds, so she didn’t offer much help during the move.

  After getting him laid out on the bench seat in the back, I checked his pulse again and let out a sigh of relief. “He’s fairly stable, I think. A little weak, but he might pull through this.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?” Nami asked from the front.

  She’d sat there and watched me struggle to get Adams moved. Most of the assistance she offered came when she opened the door so I could drag him in. She was such a hero.

  “I’ve seen my fair share of blood.”

  “Telling me how many people have been screwed up around you doesn’t instill a lot of confidence, Gigantor.”

  I climbed in behind the wheel, sweat pouring from me like I’d just run a marathon. “Having you as my only backup doesn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling either.”

  The beefy eight-cylinder engine rumbled to life, and I got us headed toward Arthur’s Creek. The road was bereft of traffic as it weaved through the mountains.

  Nami continued to talk shit beside me, though it was obvious she was scared out of her mind. Like me, her mouth got to working when her anxiety ratcheted up.

  Even though I liked to give her a hard time, I admired the fact that she came with me. The odds of her making it through this unscathed would have been much higher if she’d gone with Drew, Sammy, and Allison. She’d pretended I was forcing her, but one of the problems with being around a telepath was that they could tell when you were lying.