Black Tide Rising - eARC

by John Ringo

  “Tempting. How do I know you won’t kill me as soon as I talk?” Taylor watched as the long gashes on Leyva’s arms began bleeding.

  “You think I’m stupid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck you. I know how this works. I kill you, and my friends don’t get what they want. That puts me in a bad spot.” He continued scratching, moving up to his chest. “You and I take a ride, I keep Pascoe quiet, and we split the money ninety-ten.”

  “You only want ten percent? Mighty reasonable, Boss.”

  “You stupid fuck, I get the ninety. Besides, my friends only really want the financial stuff. If it was just the money, they’d kill you quick, as a lesson. The other…well, that’s gonna make you hurt.” The smarmy little smirk was back. “I imagine they’ll start with your testicles, then take out an eye, then…”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Leyva’s face grew red. “Listen you little pissant! I’m trying to help you out here, give you a chance to get out of a bad situation!”

  “Bullshit, you’re trying to help yourself get in with your ‘friends.’” Taylor snorted.”Ten seconds after I give you what you want, you put a bullet in my head, or call them.” He nodded towards the officer. “You should probably get some cortisone or something before you take the skin off.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Leyva tore open his shirt, exposing his chest. “Give me the money goddammit!” He launched himself at Taylor.

  Taylor’s reflexes saved him, bringing his cuffed hands up to block as the other man fumbled at his clothes, trying to get a hold of his neck.

  “What the fuck, you crazy bastard!” Leyva only howled in reply, lunging again. Taylor leaned back, jamming the chain of the cuffs into the officer’s throat. Leyva turned his head, biting at the air.

  Taylor had the reach and muscles, but Leyva wasn’t restrained with cuffs, and massed about the same. He might have been doughy, but the shorter man was surprisingly strong. Taylor backed up and set his feet. “Pascoe!”

  The bathroom door burst open as Pascoe charged in, taser drawn. “What the…”

  “Just shoot him!” Taylor was struggling, the restraints keeping him from using his full strength against the smaller man. Leyva turned with a snarl, dropping Taylor in lieu of the other officer.

  “Leyva—shit!” Pascoe hesitated, giving Leyva the opening he needed. He grabbed Pascoe’s arm, and bit down on his sleeve.

  “Stun him, dammit! He’s gone nuts!” Taylor threw his cuffed hands over Leyva’s head, hooked the chain under his nose, and jerked back hard.

  Pascoe shook loose, stepped back, and fired. Leyva continued struggling, jerking his head in an attempt to dislodge the chain. His movements pulled the darts free, scraps of cloth and meat coming with them.

  Taylor jammed the chain in Leyva’s mouth, carefully keeping his hands clear of the teeth. Pascoe fired again. Leyva dropped to the floor spasming.

  “Keep it on him.” Taylor kicked the now unconscious officer. Or tried to. The leg chains made the strike ineffective.

  “Knock that shit off.” Pascoe said, holstering the taser. “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know, man, dude just went nuts.” Taylor looked at Pascoe’s arm. “You ok?”

  “Yeah,” Pascoe rolled up his sleeve. “Didn’t break the skin.” Dark tooth marks were visible. “Gonna have a hell of a bruise, though.” He looked lost. “Shit, what am I supposed to do now?” he muttered.

  The rookie was way out of his depth, and Taylor felt for the kid. A little. His situation was infinitely worse, all things considered. Bad enough getting popped in the first place, but this had just gone off the rails into “What the fuck?” territory.

  Huntsville. He had contacts in Huntsville. If he could get there in one piece, he had a better chance. Problem was getting there.

  All righty then, a little nudge was in order. “Hey Boss, I know you’re in a bad spot here…”

  Pascoe looked at him like a lost butterbar. “Yeah, a bit.”

  “All right, so what’s procedure?”

  “Secure the prisoner. Never let the prisoner have the upper hand. Maintain discipline and control of the situation.”

  “So, what’s the play?”

  Pascoe seemed to find comfort in the routine. “First thing is to secure the prisoner, so I’ll be cuffing you to the stall.” He drew his cuffs from his belt. “Please extend your hands, slowly.”

  Taylor complied. Pascoe closed one of the cuffs around Taylor’s wrist, the other to the upright of the stall.

  “Ok, I’ll take Leyva to the car, you stay on good behavior.” Pascoe took Leyva’s cuffs from the unconscious man’s belt, and moved his hands into the “hogtie” position. The cuffs ratcheted shut.

  Pascoe, in better shape but smaller than Leyva, had trouble with the heavier man. “Shit.” After several good tries he couldn’t get the other officer to move. Leyva began to stir.

  “Ok, new plan,” Pascoe said. “He’s coming to. Give me your leg.”

  Taylor extended his foot. Pascoe unlocked one of the leg irons, and secured it to the frame of the stall. The second cuff clicked closed on Leyva’s ankle.

  “Well,” Pascoe said, “When he comes to, he won’t be able to get far.”

  “May want to gag him.” Taylor said.

  “Good point.” Pascoe pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, tying it around Leyva’s mouth.

  Leyva snapped fully awake, struggling against his bonds. The red checked cloth barely contained his inhuman howls.

  “You hang tight here, I’ll go call it in. We’ll have to sit on him for a little while until I can get an ambulance or something, get him checked into the local quack shack.”

  Time to tip my hand a bit, Taylor thought. “Pascoe, I think we should move, call it from the road.”

  “No,” Pascoe said, shaking his head. “Can’t leave him here like this. He could hurt himself or someone else.” For emphasis, Leyva began pounding his head against the floor, moaning and howling. A strong smell came from his direction.

  “Jesus, he just shit himself.” Taylor made a face. “At least take me out there with you. Guy is creeping me out.”

  Pascoe nodded, unfastening Taylor’s hands, and recuffing them behind his back. “You’re a very thorough man, Boss.”

  “Live by the procedure and everything tends to work out.”

  They started out of the restroom, and into the shop proper. Taylor spoke, “Boss, Leyva said something about some ‘friends’ of his waiting for us. We may want to take a different route.”

  “Unh, hunh. Right.”

  “Dead serious. What I took is real important to certain people. They want it back. I don’t want to be anywhere near them, you dig?”

  “Right, like I’m taking the word of some scumbag.”

  Taylor was cut off by the store’s clerk. “You boys just stay right there.” The black Mossberg he held didn’t waver.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Taylor said. He stared at the clerk. “I swear to God,” he glanced at the other man’s shirt, “Buford, if you say ‘Bring out the Gimp,’ I’ll kill you.”

  Buford jerked the shotgun towards the back room. “Move.”

  “I think there’s been a misunderstanding…” Pascoe started.

  Buford’s finger caressed the trigger. “I said, move.”

  They moved, keeping their motions slow and steady. Taylor had no desire to test the limits of his luck. The small back room was filled with mops, a rack for the fountain sodas, and cleaning supplies. A cheap braided cloth rug covered most of the concrete floor.

  “Pull it back,” the clerk said, nodding at Pascoe, “Nice and easy.”

  Taylor rolled his eyes as the trapdoor was exposed. “Seriously, I’ve seen this movie. It doesn’t end well for you. Don’t let the skin tone fool you, I’m more of a Bruce Willis than a Ving Rames.”

  “Shut up.” Buford nudged Pascoe with the barrel of the Mossberg. “Open it. Get down there.” Pas
coe made his way down the ladder attached to the wall.

  “Hey, man,” Taylor said, rattling his cuffs, “How do you expect me to climb with these?”

  Buford shrugged, then snapped the stock of the shotgun forward. Taylor’s vision exploded into color as the wood connected with his chin. He staggered back involuntarily, realizing his mistake just as his foot dropped into the trap. He plunged into the hole, striking the back of his head on the frame.

  * * *

  Taylor came to in a small room. He squinted against the harsh light of an incandescent bulb as he took in his surroundings. The walls were wooden panels, seemingly slapped in place over two by four frames. Hard packed dirt peeked out between the pieces of scrap plywood that made up the floor. The rich, musty smell meant they were still underground.

  “Welcome back to the land of the living.” Pascoe said, “Was worried you’d miss all the fun.”

  “You have a very fucked up sense of fun.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m still trying to figure out what the hell’s going on.”

  Taylor sat up and took stock. His hands were still cuffed behind him. Pascoe was on the opposite wall, hands and feet zip tied, stripped of anything useful.

  “Ok,” Taylor said, “We know we’re underground, somewhere near the gas station. Small room, only one door, no windows. What else?”

  “As far as I could tell, we walked about three hundred yards, give or take. That should put us under the church we saw.”

  “How’d I get here?”

  “Two other guys drug you. They came from the other end of the tunnel and met us at the ladder. Clerk probably called them before he drew down on us.” A piercing howl came from somewhere outside. “Oh, and Buford had them go back for Leyva.”

  “Shit. So I was out for a while.” Taylor’s head felt like a hippo was using his ear as a birth canal. That, coupled with the time he was down, pointed towards a concussion. Not good. “Any idea what these guys want?”

  Pascoe snorted and shook his head. “Hell if I know. They seem to be pulling from Koresh’s old playbook, though. Militia? Cult? Some combination of the two? Don’t know.”

  Taylor pressed. “C’mon, Boss, what did you see? I know you didn’t leave your situational awareness in the sandbox.”

  “Cut me some slack, I was a little freaked out by the whole thing. Preoccupied with staying upright and breathing.”

  Taylor stared at him, trying to ignore the pain in his skull. Pascoe sighed.

  “There’s not much,” he said, “Just a shored up tunnel, with a couple of doors here and there.” He nodded at theirs. “Wood, so’s the frame. Seems to be set into the dirt, but it didn’t wiggle too much when they closed it, so probably reinforced as well.”

  Taylor began working the cuffs behind his back, twisting the metal links around each other and applying careful pressure. He could bring them around to the front of his body, but didn’t want to take the chance of someone walking in while he worked. “Can you get out of those?”

  Pascoe’s hands were in front of him, bound at the wrist. He wiggled them a bit. “No, they’re pretty tight.”

  “Hold your arms out in front of you, and snap them into your chest.” Taylor had the chain on his cuffs tight. A quick twist of his wrists and the weld broke. He held his arms out in front of him. “Like this.” He demonstrated.

  Pascoe followed suit, the flex cuff popping off with the motion. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah, you pick things up.”

  “All right,” Pascoe said, “Now what? We still have to get through the door.”

  Taylor looked around the room, searching for something useful. Nothing jumped out, the room was devoid of any furnishings, supplies, or tools. He moved to the door and examined the frame.

  “Don’t suppose you have a knife or something hidden on you we can use to jimmy this door with, do you?”

  Pascoe shook his head. “No, they patted me down before they cuffed me. Oh, wait!” he reached under his uniform shirt and pulled out a wallet. “I do have this.” He removed what looked like a thin metal card. “This folds out into a knife. Cheap quality, but may do the trick.” He did what looked like origami and held out a small blade, roughly four inches long.

  “Well, if it doesn’t work,” Taylor said, taking the knife, “we could always use that pink credit card next to it. What was that, Victoria’s Secret?”

  Pascoe turned about three shades of red in two seconds. “I like their cologne.”

  “Uh hunh.” Taylor gave him a grin. “Hey Boss, I’m not judging. What you do in the privacy of your own home is up to you.”

  “Shut up and get the door open.”

  * * *

  Some work with the knife and a few solid kicks had gotten them into the tunnel. No guards, just a hundred yards of reinforced dirt walls and bare bulbs strung to light the way. Taylor led the way up the stairs at the end.

  Again, no sentries, as they came out of what looked another storage room. The sound of singing greeted them, hundreds of voices joining into something resembling harmony.

  “Let’s get to high ground, see what we may be dealing with,” Taylor said. Pascoe followed him towards the stairs marked “Balcony.”

  Crouching, they moved softly up the stairs and around the corner, carefully making their way towards a low wall that separated the upper deck from the congregation area below. The singing stopped.

  People were packed into the pews, the silence broken by random sniffles, coughs, and sneezes. All looked like they had just gotten over a bad case of the flu, or were in the process of going through it. Several were wrapped in blankets, huddling against a chill he didn’t feel. All eyes were on the man behind the pulpit.

  The preacher wore blue jeans, boots and a faded green chambray work shirt. His tanned face had deep creases, evidence of long hours in the sun. This wasn’t your everyday, sip tea and study scripture type of parson. This man worked outside when he wasn’t sermonizing. Earthy, personable, close to his flock. One that had experienced the hardships of rural life- not just heard about them from the others. He appeared to be in his mid fifties, but his fine white hair hinted that he was older.

  To his left a large cross lay horizontally, a few feet behind a marble altar. Heavy cable, attached to the cross by a large eyebolt, ran up to the ceiling, disappearing just out of Taylor’s line of sight somewhere above and behind him.

  “Brothers and sisters, rejoice!” The preacher raised his hands and inclined his head, eyes closing in rapturous delight. “For the Lord has given us our salvation. The wicked will be struck from the Earth, as they were in the time of Noah, with a mighty hand of Judgement.” He paused for effect, allowing the words to hang in the relative silence before continuing. “The evils of Man and the science of Satan have brought the world low, and God Himself has chosen to start anew with his Chosen!”

  The whispered, “Amen,” of the congregation was loud enough to carry to the balcony. Taylor and Pascoe shared a glance.

  “The temptation to play God, the arrogance of Man to believe himself equal to the Lord, and the turning away from the Almighty have forced His will upon us. You have heard of the sickness spreading in the sunken pits of depravity—New York, Los Angeles, even Houston,” The audience gave a low murmur, punctuated with coughing, only silenced by the preacher making a patting gesture. “I say let them fall! We, my flock, my family, are the meek, and we shall inherit a brave new world! Disease is pestilence, sent by Satan, germs and virus are his minions. These cannot touch the Faithful, those that have accepted God’s love and salvation!”

  Taylor whispered, “Right. These folks are batshit. Let’s go.”

  “Yeah,” Pascoe said, nodding. “I think I’ve seen just about everything I need to see. Think can we get out of here without getting caught again?”

  Taylor’s reply was cut off as the preacher began speaking again.

  “Behold, brothers and sisters, the Lord has delivered to us one of the wicked!” Taylor recognized Buford as he
and another man dragged a violently thrashing and shirtless form up on the dais

  “Holy shit, that’s Leyva.”

  The pudgy corrections officer appeared to have resisted heavily—both of his captors had bloody gashes on their face, and Buford was sporting a fresh bandage on his arm. By the way Leyva’s legs were flopping behind him, it appeared that Buford and company had taken out some of their aggression on him. With tire irons.

  “Damn,” Taylor said with a wince, “That looks painful.”

  “Yeah,” Pasco replied, “but he doesn’t seem to notice. Probably has multiple compound fractures at this point.” Sure enough, Leyva was still trying to get his feet under him, only to have them collapse.

  Buford and his friend wrestled Leyva to the cross, forcing him onto it. After he was secure, The preacher reached under his pulpit. A mechanism above him hummed as the cross rose.

  “What the hell are they doing?”

  “They’re crucifying him.” Taylor swallowed hard, lips forming a snarl. His voice was harsh. “The sons of bitches are crucifying him.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with these people?”

  “Cult of personality. Strong leader with a Messiah Complex. Trusting, somewhat isolated group of faithful, but no other teacher. Makes me sick.”

  “Really? Wouldn’t have figured this would bother you that much.”

  “Look man, I’m probably going to hell for things I’ve done.” He watched as Leyva thrashed ineffectively against his bonds. “But I also believe in forgiveness. Way I see it, that’s between me and the Lord to figure out when the time comes. At least I’ve never perverted the teachings, and I’ve never claimed the evil I’ve done has been in His name.”

  “You’re a very complex man.”

  * * *

  Taylor snorted.

  The preacher reached under the podium and withdrew a clay chalice. “The wicked must suffer, brothers and sisters, before they can repent. This man has been found lacking in God’s eyes, and has been afflicted. His faith has been discarded, he has given himself over to Satan.” He approached the base of the cross, eyes level with Leyva’s knees, and nodded to Buford.

  The bearded redneck crossed the stage and entered a small alcove. He returned shortly, carrying a wooden pole topped with an iron blade.