by Rob Cornell
In her rush to get off the edge, she lost balance and flopped out of the bin. She landed on the ground below on her back. The wind shot clear of her lungs. The jolt to her bones from the fall locked her body down. When she tried to breath, she could only gasp and make a pathetic hiccup noise.
It took about twenty seconds for her to catch her breath. She sucked air, not caring how it tasted like a sweaty jockstrap.
A dozen or so heavy breaths later she could finally take stock of the rest of her body. She expected to discover something broken. At worst, a few vertebrae. At best, a broken arm or cracked tailbone.
The soft dirt had offered enough cushion, though, sparing Jessie from any breakage. It didn’t do a thing to keep her from the bruises she could already feel blooming on her back and ass.
Everything hurt when she stood. Her head spun for a moment. She prodded at her skull to make sure she hadn’t split her scalp or done a Humpty Dumpty to her head.
All appeared intact.
Damage surveyed, Jessie could now look beyond herself to her surroundings.
Mounds of trash stretched from fifty feet or so away from Jessie all the way to the visible horizon. The landfill itself was surrounded by a chain-link fence with an open gate wide enough to accommodate large vehicles like the front-end loader parked just inside.
Jay hadn’t gone into much detail about what happened to the trash once it reached the landfill. Luckily, they didn’t dump it straight into the piles. A line of six bins on either side of hers stood waiting for their contents to join the rest in Mount Garbage. The space between hers and the bin beside it gave her some immediate cover. But she would have to move soon to avoid any of the landfill workers from running into her.
She picked up her backpack and shuffled to the corner farthest from the landfill of the neighboring bin. She peeked around to get a lay of the land. Twenty yards off stood a squat building with sooty windows facing the trash piles. She could see a silhouette of someone through one of the windows. No sign of anyone else, but that didn’t mean more weren’t deeper in the building or roaming the grounds.
Not far behind the building, another chain-link fence curved around to encircle the perimeter. A closed gate allowed the only access to the grounds. It had a small structure beside it like a tollbooth, mostly made of glass, with another person visible inside.
The Agency even guarded its trash. How typical.
The setup they had to keep out intruders would also make it a bitch for Jessie to leave.
Her body ached. The world’s worst smells permeated her clothes, surrounding her in a cloud of stink. She was tired, admittedly scared, and pissed off that she had to go through all this to get out of Agency headquarters, like a fucking fugitive.
Now she had to figure out a way to escape a landfill.
WWLD.
What would Lockman do?
Jessie unzipped her backpack and withdrew her gun and its extra magazine. She tucked the mag into her back pocket, racked the gun’s slide, and thumbed off the safety.
Dad, if your spirit is out there somewhere, help me do this right.
She strapped on her backpack, crouched low, and made a beeline for the main building.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE EYES OF THE SKULL stared down at Earl while Earl sat with his legs folded before the altar. He rested his hands on his knees. He already had his breathing steady and controlled. Each breath came further and further apart.
Small specks of light, no larger than the glow from a lightning bug, appeared in the skull’s sockets. Earl remembered the brother who had given this skull over to the cause. Ryan. Art’s brother. First and only time Earl had ever seen Art cry. But the smile on Art’s face eased Earl’s concerns. Those were tears of joy.
Art had always been proud of his brother’s dedication.
The lights began to grow as Earl felt himself sink deeper into the meditative state. He couldn’t wait to tell his master about his success with the woman. Now his master would explain what role she was to play in bringing about the Dawn. The final piece to move them forward.
Earl felt the growing lights merge with his soul, warming his body, carrying him deeper into the magical sleep that would allow him to meet his master in the Inbetween.
The loud clomping on the stairs shook his concentration.
The rude shout, “Hey!” destroyed it.
The eye lights winked out.
Earl gasped as if jerked out of a nightmare. His heart raced. He sensed an anger that wasn’t his own.
His master’s. For pulling away at the last moment.
Earl twisted around to glare at the intruder.
Kit stood at the foot of the steps, hip cocked, face painted like a whore. Eye shadow, mascara, and that offensive shade of red lipstick, all of it too thick because she was too young to know how to make herself up like a lady.
No surprise, since Earl had raised her without any female influence to help teach her the things a young lady needed to learn. A regret that often haunted Earl. But there was no fixing it at the moment. Her own mother would have taught her how to be a real whore, not just look like one.
“For God’s sake, Kit, you know better than to disturb me down here.”
The girl curled her lip, and damn if she didn’t look just like her mother, with a spit of her dead-eyed father to make things worse. You wouldn’t know she had smarts enough to do calculus at age fourteen, especially with her being homeschooled and all. And Earl sure as heck couldn’t take credit for it. She had learned most her math all on her own after Earl exhausted his own knowledge of the subject.
“Freak told me I hadda.”
Earl knew who she meant by “freak.” He’d told Whisper to stay the hell away from Kit. Looked like he needed a reminder. He got to his feet, right knee cracking. Did that more and more often these days. Earl would have to eventually admit he was too old for field work. But not yet. Not till he could get Kit ready to fill the gap. He didn’t have the bodies to spare like he used to, before the master had requested the sacrifice.
You’ll need a great deal of power. This will assure you have it for some time to come.
Seven men, gutted alive and bled out while they cried out in pain, but not a one begging to back out. Blood collected, they had had to skin them and pick every bit of meat from their bones. Those scraps were kept with the blood in half a dozen ice chests at a storage unit they had rented explicitly for this purpose.
Then they had used the bones to make the altar.
That alone, the master promised, would provide the bulk of what they’d need.
The flesh and blood was to be kept for the master’s return.
“He touch you again?” Earl said. He felt his jaw locking up like it did at times when he got real mad.
Kit rolled her eyes. “He tried that, I’d done bite his fingers off.”
Earl frowned. “Stop talking like that.”
“What like?”
“Like yer damned mother.”
She snorted, but didn’t talk back.
“If he ain’t harassing you, what’s the deal with Whisper?”
She shrugged. “Says he needs ya’ll, like, right now.”
Earl sighed. Whisper knew what he was up to down here. That boy took Earl’s need for him for granted. Earl would be hard pressed to find a replacement as good, but sometimes he thought losing Whisper’s skills might be worth the satisfaction of adding his bones to the altar.
“All right. You done good getting me.”
He started for the stairs.
Kit slid sideways into his path. “You promised we’d get outta this here Hades.”
Earl wrinkled his brow. What in hell was a Hades? Sometimes Kit talked in ways he couldn’t understand, like Whisper did. She didn’t mean it, though. If she stopped with the dumb mouthful of her mother, she’d sound like a regular scholar.
He pointed at her. “I told you to stop talking that way. You’re not a hillbilly or a whore.”
The smirk on her face riled Earl like nothing else could. “Thought you said I sounded like Momma.”
“Same difference.”
Kit’s eyebrows went up, showing off that blue paint over her eyelids. “You say that of your own sister?”
“I grew up with her. I know her best.”
She started to speak and Earl heard the twang coming. He pushed his palm to inches from her mouth. “Don’t even.”
Big, dramatic sigh. Another roll of her eyes.
Earl wondered if all early teens acted this way, or just the white trash ones.
“Fine,” Kit whined. “Dear Uncle, whenever are we going to vacate these premises like you fucking promised?”
Earl felt his palm smack her mouth before he knew he was going to do it.
Her head swung with the strike and she staggered a couple steps backward. When she turned her eyes back to Earl, those eyes reminded him of the glow in the skull’s sockets, only her light was made from the blue flame of a butane torch.
She touched her lip with a fingertip. “Now who’s acting like Momma?”
“You don’t talk back to me. And you don’t cuss. No lady with brains like yours has to use those words. You got plenty of others just like those fancy ones you were just using with me.”
His face felt hot. He hoped Kit saw it as anger, not the shame he felt for hitting her. Every parent makes mistakes, but if you let the kid know it, you might as well tell them they’re in charge.
Kit stared at him a moment, eyes full of fire and thought.
“I’m not a lady,” she said. “I’m a kid. Why do you always forget that, Uncle Eee?”
“I don’t forget,” he said, feeling a bit of hope from her using her childhood nickname for him. “I just know you gotta grow up fast. I’m sorry for that, but circumstances demand it.”
The door at the top of the stairs creaked open, the sound a grating enough interruption without having to hear Whisper’s voice come after.
“Hey, Kit-Kat, you tell your daddy-oh I need him pronto?”
Earl felt like the top of his skull might break open and erupt like a volcano. “First off, her name ain’t Kit-Kat. And second, you got nerve interrupting my meditation and then my conversation with my daughter.”
“Humbly noted, boss, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to make you happy.”
Kit flapped her lips like a balloon let loose.
Earl shared her skepticism. Whisper seldom made Earl happy. “All right, then. Out with it.”
Whisper climbed halfway down the stairs and ducked his head so he could see Earl. “The girl,” he said with a pale-lipped smile. “She’s moved. She’s back on our radar.”
Earl laughed. He couldn’t believe it, but Whisper had been right.
He had made Earl happy.
Chapter Twenty-Five
JESSIE MADE IT TO THE main building without anyone shouting or sounding an alarm. She slid to a halt on the east side of the building, the opposite side from the gate. Her stomach felt twitchy. Sweat greased her hand gripping her gun. The extra magazine in her back pocket poked her butt. And she hadn’t gotten used to the smell of herself.
Distractions she couldn’t afford.
She had to center herself. But she didn’t have time to so much as take a few calming breaths. (She couldn’t stand inhaling any more than necessary anyway.) Move forward. No hesitation.
That’s how Dad would do it.
That’s how she would have done it before she lost her powers and vampire perks.
Stop thinking and move.
She rounded the front corner of the building and duckwalked below the bottom edge of the windows. Heat rippled off the structure’s façade from time spent in direct sunlight. Jessie wiped sweat out of her eyes.
When she reached the door, she stared at the metal handle as if it might shock her when she touched it.
This was the moment of truth.
She turned off her conscious mind and handed her trust over to instinct.
She gripped the door handle and turned it. It clacked, sounding to Jessie as loud as a shot. She pushed the door open and its grimy hinges groaned.
Jessie rushed in, brining her weapon up before anyone inside could react to the sounds of the door opening.
The sudden cold from the air-conditioning shocked her sweaty skin. Chills rippled through her. The entryway led directly into a large space with four metal desks arranged with two on one side facing forward and the two others positioned facing the walls in the corner on the other side.
One of the front-facing desks, the one toward the back, had a guy in gray coveralls sitting behind it. He dropped a pen and his jaw. His eyes went straight to the gun she held out in front of her.
“Don’t fucking move,” Jessie shouted.
She kept the gun on him while she scanned the rest of the room. She didn’t see anyone else. This had to be the guy she spotted through the window.
A corridor led to a back area. She couldn’t see much back there. A part of a round table. A clock on the wall. A pair of salt and pepper shakers on the table. Looked like a break room.
“Anyone else in here?”
The guy behind the desk had frozen. All he did was stare at the gun.
Jessie charged him, skirting his desk, and coming around beside him. She pressed the gun to his temple.
He whimpered and raised his trembling hands in surrender. “Please don’t kill me.”
She had no intention of killing anyone. But as much as it made her insides squirm, she had to convince him that she might.
“Answer my question. Who else is in here?”
“No one. Just me.”
“How many at the facility total?”
The guy’s nostrils flared as he sucked panicked breaths through his nose, making a pulsing hiss that sounded like he was on the verge of hyperventilating.
She did not need this dude passing out on her.
She eased off on the gun, stepping back and aiming at his torso instead of his head.
He visibly relaxed, but he still sat ramrod straight with his hands hovering in front of him, fingers splayed as if he wanted to make sure Jessie knew he wasn’t hiding anything between them. A sheen of sweat covered his rosy face.
“Chill out, okay? I’m not going to hurt you…unless I have to.”
His breathing spaced out some, but each one pulled air as hard as before.
“Nod if you understand me?”
His head sort of twitched.
Good enough.
“How many?”
“S-s-six.”
“Where?”
He licked his lips. “One at the gate. Three at the south building.”
The south building must have been on the other side of the landfill, out of sight behind the mountains of trash.
“That’s four. Where are the other two?”
Something hard pressed against the back of Jessie’s neck.
“Right here, bitch.”
Jessie cringed. She felt herself deflate. In a minute she would end up a floppy shell on the floor. What she wouldn’t have given for a little bit of her old self, the self that didn’t need to worry about bullets hurting her unless they were made of silver.
“Drop the gun.” The man behind her had a soft, effeminate voice that didn’t at all match his rough tone.
“Is number two with you as well?”
“Right here.” A woman. Only she sounded more manly than the dude actually holding the gun.
“Do you guys have any idea who I am?”
“I don’t care if you’re Scarlett Johansson. Drop the fucking gun.”
Seriously? Scarlett Johansson? Sure, Jessie had most of her hair covered by the knit cap, but strands of obvious black hung out in spots. ScarJo was a blond.
“You really don’t know?” she asked.
“I’ll give you three more seconds.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She didn’t drop the gun. Dad had taught her enough to know that was a bad idea, es
pecially with the safety off. She set it gently on Nervous Nellie’s desk.
His gaze couldn’t get enough of the thing. It never left, as if he was staring at the Maltese Falcon, only with fear instead of greed.
“Hilton, you want to pick that up instead of gaping at it?” This was from the growly woman. Most of the grit in her voice probably came from too many packs of Lucky Strikes.
Hilton, hands still up, shook his head. “I don’t do guns.”
“Jesus, you pansy.” The woman came around to grab the gun, allowing Jessie a glimpse of her before she retreated back behind her. She wore the same coveralls as Hilton and had her hair pulled back in a tight bun. But with her soft face and blond hair, she looked way more like ScarJo than Jessie did.
“So now what?” Jessie asked. “You call up the Agency goons to take me back in?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I am gonna call the cops.”
Jessie scrunched up her nose. Interesting. “You don’t know anything about the Agency?”
“You wanted by the FBI or something?” ScarJo in coveralls asked. Just hearing her gravel voice totally messed with Jessie. It did not match the woman’s face at all.
Jessie chuckled. “Yeah, FBI. Sure.”
“Daisy,” the man with feminine lilt—and the gun—said. “Get on the horn.”
“Jesus, who calls the phone a horn anymore? You pop out of a nineteen-fifties army picture? You bring the Duke with you?”
The barrel of the gun poked hard into her neck.
“For a kid caught trespassing with a gun almost as big as she is, you sure have a loose mouth.”
She had to get out of this. Now. But she didn’t see a lot of options. “Look, I haven’t hurt anything. I was just looking for a pair of cheap jeans.”
“Yeah,” gritty ScarJo said. “You look, and smell, like you been crawling around in the fill. You have any idea what’s in that stuff?”
Jessie shrugged. “Not any jeans that fit me.”
“Daisy, call the cops like I told you.”
She made a disgusted grunt, but Jessie heard her feet swishing on the carpet as she walked away.
A clock on the wall—a generic, industrial kind you’d find in every classroom in high schools across the country—ticked away seconds in the silence. Jessie counted eleven before Hilton grew enough balls to open his mouth.