Point Pleasant

by Wood, Jen Archer

  “Nic! Goddamnit!”

  The small compartment on the front of the door used for removing handcuffs after securing prisoners slid open. The Remington’s stock was pushed through at an inelegant angle.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” Nicholas said. “But this is for your own good right now.”

  “You asshole. Don’t you dare do this!”

  “Just take the fucking gun. Use it only if you have to. The door is pure iron. You’ll be safe here.”

  “You can’t go out there alone,” Ben said, and he yanked the stock to pull the gun the rest of the way through the slot. “It’s not safe. I can watch your back!”

  “I have other people watching my back these days, Wisehart. People who actually stick around.”

  Nicholas’ face appeared in the small Plexiglas-covered window. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and Ben heard the other man’s voice falter even through the muffle of the door. “Just sit down and rest. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Let me out,” Ben said through clenched teeth.

  Nicholas slid the cover over the compartment shut. He spared one glance into the cell and turned away. His footsteps echoed down the long corridor to signal his exit, and Ben slapped at the cold metal that separated him from his freedom. He propped the Remington against the wall and banged the butt of the flashlight he still held against the iron door as if the action would accomplish anything more than further his frustration.

  “Fuck everything!” he yelled. “Fuck you most, Sheriff fucking Nolan!”

  The station was silent without Ben yelling obscenities. He hated feeling like he had been put away on a shelf. He hated the idea of Nicholas out there alone without even the sole salt round to protect himself. He hated the apparent distrust behind Nicholas’ sharp comment as well.

  The rush of adrenaline that had spurred Ben forward since his call to Kate faded, and a wave of dizziness forced him to the bench in the corner. He sat with his head bowed for several long minutes while he attempted to calm down.

  Logically, he could understand why Nicholas would lock him up. The room was protected by iron, and the shotgun was there if Ben needed it. He was safe and would remain safe as long as he stayed in the cell.

  Unless the building catches fire, Ben thought with grim morbidity.

  He knew Nicholas had an agenda. The sheriff had to keep the town safe, but, more than that, he was insistent on keeping Ben safe.

  If they did survive this, if the town did not burn to the ground with the new Gehenna rising from its ashes, then perhaps Nicholas’ act of locking Ben in a jail cell was symbolic of the future they could have together.

  Ben tried to push the thought out of his head, but he had little else to contemplate.

  He would have followed Nicholas to aid his deputies. He would have watched Nicholas’ back like they always used to when they were younger, like he had the night before in Nicholas’ backyard. He would have been there for whatever Nicholas might need, but Nicholas had refused Ben these opportunities.

  There was truth to Nicholas’ words even if they stung like that half-in, half-out splinter that Ben wanted to gnaw at with his teeth. He had left, and Nicholas had new connections in his life. Connections who were probably more reliable than Ben could ever hope to be.

  Concussion or not, he was still useful, though. And if Nicholas got himself killed, Ben would hate him forever. He would hate Nicholas for not being able to punch him in his stupid, arrogant face before showering it with desperate kisses.

  “Fuck,” he cursed, but no one was there to hear him.

  Ben twisted his hands around the grip of Nicholas’ flashlight as he paced the short length of the cell. His wristwatch told him almost an hour had passed since Nicholas’ exit, and his anxiety escalated with each passing moment. He tried calling Nicholas’ phone, but there was still no signal. The fact that he was surrounded by cement and iron probably did not help.

  Something happened. Something happened to Nic, and you’re stuck in jail. Do not pass Go in your shiny fucking thimble, you useless asshole.

  A door slammed outside of the holding area. Ben froze and turned to the front of his cell.

  “Nic?” Ben called out, eyeing the door. “Hello?”

  Footsteps shuffled outside.

  “Nic?” Ben repeated, but there was no response.

  Static filled the room, and Ben’s gaze darted up to the ceiling when he realized the noise was coming from the speaker of an intercom hidden somewhere overhead. The steady line of illumination from the flashlight trembled in tandem with Ben’s hand as he shone it over the Plexiglas. There was no one on the other side.

  “Nic?” he whispered.

  “Hi Ben,” said a lilting voice over the intercom. Tears welled in Ben’s eyes as swiftly as if he had yanked an adhesive bandage from his shin, pulling the hair from his leg along with it.

  “No,” Ben said, the word barely audible even with the resounding acoustics of the narrow room.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come home,” said the voice of Caroline Wisehart.

  “Stop,” Ben said. “Please.”

  “Don’t cry, Ben. I always hated it when you cried. Why couldn’t you be a happy baby like Katherine?”

  “You’re not real,” Ben said.

  “You’re right. I’m dead,” the voice replied with a clipped precision that cut like a rusty blade. “Because you didn’t come home ten minutes earlier.”

  “Shut up!” Ben screamed.

  “Ten minutes, Ben. You could have gotten an ambulance. They could have saved me. But you had to stop for that coffee in the break room first, didn’t you? Always with the coffee. You and your father, I swear.”

  The beam of the flashlight shook violently as Ben found himself unable to control his hand. Short, stunted exhales of breath escaped through his nostrils as he pursed his lips together and squeezed his eyes shut. Hot trickles of tears slid down his cheeks.

  “I think I like you in here, Ben. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I’m glad we get to have this us-time.”

  “You’re not real,” Ben said and receded to the corner farthest from the door. “You’re not real, you’re not real.”

  He repeated the mantra several times over as the voice laughed, its pitch both musical and wretched.

  “I’m as real as the plane tickets I booked the morning I died, Ben. I always wanted to try tapas in Spain. I think Andy would have liked a café con leche. Oh, but he always hated milk in his swill, didn’t he?”

  “Fuck you!” Ben heaved the flashlight at the Plexiglas. It struck with a thud and clattered to the floor. The light flickered and died as it rolled to a rest under the bench.

  Red eyes appeared on the other side of the window. The scarlet of the orbs glowed as brightly as a set of taillights on a dark backcountry lane.

  “That’s no way to talk to your mother.” The slanting southern intonation of Caroline’s cheerful accent had disappeared and was replaced by the gruesome snarl Ben had heard on the recording from River Bend Road.

  Azazel laughed with wild abandon, and Ben’s stomach wrenched as if caught in the same mire he had found himself face-first in earlier that evening. He stumbled forward and slid his hands on the wall beside the door until he connected with the cold barrel of the Remington.

  Ben jerked the shotgun upwards and fumbled for the stock. His thumb slid across the safety button, and he gave a quick pump to the forend.

  “Go on, Benji,” said Azazel, now donning the same derisive tone of Andrew Wisehart he had used on Nicholas’ clock radio. “Shoot the glass. Let’s see if the bullet ricochets. I’ll soak up your blood with my wings.”

  Ben’s grip faltered, and he lowered the barrel. The Plexiglas was at least two inches thick. Without the weight of lead inside the shell, he could not be sure the shot would not just hit the window and bounce back. Or perhaps it would make it through, but the Plexiglas would shatter and send out a spray of shards like shrapnel.

  The eyes on th
e other side of the window slanted, and Ben was almost thankful that the power outage prevented him from seeing the rest of the fallen angel’s face.

  A mournful, mocking wail flooded the intercom, and Ben dropped the gun to bring his hands to his ears. He clutched at the sides of his head, digging his fingers into his hair, as the wail descended into a series of maddening screams and laughs that fluctuated between the voices of Ben’s dead parents.

  Frigid air wafted off the concrete walls. Ben backed into the corner once more, and the voices died out.

  “Hey, Wiseass,” said the voice of a much younger Nicholas Nolan over the intercom after a long silence. “Wanna go for a bike ride? I’ll race you.”

  The static resumed, and short, sporadic bursts of a high-pitched keening forced Ben to tighten his hold over his ears. The intercom seemed to explode, and a loud boom sounded from the hallway. Ben’s gaze darted to the Plexiglas. The red eyes were gone.

  Ben scrambled forward and threw himself onto his hands and knees. He slid his palms across the dusty floor until he found the flashlight under the bench. His hands trembled as he twisted the top of the flashlight to tighten its loosened lens. He smacked the base and rose to his feet. The dark cell was illuminated. He aimed the beam at the window just as another wail emitted from the intercom. The iron door that stood between him and whatever was happening in the corridor crumpled inward with a jarring clang.

  A crimson light exploded against the Plexiglas. The screams and static disappeared as abruptly as if someone had sat on the remote during the last seconds of the World Series and inadvertently shut off the television during the final run. Silence flooded the cell and corridor, and Ben edged forward. He closed the remaining inches between himself and the window and peered out.

  Red eyes appeared on the other side of the Plexiglas. Ben leapt back, tripping over the shoulder strap of the Remington as he stumbled toward the far corner. The door to the cell was wrenched from its hinges. The shriek and crunch of battered metal reverberated like the crash of a car, and the door was thrown aside with all the casual effort of tossing a gum wrapper into a waste bin.

  A tall, lanky figure loomed in the doorway. Raziel’s right hand dropped to his side, and the speaker overhead spluttered to life once more. The voice was not that of his long dead mother, his recently deceased father, or the prepubescent register of his childhood best friend. The archangel’s timbre shifted from high to low in a manner that was almost soothing.

  “Do not be afraid.”

  Ben’s shoulders sagged, and his clutch on the flashlight eased.

  “Hey, Raz,” he said, but he did not move toward the door.

  “Hello, Ben.” The archangel tilted his head to the side and observed Ben with an intensity that made him want to shrink even further into the corner. “You may leave now.”

  There was a rustle of what sounded like heavy drapes shifting in a breeze as Raziel’s wings fluttered. Ben swallowed hard when he aimed the flashlight down and saw that the long appendages trailed the floor. He moved toward the door and paused. His actions were slow and cautious as he reached for the stock of the Remington, keeping his gaze fixed on the archangel.

  Ben exited the cell. He circled Raziel, maintaining a foot of respectful distance between them as he stepped into the hallway. The archangel’s forehead was aligned with the top of the doorframe, and Ben stared up with a curiosity to match Raziel’s quizzical regard.

  “Thanks,” Ben said.

  “I thought I would return the favor.”

  “Where’d your brother go?”

  “I suspect he is tending his wounds.”

  Footsteps echoed from the other end of the corridor, and Ben turned his flashlight down the passageway. Nicholas appeared with Daniel by his side. They skidded to a halt and raised their drawn guns when they saw Ben.

  “How the hell did you get out?” Nicholas demanded and lowered his Glock. He squinted when Ben aimed the flashlight at his face.

  Ben turned to Raziel, but the archangel was gone. He spun and shone the light into the empty cell. The other end of the hallway was also vacant, and Ben’s brow furrowed in confusion.

  “Well, bye to you too, then,” he yelled down the corridor, somehow sure that Raziel could still hear him even though he was not there.

  Nicholas and Daniel moved forward. Their uniforms were soaked with rain, and identical streaks of unease and confusion painted their features in the sparse light.

  Daniel raised his own flashlight to the doorway of the cell. “What the fuck?” he asked, noticing the iron door several feet away where it had skidded to a halt after Raziel tossed it aside.

  “How the hell did you get out?” Nicholas repeated, and the incredulity in his eyes filled Ben with the same coldness that emanated from the concrete walls.

  “Raziel.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He just left. Maybe he can’t suffer the company of assholes,” Ben said.

  “And yet he talks to you,” Nicholas shot back.

  “Cool it, both of you,” Daniel said, his deep voice like the rumble of thunder that still rolled overhead. “I’m going back up front with Thomas. Work this out before you join us because I’m not even remotely close to being in the motherfucking mood for whatever this bullshit is.”

  Daniel gave Nicholas a look before he strode down the corridor, still clutching his Glock in his right hand.

  “What’s his problem?” Ben asked when Daniel disappeared around the corner.

  “It’s been a long fucking night, Ben.”

  “No fucking shit, Sheriff. What happened with the kids?”

  “They were asleep,” Nicholas said, huffing out a disgusted laugh. “The babysitter was spooked because the lights were out, but she was fine too. She just wanted to get home to her mom. We went around to some of the officers’ houses. Most of them were in bed and didn’t even know about the power outage. Said they got a call from me earlier telling them to go home for the night.”

  “Azazel called them,” Ben said.

  “Apparently. He’s got one hell of a monthly calling plan.”

  Ben said nothing. Nicholas shook his head and regarded the open doorway of the cell in silence before he spoke again, continuing without Ben’s prompting for more information.

  “We rendezvoused back on Main Street because we’d split up. And I saw it again. It was leaping from one roof to the next. I pumped a full clip into it, but it just kept going. We followed it all the way out to River Bend Road before we lost sight of it in the forest out past Tucker’s farm.”

  “Is Tucker okay?”

  “Fuck knows,” Nicholas said. “Your buddy came over all the radios. Told us to get back here immediately. Looks like he’s been doing my job for me again.” He nodded to the crushed door down the hall and let out a bitter snicker. The sarcasm of his final statement made Ben clench his jaw so tightly that his molars ached.

  “Well, fuck you very much for riding in on your white steed anyway, Sheriff. Especially after you’re the one who put me in there.”

  A fierce sheen engulfed Nicholas’ eyes. “You’re at the top of this thing’s hit list, Ben. And I’m not going to let anything else happen to you.”

  “So you locked me up and left me with it?”

  In the beams of their flashlights, Ben saw Nicholas falter.

  “I didn’t leave you with it,” Nicholas said, taking on a defensive tone as if Ben had accused him of stealing the Camaro. “We secured the building. And we just chased it across town.”

  “I told you,” Ben said, “it’s not just him. There are going to be others. Sounds like you met one. But he was here almost the whole time. So thanks for that. And for treating me like I’m some fucking pet you can shove into a cage when you’re not playing with it.”

  “I don’t think that,” Nicholas said, and he grabbed Ben’s arm before Ben could stalk down the hallway. “But it’s my job to put my neck out there, not yours. And if this was the only way to keep you safe while
I’m not around, I’d lock you up again. But I didn’t know it was here. I wouldn’t have left you if I’d known.”

  “I don’t need you protecting me,” Ben said, jerking away from the sheriff’s grasp. “I need you giving me a fucking say in what happens to me. I’ve taken care of myself for a long time. And you weren’t there for any of it because you didn’t want to be. So don’t pull this Super Sheriff shit on me now. I’m not in the motherfucking mood either.”

  Nicholas stiffened at Ben’s words. A part of Ben hoped they stung just as much as Nicholas’ had when he spoke them from the other side of the Plexiglas window.

  “Ben, I’m sorry, I was just—” Nicholas trailed off and retreated a few paces until he was flush against the wall on the other side of the corridor. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to put you in a cage or take away your choice. I’m just trying to protect you.”

  “I’ve never wanted to punch someone in the face as much as I want to hit you right now,” Ben said, ignoring the apology.

  Nicholas straightened. “Then hit me if it makes you feel better.”

  “Always a goddamn hero,” Ben said with and empty laugh.

  “I thought you were dead earlier!” Nicholas shouted. “You wouldn’t wake up, you selfish asshole. I don’t want to see you die. So fucking sue me! I love you, you fucking idiot. Maybe you don’t like the idea of someone else looking out for you, but you need to get the fuck over that right now. Especially if you insist on throwing yourself into harm’s way like you did earlier.”

  “Maybe it’d be easier for me if you’d stop ordering me around like I’m one of your goddamn deputies and treated me like whatever the fuck I am to you.”

  Nicholas withdrew as if Ben had aimed the Remington at his head. His gaze was as doleful as Evelyn Lewis’ had been the afternoon she told them that Raphael the roadside turtle had gone home to his maker.

  “You’re everything to me, Ben,” he whispered. “Haven’t you understood that yet?”

  The sincerity of the admission struck Ben like a blow to the throat. He considered Nicholas for a long moment before he looked at his feet.