by Liam Jackson
Stepping back from the counter, Charlie stammered, "Yeah... yes. I'm fine... fine." She noticed that the man was wearing a uniform and a seven-pointed star was pinned to his sunken chest. "Can I help you... uh, Deputy?"
The deputy smiled broadly, revealing two rows of crooked, broken teeth, stained dull shades of tobacco-brown and pus-green. His uniform was disheveled, as if he'd slept in it for days.
He was short, not much more than five and a half feet in his socks, but it was obvious that he considered himself to be much bigger. And Charlie thought he might be the most dangerous-looking man she had ever laid eyes on.
Is that blood on his uniform? she wondered nervously.
Brazenly, he ran his eyes along the length of Charlie's body, allowing his gaze to linger on her breasts. His narrow tongue darted out, licking cracked, bleeding lips.
"Just call me Petey, baby doll. And, yeah, I can see you're fine, all right. Real fine." He chuckled at his own simple joke, and Charlie winced at the sound. Even the man's laughter sounded vulgar.
"That's too bad, baby. I was looking forward to giving you a little mouth-to-mouth. That's my job. 'Protect and serve.'"
Even through his heavy winter coat, Charlie could see that the man was rail-thin and sickly. His eyes were rheumy with clumps of dried mucous in the corners. The man's sallow skin glistened beneath a sheen of oily perspiration. Despite his physical appearance, the deputy exuded a sense of supreme confidence and strength. He looked like every crank addict that Charlie had ever known, all rolled into one. Something told her that she should be very, very afraid.
"I'm filling up my cruiser. You ever had your cruiser filled up, baby doll?"
Charlie looked out of the window and saw a white Caprice parked at the gas pump. She could see a bright yellow door decal that read Hurley County Sheriff's Office.
"Will... will this be... be cash or charge?"
The deputy laughed, filling the room with that hideous noise, and forcing Charlie back another step.
"Oh, I think I'll charge it. Police business, you understand. Maybe you'd like to take a little ride in my nice shiny car. It goes real fast. Do you like it fast, baby doll? I'll even let you play with my long, hard riot stick."
Charlie edged near the phone, but he shook his head and wagged a bony finger in the air.
"You don't want to do that, baby doll. You see, I'm on special assignment and I can't let you blow my cover. Of course, I could be persuaded to let you blow me."
Watching her from the corner of his eye, he walked back to the front door and locked it with the dead bolt.
"What are you doing?" asked Charlie, although she knew full well that something terrible was about to happen.
"Oh, I just want to talk to you, ask you a few questions. Don't worry, baby doll. I won't hurt you... much."
He slid his hand down to his crotch and began massaging himself. "I won't hurt you... much! Get it, baby doll? You get it?" Again, that hideous, cackling laughter.
Charlie got it. She knew that she would never leave the store alive, and there wasn't a doubt in her mind that death would be a slow and painful experience. Struggling to appear calm, her eyes darted to the countertop as she searched for something that she could use as a weapon.
Why can't Dad keep a shotgun beneath the counter like everyone else? God, I wish Sam was here! Despite her growing terror, the sudden thought of Sam caught her by surprise. Somehow she was certain that Sam would know what to do.
Use the box knife!
The thought came to her from nowhere, and she seized it like a drowning man seizes a life jacket. Charlie reached into the deep pocket of her store apron and groped through discarded receipts and cleaning rags until she felt the cold metal of the box knife. She drew the cutter and with her thumb, extended the long razor blade.
"I think that maybe you should leave," she said, holding the utility knife out in front of her.
Petey froze, his eyes shifting from the box cutter to Charlie and back again. "Now what you gonna do with that little thing, baby doll? You just drop it on the floor right now, you hear me? I said drop it!"
"I hear you, you son of a bitch. If you touch me, I'll cut you wide, deep, and often. I swear I will! Now get out of my store!"
Petey stared at her, openmouthed, as if he couldn't believe she was defying him. Never taking his eyes from her, Petey reached out and grasped the cash register. Effortlessly, he ripped the machine from the counter and held it easily in one hand. Charlie watched in disbelief as the gaunt shell of a man hurled the one-hundred-pound machine the length of the store. She cringed as the register smashed through the sliding glass doors of the beer cooler, some fifty feet away.
"Now, baby doll, you should've listened when I told you to drop that damn thing." No longer grinning, Petey unzipped his trousers. "Now, you stupid little bitch, I'm going to teach you all about obedience to your betters!"
"I don't think you'll do anything of th' sort, sport."
Startled by the unexpected voice, Petey and Charlie looked down an aisle and saw a tall, balding black man standing at the rear of the store, watching them in return while sipping a Sprite.
"How in the hell did you get in here?" demanded Petey.
"The back door. 'Course, Hell didn't have a thing to do with it," the old man said, grinning. "Now, I think you need to be on your way."
Petey pulled back his coat, revealing the .357 revolver on his side. "Old man, ordinarily, I'd take my time and do you right, but as you can see"—Petey nodded in Charlie's direction—"Baby doll is just begging me to give her the meat."
The old man's demeanor immediately changed and there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Touch a hair on that child's head and it'll be the last memory you have of this earth." Unconcerned by the gun, the old man walked toward Petey.
Anger turned to amusement as Petey watched the old man advance on him. Amusement quickly evaporated as Petey's eyes widened. Axthiel's gift, the Taint of the Fallen that ran through Petey's veins, recognized its age-old adversary and responded violently. Petey choked back a mouthful of hot bile and said, "You!"
To Charlie's amazement, the deputy took a step back. "That's close enough! Take another step and I'll kill her. You know what I am. You know you can't stop me before I kill her."
The old man stopped a few feet from Petey and looked at Charlie. "You okay, miss?" Charlie nodded that she was, and the old man turned his attention back to Petey.
"Oh, I know what you are, all right. And maybe I can't stop you before you hurt the girl, but I can make sure that it'll be the last thing you ever do in this life."
Petey sneered. "Kiss my ass, you fuckin' relic!"
Charlie could see that despite his bravado, Petey was genuinely afraid of the old man. Oily sweat poured from Petey's forehead, and his eyes darted back and forth from the old man to the front door.
"Old man, don't try me. All I really want is the boy. I was going to ask the bitch, but you can save us both some time. He doesn't mean shit to you, so tell me where he is and I'm outta here."
The old man laughed and Charlie felt an odd, comforting warmth spread throughout her body, and marveled at the sensation. Then she focused on the deputy's last sentence. A boy... is he talking about Sam?
"You're starting to bore me, sport," said the old man. "You've no idea what that boy does or doesn't mean to me. Besides, you know the rules. I can't tell you anything about him and wouldn't if I could. You'll have to find him on your own. But I suspect you're in for a big surprise if you do find him. The boy won't be easy, you know, and he has... friends. But, don't take my word for it, sport. Go on. Find him. Just remember old Horace tried to warn you."
Petey backed up to the front door, never taking his eyes from the old man. With one hand on the butt of the .357 Magnum, he reached behind his back and groped for the dead bolt with the other. It took a few seconds, but he finally managed to unlock the door.
"Yeah, old man. I'll remember. And you remember this; that little redh
eaded boy-bitch can't hide from me. I followed him this far and I'll eventually catch up with him. There's not a goddamned thing you can do about it. And you remember this, too. I ain't through with your monkey-ass, either. You hear me, motherfucker? One of these days, after I take care of that little pissant, I'm gonna hunt you down and eat your fucking heart."
Horace shook his head and sighed. "It's not too late, boy. The clock is ticking, but you still have a way out of this mess if you'll just take it. Renounce your master and repent before Almighty God. It's that simple."
Petey opened the door, then turned and spat a wad of smoking phlegm across the room, striking Horace in the face. The old man staggered back a step and grunted in pain. He frantically wiped his face with his shirtsleeve, the cloth smoldering where it touched the acidic spittle.
Turning to Charlie, Petey gave her one last hideous grin. "Sorry I couldn't hang around and play, baby doll. But don't worry. I'll be back. You hear me, cunt? I'll be back for you!"
Petey stepped through the door, and slammed it behind him. Charlie ran out from behind the counter and led Horace to the sink, where he frantically flushed his eyes with cold water. "Ol' sport is just like his master... full o' surprises," he said through clenched teeth. "What's he doing now, Charlie? Is he gone?"
Charlie ran to the front of the store, fumbled with the dead bolt until she managed to lock the door, then looked outside through the frosted panes. Her knees nearly buckled. Petey was laughing wildly and spraying gasoline all over the pumps. He locked the nozzle into the On position, then laid it on the ground, pointed toward the store. Pleased with his handiwork, he moved to the next pump. Within seconds, all six nozzles were pumping fuel onto the frozen ground. Petey was standing over the nozzles, a butane cigarette lighter held high above his head.
"Oh, God, he's gonna burn the store!" Instantly, a loud whoosh filled the air. A second later, a pump exploded, sucking the plate glass from the window frames and throwing Charlie back against the counter.
Horace, his vision partly restored, helped Charlie to her feet and pulled her along to the rear of the store. Within seconds, the old wood-frame store was engulfed in flames.
Two hours later, Knoxville firefighters were rolling up the hoses and preparing to leave the smoldering scene of what had been the Hastings Stop-N-Go. A shaken, but otherwise unharmed, Charlie Hastings sat in the front seat of a Knoxville police cruiser and tried to explain the bizarre chain of events to her father and a pair of Knoxville detectives.
After she described Petey, an investigator placed a call to the Hurley County Sheriff's Office, and confirmed that Deputy Pete Scanlon was in fact AWOL. Within minutes, Hurley County faxed over a photograph of Scanlon and another Knoxville detective brought it out to the scene and showed it to Charlie.
Initially, Charlie was certain that it couldn't be the same man. The person in the photograph looked to her like an average, normal person, while the man who torched the store was anything but normal. The height and weight seemed to match, but little else. One of the detectives theorized that perhaps Deputy Scanlon was the victim of foul play, and that the man who had burned the store was wearing Scanlon's uniform.
After another half hour of redundant questions and answers, the officers thanked Charlie for her assistance and promised to provide extra patrols around the Hastings home. They assured her that "should the perp make good on his threat to return, the police will be waiting for him." Charlie's father thanked the officers, then helped Charlie into his truck.
On the drive home, Charlie had a nagging suspicion that she had omitted an important piece of information. For the rest of the afternoon, she replayed the morning's events in her mind. And each time, her thoughts returned to Sam. What am I missing? Something ... but what? Whatever it was, Charlie knew it had something to do with Sam... and... and...
"Damn it! Why can't I remember?" Whatever it was, it flatly refused to come to her. Frustrated, she wished that there had been another witness present, someone besides her and the crazy deputy.
Anxious to move on, Sam shouldered his duffel bag and took the lead. Once outside the old factory, the three paused for a moment to study the area.
"Are you sure you remember the way?" asked Janet. Sam nodded and scratched his scraggly, week-old chin whiskers. "Yeah, it's off to the east. I sorta took the zigzag route, but I'm positive I can retrace my steps. May take us forty-five minutes. Might take an hour. The store I told you about is over on Highway One-twelve."
Footing was treacherous. Waist-high mounds of dirty snow banked the sides of the roadway, evidence that city snowplows were working overtime. Yet, the plows could do little about the thick sheet of ice that coated the sidewalks and roadway. Sam figured the constant plowing was likely responsible, having tightly packed slush and thin layers of snow into an icy glaze several inches thick.
After a block, Sam noticed that Janet handled the ice pretty well. She had a light step and a remarkable sense of balance. Mark was a different story. While he looked athletic enough, he showed no talent for navigating the slippery sidewalk. By the time the trio had gone three blocks, Mark's ass met the glazed concrete four times. On the fourth fall, Janet slipped her arm around Mark's waist and helped steady him. Mark scowled, but Sam was reasonably sure that the man didn't mind nearly so much as he pretended.
The trio started across the street, when Sam heard the unmistakable warning of angry chimes in his head, a warning from Joriel. Suddenly, his nostrils were filled with the cloying order of rotten flesh, and he folded his arms across his stomach as the first wave of nausea washed over him.
"What's wrong, kid?" asked Mark. "Sam?"
The last time he had encountered such a stench, Sam had been standing atop the Arkansas River Bridge. He had smelled the same rotten stench on other occasions, and knew it for what it was. The Enemy.
He shook his head and waved Mark off. "Just need a... minute." Looking up, Sam saw tendrils of black smoke twisting in the light breeze, rising above the treetops. He knew that this wasn't smoke from a wood stove or fireplace. No, this was the kind of smoke associated with smoldering asphalt shingles and electrical wiring, wood and plastic. The kind of smoke he had seen on the night the motel burned to the ground. Sam set off for the store at a jog.
After another couple of blocks, Sam could plainly see the source of the smoke. The store was a pile of blackened rubble.
"Oh, shit! Charlie!" He dropped his duffel bag and broke into a reckless sprint across the frozen intersection. "Sam, wait!" yelled Mark.
Sam ignored him, determined to reach the store and Charlie.
She has to be all right! She just has to...
Suddenly, a police car emerged from behind the rubble, its blue lights flashing. Sam tried to stop in midstride and both feet flew out from under him. He landed hard on the back of his neck and a million brilliant stars exploded in front of his eyes.
The next thing he knew, Janet and Mark each had him by an arm and were hauling him to his feet. Although both wondered why he had taken off at a dead run, neither had to ask why he had suddenly pulled up.
"C'mon, kid. We can't stand out here like this. Police always get suspicious of ambulance chasers. They figure the bad guys really do return to the scene of the crime... to admire their handiwork." Mark half-steered, half-leaned on
Sam, guiding him through the intersection and down a narrow, snow-choked side street.
They were well away from the burned-out building when Mark called a halt. Sam noticed they were standing in front of a small but well-kept church. He sat down gingerly on the concrete steps.
"That was real smooth, Sam, real smooth! It's hard to avoid attention when you're doing ass-over-teakettle somersaults in the middle of an intersection. Now what was all that about? Fess up, kid. I thought we were past the keeping secrets stage."
Sam grunted. Earlier that morning, he had come clean with the pair, telling them everything. Well, almost everything. He told them of the compulsion to come east to a place
he had never seen or knew existed a month ago. He told them about his lifelong companion, the Voice, its insistence that he find this "Eye of God," the Veil, and close it somehow.
"I probably would have tried harder to ignore the messages had it not been for the headaches and nightmares. They started the same day I found the atlas. Funny thing, but they also stopped on the same day... the day I made up my mind to make the trip to Abbotsville."
Both Mark and Janet sat patiently, listening to the fantastic tale, although Sam noticed that Mark occasionally gave him a knowing nod as he described the visions and gruesome dreams.
Finally, Sam told them of his initial encounter with the Enemy and that he was still being followed, hunted by someone or something in a long white Lincoln.
"I can deal with a lot of things, I guess. But the thought of that bastard stalking my mom and dad... my kid sister... It's more than I can handle." In his telling, Sam only withheld two pieces of information. First, he made no mention of Horace, primarily because he wasn't sure what to make of the old man. Sam was positive that it had been more than a coincidence that Hoarce showed up on the bridge, when he did. But how, and more importantly, why?
He also hesitated to mention Charlie for fear Mark and Janet might view him as some love-struck kid, especially in light of obviously more pressing matters. The Voice had gently chided him, but Sam wasn't taking any chances. He intended to take Janet and Mark by the store and introduce them to her, figuring she might be less inclined to throw him through a window with witnesses present. In an odd sort of way, it was like taking the parents to meet an irate girlfriend.
After Sam finished, it was Janet's turn. "I make okay money, but my mother... her condition is draining me and I feel so goddamned guilty for even saying that." Hesitantly, Mark slid an arm around her shoulders. Sam noticed that she didn't seem at all offended.
Janet continued, "I had been working on a Sunday feature for my newspaper, a story about the missing children epidemic across the country. It was just an accident when I caught the assignment to cover a murder at the motel in Lexington. Brutal. Even the ambulance guys were having trouble holding down their lunch.