by John Quick
Rob sighed, then dropped the truck into reverse and began to back down the driveway with agonizing slowness.
The truck sputtered a couple of times, and Jake heard the wheels spinning against nothing but water more than once, but finally they caught traction and pulled the big vehicle out onto the road. Rob let out another sigh—one of relief this time, if Jake’s bet was on the money—and then started working his way down the road. Stan leaned forward, watching the passing scenery to make sure they stopped in the right place for the fastest access to his hidden still.
Everyone in town knew the old man was a moonshiner, and when he had the extra cash, Jake had even bought some of the man’s product. He didn’t know about it being as pure as Stan claimed it to be, but he could vouch for it being potent enough to get you hammered with a quickness no store bought stuff could ever hope to manage. Even with all the fear and anxiousness that surrounded this little adventure, he had to admit there was a part of him that was thrilled at the prospect of seeing where the magic actually happened.
They’d barely gone a hundred feet past the edge of the late Missus Granger’s property when Stan started waving his hand at Rob.
“Here, right here!” he yelled. “And damned if it don’t look that bad, just muddy as shit under that water.”
Jake leaned over to the window and noticed a pair of worn ruts along the edge of the road, submerged now, but clear as day once you knew what to look for. He was amazed that he’d never noticed them before; then again, he’d never been looking for them, either. They led up the hill where they vanished into the thick foliage and trees that covered it. He looked up when Rob snorted a laugh, and saw the cop shaking his head.
“Never took you for one to hide in plain sight,” he told Stan. “But that’s exactly what you did, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” the old man replied. “Hell, Chief Williams knew it was there. Ya’ll just never came looking that hard.”
Rob didn’t reply to that, only stared out his window at the ruts. Finally he turned to Stan. “Should I try driving up there? Might make this go even faster.”
“I wouldn’t,” Stan said. “That trail’s nothing but muddy water right now. You might make it, but it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier to hike it up there and hope we can float my pickup back down again.”
Rob shrugged, checked to make sure his pistol was fully loaded, then put the truck in park and opened the door. “Let’s get to it, then.”
He got out and opened the back door so Jake could get out as well. Once they were all standing on the side of the road, Stan nodded and glanced over at them.
“We get up there,” he said. “Don’t fuck with the still itself. We want the drum at the end, and the boxes of jars sitting off to one side. That’s the shit that’s flammable, so that’s what we need. Grab it, get it in the back of the pickup, and we’ll try to get out of there in one piece.”
Rob and Jake both nodded in unison. Jake wondered if the cop thought it strange that they were actually on the same side for once, but he didn’t bother to ask about it. For all he knew, reminding Rob that up until recently he’d been on the police’s shit list was probably not a good idea.
Stan nodded back and led the way up the hill.
To say it was slow going would be an understatement. Jake was convinced that the only reason he was able to make it was because of his being barefoot—a stroke of irony considering how badly he’d wanted his shoes before trying this. It wasn’t even the water that made it so bad, but the quagmire of mud that had formed under it. With every step, it felt like the ground was trying to hold him to it and not let go. He finally found a rhythm by only digging his toes into it and using the rest of his foot as a fulcrum to pull them back out and propel himself forward. Stan and Rob, both wearing heavy boots, were having a much harder time of it as the mud tried to rip them from their feet.
Finally, Jake saw the grill of a pickup come into view ahead of them, and realized that the water barely came up past his ankles now. He’d been aware they were heading to higher elevation, but he’d been so focused on not getting himself stuck in the mud that he hadn’t noticed the water level dropping. Stan somehow managed to rush on ahead, and leaned heavily against the side of the truck once he reached it.
“Water’s started receding some,” he announced, once Rob and Jake drew close enough for him to speak without having to shout. “It’s gonna be like driving on a damn slip n’ slide, but I think we can at least make it back to your truck.”
Rob leaned forward, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “Then let’s get this done and get the hell out of here. That took a lot longer than we thought it would.”
Stan gave him a half-nod and fought his way past the truck to what looked like a campsite. Once he moved up alongside the truck so it no longer shielded his view, he had to stop and stare in awe at what was really there.
He knew that moonshining on a level that Stan was doing it was a complicated enterprise, but the contraption before him was a marvel of chemistry and engineering. A massive copper pot sat on one side, steam still rising from it, the remnants of a fire soaked into the ground beneath it. A series of curling pipes rose from the top of it, before stopping just above a fifty-gallon drum at the other end. Metal rods and wire held everything in place, some of it driven into the ground underneath, the rest lashed to tree limbs far above them. A second copper pot sat midway between the two, the mirror image of the first one. From the looks of it, the first pot fed the second, collecting additional vapor, then condensed and ran into the final drum at the end. He was no expert, but Jake felt certain Stan could probably yield as much moonshine as any legally established distillery with that get up.
Stan had already unfastened the copper tubing from the top of the final drum by the time Jake managed to snap out of it and remember what they were there for. The old man grunted as he pushed it off the cinderblocks it was resting on. Jake rushed forward, catching it just before it overbalanced, and was amazed again at how heavy it was. Something sloshed inside, shifting the weight, and he nearly went sprawling onto his back with the drum on top of him before he threw one leg out behind himself as a brace.
He also felt a flash of panic once he actually had a hold of it. He turned his head to Rob, face etched with worry, and shook his head.
“There is no way in hell we’re going to get this loaded in the back of a truck,” he said. “Not full, anyway. This thing probably weighs five hundred pounds.”
“Aw, bullshit,” Stan said. “It’s two-fifty at best.”
Rob glanced from one of them to the other, then moved closer and gestured for Jake to step aside. He leaned into the drum, and his face adopted a look of shock once its full weight settled against him. He looked at Stan over the top of the drum, dumbfounded.
“You’ve been hitting your own supply too hard,” he said. “If this is two hundred and fifty pounds, I’m the queen of England. How much of this are you selling, anyway?”
“Enough,” Stan replied, indignant. “Would you ask a lady her age? That’s just as damn rude.”
“If Chief would’ve had us bring you in, you’d be in jail for the rest of your damned life.”
“Yeah, well,” Stan said. “He didn’t, and now we need it, so fuck off and let’s get it loaded.”
Rob shook his head. “There is no way we’re getting this loaded.”
Stan looked over at him. “Well, we’re not leaving it here.”
Rob grunted and stepped away from the drum. Stan let out a shout of alarm, then the thing overbalanced and hit the ground, rolling a little ways back down the hill before fetching up against a rock sticking out of the mud. It stopped with a jolt, and clear liquid began seeping from the lid haphazardly set into the top of it.
“Don’t fucking waste it!” Stan yelled. He started running for it, but Rob grabbed him before he could get too close.
“We’ve got a bigger issue to deal with!” Rob yelled. “We’re not trying to save
your fucking supply, we’re trying to save the town’s lives, you old bastard! Or do you want what happened to Elise to happen to everyone else, too?”
Stan watched the drum leak its contents onto the ground for a few more seconds, then looked up at Rob with a mixture of resignation and pure hatred burning in his eyes.
“God damn you to Hell, Robert Pinkston,” he said. “But you can’t blame me for trying. Let’s grab the jars and get the hell out of here.”
He pushed away from the cop and headed up to the top of a hill. Rob and Jake followed, and when he tossed a tarp aside revealing easily a dozen wooden crates filled with jars of moonshine, Rob actually whistled with admiration. He kept his comments to himself, though, and gestured for Jake to start loading them on the truck before moving to do the same himself.
They were about halfway done when they heard the first splash coming from somewhere on the other side of the hill. All three of them froze, heads snapping that direction, waiting to see if the sound repeated itself. Jake could feel his heart start hammering at his ribs, and felt a momentary flash of gratefulness that he was currently standing in the bed of the pickup, arranging the crates so they wouldn’t tip over and break.
“How long we been up here?” Stan asked, his eyes not leaving the woods. He had pulled the rifle back up to a ready position and was holding it so tightly his knuckles had turned white.
Rob spared a glance at his watch and swore under his breath at whatever he saw there. “Too long. We need to hurry it up.”
The words had no sooner left his lips than another series of loud splashes came from the other side of the hill, followed by a sick, slurping, sucking sound that made the hairs on the back of Jake’s neck stand on end. He crouched down in the truck bed, all too aware of the fact that he had no way to defend himself, and hoped that he was going to be able to keep his promise to Carrie.
Then they saw it, and Jake couldn’t stop the decidedly un-manly scream that tore from his throat. It was on its tail, slapping and thrashing its way toward them like some demonic fish from hell, barbs twitching wildly in the rain. It was making some noise, and Jake’s mind finally registered that it was actually trying to roar at them in anger.
Rob and Stan opened up on it at once, the gunfire overly loud in the former silence on top of the hill. Jake could see the shots striking trees and the ground around the thing, but it was the few shots that hit their mark and only seemed to dimple the thick flesh that made his bladder let go. Thankfully, he was already so wet that he didn’t really notice it, other than the internal embarrassment that he’d pissed himself twice in one morning, and he couldn’t even blame it on being too drunk to help himself.
“Gogogogo!” Rob yelled, backing toward the passenger side of the truck.
Jake saw Stan dart past him, running for the driver’s side as fast as he could go in the mud. The fish dropped to the ground, and for a moment Jake thought they’d managed to take it down, then it began slamming its tail against the still, sending shards of copper tubing hurtling toward them. One chunk slammed into his shoulder, nearly knocking him over, and leaving a stinging trail where its torn end slashed into his skin.
Jake heard the truck’s engine grinding as Stan tried to get it started, and when it finally caught, he thought it was the most glorious sound he’d ever heard. Mud flew in all directions as Stan slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, blocking Jake’s view of the creature as sheets of thick, brown goo shot back at it. Another huge chunk of torn copper tubing cut through it like a knife through a curtain, but it went wide, bouncing off the side of the truck bed before tumbling off into the bushes.
The tires finally caught, and the sudden lurch sent Jake tumbling to the metal bed where he skidded to the open tailgate. He managed to get one hand locked onto the slick, wet lip of the side, and felt the skin tear on his fingers as he struggled to keep himself from sailing right out the back and into the path of that thing. He slammed his foot against the opposite side, wedging himself in place, then groaned as a couple of the crates slammed into his hip hard enough that he was nearly sent out despite his efforts to prevent it.
Little by little, and with near-agonizing pain to his fingers, he was able to push himself and the crates further back into the bed of the truck. He dropped his foot and grabbed the tailgate as quickly as he could before slamming it closed. Once he was out of danger, he lay on his back, ignoring the press of his shoulder into the tailgate, and took a deep breath to try and steady his nerves. He raised his hand and moaned when he saw the deep cuts across the bends of his fingers where the rough metal of the truck bed had torn into them in his attempt to keep himself from falling out.
He felt a sudden lurch as the truck slammed into something, and was thrown into the air momentarily as it turned. He saw the crumpled rear end of Rob’s SUV an instant before his back slammed back down onto the truck bed, knocking his breath from his lungs in addition to everything else he’d had to endure. Apparently the man had decided to just try for the house on his own and not bother to transfer the crates of moonshine over to the other vehicle. Jake had no issue with that, since it meant he wouldn’t have to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in danger of being attacked by that thing again.
On the heels of that came another realization: they had been planning to set a trap for the creature, something that would give them the upper hand in their next confrontation. The problem was that it had found them sooner than anticipated, and now was royally pissed that they’d managed to get away yet again. It was going to be coming for them, and coming fast. He could only hope they’d have enough time to get ready before it did.
If not, all this pain and terror had been for nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Leanne and Carrie were waiting at the front door when Stan slammed on the brakes, sending the truck fishtailing into the yard and Jake bouncing hard against the tailgate and side of the truck bed. The crates of moonshine slammed into him again, almost directly in the kidneys this time, causing him to arch his back and let out a low moan of pain. The truck continued its spin, dragging him across the hump of the wheel well and knocking his head into the toolbox mounted across the back, right next to the truck’s cab. He heard something inside it roll and hit the side with a light dinging sound, and somehow managed to get to his knees.
When he looked out the back of the truck, he wished he’d just stayed down. They were headed directly for the porch, fast enough that Leanne and Carrie both darted back inside to try and avoid getting hit. Jake threw up his hands just as the back bumper rammed up against one of the concrete steps, stopping the truck’s momentum and sending him flying. He hit the bed on his chest and slid into the tailgate, his head ramming it with a hollow bang. Stars danced across his vision as he struggled back to his knees again, one hand held to the top of his head as though it would help keep his brains in place long enough for his vision to clear.
He looked over at the sound of the driver’s door opening and closing, and watched Stan hurry alongside the truck, sloshing his way toward the porch.
“Where the hell did you learn to drive, you old bastard?” he called out, wincing a little as the volume made his head begin to throb. “The dollar store?”
“Fuck off, boy,” Stan said, scrambling onto the porch. “How about you start handing them crates out and keep your cock-hole shut?”
What Jake wanted to do was smash one of them over the old fart’s head, but he figured they would need all the moonshine they had to have any chance of defeating that thing. Not that he was sure that was even possible anymore; he’d seen it shot at least five times, and if it had done anything, it was to make the thing madder than it already was.
Before he had a chance to do anything, Rob was lowering the tailgate and grabbing onto one of the crates himself. He slid it out, got a grip on it, and handed it off to Leanne, who had reappeared on the porch once the immediate danger of Stan’s driving was over. He glanced at the old man as he turned back to the truck.
“You wouldn’t happen to have some oil-soaked rags anywhere, would you?” he asked. “They might work better as fuses on this than soaking clothes in it would.”
Stan scratched his head, then nodded toward the toolbox on the back of the truck. “Might have a few in there.”
“I’ll get them,” Jake said, already turning and shuffling that direction, pushing a couple more crates toward the tailgate as he went. Stan looked like he wanted to say something, but Jake ignored him. It was easier than giving into the urge to punch the old man in the teeth.
The toolbox was one of those that spanned the entire width of the truck bed, and had lids on both sides. Jake had no idea whether or not there was a partition between the sides, and wasn’t about to ask. He would just check both. He started with the one on the driver’s side, pushing his index finger into the little release button and using his other hand to lift the lid. When the scant light of the overcast day finally hit the contents, he went rigid with shock, then turned slowly toward Stan.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said. “You were driving like that with this in here?”
Rob stopped pulling the crate he had his hands on out and cast a curious glance from Jake to Stan, then back to Jake.
Jake reached in, grabbed the two cylinders he’d spotted, and held them up for Rob to see. Rob’s eyes went wide.
“Stan,” Rob said, his voice calmer than his face indicated. “Where did you get dynamite, and why do you have it in your truck?”
Stan blew out an exasperated breath. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Luke snagged ‘em off a site he was working couple months ago. We’ve been using them for fishing.”
Jake couldn’t help but laugh. “Holy shit, you’re serious, aren’t you? What, you lit it, dropped it off the side of a boat, and then scooped up the dead fish with a net afterward or something?”
“Something like that,” Stan grumbled, not meeting his or Rob’s eyes.