“Okay, calm down, Kyle. What’s your address?” Stanton wrote it down with a pen on the back of his hand. “Okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes, all right?”
“All right.”
Stanton hung up. “I need to make a quick stop.”
“You shitting me?”
“Friend a mine broke his leg and can’t afford an ambulance ride.”
“Jon, you’re fucking crazy aren’t you?”
“I can’t leave him there, Danny. Just drop me off at his house; I’ll check on him and then call an ambulance and pay for it myself.”
Childs shook his head but grabbed Stanton’s hand and looked at the address. He pressed the accelerator down and flipped on the red and blues attached as a box to the inside of the windshield, the siren wailing. He cut through two neighborhoods and took the express lane on the San Diego Freeway nearly four miles before getting off and coming to a stop in front of an old home with a pointed roof.
“Shit looks rundown.”
“He’s renting; he’s a young guy. I’ll be right back.”
Stanton got out and opened the entry of the chain-link fence and walked up the cement steps to the front porch. There was an old couch out and it looked infested with spiders, cobwebs on both sides. A few empty jars and some tools were laid out as well.
Stanton knocked and then rang the doorbell. He remembered why he was here and shook his head. He tried the doorknob and it turned. He opened the door and went inside.
The house was dark and cluttered. There were stairs in front of him leading up to the second floor and a stairwell next to that leading down into darkness. He walked to the living room, but the house was so full of junk he had to step over several piles and nearly lost his footing when he slipped on a plate that was out on the floor.
“Kyle?” he shouted. He waited several moments but there was no answer.
Stanton walked through the living room, noticing the old television with the dials and rabbit-ear antennas. He walked past a Victorian era sofa with red velvet upholstery and thought how out of place something so elegant looked here. He wondered if perhaps Kyle had some hording issues he hadn’t dealt with and thought he might ask him about it.
The kitchen was off to the left from the living room. Stanton saw an old gas oven and there was a boiling teapot on the stove.
As he stepped into the kitchen and rounded the corner the impact of the metal pipe crushed his nose and shattered one of his cheek bones. His mouth spewed blood and he fell to his knees from the sudden flash of pain as the second blow connected to his head and he flew onto his back, unconscious; another blow connected and blood spattered over the carpets and walls.
Childs glanced up to the house and then back out to the road. He exhaled and stretched his arms. A few scraps of paper were on the passenger seat: the addresses of the two men. He glanced at them quickly and his eyes went wide.
“Shit.”
As he went to open the door, a man appeared in front of him, and Childs didn’t remember anything else.
50
Stanton saw his mother sitting in the hospital bed, the cancer eating away at her. He remembered how lovely she had been and how, as time progressed, her hair began to fall out and her skin sagged and she lost layer after layer of fat and muscle, like a skeleton come to life. Toward the end, a single small nurse could lift her completely out of bed and place her in a wheelchair.
Light came back through the haze of memories and he felt the floor on his back. One eye wouldn’t open and when he tried it shot pain through his body. The other opened only slightly and every object in his view was hazy and indistinct.
He could hear voices now; there were two of them. One was Kyle’s. There was another one that was male and older, but he couldn’t place it. But it sounded so familiar. His head tilted to the side toward the voices and the one he couldn’t recognize stopped talking and left the room.
Kyle came and knelt over him. “Hey, Jon. How you feeling? Probably not too good, huh? I’ll give you this; you took that beating like a champ. Honestly, I wanted it to kill you and I thought for a second that I had. But you’re still with us, huh?”
Stanton tried to open his mouth, but no words came. He needed to talk. To occupy him, to convince him that he too was a man. It would make it more difficult to cut him up if he was a man in his eyes.
“Real,” Stanton gasped, his voice raspy and with a lisp as several teeth were missing, “name.”
“Oh, my name? Don’t you know? I bet you can guess. Go ahead; guess.”
Stanton turned his head back and stared at the ceiling. The pain was now overtaking him as the shock was wearing off. Other than a warm sensation on his neck from the blood seeping out of a head wound, his body was numb, and he felt icy cold; the blood was rushing out of him too fast. He would be dead soon.
“Don’t you want to even guess?” Calvin looked to the door. “My dad says I shouldn’t kill you. He thinks you came here with someone else so he went out to check. Don’t worry; if you did, he’ll take care of them.” Calvin reached down and searched him, pulling his firearm from the holster. “Whew, nice gun man. It’s pretty; all shiny. Do you use polish on it? I bet you use polish on it.”
Stanton felt his arms and knew he could still move his right one. His legs felt detached from his body and when he tried to move them they wouldn’t respond. His motor cortex had been damaged in the blow and the entire left side of his body wouldn’t move. He rolled to his stomach and tried to crawl, his mind blank other than with fear and the pressing need to get away.
Calvin laughed. “How far do you think you can get?” He stood up and kicked Stanton’s arm out from under him, causing his face to impact against the floor. He stomped on his head, making it bounce and laughed again as he saw the blood begin to pool around Stanton’s face.
Calvin walked to the counter, mumbling to himself, and opened a drawer. He pulled out a large kitchen knife and came back to Stanton. He held it above his head and with his entire bodyweight slammed it into Stanton’s leg.
Stanton let out a scream as the blade cut through flesh and deflected off his bone and out the other side of his thigh. Calvin pulled it out and grabbed the back of his head, placing the blade against his throat.
“You know, Jon, I actually did like our time together on the beach. I like that you opened up to me about your wife and kids. I wouldn’t worry about them, though, when I’m done with you, me and my daddy are makin’ a little visit over there.”
Stanton mumbled something.
Calvin leaned down. “What? Are you trying to beg for your life? ‘Cause I’ll listen. What did you say?”
“I said . . . die.”
Stanton pulled out the revolver tucked into his waistband and fired two rounds into Calvin’s chest. They went straight through him, cotton from his shirt mixing with flesh and bone and blood as two gaping holes ripped into his back.
Calvin collapsed on top of him, twitching and gurgling as he vomited blood. Stanton pulled the gun up with great effort and fired a single round into his temple. He stopped moving and Stanton began to slowly roll him off as he heard footsteps outside in the hall.
Stanton crawled deeper into the kitchen by the oven and pulled himself up, leaning against it. The side door to the kitchen opened and Ransom Talano stood there, shock running through his face as he saw his son face down on the linoleum.
Stanton attempted to raise the gun but was too slow. Ransom jumped on him and ripped it away. He fired a round into his chest and Stanton felt the air torn out of him and he couldn’t breathe.
Ransom went to Calvin and turned him over. His face was passive but there was pain there.
“He was my oldest. The one that was supposed to make something of himself. His mama is not gonna be happy about that.” He held up the revolver and stepped close, aiming for Stanton’s face.
Stanton said something but it was hushed as he could no longer breathe and was losing consciousness.
Ransom leaned
down over him. “Good bye, Detective.”
Stanton held up the lighter that he had taken out of his pocket and Ransom smiled at it before he noticed the hissing sound coming out of his oven.
Stanton struck the lighter, and the gas that had been filling the room ignited.
51
Doctor Searle finished the sutures on the young boy and stood back to evaluate his work. The eight-year-old boy had been surfing when he scraped what had appeared to be some rough coral and it’d taken a nasty chunk out of his leg. But all-in-all, the leg was looking much better; with some antibiotics and rest he would be back surfing in no time.
“Doctor?” the nurse said, poking her head around the curtain.
“Uh huh,” Searle said as he ran his finger along the wound, testing the sutures.
“That detective is here to see you.”
“I’ll be right out.” He finished, tousled the boy’s hair, and looked to his mother who was sitting on a stool next to the bed. “He’s gonna be fine. I’m prescribing some antibiotics and he should stay home from school the rest of the week. Make sure he stays off that leg for a time.”
All the worry in the woman’s face melted away. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“My pleasure.”
He opened the curtains and stepped through, closing them behind him again. He walked out and saw a tall, slim man in a bad suit with a buxom blond standing in the hallway.
“You Detective Porter?”
“That’s me,” the female said.
“Like I told you on the phone, they’re stable and doing fine. The big guy, Childs, he’s a tough son of a bitch. That blow he took to the head would’a shot me straight to hell, but he’s hanging in there. The other detective . . . ah . . .”
“Jon Stanton.”
“Right. He’s in stable condition but he’s burnt something fierce. Second and third degree burns over at least thirty percent of his body. We’re going to have to watch him, but he’s young and strong. I’ve seen weaker men make it out with worse just fine.”
“What about the other two?” the male detective said.
“The young male was dead from several gunshot wounds before he ever got here. The other body we found survived for a few hours but died of smoke inhalation. What the hell happened at that house anyway?”
Danielle turned and looked to the ICU down the hall where Stanton was recovering in a plastic isolation unit. She walked over to him, the doctor saying something, but she didn’t pay attention. She stared through the door at Stanton lying in the bed, propped up by several pillows. His eyes were closed.
After a few seconds, she saw the slightest trace of movement. His eyes partially opened, and a faint grin came to his lips before they closed again.
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BY VICTOR METHOS
Jon Stanton Thrillers
The White Angel Murder
Walk in Darkness
Sin City Homicide
Arsonist
The Porn Star Murders
Thrillers
Diary of an Assassin
Black Sky (A Mystery-Thriller)
Plague (A Medical Thriller)
Murder Corporation (A Crime Thriller)
Superhero (An Action Thriller)
Creature-Feature Novels
The Extinct
Sea Creature
Paranormal Thrillers
Dracula (A Modern Telling)
Savage: A Novel
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Clone Hunter
Star Dreamer: The Early Science Fiction of Victor Methos
Black Onyx (A Superhero Thriller)
Empire of War (An Epic Fantasy)
Humor
Welcome to Hell, Earl
Philosophical Fiction
Existentialism and Death on a Paris Afternoon
To contact the author, learn about his latest adventures, get tips on starting your own adventures, or learn about upcoming releases, please visit the author’s blog at http://methosreview.blogspot.com/
Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries) Page 20