Buddies

by Kip Cassino

  The question stopped John in his tracks. Sure he had one, in case the power went out during a storm. Why would a stranger want to know that? “Yeah, we do,” he answered. “Why do you need to know? Why is your truck in my driveway, anyhow?”

  The man, the driver, continued to smile as he produced a pistol. “I don’t need your generator,” he said, “just the gas you use to fuel it. Tell me where that is, and your trouble with me will be over.”

  “There’s two ten-gallon cans in the garage behind me,” John said. “They’re both full.” The gun scared him. His guts felt loose. Suddenly, he needed to sit down. “What do you want with me?” he managed to gasp.

  “Look,” the man said pleasantly, “I’ll put the gun away, if that makes you feel better.” He put the weapon back in his pocket. “See? Now, how many people are upstairs?”

  By now, John was leaning heavily on the hood of his car. He felt very ill. “Just my wife,” he croaked. “Please … please don’t hurt us. We’ll give you … whatever you want.”

  “I’ll leave your wife alone,” the man promised, “but your time is over.” He moved quickly to John’s side, pulled out a big knife, and held the older man still while he slit his throat. As John’s sight faded, as he slumped dying to the ground, he thought he saw a huge black dog standing next to his assailant.

  Marilyn heard the front door slam, and listened to the sound of the footsteps coming up the steps. They sounded … different. “John?” she called.

  By now she could see who had walked up the steps and into their living room. It wasn’t John at all. It was another man, and he held a gun. She fumbled for her cellphone.

  “Please don’t,” the man said calmly, pointing the gun at her midsection. “Please put the phone down. I promised your husband I wouldn’t hurt you. I’d hate to make that a lie.”

  Marilyn dropped the phone and raised her hands above her head. That seemed like the right thing to do. “Who are you?” she blurted. “What do you want?”

  The man smiled. He wore work clothes and heavy boots, she noticed. “Do you know your next door neighbor?” he asked. She nodded, unable to speak. Her eyes were focused on the gun.

  “Good,” the smiling man said. “I want you to leave here right now, and run as fast as you can to her house. Once you get there, call the police and tell them that Vernon Taws has invaded your house and killed your husband. Do you understand me?”

  “You killed my Johnny?” Marilyn whispered, tears welling in her eyes. She felt faint.

  “Yes, I did,” the man admitted. “Now, do as I say, or you will join him.” He moved closer, raising the gun in his hand, still smiling all the while.

  Marilyn shrieked, lowered her head and ran past the man, down the stairs and out the front door. “Help!” she began to yell. “Help!”

  The Captain knew he had no more than five minutes, ten on the outside, to prepare himself for the enemies who were about to arrive. He turned, ran down the stairs and out of the house. As quickly as he could, he unloaded his guns from the truck, and placed them behind the house’s garage. He looked around for a big piece of cloth, noticed sheets in the dryer and grabbed one, along with a claw hammer from John’s workbench. He took both to the green truck, which he backed out the driveway to the street, facing the house he’d invaded. Running to the truck’s side, he punctured its fuel tank several times with the claw hammer and watched for a second as the diesel began to pour from it. He enlarged one hole and stuck the sheet into it, so that the quickly soaking sheet fell to the pavement.

  The Captain ran to the garage, hefted the two ten-gallon cans of gasoline and took them to the truck. He opened one, and poured some of its contents into and around the thickening pool of diesel from the truck’s fuel tank. The rest he used to make a track that saturated the road in front of the yellow house. He moved to John’s car, shifted it to neutral and pushed it to the edge of the driveway, poured gasoline from the second can in a line that ran from his truck to the area under the car’s gas tank. Almost done, the Captain thought to himself. His final step was to climb into the green truck’s cab and retrieve flares from the emergency kit behind the driver’s seat. One of these he placed beneath the green truck, under ruptured fuel tank. He kept the other with him. Running behind the house, he made sure all the ammunition and guns he would need were carefully placed. He picked up and loaded the AR-15 with a thirty-round magazine, then moved into the darkness of the garage. His heart was pounding from all the exertion. He breathed deeply, and forced himself to calm. The black dog stood beside him, attentive—its blood-red eyes surveying the scene. He found cover behind the workbench and put on his body armor. Now all he had to do was wait.

  His enemies didn’t take long. Within a minute or two he heard the first sirens blaring. Like thunder in reverse, the police cars followed the noise that announced them. Two, then two more, pulled onto the street and stopped themselves haphazardly in front of the house he hid in. One cop ran to the house next door. The other three stood uneasily by their vehicles. One of the three picked up a megaphone. “Taws,” he said in giant, metallic tones, “come out with your hands up! Throw down your weapons and you won’t be hurt.”

  In answer, the Captain put a round from his AR-15 into the nearest cruiser. It seemed as though he had aimed at the cop with the megaphone, but missed. In reality, he had hit his target squarely. Gasoline was now dripping steadily from the police car’s ruptured tank. The shot had another desired effect. His three enemies now got behind the car, seeking cover. Almost immediately, two more squad cars arrived, and their occupants remained behind cover as well.

  The Captain ignited a flare and tossed it down the driveway and under Proctor’s leaking car. The gasoline already poured caught fire immediately, and snaked an almost invisible burning path between the car and the green truck. The Captain fired again, this time at the already burning car, another clean gas tank hit. The tank exploded, flipping the car into the air and spraying shards of metal around the yard and the street. One of the cops was hit by the flying debris. The green truck’s diesel erupted next, sending oily black smoke around the neighborhood, obscuring the yellow house from the road. Finally, the burning path of gasoline travelled under the leaking police car—igniting its fuel tank as well. Those behind the car flew from the explosion, burned, injured, or killed. The black dog howled with pleasure.

  It was time to move. The Captain shouldered the AR-15’s sling and darted through the garage’s side door. He picked up the two shotguns and a bag of ammunition he’d placed in back of the house, looked around to make sure no enemies were near—then ran through thickening smoke, across the street in back of the yellow house to the beach. He was only seconds ahead of two police cars which were speeding down the beach road to cover the back of the house he’d just left.

  As two cops left their cars to cautiously approach the back of the yellow house, the Captain targeted both with the AR-15 from a ditch by the road. Haze from the still-burning diesel made aiming difficult, but he thought he had hit one. As he retreated across the road, behind the first ridge of dunes, he could hear more sirens in the distance. Many more. His driver had been right, the Captain thought. The sand was like sugar.

  Chapter 25

  A Week After Pauley’s Death

  Fort Pierce, Florida

  Hutchinson Island Beach

  Jack Prell’s helicopter was compelled to land at the foot of Seagull Drive, because thick diesel smoke obscured the road closer to the yellow house. Wearing body armor, he jogged past ten or more county and state police cars before he reached the house itself. The acrid, choking odor of ignited diesel was pervasive. A he reached the house, he noticed two vehicles on their sides, wrecked and still burning, the ruin of what had been the green truck, still spewing black oily smoke, as well as several fire trucks and ambulances.

  Major Halliday was at the scene already. He hailed Prell and motioned him to his
side. “Only one death here so far,” he said, coughing from the smoke. “The poor bastard who owned the yellow house. Taws didn’t kill the wife. He sent her to a neighbor’s place to call us. Looks like he wants to finish his run here. We’ve got three more wounded, one is pretty bad.”

  “Taws was a soldier,” Prell said. “He won a Bronze Star in Afghanistan.”

  Halliday nodded. “He knows what he’s doing, the crazy son of a bitch. He’s outsmarted us every time we’ve caught up to him today, that’s for damn sure. It’s over now, though. We’ve got too many men here, too much firepower. We’ll have him before the day’s over, one way or another.”

  “Is he still in the house?” Prell asked.

  “He left the house after he laid down smoke by burning the diesel,” Halliday explained. “He made it across the road to the beach. Shot at two cops trying to surround him from the back of the house on his way. Wounded one pretty bad. He’s out on the beach now, behind some dunes. We’re leaving him alone until we can figure a way to take him down without more killing. We’ve got him boxed in, though. He’s not going anywhere unless he’s a fish or a bird.”

  “Any chance of getting behind him from the ocean?”

  “We’re working on it. Fish and Wildlife is getting us a couple of boats. They’ll be at the pier up the road within an hour.”

  The Captain sat in the shadow of a high sand dune with the ocean at his back. From time to time, he peeked over the top of the dune to see what his enemies were doing. There were a lot more of them now. Their cars lined the road in front of the beach for blocks. For a while he had sent some shots their way, just to keep them nervous. Now, they were well positioned and didn’t bother to return his fire. He noted that they hadn’t used their megaphone to talk to him about surrender since he’d reached the beach. He interpreted that to mean they’d decided to kill him.

  He wondered what they were waiting for. There were more than enough of them to assault his position now. They had him boxed. He could barely see the enemies to his left and right. They were far down the beach in either direction—much too far for a clear shot—but they were there. Thinking it over, he decided they were probably getting boats to come at him from the ocean, completely surrounding him, preventing any chance of escape, and minimizing further casualties.

  The Captain knew he’d killed and wounded a lot of his enemies today. The black dog had howled with delight. Where was the black dog? Ah, there he was, right behind him. He tried to remember why the dog had always frightened him so much in the past, but thinking about that made his head hurt. He pushed those confusing memories from his mind.

  If only Pauley were here, the Captain thought. The two of them could have outfought and outwitted these enemies, he was sure. How he missed his buddy. He shook his head to clear it. No time for sentiment. He needed to spend what time he had determining what to do about the boats. He decided he needed to build some sandcastles.

  Twenty minutes later, Prell and two state troopers sat in the back of a Florida Fish and Wildlife boat as it cut through the shallows off Hutchinson Island’s beach front. The boat was a sleek twenty-eight footer, and the young warden who piloted the craft seemed to know her job well. Diesel smoke from the still sputtering truck fire was plainly visible to their front right. Prell directed the warden, whose name was Fogarty, to steer for it. “Slow down and turn in when you see it’s close,” he yelled over the roar of twin Yamaha outboards. “How close to the shoreline can you get us?”

  “This boat only draws twenty-one inches,” Fogarty shouted back. “You’ll hardly get your feet wet.”

  “Back off quick as soon as we’re clear,” Prell shouted. “This guy is dangerous.” She nodded back. They could see the smoke clearly now. He pointed in and she nodded again. Her boat bore quickly toward the beach. Prell and his companions braced themselves as their craft breached the breakers of the shore, then dropped quickly into the surf as its engines idled. As they waded onto the beach, the men watched police from the roadside appear at the top of the dune and begin to descend it. More police slowly advanced from either side, until the area Taws had occupied was invaded by more than a dozen body-armored men with guns. “Where the fuck is he?” One cop asked, cursing in frustration. His partner had been badly wounded earlier in the day.

  Everyone on the beach looked around. Twenty feet right from where they’d gathered, at the edge of the incoming surf, stood three mounds of packed sand. A weapon protruded from each one, pointing at them. The top of what looked to be a man’s head could barely be seen behind every one of the mounds. “Down!” someone yelled, and the men on the beach immediately dropped to the ground. Several weapons discharged, kicking up geysers of sand around what had to be foxholes.

  Prell climbed to his feet. “Hold your fire!” he yelled, brushing sand from his clothes. The tide was starting to flow higher. Wavelets had breached one of the mounds, causing the weapon jutting from it to slump aside as it crumbled. “There’s nobody there,” he said, pointing to the dissolving deception. “It’s just sand.”

  The men looked at each other, and then looked frantically around. Where was their quarry? How had Taws disappeared? As if in answer to their collective question, the engines of the Fish and Wildlife boat roared as it sped away from the beach. Warden Fogarty stood at its wheel. Behind her stood another figure—a man who held a gleaming knife to her neck. The police on the beach bellowed collectively in frustration. A few shots were fired, but the boat was already too far out to sea, traveling too fast for any chance of a hit.

  Years ago, when the Captain was still Vernon Taws, he taught his boys a magic trick. He showed them how he could make a coin disappear from the palm of his hand, and then reappear behind Bill’s ear, or out of Jimmy’s pocket. “The secret is misdirection,” he told his astonished children. “You’re looking at my right hand, and what it’s doing. You’re not paying any attention to my left hand, and that’s where the silver dollar really is.” The boys were both thrilled, and continued trying the trick on each other until their mother made them stop.

  Now, more than a decade later, misdirection had played to his advantage again. He had covered himself with sand until he was almost invisible. One of the cops had walked over him, oblivious to what was beneath his boots. When the sand mounds were discovered, he knew all eyes would turn their way—if only for a few seconds. That was all he would need to quickly slip into the surf and wade to the seaward side of one of the boats. Misdirection! A wonderful tool. Beside him in the Fish and Wildlife boat, the black dog panted with joy. Its red eyes glowed.

  Chapter 26

  A Week After Pauley’s Death

  At Sea Off Hutchinson Island, Florida

  “How far can this boat get me?” the Captain asked his captive. They were almost beyond sight of land by now, heading straight out to sea. He had lowered his knife from the woman’s throat, but still held it ready in his hand.

  Florida Fish and Wildlife Warden Leslie Fogarty looked squarely at her captor’s face for the first time. “We have about two hours of gas left in the tanks,” she said. “That won’t get you very far. We need to get closer to land than we are, if you want to evade capture. Right now, we’re very conspicuous, and they’ll be sending aircraft out to find me.”

  The Captain inspected her. She was slim and shorter than he, about five feet four inches tall, he estimated. Curly, dark blonde hair cut short, hazel eyes—pretty, he thought, even in the khaki uniform and baseball cap she wore. He guessed her age at mid-twenties. No rings probably meant single, unless she took them off for work.

  “O.K.” he said. “Stop the boat.” His captive immediately pushed the throttles to idle, and turned the boat into the current.

  She turned to face him. “What now?” she asked. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “I don’t think so,” the Captain said, “even though my friend wants more blood.” The black dog whined and pawed a
t his leg. “Shush!” he hissed. “Good dog!”

  Fogarty stared, badly frightened for the first time. She realized she was confronted by a man who was talking to a creature that didn’t exist. This guy really was crazy.

  The Captain paused to think about what he should do next. “Do you have body armor on the boat?” He asked after a long silence.

  Fogarty nodded, trying to regain her voice. “Yeah,” she finally said. “In front of me, down in the forward hold.”

  “Are there guns down there as well?” the Captain asked. “If there are, don’t try for them—or I will kill you. Just get me the body armor, please.”

  Fogarty leaned into the darkness of the forward hold, felt around until she located the ballistic vest, and passed it out behind her. “Thanks,” the Captain said, taking it from her hands. “Now, come out of there and sit with me for a minute.”

  She did as she was told, and sat facing the killer. Their knees almost touched. He looked normal, even jovial, except for his eyes—which were wild, golden brown pools of madness. He smiled as he put on the body armor. All at once, Leslie Fogarty’s stoic façade crumbled. She put her head in her hands and began to weep.

  “There, There,” the Captain told her softly. “Everything will be alright in a minute. You’ll see.”

  She heard a splash. When she finally willed herself to look up, her captor was no longer sitting across from her. She rushed to look over the side of the boat he’d been on. A few bubbles floated to the surface of the water. Other than that, she could see no sign of him. He was gone.