by J P Barnett
Jake took his seat. Shandi walked up beside him and surveyed the scene. She waited for Cam to walk away, then leaned over to give Jake a deep, passionate kiss. She looked into his eyes.
“You’ve got this, Jake. We’ll keep you safe.” She lifted the gun up on her shoulder as she stood back up. “You’ve got action Barbie protecting you now.”
Jake smiled as Shandi walked away. She laid her gun gently on the ground and walked towards the door of the schoolhouse. It seemed impossibly unlikely that Karen didn’t already know of their arrival, but she still hid inside her house. Karen answered the door almost immediately, and though she stood too far away for Jake to see her face, her body language exuded fear.
He hadn’t been there when Shandi told them all about Billy Hargrove. He wondered if Karen or her father had cried. He wondered if they even believed it. They must have, he supposed, or they wouldn’t have played along. It seemed insane that they would have agreed to participate, but they resolutely strode out of their house anyway. People in Rose Valley tended to trust the sheriff’s promises of safety.
Shandi took them to the cage and got them situated within. While Karen looked fearful, Jake noticed that her father did not. He looked proud and resolute.
Shandi returned to the line and picked up her gun again. Skylar and Cam exchanged looks, as a ringtone echoed into the night air. Cam fished his cell phone out of his pocket.
“Sheriff Donner here.”
Jake could hear yelling on the other end before Cam responded, “Calm down, Ralph. What?”
Cam went silent for a few seconds, then his eyes went wide. He hung up the phone and turned towards Jake. “One of the teams ran into the beast. You gotta call him here, Jake. Now.”
No pressure, though, Jake thought to himself. He closed his eyes and tried to recreate the steps he used at Shandi’s house. He thought of the schoolhouse. He had seen it thousands of times in his life. He recalled every corner. Every rock. Every color. He thought of the door and the windows. He thought of the chimney that had once served as a bell tower in a former century.
He felt nothing as he thought about the schoolhouse. He recommitted himself and switched focus. He thought of Karen’s kind face. He thought of Cam. Skylar. Wes. Dub. He thought of Shandi. He could picture her most vividly of all. He thought of the cage. Visualized its makeshift strength. He thought of the two yellow jeeps and Cam’s ridiculous Suburban.
Still nothing. He turned his focus to Karen’s father. He thought of the pride that the old man seemed to have at the prospect of seeing his father again. Jake thought of the emotions that must have been flooding through the old man’s body as he waited patiently for a reunion that he thought would never come. Jake had no children, but he thought of his own strange protectiveness that he felt for Macy. He thought of the burgeoning love that he held for Shandi.
Then they hit him. The same gnarly, foreign emotions from before, but this time he expected it.
Billy drew near. Jake felt the overwhelming fear from last time, but the feelings grew into some deeper, more exotic emotion, perhaps one wholly uncommon to the human species. An emotion that could only be felt by someone who had been through the atrocities that Billy had seen.
Jake opened his eyes.
Billy remained silent as he approached. He walked slowly, hunched over and cautious. He glanced towards the five people with guns, but ignored them. He stopped a few feet from the cage and stared into it, clearly assessing the people inside. Jake wondered whether Billy had the wherewithal to detect a trap.
Billy took a few more steps. The old man started to visibly cry, causing Karen to kneel beside him and wrap her arms around his frail frame. Billy stood directly outside of the cage now. The old man pried Karen’s arms off. He summoned all the strength left in his 78-year-old body, stood and walked to the side of the cage. He leaned against it opposite the beast, using the crisscrossed steel to support his weight.
“Dad?” he said, his voice labored with heavy breathing.
Billy cocked his head as if trying to understand what he heard. He reached out and brushed his fingers against the old man’s, with a lighter touch than Jake would have thought possible. Jake felt Billy’s confusion. He felt him trying to solve the enigma before him, trying to make sense of what surely felt impossible to him.
“Jun... ior,” Billy forced out strenuously, as if he discovered talking for the first time. Jake heard gasps from the front line.
Shandi whispered, “It’s working.”
Jake steeled himself, preparing to use his mind to direct the beast away if he had to.
William Hargrove, Jr. sobbed now. Billy seemed confused by it at first, but then forced out, “Don’t... cry.”
The moment shattered as the beast howled unexpectedly. Jake jumped. Someone had shot the beast. A tranquilizer dart hung loosely in one of Billy’s massive arms. Jake surveyed the scene. All eyes trained on Skylar, the idiot who’d pulled the trigger.
Billy charged them, eliciting a flurry of curse words and yelling. Jake closed his eyes and tried to force Billy away, but he could tell immediately that it wouldn’t work. For the first time since he learned to feel Billy’s emotions, he felt an overwhelming sense of anger. This is what Deirdre warned them about. Jake wouldn’t be able to control him in this state.
Tranquilizer darts peppered Billy’s chest now. Each shooter fired in turn as quickly as they could. Billy did not falter. He reached Wes first, as Wes scrambled up to run. The beast caught him by back of the shoulder and pushed him to the ground. Wes screamed in pain as he caught his weight with his hands.
Billy stood over Wes, breathing hard, and Cam suddenly appeared, hitting Billy in the neck with the butt of his gun. Billy shrugged it off and hit Cam in the chest hard, sending him flying backward, landing a few feet away with a thud. Miraculously, Cam held on to his gun.
The beast turned his eyes on the next closest target—Deputy Dub Higgins. Dub dropped his firearm. Jake stood as Skylar ran and jumped into the jeep. Shandi sprinted back to Karen and Junior.
Billy bent down and picked up Dub’s gun. He snapped it in two, threw each half in a different direction and growled in Dub’s face.
“Cam! No!” Jake heard Shandi scream.
Jake looked towards Cam who leveled the tranquilizer gun, prepared to fire again. As Jake’s eyes followed the trajectory of the muzzle, however, he realized that the dart wouldn’t hit Billy—Cam meant to shoot Jake.
“He can take it, Shandi. It won’t kill him.”
Shandi took off towards Cam. Jake froze, suddenly very tired. He didn’t know what he should be doing or how to defuse the situation. Dub’s life hung in imminent danger. Wes laid on the ground in pain. Would Jake being tranquilized have any effect on Billy? Jake decided that he needed to take the risk. In all likelihood, Jake could survive. The serum would provide him the extra boost he would need.
Jake nodded towards Cam. “Do it!”
Cam fired. Jake felt the dart pierce his chest. It stung a little, but the pain proved bearable. The effect of the tranquilizer went to work immediately. Jake dropped down to his knees. Shandi changed directions to intercept him, as Jake struggled to focus. Dub backed up slowly, but the beast did not pursue him.
As Jake fought to keep his eyes open, he witnessed Billy stumbling and scratching at his head. This wouldn’t bring him down, but it confused him. Slowed him down. Maybe it would give them the time they needed to get away. Jake could do this last thing to save them.
Jake couldn’t distinguish between his own emotions and that of Billy anymore. They became one and the same. He felt an overwhelming love for Junior that he vaguely knew emanated from elsewhere. He felt responsibility those who would die, and the fear that he would never wake up. That he would never see Shandi again.
She made it to him just before he lost consciousness, tears streaming down her red face. He detected both sadness and anger.
“I’m sorry” was all he could think to say before losing track of
everything around him.
Chapter 39
Shandi was panicked and exhausted. She didn’t try to collect herself or fight. She just held Jake and cried. She blamed herself for the unconscious man in her arms. She focused on this plan so intently that she refused to accept any course of action that might outright kill Billy.
The tranquilizer dart seemed to have worked at least a little. Billy stumbled in a cloud of confusion. At first, he had held his head in his hands, but now he started lurching forward as if he could fight off the disorientation with action.
With the beast stunned, Shandi heard Cam in her ear. “Steve. Take him out.”
Whatever unholy weapon Steve wielded boomed in the distance. Shandi didn’t know where the bullet ended its trajectory, but Billy remained unscathed. Another shot fired. Another missed.
“Dammit,” Steve shouted through the earpiece. “The kickback on this thing.”
The gun blasted again, echoed almost immediately by another. A bullet struck Billy in the shoulder. He screamed in rage. Blood gushed out of a gaping hole, pouring down Billy’s arm, pooling onto the ground in amounts that Shandi could barely stomach. Perhaps this gun would work.
“Um... That wasn’t me that hit him,” Steve said in her ear.
Billy fell to his knees and looked directly towards Shandi and Jake. In a surreal moment of clarity, Shandi watched Billy’s head nod forward, meeting her eyes with purpose and determination. There was something new in his eyes now. Something resolute, but sorrowful. Did Billy want to die?
She looked around to see if there was anyone else nearby. Dub had cleared the area and taken shelter behind the Jeep. Cam scrambled upright, and ushered Wes to safety. She and Jake shared this moment alone with Billy. Her tears fell faster as she fought the overwhelming feeling of sadness that she felt for both Jake and Billy.
Studying the brutality of the bullet wound, Shandi waffled between hope that the gun might kill him, and fear that he would die before she could save him. His life must have been agonizingly painful. He had subsisted on murder and mayhem. That sort of unending madness would surely leave anyone hoping for an end to it all. She hadn’t considered that before this moment. Perhaps more humanity could be found in killing Billy, rather than trying to save him.
“This is for Cornelius, asshole,” rang into Shandi’s ear, a voice filled with vitriol and hate. Miriam loved her brother, and would be underestimated no longer.
Another shot rang out. This one struck true, perfectly aimed. A huge hole opened up between the beast’s eyes as he collapsed to the ground. Shandi watched his face as he went down, unsure whether she only hoped for the slightest hint of a smile that she saw on his face. The night went silent. Shandi strained to see if Billy’s chest would rise or fall, but she couldn’t tell. It seemed so cruel and unfair. Billy deserved a better outcome than this.
Focusing on Billy’s breathing reminded her to also check Jake’s. She found his wrist and tried to find a pulse. At first, she panicked. She felt nothing. But after adjusting her fingers, she felt a faint heartbeat. Asleep. But alive.
It seemed like minutes before anyone dared to come back out from the protection they had sought out. Shandi just held Jake and refused to let her eyes leave the beast. She expected Billy to wake up at any moment, unable to believe that he was no longer a threat.
Cam drew up the courage to check first, as always. He approached Billy and put his fingers to his neck. They waited in silence for him to finish. When he stood up, he breathed deeply. It looked as if he might collapse from exhaustion right there.
“I think he might actually be dead,” he said.
Shandi sniffled, trying to regain her composure. She felt a strange mix of happiness and sadness. She so desperately wanted all of this to be over.
Shandi startled as Cam pulled his handgun from its holster and yelled, “Stop right there.”
In the distance, Miriam and Tanner approached. They both held massive guns. They stopped at the sheriff’s insistence and set the guns on the ground. Once they had, Cam relaxed and let his arm fall to his side. Miriam and Tanner continued their approach.
From a different direction came Steve. He also carried a massive gun, but Cam took no action to stop him. Eventually, the three of them convened on the beast with Cam. Miriam kicked Billy’s body in the side. Shandi wanted to protest—to defend Billy—but she remained quiet, relinquishing any control she desired to have over the situation.
One of the doors on the jeep opened. Skylar stepped out. He looked calm and collected now, with no hint of the cowardice he’d displayed mere moments ago. He did not approach Billy’s body, though, belying the composure he feigned.
“Miriam! How dare you! Do you realize what you’ve done?”
Miriam’s eyes burned as she met Skylar’s gaze. “He was your son. And you didn’t even care. You just wanted to capture your prize.”
In a smooth and quick motion, Miriam snatched the gun out of Steve’s hand, braced herself and fired it directly into Billy’s back, roughly where his heart would be. Blood flew back up and splattered those nearby. She threw the gun into the hard dirt.
“Enjoy your mountain of flesh,” Miriam said as she walked off. Tanner followed.
Chapter 40
The crowd buzzed with excitement. New mayors didn’t often receive so much fanfare, but this day offered a particularly auspicious occasion. One and a half years had ticked by since the beast tore through Rose Valley, an incident that most residents had been able to put behind them. On the surface, at least. A great number of them seemed to have developed a strange, unexpected pride in having overcome the adversity.
Though he showed no excitement for the inauguration, Jake insisted that they attend anyway. He and Cam would never be friends, but Jake still voted for him when the time came. Shandi agonized in the voting booth forever. Jake never asked who she voted for.
Arrowhead cooperated once Deirdre implicated them. They insisted that she acted alone without authorization to use the seeker serum and assured the Sheriff’s Department that all vestiges of the project would be destroyed. Jake harbored doubts.
Billy’s remains had been cremated. He would certainly not be coming back now. Since Arrowhead maintained that the serum was a misunderstood drug, Jake didn’t know whether there would be any long-term side effects. With Billy dead, though, the nightmares had abated.
The crazy story about the immortal World War II soldier had made the rounds on the internet for a few days, but the pain of it all only lived on in a select few. It was just one more weird government experiment to throw on the pile, ripe for conspiracy theorists to pick apart and blame for other, unrelated things. Jake suspected that there was a lab somewhere looking into it, but the official response insisted that it was a failed experiment that would never be revisited.
Jake and Shandi stood holding hands, waiting for Cam to take the stage in front of the city limit sign. The faded red billboard that previously pictured cheetahs and giraffes now sat shrouded in a large black tarp. Jake felt uneasy at the sorts of things that might adorn the sign now.
Shandi’s phone rang. She let go of Jake’s hands and answered it.
“It’s Macy,” she said to Jake as she tapped the answer button. “Hey, baby.”
Jake strained to hear Macy’s voice on the other end, but only managed to pick up faint murmurs. Any hints as to the conversation only came when Shandi spoke again. “I know, right? The man has good tastes.”
Shandi held her left hand out in front of her as she answered. The late autumn sun danced off the diamond on her ring finger.
“No, it’s okay. I understand. You’re a big college girl now,” Shandi said into her phone.
After a moment, she asked, “How’re Miriam and Tanner?”
Jake spotted Karen across the crowd. He tapped Shandi on the shoulder and whispered, “I’m going to go say hi to Karen.”
Shandi nodded, as Jake snaked his way through the crowd. When Karen saw him, her eyes teared
up. She took his hand with both of hers. “Jake. It’s good to see you.”
Though he found it awkward, Jake pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the funeral. I’m sorry about your father.”
Karen backed away from his embrace and dabbed her face with the back of her hand. “Thanks, Jake. He was ready to go. We really appreciate what you did for him. Seeing his father one last time. It meant a lot, regardless of the outcome.”
Though he wanted to be sensitive, Jake’s curiosity got the better of him. “How’s the lawsuit going?”
“Oh, you know lawyers,” Karen said with a dismissive wave. “They won’t let me talk about it. But there’s hope that some good might come out of all this. It’s hard to stay strong, though. Some days I just want to give up on all of it.”
“Don’t give up. Billy. Your dad. Your whole family needs this.”
Karen smiled, giving Jake the distinct impression that she was already nearing the end of her rope. He could relate. He’d been talking to a lawyer about a lawsuit of his own, but Arrowhead had worked hard to pin as much blame on Deirdre as they could, and their lawyers had far more resources than he. As indignant as he had been at one time, each day stole away a little more of his resolve.
A hush fell on the crowd as Mayor Cam Donner took the stage. He wore a suit instead of a police uniform. He had abandoned his mustache in favor of a clean shave, his hair exposed without a hat and lightly tousled by the wind. Though no smaller than he had been as Sheriff, he seemed more agile and slippery than before. Jake respected the help that Cam offered when they needed it the most, and he knew that Cam would be inextricably linked to him via Shandi for the rest of his life, but he still found Cam’s desire for approval and power unsettling.
Jake said his goodbyes with Karen and made his way back to Shandi’s side as Dub Higgins followed Cam onstage. Dub’s neatly pressed khakis broadcasted an attention to detail that the previous sheriff lacked. His hand had long been out of the cast, but his fingers still curled up in an unnatural position still. It didn’t seem to faze him, and it certainly hadn’t stopped him from being elected sheriff after Cam had resigned to run for mayor.