“Peace is upon us,” Jones said as he trilled that word for long seconds. “It is painful, I know, to do these things. We love these people. But for too long the criminal has stolen from us, the murderer has killed us, the soldier has attacked us, and the police officer has merely pretended to protect us. In truth, they are all the same. All the same violent person.
“Once they are gone, peace will be ours. We will beat our swords into plowshares and live in the paradise of a true, eternal peace.”
I threw the soap at the radio, knocking both to the floor with a loud crash.
After drying off, I wrapped my wound with gauze from Buck's first aid kit and dressed. I walked out of the bathroom to find Victor holding Buck at gunpoint, Buck's nose broken and streaming blood.
I pulled the mousegun and aimed at Victor. “Drop the gun,” I yelled, loud enough to wake Glosser, who stirred in the back bedroom.
“He ratted us,” Victor said in a low, angry voice, keeping his pistol on Buck. “I caught him calling the trillers.”
Glosser now stood beside me, machete in hand. I glanced from Buck to Victor. I'd helped instruct Buck, while Glosser had served as his field training officer. Buck couldn't have done this. I refused to believe it.
But the pistol Victor held snapped into my mind – I'd seen Buck shooting it before at our firing range. Victor grinned his evil slit. “He had it under his mattress,” Victor said. “Guess he lied when he said there were no weapons here.”
Buck's bloody face paled and he fell to the carpet, begging like he did in the trillers' firing line. “I promised Pastor Jones,” he said. “I promised I'd stay with peace. I even dreamed it. I dreamed the true peace.”
Glosser cursed and smashed Buck across the head with the machete's handle, knocking him out. Buck collapsed to the carpet as headlights lit the window shades. Victor glanced out front.
“Two cars,” he said. “Seven people.”
I looked out and saw Pastor Jones step from one of the cars.
“Sergeant Davies,” Pastor Jones yelled. “You have nowhere to run. Think of your daughter. She doesn't have to follow your violent path. Do the right thing and I promise to gift her a true dream of peace.”
I tensed at the mention of my daughter, but Glosser pointed up the street at more headlights approaching. We didn't have long before an entire mob of trillers would be here.
“Out the back door?” Glosser asked.
I looked at Victor and he nodded toward the front door. “No,” I said. “We charge them. Rattle them. We're in no condition to outrun them unless they're afraid to follow.”
So we charged.
Victor shot two trillers, an old husband and wife I remembered from the church's Christmas choirs, where they always sang a haunting version of ‘Silent Night'. Glosser sliced a teenage girl across the face with his machete while I shot the postman who delivered mail to my house. The first shot from the mousegun didn't stop him, but the second shattered the lit Molotov cocktail in his hand, exploding him to a crazy dance of flames. Despite this, he kept trilling peace with the others.
I tried to shoot Pastor Jones but all I saw of him was his red hair illuminated for a moment as a third car pulled up. He ducked behind the car for safety. By then we were past the trillers and running down the street.
“They're not following,” Glosser shouted.
“They'll follow,” I said. “They'll wait a bit before chasing us. Get up their bravery and numbers.”
So we ran for Glosser's house, praying Pastor Jones wouldn't figure out too soon where we were going.
We reached Glosser's neighborhood to find the power out. A fire station down the block had been attacked and the substation next door had exploded when the station burned.
While Victor and I stood guard, Glosser raced up the stairs calling for his family. They opened the attic door and fell into his arms, his twin boys hugging him as his wife cried. Sheriff Granville's wife, along with her daughter-in-law and grandkids, surrounded me. I hugged the sheriff's wife as she wiped her eyes. I didn't need to tell her about the sheriff's bravery. She knew he'd have gone down fighting.
Quickly, Glosser grabbed a duffle bag and began throwing food and supplies into it. Victor and I opened Glosser's gun safe and pulled out a shotgun and an automatic rifle from Glosser's days on our department's SRT team. Victor handed me the rifle and ammo clips and I handed him one of Glosser's old sets of body armor. Victor loaded the shotgun and placed Buck's pistol in a holster which he belted around his waist.
“There's a truck and an old SUV in the garage,” Glosser told me. “We drive them both, grab your family, and get the hell out of here.”
I was curious where this left Victor. I'd assumed all along he'd leave us at some point. While I didn't like turning him loose, there was no other alternative.
I turned to ask Victor where he was going only to find him staring at Glosser's wife.
Victor looked embarrassed, as if caught in a compromising moment. Even though I'd visited Glosser's wife a hundred times, it took me long seconds to realize what Victor was seeing. Glosser's wife looked like an older version of the hitchhiker Victor had killed.
“What's wrong,” Glosser asked in an edgy voice. I was suddenly grateful he'd never seen the girl's bloody body or the nightmarish autopsy photos.
“A destination,” Victor said, fumbling away his shocked stare. “You'll need somewhere to hole up for a while. I've got a place.”
Glosser pulled out a map and Victor showed him how to drive to his land. About sixty miles outside town, up and down several hills and a number of dirt roads. “Got a supply of food built up, a deep well, a solid rock and cement house that could hold off an army. Best of all, few people know it's there.”
Glosser stared at Victor, no doubt knowing like I did what that house had been built to hold off – and likely what Victor had used the isolation for. “I don't know…” Glosser said.
“I won't go there,” Victor promised. “I'll head the other way. Wouldn't feel right, you and me together.”
Seeing no other place to go, we agreed with Victor's plan. We loaded the truck and SUV and drove to my house.
* * *
Barry lay in our kitchen, his body bled out. There were three dead trillers outside the house and two inside. The shotgun beside my husband was empty and it looked like he'd struggled hand to hand with someone before being shot.
In Barry's frozen right hand, a tangle of red hair gleamed to my flashlight's glow. Torn from the triller he'd fought.
Victor shook his head at my husband's body and kicked a cabinet so hard the wood splintered. “It ain't right,” he said. “All these people – they're sheep. They hate violence. They get people like you to protect them and fear people like me, but end of the day that's all they do, fear and talk and live.”
I knew what Victor was saying, and if I'd been thinking clearer I would have told him he was only partially right. That it wasn't wrong to want to live your life in peace. To let others protect you, as it'd been my honor to do. But right then I was as angry as him and wanted to kill Pastor Jones and everyone like him. And I needed to find my daughter.
I thought back to Jones' comment about Lucy being shown the true way to peace. He had her. I knew it.
When Glosser drove up in front of my house he had a young man and woman huddled in the back of his truck and another car following them. “Two soldiers I know, and their families,” he said. “I couldn't leave them.”
I was proud of Glosser. Proud of how he'd pulled his life together from his wreck of a childhood, and proud I'd served beside such a good, decent man. When he asked about Barry, I shook my head and told him to lead everyone to Victor's safe house. I was going to find my daughter. If I was lucky, I'd join them later.
“What about him?” Glosser asked, pointing his pistol at Victor.
Victor muttered that he was also leaving. Would hike his way out of town. But I quickly told him no. He was coming with me.
Victor looked intrigued and asked what was in it for him. But I didn't answer. Merely tapped my fingers across the oily sheen of my rifle.
* * *
The Holy Redeemer Church sat at the end of our tiny downtown, where it'd stood for the last hundred years. If Pastor Jones and the trillers had their way it might stand for another century as a beacon of humanity's ultimate embrace of peace. Not that I'd be welcome in their dream of peace.
As I expected, the church was also a beacon for trillers across the area. Whatever had infected people caused them to naturally gravitate to people like Jones. I remembered the reports I'd read – how this was happening in communities across the world – before reminding myself to focus on the matter at hand.
As dawn slapped its nasty light down, Victor and I sneaked into the old hotel down the street from the church. The hotel had been built during Prohibition and abandoned for the last few decades. Most people avoided its decaying bulk, which was riddled with small corridors and dusty rooms. But I'd spent long days investigating that nasty murder-suicide here and knew the place inside and out.
“A good defensive spot,” Victor said. “But I still don't see why I should stick with you.”
I thought again of the murder-suicide and wondered if I could really go through with my plan. Ignoring Victor's question, I climbed the stairs to a fifth floor room, where a small hole in the outside wall let us see the church without being seen.
We watched all morning. Trillers milled around on foot and in cars. Each time the bells in the church's large wooden tower rang – meaning a new victim had been sighted – Pastor Jones would start his high-tone shriek, which always grabbed the minds of the other trillers and excited them into driving off to kill their prey.
There were also a few prisoners in the church, all children. Through the church windows, I saw Lucy and seven other young kids, each the child of a local deputy, firefighter, or soldier. All looked scared. I remembered my dream and how it had condemned Lucy merely because she was the child of a violent woman.
“Obviously a trap,” Victor said. “They're trying to draw out the holdouts.”
“Maybe. Or maybe Pastor Jones really believes those kids aren't tainted with the violent tendencies the trillers are stamping out. Maybe he's trying to save them.”
That's when Pastor Jones entered the church. Through the large windows I saw him talk to the kids. I don't know what he said but the kids disagreed with him, with Lucy being so bold as to push him away. Pastor Jones shook his red hair in irritation and walked back outside.
I fingered my assault rifle. My daughter was too much like me for the trillers to let her live for long. I had to act soon. But first, I needed to know about Victor.
“If I asked you to help me rescue my daughter, would you?”
“No. Earlier, there was strength in numbers. Now, I'm better going alone. No offense, but that's how I work.”
I nodded. That was the answer I'd expected. “Not sure I believe you,” I said. “If you're such a loner, why'd you tell Glosser about your safe house? You could have worked your way there. Laid low for a while.”
“Again, not my way. I've killed twenty-eight people. Mostly women, but also a few men. People see what I've done, they wonder if the killer's one of the sheep around them. Their neighbor. Their friend.”
I shifted the assault rifle nervously in my hands. But Victor could have killed me anytime in the last two days. He grinned his evil split at my wariness.
“You and me, we're so similar,” he said. “We understand evil, even if we have different reactions to it. The sheep out there, they haven't a clue. They hate you sheepdogs unless we wolves are around, then they tolerate you until we disappear in the night. That's the natural way. That's the life I want.”
He glanced at the trillers surrounding the church and shook his head. “I can't say this isn't my fight. And I am curious. I want to see how far you'll go to save your daughter. But I won't risk my life to help you.”
And that was that. He'd watch, but not help. His rambling explanation didn't totally make sense. But if I'd asked one of the trillers about their words – for peace, for a new world, because of a damn dream – would they also match their deeds? Too many levels and depths to the craziness around us.
Still, I needed Victor. So I fell back on the murder-suicide I'd investigated here a decade ago, knowing a secret he'd take in trade for his help. Something Victor could only do if I let him.
I handed him my assault rifle and made my offer.
* * *
Victor gave me a hell of a distraction.
From the Prohibition hotel's fifth floor hiding place, he picked off trillers with the assault rifle, sniping them one by one. He killed four before they realized where the shots came from, the sounds echoing in confusing bangs around the downtown streets and buildings. But once they knew where he was the trillers surged toward the hotel.
If Victor did like I said he had a decent chance. It would take the trillers a long time to search every room of that old hotel and by then, well, I refused to think about that part.
I sneaked to the rear of the church, Victor's rifle shots and the returning fire providing more than enough sound to cover my approach. Pastor Jones and an armed man stood guard over the kids in the church, but they casually watched the fight through the windows. I shot the armed man – I recognized him as Mr. Hillsbury, the principal of my old high school – and aimed my shotgun at Pastor Jones.
“You okay, Lucy?” I asked.
My daughter smiled. “I told Pastor Jones you'd save us. He didn't believe me, but I told him.”
I wanted to cheer my daughter's faith, but instead told her to lead the other kids to the back room of the church and wait for me. Victor's rifle fire still sounded outside, but I saw the trillers entering the hotel. Victor would soon be forced to go into hiding and I didn't want them to return and find us.
Pastor Jones watched the kids go with sadness. “It's my fault,” he said. “While their parents' dreams tainted the kids, I couldn't kill them like I was supposed to. I suppose I've also been tainted. By people like you. I couldn't simply do what I was ordered to do.”
I laughed nervously at the meaning behind Jones' words. “How long have you been setting this up? I mean, the people like you?”
Pastor Jones smiled. “Since before I arrived in this town. And be careful about using the word ‘people' on us – it's an imprecise term.”
I shivered, wondering what exactly I faced. But I understood that there must be Pastor Joneses all over the world directing these dreams and the trillers. Pushing them to do things they might otherwise be reluctant to do.
“It's the human mind,” he said. “So malleable. Most of you don't realize how controlled you are by cultural constraints and the desires of other people. You made it easy for us.”
“Do you remember baptizing me?” I asked. “You praised me for my work. I'm the same person I was then.”
He nodded. “Indeed you are. And I've always been impressed with how strong a person you are. I think that's why I couldn't kill those kids. I thought, maybe I'm the one to stand up to the insanity my kind has brought to your world. Maybe I'm the one to make a difference, much like you have done.”
In that moment it almost seemed as if the old Pastor Jones was before me, again caring deeply for his congregation and community. But then I remembered the evil he and his kind had brought to my world.
“When people discover that they've been manipulated, they won't go easy on you,” I said.
“Perhaps. But the path to peace no longer runs through you.”
Even though Pastor Jones was unarmed, my soul screamed to shoot him. To leave him crying on a church pew as he slowly bled out, just like he'd done to Barry. But I'm not Victor. I made Pastor Jones kneel and I smashed his head with the butt of my shotgun, knocking him out. I then ran to the back of the church and led the children to safety.
* * *
For seven months we've lived in peace
. In addition to the people Glosser and I saved, we found other refugees. Soldiers and police and firefighters and others – those who understand the need to occasionally take a violent stand for what is right. We don't worship violence. But we don't fear it either.
We hid at Victor's safe house and several nearby places. But we no longer had much trouble with the trillers. Unless the trillers came face to face with us, they seemed to forget that a few of the us had survived. But not many. Over the radio, we heard the trillers' celebratory message of peace echo from all corners of the world. Even though the dream that caused this behavior had begun to burn off – fewer and fewer people were trilling, and fewer and fewer people were being killed – that didn't matter.
The trillers had won. Their peace was at hand.
One cold-shiver winter day, I stood guard duty near the safe house when a solitary man walked up the dirt road. As he neared, I saw his nasty grin and recognized Victor.
I moved from my hiding spot, aiming my shotgun at him.
“I'm not staying,” he said. “Heard the bungalow down the road is more fun.”
I chuckled softly. A few miles from here a number of murderers and criminals had banded together, much as we had. While we mostly kept apart from those wolves, they'd agreed to work with us if the trillers ever mounted a full-scale attack.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Curious. You tell anyone our deal?”
I hadn't. Truth was, I'd been ashamed to. What I'd offered Victor was the hidden speakeasy in that old Prohibition-era hotel. No one but the few deputies who'd investigated the murder-suicide knew the hidden rooms were even there. When I'd explained the speakeasy's location to Victor, and how that crazed druggie had been able to slowly kill his victim with no one else hearing or seeing, he'd instantly seen the potential. I told him if he sniped the trillers while I saved my daughter, he'd have the perfect lair to fall back on. The perfect place to remind his sheep of the true meaning of fear.
Never Never Stories Page 14