by L T Ryan
Wind pushed hard and uprooted a tree, slamming it down in front of Hatch. She hurdled the obstacle and continued into the darkness as a funnel formed in the clouds ahead, the end reaching down from the heavens toward the ground below.
Twenty-Four
Savage stood in the doorway and watched Hatch peel out of the parking lot, with Kyla Green's father in the passenger seat. The old man who ran the hotel had called for Savage to come into his shelter beneath the manager's office. Savage refused with a shake of his head and then retreated into his room and called Thorpe.
"I've got the warrant drafted. Ended up stopping at home and doing it there rather than going all the way into the office. But it's done. Told you I was faster on the paperwork than I am on the draw. I just need to head in to get this signed. Not sure I'm going to be able to get a judge tonight, though. Heck, I'll be lucky to get ahold of a supervisor. Whole county's shuttin' down. Best get yourself below ground and weather the storm. We're gonna have to find us a judge in the morning."
"That's not why I'm calling. How fast can you get here?"
"That wind in the background is making it hard to hear, but did you make it back to Jericho Falls? You know they just upgraded the tornado warning?"
"I need you to get me. Turn around and pick me up." Savage raised his voice above the howling wind outside his door.
"Why? What's happening?"
"My friend."
"The reporter?"
"She's not a reporter," Savage said bluntly.
"Then what is she?"
"She's a storm of her own making, and she's about to unleash hell on the Eternal Light, and we need to get there, now."
" I'm not far from you. I just stopped to check in on my aunt, just south of Mt. Juliet. I can be at your motel in less than ten. I'm on my way."
Savage heard the screech of Thorpe's tires and the roar of the Chevy's engine before hanging up.
Thorpe's SUV skidded to a stop on the gravel of the lot in front of Savage's motel room. Wind and rain created a barrier to his progress. In the ten seconds it took him to get from the roof's overhang to the Chevy's passenger side, Savage got doused with enough rain to soak him through his clothes. Before the door was completely shut, Thorpe was already accelerating down the windy drive toward town.
The roar of the engine couldn't be heard above the wet wind slapping the Suburban from all angles. "This is bad," Savage called out across the center console to Thorpe who held the wheel with a death grip as he tried to control the violent jerking of the heavy SUV.
"Bad? This is just the warmup round." Thorpe looked over at Savage through fogged glasses. He turned his attention back to the road ahead.
The SUV's wipers worked overtime and did little to aid their visibility. But Thorpe raced ahead at speeds that, to Savage, would have felt fast in optimal conditions, not in the middle of what Savage could best describe in two words: toilet bowl. And it felt like they'd been flushed.
Just outside of town, a downed tree blocked the road. Savage cursed under his breath and stuffed a handful of black licorice bites into his mouth.
Thorpe sat calmly behind the wheel and wiped the fog from his glasses with the bottom of his sweater vest. He then slid them back in place and looked at Savage. "Better make sure you're buckled. It's about to get a little bumpy."
The SUV swerved to the right as Thorpe took it off-road. Tires spun over loose soil, soaked in the torrential downpour. The Chevy's tires rumbled over broken tree limbs and rock. The off-road adventure circumvented the obstacle and Thorpe brought the vehicle back onto the main road.
"I may look like Ned Flanders, but I drive like Richard Petty," Thorpe said as they set off again. Spotting the break in the road leading to the Eternal Light's commune, Thorpe took the turn hard and the back end fishtailed on the muddy path as they rounded a bend of trees.
The front gate was closed. Instead of slowing to a stop, Thorpe floored the gas pedal, bringing the roar of the eight-cylinder engine to life.
"Brace yourself."
Savage checked his seatbelt and looked wide-eyed at the unassuming Wilson County Sheriff’s detective.
"I guess if we're going to break some rules, we might as well break some fences." Thorpe said just before barreling into the front gate at full speed. The wooden brace on the opposite side cracked like thunder. The boards of the gate snapped and splintered. Wood boards peppered the front end of the Suburban, spidering the glass of the windshield as they broke through to the other side. The front end took a beating, but the engine was still running. A trickle of steam led out from the fold in the hood.
Standing between the two columns of wooden homes was The Shepherd. He was frantic and flagged them, waving his arms above his head wildly as a funnel cloud formed in the distance behind him. Thorpe slammed the vehicle to a stop and Savage jumped out with his gun at the low ready.
Thorpe, with his sidearm, came up alongside Savage, his gun drawn. They kept their weapons low as they approached The Shepherd, who kept his hands high at seeing the weapons. When they got close, they could hear his voice above the wind.
"Mathias! It's Mathias!"
Savage remembered the tall, tongueless man. "Where's Hatch?"
The Shepherd pointed past the commune's main space. "Over that ridge! It's Glen Miller's old place. Mathias... I didn't... I didn't know."
Savage and Thorpe holstered their weapons and took off at a run in the direction The Shepherd had pointed.
Twenty-Five
Hatch crested the rise of the woodland. Rain fell in sheets, the sound of which was drowned out by the roaring wind. Just as The Shepherd had said, a small cabin sat less than a football field’s distance away. The trees surrounding the cabin had been cleared. There was no sign of Mathias. Hatch listened but heard nothing but rain and wind. No longer were the girl's screams heard above the howl.
The roof's pitch flattened at its center. The roof itself overhung a front porch supported by thick wooden beams. Smoke rose from the stone chimney in the rear of the structure. Three steps led to a wood plank wraparound porch and the front door beyond.
"Listen, it's probably best if you stay here."
Hatch had to yell for Bento hear her above the wind. Her request was met with a defiant look. His hair blew wildly as he shook his head no.
Not wasting precious time in arguing, she instructed, "If you're coming, stay behind me and let me work."
Ben nodded. Hatch ran down the slope of the small hill, slipping on the loose ground, catching the trees with her free hand while the other balanced The Shepherd's staff. Ben lagged about fifteen feet behind.
Hatch moved up the wooden steps and onto the porch. She readied the only weapon available to her at the moment, The Shepherd's staff. Hatch brought her right hand up high on the staff and kept her left at her waist. Ben lumbered up the steps behind her, holding his side and wheezing.
"Check the door. See if it's open." Hatch brought the low end of the staff up and in line with the middle of her chest as Ben moved his hand to the door's handle. Just before he reached it, a gust forced the door inward like an invisible battering ram. It slammed against the inside wall with a loud bang.
Hatch followed the wind as if it were a point man, swooping inside and visually clearing the space in front of her. The room was of simple design. It had a small living and kitchen area that flowed together as one. Against the far wall was a stone hearth where a fire roared from the blast of wind. In front of the hearth was an oval handwoven rug.
In Hatch's rapid visual sweep, she saw a solitary room to her left, the only place in the cabin's interior separated from the room where she stood. The door was closed.
Hatch took the staff with both hands, leading with her left. Like a primitive hunter on the prowl, she approached the closed door. She heard the crackle of Ben's wheeze as he took up behind her. "Check the knob."
Ben moved around in front of Hatch. Water dripped from his rain-soaked clothes onto the dusty wood of the floor in fr
ont of the door as he reached out and tested the lock. With his hand firm on the knob, Ben to turned to Hatch and with his other gave a thumbs up, indicating it was unlocked.
Hatch listened for a moment. Hearing nothing but the wind and rain, she took two quick breaths and prepared her mind for battle. Hatch gave a nod to Ben, who turned the knob. Dynamic entry was the best way to overwhelm an opponent. With the door open, Hatch kicked out hard with her right foot. The bottom of her boot slammed into the door near the knob and, with a force equal to the wind, smashed it wide.
Hatch entered the tight space, leading with her staff. Using her shoulder to pin the door to the wall behind it, an entry tactic to negate any threat that might lurk there. Keeping the door pressed to the wall, Hatch immediately saw the room contained nothing but an empty bed and a nightstand. No sign of Mathias or the girl. She turned to see the desperation in Ben's eyes as he stood at the door.
"Maybe he didn't come to the house. He must have them somewhere else." Ben's words came between raspy coughs. "Maybe he ran out the back?"
Hatch stepped in to the main space and lowered the staff, pinning it along the right side of her body. She looked at the back door of the cabin. The door was closed. With the rooms now cleared, Hatch took a second to closer inspect her surroundings. She looked back to the front door where they had come in. Wet footprints from their shoes marked the path of their entry and sweep of the cabin. Another set of prints, with no tread markings, followed their initial path, but detoured toward the fireplace, disappearing into the braided rug on the floor in front of it. No prints led to the back door.
Ben followed Hatch's eyes around the room. "They sure as hell didn't disappear up the chimney."
"Maybe there's a door hidden along the back wall in the kitchen area." Hatch spoke louder than she would've under normal conditions, but the background noise was deafening, forcing her to yell to be heard above it.
"I'll check out back." Ben moved toward the rear of the cabin.
Hatch made her way over toward the hearth. She looked down at the carpet. "Wait!"
Ben hustled back and stood beside Hatch. She pointed down to the rug. "The tracks don't cross over. They stop here, just beyond the border."
Hatch bent low, the staff now serving to balance her deep squat. Just as she and Ben grabbed the bristly edge of the rough carpet and prepared to move it, they heard a scream pierce through the flooring where they knelt. Hatch and Thorpe jerked the rug aside and saw a trap door access panel. "Ready?" Hatch gripped the rope handle connected to the closed hatch. She didn't look back at Ben as she said it. Her focus was on the door and what lay beneath its wooden planks.
"Ready as I'll ever be."
Hatch yanked the braided rope handle upward. A flicker of candlelight from somewhere below illuminated a dirt floor ten or so feet underground. A rope ladder was pegged into the floor joist. Hatch descended the ladder, following it down to the hard ground. Ben followed close behind. Hatch strained her eyes as she scanned the dimly lit cellar.
The basement where she and Ben now stood was smaller than the main floor above. It was damp and much cooler than topside. She could taste the dirt in the air and it filled Hatch with a disquieting feeling.
Wax dripped from a candle on a far wall that provided the only light in the room. A shovel and axe rested in the corner to her far left. For a split second, Hatch considered swapping the staff for the bladed edge of the axe, but decided to keep the weapon already in her hand. Years of martial arts and combative military schooling made the staff her most familiar weapon of choice.
Ahead, roughly where the hearth above was located, Hatch saw a closed door. Just as before, Ben opened the door while Hatch stood ready for the threat.
The door opened to a long, dark hallway. At the far end, thirty feet away, was a candle much like the one in the room before. The light cast revealed a bend in the path.
She crept forward in the low light, passing through the narrow hallway carved in the dirt. Thick 4x6 wooden beams, like the ones supporting the rooftop, served as braces for the tight space. Halfway down the hallway on the right was a door. Hatch had just enough light to see that it was ajar.
She approached quickly but cautiously. A plank of wood lay on the ground nearby. The door opened outward. Hatch pressed herself against the mud-packed wall and peered through the two-inch gap of the open door. Light danced on the wall, casting strange shadows. She could feel Ben's breath on the back of her neck as he took up his position behind her.
She listened intently. A strange metallic knocking came from inside the room. Hatch gave herself a two count before using the staff to swing the door the rest of the way open.
Stepping inside, button hooking to the right to clear the room in one swift move. Nothing. The room below was much like the one above, except the bed in this room was merely a haystack covered in a linen sheet. A broken bit of crusty bread and an empty glass sat on a table next to it. At the far wall on another table, the source of the metallic clacking was identified. A Newton’s cradle banged away, oblivious to the calamity around it. Hatch spun on her heels to face Ben standing in the doorway. His face displayed the anger and frustration Hatch felt.
"She's alive. I know it!" Ben's voice cracked in desperation.
Hatch was already moving toward the door when a shadow appeared behind Ben. In the dim light, the tall, thin figure and dark, brooding eyes of Mathias met her gaze.
"Ben, watch out!"
Ben had only managed to pivot halfway, partially turning himself to the oncoming threat, but it was too late. The large fist of Mathias struck Ben on the side of his head, just beneath his temple.
Hatch rushed forward. The impact from the punch sent Ben tumbling into the room and colliding hard with Hatch, head-butting her in the chest and knocking her back. Hatch recovered, pivoting on her back foot and sidestepping out of the way as Ben fell forward onto the ground at her feet. He landed face first on dirt, unconscious.
Hatch scrambled for the open door as Mathias pulled the door closed, and she heard the wooden brace wedge against it.
She rammed her shoulder into the closed door, but it wouldn't budge. Hatch turned to Ben, now sitting up but still shaking off the effects.
"Get to your feet, soldier. We've got to find our way out of here. Fast."
Twenty-Six
Hatch ran full speed from the middle of the room, slamming her shoulder hard into the door. The wood made a loud cracking sound, but the door itself didn't budge.
"Look around the room. See if you can find something to get some leverage on this door."
Ben was now on his feet, still half-dazed from getting cold cocked. He went over to the table where the cradle banged out its rhythmic cadence. Upending the table, he knocked the cradle to the dirt floor, silencing it. He then kicked hard, snapping off one of the table legs.
"You think this will work?" Ben held it up.
"Too wide, just like the staff. I need something thinner, like a wedge."
Hatch searched around the bed. The legs of the nightstand were smaller than the kitchen table's, but still not thin enough for her to wedge into the crack between the door and its frame.
Ben moved across the room and stood facing the wall beside the door. He let out a guttural howl and slammed the broken end of the table leg into the hard-packed earth wall. Hatch watched as Ben began hacking away at the wall, using the table leg as a makeshift shovel.
"It's dirt, right?" he called over his shoulder. "Maybe we can dig our way through."
Seeing no better option, Hatch cinched her grip on The Shepherd's staff and began pounding into the dense earth with the bottom end. The dirt broke free and fell in small clumps at their feet as they hacked away.
Ben worked in a frenzy, at one point abandoning the wood leg altogether to claw at the dirt wall with his hands. Hatch smacked hard with the staff. Dirt fell between the boards above her.
"Maybe if we thin it out enough, I can ram through it with my body."
They were making headway, caving in several inches on the dirt wall. Hatch gauged it at least a foot thick. It was tedious work. Worse than that, they were losing precious seconds. At the midway mark, they encountered roots and rock that served as a natural rebar and making it nearly impossible to dig through.
Hatch raised the staff back and prepared to deliver another strike when she heard a noise coming from the other side of the door. She gripped Ben's shoulder, putting a temporary halt to his relentless digging. He hadn't heard it, lost in his frenzy. Hatch held her finger to her lips.
Positioning herself dead center in front of the door, she tucked the staff underneath her right side. With her left hand angling the long stick's end toward the threat, Hatch took a deep stance, preparing to thrust forward the moment it opened.
She heard the brace release its hold on the closed door. A second later, the door swung wide. Standing in the dimly lit hallway, were Savage and Thorpe side by side, guns drawn, and pointed at Hatch. Savage's face released some of its tension at seeing Hatch. Thorpe, the unassuming Wilson County detective, still wore the sweater vest she'd seen him in earlier, but behind the glasses Hatch saw the eyes of a lion. At seeing Hatch and Ben, they lowered their weapons.
"Where is he?" Hatch asked.
Savage raised his shoulders in a shrug. As if answering Hatch, a scream came from around the bend in the hallway, floating just above the howling winds, shaking the foundation of the house above.
"Help! Help me!" The scream came, and Hatch recognized the source. The young, happy-go-lucky, flower-loving Marigold.
Hatch and Ben joined Savage and Thorpe in the hallway, and the four moved fast, the narrowness forcing them into a staggered single file led by Savage. Hatch and Thorpe were nearly shoulder to shoulder behind him. Ben brought up the rear, still carrying the broken table leg like a pinch hitter taking the plate.