The Outkast (13 page)

“
Nonsense. If I were you, such reflection would only make me wanna leave the son-of-a-bitch torn to ribbons. And I’m damn sure I will do that at some point. If not here, then wherever he is, we’ll track him down.”

They studied the night ahead of them and, having decided the coast was clear, they moved on, dodging behind big tree trunks from time to time, never staying more than six feet apart.

There was another flash across the sky, and at that instant, it was the familiar horrible face that Allan saw first before he even noticed the rest of the figure in black coveralls, whose arm was already coiled around Dwayne’s neck.

Allan watched in awe, thinking,
I’ve been in this situation before. This is like lightning striking the same damn place two fucking times.

In the blink of an eye, Dwayne had been lifted off his feet, legs flailing in the air, neck still strangled by the sturdy arm.

What happened at Holly’s cottage was a slow-motion version of what Allan was about to witness. Just as he got over his awe and decided it was time to do something more productive than gawking, the monster flung Dwayne at him, knocking him down to the forest floor. Allan’s gun slipped off his hand and flew away, probably taking refuge underneath a pile of leaves or hiding behind a fallen trunk. Dwayne landed beside him, motionless at first, but then began to jerk his right leg, digging his heel against the dirt as he screamed.

Allan quickly drew out his second gun, and shot straight ahead before realizing the thing was no longer in front of them. He began to rise up, shooting as he did, aimlessly, not giving a damn that he was acting like a lousy amateur. Beside him, Dwayne dug some more and let out a cry—a sonorous, pain-filled shriek. In the flood of the moonlight, Allan could faintly see blood seeping out from underneath his partner. Within the brief time his eyes roamed across his comrade’s body, he saw something sticking out from the side of Dwayne’s chest, along his rib cage.
A knife
, Allan assumed, and squeezed another aimless shot into the air.

He was all the way up on his feet now. He whirled around in search of his target, but he didn’t have to look for long. The huge thing pounced from Allan’s left side, kicked the gun out of his hand, and slapped him so hard he found his butt on the ground one more time.

Allan cried. He scrambled to his feet again and ran. Ran very fast. Away from the battle front.

Chapter 20

“
I’ve seen the devil again. Oh, my good Lord, I’ve come in close contact with death twice tonight,” Allan wept. “It’s a monster. We’ve got to get the hell out of here and run for our lives. We can never stand out against—”

“
Would you shut up and just calm down for a sec?” Brian inched nearer and slapped him twice. He pulled Allan down into the trench they had been hiding. “Hell, keep your goddamned voice down.”

Delirious to the level of getting out of hand, Allan spoke bare-toothed. “I cannot, Sheriff ... I just cannot calm down. There’s death around here ... everywhere, every damn corner you turn, and I just can’t...” He paused to catch his breath. “What’s the point, anyway?”

“
The point is, so he doesn’t track us down, you idiot.”

“
Fuck, it already knows we’re here. Killed Dwayne. Almost killed me, but I ran,” Allan said, grinning, as if he was proud, very proud of his exceptional skill of escape. Brian thought his deputy might be going crazy under the power of the moon.

Craig groaned at the news of attack, looking from Allan to Brian, and then back to Allan.

Brian whispered, “Allan, I can see why you look and sound so hysterical—”

“
No, you can’t. Not until you meet it.”

“
I can see why you’re losing—”

A boy’s voice interrupted Brian’s next comment. The boy was talking to someone, pleading to let him go. There was a momentary flash of light from the mouth of the cave that made shadows scamper across the woods. Then, silence engulfed the place again.

About sixty meters ahead, from the side of the cave that was further away from the entrance Brian and Craig had spotted earlier, a figure emerged from behind a grove of trees, wearing a robe that the moonlight transmitted on a range of shades from gray to blue, to anything in-between. The figure briefly trained its flashlight forward in their direction.

For that short length of time, Brian’s heart stopped. He thought they had been spotted where they crouched. “Down,” he muttered.

Swiftly, the three men kept down even further, only allowing themselves a peep around the edge of a fallen tree that lay at the lip of the entrenchment, running their surveillance from behind it.

“
Christ, they’re two,” Allan said with a voice caught between a desire to scream the words and a struggle to whisper them. “The first appeared in coveralls, and this one in a robe. Perfect.”

If there was anything yet that Brian wanted to agree with in regards to Allan’s reports, it was the size of the robed killer. The dimensions were intimidating, and that description was for poverty of words. Brian strained his eyes to glimpse the face of the shape, but there wasn’t enough light to see anything more than the silhouetted form from the distance.

They watched him as he looked around, worked his flashlight one more time, and then disappeared behind the grove.

“
Who the fuck is this guy?” Craig whispered. “An evil priest, or what?”

“
Stop calling this
thing
a guy. Doing so will only create a misconception that what we’re up against ain’t that bad. It’s a monster. A destroyer. A Neanderthal man at best. That’s what the hell it is,” Allan said. “If you see how easily and brutally it murdered Dwayne ...” He trailed off, glancing at Brian who was favoring him with a not-so-impressed look. He finished his story, nonetheless. “All of Dwayne’s entrails are lying on the forest floor right now.”

Craig grimaced. “Oh, shit,” he said, and turned to Brian. “Know what I’m thinking?”

“
Share it.”

“
I’m thinking we should have shot him right there on the spot, while he was flashing his light around.”

“
Bold move,” Brian said. “But it could’ve been a miss. And it wouldn’t have been worth it to draw attention for no gain. Not an option, unless we’re really forced to adopt the way of rashness.”

The robed figure came out again, this time dragging the boy along.

“
Shit, that’s Robert Smallwood,” Brian muttered, sounding as if that fact of Robert’s abduction had just been revealed to him.

Allan wheeled his head towards Craig. “Have any idea what the best way to get back to the car is?”

“
No,” Brian said before Craig could give a response. “We’re not going yet. Not gonna leave the kid to be slaughtered by that lunatic. I’m thinking, thinking of what to do—of how we’re gonna move in on that bastard pretty soon.” He looked to his side. “Allan?”

“
Yeah?”

“
Where’s your conscience? And where’re your guns, by the way?”

Allan disregarded the last question. “If I were you, Sheriff,” he said defiantly, “I’d be thinking of saving my ass rather than having a morbid passion about conscience and studying the best way it should be used.”

“
You’re damn right about that, because you’ll have to devise a way to save your ass in the office tomorrow when you give a detailed reason for your insubordination—”

“
If we made it past today, Sheriff.”

Ahead, the huge figure began to tie Robert’s wrists together, but then had a change of mind. The robed man scooped the boy up instead, and ran across the murky woods.

“
Where’s he going?”

“
Or taking the kid?”

They stood up, craning to see him disappear into the shadows of the trees.

Then, they followed, cautiously, slowly.

A car engine roared to life.

“
Shit,” Brian said. “We gotta move. He’s got the ...” He stopped, looked at Allan, and asked for the second time, “Where’re your guns?”

Allan’s response astonished Brian.

Hurrying along the rustling dead leaves on the floor, Brian said, “You’ve got some explaining to do. In the meantime, go back to Craig’s car and make a call to the office. Need the emergency workers here ASAP to attend to Dwayne, and let the coroner and his men be informed while you’re at it. I want you to stay with Dwayne, to give whatever support you have left in you. And don’t you try to leave.”

Allan wanted to speak. Brian didn’t give him a chance. He didn’t believe in the crappy tale about Dwayne’s entrails being spilled all over the place.

He went in pursuit of The Outcast.

Chapter 21

They raced after him, tires whirling plumes of dust in the air.

The Outcast (Brian had resorted to calling him that now) drove Dwayne’s patrol car.

Even though Brian drove fast to gain on The Outcast, the gap kept widening. The big bastard knew the geography of the terrain more than anyone else.

“
Where’s he taking the boy to?” Craig asked, straining against his seat belt as he craned towards the glove box, as if that would speed up the cruiser and make them close the gap.

“
I don’t know. I’ll assume the boy’s house. Robert mentioned something about the son-of-a-bitch having a notion that they’re of the same blood—true blood, he called it—and that Robert should grow up on time to carry on his assignment. And that the final ritual of consummation will be at the boy’s place.”

“
Oh, you already talk to the kid about this?”

“
Well, not exactly. I read the boy’s “journal” earlier tonight. Claims everything he wrote down came from his dreams. Including the description of how we track the lunatic down in the woods.”

“
All of it from his dreams? Wow.”

“
Wow’s right,” Brian said, negotiating a bend, and closing the gap a little bit at last. “It’s kinda creepy, especially if you consider that his description was perfectly right—bare of the little delay we had before you discovered the clearing.”

“
I know I might sound like doubting Thomas here, but the kid’s probably lying. Maybe this is just pure coincidence. What’d you think?”

“
I think that’s irrelevant. Saving his life is what matters now.”

They had gained more distance on The Outcast, but Brian made sure they weren’t too close. And he was right. The bastard was driving the boy to his mother’s home.

******

Brian pulled to a stop about ninety yards away from Holly Smallwood’s house on Bran Street, parking the car diagonally at the center of the narrow pavement, an effort to make a passable if not most efficient roadblock.

Inside the house, all lights were out.

Craig turned around to look back the way they had come, looking this way and that. Watching. No signs of danger as far as he could tell. “How are we gonna work things out, Sheriff?” Not surprisingly, the little courage he had built recently began to melt away like a box of wax in the heat of the sun. Now that a bloody battle was about to begin, an intense chill rushed through him. “I mean, how are we—”

“
Be damned if I know, Craig. But one thing I do know is, we’ve got to do something. And do it really quickly. Where’s my fucking thinking cap? I need it right now, you know? Hell, I’ve needed it all along.”

Brian’s statement didn’t demand an answer, but Craig nodded all the same. As he spoke, a little tremble found its way into his voice. “Yes, it’s about time.”

Light came on from one of the rooms in the left wing of the house.

“
Put on your vest,” Brian said.

Craig did. He edged a little forward, towards the front of the cruiser, making an attempt to get a good glimpse of whomever was in the lit room.

Brian leaned forward and smacked him in the back of his neck. “God, make yourself small, Craig. You don’t have to go to the front of the car to see who’s in there. If you can’t see diddly from where I am standing here, then you can’t see it anywhere. Come on over here.” Craig moved closer. “See? This is the car’s highest point. The best spot for cover.”

From within the house, a woman screamed and began to cry. Apparently Holly. Her voice reached a crescendo, then fell to a barely audible sound. The light went off again.

“
Oh, Jesus,” Craig gasped, his voice growing more tremulous by the passage of time. “Could he possibly have just killed her?”

An idea struck Brian. Not the best in the world, but the best his befuddled brain could come up with. He resorted to using the megaphone to warn The Outcast.

“
This is Sheriff Brian Stack—with my deputies. We’re here to help—not to hurt you. I advise that you lay your weapons down peacefully and surrender willingly. We don’t have any desire to use force.” Brian wished he had a name to attach. But he would just have to keep it that simple, unless he was ready to hazard the idea of calling him The Outcast.

They shifted into a shooting position behind the safety of the car. Waiting for the door to open. Hoping to see the big guy emerge, sober at last with a blush of repentance coloring his face.