A Crying Shame (53 page)

A snarl ripped the night. He flipped the beam of light to the sound. His fingers gripped the flashlight; his breathing became force. This had to be a dream—a nightmare; he really wasn't seeing this. Some of his buddies were playing tricks on him.

He knew that wasn't true. This was real.

The Links were all around him, circling him, snarling, grunting, slobbering sticking drool. Craig made the sign of the cross.
Holy Mary, mother of—”

He never got a change to finish his plea. The maddened Links were on him, all over him, knocking him down. He screamed as he felt an arm being ripped from its socket. He passed out from the pain. More intense agony brought him back to hideous consciousness.

He was being eaten alive.

He experienced shattering terror and ripping, shocking pain as great chunks of his flesh were gnawed off, jerked off as a shark might do. He screamed once, a long, quivering wail of agony so violent, so mind-breaking, so fear-rooted that madness took him before his stomach was ripped open and his entrails pulled out, to be eaten there by the side of the road, in the ditch, its brackish waters now darker and slicker from the sudden flow of blood. His long crazed wailing was abruptly silenced as fangs clamped on his throat, his blood spurting several feet into the night air.

The Links took turns lapping at the warm, slightly salty flow. Then they took Craig's remains into the swamp, covering their tracks as they went. A light rain shower later that night would wash away any sign of the human's blood by the side of the road.

On the porch on the house, the governor's personal bodyguard rose from a chair. He thought he heard a scream from down the road. He put his hand on the butt of his .357 and listened. He walked to the edge of the porch and listened more closely.

Nothing. The night was silent. The moon was coming up over Fountain, over Despair, over the darkness of the Crying Swamp. But it sure was a funny-looking moon, the trooper thought.

Blood-red, with an angry-looking shroud around the orb.

Somewhere deep in the dark swamp, the trooper thought he heard an odd sound wafting over the still, silent waters.

Sounded like . . . someone crying.

Or some thing, he thought.

The trooper fought back a shudder and stepped from the edge of the porch, into the shadows.

The feel of the butt of the .357 was very comforting to his fingers.

Tammy Gray viewed the mercenary through her blue eyes and experienced a stirring deep within her. This one, she silently concluded, was all man; not one ounce of strutting peacock in him. He had proved long ago he was a man, and had nothing more to prove to anybody. Jon wore no jewelry—none. Not a ring, bracelet, certainly none of that silly-looking throat jewelry she so despised on men. Once, he'd lifted those cold gray eyes to hers and she'd felt her nipples begin to enlarge and ache.

No doubt about it, she thought: I'm in heat.

It had been some time since she'd had a man. Though she had an active sex life, was propositioned daily, and could have her choice of half a hundred men—including the governor—Tammy was picky about her sex partners. Most men turned her off; she felt most men were no more than little boys refusing to grow up and face responsibility. Not that Tammy was the perfect little angel in all ways. Not at all. She just had definite opinions as to what she wanted in a man. And she wanted Jon Badon.

She tried to catch Jon's eyes, but something had shifted within the man; she could sense it. He was all business. Sex would have to wait.

She suppressed a sigh, wondering what size equipment he had and if he knew how to use it. She concluded it would be nice-sized and he did know what to do with it. Then she pushed sexual thoughts from her mind and concentrated on business—as much as possible.

So, Mr. Badon,” Governor Parker said,
how about it?”

In a real bind, aren't you?” Jon asked, that almost-mocking smile on his lips.

Not necessarily.” Parker's reply was tightly given.
We'd just like to handle this as quietly and as neatly as possible, that's all.”

I work alone,” Badon said.
Or at most, in something like this, with two or three men, carefully picked. I had men forced on me one time. The last combat mission I was on was a hurry-up type of operation. We had to go in and try to free several prisoners taken by a guerrilla force in ...” He paused.
Well,”—that smile—
the country really doesn't matter. The one man in the group that I didn't pick, that I really objected to, balked at one of my orders. It cost us the mission and the POWs died a very slow and painful death. Very hideous. The woman among them was very badly used ... before being tortured to death. Sexually tortured. All because of that man's failure to respond to orders without question. When we returned to base camp . . . I disposed of the man.”

Transferred him?” Colonel Jeansonne asked.

Jon's smile was not pleasant.
If you call a .45 slug between the eyes transferring a man.”

Colonel Jeansonne and Captain Sundra stirred uncomfortably. Governor Parker looked shocked. Sheriff Saucier kept his face impassive. Linda paused in the lifting of a teacup to her lips. Don Wilson had a tremendous urge to go to the bathroom. Tammy Gray indulged in a mental picture of Jon parting her naked legs and slipping inside her, her bare arms pulling his mouth to hers as he filled her with hardness.

Well, you certainly won't have that type of authority with my men,” Colonel Jeansonne said with some heat in his voice.