Hoke Mitchell awoke with a scream on his lips. The scream felt like a coiled and rusty chain being ripped from his lungs in one long, savage yank. The force of the primal terror driving the thunderous exhalation from his lungs strained every muscle in his body, set every nerve ending afire. He lurched into a sitting position as the scream died, breathing hard, sweat pouring from his brow and into his eyes. The terror generated by the screaming nightmare still held him firmly in its grip. Even so, he needed barely more than a second to realize that something odd and unexpected had occurred during his time behind the veil of sleep.
The pigs were gone.
The barn was quiet.
And every article of clothing had been stripped from his body. He stood up and took a look around. No sign of the clothes. His heart sped up as a singularly disquieting idea gripped him. He slapped a hand behind him, probed at his asshole with a finger, and breathed a sigh of relief. It did not feel violated. He would not have been surprised
to find evidence to the contrary. Still, it was strange. Why had they taken his fucking clothes? Perhaps they assumed basic modesty would render him less likely to flee. Which only proved how little these backward sons of bitches knew about Hoke fucking Mitchell.
Modesty was not one of his virtues.
Hoke started toward the barn door, which still stood wide open, letting in the bright sunlight. The intensity of the light had dimmed a tiny bit. He reckoned nightfall would be here within an hour or so. His best bet was to get into the woods and hide until then, then maybe see about making it back to civilization under cover of darkness.
He reached the barn door and came to a dead stop.
Hoke stared.
Hoke said,“Gulp.”
Well, here was the answer to the mystery of the missing pigs. The little pink bastards were arrayed in a loose-knit group outside the barn door. They were not snuffling around and cavorting in the usual manner of your usual carefree pigs. The eyes of each animal turned to regard him with expressions that conveyed equal measures of malice and warning. The identical expressions of the animals hinted at a weird kind of group intelligence. A hive-mind kind of vibe. Each eye followed him as he stepped out of the barn, tracking him with the keen and deadly patience of a combat sniper. Hoke was no animal-behavior expert, but he was pretty sure this was not the sort of thing pigs would normally do. Or
ever,
really. The scrutiny of the animals was deeply unsettling, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him.
Shit, man. They’re just piggies.
He stepped forward, intending to thread his way through the animals. There really weren’t that many of them. He should be beyond them and streaking toward
the woods within seconds. He adjusted his thinking on the matter when one of the smaller animals came scuttling forward and nipped at his instep.
“Ouch! You little motherfucker!”
He hopped a time or two, grimacing at the pain, then kicked out at the animal as it came back into range. His wounded foot connected with its hard little belly and the little guy crashed into a couple of his buddies and knocked them down. He recognized he was still in a desperate situation. Probably a life-and-death kind of deal. But for a moment it didn’t matter, as he was unable to hold in a burst of maniacal laughter.
“Pig bowling!”
But the moment of mirth was short-lived. The little pig regained its footing and came toward him again. Slower than before. Dark eyes pulsing with hate. This time its buddies came with him. Two of the larger animals hovered near the little guy in an almost touching gesture of protectiveness. The big ones snorted and bared their teeth. The way their snouts crinkled when they did this creeped him right the fuck out. The aura of menace the animals projected was incredible.
They looked…evil.
“This is some bullshit right here. Look, fellas. I ain’t about to be bullied by a pack of satanic fucking pigs. Y’all done fucked with the wrong motherfucking drummer.”
He took a step toward them again.
Bared his own teeth and growled.
He raised a fist to convey a willingness to kick some serious pig ass, fully expecting the squat little animals to recognize his natural physical superiority and get the hell out of the way. But the pigs did not back down. One of the larger ones squealed and charged him, the others following immediately in its wake.
Hoke let out a shrill scream.
Turned.
Ran.
And sought shelter in the first likely looking place he saw, one of the empty horse stalls at the other end of the barn. He ran into the stall, threw the door shut, and whimpered with relief as he heard the metal latch click home. Some of the pigs thumped against the wooden stall door, making it rattle in its frame.
The door stayed shut.
Hoke dropped to the hay-strewn ground. He crossed his legs and hugged himself, shaking as hard as he had in the first moments after waking from that terrible dream. The one in which…in which…
Hoke stopped shaking.
His throat constricted, and his heart skipped a beat.
And he breathed the name:“Garner.”
A voice spoke behind him, a throaty whisper barely audible above the squealing of the pigs. “Right here, son.”
Hoke knew there’d been no one else in the stall a moment ago.
But there could be no denying it—Garner was here anyway.
And he…he was…
Hoke shivered and stared at the ground.
Garner chuckled.“You and me have some things to talk about, son. So don’t you go passing out on me again.”
Hoke heard the soft crunch of straw as the man’s booted feet moved toward him. His helpless shaking increased. Being this close to that thing made him want to leap out of his own skin. A glint of light off something to his left drew his attention. He squinted and leaned toward it. The object was partially covered in the straw. What he could see of it was smooth and gray, with a kind of curve to it that was suggestive of…
Hoke leaned to his left, brushed the obscuring straw away.
He froze.
An age-polished human skull leered at him. There was a hole at the crown. Maybe a bullet hole. But the way the edges of the hole were so splintered suggested something else. The strike of a pickax, perhaps? Garner was standing right behind him now. The skin at the back of Hoke’s neck drew tight. His hands curled into hard fists. He gritted his teeth and tried not to scream again.
“Leave me alone.” Barely able to breathe, he pushed the words through his teeth.“Please…”
He stared at the skull, tried to imagine how it might feel to have the heavy blade of a pickax slammed into your head.
“Turn around, son. We’ll talk now.”
Hoke gave his head a single emphatic shake. “No. I don’t want to. Please. I don’t want to see you. You can’t make me.”
Garner laughed softly.
He said,“Oh, but I can.”
And then he did.
A cautious peek through the cabin’s front door verified that her luck was still holding out. No one had come running to investigate the sound of the gunshots. Someone was watching over her. Or maybe not. On second thought, it wasn’t as miraculous as it seemed on first blush. A rifle’s report would not be a remarkable or
unsettling sound in any rural, wooded environment. Still, she knew she couldn’t afford to drag her heels. Someone would be along soon enough.
She took a deep breath.
Stepped outside.
Exhaled.
And eyed the old truck, which was parked maybe ten yards away, roughly parallel to the porch, its front end pointed toward a narrow gap in the trees surrounding the clearing. The truck looked as if it might have been a deep shade of red once upon a time. Back during the Eisenhower administration, perhaps. But all the rust made it hard to tell. Its metal skin was pockmarked with holes. The rust had eaten clean through the old sheet metal in many places.
A flutter of anxiety tickled her stomach as she stepped off the porch and hurried toward the truck. Maybe Ben had told her the truth about it.
No.
She couldn’t accept that. It would start, by God. It
would
. She would fucking
will
its old engine to turn over, if necessary. The heap was her ticket home, was maybe her only viable means of deliverance from this rural hell.
Keeping the rifle raised, she circled the truck for a quick closer inspection. The tires were all bald or balding, with barely any detectable tread left on most of them, but none of them were flat. She wouldn’t waste time checking the engine. It would either start or not.
Time to find out.
A groan of tired metal assailed her ears as she pulled open the driver’s-side door. She set the rifle on the seat and climbed inside. Once she was ensconced behind the big steering wheel, she gripped the wiggly door handle and yanked the door shut. It closed with a resounding metallic thunk that was louder than expected and made her jump. The worn and ratty bench seat was too high, and her feet dangled inches above the pedals.
“Shit.”
She reached under the seat and found the adjuster bar. It seemed hopelessly stuck at first, but after a few frantic yanks she was able to lower the seat closer to the pedals. The steering wheel was now a little higher than she’d like it to be, but what the hell, at least she’d be able to drive without scrunching down like some kid playing grown-up behind the wheel of her parents’ car.
Another deep breath.
And now for the moment of truth.
She looked at the old key, rubbed her thumb across the raised Ford emblem, and breathed a quick prayer to the automotive gods. On an impulse she raised it to her lips and kissed it. Then she inserted it in the ignition slot, muttered one last beseeching prayer, and turned the key.
The engine sputtered. Once. And another time.
It didn’t turn over.
Jessica’s left hand gripped the steering wheel hard as she turned the key again. The engine sputtered again. And stopped again. She felt something like panic stirring inside her, an unwanted intruder tapping on her psyche’s brittle back door. But she wouldn’t let it in. No, not yet. She was sure the engine’s gasps had been livelier last time.
She turned the key back and paused a moment. She stared at the truck’s scratched and dented dash, imagined for a moment that she was addressing a sentient creature. “Come on, you old bitch. Give it up for Mama.”
She turned the key again.
The engine sputtered.
Sputtered and caught, filling the clearing with the throaty rumble of old-time Detroit-manufactured muscle. Jessica let out a whoop and clapped her hands together. Long-ingrained instinct made her reach for the seat belt. Her fingers brushed age-grimed seat leather. There was
no seat belt. Or if there was one, it was buried somewhere deep in the crease between the seat back and the bench. No time to dig for the fucking thing. No time for anything but acceleration.
She reached for the wheel-mounted gearshift, wrenched it over to the appropriate position. “Fuck it. We’re riding hell-for-leather.”
Hell-for-leather.
A laugh surprised her.
It was a thing her father used to say. She’d never been sure what it was supposed to mean. But the phrase seemed somehow right for the situation.
She pressed the gas pedal down and steered the old Ford toward the gap in the trees. A moment later, she was on a very narrow, rutted dirt road. She didn’t know what she’d do if another car or truck approached from the other direction. The road was just barely wide enough to accommodate a single vehicle, a fact emphasized now by the scrape of low-hanging tree branches against the truck’s metal hide. The possibility of someone blocking her path out of this nightmare country unnerved her for a moment.
A very brief moment.
Because she knew damn well what she would do.
She saw it in her head.
Another car, some other old jalopy, comes around a bend in the winding road. Stops. She watches the other guy get out. She makes a quick assessment. He’s local. No one local can be trusted. She throws the door open, yanks the .38 from her waistband, and shoots the other guy dead, no questions asked. Then. No time to fuck around. Grabs the rifle and takes the other guy’s car. She keeps moving. Never stops. Never looks back. Getting home again by any means necessary.
More nervous laughter.
Christ, I’m turning into the fucking Terminator.
She’d killed at least four people today. Maybe five. She
remembered the first shot she’d fired into the woods in those last moments before the Kinchers showed themselves. Remembered that flicker of movement and that thump like a falling body.
Probably five
. Either way, it was a hell of a body count for a woman who’d never fired a weapon in anger (or fear) prior to today. And there was something else to consider. Something nearly as disturbing as the actual fact of the killings themselves. She would never have guessed herself capable of such ruthlessness, of such near savagery. An image of Ben’s smashed-in face made her grimace.
Just don’t think about it,
she told herself.
There’ll be time for thinking and probably lots of fucking therapy later. Maybe.
Right now, she should only concern herself with staying focused and getting free.
Some of the tension gripping her slipped away as the road began to perceptibly widen. She steered the Ford around another curve and felt even more relief. Just up ahead, maybe thirty yards farther along, the narrow road intersected with a significantly wider, paved road. Jessica began to feel something like triumph as she rolled up to the paved road.
Then the other car came streaking by.
Jessica gasped and jammed the Ford’s brake pedal to the floor. The old truck rocked and skidded to a halt on the dirt road. At the same time, she heard the gritty growl of the other car’s tires squealing on blacktop. She looked to her left and saw that the other car had fishtailed to a stop.
Its driver’s-side door flew open.
A man came charging out of it.
He had something in his hands. A pump-action shotgun. She looked at his car. Those flashing lights above the roof. She looked at his face. Those eyes unreadable behind reflective lenses. His face grim, jaw set.
So close.
Less than twenty yards away.
He would be able to see her now. Would know she was an outsider.
Jessica seized the Ford’s steering wheel and cranked it hard to the right even as she stomped on the gas pedal. The truck lurched onto the paved road and shot forward. A second or so later, the rear window exploded in a hail of shattered glass. The boom of the shotgun was an afterthought in her ringing ears.
Jessica screamed.
The wheel spun out of her hands.
She grabbed it again and cranked it hard to the right, missing a chase-ending crash by a millisecond. She glanced at the rearview mirror and saw that the cop was no longer shooting at her. He was running in the other direction. He would be back behind the wheel of his cruiser shortly. In another moment he would be after her. And he would catch her, she had no doubt. This old heap would be no match for a modern law-enforcement vehicle.
This time panic didn’t just tap at her psyche’s back door.
It bulled in, flash-frying her nerves in an instant as she fought to regain the edge that had taken her this far. Another glance at the rearview mirror showed her the cruiser was after her now. Its siren came on, piercing her ears like a drill.
Stop,
she thought.
Stop and get out.
Grab the rifle and start shooting.
And why not? What would one more count of murder or attempted murder mean at this point? She looked at the rifle. Thought about it some more. Chewed her lower lip. Fretted. And she just didn’t quite have the nerve.
This wasn’t the same thing as tangling with backwoods rednecks. She was actually running from the law. A trill of mad laughter escaped her lips. If only her dead mother could see her now. Her little girl. Fugitive and stone-cold killer.
Her eyes misted.
Oh, Mom.
I miss you so fucking much. But maybe we’ll be seeing each other sooner than expected.
Another glance at the rearview mirror revealed an unsettling truth. The cruiser was right on her ass now. Not that it mattered. She had no intention of giving up or going down easy. It was just about blaze-of-glory time. Despair gripped her at the sight of more flashing lights dead ahead. Two more cruisers parked at angles, blocking the way out.
What the fuck?
No fucking way the local law could have organized a roadblock for her that fast. It was intended for someone else. Or had been. Didn’t matter. It was her roadblock now. And there was no denying she had damn near reached the end of the road. Her luck had finally run out.
But she didn’t slow down.
There were other cops or deputies on the opposite sides of the vehicles. Various weapons were aimed in her direction.
Jessica crossed herself.
She pulled the .38 from her waistband.
Waited another heartbeat, just long enough to make out a face.
Then she put her gun hand through the open window.
Aimed. And fired.