False Prey: A Wildfire Novella (Wildfire Saga) (4 page)

“Officer!
 
Officer, I’m with
The Tribune!
 
Can I get a statement?”
 
He held out the phone as if it were a digital recorder.

The Cop in the flu mask turned and looked at his partner who shrugged and nodded.
 
“What can I do for you?”
 
His words were slightly distorted by the mask, but the man’s impatience was easy to hear.

Danny pushed his way a little closer.
 
“Officer, what’s going on here?
 
Is that man a suspect—”

“Yes, yes he is,” said the smaller cop.
 
His eyes narrowed.
 
“That man is accused of inciting this here riot, spreading the flu—which has only recently afflicted our fair city—and espionage.”
 
It sounded like
ESS-pee-O-nahdge
.
 

The crowd whooped in support of Brikston’s finest.

“Are you concerned with the way the crowd here has mistreated—”

“Mister, this here crowd is a model of civility as far as I can see,” the cop said, hooking his thumbs under his wide leather belt. “Here in Brikston we pride ourselves on upholding the law.”

“But officer, I thought it was illegal to gather in groups larger than 10 people?
 
Surely,” Danny said looking around at the throng of dozens of angry locals.
 
“Surely this gathering cannot be—”
 

“Don’t worry about it—this man will get his day in court and justice will prevail.”
 

The crowd cheered.
 
It was a most peculiar sound, with so many raised voices muffled by flu masks.

The police were finished loading the still-protesting suspect into the patrol car—none too gently, Danny was quick to point out to Axel—and the crowd began to disperse.

“Go on home now, folks!” ordered the cop called Billy.
 
“You know the new law—
no public gathering
.
 
I’d hate to have to arrest some of you fine upstanding members of the community.”
 
A ripple of mirth worked its way through the crowd as they began to break up and head in different directions amid much back slapping and guffawing.

“Do you believe this, Axel?
 
I’m standing right here—I myself witnessed the crowd around me beating and assaulting the suspect as he was dragged—
dragged
—to the squad car.”

“It sounds like a positively medieval scene, Danny.”

“It is!
 
This town has gone crazy with fear.”

“Can you get us some—
” static crackled over the phone.

“What?” asked Danny, cupping his ear again against the noise around him.
 
The phone beeped:
Signal Lost.

 
Danny tried asking others to comment but most didn’t want to talk to him.
 
He got the distinct impression that Brikston was a town that didn’t like outsiders.

At last, he was left alone in the street in front of the church, pondering his next move.
 
The doors to the church were still open.
 
Maybe the priest saw something and can give me a statement,
Danny thought hopefully.
 
As he started toward the church he heard a low moan from the shadow-draped interior of the church.
 

“Hello?” Danny called out as he walked through the front doors.

When his eyes fully adjusted to the cool, dark, interior, he someone sitting slumped over in the last row of pews.
 
It was the priest.
 
He turned his head and Danny saw blood smeared across his face and the carpet.

“Are you okay?” Danny asked.
 
He took the old man’s outstretched hand and held it tight.

“Bless you, my son,” mumbled the priest.
 
“I have suffered worse in my life…” the old man said and tried to stand up.
 
He winced, then slumped back onto the pew’s smooth wooden bench.
 
He looked up at Danny.
 
“But not for many, many years.”
 
The loose skin of his jowls wavered as he chuckled.
 
He looked around the empty church.
 
Danny follwed his gaze to the alter where a couple of large candles lay on the floor and two pews were tipped over in disarray.
 

“The Lord works in mysterious ways, indeed,” the priest said softly.

“I’d say that crowd had more to do with this mess and your injuries,” Danny replied.
 
“That cut on your forehead looks pretty bad.
 
Let me get you to the hospital—”

“Oh no,” said the old man with a wave of dismissal.
 
“I’m not all that bad—there’s plenty more people that need more help than me.
 
The Lord will provide.”

Danny bit back a sarcastic reply and looked around.
 
“What happened?”

“Oh, that group of hotheads out there,” the priest said, gesturing towards the doors with his left hand while his right probed his wounded forehead.
 
“Came in here looking for the blood of innocents.”
 
He sighed and tilted his head back toward Heaven.
 
“Before this flu business is over, I imagine they’ll find plenty of innocent blood.”

“Do you know the man the police arrested?” asked Danny.
 
He pulled out the small notebook and pen he always kept with him.
 
“His name?”

The priest shook his head slightly and grimaced.
 
“No.
 
Never seen him before in my life, poor soul.
 
I tried to stop them and almost had them calmed down enough to see reason when the police arrived.”
 
He sighed.
 
“I don’t even know why the poor fellow was being chased, other than some nonsense about him being a spy.”

“So you don’t know him, never saw him before, and didn’t see him do anything…illegal?” asked Danny.
 
The first dead end of a new story.

“I’m afraid not, Son,” replied the priest in a tired voice.
 
The old man’s face seemed a bit paler than it had been a moment before.

“Come on, Father,” said Danny, hauling the priest unsteadily to his feet.
 
“You don’t look so good.
 
You need to see a doctor.
 
Now.”

“But, I’m not even bleeding anymore,” protested the old man.
 
Danny noted he didn’t try to struggle all that much, though.

“That’s what I’m worried about.
 
You’re turning white, Father.
 
Come on, my car’s out front.
 
I’ll drive.”

C
HAPTER
3

Danny took a moment to gather his thoughts as he got back into his car in the hospital parking lot.
 

The priest had blessed him as the nurses came to usher him into an examination room.
 
One came out a few moments later to finish the paperwork and thanked him for bringing in the stubborn old priest.
 
She apologized she couldn’t tell him more than that the doctor would be seeing him soon.
 
In her opinion, though, the old man didn’t look too bad—nothing a few stitches and some rest couldn’t handle.
 
When Danny had pressed for details, she had apologized again and cited HIPPA regulations that prevented her from discussing the patients condition any further.
   

Danny had then explained that he was a reporter and asked the nurse if the police had brought in their suspect for treatment.
 
When the nurse looked confused, Danny gave her a brief run-down of the scene he had observed outside the church and described the suspect and the injuries to his head and face.

“Nope,” she’d said.
 
“We’re pretty quiet most days—Brikston’s a pretty small town—but the handful of people we’ve seen today are all coming down with the flu—except for Father Martin, of course.
 
If anyone had shown up with the police, I’d know about it.”

Danny had noticed she wore no mask.
 
He said as much and her response had startled him: “Oh, those things don’t work on the flu.”
 
She had sighed as she clutched a clipboard to her chest.
 
“People have been trying to use those things since 1918.
 
They just don’t work—the virus is too small and can infect you too many different ways.
 
Eyes, fingers, open cuts…it can get on your clothes, door knobs, any hard surface and last for hours and even days.
 
As soon as you let your guard down—and you probably won’t even know you’re doing it—it’ll get you.”
 
She had shrugged and looked down at her clipboard.
 
“We’ve known that for a hundred years now, but the public—and the media
—
keep thinking it works, so no one in healthcare brings it up anymore.
 
At least it keeps everyone thinking about flu prevention—and that never hurts.”
 
She had skimmed the paperwork on the clipboard and read something to herself before glancing up at him.
 

“Hey, how come you don’t have one on?”

“Well, I can’t stand having something on my face like that,” Danny had replied.
 
“Halloween sucked when I was a kid.
 
Besides, it’s hard to smoke with one on.”
 
He had raised his hands up defensively.
 
“I know, I know, it’ll kill me.
 
I’m going to quit.
 
I swear!”

After a shared laugh she had excused herself and went back into the exam room.
 
Danny had passed on his hope for the priest’s swift recovery and left.

Now he sat behind the wheel of his car, drumming his fingers on the dash and chewing over the facts in his mind.
 
Something didn’t add up and the familiar feeling that he wouldn’t be able to let it go until he figured out what the hell was going on settled into his stomach.
 

Fact
: the crowd had accosted not only the suspect, but a priest that knew nothing about…whatever the hell it was that had worked the locals up so much.
 

Fact
: the accused had been assaulted by the crowd—and the police, it seemed—and no one had done or said anything about it.
 

Fact
: the accused hadn’t been seen by a doctor, even though it had been over an hour since he’d been arrested.
 
That was definitely odd.

Fact
: The cops had looked awful smug about the whole affair.
 
That one, the big one, even seemed to be playing to an audience, just doing his job.
 
That warranted more investigation, too.

Danny rolled down the window of his car and lit a cigarette.
 
He found he always thought better about his story when he was smoking.
 
Something about the automatic movements of his hand as it brought the cigarette to his lips and the calming effect of releasing the smoke.
 
He put the car into gear and decided to head for the police station.
 
The town courthouse, city hall, and police station were all wrapped into one squat, Cold War Era building in the center of town.
 
He’d seen pictures of the original city hall that dated back to the Civil War—it was a real looker of a building, it had exuded class and dignity.
 
The new one looked like it could have been a parking garage instead of the center of civil government—dumpster architecture at its finest.

Danny shelved his thoughts on local architecture and pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
 
If he couldn’t speak to the accused, maybe he could speak to Judge Klein.
 
The old man was bound to have an opinion.

C
HAPTER
4

For the tenth time, Danny had to stop his fingers from impatiently drumming on the stone bench just outside Courtroom A.
 
He grunted in amusement.
 
Courtroom A.
 
The whole town only had one judge, one court.
 

What idiot decided to label it “A”?
 

He glanced at the locals sitting on the benches at the far end of the wide marble-tiled corridor.
 
They looked agitated but confident.
 
They all had flu masks on.
 
Danny checked his watch.
 
He’d been sitting out here for an hour.
 
Earlier, he had checked at the police station and he’d been told the accused had been brought before Judge Klein behind closed doors for a speedy arraignment.
 
The Clerk of the Court had seemed surprised there was a closed-door proceeding taking place, but under the circumstances—he took her hushed tone to mean the worked-up locals—it made sense.

So Danny had found a spot on the bench and deposited his bulky form there.
 
He had contemplated dozing a bit but knew the moment he closed his eyes the court would empty and he’d be left scrambling.
 
Instead, he decided to review his notes.
 
Besides, he figured, he could use the time to come up with a list of questions for the judge.

He started to pull out his smokes and saw the sign that warned people not to smoke in public buildings.
 
Danny sighed and put his cigarettes back in his pocket.
 
Sometimes he really missed the good old days.

A muted shout erupted from the courtroom.
 
Danny sat up.
 
The locals looked at one another and sat up, too.
 
The massive oak doors to the courtroom swung open, propelled by the same cops he had seen haul the accused man into the squad car earlier.
 
They looked positively furious as they stood there holding the doors.