We left Minion at the apartment so Monica and Paige would have at least a little bit of protection. The GPS said it should take us about an hour to drive the forty miles to where Monica said they’d split up from Hannah.
We didn’t make it three miles before running into the first major mess, around Montgomeryville. That added fifteen minutes to our drive right off the bat and set the tone for the rest of the trip. We’d drive a few miles until we hit an intersection, then have to cross ditches and medians to get around a mound of cars and trucks and the occasional bus. The turnpike interchange was so screwed up, we ended up having to cut back to one of the side roads and loop around.
The advantage to the detour was when we stopped to scope out our route, we happened to be looking at my phone right as the tracker app pinged Hannah’s location. This time, it wasn’t a five-mile-wide circle, it was a specific location. Ciera screenshotted the map in case the app lost the location then started navigating.
She was at a church, a big one from the looks of the overhead view on the map. Neither Ciera or I could figure out why she was there. “Unless maybe she was having car trouble on the way back?” I wondered out loud.
“Anything is possible right now. It wouldn’t surprise me though that churches are going to become gathering places for survivors. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. It’s a large building, and the bigger churches usually have decent kitchens to feed large groups of people, and you can make sleeping rooms for people who don’t have anywhere else to go.” She flipped over to the phone app and tried calling Hannah again, her shrug a minute telling me there was no answer.
Half an hour later we pulled up to the North Hills Baptist church. Half a dozen trucks and SUVs were parked haphazardly along the front of the building. A few other cars sat scattered throughout the parking lot. We didn’t see anyone outside.
After a minute of watching the church, I asked Ciera, “How do you want to play this?”
She scratched her head. “Two ways. The hard way is that we put on the helmets and grab the rifles and go in looking like we’re ready to kick ass and take names. Like we’re not gonna take shit from anybody.”
“Okay, but do you think we need to do that?”
She shook her head. “Probably not. I’m leaning more towards playing Officer Friendly here like we’re just checking things out because we haven’t seen a lot of organized activity, and we want to make a note of it so that we know where to send survivors. Back when I was on patrol, we called it ‘walk and talk.’ Getting to know people in the neighborhood. That kind of thing.”
That made sense to me. There was nobody at the door or even in the lobby when we walked in. The smell of the dead outside was still pretty strong, but went away as soon as we got inside. The place had the scent of being freshly cleaned. Not really antiseptic, like they had had to do a lot of scrubbing. It just smelled clean. A moment later, two men came around the corner from a hallway, followed by three teenage girls. One of the men and two of the girls were black. The shorter of the two men, a barrel-chested white man with close-cropped dark hair came on to meet us hand extended. “Billy Saint John. Welcome to North Hills Baptist Church, deputies. I’m the deacon here. What can I do for you?” He went straight for me, completely ignoring Ciera.
Ciera stepped in front of me and shook his hand. “I’m Deputy Stafford from the Sheriff’s Office. This is Deputy Adams. We’re just out and about, trying to see who’s survived, and who’s out there helping others. You’ve gathered a few survivors here.”
Saint John didn’t answer right away. It seemed like he wasn’t used to a woman being in charge. He looked at her, then me, then back to the black man, who hadn’t said a word yet. “Well, uh, yes.” The confusion on his face flashed to a smile. “Yes, we have. The church is always here to help others, of course. We’ve got these young ladies, and there’s Brother Dawson there. Brother Welch is out looking for others who need help.” He looked down at the floor for a moment before continuing. “We just haven’t found all that many people left. I’m just not quite sure what the Lord had in mind here.”
Ciera glanced at me. “Why don’t you get names and info for them while I talk to the deacon a little more?” She winked at me.
Got the same vibe I did, eh? He sounded like a lot of the southern pastors I’d met over the years who thought women should be home running the houses, seen and not heard and all that. I was happy to let her take charge anyway because the only real knowledge of police procedure I had came from COPS and LivePD. But I could interview someone pretty darn well, so I stepped off to the side and motioned the girls over. Brother Dawson stayed right beside them, almost uncomfortably close for me. The youngest-looking of the three apparently didn’t like it either, because she kept inching away from him and giving him a dirty look.
As I talked to the girls, I positioned myself so that I could watch Ciera without making it obvious I was looking at her. She kept moving left and right, acting like she was just shifting her weight when she was really crowding Saint John, pushing him back a little at a time, so slowly that someone watching wouldn’t have noticed it right away. Brother Dawson picked up on it finally when he had to turn away from the girls to keep an eye on Ciera, but he didn’t seem to know how to handle the situation. He finally settled for swiveling his head like he was at a tennis match. The oldest girl—Samantha was barely fifteen and looked younger—snickered under her breath when he wasn’t looking.
The two black girls were cousins, each the sole survivor of their part of the family. Samantha had called Meriah, thirteen, to check on her family. Meriah’s grandmother had been a member of North Hills, so the two of them thought to see if there were any adults here to help them. They’d picked up Renee, the youngest of the group at twelve, a few blocks from their houses. The three girls left behind over a dozen family members. Renee looked old enough that I doubted the date of birth she gave me at first, then doubted my math skills. They said Deacon Saint John was treating them okay so far, but Samantha made it clear she doubted that was going to last much longer.
Meriah kept staring at me as we talked, so much so that it made me really uncomfortable. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me as a rescuer of some sort, had issues with boundaries, or had something else going on.
Brother Dawson got really uneasy when I asked him for his information, peppering his speech with lots of “Uhh” and mumbled responses. I hadn’t had a great vibe about the place when they came around the corner the way they had, and his actions weren’t helping a bit.
Ciera finished jerking Saint John’s chain a moment later and pulled me aside. “Anything interesting?”
I filled her in on what the girls had told me, then briefed her on Brother Dawson. “Not getting a great vibe off of him.”
“Agreed, especially with the ages of these girls. Saint John is the same way. Real bible-thumper, talking about how a woman’s place is keeping the home and all that crap. Unfortunately, that’s not illegal, and I don’t know that we could really support these kids. I don’t want to get into rescuing every single at-risk person we see, because we’ll be overwhelmed pretty quickly.”
I nodded, hating that she was right. “So did he have anything to say about Hannah?”
“No. I didn’t ask about her directly, but he claimed these girls were the only ones he’d helped so far. Didn’t feel like he was telling the truth, but without anything else to go on, I don’t know what we can do.” She glanced over at the girls and raised an eyebrow.
“What?” I looked over. Meriah was staring at me again.
“The girl in the pink shirt. What’s her name?”
“Meriah. She’s been staring me down the whole time. Giving me all sorts of weird looks. Why?”
“She just gave me the weirdest expression, like I can’t even describe. Like she was trying to get me to look at something.”
Ciera turned to check on the men and as she did, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Meriah’s hand was down at her side, making a “Call me” gesture down low, like she was trying to hide it from the men.
Ciera saw it too. “Who are you supposed to call?” she whispered.
“Got a hunch.” I grabbed my phone and called Hannah again. Somewhere close, Ozzy Osborne started singing about the Crazy Train. It was muffled but the chorus was unmistakable.
Ciera drew her weapon and took a step to her left, separating us. “Show me your hands right now! Hands!”
I drew my pistol as well, holding it at low ready, not at all clear on what the threat was. The two men stared at us for a second, then slowly raised their hands, Saint John first. Dawson moved much more slowly, his expression darkened and his eyes narrowed.
In a split-second of absolute clarity, I knew what he was going to do. I knew it, saw it happening, and knew that I couldn’t beat him.
Someone yelled, “Gun!”
My gun came up, and the green front sight appeared perfectly centered between the yellow dots of the rear.
They disappeared for two blinks, then settled back into place.
They disappeared again, and an empty case tumbled out of my vision to the right.
Dawson stared at me as he fell to his knees and crumpled on to his right side. He landed on his right arm, then rolled onto his back.
My sights tracked him all the way down, centered between the bloodstains on his chest.
Ciera yelled something to me, then punched me. “Come on! He’s running!” Saint John had taken off toward the sanctuary, the doors closing slowly behind him as Ciera reached for them.
I stared at Dawson. He stared right back at me. I turned to look at the girls. Samantha pointed at the sanctuary doors. Meriah and Renee had backed up against the lobby wall, gaping at Dawson.
I finally turned and followed Ciera. They were in the middle of the main aisle of the room, Ciera straddling Saint John’s back as she cuffed him. He wasn’t making a sound, which seemed completely out of place.
“Hey.” She had to say it again before I realized she was talking to me.
I blinked hard twice, raised my hands to wipe my face, then stopped. I still had my gun in my hand.
“You okay?”
I fumbled with the safety twice before it clicked up into the safe position. Took both hands and four tries to get the gun actually in the holster.
This time when I went to wipe my face, my hands were shaking. “I think so. Maybe. Is this normal?”
A sad almost-smile crossed her face. “Pretty much.” She stepped back and looked me over. “It’s not exactly like the movies.”
I nodded after a moment, unsure if that was good or bad. “So why does she have ‘Crazy Train’ as my ringtone?”
She gave me a real smile this time. “That’s for you two to talk about. I’m staying well clear of that.” She dragged Saint John to his feet and we went back to the lobby. Dawson was still staring, still in the same position I’d left him. Ciera’s backup gun lay on the floor behind him. She tucked that in her waistband then searched him, pulling Hannah’s phone from a front pocket.
Samantha had pulled the girls into a classroom, probably so they wouldn’t keep looking at Dawson. Ciera went in to talk to them. I stayed out in the lobby and looked at Dawson for them while he stared at me. He was bald and wore a slight beard. Bumps spotted his cheeks, probably from ingrown hairs. His eyes were a deep brown, almost as dark as his skin. He wore a ragged green Packers hoodie with no string. The two bloodstains on his torso had joined, a tendril from one just barely stretching to touch the other like Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. A dark stain spread over his crotch, the bitter tang of ammonia finally reaching me. His jeans were clean but worn, both front pockets turned inside out from Ciera’s search. He had black Nikes on over one black sock and one light gray sock. The shoes looked brand new, and I decided he’d stolen them from a store instead of a dead person.
He still stared at me.
“Hey asshole.” Saint John sat on the floor.
I caught him stealing a glance at Dawson. “You talking to me or him?”
He looked up at me, and I couldn’t read his face at all. He could have been relieved that Dawson was dead, or angry that I’d killed him, or scared at what was coming next. The hospitality he’d tried to project when we first got there was long gone, just a memory of a façade. “You didn’t have to kill him.”
I shrugged after a few seconds, still thinking.
“You cops are all the same. Fucking assholes.”
I didn’t see a need to correct him. “Where’s my daughter?”
“Who?”
“My daughter. The girl your buddy stole the phone and the gun from.”
He turned his head, probably trying not to look at me or Dawson. “He had that when he showed up. Haven’t seen him before today.”
Right. “How’d he end up here?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Dunno. He showed up a couple of hours ago with the girls. Said he’d found them wandering around and they needed a place to stay. I wasn’t going to let them stay here. Don’t believe in mixing races like that.”
“That so?”
“Yeah, that’s so. Why do you care? He’s just another dead nigger to you, right?”
“So you don’t believe in mixing the races, but you were going to let ‘Brother’ Dawson keep the white girl? Doesn’t that break some white supremacist rule?”
Saint John scoffed, then turned away from me as best he could.
I moved in front of him. He was so close to the wall that if he turned away, he’d have to look at his dead buddy. “Where’s my daughter?”
No answer.
I dropped to one knee in front of him, leaning in close. “Come on, Billy. Tell me where my daughter is. ‘Cause we know she was here.”
He started sweating, but he still wasn’t talking.
“Billy? You really need to tell me everything you know about her. Because if you don’t tell me, I’m gonna turn Deputy Stafford loose on you, and she and my daughter are extremely close. Pretty sure one of us is going to convince you to talk, sooner or later.”
He grinned. The bastard grinned at me. “My only regret in life is that I won’t be able to kill all the damned queers in the world before I die. Fuck all of them alphabet assholes.”
I nodded as I stood up, and then I kicked him in the side of the head, knocking him into the wall. He keeled over with a loud groan.
I was so calm about it that it disturbed me just a little bit.
“Aww, did the good deacon slip and hit his head?” Ciera stood behind me. “He have anything to say?”
“Nothing useful or surprising. What about the girls?”
Her shoulders dropped just a little before she could stop it, and she shook her head. She turned in a slow circle, taking in the scene with her hands on her hips. Dawson lay where he’d fallen, still staring at me. The girls huddled in the doorway of the classroom where Ciera had been talking to them. Saint John crumpled on the floor, groaning. “Get up,” she said after a minute.
He mumbled something no one could understand.
She kicked him in his side. “Get up, asshole.”
He mumbled again, still not moving.
“I said get the hell up, you fucking animal.” She lunged for him, jerking him up like a bag of dog food, then shoving him against the wall. He started to slide down, but she grabbed his shirt collar and held him up.
He was panting now, licking his lips. “Still. Not going to. Tell you. Where your girlfriend is. Dyke bitch.”
“That’s cool. I know you don’t know anything. You’re not even smart enough to keep a stupid lesbian tied up overnight, are you? I bet that really grinds your gears, that some chick outsmarted you. That she got away before you could beat her. She’d have kicked your ass, by the way. She’s way stronger than she looks. Not like the little girls you went after. That’s all you could handle, isn’t it? Trying to screw little girls, because the big girls didn’t want anything to do with your fat ass.” She leaned in and whispered something too quietly for the rest of us to hear, then patted his cheek. His eyes opened wide as she stepped back.
“Billy Saint John, you are charged with four counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, five counts of kidnapping, and we’ll throw in a couple of counts of conspiracy just for effect. How do you plead?”
He chuckled, looking from Ciera to me and back. “You’re joking, right? Who the hell’s going to try me? You think a judge survived this? And if they did, they’re not gonna give a crap about these little sluts and your bitch girlfriend.”
Ciera nodded. “Guilty it is. I accept your plea.” She took another step back and drew her pistol, a smile on her face.
He spat at her feet. “You ain’t got the balls.”
I knew it was coming, but I still jumped when she pulled the trigger.
“Don’t need ‘em, either. Asshole.”
Copyright © 2019 Bob Mueller
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