Lucky's Girl (37 page)

Both men reached for their guns to fight off the shitmen and then everything went sideways. Torgeson thumbed off his safety and fired, hitting Frankie in the side. He went down like a sack of butter, even though the round hadn’t penetrated.

But Errol didn’t know that, so he pulled the trigger.

Thirty rounds flew at Torgeson, fifteen of which hit him. He was wearing a vest, but they don’t stop rifle rounds.

And the shit-men kept coming.

CHAPTER 16

Jerry and Kenny heard a single pistol shot followed by another stream of automatic fire. Jerry held his breath, wondering what was happening around them as they were holed up in the little station.

Kenny spoke the obvious. “It’s getting bad out there.”

Jerry nodded. “That was an AK-47, same as before.”

Kenny stood up, wincing at his bruises and stitches. “Lucky has my kids.”

They heard another wicked blast of automatic weapons fire, then another.

Jerry spoke into the handheld. “Torgeson? Torgeson? Copy? You there?”

Both of them stared at the handheld until the static cut off.

Jerry exhaled halfway and started coughing. “I think Torgeson ain’t coming back…”

Kenny felt his bottom lip where two halves were stitched back into one piece. “You think Lucky’s gonna let us live after whatever comes next?”

Kenny put on a Kevlar vest, then grabbed a holster for the Beretta. He slung one of the shotguns. He’d never been a gun guy but he was his uncle’s son. He knew them well enough. “You’re a good guy, Jerry, but I gotta know, are you coming or are you staying?”

Jerry looked at his hands to see how bad they were shaking. Pretty bad. There was water and coffee at the station, but they were out of booze. How long was it since they’d polished off the bottle? Going on two days now, and he wasn’t sure if he’d eaten or truly slept. He definitely hadn’t bathed.

“Kenny, I know you think going out there is going to change something but it isn’t. Doc Pete and Torgeson are dead. You’ve been beat to shit. You’re gonna get yourself, and other people, killed. Don’t do it.”

Kenny stood at Jerry’s desk, looking back. Jerry was sitting in the shadows of the cell, waiting for Lucky to make his move. Because that was really all he could do. Wait.

“My kids are in this shithole town because I brought them here. I put them in this spot. I’ve done everything,
all
of it, wrong. I’ve gotta make it right.”

“Or what, die trying? Your kids would be better off with two dead parents? Maybe Lucky can adopt them. That’d be great…”

Kenny reached down and picked up Jerry’s old PC monitor and threw it against the wall. “Fuck you, you drunk sack of shit!”

Then they heard it, coming from several directions. The squealing of tires and brakes, the crump of automobiles colliding. Other people had heard the gunfire and were making a run for it.

And then came the shooting. Single shots. Deer rifles, shotguns, revolvers. The machine-gun fire had stirred up a hornet’s nest. Two pickups shot past the station, heading for the highway. There were only two ways out and they were taking the shorter route, the same one Doc had taken.

And moments later they heard the terrific crush of a head-on collision. Someone had gone kamikaze to stop them. They couldn’t see around the bend to the collision, but the fierce glow reflecting in the dimming Michigan sky told them all they needed to know. They could see from where they were, but no one would be able to see it from the highway. Maybe they’d see the rising smoke and investigate, but unless they came out in force, they’d suffer the same fate as Doc Pete and Torgeson had.

It went quiet for a moment. All the folks making a break for it in that direction were done for. The other direction headed way out before doubling back on to the highway. Anyone who’d gone that way was out of earshot now.

They heard one more sound of screeching tires, together with another long, sustained blast of automatic fire, followed by the sound of a car careening into the woods, and crashing into the trees. Then the sound of protesting brakes, and a vehicle crashing into the side of the station.

Errol and Frankie were back.

***

Blackie and Lucky stared back and forth with wide surprise. Since the final sacrament they’d become attuned, both to each other and to the rest of the Faithful. Their perceptions were carried on the waves of power radiating from Grove Island where the Wendigo was waiting for night to fall. His power, his ability to walk in the Most Faithful, was in the night, but his mind still moved during the day.

One of the Pack was dead with another bleeding to death in the woods behind Lucky’s house. They’d been shot by Jake. He had taken up with two interlopers, including a Pig Their God had promised Lucky revenge upon.

Errol
.

Jake had shot two wolves, and had left the house with Errol and Frankie, and had done it willingly. Jenny had run away. Now the Faithless were running in all directions. Thankfully none had escaped Elton, but more of the Faithful were dead or horribly injured.

Blackie growled. All of this was unacceptable. Her Pack, his Pack, the Faithful, lay dead and dying but the aggressors were all in one place now.

They must be devoured.

All of them, including the children.

Jenny did not go with them, she did not abandon us, she remained Faithful.

Blackie locked eyes with Lucky. Something was wrong with him. His thoughts were not correct. He had come this far, only to put other things before Their God.

She spoke to him in images and ideas;
I am alpha, and you are my mate. You have been given to me by Our God. Our union grows within me. All is as promised by Our God. Nothing else matters. We must kill them. They have shed the blood of the Pack and the Faithful. None may be spared, no mercy granted.

A new sensation flared through Lucky’s mind – panic. He had defined his life by the dictum that
never again will I suffer the oppression of fools,
until he’d been called back to Elton by the Big Tree. He’d been promised that those who had injured him would be punished. His God had promised their suffering and annihilation, and now he was on the eve of that covenant.

Why would Blackie wish to undo the perfect symmetry of that revenge?

But he did understand.
Possessiveness
. And for a wolf, that would be difficult to change. Blackie didn’t care about his couplings with the Women Most Faithful, but she couldn’t abide Jenny. But for Lucky, Jenny
was
justice, the punishment the Traitor was to receive.

The Traitor had
hurt
him, and no one, neither man nor woman, had ever
hurt
him.

But the Traitor had. He’d abandoned him to exile, stripped him of his family and his place. He had never sought him out, to be his companion, his confidante, his Ace. Instead he’d chosen a life of mediocrity. He had chosen to become a nobody over a life with his best friend. He’d stabbed him in the back and had thrown dirt over his grave. He was worse than Jerry and Errol, much worse than his uncle, worse than dear old Dad and Mom, the Rev and Abby James.

Lucky had held out his arms for Blackie to come to him. She’d held his gaze, denying his embrace. He didn’t flinch, but this had never happened to him. When women
demanded
, they’d fallen apart in his arms and had been brought to heel in his bed. But now he understood – she wasn’t a woman, she wasn’t even human, but just as women had to be tamed, Blackie would learn as well.

He lay before her in a simulacrum of submission, she standing above him and licking his face. Lucky smiled as his hands explored her body, and soon he was behind her pushing his cock in and out slowly and lovingly.

She was his, even if she didn’t fully understand it yet.

***

No one knows fear like a parent whose child is missing, and no one knows the joy in that child returned. But even then, reunions can be difficult, with some bridges gone, and others still in flames. Kenny wanted to cry, wanted to let tears of joy wash the blood and grime from his face, but his son needed strength, not tears.

Jake had said
no
to Lucky.

He hadn’t said yes to his own father but he had said
no
to Lucky. That was a start. So far their conversation was no more than Kenny asking he if he was okay, and Jake mumbling “yeah.” Now they sat together in the cell while Jerry, Errol, and Frankie hashed out what had happened in the last day and a half.

Apparently Frankie and Errol suspected Wally Weed had abducted his sister Fat Sally. Frankie said that she’d gone to go check on her errant brother, and that was the last time they’d seen her.

Their entire story sounded like bullshit.

Not to mention that they were wearing full-blown reality-TV bulletproof gear and carrying assault rifles. Fully automatic assault rifles.
Completely
illegal fully automatic assault rifles.

AK-47’s make a very distinctive sound. Theirs were the guns which had made that sound.

Frankie was lying on the cell floor, bloody strands coming out of his mouth. There was a big scorch mark on the side of his Kevlar. He’d been shot and probably had a set of broken ribs to show for it. His breath jerked in painful little gasps. He was bleeding somewhere inside because his saliva was pink and foamy.

They’d crashed into the side of the station and Errol had run to the other side to help Frankie get to the door, Jake following close on their heels. He’d pushed the two inside, squeezing the trigger on the shit-men streaming at them. He didn’t hit any but they’d fallen back long enough to grab a gym bag full of AK magazines and get inside. Afterwards a desk had been pushed in front of the door. It really was the only thing left to do.

But now, there were questions. Not about Lucky or Blackie or the madness gripping Elton Township; questions about Elton’s faithful mayor and mailman, and Elton’s resident barkeep.

Jerry kept looking at the floor and at the door, but not at Errol, doing his best to not look at Frankie either. The shit-freaks were pressing their faces up against the glass, but that was nothing new. Jerry needed a drink and he was spinning out, but that wasn’t enough to blind him to
everything
which had happened in the last few minutes.

There were a lot of questions, but there was one that Jerry had
right now
.

“Where’s Torgeson?”

Frankie stopped coughing, and Errol inhaled but didn’t exhale.

Jerry paused. “Errol, is Torgeson okay or not?”

Errol’s breath shook and he held his hand over his mouth.

Jerry exhaled hard. “Oh
fuck me
. Jesus Christ, Errol, what the fuck happened out there?”

Errol’s voice hitched, causing him to stammer. “Jerry, he… he didn’t understand. We’d just gotten attacked by fucking wolves and these fucking fucks…”

He motioned to the shit-freaks smearing up the glass door.

He continued. “We both got knocked down, dropped our guns. It was Jake, this little kid, who picked one up and shot the wolves. Then more of those fucking shit-fucks came and the cop…
Torgeson
showed up and shot Frankie…”

Errol buried his face in his hands, sobbing, tears pouring between his fingers.

Jerry shook his head in disbelief. “What happened, Errol?
What did you do
?”

Errol shook his head, his face rubbing against his palms. “I didn’t mean to, I swear I didn’t mean to!”

Jerry inhaled hard, then spat it out. “What in the hell are you two doing with those guns and that Kevlar?”

Frankie croaked out. “Sally, Wally took Sally, we went to get her back.”

Jerry shook his head over and over. “No, no, no! Bullshit, what the fuck were you two doing? How would you know Wally had done something to Sally, huh? How would you know that? You’re fucking lying!”

Errol tried. “Sally had left a note and…”

A small voice interrupted.

Jake. “She’s dead. Lucky cut her open to wake up the Big Tree.”

CHAPTER 17

As the final rays of sunlight withdrew behind the curve of the earth, Elton Township drifted from shadow into Darkness. In the cabins and trailers of the Faithless, candles were being lit and flashlights checked, guns reloaded, and prayers offered to a God who seemed much less potent than before. There was a new God in town, and he did things very differently. They knew tonight would be a fight for sanity and survival.