The Outkast (12 page)

Brian thought they had reached the end of their quest, until he took a closer look and saw tire threads in a number of places.

At first, they all missed it. But for some reason, Brian paced back the same way they had come, and it caught his attention—an overgrown footpath. Not an obvious landmark by any standards. The path was hardly visible even when they moved closer. They also noticed huge footprints in places.

Ahead of the weed-grown trail was a cluster of trees blocking the view that lay beyond, which they later discovered to be a long stretch of dirt road.

“
Is that the road the kid wrote about?” Allan’s voice carried loud over the calm layers of air.

“
I suppose,” Brian said, walking back through the trail towards their cruisers.

“
Thought the dirt road comes before the trail, and not the other way around,” Allan said as they all followed Brian.

“
Yeah, that’s the way it should be.” Brian walked swiftly past the cruisers. He was in search of another hint. “But I’m more concerned about something else.”

“
The access route to the dirt road?” Craig observed.

“
That’s right.”

There was no path in sight at all for a vehicle to go through in order to connect to the dirt road on the other side. Of course, along the trail, in the light of the moon, they had noticed very huge footmarks, which, in all likelihood, belonged to a proportionately huge individual crossing from the end of Sebastian Road to the dirt road. But there was no means of driving a vehicle across without being impeded by the multitude of trees hugging one another.

Cognizant of the amount of time that had elapsed, Brian began to grow a bit agitated. “There has to be a way to drive our goddam cars across to the other side.”

“
This ain’t looking good,” Craig said, his pop-eyes darting in every direction. “God, we’re kinda trapped here. And the temp’s dropping, too.”

“
Reminds me of the Israelites getting stuck at the Red Sea,” Dwayne said.

“
Yeah,” Allan agreed. “Except water was their own curse, trees are ours. Perhaps we should pray the gods of the woods to grant us an access road.”

“
Goodness, we’re trapped,” Craig repeated. “I hope nothing’s happened to the boy yet.”

“
We’re not,” Brian said. “Knock that silly thought out of your head before it poisons you. If we can’t forge ahead, then we’ll turn back, and make a fresh plan. So, what’s the whole fuss about?” Brian turned around. “But I see no reason why we would be unable to create a passage to the other side.”

“
So, what’s the plan, Sheriff?” asked Dwayne.

“
We’re not giving up, that’s what it is,” Allan said.

“
That’s right. We’ll get back in the car now and drive the length of this road. There’s gotta be a way around this somehow. So, move it.”

They all started towards their cars.

“
Hey,” Craig said all of a sudden. “You see that?”

“
What?”

“
Over there.” He pointed in the same direction they had been advancing before Brian suggested they get back into their cars. “Looks like an opening.”

Chapter 17

His single-handed uproar through the house must have awakened the boy. Robert had been in a comatose kind of sleep when The Outcast had brought him into his haven. That was the way it had always been between them. Whenever he was in the presence of The Outcast, he vacillated from a state of profound hypnotism, in which he was almost unconscious, to a state in which he could only put up a mild remonstration like he had done when Donnie had got killed.

But now, he was screaming as loud as he had never done while in the vicinity of The Outcast.

Suddenly, in the middle of the boy’s unprecedented din, the revelation flashed across The Outcast’s mind like a bolt of lightning.

The problem was his True Blood. At last, he had found the answer.

But he should have known all along that his enemies had intended to get to him through the weakling. They knew the boy wasn’t fully formed yet, which was tantamount to The Outcast’s Achilles heel, the very weakness they would be working very hard to attack, because trying to save his True Blood from their scourge would be multiple times harder than trying to save himself alone. But he had to fight for both of them at the same time. It was his divine responsibility.

He bolted towards the boy’s room, wondering what he could do to expedite the growth process.

The answer lay on the lap of the final ritual, which entailed Robert’s full participation. In fact, it was all about Robert’s involvement. When properly executed, it would be the watershed that would catapult the boy into the fullness of maturity. But that wasn’t possible yet. There was still a handful of killings the boy had been predestined to witness.

But when The Outcast got to Robert’s room, his sentiment about the revelation changed altogether.

Chapter 18

They found a passage through a clearing—thanks to Craig’s powers of observation.

For the next seven minutes, they drove on along the dirt road until they arrived at another clearing—apparently the one mentioned in Robert’s journal. Further ahead lay a footpath that presumably led to Cave
Kushi
.

******

Despite confronting a daunting challenge to break forth through the thick veil of clouds, the moon had somehow found a reason to not only smile but grin down on sleepy Ogre’s Pond. Sailing across the sky valiantly, it had grown more than three-quarters full when Sheriff Stack and his deputies began to fan out.

Allan and Dwayne closed in through the west. Sheriff Stack paired up with Craig, and they took the eastern flank of the wooded area surrounding the culprit’s domicile. The place boasted a frontal opening—set within the walls of a huge rock—as the main and only entrance visible. If there was a door to the entrance, they hadn’t seen it yet. Above the opening, there was a jutting sheet of roof. It was some
contraption
of a place to behold.

There was an illumination at the entrance, and it was different than the moonlight’s. Brian and Craig moved on to an erosion-made gully, where they achieved a perfect angle that afforded them a clearer view. They instantly realized the radiance was issuing from within the cave, powered by a set of lanterns hung along the inner walls.

There was no door, but they couldn’t see far into the cave, because the passage ran for just about four feet before jackknifing to the right, resulting in a cul-de-sac to an observer from without.

Lightning flashed in the firmament. Rain was approaching.

“
Watch your steps as we move on,” Brian whispered to Craig when they were about to start wading through shin-deep brushes again. They would duck around trees and wend their way forward in the hope of finally converging with the other pair. “With the trees’ low-hanging limbs literally lashing out at one’s face, and their naked roots setting up traps along the path, you could fall easily and blow our stealth.”

Craig nodded.

Suddenly, a sharp cry slashed through the otherwise silent night. The voice was full of agony. On the heels of the pained voice was a crack of gunshot that echoed across the four corners of the woods. Then another. And another.

A moment after the gunshots had ceased, another crying voice carried through the trees, and it seemed to move in the direction of Brian and Craig.

They quickly dropped back to their knees in the ditch. And listened.

The first voice, which they now recognized as Dwayne’s, wailed for a while before going silent. That didn’t look good. Not good at all.

The other sound apparently came from Allan. What had happened to him? It was easier to assume the outcome of Dwayne’s cry than Allan’s.

In the vibrant moonlight, Brian looked aside at Craig and realized the middle-aged deputy had started to shiver. “We’ll proceed with caution,” Brian whispered, acting like nothing had happened.

“
How about the others?”

“
How about them?” Brian knew this was the time to do one of the many things a leader is held accountable for—instilling courage in his followers. Craig was visibly scared.
Hell, I’m scared, too,
Brian thought, and then said, “The others will meet us ahead as planned. We’ll move in and get the bastard—dead or alive.”

“
But, Sheriff,” Craig breathed, “I mean ... the horrible scream—”

“
Whatever you do, Craig, in God’s beautiful name, don’t you let your fear get the better of you. Is that clear?”

Looking like a trapped rabbit about to be snatched up by an insensate hunter, Craig nodded.

“
Because it does no good other than empowering you to lose focus. And losing focus does nothing good other than making you fail. Now, move that way.” Brian gestured a path for Craig. Another strategy to diverge a little bit as the progress continued.

Craig’s already wide eyes enlarged even further. “Are you leaving me, Sheriff?”

“
I’m not leaving you, but we can’t stick together like this if we intend doing something effective to save our butts. We’ll be separated within the range of twelve to fifteen feet. Wide apart enough to prevent us from getting cut down together at once, but close enough to prevent your blood from over-flowing and bringing you cardiac arrest. Now, move.”

No sooner had Brian uttered his words than they heard a rustling movement along the brushes, advancing their way. Brian trained his gun towards the sound, ready to fire. He gasped when Allan appeared, looking and acting like he’d just seen a ghost.

Chapter 19

He stood in the doorway for a while, casting a darkly suspicious gaze at the boy, who was still snoozing. Apparently, he had gone through a screaming bout while still asleep.

Something wasn’t right, but that
something
had nothing to do with the boy’s susceptibility to attacks from the enemies. What The Outcast felt was more intense.

Right now, he began to experience the level of polarity that had played between the impure blood of Ogre’s Pond and him for so long.

All of a sudden, his subsided shivering resumed.

What the problem was—what he had felt at the boy’s house and in his own chamber—no doubt, was the foul spirit of betrayal.

He was just about to scream in infuriation when the engines rumbled across the quiet night, the sound swelling from the woods towards his abode.

******

As lightning cracked the face of the sky, Allan and Dwayne crouched behind a huge log of wood in response to Dwayne’s observation.

“
Do you still notice any movement?” Allan asked in a low, quavery voice.

“
Not anymore. Maybe it was just a figment of my imagination,” Dwayne said, whirling his head around to scan the whole area, as if he found it hard to convince himself by his own words. “I saw it through the corner of my eye, after all. Might even be a trick of the light.”

An insect lost its bearings and buzzed right into Allan’s nostril. “Shit,” he muttered as he blew the critter out. “I hate this.”

“
How did we wind up here by the way?” Dwayne said.

Allan was still fuming at the winged creature’s intrusion on his mucous membrane—like it was a sacred land that an infidel had just desecrated.

Dwayne added, “I mean, how exactly did Sheriff Stack figure out this place is the criminal’s hideout?”

“
Robert Smallwood.”

“
Huh?”

“
The boy keeps the record of his nightmares.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Why?”

“
I have no idea. And even for a boy his age, if you ask me, makes it weirder.”

“
But what has that got to do with us hunkering down here with our asses getting wiped by the itchy brushes?”

“
Well, he says he sees this place in his shitty dreams. The kid’s fucked up,” Allan said, and quickly added: “And so is his mother.”

“
So, do you believe in that?”

“
In what?”

“
That what the boy claims to have seen is real—and that this is it?”

“
Fuck, no. I’m not that superstitious and stupid. Imagine how much of realness it must have held for us to have missed our way so many times.”

Dwayne kept silent.

Allan said, “But tell you what? Although I don’t believe the boy’s writing is anything more than a sick kid’s report, I’m scared all the same.”

“
You’re scared?” Dwayne said, stressing the last word with disbelieve. “Now, that doesn’t make any sense, does it? If you don’t believe in what you’ve read, and you don’t believe we’re in the place described by the boy, why’re you worried?”

“
I dunno. Probably doesn’t make any sense to anyone, including me—but whenever I remember that thing and how badly it stabbed Crawford repeatedly, it makes my blood curdle.”