Paradise Falls (36 page)

It was late when the last truck pulled out. One by one, Leviathans showed up, lining up their bikes under the overhang. Jacob watched them go in, switching out his binoculars for camera with a long range zoom, and snapped pictures. There was no one he recognized. Jennifer looked through the binoculars.

For a moment he caught a glimpse through the door. He saw a tall pale girl with black hair. Her jaw was the wrong shape, her hair clearly a mousy brown dyed black, and her eyes were brown, not green, but his mind’s eye painted a different picture, just for a second. A pointed chin, jet black hair, green eyes, a mischievous twist of her lips. A blend of his mother’s features and his own. For a bare second he saw the ghost of his sister and his lips peeled back from his teeth in a wordless snarl.

“Hey,” said Jennifer.

She tilted her chin and looked up the road.

A worn old van trundled down the road on big tires. Mid seventies, sixteen feet long, with blacked out windows and blotches of rust all up and down the sides. The van slowed and pulled into the lot, then around behind the strip club. Jacob started the car and left the headlights off, and handed off the camera to Jennifer. The wheel creaked under his grip.

“We’re moving.”

Thirteen minutes exactly and the van came rolling back out. It was just after three in the morning. Jacob pulled out and followed, hanging far back, headlights off. Jennifer squirmed in her seat but said nothing.

“Can you see?”

“I’m fine.”

She swallowed. Jacob slowed, let the van turn off in town. He pulled up to the stop sign before turning off to follow and his breath caught before he spotted the red tail lights glowing like eyes in the dark. The van wound up through town and back out into the country, where the corn stalks were high and starting to turn. The farmers would be out soon to gather it all up, stalks and all, as silage for the cows.

There was a halo of light in the distance. The corn grew scraggly, mingled with scrub brush and weeds. The van turned down a dirt track and Jacob slowed, pulling along the road to watch. There was a rusted gate ahead and the driver was stopping to open it. Jacob quickly drove down the road and pulled off at the first open spot along the shoulder, and jumped out.

Jennifer got out along with him.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to scout it out.”

“I won’t be able to see you.”

“I won’t be long. Five minutes.”

He didn’t give her time to argue. He yanked his mask down and ran, full-tilt. On the others side of the road was a ditch. He ducked down and followed it to the mouth of the dirt track and picked his way through the corn. After a minute or so he came to a chain-link fence running through the crop, and the old gate. Carefully, he examined the chain link and the posts, looking for a tripwire or a sensor or something so crude as a bell or empty tin can to act as a noisemake, but found nothing and hopped it, landing lightly on the other side, and worked his way up.

The corn spread out into a clearing. A low, long doublewide sat perpendicular to the dirt track. The van was parked out front and two men sat on a worn picnic table, passing something from one to the other. An ember glowed in the dark, casting a mustachioed face in deep red, and the sickly sweet smell of marijuana drifted on the air.

Every instinct screamed to take them now, but he stopped.

They had a dog. A mutt, a mix of mastiff and doberman maybe, with wiry hair and a dopey face but a big mouth full of teeth and powerful jaws. The dog had its head propped on its paws and it might have been sleeping or it might have been alerted already and trying to listen. He watched the dog’s ears for any sign of movement.

Jacob pulled his mask up and breathed. He needed a feel for the breeze.

Still upwind. If he moved around behind him the air would catch his scent and the dog would pick it up. Still, he needed to know what was inside the structure.

“What time is it?”

He froze, listening.

“About three thirty. We gotta go back and get the rest of the bitches in like six hours.”

“You take first watch. I’m gonna take a nap.”

Lying down on the table, the biker burped.

“Fuck you, man, why I gotta take first watch?”

“I took first watch last night.”

“Bullshit, no you didn’t. You never take first watch.”

“That’s why you gotta do it, man..”

Jacob swallowed against a dry throat and waited.

The trailer door swung open. A biker stepped out and walked to the edge of the corn, undid his pants, and began urinating.

“Hey, man, how’s the bitches?”

“That tin can smells like assholes,” the newcomer shouted back. “They’re all out cold.”

Jacob eyed the dog. Just three, it seemed. He had to be sure. Had to be sure.

“Come on over here and take the watch so we can get a nap.”

“Watch, what watch? Nobody’s gonna fuck with us, man.”

“Orders is orders. Boss says we’re on watch. Didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what? I been out here all fucking day.”

“The boss’s kid is dead.”

“Yeah, how?”

“Shot. I ain’t heard nothing else except we gotta be on guard.”

Jacob eyed them. Physically they were no challenge, individually or three at once. The dog was a problem. They were armed. He spotted a chromed pistol tucked into a waistband, a bowie knife on a belt and there was a shotgun leaning up against the table, a pump with an extended mag.

Coiled up, throbbing with dull fury, it took everything he had to back off slowly, to make every sound extra quiet as he backed off and wound his way back up along the path to the road. From there he moved faster, until he got back to the car and slumped against the side, panting. He was sweating profusely under the mask.

Jennifer reached over and rolled his mask up.

“Well?”

“Three guys. Trailer full of girls. I couldn’t get a look inside.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t get close. They have a dog.”

“They have weapons?”

“Sidearms, knives, a shotgun.”

“What do we do?”

“There’s still girls back at the bar. I heard them talking about going back to get them. If we take them down now, we have to figure out how to get the girls at the bar. I say we kill two birds with one stone, let them come to us. When the van leaves they’ll be down at least one man. We take the other two and the dog and ambush the others when they get back.”

Jennifer stared at him for a while, her face going pale. Then she nodded.

“Okay. Tell me what to do.”

9.

Jennifer’s heart beat out a rapid rhythm, fluttering against her ribs. She felt like a piece of rubber stretched to its limit, about to be let go. The sun was up and the morning was just starting to get hot. A garter snake slithered off the road into the corn.

Jacob was in front of her, crouched. Jennifer had her rifle on a sling, clutching it in front of her chest as she squatted down behind him and strained to look.

The van rolled along the dirt track and she held her breath, as if they might hear her otherwise. The van jounced and jolted past, stopping at the gate. The driver ducked out and undid the padlock, swung it open, and drove through. He didn’t bother closing it. It kicked up dust as it pulled out onto the road and sped away with a squeal of tires.

Without the dark for cover, Jacob kept to the corn, and Jennifer followed. The grimy stalks smeared mud on her sleeves and pulled at her mask as she pushed through them. Jacob stopped in front of her and she almost bumped into him.

The clearing was deserted. There was the trailer he told her about, a battered older model with silvery plywood patches on the walls and a tarp over part of the roof, the blue plastic faded from sunlight. The breeze lifted it, tugging at the lengths of clothesline that held it in place, tied to stakes in the ground.

As the wind picked up, Jennifer choked down the urge to dry heave. The stench.

Jacob motioned her forward again for a few yards, then stopped.

The dog.

It was in a crude doghouse, an upturned utility trailer that leaned to one side. The animal perched in the shade, his head resting on his feet, eyes half-open. It was a scraggly, malnourished looking creature, but it had a big head, heavy jaws, and just by looking Jennifer could tell it outweighed her. A mutt, it was from hardy stock on both sides. Somebody’s doberman and mastiff must have had a litter.

The dog’s head perked up and he sniffed the air. Jacob went stone still and Jennifer clicked her teeth shut. The dog’s ears swiveled and it looked around, then lowered its head back to rest on its paws. Jacob crouched. The air, hot now from the morning sun, wafted in Jennifer’s face. She blinked a few times and remembered her father explaining the difference between upwind and downwind.

The breeze swirled the corn and the wind changed.

Jacob backed up, tapping her arm. Jennifer backed along with him. The dog’s head came up again. She wanted to ask what he was going to do, but she knew if she said a word, the animal would hear.

Jacob whistled.

Jennifer jerked. The dog rose up on all fours and trotted out into the clearing, head high, eyes turning this way and that. It looked towards them as the breeze picked up again, but it didn’t react.

“Hey, boy,” Jacob whispered.

The dog moved forward a bit.

“Back up,” said Jacob. “Give me some room.”

He whistled again, louder this time, and the dog charged, barking and snarling. Jennifer stumbled back and fell on her backside as the dog came at her, teeth flashing. Jacob scooped it up from the ground and rolled and it snapped and snarled at him, thrashing.

The dog went for his throat. He jammed his forearm in its mouth and yelped when its jaws closed on the meat of his arm, its teeth scraping on the armored scales covering his skin. Jacob choked off his cry with a growl and rolled again, on top of the animal. It yelped and thrashed and pulled at his arm, let go and snapped at his throat, sending spittle flying across his chest and mask.

Jacob got his hands on the dog’s jaws and squeezed them shut, and rolled, pinning it down.

“Zip ties,” he panted, “On my belt, on the back pouch. Hurry.”

Jennifer got up and rushed to his side, found the pouch and pulled out the long plastic tie. She wrapped it around the dog’s muzzle and tucked the tab through, and pulled it tight. Jacob let go, and to her shock, the plastic held. Jacob pinned the dog down even as it whined and writhed.

“Are you hurt? It bit you.”

He held up his arm. “Didn’t get through.”

“How-“

“The muscles in a dog’s jaws are powerful when closing,” said Jacob, “but have almost no strength to open. Sorry, boy,” he said, and closed a zip tie around the animal’s front legs, hobbling it.

It glared at him, growling.

“What the fuck?”

Jacob snapped around. A man emerged from the trailer. Stripped to the waist, in dirty jeans and unlaced work boots, he had a shotgun propped over his shoulder. He swiped at his face and pushed a pair of cheap sunglasses up his nose, and dropped the shotgun down, sweeping the barrel around. Jacob motioned for Jennifer to hold still, holding up a fist, and moved forward.

The biker looked the other way for just an instant, and Jacob whipped his arm, throwing one of his knives. It spun in the air for a bare instant and sank home, hitting the biker’s arm just above the elbow. He yelped and spun around, fumbling at the weapon with his limp hand. A second blade slapped home in his leg and he turned, but the wrong way.

Jacob bull-rushed out of the corn and bowled him over, pinning the shotgun down against the biker’s chest. Jennifer jumped up and ran over, aiming the rifle. The biker saw her and his hands relaxed. Jacob pulled the shotgun away, checked it, and held it in his left hand.

“Just you?”

The biker nodded.

“Get up.”

“My fucking leg-“

“Get
up,”
Jacob roared, and dragged him to his feet, ignoring his cries of pain.

“How long until they get back?”

“Twenty minutes? Shit, I don’t know. Who the fuck are you?”

“Where’s the box?”

“What box?”

Jacob seized the knife in his arm and twisted.

“Fuck! In the back! In the back!”

Jacob hefted the shotgun and pushed him forward, digging the muzzle into his back. “Show me.”

Jennifer swallowed hard and looked around as she followed the pair around behind the trailer. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. Behind the trailer there was an upturned dumpster, painted matte black. The job was done with spray paint, by hand. Jacob shoved the biker around and yanked the dumpster door open, and recoiled.

The stink hit Jennifer in a wave, like a physical force. She gagged, and even Jacob made a choked sound. Jennifer moved towards him and he put out his hand.

“Stop,” he panted. He sounded sick. “Don’t look.”

“Listen, man,” the biker said, his voice going high, “I didn’t.”

“In,” Jacob snarled. “Now,” and shoved him inside. “Who’s got the key to this lock?”

“I do.”

“Good,” said Jacob, and closed the door. He snapped the padlock through the steel loops and snapped it shut.

The dumpster shook from the pounding inside. Jacob let the shotgun droop in his hand. He dragged his left foot as he walked, and he was panting. Only his eyes were visible, but the skin around them was pale.

“Are you alright?”

“Let’s check out the inside.”

Jennifer nodded and followed him back around, watching the dirt track for the puff of dust from the van, but saw nothing. Jacob moved to the crooked, rusted screen door and pushed it open carefully, studying the hinges and frame intently.

“Might be a booby trap,” he said. “Watch for wires or anything that looks odd.”

Nodding, Jennifer held open the screen door while Jacob pushed the other door open, swinging inside. He made a choked sound and stepped inside, without stopping to check first. Jennifer followed, letting the screen door slap closed behind her. Even with the mask, she covered her mouth and a wave of nausea rolled through her.