Parasite (25 page)

“So that’s it? You’re
just going to leave, then?”

“Yup.”

Reggie threw his arms up.

“And what am I supposed to do here all by myself? What if your biker buddies come around?”

Dirk scowled, and he pointed a nub at the much bigger man’s chest.

“First of all, they aren’t my buddies. They’re—they’re—” He thought about it for a moment.

What the hell are they to me?

“They’re a means to an end, I guess. And now, thanks to you and whatever this place is, I’ve found my end.”

Reggie grunted.

“What, the priest?”

“Oh, he’s more than a priest,” Dirk said with a sneer. He turned his hand to show the other deputy his missing fingers. “He took these from me, and that was only the beginning.”

Reggie pushed his lips together, but he stepped away from the saloon-style doors separating their desks from the general lobby area of the station.

“We’ve all lost something in this battle... everyone in Askergan has lost something. And you’re a deputy, for Christ’s sake.”

If he was trying to guilt him into staying, it wasn’t going to work.

“I’m not from Askergan, fella. And a deputy?” he laughed. “For a minute. You too, by the way.”

“A minute or an hour. Either way, you accepted the responsibility.”

Dirk shrugged.

“Why are
you
sticking around?”

The man got a far off look in his eyes.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m here, I agreed to serve, and I’m staying.”

There was a story there, but Dirk figured it unlikely that he would be able to extract it from the man this night. Besides, he had heard enough stories for one day.

He shook his head.

“Look, I get it. And I’m not trying to be a dick, but you don’t understand how long I have been chasing this guy.”

“The priest—Father Carter Duke?”

“Carter Duke, Chris Donovan, whatever his name, if he is as smooth a talker as you say, it can only be the one guy. I’m sorry. Really, I am.” He reconsidered his previous words. “This
is
a dick move, no doubt about it. But I have no choice.”

Dirk unclipped the deputy star from his shirt and placed it down on the desk.

“What about the uniform? The gun?” Reggie asked, indicating the pistol still on Dirk’s hip.

“The uniform I’ll dry clean and ship back to you, what do you think? But the gun, I think I’ll keep that.” He tapped the butt of the gun with the flat of his hand. It was on the wrong hip, he realized; with only two fingers on his right hand, not only would holding the gun pose a problem, but shooting it would be next to impossible.

He made a mental note to switch the holster over as soon as he left the station. Dirk slid past the other man, making sure to keep his eyes on him as he continued to back toward the door. He didn’t much like the way the man’s arms, after he had put them down, had started to creep toward his own gun.

If the man drew now, he would have no choice but to surrender his weapon.

And he needed that gun. He needed it for Father Carter Duke.

“Look—” he began, but the door behind him suddenly opened, and if it weren’t for the large body that burst through, he might have fallen out. Dirk went to turn, but he felt one large hand grab his shoulder, while the other grasped his gun. In one fluid movement, the gun was unclasped and it was removed from the holster.

Evidently, whoever had just entered the station had no problem with their right hand.

“You can leave if you want,” a voice he recognized said in his ear. “But you can’t take this with you.”

After Seth had started
his legs moving, carrying Alice to the car was the easy part. It was lowering her into the back seat of the stolen car that was difficult.

His ribs were definitely broken, and his nose was a mess. But it was the sharp pain in his side, behind his broken ribs, that was the most worrisome. It felt as if someone was poking him in the lungs from the inside. He knew very little about medicine, but he knew enough that this was bad. And if it got any worse, he would be at risk of puncturing a lung.

Still, he was the chosen, and she was the girl.

With this in mind, he bore down against the pain and bent over. Seth cried out as he flipped the girl from his shoulders and onto the backseat. Breathing quickly through his mouth, on the verge of hyperventilating, he stood up straight, stretching his back to ease the pressure on his side.

He took one hitching breath, and then bent over again and quickly shoved her entire body inside, not caring when she only slid forward a few feet before her legs simply folded inside the vehicle.

“Arghh!” he shouted as a sharp pain ripped through his side.

He slammed the car door closed, but this time when he went to stand up straight, he felt something pop in his side, and then it was as if someone had driven a branding iron right through his body. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and it was all he could do to keep from collapsing in a heap.

Grunting and gasping, he managed to slither into the driver seat without changing his posture all that much. And then, like before, he was off, not questioning where he was going, only allowing himself to be led.

Less than an hour later, the stolen Ford careened onto the curb in front of two parked motorcycles. The vision in his one remaining eye had gradually dissipated to nothingness, and it had been many miles since he had seen the road clearly. Twice he had struck something, once hard enough to send the girl in the backseat airborne.

Somehow he managed to put the car into park, and the engine hissed in the hot sun.

Seth closed his eye and lay with his head against the headrest, his hair matted in sweat, his breathing still coming in bubbles.

Even when someone opened his door, he didn’t move.

And when a voice spoke, he remained similarly still.

“He looks dead.”

Warm fingers pressed against his neck.

“No, still alive. Barely.”

“Can you move him? Put him in the passenger seat?”

There was a pause, punctuated by one of Seth’s moans.

“Dunno. Don’t think so. Looks pretty beat up.”

“I’ll call in a tow, then.”

Seth heard the crackle of a radio, and a message was relayed to another man with a gruff-sounding voice.

“There’s a girl in the backseat.”

“Yep, I see that.”

There was some sort of silent exchange, then Seth felt someone pat him on the shoulder. The sensation was nondescript, like a generalized pressure on his numb body that he could barely locate.

“Hang in there. The Crab has been expecting you.”

And then everything faded to black.

Dirk raised his arms
and turned to face the man who had just pulled the gun from his holster.

Sheriff Paul White stared back, his expression grim. For a second, none of the three men in the room spoke—or even moved. It was as if they were all expecting something to happen, an act of God, a giant hand sweeping down, perhaps, one that would pick them all up and scoop them out of the hell that was Askergan and drop them down in a unicorn-and-rainbow-fueled utopia.

And then, unbelievably, something
did
happen. But while the intrusion was highly unexpected, it wasn’t the act of a savior.

The door to the police station was thrown open, and a man with a red beard that Dirk had never seen before stepped inside.

His face was bruised and battered, and he was accompanied by the smell of blood.

“They took her!” the man gasped. “They took Alice!”

And then he collapsed, and the sheriff barely reacted in time to prevent him from falling to the floor.

Donnie Wandry watched as
the unconscious man with the battered face was carried into the room, his frail body laid across one of the biker’s arms.

“He’s here,” the biker announced, and the Crab turned, a smile growing on his face.

The man had only recently removed the skin suit that he had been wearing—Sabra’s skin, Donnie had learned—but he wasn’t sure that what was beneath was any less disgusting.

The man’s bare upper body was a mess, his chest streaked with hideously thick blue and red vessels of a nature that Donnie had never seen.

And then there were the white spots, the spots of ‘healed’ skin where the tiny white crackers had erupted. Six times Donnie had seen those crackers come forth, and six times he had seen the bikers consumed by them, devoured, before their chests had literally exploded.

There was also the other cracker, the one embedded in Walter’s shoulder, that seemed to thrive on the man’s excessive drug use.

“What should I do with him?” the biker asked.

The Crab indicated the large desk.

“Put him there,” he said through his brown and yellow teeth.

The man nodded and walked over to the desk, laying the man down gently on top of it.

Another man entered the room next, and for an instant, Donnie thought he was experiencing some sort of bastardized déjà vu.

This biker also had a frail body laid across his arms, and the scene was eerily similar. The only difference that Donnie could discern was that this body was that of a woman.

Walter’s smile grew.

“What should I do with this one?”

“Give her to Donnie; have him string her up with the others.”

At the mention of ‘the others’, Donnie turned back to the task at hand. He gripped the heavy chain in both hands and pulled. With a grunt, the chain moved a couple of feet, and then looped it around the hoop in the floor to make sure he didn’t lose the slack. He pulled twice more and then wrapped the chain around the metal stake that he had driven into the solid oak floor.

He realized that the biker was beside him now, and was awaiting further instruction.

“Just put her down, I’ll deal with her,” he instructed, his voice oddly monotone.

The biker did as he was told, and Donnie turned to examine his handiwork.

Two women were strung up by their hands, their naked bodies hanging limply from the heavy chain that he had removed from the chandelier and affixed to the ceiling. Both of them, like the girl on the floor beside him, were unconscious, their hair dangling in front of their faces.

Two women, hanging, bruised, like Askergan itself, no idea about the fate that was about to befall them.

Two women, and soon to be a third.

For a brief moment, Greg Griddle tried to creep back into him, but he forced him away with thoughts of Kent lying on the gurney, his face purple.

Greg was gone—Greg died with Kent. And in his place was Donnie, the boy that was beaten and battered. The one that had his father’s anger buried deep inside. The one that his father had mistakenly thought wasn’t like him, that he was different, kind, compassionate.

But his father was wrong. Donnie
was
like him. Donnie was like him
and
Walter.

He was a Wandry through and through.

Running away hadn’t changed that, neither had adopting a new name.

For a time Kent
had
changed him.

But now Kent was dead.

They will pay for what they did to Kent. All of Askergan will pay.

Donnie wasn’t sure if he had said the thought out loud, but when the Crab spoke next, he was sure that he must have, because the words that exited the man’s mangled mouth echoed those thoughts.

“Askergan will pay. Tonight they shall taste fear more potent than anything they have felt before.”

Donnie nodded and felt a smile creep onto his own face.

And then he set about stringing up the third woman beside the others.

“You can stay, or
you can leave. No one is going to force you to hang around.”

Sheriff Paul White scanned his men’s faces.

There were four of them, aside from himself. Reggie, Deputy Williams, the biker Dirk Hannover, and of course Bradley Coggins.

Their faces were all traced with streaks of dirt, sweat, and blood, and it was clear that their sleepless tanks were running on fumes. They should retire for the night, get some sleep before making any rash decisions.

But there was no time for that.

They have Nancy.

They have Alice.

They have Askergan, for Christ’s sake.

The sheriff cleared his throat.

“That goes for all of you. There is something brewing in Askergan, and what you have all experienced was only the beginning. There is a war coming.” He paused and wiped the sweat from his brow. “And, to be honest, I don’t know how we can possibly win.”

Deputy Williams’ eyes dropped to the floor.

“I know what you all must be thinking, because I have thought the same thing. ‘Why fight? Why fight a battle that is futile, that we simply cannot win?’”

There was something akin to relief that washed over everyone’s faces—everyone except for Coggins.

“There is a moment, a moment in every person’s life where they have to stand up against impossible odds. Sheriff Dana Drew did it, as did his wife. And we did it—we did it when the crackers came, and we won... we suffered incredible losses, but we still won. And I know that it is incomprehensible to ask you to do it again, but I am. I’m asking you to do it, to sign on now, to hop aboard. To risk your lives for one of the few things worth saving in this world: a county. A county that has been pretty much ignored, but one that has such passion, that once held so much promise. So, please, it is unfair, unjust, and simply immoral, but before I ask you, please, ask
yourself
if you want to stand up.”

A silence washed over them, and for a brief moment, the sheriff felt his heart sink.

They are going to leave; they are going to take off their uniforms, lay down their paltry supply of weapons, and go far, far away from here.

Part of him didn’t blame them; part of him wanted to do the same.

But part of him also thought about Nancy, about how her pretty lips had formed those fateful words:
I’m sorry
.

He, for one, would not be laying down his arms tonight, and probably not ever.

He was in this for Askergan. He was in this for the long haul.

No matter what.

Coggins spoke first, and when he did, his cheeks were pinched in anger.

“I won’t let them have her. They can have me, but they can’t have her.”

Good, that’s two.

Williams was next.

There was another long pause, during which the sheriff kept his eyes trained on Williams, who chewed the inside of his cheek.

“I’m in,” he whispered at last.

Reggie nodded next, and then the man surprised the sheriff by turning to Dirk.

“You know them best; we need you.”

Dirk shook his head almost forlornly.

“You guys—I commend you guys. But I don’t think you understand... Sabra had an army of bikers, a network whose arms reach far greater than Askergan. And these are bad men. I commend you for what you are trying to do here, to stand up to them, I really do, but it is as your sheriff said. It’s futile.”

The sheriff grimaced, and then something in Williams’ face changed, as if Dirk bowing out was giving him permission to do the same.

They all needed to be in, he realized, even if
all
included a biker who he had just met, a muscular man who was probably just a general contractor or a union man by trade, a deputy whose resolve he had more than once questioned, and a troubled man who had lost everything and then some.

Thinking about the last man, about Coggins, gave him pause. Even though Paul had wanted Coggins to come back around, to rejoin the Department as a Deputy, an equally large part of him also never wanted to see his friend again.

Because not seeing Bradley Coggins again, never again hearing his stupid NHL trivia, would mean that the man had gotten out.

If there was anything that Paul had learned during his tenure as the Sheriff of Askergan, it was that this was no normal County. It had started with the blizzard, or maybe it even predated that, but regardless, once it started, the horrors that befell them all had snowballed and hadn’t stopped. First the shit that happened with Dana, then the drugs, slowly disseminating throughout the entire County, and then the crackers. It was as if every poison or plague imaginable had been unleashed on this corner of the northeastern United States, the once idyllic and beautiful County bereft of any crime greater than a stolen pack of bubble gum was suddenly awash with terror of the like that was better set in a horror film.

It had all gone to shit—and it had gone to shit on his watch.

Yeah, a big part of him wished that Coggins had gotten out. But another thing he had slowly come to realize about Askergan was that it had an uncanny way of drawing you back in, whether or not you wanted to be here…

This is only the beginning
, he thought suddenly.
More people are going to die here before the County is rid of the poison that has infected everything.

He swallowed hard.

If—if
he could rid the County of the Crab and whatever other fucked up plagues haunted this place.

The sheriff turned back to the men before him.

There weren’t enough of them; four or even five men weren’t enough to take on an army.

He swallowed hard, and opened his mouth to say something, to obey his initial instinct to tell them all to go home to sleep on it, when there was a commotion outside the door.

He raised his gaze, and through the window that wasn’t boarded up he caught sight of dozens of small lights. It took him a moment to realize that they were either torches or flashlights.

“What’s going on?” Coggins asked quietly.

The sheriff pulled away from the group and moved toward the door.

When he opened it, his breath caught in his throat.

There were more than two dozen people standing on the lawn, their faces identical masks of anger and disdain. He recognized a handful of them as citizens that had been part of the crowd in the station earlier in the day, yelling at him to do something. But while then they had been angry and frustrated, they were different now; not just angry, but
angry
.

And in the center of the crowd was a man with a medium build and a thick, dark beard wearing a priest’s collar.

The man was a priest.

Beside him was another man, one with a polar opposite expression to the man with the beard and the smirk, a man wearing a three-piece suit of all things.

And then there was a third man, the only one of the three that the sheriff recognized. Although his face was drawn, his eyes downcast, it was none other than Jared Lawrence standing beside the two others.

Sheriff Paul White wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad sign.

“Gentlemen,” the priest began, raising his voice for everyone to hear. “It appears as if you are short on manpower, and by the looks of it, firepower.”

With the word firepower, the men with the flashlights flashed the guns—a mishmash of pistols and what looked like hunting rifles—in their other hands.

“Let me introduce myself. My name is Father Carter Duke. I am here to offer my services. I am here to help you guys.”

There was a small uproar as the men on the station lawn shouted their approval.

“I am here for Askergan.”

The affirmative shouts increased in fervor, and something in the sheriff lifted.

He turned back to his men, who had joined him just outside the station doors.

Their spirits too seemed to have lifted. All except for Dirk, whose eyes were burning holes in the priest’s Godly fabric.

But that didn’t matter now; what mattered now was that the sheriff thought that they might just have the men that they needed to at least put up a fight.

Sheriff Paul White turned back to the priest.

“Father Duke, welcome to Askergan. And yes, we could very much use your help.”

The night air unexpectedly filled with the sound of motorcycle throttles. Everyone turned to face the two bikes that made their way slowly down Main Street. They were going too slow to portray any sign of aggression, and the sheriff immediately put his hands out at his sides, indicating for his men to stand down.

He spied Father Duke looking at him, a sly smile on his face, and the parishioners, if that’s what they were, followed
his
orders.

The way that they had obeyed the priest’s order, and had completely ignored his gesture, gave him pause; his relationship with the strange, smooth-talking priest was going to be a complicated one, he knew, but what choice did he have but to accept his aid?

After all, without him, they were four, maybe five men against… what? A dozen? Fifty? It was hard to know how many of the bikers had stuck around following Sabra’s demise. Clearly, if Dirk’s story had any truth in it, many would have fled. But some would have stayed.

Some
definitely
would have stayed.

Problem was, even when Sabra was alive he had been an enigma to the Sheriff, and now that he was gone it was impossible to even guess how many men he had at his disposal.

What was a clear, however, was that without the priest, they had no chance. But with him? With him, they
might
have a fighting chance.

A slim fighting chance, but still a chance.

“What do they want?” Reggie asked out of the corner of his mouth, and the sheriff just shook his head.

He had no idea what they wanted. Instead of answering, he said, “Be ready. Don’t fire first, but be ready for anything.”

In the end, despite Sheriff White’s appeals, they were not ready for what happened next.

The two bikers turned and stopped, their bikes idling on the opposite side of Main Street. When they shut off their lights, all the sheriff could make out were the burning cherries of their cigarettes.

He stepped forward, coming up beside the priest.

“What do you want?” he shouted, his voice cutting through the warm air.

For a moment, no one answered.

“Someone put a goddamn flashlight on them,” Paul grumbled, and several men obliged, bathing the men that were stationed forty or fifty feet away in a dull yellow glow.

It was clear by their shocked expressions that these men had not expected to see so many outside the station. They too, it appeared, were oblivious to the reach of the strange, new priest in town. This shock faded quickly, however, and their lined faces soon hardened.

One of the bikers slowly reached behind him, and the sheriff heard the men around him take a collective intake of breath.

“Stand down,” he said. “Stand down!”

With a flick of his wrist, the biked launched something into the air, some sort of plastic bag.

Several of the priest’s men scattered, and others still raised their weapons as if they were prepared to shoot the thing out of the air like a demented clay pigeon. But when they saw that it was only a bag, a large plastic bag, they thankfully refrained from shooting.

The bag was filled with a solid object that landed on the sidewalk in front of both the sheriff and the priest. As they watched, it proceeded to roll clumsily a few feet before coming to a complete stop.

“A gift,” the man who had thrown the basketball-sized object shouted. “An offering from the Crab—just to show he cares.”

The Sheriff didn’t immediately turn to the object. Instead, he held his ground.

“What does he want?” he hollered back.

The man laughed, then indicated the sheriff with an open palm.

“You,” he said with a chuckle. Then he turned to the priest, a sneer forming on his face. “Him. All of you.”

The other biker chimed in next.

“The Crab wants all of Askergan. The Wandry brothers will rule this town!”

The sheriff made a face.

Wandry brothers? What the hell?

He knew of Walter Wandry, of course, but
brothers
? What were these bikers talking about?

“What—“

But Paul never got a chance to finish his sentence. The two bikers jammed their feet down in odd synchronicity and their bikes roared to life.

As they turned and sped off, the sheriff stood in silent confusion for a moment. He realized that at some point during the standoff, Coggins had made his way to his side, while the priest had taken a few steps backward. Together Paul White and his longtime friend moved toward the bag.

“What is it?” Coggins asked, his voice laden with fear.