The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) (24 page)

“Motorcycles,” he said, as he picked
up his compound bow from the ground. “Have to move.”

“Where is Preston?”

A chorus of hounds joined the pursuit.

“Got picked up by these guys.”

“Well, where is he?”

“Don’t know. We’ll find him. Found
you, didn’t I?”

“How do you know he got picked up?”

“Tried to call him and heard his phone
ring from a fake cop car back by the tent. They got Pauly too.” Ben pulled
Preston’s phone out of his front pocket. “You got a little run left in you?”

I nodded, but he was already pulling
me ahead. We worked our way along the edge of the power line right-of-way
because the going was much faster than blundering through the forest. The
terrain looked fairly level for a few hundred yards. Rocky, but level. Dirt
bike paths that crisscrossed the right-of-way made the going a lot easier. But
it brought the sounds of Boggs and his guys closer that much faster. Little by
little the noise grew louder in the forest behind us. The leaves could no
longer muffle the rumble of those tailpipes. In the distance I saw the tall
stacks of an old power plant.
The real world.

“We need to stay in the trees.” Ben
pulled me in a new direction. “Was there any sign of Preston and Pauly back at
the camp?”

“Not that I saw. But I didn’t see
much. They had me in the revival tent last night. There were a lot of people
there,” I said, trying to keep up. “But there weren’t that many structures,
unless I didn’t see everything.”

“No, there wasn’t much to see. I
followed that police car back out a dirt road this way. Between the camp and
the river.”

“How’d you guys come in?”

“Main road. Parked in the trees on the
other side. I want to find that dirt road though. That’s the only place I have
left to look.”

Through the trees behind me I heard pickup
trucks—at least two, maybe three— bouncing away from camp.

He said, “Trust me.”

“How are we all going to make it back
to the car if it’s on the other side of the camp?”

“We’re not leaving the way we came
in.”

Ben pushed me to the ground as two of
the chrome-covered street bikes sputtered through the forest below. Not Boggs.
Ashby and another one.

“That the road?”

“Stay low,” Ben said as he walked
ahead, answering my question.

The guys got off their bikes and
walked toward a small, concrete shed. Ben handed me his bow, took a pistol out
of his holster and broke into a sprint.

As soon as I figured Ben was right
about Preston and Pauly waves of relief washed over me. I followed as fast as I
could, quietly, as he halved the distance between himself and the little block
building. Ashby still hadn’t seen him.

Ben managed to get within ten yards
without raising suspicion. He lifted his pistol and brought it down onto
Ashby’s hairless head. With one blow, the man dropped into the dirt. I ran
toward the shed.

The other man shouted into his radio
and raised an arm to defend himself. “The shed! They’re at the shed!”

Ben hit him and the radio skittered
across the gravel. Ben kicked him mercilessly until he no longer moved.

I arrived as Ben shot the lock off the
door, covering my ears perhaps a moment too late. Pauly and Preston stood at
the back of the tiny building, sweating and shirtless. I dropped Ben’s bow, and
ran past him to Preston.

He picked me up and kissed my neck and
cheeks.

“Katy!” I hadn’t seen him cry since
the night Stu died.

I knew it was really him by the way
his skin smelled. My eyes couldn’t be trusted.

“Let’s go,” Ben said, handing Pauly
his phone. “Call Andre. We got company.”

“How’d you get this back?” Pauly asked
as he dialed.

“Tried to call your sorry ass once I
found Katy and I heard it ringing in that cop car. You couldn’t tell they
weren’t real cops?”

“We could tell they had guns.” Pauly
followed Ben down the hill.

The trucks got closer. Another wave of
motorcycles came with them.

I grabbed Preston’s hand, holding him
back for a second longer. I said, “Why did you call her?”

He looked at me, and without preparing
an excuse, said, “Jane told me to. I’m sorry.”

“What did she take, Preston? Tell me
now because I don’t want to find out later that all this was for nothing.”

“What are you talking about?” Ben
asked as he turned. “We ain’t got time for this.”

“Nothing. Preston didn’t give her
anything. I got you covered.” Pauly held the phone up to his ear. “Andre? We’re
coming in hot. Keep an eye out for us.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from
Pauly. Preston turned his back to me.

“Damn it, Preston. What did you do?” I
pushed him away from me.

But he couldn’t say anything.

“Yalla, yalla, kids. Let’s move.” Ben
turned and started jogging again.

I walked past Preston and followed Ben
down the hill.

“I’ll fix everything, Katy. I promise
I will.” Preston let me walk ahead a few steps.

But there was always a price to pay.
Nothing in the world was ever free. I knew that. Ben knew that. Preston
should’ve known better.

“Let’s pick it up?” Ben pointed at the
hill where we’d crossed beneath the power lines.

Headlights cast long shadows through
the forest. They swept from left to right as the lead pickup negotiated a sharp
turn. The sun had set almost fully below the horizon. Enough light remained to
see our footing, but it faded fast.

“Where are we going?”

“The river,” Ben said. “Pauly’s buddy
is waiting.”

I looked over my shoulder. Pauly and
Preston were running side-by-side, a few yards back.

Ben said, “Take it easy on him, Katy.
He almost died for you. He may not want to talk about it, so I will. He let us
drown him this morning. That’s what your mom said to do, so he did it. Without
hesitation.”

I slowed down, because I didn’t want
to talk to Ben anymore either.

When Preston caught up to me, I took
his hand. I could feel the change in his touch as he recovered from the sting
of what I’d said back at the shed. Pauly ran ahead a bit, so I called for him
to slow down.

He turned, and I grabbed his hand too.
The three of us followed Ben down the hill.

At once, from the forest all around,
the sound of engines grew. Motorcycles and pickup trucks. Headlights swept the
forest from left to right then from right to left just as quickly. Hounds came
at us from the direction of the field. The three groups were converging right
on us.

“Move it, boys and girl!” Ben yelled
from farther down the slope. Through the trees ahead of him I could see the
night sky reflecting off water. A placid, silvery pool undisturbed by wind or
current. Peepers and bullfrogs called from dark nooks. The water returned their
calls to the night.

The crack of a hunting rifle cut
through it all.

“Oscar Mike!” Ben yelled. And after a
moment or two, the peepers resumed calling as if nothing had happened. “Let’s
go.”

Off to the far left I saw one of the
trucks drift to water’s edge. Headlights illuminated the entire pond. People
disembarked from the bed of the truck as a second pickup pulled up behind the
first. We followed Ben into black mud thick as tar.

A glow appeared over the water ahead
of us. A dim blue light like a pilot light in a gas stove. “Fairy fire,” I
said, but nobody listened.

Ben leapt into the water first. “Stay
in the shadows,” he said. “Don’t drift away from the bank. Pauly, call Andre
and find out where him and his old man are.”

“Are there alligators?” I said,
pausing at the water’s edge. More fairy fire appeared to our right like runway
lights, leading us to safer waters.

“No, now get in.”

Pauly let go of my hand and dug for
his phone. I paused to wait for him in the cold water. My feet sank into the
soft mud. The next step I took pulled my shoe off my right foot. The smell of
decay rose from the bottom. Old mud. Rot.

Ben said, “But there are snapping
turtles big enough to take your foot off. And giant catfish.”

I looked back and saw the people from
the church following us into the water. We had a good forty yards on them.
Headlights shone through the thin, white baptismal gowns they wore, creating
silhouetted arms and legs. The shapeless men and women swept across the water
like some kind of foggy wave. “Oh, shit.”

Preston and Pauly looked at the same
time. From the earpiece of Pauly’s phone I heard a man’s voice.
Pauly,
what’s going on there?

But Pauly couldn’t speak. Neither
could Preston. Not while Danicka took her place at the head of the pursuit. It
wasn’t so much that she’d come to lead them. It was how she led them.

“Fucking go,” Preston said, pulling me
ahead.

In a way, I wanted them to verify what
I saw. That Danicka walked on the water ahead of what remained of Hicks’s
church. As the men and women stumbled over submerged logs and tree roots,
Danicka glided. Like she was on ice skates. Preston’s and Pauly’s reactions
made it very real. Preston pulled me into deeper water. The chill made my
breath catch in my throat.

“Paul.” Her voice came from
everywhere, almost as if from the air itself. I released Preston’s hand to
cover my ears.

Pauly stopped.

“Get him!” Ben yelled. He shined a
small headlamp into the water ahead of us. Waving it back and forth over the
black surface. In the darkness I heard the buzz of a small motor, like a
dirtbike.

Preston retreated a few steps and
grabbed Pauly’s arm. “C’mon, brother.”

But Pauly could not look away from
Danicka.

The water got warmer as she moved
closer. My chill had been replaced by warm comfort.

A crash of branches and limbs grew
from the trees along the shore. Small yellow beams from a pair of flashlights
cut through the distance in a way the people in the water couldn’t. Boggs
yelled, “I’ll come at you where you sleep, girl.”

“Pauly!” I yelled.

Their flashlights skimmed the surface,
looking for us. The beams stopped when they found us, and Boggs squeezed off
three quick shots. Once Boggs realized he hadn’t drawn any blood, he resumed
his pursuit.

“Saint Paul told us not to act out of
self-centered motivation or vain arrogance. He said to humbly put the concerns
of others before your own.” The serpents Danicka held in her hands danced
spiral shadows in the white glare of the cold headlights. As the rest of the
church closed the distance between us, I could see that they, too, carried
serpents. But instead of the writing masses Danicka held, the people bore
vipers with fangs buried deep into the flesh of their wrists and forearms.

I heard a sharp hiss and turned in
time to see Ben nocking an arrow into his old bow. A tinkle of glass
accompanied the darkening of a pickup truck’s headlight, unbalancing the long
shadows cast by our pursuers.

“Shoot the rest!” I said, without
quite meaning too.

“Katy,” Ben said. “I got this. Head to
the boat.”

Preston pulled me and Pauly past Ben,
deeper into the darkness. From the shoreline Boggs thrashed through the trees.

Ben let loose another arrow, but
missed. He ran to catch up to us. The sloshing made it difficult to hear
anything else. He held his light up, shining it ahead of us.

Something moved past my calf and I
screamed. “Sorry,” I said as I spun, looking for movement in the water around
me. And I saw it in the dusky half-light. Slender fins slicing the pearlescent
surface. Backwater fish frantically swimming away from Danicka and the warming
water. A flurry of frogs and turtles and snakes threw themselves onto the
shoreline. Muskrats and other rodents fumbled through the darkness, scurrying
to get onto land.

“Andre!” Ben yelled, waving the light
over his head.

Shots rang out from Boggs’s position
on the right bank. Stray rounds ripped through fresh green leaves. Random,
inaccurate, splashes formed in the water near us.

Once again Pauly stopped. Preston ran
back to grab his arm and pull him ahead.

“Preston!” Ben and I yelled at the
same time.

Pauly twisted free of Preston’s grip
and stepped backward, away from us.

“Ben, help me,” Preston said. His
voice quivered with fear.

Ben handed me his bow as his rushed back
to get Pauly. Ahead, I could see a johnboat drifting through the channel. The
beam from a dim flashlight washed over me. I waved my arms.

“Paul, finding you is an absolute
inevitability.” Danicka moved faster now, leaving the church behind. “It’s time
to embrace the suffering. Suffering is the root of hope, and you, Paul Pallini,
are going to need all the hope you can muster.”