Predatory Animals Page 16

  A flame of recognition blazed in Pummel’s eyes. “You’re the guy that jumped in the river.”

  “That’s me.” Casper pointed to his bad leg. “So, do I have you to thank for this?”

  Pummel started to answer, but Patrick cut him off. “Cas, we don’t want to go down this road.” He put his immense hand on Casper’s chest and eased him back toward the car. “We can all get together for brunch sometime to kiss and make up.”

  Casper wanted to talk more with Patrick, but Maggie laid on the car horn, signaling it was time to go. He could see the fury in her eyes even at a distance. He knew he had bought himself a heap of trouble the moment he opened that gate. If he was lucky, the damage would be contained to just his marriage. But somehow, Casper didn’t think so.

  Free at Last

  “What were you thinking?” Nan asked in a shrill high voice.

  The sun had set and the staff of volunteers, trainers and dock workers had gone home for the night. The gates were all locked and everyone except two guards was called to the meeting.

  “It was the Marine and McTreaty,” Art said. “They were coming through gate thirteen in an attempt to sneak down to the control center.”

  “I understand that.” Nan extended her hands at him as if to gouge out his eyes with her slender fingers. “What I don’t understand is why this idiot pulled his gun.” The guard named Stodges squirmed in his seat. “Yes, we were watching for them. Yes, we didn’t want them to reach the control center. But there should have been no gun play in view of so many witnesses.”

  “She’s right.” Gordy folded his arms across his chest; his eyes were quickened with anger. “Until they resisted it should have been handled as any other infraction. Now whoever they are working for knows we have firepower and that we have something to hide. The cards are on the table.”

  Nan stepped over to her desk, grabbed her purse and fished around inside. Before anyone could even register what had happened, she drew a tiny pistol and shot Stodges between the eyes. The top of his head malformed; a splatter of red doused the wall behind him, and he fell straight down in a heap. The guards shied away from the body, while keeping a watchful eye on Nan.

  Gordy never even flinched. “Mistakes are not an option. Now we need to discuss damage control.”

  Art laughed and the room full of killers looked at him as though he were mad. “What damage control. If they were Feds they would have stormed the place by now. All we have to do is get rid of the three and we’re home free.”

  Nan put her gun away. “That would be fine, you moron, had there not been thirty people there to witness you replaying the fucking O.K. Corral. You touch them now and we’ll draw even more suspicion.”

  Art folded his hands behind his head, relishing the acrid stench of gun smoke overlaid by the salty brain matter floating in the air. “Accidents happen every day. Car wrecks. House fires. Anything could happen.”

  Gordy paced in a tight circle. “Let’s back up a moment. If Brown and McTreaty aren’t Feds then why have they been watching us?”

  “Maybe they’re just looking for some revenge.”

  Nan shook her head. “What are you talking about now?”

  “The cop, Wicket, had me pulled over on the bridge the day the Marine jumped in the river. I’m betting McTreaty is the one that fished him out. The three of them are buddies and for some reason think I’m responsible for the nut taking a swim.” Art considered telling the part where he threw the sack over the bridge, but decided to keep that to himself. “They’re pissed that he almost drowned and now they’re looking to start some shit.”

  Before anyone could argue, Coining glanced over at the surveillance monitors and said, “Oh shit.” The rear gate was open and two men drove out on a golf cart. “It’s Bastion and Felton. Where are the guards?”

  Coining reached down, clicked on his walkie-talkie, and a frightened voice flooded the room.

  “The cat is loose! Man down! I repeat, the cat is loose!”

  * * *

  Sly Felton sat in his golf cart, hidden amongst a copse of trees, watching the control center. Something strange was going on, and he didn’t like it one bit. Just as soon as the guards could usher the tourists out and dismiss the workers for the night, they high-tailed it to the building leaving just one man at each gate.

  Sly looked at his watch. This couldn’t be happening at a worse time. He was supposed to spring Bobby from his cell in ten minutes, but how was he going to do that now? They would see what he was doing and be on him in seconds. It wouldn’t work. They would have to attempt it some other night.

  Stop being a coward, he told himself. That’s what got you into all of this.

  He took several deep breaths, holding each as long as he could. He couldn’t afford to be afraid any longer. He was on borrowed time. Tonight had to be the night. He reached deep within himself and grasped the tiny kernel of courage hiding within the folds of cowardice. Either he would live free or die a slave. All that mattered was that he helped Bobby. Then perhaps he would regain his soul.

  Sly waited five more minutes then drove the golf cart down to the docks. He swiped his badge and stepped through the door into the darkened warehouse. The blackness about him was suffocating but he didn’t dare switch on any of the large halogen lights above. He groped in the darkness (banging his shin more than once) working his way over to the industrial refrigerator. When he opened the door, the bright white light inside bludgeoned his eyes. He stood helpless and blind, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps.

  When his eyes adjusted, he grabbed a gallon of pig’s blood from the shelf then stepped back out where the darkness was now not just endless, but tangible.

  He left the warehouse and used the secret door in the closet to access the tunnels. He walked with the gallon of blood hanging at his side, mindful not to swing his arm too much just in case anyone was watching him through the cameras.

  Sly kept his ID badge out because he couldn’t stop his hands from trembling long enough to fit it into his pocket again. With every swipe, at every door, he expected an alarm to sound. He was sure that at any moment, steel bars would drop and Art would come walking in with that demon’s smile smeared across his face.

  By the time Sly reached the cells he was just as drained as if he had climbed a mountain. He leaned against the wall, catching his breath and wondering how long it would take for them to find him if he fainted. He pushed off of the wall and stumbled over to Bobby’s door. Fortunately, Gordon Pummel didn’t believe in key and tumbler locks. He considered them slow and unreliable, two things that were unacceptable if you needed to make a fast break. It was electronic or nothing.

  Sly unlocked Bobby’s door and it opened a couple of inches by its own weight. Suddenly it seemed all too real. What if they had already killed Bobby? What if Art had tortured him until he gave up their plan? Art might be inside the cell right now with Wexxel and Coining just waiting for him to open the door so they could have a good laugh then blow his head off.

  The door swung open and Bobby Bastion stepped out buckling his belt.

  “What took you so long?” Sly’s whole body slumped as though the stress of the situation was an actual weight. He had been clenching his muscles so tight that now they burned like a wire that had channeled too much voltage.

  Bobby shrugged. “I’m nervous. I had to shit.”

  “How pleasant.” Sly handed him the blood. “Let’s hurry. Something big is going on and I don’t want to hang around to figure out what it is.”

  They left the cells and made their way through the maze of concrete hallways to the arena. From there, they entered into the bunker and followed the corridor to Penelope’s enclosure. At the top of the small staircase, near the sliding gate, Sly stopped.

  “Are you sure we have to do this?”

  “Yes. With that big bastard running around the guards will be more concerned about not being mauled than about where we are.”

  “But they might shoo
t her.”

  Bobby flashed him the annoyed but understanding look of an older brother. “And that would suck, but it’s better her than us, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes. You’re right.” He took the gallon of blood from Bobby, opened it and poured a small puddle on the floor. He handed the jug back.

  “Go and drizzle some on the ground toward the front gate,” he told Bobby. “Hopefully she’ll follow the blood and not us. I’ll give you five minutes then I’ll open the gate and head your way.”

  “What if she’s waiting just around the corner for you to open that door?”

  “Then my troubles are over. If I don’t catch up with you in ten minutes time then just assume I’m not coming. If you’re lucky the two guards will come to investigate without alerting all of the others. You might actually pull this off.”

  Bobby sped off leaving small splotches of blood along the gravel path. Sly checked his watch, marked the time and waited five minutes. Once again time took on a strange consistency, sometimes stretching long enough to live a whole life between seconds, while at other moments it seemed the minutes were skipping over each other.

  Sly took a deep breath to steady his nerves and still his trembling hands. He waved his ID badge before the scanner and cringed when the console lit up. His hand hovered over the button and he whispered a silent prayer for safety, not for himself, but for Penelope. He pressed the button. The gate rattled open.

  The shadows were alive, reaching in and blotting out the light with their inky hands. He had devoted his whole life to St. Francis; he had memorized every inch of the place. Yet now, as he plummeted through the dark pathways he felt confused and lost as though the topography had twisted beneath his feet.

  Sly stopped for a moment to catch his breath and listen. The night was unnaturally still, as if all of creation had stopped to watch this moment. He had expected screams or even gunfire by now, but no sound carried beyond the rasp in his own lungs. He began to wonder if Penelope had discovered her freedom yet, but then the clouds shifted allowing the moonlight to filter down. For a brief moment, he was sure he had seen something in that light. It was far down the path and had been no more than a flash, but Sly knew what he had seen: two tiny orbs, reflecting the moonlight in a ghostly green, watching him.

  Sly ran down the path on legs that threatened to unhinge and buckle. Penelope had never sought prey in the open before, and Sly prayed that tonight wasn’t the night she figured out how. He maneuvered around the twists and turns, no longer concerned with stealth. His lungs were on fire, his heart out of control, and the ground seemed to be falling out from beneath him. He exploded into the open area by the back gate, nearly tripped over Bobby who was lying face down with his hands behind his head, and was brought down by a hard strike to the gut.

  Sly tumbled over and over in the gravel, and with every turn he felt as if a little more of him had been sanded away. He came to a stop on his back, looking up at the moon and stars, and he knew he was not yet dead because he was in more pain than he had ever been in his whole life. A dark form loomed over him, eclipsing the moon. The barrel of a shotgun pressed hard into his cheek.

  “Fourteen, this is sixty-seven. Do you copy?” The guard held the shotgun in his right hand and his walkie-talkie in the left. His face was silhouetted by the moon, but it didn’t really matter which guard it was. They had been caught.

  There was a clatter of scattering gravel as the second guard burst into the open area. He doubled over for a moment to catch his breath, but quickly stood straight as if spooked by something. “We have a big problem. I think these two opened—”

  A massive entity emerged from the trees, washing over the second guard in a wave of claws, fangs and fur. He fired once—a great echoing boom—but Penelope tore open his forearm and his hand lost the strength to hold the gun. The man uttered a few desperate screams, but Penelope’s weight quickly pressed the air from him, rendering him silent. The giant cat grasped the man in her powerful jaws and whipped him around as though he were no more than a feather pillow. A terrible crack erupted from the man’s body, and he stopped struggling.

  The remaining guard dropped his radio and it landed with a loud clank near Sly’s head. He pulled the barrel of the shotgun from Sly’s face, brought it up.

  Without thinking, Sly pulled his knees to his chest, let out a primal war cry, and propelled his feet upward into the guard’s groin. The guard grunted, his feet left the ground and he tumbled backward, flinging the shotgun off to his right.

  The guard went for the shotgun without hesitation. Bobby Bastion—a man never to miss an opportunity—delivered a jaw-cracking punt to the man’s head and sent him barrel-rolling. Bobby ran past the shotgun to the guard’s station, leapt over the counter with all the grace of a gangly teenager and crashed into the wall behind. He jumped to his feet and slapped wildly at the buttons on the console, but nothing happened.

  Sly stood to his feet; the ground swayed beneath him, but he stayed vertical. Penelope growled as she walked a figure-eight in front of the dead guard. Sly backed away keeping eye contact.

  Bobby slapped at the buttons while chanting, “Open you bitch. Open you bitch.”

  Sly raised his ID badge and swiped it before the scanner. “There, try it now.”

  Bobby didn’t wait for the gate to fully open. Once it started to move he jumped the counter and went straight for a golf cart charging its battery near the guard shack. Sly followed and unplugged the cart. Bobby had wasted no time and was already driving, forcing Sly to run and jump into the passenger seat.

  A look of irritation crossed Bobby’s face. Maybe it was the stress of the situation, or perhaps merely an illusion created by the rolling shadows, but Sly had the strangest notion that Bobby hadn’t intended on waiting for him.

  Bobby pulled the cart over to the side of the road. “Help me shove this down the hill.”

  Sly checked the dark road behind them. “Why? Let’s just drive it on out of here.”

  “If you haven’t noticed this thing doesn’t get a real good speed going. We stay in this and we’re gonna get caught.”

  Sly watched the trees, stained black by the night and dancing their pagan cadence in the moonlight. “What about Penelope?”

  “What about her?”

  “I’m pretty sure she followed us out. She could catch up to us pretty quick.”

  “We’ll have to chance it.” Bobby put the cart in neutral. “Maybe she’s after us and maybe she’s not. I can guarantee you that the Pummels are hunting us. If you want to live through the night then put your shoulder into this thing.”

  Sly helped Bobby shove the golf cart off the side of the road. The cart rolled down the steep hill, vanished in the shadows, and came to a loud crashing halt somewhere below.

  Sly stood with his eyes closed. We’ll never make it out of this, he thought. There is nowhere safe we can hide.

  Bobby put his hand on Sly’s shoulder. “I want you to know I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. We still have to get out of these woods. Even if we can evade the Pummels, Penelope still might track us.”

  “I have a little plan to throw her off of the trail.”

  A broad smile split Bobby’s face just as a sharp pain, deep and full of fire, caught Sly in ribs. Bobby pulled Sly in close, twisted his hand and the pain tripled. He wrenched his hand back and suddenly Sly couldn’t breathe.

  Sly gripped his side and his hands were instantly wet. Even in the shadows he could see the blood soaking his shirt. A strange gurgling whistle issued from his punctured side.

  Bobby held up a toothbrush with the end sharpened to a point. “Here’s my plan. The cat tracks your blood while I get away.” He kicked Sly in the chest sending him tumbling backward to the bottom of the ravine.

  * * *

  Bobby Bastion stepped from the forest just before dawn. He thought that he was going in circles. The forest was drowned in shadow, leaving no sense of direction. W
hen he exited the trees it was like breaking the surface of the water just as your breath was expiring. He fell on his knees and looked up at the stars. He had never wanted sleep so much in his life.

  The moon leant the world a ghostly glow now that it wasn’t blotted out by the canopy of leaves. A log cabin sat in the middle of the opening, its windows dark and lifeless. He crept forward, his toothbrush-shank at the ready, keeping a keen eye out for movement. He assumed there would be a car in the house’s garage to boost. Maybe even some cash stashed away somewhere inside.

  Bobby crept around the side of the cabin, smashed a window in the garage and climbed inside. The gloom made it impossible to find anything of use. He opened the door of the car and the brightness of the dome-light stunned him for a moment. He had held a fool’s hope that the car keys would be hanging in the ignition, but no luck. No wallets, purses, or even spare change for that matter.

  Bobby slipped into the house. Trash and debris littered the floor and a foul odor met him right away. The litter had been piled so high in front of the door that he had to give a good shove just to get it to open. He reached over and tried the light switch but nothing happened. He maneuvered around the piles while keeping his nose buried in his shirt to combat the odor.

  He stopped just outside the kitchen and listened. Not even a cricket chirped. The silence weighed on him, creating a depth of paranoia he’d never known. He took short, shallow breaths, fearing that his normal respiration would ring out like a siren.

  Bobby searched through drawers, opened up cabinet doors, but he couldn’t find a set of car keys anywhere. On top of the refrigerator he found a heavy duty Maglite flashlight.

  In the living room the stench became unbearable. The scent of rot permeated everything. He ceased to breath out of his nose, but it seemed the air passing over his tongue had a vile taste. He could feel the putrescence upon his skin. He wiped at his watering eyes.