She'd looked at cars for a couple of hours and thought she found the perfect one until the salesman ran her credit and said there was no way she could get it. A few days earlier her old car's engine had seized up and she didn't have anywhere near the money needed to fix it. Her little boy was complaining of a stomach ache and her seven year old daughter was tired and kept leaning back against the old man standing behind them.
Thomas put on his best innocent grandfatherly smile and spoke up. “You look tired little lady. Here, let me help.” And before the woman could say anything Thomas picked up the girl and rested her against his chest.
The little girl snuggled against him as the mother looked momentarily worried. “You really don't have to do that. I mean... she's much too heavy. We should probably just go home anyway.”
“Nonsense. She can't weigh more than a dozen Bibles. I'm Thomas. I help out down at the First Holy Redeemer Primitive Baptist Church and trust me I've carried much heavier loads for the Lord, although certainly none as sweet,” he lied with a sincere looking smile on his wrinkled face.
“Are you sure?”
“A burden is never a burden if you're serving the Lord.”
“Well, thank you, Thomas,” she said, before bending over to swat her son on the backside for whining about his stomach hurting.
“It's my pleasure,” the old man said, holding the small girl tightly and sniffing her hair whenever the mother wasn't looking.
“How many beans do you reckon are in there?” She asked, holding tightly to her son's wrist.
The boy was pulling harder and kept saying the word bathroom repeatedly.
“Maybe a few thousand,” Thomas said, while watching the boy as a devious thought bloomed like a prickly, foul smelling, weed in a vacant lot. “Ya know, ma'am, I could keep your place in line if you want to take your little man to the restroom.”
She looked at the line of blue and green plastic port-o-potties nearly a hundred yards away, that the dealership had put out for the occasion, and sighed before looking at the boy with her eyebrows harshly drawn back. “You really gotta go?”
“Yes mama. Gotta go bad. Please,” he said drawing out the last word as if his very life depended on it.
She looked at Thomas and for a second she had a doubt. It was an itchy ill-formed thought in the back of her mind. The old man seemed harmless enough as her daughter snored peacefully in his arms with her mouth hanging open. And surely he wouldn't do anything to her, especially with thousands of people milling around. I'm just being paranoid.
“Thank you. We'll be right back. Come on, Paul, and for God's sake will you please stop whining,” she said walking him through the crowds.
Thomas looked around and saw no one seemed to have been paying any attention to what had just happened. The men behind him were talking about something they'd heard on the radio regarding a death at the high school and the people in front of him were joking around about the value of the Yugo.
Although it was almost cool, with a slight breeze, he broke out in a sweat as the little girl slept peacefully against his chest. I can't believe she left her daughter with me. Doesn't that woman understand how many perverts are around, he thought, feeling his heart beating faster. If the girl were a bit older maybe I could... I'd never hurt a child, but maybe while she was asleep I could do something. My truck's not very far away. It would only take a minute and we'd be back before her mother returned. Oh God forgive me, I can't help it. I've got to do it.
He shuddered and turned to step out of line.
*****
Cobwebs coated the bare light bulb making the gloomy shed difficult to navigate for the old woman. Sally had found dozens of interesting things she'd almost forgotten about; a regular treasure trove from decades passed.
She discovered a tall plywood cutout of the Easter Bunny complete with a basket of multicolored eggs that they used to put out in the yard when their kids had been young. Despite having been in storage for almost two decades, it was in remarkably good shape. The painted colors were a little dulled with time, but she thought with a little touch up it would look as good as new.
Smiling at the bunny, Sally went to another badly deteriorated cardboard box with the rather unhelpful words 'old clothes' written on the side. It had been duct taped shut and she struggled to get it open. Wish I'd thought to bring a knife or something, she thought, using a fingernail to pick at the stubborn tape.
Her cat ventured a few feet inside and yowled a loud warning. There was a smell it definitely did not like inside the shed. It wondered why the woman, who gave him food and usually seemed reasonable, would willingly place herself in danger.
“I'll feed you later, Thomas. I gotta get Miss Betty something warm to wear. You have a fur coat so you probably don't even know it's getting colder. But trust me winter is coming and don't you doubt me,” she said, feeling the tape coming loose.
Yanking hard on it, the box which had been dined upon by a wide variety of different types of bugs and rats over the years didn't so much open as disintegrate. Piles of partially rotten, partially eaten, pants and shirts fell to the dirt floor. But it was the family of extremely agitated snakes that immediately caught Sally's undivided attention.
She could see maybe half a dozen squirming scaly reptiles mixed in amongst the clothes and they were on the floor between her and the open doorway.
Their heads were a bright copper color that faded slightly along their bodies, mixing in with splashes of dark brown hourglass shapes. Sally's hearing wasn't as good as it had been when she was younger, but her eyes were working perfectly in spite of the bad lighting.
“Copperheads!” She screamed, jumping up on a small wooden crate and proceeding to try and climb the wall to the line of rafters above as the can of bug spray fell out of her coat pocket.
Thomas took a quick look at the snakes before turning and running away.
*****
Officially, police departments do not condone the beating of prisoners.
Unofficially, Orlando Duprat would offer a different opinion. His left eye had swollen shut and he wasn't certain but thought it likely he had at least two broken ribs and maybe a concussion to go along with a colossal headache. Moving even slightly elicited pain in nearly every area of his body, especially his swollen and bruised testicles. After the beating was finally over he felt them tenderly and was scared by how large they'd swollen. Even if he lived long enough to speak with a lawyer, Orlando doubted he would be able to identify any of the officers who administered his beating since he'd been blindfolded at the time.
Laying on the concrete floor, he spit out another gob of blood and wondered vaguely if he was going to die. He recalled near the end of the 'interrogation', as the officers had called it, one of them said he was lucky it was just attempted homicide of a cop. If he'd been successful they'd have given him something, that Thomas McGee would have been horrified to learn was called The Pervert Piercings. They didn't elaborate of what would be pierced, but Orlando could guess and was extremely grateful Deputy Fulton would survive.
Sheriff Harrison pulled his car into the parking lot of the Ragland Police Department.
It was a small building befitting a small rural town. Two civilian cars were parked nearby and he assumed they were the officer’s personal vehicles. He was pissed off as he climbed out and slammed the car door behind him.
Even though his daughter had said she understood when he told her he had to leave her wedding reception because of an emergency, he knew she was rightly and royally pissed off. And what infuriated him most was that she was right to be mad.
Still wearing his rented tuxedo, he crossed the parking lot and lit a cigarette. Half hoping the wanna be cop killer was dead; he opened the front door and went inside. He recognized the deputy sitting behind the counter but couldn't recall his name.
“Sheriff Harrison! What are you doing here? No one said you were coming in?” The old deputy said as his eyes opened wide while jumping to his feet.<
br />
The sheriff smiled weakly as the deputy raced to open the connecting door to the lobby. When he entered the office he remembered the deputy's name and wondered why the old man's face had starting turning red.
“Hiya Matthews. How you doing?”
“I'm fine sheriff, just fine.” He looked at the tuxedo and seemed bewildered before he slapped his head and continued. “The wedding wasn't today was it? Gosh darn it, I'm sorry somebody bothered you about all this with it being your little girl’s big day and all.”
“It's okay. She's a big girl, scratch that, she's a big married woman now. Is Mr. Duprat enjoying his accommodations? I've got a car coming down to take him to the county jail anytime now.”
The deputy's face turned a brighter shade of red as he looked away. “Um, he had an accident.”
“Damn it! What did you guys do? If he's dead I'll give your hides to my daughter as a belated wedding present.”
“He's not dead, just um... tenderized a bit,” the deputy said, sincerely hoping he wasn't going to be fired only nine months short of his retirement.
The sheriff held his pissed off expression as long as he could before laughing and clapping the relieved deputy on the shoulder. “You had me scared. I like that, tenderized a bit.”
Laughing together, they went to the hallway and back to the holding cells.
Orlando heard people coming and shut his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he tried to be as still as death while listening to the footsteps coming closer. Pretending to be dead was an old trick and he knew it probably wouldn't work yet couldn't imagine a downside to trying it. If it doesn't work, they'll laugh and probably beat me up again. However, if I can get surprise on my side who knows?
Seeing Orlando Duprat's bloody face and motionless body curled up in the fetal position, Sheriff Harrison did something he rarely did over his long career. He made a mistake.
“Damn it Matthews, open this gate and go call for an ambulance! If that sack of shit's dead or dies in custody we're all fucked!”
Orlando smiled inwardly as he heard the cell door swing open behind him and someone hurrying over to his side. He waited and willed himself to remain limp as he was rolled onto his back. The sound of running footsteps retreating away down the hall coupled with someone leaning over him listening for a heartbeat was all the opportunity he could have hoped for.
Orlando opened his one good eye, smiled into Harrison's surprised face, at the same moment he punched him in the throat and stomach.
Harrison's eyes opened wide in shock as he tried to stand, but Orlando swung his legs around at the same moment.
The sheriff felt his windpipe flare in burning pain as he lost his balance and slammed headfirst against the fairly filthy metal commode bolted to the wall. Sprawled out on the cell floor in his rented tuxedo Harrison looked not only dead but also extremely out of place.
Hurrying over, Orlando searched him and found a small automatic pistol strapped in a shoulder holster and a set of car keys. He slid a round into the chamber as footsteps came back down the hall.
“Ambulance should be here in ten minutes. Is he okay?” The deputy asked, just before reaching the open cell.
“I'm fine, old timer. You're a sweetheart to care,” Orlando said, pointing the gun at him.
“What?” Matthews asked in confusion while reaching for his sidearm.
“Don't try and grow a brain at your age, you'll just hurt yourself. Who else is here? Tell the truth and I won't shoot.”
“There's just me,” the deputy said with his hands held part way up in the air in surrender.
“I believe you,” Orlando said and fired three shots into the stunned man's chest.
Matthews flew back against the blood splattered cinder block wall before sliding to the floor in an untidy dead heap. Slipping the sheriff's gun into his pants pocket, Orlando unbuckled the deputy's gun belt and staggered down the hall laughing.
*****
Running in hospitals is generally frowned upon by nurses. And the head nurse at Children's Hospital Intensive Care Unit also didn't care for anyone running through the halls. She heard the running footsteps before she saw the man and moved to block the hallway leading to the Intensive Care Unit as he came closer.
A voice filled with pain echoed as she stood with her arms outstretched. “Jake!”
The man belonging to the voice came around a corner. He was a big man, crying as he ran and through the tears didn't seem to see her. She moved to the side and waited until he was about to run past. He was big but so was she and using her bulk, she slammed him against a wall. A security officer came around the corner as they collapsed in a heap on the floor.
“Where's my son?! Jake!”
The head nurse moved over and sat on the big man's stomach, pinning him down, as the guard arrived.
“Sir! You need to quiet down or I'll have to call the police.”
“My son's been stabbed. The cops told me he's here. Where's Jake Carver,” he gasped, unable to catch his breath let alone shout any longer as the nurse remained uncomfortably seated on top of him.
The guard had been chasing the big man since he'd driven into the emergency room parking lot. The man's truck had squealed to a stop and he bailed out leaving the engine running as he ran inside shouting for his son. A nurse told him they'd moved Jake to ICU and the chase was on. Ignoring the elevator, he ran up five flights of stairs screaming for his son most of the way.
Gasping for air under the nurse, he finally stopped shouting and the guard was bent over with his hands on his knees panting for breath. A younger nurse nearby took a photograph with her phone's camera and shook her head with a grin on her face.
The head nurse leaned over and said softly, “If you'll quit running around and screaming I'll get off of you and we can go see about your son.”
The man nodded and managed a weak, “Yes, please.”
The guard and younger nurse helped lift her up and the man got shakily to his feet. He wiped his tear covered face partly dry as he caught his breath.
Two minutes later, Jim Carver was standing next to his son's bed sipping from a bottle of water as he looked down.
A young redheaded doctor, with a long ponytail, came in holding a chart. “I heard you were around here. Of course, I think people on every floor of the hospital heard you were here. I'm Doctor Holly Irvins. You have quite a son, Mr. Carver.”
“You saved him?” Jim asked, looking adoringly at the young lady who might be just out of her twenties.
“I was the attending trauma surgeon, yes. I don't know what you've been told, but Jake's in no danger. He was amazingly lucky.”
“Lucky? He was stabbed by a maniac and almost died,” Jim said, in a husky tired voice.
“I meant that he was lucky the knife seemed to miss any veins or arteries and vital organs. In my experience, a wound like he suffered is almost always-” She saw the man wasn't in the best mental or emotional shape and let the final word, fatal, fall away. “It's actually as close to a miracle as I've ever seen.”
“When can I take my son home?”
“We still need to run some more detailed scans of his skull. The preliminary X-rays show he suffered a nasty concussion and what has me most concerned is that he hasn't regained consciousness.”
“Is he in a coma? Will he come out of it?”
“From what we've been able to tell so far, no, I don't think he's in a coma.”
“I'm not leaving,” Jim said stubbornly, as if expecting an argument, sitting down in a large leather chair beside his son's bed.
“I don't blame you. He's an amazing boy, Mr. Carver.”
“He's all I have left. His mother died when he was just a baby. He's my life. He's everything in the world to me.”
She patted him gently on the back as the big man leaned forward and started to cry softly.
*****
The unmistakable stenches of vomit and excrement wafted around the small bright blue and green plastic port-a-potty outhou
ses like a foul invisible cloud. With lines several people long, the young mother and bladder flopping son were both growing more anxious as time seemed to cease its forward movement. No one had gone in or out of the little buildings for a few minutes and several shouts of “Hurry up” had been issued by those in line, yet the doors remained shut.
The boy was determined not to pee his pants. He wasn't a baby any longer and hadn't suffered the embarrassment of wet pants since that time at Sunday School when he was three, and that was nearly two years earlier. Hopping on one foot and then the other while biting his lip seemed to help slightly.
As worried as her son was about embarrassing himself by having an accident, his mother was even more ill at ease. She felt a growing dread that she'd made a horrible mistake by leaving her seven year old sleeping daughter with a man she didn't even know.
Television shows were always warning parents not to leave their children unattended or with strangers and she'd heard enough terrible stories over the years that as the minutes stretched out she wanted to scream in frustration. Standing up as tall as possible on her tip toes, she turned and looked through the thick crowds but couldn't spot the stage where the old man was watching over her sleeping daughter. What was I thinking? He could be doing anything to her and what if he's run away with her? He could be doing- No. I've got to calm down. He's just a nice helpful old man. I'm getting all worked up over nothing. Not every man is a molester, she thought, while the strong foul aromas seemed to grow stronger. She began to suspect the port a potty doors had been glued or welded shut.
Her son squeezed her hand and she saw his eyes were open wide in alarm. Oh shit, he's gonna lose it.
“Hurry up! For fucks sake, what are you doing in there!? Growing a tail!?” She found herself yelling.
“Mommy?” The boy said, looking up with an agonized expression. “I can't hold it anymore.” Tears were rolling unchecked down his face.
She grabbed his hand and quickly walked him beside the port a potties to the short wall built of cinder blocks that surrounded most of the dealership parking lot.