“That's classified information. So, let's go see his body,” Wilcox said, with a grim smile.
“I've seen it,” the doctor said, before turning to an orderly who was working diligently at a Sudoku puzzle book at the desk across the small infirmary. “You, private. Earn your keep and take the colonel to the morgue to view the remains of Hussein. He is to just take pictures, not disturb the body, you got that?”
The private stood up and said, “Yes sir.”
“Thank you for your help, doctor, what little there was of it will be in my report to General Heller. Lead on private,” Wilcox said, before stomping after the orderly.
The private led Wilcox through the giant inflatable infirmary tent, a hallway, and a storage area before pointing at an aluminum staircase that led up to the back of a refrigerated tractor trailer that had been backed up against the tent. He unlocked the padlock and opened one of the double doors.
A gust of frigid air billowed out as Wilcox started to climb the stairs.
Shuddering from the cold, he looked at the private. “Are there any parkas around here?”
“Yes sir, there's a few just inside hanging on the wall,” he replied, climbing up on a gurney and sitting down with his Sudoku puzzle book open in his lap.
Wilcox wondered at the stupidity of storing coats inside the nearly icy confines of the portable morgue before climbing up. He noticed the private absorbed in his book and almost asked if he was coming along before he caught himself. Better that I go alone anyway.
The stainless steel floor had a rubber mat that ran the length of the trailer down the center. The morgue drawers were stacked four high, lengthwise on either side. After shrugging on a huge parka, Wilcox examined those drawers that had placards on them looking for Aswan.
*****
Jake was bored.
He couldn't sleep any longer and lying around felt like torture. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up, he felt a brief wave of dizziness. He looked at the clear plastic tube that was taped securely to his arm and saw it was attached to a bag hanging from a pole.
The pole had wheels on the bottom and he grabbed onto it. He pulled it and was relieved when they didn't squeak. Of course, with my dad snoring like a chainsaw I could probably yell and no one would hear me, he realized with a smile, as he glanced at his dad stretched out on the big chair in the corner of the room.
Slowly, he let his feet touch the cold tiled floor. Slower still he let his weight slide off the mattress and onto his bare feet. His legs shook slightly as he rolled the pole and shuffled over to the window. He wondered what time it was as he stared across the slumbering city of Birmingham below.
It felt late at night or early in the morning. Either way, he felt much better standing and looking at the lights.
The needle in his arm was more annoying than painful and not for the first time he wondered what would happen if he yanked it out. He looked at the tubing and saw a blue clamp that would stop whatever was dripping into his arm a few inches from where the needle was taped down. What would happen if I yanked it out? I probably wouldn't die but who knows? He wondered as he felt the small clamp with his fingers.
As he pondered a quiet click and whoosh of air made him look up in alarm.
“What do you think you're doing?” An angry whispered voice called out, a moment before a fat woman with a grumpy expression on her face seemed to materialize before his eyes. She took him by the arm that didn't have the needle in it and marched him back to bed. “You get back in there before I get in trouble.”
Jake almost fell over as she pulled and pushed him back to the bed. “I didn't do anything wrong. I just wanted to get up for a minute,” Jake whispered back, as he was pushed onto the bed.
“Listen to me, boy, and listen good. I don't care what the TV people said about you being a hero and such nonsense. To me you're a patient and an annoying one at that. So you just lay back and go to sleep before you get me into trouble,” she said, while checking his IV tubing.
“Who said I'm a hero?” He asked in bewilderment.
“Don't you worry about that now. You need to go to sleep.”
“Well, I'll try but I'm really not sleepy. What time is it anyway and what's your name?” He asked as the fat nurse started to walk away.
She looked back at him saying, “I'm Nurse Sandman, and it's time for you to go sleepy time.”
Jake grunted in disgust as she went out of the room.
Staring at the shadows dancing across the ceiling, Jake wondered about what the nurse had said. A hero, who me? How could anyone mistake me for a hero? All I did was almost die at the hands of a nasty douche bag. He closed his eyes and tried again to remember something from yesterday.
Frodo and I were jogging to the football field. The gate was locked and I...I... we went through the culvert. I dropped my phone. I thought it was broken. But dad said I used it to call 911. He concentrated and felt something coming. I didn't call 911, the girl did. The girl I thought was an angel called for help. But why didn't she stay? A sudden image of Orlando swinging the crowbar down on Frodo's head and the sickening sound of the dog's skull cracking came to him with such vividness he sat upright in his bed and almost shouted out loud.
He killed Frodo! I remember the bones cracking and the blood. But just last night dad told me Frodo was staying with the Owens family. Was he lying? Why? Frodo didn't like the girl. He was barking at her. Jake looked over at the window. His head throbbed as he closed his eyes and tried not to think about anything.
It's a hard thing to try and not think, he thought. It's sort of like Christmas Eve, whenever I try to stop thinking about what presents will be under the tree the next morning. Or like when I try and not think of something horrible or gross, like road kill, it always seems to pop back in my head. A series of flashing unbidden images ran through his mind and he shook harder as they went faster, repeating themselves. Orlando killing his dog. The knife stabbing into his stomach. Orlando's evil smile.
And then he saw the girl looking down at him with the blue sky behind and her blonde hair shining in the sunlight. He focused on her face and slowly relaxed. She kept the whirling confusing thoughts away and gradually Jake relaxed. His last conscious thought, before drifting asleep with a smile on his face was, I think I'm in love.
*****
“Fuck!” Agent Hicks screamed as he jumped and stomped down on the copperhead snake that was moving toward him. He felt its head being crushed under his shoe as the body continued to spasmodically twist and move for a few more seconds. His heart was pounding hard, but he started to calm down as the snake finally stopped moving.
It was a short lived moment of relief as he spotted two more snakes moving toward him.
“Get up off the ground, you damn fool!” Sally yelled down from her rafter perch.
He took the advice and quickly climbed up on the hood of the old riding lawnmower. The thin rusty metal creaked and bent a little under his weight but he was out of reach of the snakes, at least for the time being.
“Why are you in here? And what’s with the handcuffs?” She called down.
“I'm with the FBI. Name is Agent Simon Hicks and a dirt bag I never saw before brought me here and locked me up. Now, you tell me, who are you?”
“I'm Sally McGee. This is my garage. Pleased to meet ya. You best be careful, there's a bunch more of those snakes down there and they're meaner than a cat tossed in a tub of cold water.”
Looking down, he saw one of the snakes go under the mower as a couple more came around the corner of an old crate. Reaching up, he grabbed onto a rafter and tried to pull himself up higher. The old board seemed solid despite the creaking and groaning sounds it made and he grabbed another with his other hand. It was very awkward to do because of his hands being cuffed around the support beam.
“Ooh, look out mister!” Sally shrieked, as she spotted one coming up over the mower's seat almost within striking distance on the man's legs.
Not
bothering to look down, Simon pulled himself up toward the rafters and swung his legs. It had been a long time since he'd done gymnastics in high school and he'd certainly added more than a few pounds since then, but luckily he'd kept up a rigorous exercise routine over the years and was still in very good shape. Swinging back and forth, he managed to catch a foot over one of the rafters and stopped to catch his breath.
“We're you in the Olympics?” Sally asked sincerely impressed.
Not answering, he kicked up and caught his other foot over another rafter. Hanging onto the creaking boards he thought, If it weren't for the handcuffs this would be so friggin easy. It feels like I'm doing a Harry Houdini trick for an audience of one.
His arms were already getting tired as he looked down and counted at least six snakes slithering around below. He tried to remember what he'd heard about copperheads. They're poisonous but people rarely die if bitten. But it's painful- very painful.
The rafter, his right hand was gripping, made an alarming cracking noise and that was all the warning he got before the board snapped. He jerked his head out of the way as a long section of wood clattered to the floor.
The tin roof groaned above him and bowed downward where the broken rafters supports had fallen away.
Sally felt bad for the stranger, but as the network of interconnected rafters shuddered she felt the old piece of plywood she'd been sitting on starting to break apart. Grunting, she hauled herself up and laid across four rafters. The narrow wooden edges dug into her body and it was all she could do not to start crying. It felt like the rafters were trying to slice her into four semi equal portions.
She looked over and saw the stranger had managed to climb up and was sitting on top of the wooden post, now that one of the rafters was gone. Because of the handcuffs, he was bent over low and he looked at her apologetically before speaking. “I'm sorry about this ma'am. I'm not much of a hero, I know.”
Despite the pain caused by her body being pressed against the rafters, she managed a slight smile saying, “That's alright young man. You're doing the best you can. And that's all the Good Lord expects of anyone.”
*****
Trembling and shuddering, Thomas closed the bathroom door and then as an afterthought locked it. Glancing up at the small window, he shook his head as he backed away from the door. For a moment he saw himself going out into the living room and confronting Duprat, but then he imagined what would most probably happen and decided to stay in the bathroom. Seeing that the door was lined up in a straight line to where he stood, Thomas stepped into the old claw foot metal bathtub and took several deep breaths hoping Duprat would just go away.
The doorknob jiggled for a moment and then there was a soft tapping sound followed by Orlando's voice. “Knock knock.”
Thomas pointed the shotgun at the door, took a deep shuddering breath, and waited.
“Hey gramps, I said knock knock. You're supposed to say who's there. What say we try it again. Knock knock.”
Thomas cleared his throat and yelled in a strained voice, “Get the hell out of my house! I got a shotgun and I'll use it if I have to!”
A long silence followed before Orlando asked, “Do you usually keep a gun in your bathroom? I think you're fibbing, old man. So, just open the door before you piss me off or just tell me where the keys to your truck are and I'll let you get back to sitting around gathering dust.”
“You ain't taking my truck anywhere. I got the keys and you ain't getting them either,” Thomas said, trying his best to sound tough.
Orlando sighed and backed up a step before kicking at the bathroom door. He knew the old man was bluffing about having a gun, but did believe him when he said he had the truck keys. The sturdy old door rattled in its frame and silently Orlando swore as his ankle bent painfully.
In movies it always looks so easy to kick in a door, he thought, while hopping on his other foot. Leaning against the wall, he pulled out the big Glock he'd taken off Hicks aimed at the doorknob and opened fire. The first two bullets slammed into the wood just above it, but the third seemed to vaporize the dull brass knob and the locking assembly behind it.
The bullet holes were rough, ragged and nearly the size of his fist. The door creaked as it swung partly open and Orlando called out, “Didn't hit you, did I grandpa?”
Favoring his uninjured foot he limped along, holding onto the wall for support, to the door and pushed it open.
Thomas saw the door swinging open and screamed as he fired both barrels of the shotgun simultaneously. Unfortunately for the old man, the recoil coupled with the damp slipperiness of the tub sent him tumbling backward.
The vinyl shower curtain (decorated with ducklings holding umbrellas over their heads) ripped free of the hooks that had been holding it up. The shotgun clattered into the tub as he fell onto the bathroom floor wrapped up inside the curtain.
Thomas saw a cute duckling smiling at him a moment before losing consciousness.
Orlando fell back on the floor when the shotgun fired.
This was only part of the reason he lived. The other was the type of door he was standing behind. Unlike most modern houses, the McGee's interior doors were built of solid wood. Had it been one of the common hollow core doors found in most newer houses Orlando would have been blown into several unsightly chunks of torn bloody parts.
Several small holes were in the door and through them Orlando saw light shining from the bathroom as he slowly and cautiously stood up again.
He was tired of playing games and fired the rest of the Glock's clip into the bathroom through the shut door. By the time the gun clicked empty, the door could hardly be considered a 'door' any longer except by the most generous of definitions. The hinges still hung tenaciously to a few ragged chunks of wood, but the rest was strewn across the bathroom in pieces both great and small.
Limping cautiously forward, Orlando dropped the empty Glock when he spotted the old man's crumpled body wrapped in a shower curtain and covered in bits of splintered wood. Pulling out Sheriff Harrison's pistol, he saw the key ring on the counter by the sink. He spit at the old man's body and said, “Should have just given me the keys you dumb, dead, old, fart.”
Picking up the keys, he turned and limped back down the hallway.
*****
“So you're a secret agent? Did you ever find yourself in a situation like this before?” Sally asked.
“No Ma'am. And like I said before, I'm not a secret agent. I'm a field investigator with the FBI,” Hicks said, trying his best to keep from showing his irritation.
“What's the FBI doing here in Ragland? Out looking for moonshiners? If you are, shame on you. My grandpa had a still once and if he hadn't a lot of my relatives would have starved to death back in the depression.
You'd think the FBI would be out looking for terrorists or something serious,” Sally said, trying to shift her weight so the top part of the rafters she was laying on wouldn't dig into her body so painfully.
“I'm not hunting moonshiners,” Hicks replied, as he felt his butt going numb from sitting on top of the support beam he'd been perched on for the last fifteen minutes. He grabbed onto a rusty nail that was sticking out of the rafter, that his hands were handcuffed near, and tugged on it for a few seconds before grunting in disgust.
“I'm out here with my partner investigating a report of something odd that happened with a man named Craig Owens. Would you know him?”
“Oh yeah, he's a sweet kid. Always brings us a pumpkin around this time of year and at Thanksgiving. Of course, I always make his family a pie in return. I make a fairly respectable pumpkin pie, believe it or not.
Thomas, my husband, always likes it with whipped cream on top. Personally, I'm partial to vanilla ice cream,” Sally revealed, as she rolled herself slowly across the rafters. “What do you want that nail for anyway?”
Gonna slit my wrists with it, he thought but answered, “I was going to try and pick the handcuff lock. It's hopeless anyway. The nail is too thick. What I
really need is a paperclip.”
“I saw a movie once where a guy used a bobby pin to do that. Could you do it with one of those?”
“What's a bobby pin?”
“Oh, you young people today with your hula hoops and internets.
A bobby pin is what a lady uses to hold her hair in place and it looks like this,” she said, reaching up into her gray hair and chuckling. She showed him a two inch long bobby pin in the palm of her hand.
His eyes opened wide. “Do you think you could roll over here and drop it in my hand?”
“I don't see why not,” she said, slowly rolling closer. “As long as you don't forget about getting me out of here too.”
Betty stood outside the shed peeking in through a small gap between the door and wall at Sally and a man she'd never seen before. She looked at the padlock that secured the door shut for several seconds as she held the pulsating sphere in both hands. It was still fluctuating between almost black and a forty watt bulb. The whining sound was at a steady low level that neither the man or Sally could hear inside. Betty saw a snake moving across the shed's floor and nodded slightly as she looked back at the two people up in the rafters.
Several gunshots from inside the house made Sally shriek from inside the shed.
Betty turned and saw a flashlight's beam in the tree branches back the way she had come through the woods. Her head tilted slightly before she looked down at the muddy ground for a few seconds. She turned toward the front of the house and saw three shadowy figures, stooped low, running up the driveway.
Whispered voices came from the woods and now a second flashlight beam joined the first.
Turning to the rear of the house, she stared at the wooden picnic table near the back porch. Squatting down low, with the sphere held against her chest, Betty remained motionless for a few seconds before leaping across the thirty-six feet of soggy grass and leaves and landing on top of the wooden table.
It creaked and a board cracked lengthwise as the legs of the table sank several inches into the muddy ground, but it didn't break as she looked back at the shed.