AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What the hell are you doing then?” A man yelled. There were at least twenty of them spread out across the eastern edge of the pasture, bleeding out of the forest like cockroaches when the lights went out.
“Now, Tom, calm down. The department is taking care of it.” Sheriff Malis stood before them, hands lifted, palms out. Someone bit out a string of curses.
“Look.” Teddi’s chin lifted toward the center area where the rock stood.
There was a new body on it. Naked, head bowed, knees bent, arms together as if in prayer.
Only he couldn’t pray with his palms together like the others. He had no hands. The dark red blood of the blunted limbs had overflowed off the sacrificial rock, painting its face in asymmetrical streams over the older, darker stains. Bruised across his exposed back were numerous thick marks, as if someone beat him with a baseball bat. The blue, purple, and red colors that bloomed across the lifeless skin were cross-hatched making a canvas of mottled cruelty.
Voices rose and Sheriff Malis again attempted to placate them as Vera looked the fifth victim over. She was seeing the crime scene in daylight for the first time and it was obvious it was different than the others. The number of beatings, the removed hands. There were deep lacerations around his orbital bones like he’d been stabbed as his eyes were removed. They hadn’t been there on the other victims.
There was a familiarity about the fade of his haircut, the brown mottled with crusted blood. She slumped against a tree trunk. The shape of him evened out with her realization. “It’s Deputy Gunson.”
“Goddammit.”
He was the closest thing they had to a lead and there he was. Mangled like a slab of meat. All the air left her lungs, leaving her depleted. She blinked hard, begging for the image of him to disappear. When it didn’t, any hope for resolution slipped through her grasp at seeing their lead suspect slaughtered.
“Fucking find whoever is doing this! You wanna be Sheriff then do your fucking job!” Her attention was forced on the mob where a man stood in front of the rest. He was tall and nearly as broad as Sheriff Malis. His skin was red above his beard, spit flying from his mouth as he stuck his finger in his face.
Sheriff Malis stepped forward. “Is that a threat?” The temperature plummeted at the ice in his words. He was not a man accustomed to being questioned, let alone by those he stood above.
The other man refused to back down, not sensing the danger that crept along everyone’s spine as they grew silent, weight shifting uncomfortably. Gazes passed from one man to another. “Take it however you want.” He sneered, looking the Sheriff up and down in disgust. “Your job is to protect Sylen and you haven’t done shit about it. You're in your position for one reason and I don't see you doing it. Why the fuck do we now have four dead men? Not to mention that boy they found in the woods. And why the flying fuck are there two outside cops poking around, huh? Al told me they’ve got a room at the Sleeper and everything. Nice and settled in.”
Vera watched as Sheriff Mali’s shoulders rose. Straight-backed and stiff, he looked like a dragon preparing to blow fire. “First of all, I don’t answer to you.” He looked across the group of them. “To any of you. I’m the Sheriff and that’s not about to change just because you fuckers got a little scared. The next man that questions me will find himself on that rock.” He hiked his thumb back at his dead colleague laying blind witness to the fight. “Secondly, don’t you worry about those little bitches, I’ve taken care of it.”
“They’re still here!”
“But who is killing us?” Someone else yelled anonymously from the crowd. The muscles in Sheriff Malis’s jaw bulged.
A man in a high-visibility vest shook his fist as he spoke, “Yeah, who the hell has the balls to take us out? We can all see Deputy Gunson is cut to pieces. No dick, no eyes, no tongue. No hands. Are the others like that? You told us it was accidents that took Adam and Jackson. Hell, you haven’t even said what happened to Reade but Davie found him. We know he was murdered just like Gunson. What the hell is going on, Sheriff? Sylen is supposed to be different.” The violation of their precious town seemed more of a shock than the deaths by the way his voice lowered.
“Sylen is still Sylen and you’d do well to remember that.” It was a quiet threat. Whatever that meant, whatever secrets that kept the town held together after its sordid beginnings, it managed to cut off their replies. “Now, go on home to your wives and your kids. Let me and the deputies worry about this little problem.”
“Our wives who keep asking us when we’re going to be next?”
Sheriff Malis stepped forward, nearly chest-to-chest with the bearded man. “If your wife is asking you those kinds of questions then I think you’ve got much bigger problems to worry about and you need to go home and fix them.” Vera’s stomach became a bowl of acid. The man seethed but said nothing.
Sheriff Malis spoke loud enough for every man in attendance to hear. “Go home. Comfort your wives that everything is fine and under control because it is. Nothing is changing about who we are, understand? Whoever is doing this will pay, believe me on that. There will be no quick justice for them when they’re found. They’ll suffer just as our men have suffered. Sylen was built on the backs of our fathers and no scared motherfucker sucker-punching us when we aren’t looking is going to change that. It’s being dealt with.”
Few grumblings rose but the crowd seemed mostly appeased by the reassurance of violence. When no one shot back a response, Sheriff Malis watched as they reluctantly melted into the trees, back the way they came. The glances back at Deputy Gunson varied from fearful to livid, brows pulled low and hard over their eyes.
Deputy Stocker stepped forward. Next to him was a man Vera hadn’t seen since the Sheriff’s shoddy attempt to run them out of Sylen. Deputy Isaac Butler. Baby-faced and wide-eyed, he wiped his upper lip on the shoulder of his uniform.
An inhale of his cigarette sucked in Deputy Stocker’s thin cheeks, eyes pinched as he looked at his boss. “What do you want us to do with him?” All three sets of eyes cast back on the rock where their former coworker knelt.
Sheriff Malis sighed heavily, lifting his hat to run his hand across his bald head. “Well, we can’t keep feeding them the bullshit ‘accident’ line any longer.” The men circled the stone, their boots squelching into liquid. Vera hoped it was mud and not pools of Gunson’s blood.
Deputy Butler looked ready to vomit, his face green. His hands shook as he took out his notepad. Deputy Stocker smacked the pad onto the ground, grabbing Butler’s lapels as he growled, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The younger man froze, eyes wide as saucers.
“Leave him alone, Stocker. He’s just doing his job.” Deputy Stocker looked at Sheriff Malis in shock, fists still clenched around the young man's uniform.
“You want him recording all of this?” Hands on his hips, the Sheriff dug in his pocket for something before speaking.
Pinching a thick wad of dip, he tucked it into his lower lip. “I told the boy to record everything. We needed a record for ourselves since it’s not going into the database to be tracked. We still need evidence of what this sick fuck is doing, Stocker. Besides, he did that fancy training over in Denver more recently than you and he caught on fast. He’s fine.” The elder deputy released Butler with a shove, knocking him back a few steps.
“Sounds like a good way to get the feds up our ass more than they already are.”
Sheriff Malis was clearly tired of the argument as he waved his hand at Deputy Butler to continue. Finding his notepad in the grass, he began. Shaken but focused, he examined the crime scene.
