TheBeastWithin Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Fire and Ice

  Previous Books in the DEAD MAN series…

  Face of Evil by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin

  Ring of Knives by James Daniels

  Hell in Heaven by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin

  The Dead Woman by David McAfee

  The Blood Mesa by James Reasoner

  Kill Them All by Harry Shannon

  The Beast

  Within

  Copyright © 2011 by Adventures in Television, Inc.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover art by Carl Graves

  Published by 47North

  PO Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN13: 9781612187662

  ISBN10: 1612187668

  The Beast

  Within

  By

  James Daniels

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Sorry, ma’am—we don’t take checks.”

  “You don’t, ah, take—?” The young woman looked up, worried, pen poised in her hand.

  “No.” The smirking clerk behind the grocery-store counter jabbed her fat finger at a scrap of paper taped to her cash register. “See the sign? Right there: No Checks. Plain English.”

  Matt Cahill, standing in the back of the checkout line, frowned. The clerk’s comment was out of line. First of all, the handwritten sign (which actually said No Check’s) was practically buried under a blizzard of Post-its, memos, notices, and fliers. Second, a good ol’ boy with oiled hair and a bolo tie had been allowed to pay by check only moments before. But most of all, the “plain English” comment seemed intended to embarrass the young woman with the caramel-colored skin and soft, foreign accent.

  “So no check…” she said nervously, patting the checkbook. “But I hev, ah, no credit card?”

  The cashier folded her arms over her chest. “Guess you’ll just have to pay with cash, then.”

  “Kesh. Yah.” Her accent seemed almost Russian. Matt couldn’t place it. He watched with interest as the woman took out a wallet and began pulling out crumpled bills, which she flattened and set on the stack of coupons already in front of her. “Here is…some kesh? But I don’t think…” Desperately she snapped open her wallet’s change pocket and poured out some quarters and dimes, which she set on top of the cash. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  “Looks like you better put some o’ that stuff back where you got it, huh?” the clerk said with satisfaction.

  “But I…” She threw a panicky look at the pile of milk, eggs, fruit, and baby formula that had gathered at the end of the counter. Bit her lip. Hesitated, then reluctantly picked up a bag of apples.

  “No need,” Matt said, and laid down a fifty-dollar bill.

  The young woman stared at it in surprise, then looked up at him. She shook her head vigorously. “No, I kennot accept…”

  “Sure you can.” Matt touched her elbow. “It’s okay.” Actually, the fifty was supposed to last him ‘til the following week—but what the hell.

  Something in his voice must have reassured her. Her voice softened. “You are sure?” she asked.

  Looking at her, Matt realized for the first time that she had large, moss-green eyes flecked with amber. They were so rich and warm that he began to feel tongue-tied. She looked, he decided, like the wide-eyed Afghan war refugee who had graced the cover of a famous National Geographic when he was a kid. He’d cut that photo out, kept it on his bedroom wall for years—mesmerized by her wide-eyed beauty. “Yeah, really,” he said, finding his voice. “It’s fine.”

  The woman sucked her full lips in, thought about it for a moment, then gave a short, grateful nod. “I will beckpay you?” she asked under her breath.

  Matt smiled. “If you like.”

  “Yah. I thenk you so much, ah…”

  “Matt.”

  “Matthew.” She swallowed, did a quick calculation. Said quietly, “You are not from here, Matthew.”

  “No.”

  “You will give me your address, then? Matthew?” The effect of her green eyes, and the way she repeated his name, made Matt’s blood rise.

  “Sure. I’ve got a card. It’s outside, with my bike.”

  “I will wait for you outside, then, Matthew. And, so you know?” She touched his wrist lightly. “My name? Is Roma.”

  Quickly she picked up her bags and walked out the door. Her every move was lithe, graceful. Catlike.

  Feeling a telltale prickle at the base of his neck, he turned to see the cashier glaring at him.

  “Do you have a purchase, sir?” she demanded.

  Matt looked down at his red plastic basket, which was filled with hamburger meat, frozen pizzas, and a dozen other items that were supposed to get him through the week. Then he looked at the four bucks he’d gotten back in change.

  Not gonna happen.

  He took out of the basket a single can of Hormel chili and a twenty-four-ounce Bud Light. “That’ll do it for today,” he said, and watched her turn as red as a chameleon. He laid down the cash, bagged the beer, and picked up the can of chili.

  “You know,” the clerk said, jabbing her finger at another handwritten Post-it, “we’ve got a policy about leaving unpurchased items at the register.”

  “Well, make an exception for me,” Matt said. “Just like you made an exception to your check-writing policy for that old fart with the bolo.”

  The cashier’s jaw dropped. “That was Judge Thompson, for your information. He’s lived in this town for fifty years!”

  “And he still can’t read?”

  The cashier slapped her big hands on the counter and had just begun educating Matt when she was cut off by a loud shriek.

  Matt shoved through the glass door. There in front of him, the girl with the accent was sprawled on the pavement. She gave an agonized cry. Her groceries were spilled everywhere. Her right ankle was twisted upward, and Matt saw that it was entwined by one end of a thin chain about nine feet long.

  The other end of the chain was in the fist of a goateed young guy in camouflage army fatigues and jacket. He wore a black knit cap embroidered with a Confederate flag, and he was grinning wildly.

  “Lookit here, boys—I just caught me a raghead trout!”

  Approving laughter from his three friends. Matt took them in at a glance: all three were dressed in camo as well—not the crisp fatigues of the newly enlisted, but the wornout army-surplus gear that was the preferred uniform of deer hunters in small Michigan towns like the one Matt was in. The biggest guy was bald, wore white-and-black winter camo, sunglasses, and a dark neoprene face mask. H
e sat watching from behind the wheel of a big black ATV.

  The other two were skinny, with patchy red beards, and had a yellowish, smoker’s tinge to their skin. They looked like twins. They were both playing kick the can with a container of green beans that had fallen from the woman’s bags.

  “Reel her in, Keith!” one shouted.

  “I’m tryin’,” the Goatee said, laughing, giving the chain a tug, “but she’s a fighter! Must weigh a hundred twenty at the—”

  The rest of his sentence was lost when a can of Hormel chili, going about seventy miles an hour, hit him square in the mouth. Keith let out a muffled grunt, dropped the chain, and fell back onto his butt.

  “What the fuck…?”

  “Look what that bastard done to Keith!”

  Matt wasn’t listening. He was at the woman’s side, helping her up. She was terrified, gasping in pain. When he lifted her, he saw that her palms were bloodied from her fall.

  “Got to get you to a hospital,” he said.

  Her green eyes were huge with fear. She yelled something in a language he didn’t understand, then, pulling away, cried out, “Behind—behind you!”

  Matt spun just in time to see something metal flashing at his face. He raised an arm defensively and a steel ball bearing the size of a golf ball whipped around his wrist, trailing a thin chain that led to the hand of one of the redbearded twins.

  What the hell?

  A split second later he was yanked off balance by the twin, who was a lot stronger than he looked.

  A fierce humming sound: Matt twisted his head to see the second twin slinging a similar chain in a glinting wheel above his head. He released it—there was a flash of steel and a metallic whisper as the links shot forward like a striking snake—and Matt felt the ball bearing slam into his thigh with the force of a hammer.

  Matt stumbled, and the first twin gave the chain on his wrist a sharp jerk, slinging him to the ground, where he rolled once and came to rest at the wheel of a motorcycle.

  Which was lucky. The motorcycle was Matt’s: an old Yamaha bought with money he’d earned from chopping eight cords of wood. Attached to its seat were two saddlebags and a three-foot-long object wrapped in bound canvas. In a single movement, Matt unbuckled a leather strap and pulled the canvas package off the bike.

  And not a moment too soon: the first twin immediately started dragging Matt away from the bike, while the second, giving a rebel yell, spun and flung his humming chain a second time.

  A second before the ball bearing would have punched a hole in his skull, Matt raised the long canvas package up, gripping the wooden handle that extended a few inches from one end. The chain wrapped around the object with an insectile whine, and when the second twin gave it a jerk, the chain slithered free, ripping the canvas wrapping off.

  Revealing an ax.

  The ax was beautiful: its head was more than seventy years old, had been forged by Matt’s grandfather from the iron of a meteorite that had ripped through his barn one Christmas Eve. The handle was a perfectly balanced slant of blond oak that Matt had cut himself. The head and handle fit together in a lucky-number-seven shape that fit his grip perfectly. It was his livelihood, his one heirloom, and the only work of art he would ever own.

  And it came in handy in situations like this.

  In a heartbeat, Matt slapped his bound wrist to the ground and swung the ax with his free hand. The blade chopped effortlessly through the thin chain and bit deeply into the macadam. Matt stood. When the second twin slung his chain again, a strange calmness came over Matt, and it seemed to him he could see the ball bearing snaking toward him in slow motion.

  He swung the ax like it was a Louisville Slugger. His aim was true: the ax head sliced the bearing off, and the thin chain rattled harmlessly past.

  Painfully—his leg hurt like hell—Matt limped toward his two assailants, holding the ax. “All right,” he panted. “Can we end this? Or do you two bastards still want to dance?”

  The yellow-skinned twins backed away from him, their eyes wide with hate and fear. “Keith,” they yelled. “Keith!”

  Matt had no idea why they’d call out their goateed friend’s name until he heard a whunk to his right. He glanced over and saw a perfectly round, inch-wide hole that had been punched into an El Dorado’s silver door. He turned back toward the grocery store and saw why.

  Keith was standing behind the retreating twins, grinning. His lip was split from the Hormel can, and his teeth and chin were slick with blood. In his hands, he held a slingshot. It wasn’t a wooden, whittled, Tom Sawyer sort of slingshot, either, but a deadly tactical deal with a grooved pistol grip and fluorescent yellow, tubular latex bands. These bands were, at that moment, being stretched back by Keith’s right hand, which clasped the next ball bearing within a leather release pouch.

  Matt’s gut clenched. He held up a hand. “Don’t,” he said.

  “Kiss off, bitch.” Keith pulled the leather pouch all the way back to his squinting right eye and released.

  But not before Roma—with a loud shout—had thrown herself against his shoulder.

  There was a wet crunch, and the twin to Matt’s left jerked forward and spat out all his teeth. He stared down at them in confusion and dropped to his knees, as if to pick them up. He swayed there for a second, then flopped face forward onto the street—revealing a bloody hole at the base of his skull.

  Everything started happening at once.

  The still-standing twin shrieked out his brother’s name and ran to him. The big bald guy in the winter camo and sunglasses gunned the ATV. It lurched forward and swung right up next to Keith and the remaining twin. Baldy ripped down his neoprene face mask and shouted, “Load him up now, load him the fuck up.” The two followed his instructions, screaming that they were “gonna revenge us on that motherfucker.”

  In the meantime, Roma ran across the street to where Matt stood frozen in his tracks and grabbed his hand. “We have to go!” she cried.

  Matt’s head was spinning. “I think…I think we need to wait for the police…fill out a report or—”

  “No! We have to go now.”

  Matt was about to argue about the legality of leaving the scene when he caught a better look at Baldy. He was still wearing the sunglasses, but now that he had ripped down his face mask—and turned his way—Matt could see that his white skin was laced with hundreds of inflamed red veins that pulsed across his face like the interlocking grooves of a jigsaw puzzle.

  Matt knew what that meant: time to get gone.

  “C’mon,” he said, and pulled her back to the Yamaha. He quickly strapped the ax to the back, got on, keyed in, and gunned it.

  “Climb on,” he said.

  She hesitated, looked back over her shoulder at the huge, black ATV. Matt noticed for the first time that it had an armored grill studded on top with a row of steel spikes the size and shape of rhino horns. Its tires were massive, with a three-inch-deep slanting tread. Painted over its grill were evil-looking slit eyes above jagged fangs. And below that, in red letters, was the word “RAHOWA.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  He didn’t have time to figure it out. Everyone had climbed into the ATV, and Baldy twisted the wheel and hit the gas. It shot forward—straight for Matt and Roma.

  Roma didn’t hesitate. She leapt onto the Yamaha’s backseat and wrapped her arms around Matt’s chest. As she did, he wrenched the handlebar to the right and slued onto the sidewalk. He let the throttle out, peeling forward in a cloud of scorched rubber just as the ATV rammed into the rusty Buick Century he’d put between them. It hit the Buick so hard that it knocked the front half up onto the sidewalk, where it crashed into the storefront where Matt and Roma had been only a moment before. The store’s display window shattered into long blades of glass and clashed to the pavement.

  Matt roared down the sidewalk, heading for the intersection. As he approached it, he heard a screeching sound behind him and glanced back. Baldy had wrenched the ATV in reverse, to li
ttle effect. Matt saw that the stainless-steel spikes lining its hood had gouged deeply into the Buick’s frame, and when the ATV tried to pull back out onto the street, it had pulled the Buick with it. Baldy, Keith, and the upright twin were all screaming and trying to pry the vehicles apart.

  Good luck with that, Matt thought, seeing how deeply the spikes were embedded. And then, with a chill that prickled the hairs on his neck: That could have been us.

  At the intersection he took a right and pulled away from the fray. Thought of something. Turning back to Roma he asked, “Where exactly are we going?”

  “My home, please.”

  “Sure. And where’s that?”

  “It has no address. But if you listen? I will take you there.”

  He nodded, let the throttle out. Her arms tightened around his chest, and they were off.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Matt followed Roma’s directions, and together they sped through the small town. I didn’t take long. The town of Wittman had a population of only four thousand.

  Matt had arrived that morning, looked around a bit. Every other storefront in the downtown was closed. The ones that were open consisted of the Jewelry Loan, the VCR-Repair Shop, the Pro-Life Bookstore, a grocery/gas station, an antique store that specialized in bladeless pocketknives and Ku Klux Klan memorabilia, and a dingy diner called The Cosmopolitan. There were also, directly across from each other, a liquor store that sold guns and a gun store that sold liquor. The town’s main function, Matt guessed, was to ensure that every fall hunter and winter snowmobiler was fully equipped with ammo, antifreeze, a Bible, a bottle, a Hot Pocket, and a Glock.

  Halfway out of town, Matt asked Roma over the Yamaha’s roar who the thugs had been and why they’d attacked her. But she didn’t respond.

  Matt let it go—for now. Christ, she’d basically killed one of them, saving Matt’s life in the process. He thought back to the red-bearded twin’s look of bewilderment as he saw his ivories take flight. Thought of the brother’s rage and Keith’s Kiss off bitch. These were not people who would forgive and forget. Once he returned Roma to her home, he was going to have to get out of the county by nightfall. Especially considering what he’d seen in the face of the big guy, Baldy.