Poaching Grounds: A gripping psychological crime thriller (Carolina McKay Thriller Book 4) Read online

  Poaching Grounds

  A Carolina McKay Thriller

  Tony Urban

  Drew Strickland

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  From the Authors

  More from Tony & Drew

  Copyright © 2021 by Packanack Publishing, Tony Urban & Drew Strickland

  Visit Tony on the web: http://tonyurbanauthor.com

  Visit Drew on the web: http://drewstricklandbooks.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  “He who shall hurt the little wren shall never be beloved by men.”

  William Blake

  “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”

  Alejandro Jodorowsky

  Chapter One

  Kirk Spangler was a man of simple pleasures. Some would call his life pointless, maybe even worthless, but he muddled through and made do. He had no qualms about his station, or aspirations of anything greater.

  Everything he needed could be found under the roof of his double-wide trailer. His wife, their three kids, and the two mutt dogs who’d wandered onto his quarter-acre plot during a snowstorm a few winters back.

  His job at The Hopkins Cement Factory was hot, dangerous, and so damned dusty it left him with a smoker’s cough even though he’d never smoked. Despite those negatives, the pay was shit and he had many mouths to feed.

  With the price of groceries going up seemingly every day, he had to find other ways to put food on the table. Fortunately, his number one skill - maybe his only skill - helped keep those bellies full. Kirk Spangler was a crack shot, especially with his hand-me-down Marlin rifle and the scope he’d saved up a full half a year to buy.

  Deer and turkey were his primary prey, but he wasn’t against taking down a rabbit or a grouse or even a groundhog when pickings got slim. No possums, though. A man had to draw a line somewhere.

  The problem with being good at hunting was that the seasons were so damned short. It left many a month where his family ate beans and franks three nights out of seven. When he followed the law, that was...

  Kirk was no criminal mastermind, that was for certain. He’d tried his hand at that sort of life in his younger years, pulling an eight-month stint in county jail for breaking and entering to prove he wasn’t any good at it. There were men who could pull off petty crime without getting caught. And make a good living at it. But, as mentioned, Kirk was not a man of many skills.

  Raymond Douglas, however, was such a man.

  Raymond Douglas was a name Kirk had heard in passing through the years, but it wasn’t until Kirk’s buddy Frank Rosdel had introduced them that they became acquaintances. Together, the pair who looked a bit like white trash versions of Laurel and Hardy - Kirk being the tall and lean one, Raymond the short and fat fellow - formed a partnership of sorts.

  Despite his lazy disposition and sour attitude, Raymond had connections. People who were willing to pay top dollar for the racks of prized bucks. He also had a one-eyed taxidermist buddy who would mount the heads out of season, no questions asked, so long as he got a third of the share.

  Raymond was a shit shot, though, and that’s where Kirk held up his end. Ray let Kirk do the killing while he sold the mounts. For his work, Kirk got his own third of the money, plus the meat. That was how they’d operated for going on five years.

  It was how they were operating on the worst night in all forty-eight years of Kirk Spangler’s life.

  “I’m telling you, there’s a big fucker around here. Caught it on a trail cam last week,” Raymond said, his voice about as discreet as a buzzsaw. “Sixteen points.”

  “Sixteen points, my ass,” Kirk whispered, his voice so low it didn’t carry more than a few feet.

  “Sixteen, sure as shit. I wouldn’t lie about that no more’n I’d lie about having a ten-inch cock.”

  Kirk, who’d heard far more stories than he cared to remember about Raymond’s fabled ten-inch cock, kept his mouth pinched shut while his eyes surveyed the area. Over the years, he’d learned to mostly block out Raymond’s incessant chatter. For someone so adept at breaking the law, the man had zero concept of stealth.

  “Do you see any--”

  “Shhh.” Kirk raised a hand, wagging his slender fingers at Raymond, who caught on quicker than usual. Thank God for small favors, Kirk thought, then squatted down, peering through the laurel branches before him. “Ho-lee sheeeeeit,” he whispered.

  Raymond hunkered next to him, using his three hundred pounds to shoulder him aside with ease as he stole Kirk’s line of sight. “Told ya it was a monster,” he said, this time having the good sense to whisper.

  It turned out that Raymond wasn’t wrong. Kirk watched the white-tailed deer as it gnawed on last fall’s leftover acorns. But its head was up, eyes wide and alert, ready to be spooked at any moment. Kirk squinted as he counted the points on the antlers, not once, but twice.

  He shook his head. No way.

  “Twenty,” Kirk whispered.

  “Huh?”

  “That damned buck has twenty points that I can see from here,” Kirk said, keeping his voice lower than ever.

  He tried to remain calm, but his pulse quickened at the thought of taking down such
a choice animal. It wasn’t just beautiful, one that would make a great trophy, but he guesstimated it went two hundred and forty pounds. Maybe two sixty. Hella big for southeast Ohio.

  Of course, that head and rack wouldn’t go in his home. It would end up in some rich prick's house, hanging above their fireplace so they could brag to all their rich prick friends.

  That was how the world worked. Poor folks did the dirty work while rich pricks took the credit. But a freezer full of meat and a pocket full of cash were more important to Kirk than a trophy or bragging rights.

  He shouldered his rifle, placing the barrel just above the branch in front of him. He took a deep breath, keeping his heart rate steady despite its protestations. July’s humidity assaulted his flesh even though the sun had set half an hour earlier. Raymond’s heavy, excited breathing next to him didn’t help matters any.

  Kirk watched and waited. Waited and watched. Finally, the beast turned, and Kirk knew it was the perfect time to take the shot.

  He squeezed gently, steadily increasing pressure until the rifle went off.

  “I know I got it,” Kirk spat at Raymond.

  “Coulda fooled me,” Raymond said, pulling his foot free from a tangle of dead branches on the forest floor. “A deer ain’t gonna run for miles or more if you hit it good.”

  Kirk frowned. He didn’t feel the need to educate Raymond about how hunting worked. Couldn’t see the sense in informing the man that even a mortally wounded deer would run until it couldn’t anymore. Run until it bled out or its heart exploded.

  But the man wasn’t all wrong, either.

  This deer had travelled far further than any animal he’d shot before. Even further than his first kill, a button buck that he’d shot in the ass end way back when he was nine years old. Even that animal had gone down in under a mile.

  Kirk knew he had hit the monster deer. But having someone as fat and lazy and inept as Raymond second-guessing his skills was giving him a head trip.

  His feet crunched over dead branches, eyes darting furtively in every direction, searching, seeking. Just when he thought he was wrong after all, that he’d somehow missed the buck, he spotted what he was looking for.

  Blood.

  It was only a few drops, but proof enough that he’d not only shot the deer, but that they were on its trail. Kirk let loose a sigh of relief, just quiet enough so that Raymond wouldn’t hear.

  “This way,” Kirk said then continued headfirst into the heavy brush. He was intent on finding the buck and proving that Raymond never should have doubted him.

  Even though he was far from an expert tracker, now that Kirk was on the trail, it was impossible to lose. Snapped branches, fallen leaves, divots in the moist earth. Anytime the deer had taken a hard turn or stopped to catch its wind, it left behind a puddle of blood so big that Kirk was beginning to wonder how in the hell it was still upright.

  When this hunt had begun it was just shy of dusk, but darkness had rapidly taken hold. Another fifteen minutes out here in the wild, far from street lamps and security lights, and it would be pitch black.

  Kirk had hoped they’d be on the road by now, but plans didn’t always turn out the way you wanted. Any hunter worth his spit would spend all night tracking down a wounded deer rather than let it suffer or, worse yet, be easy fodder for coyotes or the rogue, feral boar.

  Kirk wasn’t going to give up, but Raymond was less committed.

  “I don’t know about this,” Raymond said.

  Kirk shook his head silently, keeping his eyes glued to the trail as he progressed forward. “What don’t you know?” he asked, keeping his voice low more out of habit than for any practical purpose.

  “Seems off, somehow. Like we’re being watched. Don’t you feel it?” Raymond asked.

  Kirk lifted his gaze to meet the linebacker of a man for a half second. Raymond wasn’t a hunter, but he was as calm under pressure as any half-decent criminal. But now the bravado was missing from his voice, replaced by unease. It was an unusual development.

  “It’s just the animals,” Kirk assured him. “I’m sure we’ve got more than a few sets of eyes on us.”

  Raymond’s ham hock arms, exposed by his camo tank top, undulated in a shiver as his gaze darted to and fro. “I think we should get out of here. Might be that asshole, Kingsley.”

  Sid Kingsley was the sole Game Warden in Hopkins, Ohio. While Kirk had no love for him, he also knew Sid was one man in charge of more than four thousand acres. The odds were in their favor.

  “That shiny new pickup he drives don’t go off road, and he’s too lazy to hike in here,” Kirk said.

  “I saw him at The Coffee Pot the other day. Gave me the stink eye. What if he’s onto us?” Raymond asked.

  “If you’re gonna be this paranoid, stay home from now on. All’s you’re good for is helping me drag ‘em out anyway,” Kirk said, not bothering to cloak the annoyance in his voice. Then he pointed to the ground, where the largest puddle of blood he’d seen yet had accumulated. “We’re good ‘n close. Ain’t no way he got more than a few hundred yards from here.”

  That seemed to calm Raymond down, or at the very least it got him to shut up. Kirk pushed on, charging through a thicket as dead branches and thorns clawed at the exposed skin of his arms, neck, and face. He felt one latch onto his cheek and leave behind a shallow, bleeding trench. The brush felt like miniature hands trying to grab hold, to force him to stay put and proceed no further. Like it picked up on Raymond’s too-cautious attitude and was trying to hold him back from whatever lay ahead.

  But Kirk refused to give in. Not now, when the biggest buck he’d ever shot was theirs for the taking.

  Finally, after what felt like half an hour of pushing through the dense foliage, he emerged into a small clearing where crabgrass and fescue grew high and untamed. The dying buck had cut a clear path through it, but hadn’t made it all the way across and to the other side where the forest recommenced.

  Its desperate, instinctive dash had ended at the three-quarter mark. And it laid there, little more than a black mass in the night. Only the reflection of the waning gibbous on the blood that coated the animal’s fur allowed it to be seen.

  Is it dead yet? Kirk wondered to himself as he strained to discern whether the deer’s chest moved, or if any foggy breath escaped its nostrils. But it was too dark. Too black.

  “I can’t see a goddamn thing out here,” Raymond muttered.

  “Tell me about it.” Kirk said, fishing the flashlight from his belt. His thumb dropped to the switch and pressed it with a hollow click. The flashlight flickered, as it always did, no matter if the batteries were fresh or not. He reminded himself for the hundredth time to buy a new model, but for now it was all he had.

  Brief bursts of light, so bright his eyes couldn’t adjust in time, flashed and vanished, flashed and vanished. Then, as it always did, the beam came on to stay and Kirk directed it into the clearing.

  The eerily white LED light illuminated the tall grass swaying in the gentle breeze. Then, he pointed it at the dark shape. At the buck.

  The animal was sprawled on its side, chest hitching in shallow, desperate breaths. Its fur, golden brown in the summer season, had gone crimson, stained with its own lifeblood. It would be dead in minutes. So soon that Kirk could hardly justify spending a bullet, but watching it die slowly seemed inhumane. Cruel, even.

  He reached with his free hand for the rifle. In the process, the flashlight careened awkwardly side to side, lighting up random patches of the meadow.

  “What the fuck?” Raymond plastered his short, wide body against Kirk as if shielding himself.

  “What?” Kirk’s annoyance with the man, which had been fading, rushed back with a vengeance.

  “Something’s out there!” Raymond pointed at a dark area in the clearing.

  Kirk elbowed Raymond away, making room to breathe. He wanted this whole fiasco over with as soon as possible. But to do that, he had to stomp down Raymond’s paranoia once and for all.
So, he shined the light in the general direction the man had pointed.

  As the light settled on the earth, he saw Raymond wasn’t wrong after all. Something was there.

  Not something.

  Someone.

  A woman stared at him with empty, pleading eyes.

  Kirk opened his mouth, maybe to speak, maybe to gasp, maybe to scream. But no sound came out.

  Her face was battered and bloody, the skin flayed to the bone at many places. It was so awful that Kirk couldn’t bear the sight of it. He let the flashlight beam drop, the light skittering away from her pallid face and onto her torso.

  That was even worse.

  The woman hadn’t simply been murdered; she’d been massacred. It was like some animal, probably a bear, had used her as its own all-you-can-eat buffet.

  The light continued to sway across her naked flesh.

  What little of it there was, anyway.

  Her breasts had been ripped to shreds. Her left tit flopped to the side, torn straight down from the nipple. The white fat from its interior was exposed and glistening, like the inverted silk liner of a purse.