Cannibal Country (Book 1): The Land Darkened Read online

  She released the dead man’s hair and his upper body hit the table with a floor-shaking thud. “That was damned uncalled for. And now I’m pissed.” Doris stomped into the back room, out of sight.

  Barbara thought the woman was hiding and, as several more bullets came through the walls, realized that wasn’t a bad idea. She looked to Wyatt who was busying himself reloading his pistol, then to Seth who managed to grab one of the undrunk shots and made it disappear. She made a mental note to scold the boy later. If there was a later.

  Trooper finished reloading the .38 and grabbed another gun from the duffle bag Wyatt had carried inside. He checked its magazine, saw it was loaded, and extended it to Barbara. “Want this?”

  She shook her head. She knew how to handle a firearm and could plink a soda can off a stump from time to time, but she knew that pistol would be better in his trained hands than hers. “You keep that one. Give me the revolver.”

  He did. Then he checked Seth’s shotgun, which was filled to capacity minus one shell.

  “Are we going to shoot our way out?” Seth asked and Barbara thought his voice sounded giddy. And drunk.

  “I’d rather not waste all the ammunition we only just acquired.” Trooper drew back the slide on the pistol, chambering a round.

  “Then what? We wait for them to come in and get us?” Seth said.

  It was a fair question. Barbara knew they were outnumbered and likely outgunned. There seemed to be no good options and, for the hundredth time since leaving Maine, she cursed herself for taking her boys from their home. Because the paradise she’d promised them seemed more impossible with each passing day.

  A gunshot and another bullet punched through the wall. That one shattered a framed picture of a dog with a cigar in its mouth

  “Fuck waiting,” Doris said. Everyone in the room turned to the woman and found her holding what Barbara first took to be a lime, but she hadn’t seen fresh fruit in almost five years so that couldn’t be right.

  “Is that--” Barbara didn’t get to finish the sentence.

  “A grenade,” Trooper said.

  “M67. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion and I’m pretty sure this qualifies.”

  She moved toward the doorway, not even flinching as more bullets tore through the walls. Barbara didn’t know where this woman had acquired her set of brass balls but wished she had half her courage. As it was, she was just glad someone seemed to have a plan to get them out of this mess.

  “I worked too hard for this shithole to let those assholes shoot it up.” Doris unlocked the deadbolts and reached for the doorknob, but Trooper put his hand over hers before she could turn it.

  “Let me,” he said. Barbara wanted to tell him no, to let Doris who they didn’t know, be the one to risk her life, but she knew Trooper wasn’t that kind of man.

  Doris looked him up and down. “You were a cop, right?”

  “Maine State Police.”

  “I could tell. You got the posture of one. And I know you boys got egos the size of Jupiter’s moons so don’t get offended now, but there’s no way in hell I’m gonna let you have the fun of blowing those ugly fucks to bits.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Barbara asked. “I mean, this place is your home. We’d understand if you want to stay impartial.

  “I didn’t know you cared so much, sugartits.” Doris used the hand that wasn’t holding the grenade to push some sweat out of her eyes. “But you’re right, this is my home. At least, it was before Big Josh and his cronies showed up a couple years back. Now it’s a prison and we do as told. And I’m too old for that shit.”

  She turned the knob halfway, then looked to the others who were grouped together just a few feet from her. “I’ll lob this. After it goes boom, I expect you folks to go out guns blazing, and finish off whoever’s left, alright?”

  Everyone nodded.

  And Doris opened the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Wyatt half-expected Doris to get blasted the moment she threw open the door. That would have upset him not only because she was helping them, but because he’d grown rather fond of her.

  She didn’t get shot. Instead, she chucked out the grenade like she was a gold medal shot putter, then slithered back inside behind the relative safety of the door frame.

  Someone outside did shoot and a bullet flew through the doorway before embedding itself in one of the tables. Then, Wyatt heard someone yell, “Hairy mother-humping balls!” Then, the detonation of the grenade had his ears ringing and he couldn’t tell whether anyone else chimed in.

  He imagined there was plenty of screaming and moaning and maybe even some crying. Part of him, a part he tried to pretend didn’t exist, wished he could hear their sounds. After all, they had tried to kill him and his family. But, he supposed being momentarily deaf might be for the best.

  Trooper was first out the door and, despite his ringing ears, Wyatt felt muffled gunfire. He realized he shouldn’t be watching Trooper and should join the fray and then did just that.

  He spied a few men upright, but not many. Most were on the ground, in pieces. T-Bone had been ripped in two at the waist, his bottom half a good yard away from the rest of him with just a few ragged ropes of intestines connecting the dots. The card cheat had both his legs blown off and bled out facing skyward. Wyatt wondered if he’d seen the light before expiring, but doubted it. Several of the men he’d seen taunting Allie were in similar, wretched condition and out of the game.

  Mohawk stood, dazed and staring at the stump that had once been his right arm like he’d been the victim of a sinister magician’s prank. He spotted Wyatt and examined him with wide, confused eyes. “I lost my fuckin arm, man,” he said.

  Wyatt nodded. “I see.”

  “Will you let me know if you find it?”

  Wyatt wasn’t sure how to answer that one. He had better things to do, after all.

  As he surveyed the carnage, a machete-wielding man charged him from the side. By the time Wyatt noticed the would-be attacker in his peripheral vision the man was barely a yard away. Wyatt moved to raise his gun but, before he could get off a round, the man’s head disintegrated in a kaleidoscope of red blood, gray brain matter, and white bone.

  As the man fell, Wyatt saw Trooper standing, pistol raised, smoke wafting from the barrel. Before Wyatt could even nod his head in thanks, Trooper turned and sent a slug into the chest of a rotund, bearded man who’d been aiming a rifle in their direction.

  Wyatt heard Seth’s wheels crunch over the detritus on the ground behind him and realized his ears had mostly stopped ringing. Then he realized he could hear the plaintive wails of the few who had been injured by the grenade but hadn’t yet bled to death. It was an abominable sound and he cursed himself for missing it earlier.

  “Shit, brother, old Troop just saved your ass twice in under a minute. Maybe you should stop daydreaming and join the party.”

  Wyatt turned to him and shrugged his shoulders. “Guess I got caught up in the moment.”

  Barbara put her hand on Wyatt’s shoulder and gave it a firm, reassuring squeeze. “Are any of the bad guys left?”

  Wyatt wasn’t sure. There were a couple of men alive but no one was shooting at them anymore. Somehow, it seemed… safe.

  Trooper rolled over a lifeless body. At first, Wyatt thought he was making sure the guy was deceased, but when the old man leaned in close and took a good look at the dead fellow’s face, Wyatt understood what he was really doing. Trooper was identifying the dead.

  “Trooper?”

  His friend looked to him. “I haven’t found Josh yet. This isn’t over until--”

  A gunshot severed the sentence.

  Wyatt saw it. The orange fire of the torches glinted off the bullet as it sliced through the air. If Trooper had been an inch taller, it would have taken the top of his head off, but he wasn’t, and it didn’t. Instead, it slammed into a building.

  Trooper jumped back from the body he’d been examining, stumbling
as his foot hit a divot in the pavement. His knee, his bad knee, twisted awkwardly to the side, bending at an angle Wyatt was certain human knees were not supposed to bend.

  The man didn’t make a sound but Wyatt saw his lips seize and eyes squint and he knew Trooper was in pain of the severe variety. He dashed toward Trooper, wanting to assist him, to help him off the street, but didn’t make three steps before there came another gunshot. And that one hit its mark.

  Trooper toppled sideways. He managed to partially raise his left arm and broke the fall with his elbow. And break his arm in the process. Wyatt heard the crunching of the bone breaking and it reminded him of cracking hard-boiled eggs before peeling off the shell. Then Trooper was on the ground.

  “Wyatt!”

  The feminine voice snapped his attention away from Trooper. He thought it was his mother and he tried to find her, worrying that she’d been shot too, but before he could find Barbara he was tackled to the ground.

  He landed hard, the force knocking the gun out of his hand and sending it skittering out of reach. He grabbed for the knife at his belt.

  Another shot. He didn’t see that one, but he heard it go by and realized it would have hit him if he’d still been upright. As he tried to make sense of that, clumps of hair fell into his face.

  The person who’d taken him to the ground wasn’t an attacker at all. It was Allie and now she looked down on him with half a smile on her face.

  “You can thank me later,” she said.

  Another bullet hit the road beside them, sending shrapnel in the form of concrete and shards of lead their way. Wyatt felt hot pain as some of it embedded itself in his upper arm. “I will. But for now, let’s find some cover.”

  They scrambled to their feet, sprinting to the sidewalk and kneeling behind a cement bench. It was only then that Wyatt realized he was squeezing her hand. “Sorry,” he said.

  He threw it free like a man who’d just found out his piece of prized fudge was actually dog shit, then felt bad for being so rough.

  “I didn’t mind.” Allie wasn’t looking at him, which was for the best because he wasn’t only embarrassed about the hand-holding, he was damn scared too and he was certain his face was as easy to read as a grade school primer.

  Allie pointed across the street, toward a storefront where a picture window was half-shattered, leaving behind the remnants of a sign reading Priscilla’s Sewing and Alte--

  “He’s in there,” Allie said.

  “Josh?”

  Allie nodded.

  Wyatt had no clue what to do. His gun was in the street and retrieving it would be a suicide mission. Trooper was down and motionless. Wyatt didn’t want to believe it but he knew there was a fair chance the man was dead.

  That thought, even without knowing whether it held a semblance of truth, was almost too much for Wyatt to handle. He didn’t know how they’d go on without Trooper to lead them. How he’d go on. In the last five years the old man, cantankerous and crotchety as he could be, had grown into Wyatt’s best friend and surrogate father. He’d taught him everything he knew about being a man, but he still had so much to learn.

  What if it was all over?

  He wanted to cry but refused to give in, partly due to the fact that Allie was beside him, and also because a man across the street was trying to kill them. But even more so because he knew Trooper would want him to push past his pain and get on with what really mattered. He needed to protect his family.

  “What are you doing?” Allie pulled at his arm as he stood.

  “What needs to be done.” Wyatt shook free of her grasp. “You stay here.”

  She stared up at him, her pale eyes plaintive. He wondered if he’d ever see them again as he left her.

  Wyatt ran crouched over. A bullet zipped past him. Another ricocheted off the road near his feet. He ducked behind a wooden post holding up a metal awning. It was a third as wide as he was and offered a scant amount of protection, but it was better than nothing.

  He took a moment to survey the scene. The door to the bar hung ajar and through it he could see Seth and his mother. Their eyes met. Barbara’s were wet with tears and he saw her gaze shifting between himself and Trooper’s still motionless body in the street.

  He considered telling her It’ll be okay but didn’t want to lie. Supper sat at Seth’s feet and Wyatt was relieved the see the dog had stayed inside where it was relatively safe.

  A shrill wolf-whistle echoed through the near vicinity. Wyatt sought out the noise and found its source across the street, two buildings up from the store where Big Josh had set up his shooting gallery.

  Graham, the man from the hostel slash grocery store, was plastered against the wall. He held a gun so long Wyatt thought it looked like something from Revolutionary War times. His mouth moved in silence and Wyatt realized he was mouthing something to him. But between the dim light and the distance he couldn’t quite make it out.

  Again his mouth moved. Slower, more deliberate, like he was speaking to an old person who was hard of hearing.

  Hoover who.

  That made no sense. Even though Wyatt had near perfect eyesight, he squinted and tried to pay close attention.

  Cover you. I’ll cover you.

  The lightbulb went off and Wyatt cursed himself for not catching on sooner. He nodded, then held up three fingers. Graham was quicker on the uptake and knew the deal straight away.

  Wyatt dropped one finger. Then the second.

  On the third, Graham ran toward the window from which Big Josh had been shooting. He leveled the rifle and shot. The remaining glass burst in a glittering cascade that looked like raining fire as the light of the torches glinted off the falling glass.

  Wyatt was too busy sprinting into the street to enjoy the spectacle. He snatched his pistol in mid-stride. Graham shot again, this time through the black abyss of the sewing storefront.

  Graham got off one more shot before Wyatt was at his side. All was still inside the store but Wyatt had a feeling that wouldn’t last long and he didn’t want to waste whatever time they might have on their side.

  “Are you willing to go in there with me?” Wyatt asked him.

  The man gave a curt, no-nonsense nod. “Hell yes, I am. About time he got his just deserts.”

  Wyatt returned a nod of his own. “You want the front or back?”

  “I’ll take the back.”

  Graham disappeared down the narrow alley while Wyatt headed down the sidewalk. Within seconds he reached the gaping hole that provided easy access to the store and, pistol raised, he stepped in front of that void.

  He wasn’t sure whether he expected to shoot or be shot, but neither happened. He saw no sign of Josh. Pushing aside a shard of broken glass, Wyatt climbed through the window and dropped inside.

  It was darker in there. The scant light of the torches that lined the street did nothing to illuminate the murky chasm of the store and he realized that Josh could be anywhere, lining up the perfect shot, and Wyatt would be dead before he knew what hit him.

  His heartbeat thudded in his ears and the noise drowned out everything else as he tried to concentrate and be less of a sitting duck. He scanned the store, straining to see and that’s when he saw the silhouette.

  Wyatt shot. His aim was true and the person toppled backward. He ran to him, ready to finally rise to the occasion and finish off Josh, only to find--

  A dress form laying on its side. A black ring marred its pink, plastic flesh. He would have laughed if he wasn’t so damned scared.

  As he looked into that corner of the store he saw a dozen more mannequins and forms - the torsos of women in a variety of shapes and sizes.

  “What did she ever do to you?”

  Wyatt watched Graham emerge from the rear of the store. “Guess I was a little trigger happy.”

  “Glad you didn’t shoot me.”

  “Me too.”

  The brief moment of relief was short-lived.

  “You didn’t find Josh?” Wyatt asked.r />
  Graham signaled negative. “Back door was wide open. If I had to guess, I’d say he tucked tail and ran about the time I--”

  There was no sense finishing the sentence as a nearby gunshot made it invalid.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Everyone inside the bar was so busy staring across the street that they didn’t hear Big Josh enter until he’d already fired one of his pistols. Doris, whose back had been turned, was the recipient of the bullet.

  The shot blasted through the back of her head and burst through the front of her face, sending bits and pieces of teeth spraying from her destroyed mouth like she’d spat out a wad of chiclets. She was dead before she hit the floor.

  Barbara was so in shock over seeing such an up-close and personal view of violent death that she didn’t even bother turning around until Big Josh spoke.

  “Never did like that one. Big, butch, bitch,” Josh said.

  Barb had almost forgotten she still held the .38 in her hand, but as surprise turned to anger, she shifted her finger to the trigger.

  “Uh, uh, uh,” Josh said. “Don’t do anything rash now or I’ll blow the head off your little crip son.”

  It’s a bluff, she thought, but as she finished her 180-degree turn, she saw Josh standing behind Seth. He had the barrel of one of the .44s pressed downward against the top of Seth’s skull and the other pistol was pointed toward herself, Allie, and Pete, all of whom had been spectators in the peanut gallery, waiting to see how the show ended, and unaware that the big finale was coming to them.

  “You don’t have to do this.” What a cliche, Barb thought as the words spilled from her mouth. What’s next? Please? Take me instead? Men like Big Josh didn’t negotiate, especially after they’d been robbed.

  “I do whatever the fuck I want, lady. And your cyclops-looking face isn’t going to win me over so save your breath.” He cocked his head toward the shopping cart in which they’d stashed the stolen food. “Fill that with old Dori’s booze. She ain’t got much use for it now.”