Dig

  ***

  Robyn left them and walked back through the jail’s doorway to the police station’s main area. She cringed as she stepped over Sandy Rollins, a woman with whom she had just spoken.

  Sandy wasn’t crazy. Why wasn’t Sandy crazy?

  Then she heard Sandy’s voice in her head.

  Sweet Jesus. My Lord. Sweet Jesus. Her bible is in the drawer. It kept her safe. Is this possible? Is any of this possible?

  Robyn went to the front desk and dumped the contents of drawers on the counter. There were stacks of paper and office supplies and she found Sandy’s bible. There was a letter opener and a metal nail file. The odds of picking that lock were slim, but she couldn’t leave out any options. Robyn searched through cubbies and the pair of desks that sat out in the open behind the counter. In the second desk, she found a ring of keys. Some were marked with numbers and one said ARMORY.

  Behind the desks there was another hallway which led to a break room. There was a vending machine and a counter with a sink and a coffee maker. The vending machine was half full of sugary snacks and chips. In the cabinets she found coffee filters and a couple cans of Folger’s. It was hardly enough to sustain them for long.

  Beyond the break room was the chief’s office. A large wooden desk sat in its center. Behind the there was a row of book cases and file cabinets. On one wall, there was a metal storage cabinet. She tried to open it but found it was locked.

  Locked means important.

  Robyn looked around the room for something that might break into the cabinet. Nothing struck her right away. She remembered the armory key and then shook the key ring.

  Think, Robyn. Think.

  Fumbling through the key ring and holding her breath, she tried each one until the lock tumbled and the door opened to reveal more keys. There were vehicle keys for the squad cars and a one set for the four wheel drive. She took that set. Another ring was marked CELLS. There were four oddly shaped keys on that ring. One for each cell and a master, she hoped. Grabbing that ring with a triumphant grunt, she hurried back to Kelly and Rusty holding up the key rings for them to see. They both sighed relief at the sight of her.

  “Hurry,” Rusty said.

  The first key she tried opened his cell. Rusty rushed out and held Robyn in his arms. She kissed him, then she hugged Kelly to them both.

  “Now what?” Kelly said.

  Rusty looked around. “Did you find a key to the armory?”

  “Yes.” She held up the key ring. “I also found keys to the vehicles. I think there was still a car outside.”

  “Good job,” he said.

  They ran to the other side of the building, past the front desk, past the break room, the chief’s office and on to a split door in the back marked WEAPONS. Rusty took the keys from Robyn, flipped to the one marked ARMORY and opened the door. Inside the small room, they found shotguns and hand guns. There were also assault rifles and a handful of grenades—teargas and otherwise—on shelves. There was riot gear and a stack of Kevlar vests.

  “Grab what you can so we can get out of here.”

  He slung a rifle and two shotguns over his shoulder and grabbed a box of ammo for each. Robyn and Kelly filled their arms with handguns and ammunition. As they were leaving, Rusty spotted a glass fronted cabinet full of gas masks. He knocked it open and saw there were at least ten along with filter packs to plug into them. He grabbed as many straps as his hands would hold and told Kelly to get the filters. They exited the rear of the building and found one patrol car and one SUV—a late model Chevy Trailblazer.

  “Perfect,” Rusty said. “Get in.” He pushed the button on the key fob and unlocked the vehicle. Except for one handgun each, they tossed the weapons in the back and jumped into the truck—Robyn in front, Rusty at the wheel and Kelly in the back seat.

  “Do you know how to load those?” Rusty said.

  “They’re already loaded, hon,” Robyn said, She cocked the slide back on the one she was holding and ejected a round.

  He nodded. “Perfect.” He tossed a gas mask to each one of them. “Put that on. Plug the filter in.”

  “Why?” Robyn said.

  “There’s something about that stink. Laura said there was something about that awful smell that makes people do the things they’re doing. She said it was all coming out of a hole in the earth. Something about the old Gates place. Put the mask on.”

  They did as he instructed and once they were geared up, the trio looked like refugees from a coal mine, anything but the casually dressed man and woman who were laughing and drinking beer at a high school reunion just a few short hours ago. Light years away from the new lovers they had been that morning.

  The vehicle rumbled to life and Rusty pulled the switch to light the headlamps. As the vehicle began to roll out of the parking lot and into the street, an explosion rocked them. It was very close. Close enough that the three of them felt the heat, even through the windows. Kelly screamed but the scream was silent as the ringing in his ears drowned everything out.

  There was a moment of shock as they looked toward the yellow glow of the blast, and then another moment waiting for the smoke to clear. In the third moment, Robyn was shoving him and screaming at him to drive, but Rusty couldn’t move. The explosion had given him an idea. Something crazy, but you had to fight fire with fire. Crazy go nuts with crazy go nuts.

  Fernando Lamas. Saturday Night Live. Thanks, Laura.

  He knew then how to make it all stop, how to keep death from coming and ending it all. If any of the madness that was going on was true, if anything his dead sister had told him was accurate, Russell Strings Clemmons had an idea.

  He put the truck in reverse and it rolled backwards with the steering wheel pegged to the left. Then he put it in drive and gunned it, plowing over the shrubs at the edge of the parking area and through a chain-link fence. He drove through the parking lot of the hospital, then across an empty street into a residential neighborhood. Homes were on fire and people were fighting in the streets. He saw knives and baseball bats being used as clubs. One young boy bludgeoned an already lifeless body that lay in a concrete driveway. In the back, coming from one of the homes, he saw one of the skeletons and wondered if it was Laura’s.

  Pepperoni pizza. I loved that shit.

  “Where are we going?” Robyn said. She watched out the windshield while she spoke to him. Her left hand was hanging over the back of her seat. Kelly grasped it.

  I know where it’s coming from. I can stop this. Death for all, little bro. When she comes, it’s game over, no more quarters.

  “I have a plan,” he said.

  “What plan?” Robyn said.

  “A plan. I can’t say it out loud because I’m afraid you won’t believe any of it. I’m afraid I won’t believe any of it.”

  The explanation was good enough for both women at that moment as the Trailblazer bounced over a curb and peeled ruts through the lawns between a pair of brick houses. They tore across another street and in between more houses in a stair step pattern that led them back toward the Intracoastal Waterway and toward Howe. When he reached as far as he could go, he slammed the truck in park, grabbed his forty-five and got out.

  “Give me two minutes,” Rusty said. “If I don’t come back, drive to the ferry. Make them understand. If it’s still there—make them understand and get out of here. Two minutes,” he said and shut the door. Robyn nodded. Kelly still gripped her hand over the seatback.

  Rusty never looked back. He kept his eyes open and hurried across the street, over the low hedge on the side of the driveway that ran behind the NAPA store. The bay door of Bill Shockley’s garage was down. There were bullet holes in the bay door that he didn’t remember seeing before. It was spotless before. Shipshape and organized. None of those faggoty-queer bullet holes.

  The glass in the walk-through door was shattered and shards of it glinted up at him from the ground. The door itself stood open a few inches and Rusty pushed it in, holding his forty
-five at the ready.

  It was quiet inside. Rusty flipped the light switch and the fluorescent shop lights flickered on, lighting the room. He half expected to see a zombie version of Bill lumbering around, gawking at tools and sniffing for blood. A large brown stain on the concrete where Bill Shockley had died was the only trace of the old man. He stared at the stain for a moment, feeling something like sorrow. Shockley wasn’t at fault. It was the gas, the hole, the crazy story. It was all the insanity of the world concentrated into one small town in North Carolina.

  Rusty shook his head and focused. He was there for one thing. The plastic lens of his gas mask was fogging and made it tough to see clearly. Stepping over the blood stain and stumbling to the back, he found it. The crate of dynamite was still there, right next to the ammo can. Inside the crate, he found ten sticks of TNT and a spool of wire. The ammo can held a box of blasting caps and a folded piece of notebook paper.

  Have I been gone thirty seconds? A minute? Two minutes is what I told Robyn. Please go. Take the truck and just please go.

  He wanted her to take Kelly and find safety if such a thing existed. He unfolded the paper and found a simple diagram. It showed the blasting cap inside the end of the dynamite. Rudimentary wires were drawn as lines that led to a box with a T sticking out from its top. The phrases RAISE IT UP and then SLAM IT DOWN were written in red along the bottom. Images of a cartoon coyote filled his head. He couldn’t remember the critter’s name at that moment but in his mind, there were coils of wire that led to a bridge where the roadrunner was just about to cross.

  ‘Meep meep,’ is what the roadrunner said. Where is the detonator? Two minutes is up, pal. You should’ve kissed her goodbye.

  Rusty pulled his mask up so it sat on top of his head and searched the room. With his eyes clear, it was much easier to search. The smell was there, but he would have to deal with a little poison if he wanted to save time. Two minutes was gone. He hoped Robyn was gone, but he had no idea how long he had before she showed up. Before it was Death to all, little bro. No more quarters.

  “A place for everything and everything in its place,” he said. There was a place for everything it seemed. Rusty opened tool boxes and slid drums around. He tore into cardboard containers and dug through drawers. He moved curtains and opened cabinet doors. Then, suddenly he was staring at it and didn’t even recognize the thing. He had been looking for a cartoon box, something red with ACME painted on the outside in black letters. It was all he knew to search for.

  Aside from the lettering, that was almost what he got. It was a wooden box, painted red at one point, but its sides were worn smooth, the paint was faded and it was rough on the edges and corners. The plunger handle and electrical connections were brown. Nowhere on the box did the word ACME appear. Rusty spun one of the wing nuts and wasn’t surprised that the post was shiny underneath, oiled to stay useable. It was in perfect working order just like everything else in that room.

  In the opposite corner, he found a two-wheeled dolly and some ratchet straps. The crate went on the bottom and the ammo can with the caps in it next. He picked up the detonator and was surprised by how much it weighed. It sat on top and the stack was strapped in place. Rusty was ready, although not sure what he was ready for. He would deal with that when necessary.

  Five minutes at least had passed. He was certain of it. Is she gone? Please be gone, Robyn. Please be gone.

  The words continued in his brain like a catchy song he didn’t want to think about. The meaning was too much to think about. It was all some kind of test. He was in a coma in some hospital that lay somewhere along Interstate 65 near Indianapolis or maybe I-64 in West Virginia. He was laying there with some drug and glucose cocktail dripping into his arm and making it all up. That hole was some mental hell he had to crawl through to get back to the real world. Back to his dull job and his lonely life. If that was the case, he would make it. Russell Clemmons, former marine would make it back to the light, wake up, drive back to Chicago and be fucking thankful for what he had.

  There was a pair of lineman’s pliers hanging on a hook, something to cut the wire with. They were a guardian angel because what would he have used down there, his teeth? He grabbed the pliers and shoved the business end down into the back pocket of his jeans. On the counter, he found a small flashlight and a quick flip of the switch proved it worked. He shoved that in his other back pocket.

  He opened the bay door and rolled the dolly out on the drive. The light flooded out of the garage and cast his long shadow across the pavement and up the side of the old NAPA building. It was a shadow much larger than himself and it gave him some hope. Stupid hope like the silhouette of a superhero in an old movie. He had come to save the citizens of Smithville from Lady Death. Pulling his gas mask back over his face completed the façade.

  Rusty tipped the dolly and rolled it down the drive behind him, letting it bump over the curb. The boxes rattled and he remembered the contents. “Shit,” he said. “I’ve got to be more careful.” He had no idea if a small jolt would cause and explosion but he didn’t want to risk it. Not until it was time. When the time came, he didn’t care what set it off.

  A set of headlights flashed in front of him. She hadn’t left. Robyn was still sitting there. The streets around them were calm. In the distance, he heard the sounds of honking horns and shouting, but at their location, things were still. Whatever it was had passed. It was spiraling away like Laura had said, moving out from the Gates house in some supernatural shockwave.

  Why are you still here? Robyn, don’t be stupid like me. Take care of your daughter.

  He didn’t say any of those things. All he could say was, “Go!” He waved at her as he rolled the dolly down the street toward that old log cabin. The Trailblazer turned, rolling over the curb and the grass and back to the road. It pulled up next to him, matching his pace. Robyn was driving, but Kelly had moved into the front seat.

  “What are you doing? Get in the car. Rusty, we need to go.” Her voice was muffled by the mask.

  “You weren’t supposed to wait for me. I want you to go. Please, take Kelly and just go!” He waved her on again.

  She honked the horn. “Stop!”

  He did. Robyn stepped out of the car and approached him. She pulled her mask off. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Russ. Do you think you’re going to save us? Don’t be stupid. Get in the car. We can all get out of here.”

  He stared at her and shook his head. “You don’t understand. Laura said death for all. She said game over, no more quarters. I think she meant everyone, Robyn. Like everyone everyone. Finality. End of the world.”

  “And you think you’re the answer?” Robyn said.

  Rusty spun around in frustration. “I don’t know. But I might be the only person who knows the question. I have to try.”

  “Then I’m going with you. Kelly and I. We can help, whatever it is you’re planning. We can help. Many hands make light work. My momma used to say that to me when I was a kid.”

  Rusty looked at Kelly in through the windshield. Her eyes were wide and filled with either hope or fear. Probably a combination of both. “I’m not coming back from this, Robyn. If you don’t leave, you won’t either. Take Kelly and go. That’s how you can help. Get out of here. Survive. Save your little girl.”

  “She’s not so little anymore,” Robyn said.

  “She needs you.”

  “I need you,” Robyn said, her expression a mixture of anger and affection.

  “If I’m right about this, if I didn’t just dream all of this, then a lot of people might need me.”

  “You’re an idiot. A fucking idiot,” Robyn said. Her tears were coming stronger now and Rusty could see he was getting through to her.

  Rusty let go of the dolly and he ushered her toward the Trailblazer. “Get in the car, Robyn.”

  She pushed back and punched him in the chest. He let her do it.

  “Fucking idiot,” she said. She hit him again. Rusty looked over h
er shoulder at Kelly who was crying now. Rusty hugged Robyn to his chest and squeezed her tightly. She slapped at him with each hand, but the blows lightened and eventually she was clinging to him and sobbing. He kissed the top of her head, then her cheek, then her lips.

  “Take Kelly and find someplace safe. If I make it through this, I’ll...”

  “Don’t say it. Don’t you dare promise me anything,” she said. “You do what you have to do and if there’s a light at the end of all this, I’ll thank God for it. And I’ll thank God for you, Rusty, but don’t you make me any promises.”

  He paused for a second and then nodded. She was right. “Drive,” Rusty said. “Get to the ferry. Make them understand.”

  He let her go and she got into the car and put it in gear. Rusty turned and tipped the dolly. It hurt not looking back at her, knowing he would never feel her touch again. That he might never feel anyone’s touch again.

  The Trailblazer’s engine gunned and it pulled away. Rusty kept walking. The Gates house was only a few blocks away. He knew the way. He knew those streets like the back of his hand. Some of the businesses had changed and the people had changed, but it was the same old Smithville. As Kelly and Robyn disappeared behind him, he breathed a sigh of relief and pulled his gas mask back down over his face. It was almost time.