And she knew that Brett could see it too. She didn’t need to make believe she was a hero anymore.
Because she was one.
~50~
The Ranger and the Cop
Joe and Dez organized the survivors into work teams. They fortified the house, repairing damage from the attack and reinforcing every door and window. Stronger shutters were constructed with wood stripped from the barn. The women began digging a trench around the house and the kids spent their days sharpening sticks to line the bottom of the trench. Dez and two of the refugee women went hunting—for food this time. They brought back two deer and a half dozen rabbits. But the next day one of the girls went out and set snares to catch rabbits. She returned with six live ones. Two male and four females. Everyone approved. Maybe they’d be able to find some chickens and cows, too. Anything was possible. And that was something Ledger saw—the dawning of belief, of hope for survival and maybe even a future.
Seeing that chipped away some of the black ice that clung to his heart. And it rekindled some of his own optimism. The next morning—he was pretty sure it was a Saturday, not that such things really mattered anymore—he told Dez that he was leaving the next day. She protested, they argued, crockery was thrown. But in the end he played the best card he had. Billy Trout and the other busses. Dez couldn’t take all those kids and the women on a hunt for Billy. It was a better job for one person and a dog.
They ate a last meal, a big breakfast, and there were a lot of hugs and tearful goodbyes. As if Ledger had been part of this community, this family, for years. Lindsey gave him a list of names, too. Ledger folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. It was something he knew he would want to read again. Maybe often.
Then it was time to go. Ledger clicked his tongue for Baskerville and the dog sprang to his feet, but once they were on the porch, the big hound seemed to stall. The animal looked around at the faces of all the kids and at the women who had fought alongside him. His big tail swished back and forth.
He got a lot of hugs and even some kisses, too.
“Come on, you big goof,” growled Ledger. “You’re a shameless damn flirt.”
Joe got a lot of kisses and hugs, too. It made him happy and it broke his heart. That these powerful women and these beautiful kids should embrace him and kiss his cheeks as if he wasn’t a monster and a killer. It was proof the world was absolutely goddamn insane.
Lindsey stood by the door, kids all around her, and there were tears in her eyes. Ledger kissed her on the forehead. Then he and Dez and Baskerville walked out to the road and stood for a moment watching the clouds move across the sky.
Dez fished something out of her pocket. A note sealed in an envelope. She looked deeply embarrassed and then handed it to Ledger. The envelope was pink and the name ‘Billy’ was scrawled across it.
“Don’t say a goddamn word, Joe,” she warned. “It was the only stationary I could find.”
It was very, very pink. He laughed.
“I will kneecap you,” she said, “hand to God.”
But she laughed, too. It was a strange sound, rare in the world these days. They both seemed to realize it at the same time and their laughter faded. Still, they smiled at each other. Dez cleared her throat and nodded to the note. “You’ll give it to him?”
“If he’s still where I left him, yes I will.”
“What if he’s not there?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Guess I go looking for him.”
“You don’t have to,” she said.
Ledger looked around at the big, empty world. “What else have I got to do?” he asked. It was meant as a joke, but Dez looked as if it was the saddest thing she’d ever heard.
“I’ll find him,” Ledger said.
She studied him, then nodded. “Yeah, I know you will.”
He bent to kiss her cheek, and Dez Fox suddenly grabbed him and pulled him to her in a fierce embrace. She kissed him with a startling and intense heat, and then shoved him back.
“What…what…?” he said, unable to form a cohesive question.
Dez gave him a wicked grin. “That’s so you don’t walk away from this thinking you got nothing out of it.”
He shook his head. “You sure Billy Trout didn’t just seize the moment and run away from you?”
“Seriously, one round through the kneecap,” she said, laying her hand on the butt of her pistol. He mimed zipping his mouth shut.
They stood for one moment longer, two warriors who were now connected on a level they could not express in words but which each of them completely understood.
“Goodbye, Desdemona Fox,” he said.
“Goodbye, Captain Ledger,” she said.
Baskerville whuffed quietly, and then the big man clicked his tongue again and turned away. He never looked back at the old farmhouse.
Not once.
-The End-
Rachael Lavin is a Cosplayer, LARPer, and all around Nerd. An art degree stuck in a banking job, Rachael rejects this reality and replaces it with her own. When she’s not writing, she can be found hunched over her sewing machine, taking pictures, or running around the woods with foam swords. She is a graduate of the Experimental Writing for Teens program created by Jonathan Maberry. She currently lives in Doylestown, PA with her fluffy white demon dog and 200 pairs of shoes.
Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling novelist, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. He writes the Joe Ledger thrillers, the Rot & Ruin series, the Nightsiders series, the Dead of Night series, as well as standalone novels in multiple genres. His comic book works include, among others, CAPTAIN AMERICA, BAD BLOOD, ROT & RUIN, V-WARS, and others. He is the editor of many anthologies including THE X-FILES, SCARY OUT THERE, OUT OF TUNE, and V-WARS. His books EXTINCTION MACHINE and V-WARS are in development for TV, and ROT & RUIN is in development as a series of feature films. A board game version of V-WARS was released in early 2016. He is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse, and the co-founder of The Liars Club. Prior to becoming a full-time novelist, Jonathan spent twenty-five years as a magazine feature writer, martial arts instructor and playwright. He was a featured expert on the History Channel documentary, Zombies: A Living History and a regular expert on the TV series, True Monsters. Jonathan lives in Del Mar, California with his wife, Sara Jo. www.jonathanmaberry.com
FLESH AND FIRE
JournalStone’s DoubleDown Series, Book VIII
By
Lucas Mangum
JournalStone
San Francisco
Copyright © 2016 by Lucas Mangum
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:
JournalStone
www.journalstone.com
The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
ISBN: 978-1-942712-91-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-942712-92-3 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016933401
Printed in the United States of America
JournalStone rev. date: April 22, 2016
Cover Art and Design: Robert Grom
Author Photo: Jim Julian
Photo Credits: Woman in Forest © lekcej/shutterstock, Fire circle © lassedesignen/shuttstock
Edited by: Aaron J. French
For Tim. 1985-2007
Acknowledgments
It's been said that no one achieves
anything on their own. That claim is especially true of first novels, so I'd like to thank the following people: my wife, Jean, because living with a writer is hard and she's been a trooper; Jonathan Maberry for believing in me, encouraging me, and being an all-around righteous dude; and Christopher Payne at Journalstone for accepting my little story about Hell and transcendence. A huge thanks is also owed to anyone who helped get this manuscript into its current form, namely: crime author Dennis Tafoya; thriller author Jon McGoran; my brother, Vincent Mangum; Patrick Galloway; filmmaker and critic, Scout Tafoya; and screenwriter Joe Augustyn. From the bottom of my heart, thanks to all of the above listed, as well as anyone who bought me a drink, talked writing, or kept me company over the last four years. You know who you are, friends, and if you look hard enough, you may see pieces of yourselves in the story you are about to read.
FLESH AND FIRE
~1~
~Chloe~
If this is dying, Chloe thought, I’d like to do it again sometime.
The brightest light she’d ever seen washed over her, burning brilliant whitish yellow. Blinding, but soft, it reminded her of the sun, finally showing its brilliant face after weeks of rain and starless nights. It brought warmth, security, and a deep sense of euphoria, better than the greatest high, more intense than her strongest orgasm.
Moments ago, she’d been in her room, sinking into the bed below, as if it were a cloud. Her vision blurred and her surroundings fell further away. She gave each of them one final glimpse, pausing the longest on the Yamaha DX7 keyboard, upon which she played all of her music, and the photograph of her and Todd smiling drunkenly as they held each other in the parking lot of the Black Horse Pub.
As she slipped away, she only regretted not being able to tell him goodbye. Maybe even apologize. She settled for humming the melody to "Blissfully Damaged," a song he'd written for her. Maybe doing so would, through some kind of clairvoyance, allow her to commune with him in her final moments.
The poison killing her now had also destroyed their relationship. She’d been clean for a while, but it hadn’t lasted. Once he’d seen he couldn't help her, he’d run away. She didn’t blame him. He didn’t really know everything. He didn’t know about the dreams, or the monster that pursued her in them, or how she sometimes even saw and heard the monster when she was awake. She’d never told him and because of this he just saw her as an addict, no matter how much he’d loved her.
Now she’d never be able to tell him.
Now she was dying.
And she accepted it.
Embraced it.
~Les~
Les’s fingers trembled as he reached for the phone. He mentally talked himself through dialing the number scrawled on the crumpled Post-It. As he cranked each digit he opened and closed the fist of his free hand. When the phone started to ring he cleared his throat, which was raw from hours of crying. His pulse thudded in his ears.
Another ring.
He clenched his fist but nothing stopped the pounding of his blood, the trembling in his limbs, or the looming threat of more tears.
A click.
“Yeah.”
Les froze at the sound of Todd’s familiar greeting. What the hell was he supposed to say? The man on the other line had loved his daughter, but the relationship had ended months ago. How much would it matter that Chloe was dead? All he knew for sure was that he wouldn’t tell Todd what he had seen when he found her.
“Hello?” Todd said, with a touch of annoyance.
“Todd, it’s Les.”
“Les! What’s up?”
Les bit his lip and grabbed a handful of stringy hair with his free hand.
“Les?”
“I…” He leaned on the counter in hopes that the presence of something solid would stabilize him. “It’s Chloe.”
Todd didn’t respond. For a moment Les thought the call had been disconnected, but when he listened he heard faint breathing just below the hiss of the phone line.
“An overdose?”
Les closed his eyes and saw his daughter splayed across the bed, her dark hair in the clutches of… Of what? He tried to wipe the image from his mind.
“Yes, an overdose.”
And that’s what the police and paramedics knew it as. After all, the bag of heroin had been found on the bed beside her. The syringe still hung from inside her elbow, the needle embedded in her soft flesh.
“Fuck, man, I’m sorry,” Todd said.
“Yeah.” Even with his eyes open, he saw her dead gaze staring up at him.
“I just… Jesus… Are you okay?”
“I guess I have to be, right?”
The two men hung on the line, saying nothing. Something had to be said. Chloe deserved better.
“I thought you might want to know.”
“Thank you.” Another pause. “Do you need anything?”
A hell of a question; Les couldn’t even begin to answer it properly. Chloe was dead. He wanted to believe her pain had reached its end, but his gut told him otherwise. Though he couldn't say for certain what awaited her after death, he feared damnation, especially for a lost junkie soul like hers.
Instead of telling Todd all of this, he swallowed to fight back more tears and asked if Todd wanted to know the funeral arrangements.
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” On the last word Todd’s voice cracked and Les thought that in the next moment they’d both break down. They’d do it without shame because they were old friends, because they both loved her.
Instead Todd cleared his throat. “Listen, Les, I… I better go.”
“Of course. I just thought you should know. That’s all.”
“Thanks. Take care, Les. You call if you need anything.”
“Will do,” Les said, knowing he would not.
~Anna~
Anna watched Todd from the doorway of his study. His face in the lamplight had gone ghostly pale since hanging up the phone. He sat with his shoulders crunched against his neck. One hand tapped on the desk, making a hollow, rhythmic drumming that echoed through the hallway. She didn’t like the way he looked or that tapping, not one bit. He seemed far away, like maybe he’d left his body and the tapping was just some remaining nervous twitch.
“Babe?” she said, using caution.
The tapping slowed, but did not cease. It became more dissonant, unsteady. She liked that sound even less.
“Babe.” She tried to add firmness to her tone without losing the sense of concern. It wasn’t as easy as she hoped. To her she just sounded annoyed.
He jerked in his seat to face her and she saw redness in his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He looked down at his nervously drumming fingers, then back at her. He offered a smile that was gone as quickly as it appeared.
“Fine.”
“Who was that on the phone?”
He frowned, looking at the phone as if noticing the object for the first time. He opened his mouth. Thankfully, he stopped tapping and she almost let him be. Not one to eavesdrop, she hadn't heard the conversation, but his demeanor in the moments since had troubled her deeply.
She knew their relationship was off to a rocky start. Their fathers had set them up. She knew about Chloe, the girl who used to play shows with him at the Black Horse, and that he’d been seeing her most of the summer. But that September, Todd had shown a real desire to commit. He'd taken a higher paying position within the bank and asked Anna to move in with him. This was their first apartment, a modest one-bedroom in the wooded suburbia of Havertown. They could afford a bigger place with Todd’s bank manager salary, but she’d insisted on saving as much as possible so they could have a real home in which to raise a family someday. She feared that this phone call, whoever it had been, could erase all of their progress.
“Who was it?” she asked again.
Todd shook his head. “It was no one. Just a friend.”
“Todd…”
“Chloe died.” The words came out of his mouth as if her p
rying had loosed something within him.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” She crossed the room and made to embrace him, but he closed his arms against his chest and turned away.
“I don’t know. I guess I saw it coming, but…”
She knelt down in front of him. “That’s silly. There’s no way you could’ve…”
“She was always in trouble, like there was something after her.”
“Was she using drugs?”
“Yes, but…”
She placed her hands on his shoulders and made him face her. “Were you?”
“What are you, my mother?”
She backed away and crossed her arms. “That’s not fair.”
“I know it’s not. To answer your question: no, I wasn’t. I was always trying to get her to quit, but her problems just seemed so much… bigger than her addiction. I don’t know what I’m saying. It was a deep relationship, but there was so much I didn’t know about her. There’s so much I’ll never know about her now.”
Heat flared in her cheeks. That hurt. Not that he admitted the depth of his and Chloe’s relationship, but his disappointment that he would never know his ex-lover’s secrets. Anna wondered if he still loved Chloe. She took a breath, counted to ten. She reminded herself that her jealousy could be addressed later.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
He rose to his feet. “I… think I’ll go for a walk.”
He picked up the black case holding his guitar and slung it over his shoulder. He hadn’t played since they’d moved in. Seeing him hold the instrument gave her a brief flash of hope. While she had never expressed it to him fully, she didn’t want to see him give up his hobby just to please her or his father or whoever. She just wanted him to be himself.