Dead Tide Page 4

  Williams looks at him. She isn’t a bad looking for a woman in her

  thirties. He wonders what her interest in him is.

  “You know what I mean, Bronte. It’s only a matter of time before

  you screw up. Pimping, dealing drugs maybe? The odds are against you.

  At least get a job and go to college.”

  “You don’t know nothing about me, woman. I’m in charge of my

  life. I’m no criminal.”

  “If that’s true, what were you doing here when you just happened to

  see the shooting? I know you don’t live around here. You weren’t looking

  for your brother’s killer by chance, were you?”

  He doesn’t answer. He notices that she has a look of… Is that

  compassion in her eyes?

  26

  “Go home Bronte. Give us a chance to find him. It’s our job.” “You’ve had your chance. Two months is a long time. I’m a righteous man, and I have waited, but no one can find him.”

  She reaches out and grabs his arm. “I know your mama, Bronte. Don’t you go and do something that might leave her alone. If you die, she dies with you.”

  He pats her arm and turns away. “I’m already dead, officer, but I hear you. Thanks.” He is walking away when he hears what sounds like branches snapping, a child scream and then a thud. He looks back at Williams and both of them run toward the house.

  THE GODDAMNED CELL PHONE WON’T WORK. The keypad lights up, but every time she tries to call she gets the message: “all circuits busy.” She is only two blocks away from U.S. 19, a major road, but at this hour on a weekday everything except the Waffle House and maybe a big motel will be locked up and closed. The road she’s found herself on is probably the seediest section of Pinellas Park. For a stretch of about three blocks, it is nothing but a trailer park, an auto repair shop/junkyard, a couple of old decrepit apartments, and a palm reader. Several dirt roads lead off into a neighborhood to the east along the way.

  Presently, she is standing across the street, her back to a derelict building, listening to the dogs bark in the junkyard. There must be five or six of them in the fenced-in area. Apparently she got too close as she ran blindly away from the ditch.

  She stands on a porch, under an overhanging second story porch. The building would have some character if it wasn’t falling apart. Her mind is racing. I should just call the cops on a payphone. They are going to catch me anyway, and it was self defense. The dogs are driving her crazy, getting on her already jumpy nerves. I need to get away from the dogs first. She hurries around the corner of the building. Its windows are all boarded over and a lock is on the front door.

  27

  She pauses at the building’s edge. Roughly four blocks down, across a normally busy intersection, she can see the Halfway Tavern. It is past closing time for any bar in town, but the sign is still lit and she can see lights. The convenience store next door to it is also open. Still, what happened to the stoplight there? It’s out. She can only see that far by the light of the moon, and a lone car that barely slows as it crosses over.

  The car decides it for her. She will go to the convenience store and call the cops from there.

  A BOY SCREAMS nearby and in his gut, he knows he won’t be in time. Although sturdy, the staircase isn’t designed for two hundred pound men in a hurry. The room is dark, but with the flashlight he sees a peaked ceiling and several wooden crossbeams. He comes in bent over, gun first and the light reveals an empty room and that the only window is open. There is no closet and the bed is built into the wall. He goes straight to the window. He can see broken branches on the tree and high grass in the back yard crushed flat by someone. Just then Williams and a young black man come around the corner. The young man looks familiar, but Talaski is too distracted to place him.

  “The voice sounded like a young boy—see the grass! He went that way,” says Talaski.

  “We’ll follow him, Ski,” says Williams, not giving her civilian companion a choice. The man doesn’t complain, and both of them follow the path through the grass. Talaski turns away from the window and heads downstairs.

  “Give me the shotgun,” says a gruff voice, Talaski’s Patrol Sergeant. He’s an ex-Navy guy named Tanner who isn’t much of a leader. He doesn’t like to make waves, and is only about a year from retirement. Talaski enters the hall just in time to see Keller surrender the weapon to Tanner.

  Tanner looks up. He doesn’t look happy. “Did you have to shoot them Ski?”

  28

  “What the fuck does that mean, Sergeant? You getting too close to retirement or something?” Talaski is about to explode. All tact is out the window.

  “Maybe I am, Nick. Maybe I am. What about this guy slapping Dodd and taking his shotgun? What’s with that?”

  “Dodd panicked. He froze up on me. Keller was a Reserve MP. He didn’t panic. I went with the flow.”

  Tanner’s expression doesn’t soften. “Keller is a civilian now. He had no business doing anything tonight. I may have to bring him up on charges whether Dodd wants me to or not.”

  Keller steps forward. “Don’t worry about it, Nick. I’m accountable for my actions. I did what I could live with.”

  “I believe you,” says Tanner. “Just stay with Ski for now. I’ve got bigger problems than this on my plate right now.”

  “So can we go?” asks Talaski.

  “We’ve got problems all over the city. Hang loose for me a few minutes while I make some calls.” Tanner pulls out a cell phone. Talaski notices a bandage on Tanner’s left forearm.

  “What happened to your arm?”

  “This?” says Tanner. “Some crazy bitch bit me during this problem we had over at U.S. 19 and 54th South about an hour and a half ago. Don’t worry, she barely nipped me.”

  “Whatever you say, man. We’ll be waiting outside.”

  Tanner grins and flips his phone open.

  J AMES DODD IS NOT A HAPPY MAN. Right now his confidence is so shattered he feels dead inside. All because of that ride-along, Keller. He’d never seen a man shot before. Does everyone always react perfectly? That damn Talaski, too, always so smug, so sure of himself. Nobody but the Perp got hurt, so what’s the big deal?

  He is leaning against his cruiser, with the driver’s door open. Something makes him look up—A sixth sense maybe? He can hear shuffling footsteps coming toward him.

  29

  He flicks on his flashlight and points it toward the street. The light reveals a group of people, some walking as if injured or handicapped. Drunks maybe?

  “Wha… What do you want? We told you all to go home,” he says, hearing his voice break badly at the end. He can feel the hair rise on the back of his neck and arms.

  Something is wrong with these people. He talks into the radio headset mike and keeps his flashlight focused on the people. “S twelve, this is Three Two Charlie, I have a group of people approaching my cruiser.”

  Tanner’s voice comes through, almost immediately. “Hold your water… Give me a minute to get there.”

  “That’s close enough,” Dodd says, but no one appears to be listening. All of these people are staring at him with a strange intensity. There’s something about their eyes. “They won’t stop!” he shouts into the radio, voice panicky. “Somebody make them go away!” He puts down the radio on the cruiser’s hood and then struggles mentally over pulling his pistol or his Taser. The closest of the group reaches the front of the car and starts to make their way toward him. The first guy is tall, with broad shoulders. He is shaking with some sort of palsy, but staggering along at a pretty good clip. He extends his arms, reaching out toward Dodd, and moans. Meanwhile, others reach the car and follow the first on either side, all moaning and looking at him.

  Dodd falls down into the cruiser. Yanks the door closed and fumbles with the lock. The tall guy leans against his door and presses his face against the glass. His mouth is open, revealing large expanses of pink gum and yellow teeth, but hi
s eyes never leave Dodd. With a halfclenched fist he pounds on the window glass. As if by signal, other people begin to pound on Dodd’s cruiser. Many are baring their teeth like… a dog, or wolf, or shall we say a hungry dog or wolf. Hunger: this is the word Dodd has been looking for.

  Dodd reaches down to the car’s ignition and turns the key. The engine starts. His hands are jittering all over the place. He grabs the shifter and slams it into Drive. The pounding is worse if anything and now they are groaning… He floors the gas pedal and sees two people fly over the windshield as two more fall beneath the car and are rolled over. For a moment the car careens out of control and he rides up onto the sidewalk and over two trashcans before he regains control and speeds off.

  30

  SOMEHOW WHEN HE FALLS, he manages to land on his back and the backpack he is wearing. Fear and panic have him up on his feet before he can consider his good fortune. The angry cop is coming.

  A six foot high wood fence surrounds his entire back yard, but there is one place he might be able to climb, using the lightning blasted trunk of a long dead oak tree. He runs. Voices from behind and above him complete his panic and instead of climbing the tree he cowers down and attempts to hide himself between the trunk and the fence.

  Two people, a man and a woman, stop right in front of the tree, one of them holding a flashlight that allows him to see them. The man is tall and muscular and wearing an unbuttoned shirt over a black t-shirt and jeans. His hair is cut very short, and there is some sort of scar on his right cheek, a keloid scar maybe. The doctor told him that they are very common on black people. Like me, he thinks. It’s something to do with healing on the inside and out.

  “He’s hiding behind the tree,” says the other person, a small, petite policewoman. She puts the light of her flashlight right on him.

  “Come on out, little brother,” says the man. “The police just want to help you.”

  Daric doesn’t move. “What about the angry one?” he asks.

  He hears the man snort. “Don’t worry about him. Just come on out.”

  “Bronte!” someone shouts. Daric looks up and behind him. He can’t see anything through the slats, but he can hear someone behind the fence in the Vlaslov’s yard. Whoever it is begins to climb over the fence, then drops lightly to the ground very close to Daric.

  The man with the scar looks up. “What is it, Tracks?” The cop’s flashlight reveals a huge man, very similar in size to the blond haired man in his house. His hair is cut so short on his head that it is just a shadow on his skull. His eyes have a sleepy look to them, and his nose is a mangled wreck.

  31

  “The bad PoPo, Dodd, he just ran over some people and took off.” “What?” says the woman. “You say he ran over people? You mean with his cruiser?”

  “Yes ma’am. They tried to break into his car and he drove over them.” The man, Tracks, sounds out of breath. Daric can hear his breath rattling noisily. The woman cop starts to run back toward the front of the house.

  “Maybe you better wait, Williams!” says Bronte, turning to follow her. Tracks holds his hand out, and Daric hesitates only a moment, then allows the man to pull him to his feet.

  “Best you stay with me, little man. Do as I say.”

  “Yes sir,” he answers. The fear deflates what little confidence he has. At least he isn’t completely paralyzed.

  “Remember: do as I say,” the man repeats and he yanks Daric up off his feet and settles him up on his shoulders behind his immense, nearly bald head. Tracks breaks into a lumbering run, and for the moment Daric feels safe.

  THERE ARE DITCHES less than two feet from the road’s edge on either side, so she decides to walk in the street. Odds are, as dark as it is, she will fall otherwise. She stays on the right lane, traveling southeast. On the right is what must have been a motel years ago, but is now a collection of three rows of apartments. There is barely any room for the cars parked out in front of the apartments, and they are almost in the street.

  Everything is black. Either everyone is asleep in this block or the power is out. There are three apartments per row. The first one has a noisy air conditioner mounted in a window that kicks on just as she passes by. So much for the power being out.

  In the distance she hears the wail of sirens. Are they going to her accident scene? She stops, hoping to hear roughly where they stop. Two or three cop cars over on U.S. 19, she guesses. They don’t stop, and gradually the sound dwindles with the distance.

  32

  The tarot card reader is only two buildings up on her left, just past a scrap metal dealer. No lights are on. Usually there is a lit sign out front with the psychic’s name, Madam Khatka. A night or two ago, some wise guy changed it to ‘Madma Khatka.’ Even now, she can feel the laughter bubbling within her, but it is of the hysterical variety. She is too afraid and shook up at the moment to laugh.

  She sticks to the right side of the road. A little breeze blows over her and she shivers. She draws even with the last of the apartments and sees that the door is hanging wide open, but it’s dark in there. Wait, idiot! She slaps her hand against her forehead. There is a small penlight on her key chain. She digs in her purse and comes up with the keys. A small purple cylinder the size of a pen is attached to the chain. She flicks a small button and then narrows the beam by adjusting the top near the bulb. The door is swinging in the breeze but a highheeled ladies’ shoe is keeping it from closing. A little further in the doorway is an overturned lamp. There may be a phone. There may be another freak too. She backs away from the doorway, turning off the flashlight.

  Chicken shit coward. She can still hear the voices from her past. Why should a girl have to be brave? She hears the voice again. Because fear can get you killed also…

  She turns the light back on and steps over the lamp into the room. A little living room, a sitting room really, is to the right. There are two chairs, a small TV and the end table the lamp fell off of.

  She stands still and continues to play the flashlight in a counterclockwise direction revealing a darkened doorway, a small dining set, and a man sitting there pointing a gun at her.

  “Have a seat, missy,” he says. “And tell me why you are in my house.”

  33

  JUST IN FRONT OF HIM, moving a bit too slowly, is the broad-backed figure of Keller, but the moment he hits the front door he jogs to the side, as if aware of Talaski’s impatience. From a block or so away, he hears the squeal of car tires. Out in the street he can see Tanner nearly surrounded by people who aren’t backing off, despite the sergeant’s repeated commands for them to do so. The two ambulance EMT’s are down. People are kneeling over their bodies… Those people closest to Tanner are reaching out as if to embrace him. There is a sudden awful jet of fire and the boom of a shotgun firing, the one Tanner took from Keller. A man’s body literally flies backward with the blast. Tanner ratchets another round and an empty casing ejects.

  Talaski draws his .40 pistol, exits the house and bounds off the porch. Three or four people are lying in the street, probably dead. Tanner fires again and this time two people stagger, one falling to their knees and the other nearly catapulting backward. Two other people are on him and he falls backward.

  Talaski stops and plants his feet, taking aim with his pistol. Everything retreats into the background, including Tanner’s screams of agony. He can see other people shambling towards him, but for the moment he ignores them. Tanner has dropped the shotgun and is trying to pry one of the people away from his throat. The other person is gnawing on one of his arms.

  The sound of the shot is strangely muted. The head of the person going for Tanner’s throat seems to explode and come apart. Talaski switches targets, aims and fires. Another headshot. Tanner shakes the body loose while trying to sit up.

  Something brushes past Talaski—Keller! He sprints past. With a slight twist of his over-developed torso Keller clobbers another person with his flashlight. Talaski can hear him roaring something, voice thick with rage.

>   34

  There is only one person left, a woman in a loose white flower-print dress. Talaski notices her hair is in cornrows. She must have been hit by Dodd’s cruiser. He watches as she tries to regain her footing. One leg doesn’t look right and is probably broken. Keller is helping Tanner to his feet and here comes more people. Williams and two black men, one older and one younger. A young black boy is perched on the shoulders of the older, bigger black man.

  Talaski feels detached. He realizes Williams is saying something, but he can’t hear her over the echo of the gunshots and a continuous murmur of screaming and pleading in his ear. He realizes his earpiece for his radio is turned way down and he has been too distracted to pay attention to those voices.

  Tanner is holding his already injured arm and there is a spreading red stain in the center of the bandage. Keller bends over and picks up the shotgun that Tanner took from him earlier. Tanner doesn’t appear to care as he draws his pistol and walks over to the woman in the flower print dress. He puts the barrel against her head and she snarls something and reaches for his leg.

  “Are you listening to me, Ski?” says Williams, sounding disgusted. “Sorry, I missed that,” he replies. “What did you say?” While waiting, he drops the partially used magazine out of his pistol and replaces it with a full one from the pouch on his belt. He slips the other magazine into his trouser pocket.

  There is a sound of a shot. Even though he expected it, he still jumps. “I said have you been listening to the radio? Dispatch said that a command center has been set up at Tropicana Field. All units are to break off whatever they are doing and head in.” Maybe it is just panic in her voice, he decides, not disgust.

  “Why?”

  “Earlier, the mayor thought it best to just keep people inside their houses. Now he thinks there is safety in numbers. There is something seriously wrong with these people. We gotta get out of here!”

  “What do you think about this, Matt?” says Talaski, speaking to Keller. “Sounds fucked up or somebody is circling the wagons.”

  Keller looks at him. “I got a bad feeling.”