ONE CUP (Part 34)

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144

A rough looking woman answered the door. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Please, help us!” Jackie said. “We’ve—well, my friend has— been kidnapped and shot. We need an ambulance. And police!”

“Go away,” the woman said, and shut the door in Jackie’s face.

145

Sheriff Mike Bridges

Darkness had descended upon east central Indiana by the time Sheriff Bridges arrived at Brown’s Towing Service. After the call from his sister April regarding her missing daughter, Bridges spent the next couple hours running down leads, coming up empty. His deputies were advised to be on the lookout for the girl, and there was nothing more he could do at the moment. So, he chose to keep working like he normally would, on the theory that he was more likely to find her while going about his normal duties than sitting in his office or at home with his sister trying to console and reassure her. He drove slowly up the lane, using his search light to avoid running over any debris that would puncture a tire, or God forbid, a person who had been injured when the storms went through and was now laying in his path.

Up near the top of the hill was an overturned SUV, burnt and smashed all to hell. A few yards away, the house trailer sat, untouched. Bridges drove on into the junkyard, windows down, using the spotlight for guidance. There was a sudden racket unlike anything he’d heard before. Animals. Dogs. Bridges stopped the car and aimed the spotlight in the direction of the noise. A man lay there, mangled and dead in a pool of blood. The dogs had taken off and were around the next corner, barking and growling. They’d found more prey.

146

Ray Garrett

Eventually I built up enough friction to melt the cable tie. My feet were free. I stood just as the dogs were coming back for me. Speed was all that mattered. Grace counted for nothing. I rolled onto the bed of the trailer and climbed on top of the backhoe scoop as quickly as I could. It would only be a matter of time before they—oh, hell, they already figured out they could jump onto the trailer.

I scrambled up to the front of the trailer, hopped onto the scoop of the front end loader. The hammer and screwdriver tucked in my belt were no good to me, I couldn’t reach them with my hands bound behind my back. With the dogs nipping at my heels, taking care not to lose my balance, I scooted up the hydraulic actuators and sat on the front of the engine hood. The dogs were still there, and they still wanted me, but no amount of growling or barking was going to get me down. Two quick shots rang out, and the head of one of the dogs exploded onto the bucket and the floor of the trailer bed. Two more, and another dog fell off the side. Two more, and the third dog yelped and bailed off the trailer, hobbling away into the night.

“Thanks for the help,” I said to the sheriff who stood behind the open door of his cruiser, his pistol still aimed toward me. “I think I had it under control, though.”

He didn’t seem to think it was funny. “Put your hands where I can see them,” he ordered.

I did as instructed. “What seems to be the—”

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded. “And what are you doing here on night like this?”

“My name’s Ray,” I said. “Ray Garrett.” A minute later, I sat in the back of the cruiser, my hands cuffed behind my back.

147

Nick Taylor

I tried Jackie again. Still no answer. It was now dark, and shots were being fired. I called Wallace Jackson.

148

Larry Brown

My drive home from Richmond was bad, with the rain, hail and fallen trees. While sitting in my truck waiting for the county  road crew to remove a tree that was blocking the road, I turned on the radio and listened to updates on storm damage. Apparently there were at least two funnel clouds spotted near Page earlier in the day. Even with that news, I still wasn’t prepared for what I saw later when I got closer to home. From the look of it, all hell had broken loose while I was gone. I slowed down to ten miles per hour as I navigated around downed power lines and more fallen trees. The wooded fence rows bordering my property looked as if they’d been chopped up by a giant bush hog. Trees were uprooted, and debris from buildings was scattered in the fields, in the road, everywhere. There were even fish flopping around on the pavement.

I turned into my property, and saw immediately my business had been destroyed. The marijuana grow house was gone, plants strewn about all over the place. I’d have to get Leon on that, picking them up before law enforcement came by to check on us, or an insurance claims adjuster for that matter. My machine shed, a total loss. And the dogfight barn was literally gone. I stopped the pickup, ran up to the house trailer and charged through the door into the living room. “Tonya!” I shouted. “Tonya!” The aroma of marijuana hung thick in the air.

“Geez! Keep your shirt on,” Tonya said as she came from the bathroom into the hallway, wearing pink panties and a confused expression. Her hair was a mess “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” I pointed outside. “Are you aware you just lived through a twister?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tonya said. “It was pretty bad there for a while. But, we’re okay.”

Morgan, the other woman I keep, shuffled down the hall to join us. Her only item of clothing was an oversize T-shirt. She was a good thirty pounds heavier than Tonya, but she did a better job of keeping up appearances. Her hair was well-kept and braided.

I shook my head, “You seen Leon?”

“You know what? I don’t think we have.”

“I’m going outside and see if I can find him.”

I hustled back out to my truck. Just as I was climbing into the cab, a Sheriff’s cruiser emerged from the junkyard and pulled up alongside me. “Hello, Larry.”

“Mike?”

“Looks like you got hit bad.”

“I just got home. I was checking the damage, and looking for Leon.”

 “Both your revenue sources are destroyed.”

“I know,” I said. “Shit. Well, I’ll just have to rebuild. Make do until then.” I had an arrangement with the sheriff, and it had served us both well so far. For a percentage, the sheriff looked the other way. It would be a while now before I could send anything his way. “We cool?”

“I don’t like it either, but what can we do?”

“Who’s the dude in the back?”

“Says his name’s Ray Garrett,” the sheriff said. “Says he’s a ballplayer. I found him snooping around in your junkyard.”