Mudcat Page 2

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he said through gritted teeth. He felt a burst of warmth at his groin along with the constant ripping sensation and knew he’d managed to squirt out another small stream of either urine or blood. He had no desire to learn which it was. Worse, though he forced himself not to think about it, if he was finally able to expel something from his prick, whatever had invaded him had made it all the way inside. It felt like he had the largest erection he’d ever sported, and felt a brief flash of sick curiosity what Annie would think if he tried to jam it inside of her now. “Either you fucking help me, or you’re dead, too.”

  “Fuck you!” she screamed as she threw an elbow back at him. He tried to twist her away at the last instant, but it went low and connected firmly against his swollen member, renewing the searing agony to its fullest potential once more.

  He moaned again and slammed a fist into the side of her face. Her body went limp in his grip at once, but he didn’t care. He let go of her and reached down with both hands to try and soothe his injured manhood. His vision began to darken at the edges, and he knew he was going to finally pass out. He welcomed it, hoping that once he was unconscious, he’d be free from that unrelenting agony in his groin. He had time to notice that Annie was floating away from him, and that she was apparently face-down in the water, and then the blackness finally consumed him, giving him the relief he craved.

  When he awoke some time later, the part of his mind that was Brandon was gone. He knew he had changed while he was unconscious, knew he had become something else entirely, but that didn’t matter.

  All that mattered to the thing that had been Brandon was that it was hungry.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The first drops of rain began to fall not long after Rob hit the snooze button on his alarm for the third time. By the time he finally crawled out of bed, showered, and got the coffee on, it was raining steadily, but still not bad. As soon as he got out to the truck and started the engine, though, it was as if the skies had opened up and dumped their contents all at once.

  He’d been hoping the storm would hold out a little longer, but nature apparently had other plans. Worse, if the weatherman was correct about the after effects of the hurricane that just made landfall further down south, this was only the beginning. Hurricane Trudy had slammed into the gulf coast just over fourteen hours ago, and rather than dissipate like they usually did, had pushed as far north as Montgomery. The resulting storm that swept ahead of it was expected to be among the worst seen in this part of Tennessee in over fifty years.

  The bigger cities like Nashville would be equipped to deal with it, at least for the most part, and would probably weather the week or so of near-constant rainfall with only marginal difficulty. Ashford Fork, on the other hand, not only had the disadvantage of being nearly an hour south of Nashville, and therefore closer to the brunt of the storm’s power, but at under two hundred people, it also had only a fraction of the resources. Odds were, Nashville would limp on; Ashford Fork would be lucky if it didn’t wash away.

  The drive into what passed for downtown took nearly twice as long as it normally did, so he was definitely late for work. Considering what he had to deal with getting here though, he doubted anyone would say anything about it. He pulled up to the police station and smiled as he parked alongside the chief’s battered old pickup truck. The ends of a pair of fishing rods stuck out to one side like they were trying to escape the tarp that had been secured to the bed to cover and protect them. They bobbed and jiggered in the blowing rain as though they already had a pretty good sized catch on the line. Rob watched them for a moment after shutting off his engine, hoping that he could kill a little time before trying to make the mad dash from the truck to the building. If he was lucky, the rain might even let up a bit first.

  When it became evident that the rods were not about to be ripped free of their confinement, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer without looking like he was afraid of a little water. He was going to have to chance it. He pulled out the keys and tucked them into his jacket pocket before zipping it securely closed, and then took a few deep breaths to try and work up both his nerve and energy. Once he was as ready as he was going to get, he threw open his door and made a mad dash for the building.

  He nearly lost his footing as he burst through the doors, and only managed to keep from falling by grabbing onto the arm of a nearby chair, dragging it away from the wall with a harsh squeal of metal against tile. Charlene Kilgore, the town’s police receptionist and dispatcher for longer than Rob could begin to contemplate, nearly jumped out of her seat, but the man resting one meaty hip casually on the corner of her desk merely turned a sharp eye toward him.

  “You’re late,” Chief Williams observed. “And you look like a drowned rat. Not a very auspicious start to your first day in the big chair, Officer Pinkston.”

  “That’s Assistant Chief Pinkston, you smartass,” Rob replied, only half playfully. “Where’s everybody else?”

  Williams gave him a broad smile. “Running late, of course. You see that rain out there? Who wouldn’t be running behind having to deal with that shit?”

  Rob shook his head as he turned and peeled his sodden jacket off before hanging it on a hook by the front doors to dry. He glanced down and realized his uniform shirt was also a considerably darker shade of brown where it had gotten wet as well. It didn’t seem to have penetrated all the way through to his undershirt, but if he’d been out there for a couple more seconds, he knew he wouldn’t even be this lucky.

  When he realized that his travel mug full of coffee was still sitting in the cup holder of his Blazer, with him only having the chance to get three or four good sips in before he had to dedicate his entire attention to the road in front of him, he resigned himself to the fact that he was just destined to have a bad day.

  Something must have showed on his face, because Williams stood up, his smile slipping a couple of notches, and motioned for Rob to follow him. “I think there’s a couple of spare shirts in the locker room. Come on, I’ll walk with you.”

  The phone rang as the made their way to the door next to Williams’s office. Rob hoped whoever was calling didn’t have anything major to request. If his guess was correct, he’d have all the big stuff he could handle soon enough. He tried to listen in as Charlene answered the call, but everything after her normal rote answer was lost when the door closed behind them.

  He followed Williams past the stairs leading down to the town’s four jail cells in the basement, all of which generally remained empty except for when the occasional drunken brawl down at the local bar called for someone to sleep it off before heading home. They passed through the small kitchenette that served as the officer’s break room, then into the smaller room filled with lockers that looked like they came out of a high school which last saw students sometime back in the nineteen fifties. Rob stepped inside the room, closed the door, and then began unbuttoning his damp shirt while the Chief went in search of a dry one for him.

  “Look, be straight with me now,” Williams said as he dug around inside the first locker, where they kept extra uniforms and accessories. “If you don’t think you can handle it the next two weeks considering what’s started this morning, you say the word. I can always go fishing with my idiot brother-in-law some other time.”

  Rob sighed as he removed his nametag and badge from the wet shirt before taking it the rest of the way off. “You’ve been planning this trip for the last four months. I told you when you asked the first time that I could do it, and as far as I’m concerned, nothing’s changed.”

  Thunder rumbled hard enough to nearly shake the building, as if arguing against his confidence. Williams glanced up at the ceiling and then back to Rob.

  “You said that before we had any clue this crazy-ass storm was on the way, too. I mean, sure, you’re going to have to figure out how to do some of this shit on your own at some point anyway, but considering what you’re liable to find yourself up against with this added bu
llshit in the mix, there ain’t no shame in holding off on those lessons for a little longer.”

  There was a large part of him that wanted to take the man up on his offer, but his pride and sense of duty wouldn’t let him. Besides, the Chief was right: he needed to figure out how to deal with this stuff on his own. This was his chance to prove to himself that he could do the job he’d aspired to since he was old enough to aspire to anything, and he’d be damned if he was going to let a little rain get in the way of that.

  “I promise you, I’ll be fine,” he said. “Worst that happens is the rivers overflow their banks some, or the lake rises high enough to flood the service roads and the boat ramp. If we end up getting any flooding, I just order the affected roads closed, and maybe get a sandbag crew together if it looks like some houses might get hit if we don’t. Piece of cake.”

  “Sure,” Williams agreed as he handed Rob a fresh shirt that wasn’t exactly his size but would work well enough. “But what happens if the bridges wash out?”

  Rob paused with only one arm into a sleeve and gave the Chief a questioning look. “You really think that’s apt to happen?”

  “Don’t matter what I think,” Williams said, his face unreadable. “I’m asking what you’ll do if it happens.”

  Rob was ashamed to admit that he didn’t have an immediate answer for that. Not once in the thirty-four years he’d been alive and a resident of Ashford Fork had either of the bridges leading into town been washed out by flooding. He’d never even considered it a possibility until the Chief asked his question just now.

  “I guess I’d close the main road down,” he replied tentatively. “Same as any other. Since it’s the main drag, I’d probably call County, give them the heads up. If they aren’t going to call the state Department of Transportation to get someone working on it, I suppose I’d do that, too. From there it’s just a matter of keeping everybody calm until we get something worked out so we can keep in contact with the rest of the world.”

  Williams nodded thoughtfully. “Not bad, not bad at all. Can’t say I’d do nothing different.”

  “Good,” Rob said, letting out a sigh of relief. “But do you really think it’ll come to that?”

  “Oh, hell no!” Williams laughed. “Those damned bridges might ice up something fierce in the winter, but I can’t even imagine something taking ‘em out completely. Those bastards are rebar and concrete on top of iron and more rebar and concrete. You’re going to be the dumbass what puts a city smack-dab in the middle of a damned island, you damn well better make sure the ways in and out ain’t about to shit the bed at a moment’s notice. You build that shit to last.”

  Rob rolled his eyes and finished pulling on his shirt. “Ashford Fork’s not on an island, Chief. We’re surrounded by water on three sides, not four.”

  “Is there a road to the rest of the world out on that side that’s not water?”

  “No,” Rob said, begrudgingly.

  “No there ain’t,” Williams agreed. “So with that government place sitting there, we may as well be on an island. Abandoned over twenty years and they still won’t release the land back to the state. Shitheads.”

  Thankfully, Charlene picked that moment to interrupt the Chief’s budding rant by knocking on the door. She popped her head in without waiting for either of them to respond, and glanced around to find where they were. Rob wondered if this was something she did on purpose, hoping to catch someone back here stark naked while in the midst of changing clothes or something. He wasn’t the first to wonder this, and he doubted he’d be the last. Anywhere else, she might be in trouble for sexual harassment, but here in Ashford Fork, it was just taken as par for the course. In fact, several of the officers had a pool going on who would be the one she finally managed to sneak a peek at. Rob’s money was on the Chief, though he secretly feared that with the Chief looking at retirement in a couple of years, it would be him instead.

  “Got one for you,” she said, and was that a hint of disappointment in her voice? She held up a scrap of paper with a name, phone number, address, and brief message written on it, but Rob couldn’t get a good enough angle to see what it actually said beyond the familiar patterns. “Since Andy and Steph still haven’t made it in yet, I guess one of y’all gets to be the lucky one. Seems like Annie Fordham didn’t come home last night.”

  “Probably off gallivanting around with that piece of shit Brandon Snyder,” Williams said. “Ten to one she’s shacked up over at that hellhole he calls a house he’s renting, sound asleep after banging each other’s worthless brains out all night. But you know what? Today, it ain’t my problem.”

  He pointed at Rob, a wicked smile on his face. “He’s the chief for the next two weeks, so it’s his problem. I’m on vacation.”

  Rob took the paper from her, glanced at it, and saw the phone number and address for the Fordham residence, along with a brief sentence stating what she’d just told them. He had to agree that either the girl was over at her asshole boyfriend’s house, or the two of them had done something really stupid and eloped. Annie wasn’t exactly the smartest kid in her class, nor was she in the top fifty, and Snyder was the type of sneaky little bastard to use a quick and worthless wedding ceremony performed by some guy who may or may not have the legal authority to perform it all as an elaborate scheme to get into a girl’s pants. Either way, he would probably have this one wrapped up by lunchtime.

  “I’ll look into it,” he said. He tucked the note into his pocket, then put his badge and nametag back on before it hit him: he was about to have to go right back out in the rain again. He sighed, wishing that he hadn’t bothered to change shirts. All he could do was hope the first one would be dried out by the time he made it back to the station in an hour or so.

  And maybe this time he could remember his damned coffee, too.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At first, he thought it was his head that was pounding, and while that was undoubtedly true, it wasn’t the only thing. Someone was at the door, beating on it almost constantly, waking him from his drunken excuse for sleep and forcing him back to the world of reality, hangovers, and misery. Jake groaned as he sat up in bed, automatically reaching for his cigarettes with one hand while rubbing his eyes with the other. His fingers closed around an empty pack, prompting him to look over in the desperate hope that he just grabbed the wrong one. No such luck, it seemed. The only thing other than his lighter and an overflowing ashtray on the night stand was a pair of crushed and empty beer cans he thought were from last night, but wouldn’t swear to it.

  Then he remember Brandon was supposed to bring home more smokes once he finished diddling around with that stupid high school bitch, but he never showed. Under normal circumstances, Jake could’ve cared less, but since he’d lost his job the week before, he had to rely on his asshole roommate more and more for the essentials like beer, smokes, and weed as his finances dwindled. Considering that Brandon hadn’t remembered to give him rent money last month, Jake figured that making him buy the important provisions of their life here was a fair trade—at least until their landlord tired of their bullshit and kicked them out.

  Now it seemed that in addition to having no money, he was going to have to quit smoking cold turkey as well, at least for the day. If he remembered correctly, he’d finished off the beer last night waiting on Brandon to get back, so there wasn’t even any alcohol to help dull his annoyance. Well, there was that bottle of rotgut that Brandon brought home after some party he’d gone to, but Jake wasn’t quite desperate enough to break into that one yet. He did have twenty bucks left in his pants pocket that he’d been saving for a couple of dime bags later, but he could always just buy beer and smokes and make Brandon pay for the pot once he finally showed back up. He would have to walk down to the store, since his car was currently sitting on four slashed tires, the result of his psycho ex-girlfriend’s conviction that he’d been the one banging underage girls instead of his roommate. It sucked, but it would be better than suffering all day.


  He put his feet to the floor and stood, weaving slightly as his equilibrium readjusted from the motion. The pounding was still there, both in his head and at the door, but he could hear something else behind it all, something that almost sounded like the white noise that dominated the television after their cable had been shut off last month.

  Rain. The fucking storm everyone had been talking about must have hit. As if his day couldn’t get any better, now he’d wind up getting soaked when he walked to the store. He made a mental note to punch Brandon right in the fucking dick once the prick came back home.

  Since it seemed whoever was pounding on his door wasn’t going away any time soon, he cast a longing glance to the dilapidated bathroom, then passed it by and headed out to the living room instead. Hopefully whoever it was didn’t need anything major, since he was apt to piss on their shoes if they kept him too long. All that beer needed to complete its recycling process, and he couldn’t put it off for too long.

  He snickered, picturing himself whipping it out and letting a thick stream of hot piss splatter against some Jehovah’s Witness’s sensible dress shoes. Let’s see them knock that dust off when they left.

  The pounding seemed much louder and more insistent the closer he got to the door, driving an icepick directly into his brain and putting him into an even fouler mood than he’d been in when he woke up.

  “Hold your fucking horses!” he yelled, immediately wishing he hadn’t. “I’m fucking coming!”