Chapter 14 (part 2)

“And now they’re here?” Evan asked. “I wonder why.”

“I’m not sure.” Max shuffled through the maps and found the map of New Mexico. It seemed to be the newest map of the bunch, the folds relatively fresh and the markings along its pages much bolder than the other maps.

There were three towns circled and marked through. Max pointed to them slowly, trying to gather any sort of pattern to them.

“Are those all small towns, too?” Evan asked.

“Seems that way. Fowler is right here, marked through. I personally know that Fowler is a piss pot of a place. I’d say roughly thirty or so people live there. There’s not even a post office. Just one small general store. Everything else is over in Dry Gulch, fifteen miles away.

“This one I’m not too familiar with, this town called Wolf Creek. But being right there in the middle of the desert, I feel certain it’s not much bigger than Fowler.” Max followed the route that led away from Wolf Creek and towards the third X. “Samson is a tiny little place, too. I’ve driven through there several times. It’s basically a twin of Fowler. One or two shops, a few houses, and that’s it. No side roads, no streets, nothing.”

Evan studied the map and located Shinoe. It sat about forty miles to the west of the X that crossed through Fowler. He then looked away from Shinoe and to the criss-crossing of roads that sat between it and the three Xs.

“Where would their shacks be located?” Even asked.

Max studied the map and pointed, as if not quite sure of his answer. “Somewhere around here, between Wolf Creek and Shinoe.”

“Do you think they’re planning on doing something in Shinoe?” Evan asked.

“It’s doubtful. Shinoe is small, but not nearly as small as these other places. Compared to Fowler and Samson, Shinoe is a practical metropolis.”

“Then what do we look for?” Evan asked.

Max shrugged and followed the route that connected the Xs once more with his finger. They seemed to make a curve and then a harsh arch. Studying the markings, he wondered if the circling of a fourth town on the map would make a circle. He made the motion of a circle with his finger and felt certain that this was what the people on the bus were trying to do.

He looked back to the map of Utah and looked at the routes and the Xs. There were three different patterns and all of them made a crude circular shape. Two of the patterns consisted of five circles while the other one—the one with Osprey along its route—were made up of only four. He then checked the map of Arizona and found the exact same patterns.

Max looked back to the map of New Mexico and made the imaginary end to his circle again. There were several towns between the start of the circle—Fowler—and the place where it had stopped—Samson. Max had heard of a few of them and knew that they were all relatively small in size.

“We need to check out these towns,” he said.

“You think they’re traveling in a circle?”

“They did it in Utah and Arizona,” Max said, pointing to the maps. “And if there’s something ritualistic about what they’re doing, I don’t see why they would do anything different this time.”

Evan sighed. “I really don’t want any of this,” he said. “You know that you’re pretty much blackmailing me, don’t you?”

Max said nothing. The coffee pot beeped and he poured himself a cup. He offered a cup to Evan and he took it begrudgingly.

“Not only that,” Evan added, “but you’re going about this as if this was any normal cult. But what about those things you saw in the cellar? What was that about, huh? I think it’s clear that these guys are into some shit that is way over our heads and, quite frankly, I think it’s pretty stupid to chase after them.”

Max said nothing. He did look down to the floor for a moment, clearly thinking hard about something. But all he did was sigh and nod. He folded the maps back up and tucked them under his arms.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go pay your buddy Sam a visit.”

Chapter 14 (part 1)

Max Young lived in a modest house with very little furniture. Max was getting old and, no longer having a family, his disassociation from the world showed in his possessions and the way he kept his house. He didn’t own a DVD player, but a VCR sat atop his television, the green digital letters forever flashing 12:00. There were empty soda and beer cans scattered about, some in the kitchen, some in the living room. His service weapon sat on his coffee table, still in its holster beside an out of date TV Guide and a stack of mail.

They sat at the kitchen table as Max did his best to tend to Evan’s finger. The only materials he had to create a splint were gauze tape and a pencil that he snapped in half and placed to either side of the finger. When he wrapped it up, Evan grimaced as Max straightened the finger out. The finger itself was rather dull, but when jarred it sent a rocket of queasy pain through Evan’s body.

“Eventually, you may need to go to a hospital,” Max said. “But for right now, I don’t think we have much time. We really need to figure out where that bus is and where it’s headed. And if we’re going to go visit with Sam beforehand, we really don’t have much time.”

Gulping down three Advil tablets that Max had given him, Evan nodded hesitantly.

“If you want my help, you’re going to have to fill me in on what you know about Lott and the bus and all of the people on it.”

“I really don’t know much,” Max said. “I just know that they go from town to town and practice some sick ritual. They kidnap several people to take into the desert and kill in a very methodic manner. Those that they don’t kidnap, they kill right away.”

Max began spreading the maps he had taken from the compound around the table and thumbing through the notebooks he had taken with them. Some of the maps were older and had been sketched on; specific routes had been traced and circled. Along these routes were the large circles with the Xs marked through them.

“Here it is,” Max said, pointing.

Evan looked over and saw that Max was pointing to a town that had been circled and crossed through. The city was Osprey, Utah. It was a small town located in the southeastern part of the state.

“This is where my family lived. Three years ago this bus comes through town in the dead of the night. These miscreants get off of it with axes and guns and other crude weapons and go to work.”

“The police didn’t help?” Evan asked.

“What police?” Max asked with a laugh. He got up and walked around the kitchen to occupy himself. He assigned himself the task of making a pot of coffee as he told Evan what he knew.

“Osprey was a town with a population of 37 people. The day after the bus came through, twenty-one of them were dead and eight were missing. The rest of us were too disturbed to talk about it after it happened. Three of the survivors were committed to institutions. There was a police investigation for a while, but nothing ever came of it.

“If you look at these maps, these towns that are marked through, they’re all small towns like Osprey. And I don’t just mean tiny little towns; I’m talking dust bowls. Ghost towns that a few stubborn people refuse to give up because of ancestry or heritage. Here’s Cedar Bluff; I know there was no more than fifty people living there. And here’s Keyanne, population of about thirty. Now, this is just a map of Utah. They’ve moved since then. And they were doing this before Osprey, too.”

He pointed to a partially unfolded map of Arizona. “They were doing this exact same thing in Arizona.”

Chapter 13 (part 2)

Evan looked at the book, at the pages that Max was studying. All along the portion of Utah Max seemed interested in, several of those red X marks had been drawn.
Max looked to the floor and Evan realized that the man was on the verge of either breaking into a fit of rage or succumbing to tears. Not wanting to witness either one, Evan grabbed him lightly by the shoulder.

“Let’s get out of here, okay?”

Max nodded. He handed Evan the book and then went to the wall and tore down the map where Shinoe had been circled. He folded this map, tucked it under his arm and stormed out of the room.

“Come on,” he said, not bothering to look back.

Evan followed him, but was suddenly not so sure if he wanted to be with Max. There were several reasons for this hesitancy. First and foremost, Max was a policeman and this made Evan uneasy enough as it was. But the fact that he was apparently a policeman that killed people at will and knew quite a bit about this cult only made Evan’s unease grow.

But if he didn’t go with Max, his only other option was to be left alone in the desert with the cult and their bus still out there somewhere. That being the case, Evan’s decision was an easy one.

In their haste to escape, Lott’s people had piled into one of the vans and tore away from their ramshackle complex. They had left the second van out front and, much to Max’s delight, the keys were still in the ignition. Max tossed the maps into the back of the van and cranked the engine to life. Evan climbed into the passenger seat, looking furtively around the desert for any signs of the other van or the bus.

“I don’t get it,” Evan said.

“What’s that?” Max asked.

“You said you shot four and that a few of them got away in the other van. But when I was on the bus, there were more than twenty people. Where the hell did the rest of them go?”

“Well, the way I figure it is that they stop by here to drop the really important people off. The rest of them stay on the bus and go into the desert.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know,” Max said as he pulled the van away from the complex and headed back the way he had previously come on the dirt bike. “But that’s why I’m out here. I plan on finding out. And apparently, since you have actually been on that bus, you know more than I do about what they’re up to.”

“That’s doubtful,” Evan said.

“Well here’s the deal. I’ve been after these assholes for the better part of three years. If you can be of any help, I’d appreciate it. I can’t force you, of course. But keep in mind that you were asking me about a particular tribe of Indians earlier tonight that are known simply as the Tribe. And the only reason any white men ever visit their reservation is not for historical purposes. Now, me being a cop...I can put two and two together. I can bust you for something, I’m sure.”

Evan’s mouth went dry. It wouldn’t take much investigative effort to figure out why he had come to Shinoe. If Max knew of the Tribe and ended up talking with Sam, there was no way he was going to get out of this predicament. Essentially, Max Young was blackmailing him.

“It’s okay,” Max said, as reassuringly as he could. “Anything you tell me right now is harmless. I’m not a cop at this moment.”

Evan stared into the night, thinking about Emile Gorrengo. It was because of Emile that he was here, doing his dirty work, his drug deals. And while he was out here in some supremely deep shit, he was certain that Emile was probably lounging by his pool, drinking wine and feeling up some gorgeous beach bimbo. It wasn’t right.

He then thought of Lott. He recalled the maniacal way the man had presented himself. He thought of how he had snapped his finger as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And more than anything, he saw the frail man raising his axes into the air and lopping off the heads of two people in the night.

“Fine,” Evan said. “It’s not like I wouldn’t enjoy helping someone bust these fuckers. As you can see by my hand and the company they threw me in the cellar with, we really didn’t get off to a good start.”

“Believe me,” Max said, “if I thought there was some other way, I’d let you go on your merry way. But they’re up to something big and if I don’t stop them now, I may never get the chance again.”

“Why are you so determined to get to them?”

Max grunted and stared out into the night, maneuvering the van through the rough desert terrain. For a while, Evan thought that the man wouldn’t say anything. But finally, after taking a moment to collect his thoughts, Max spoke. When he did, his voice was low and full of anger.

“They’ve been doing this for a long time. They came through my hometown and killed my wife and daughter a few years ago. They would have got me too if I hadn’t have been out at the bar in the neighboring town getting drunk.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Evan said.

Max only nodded. He eventually came to the spot where he had parked his bike and got out of the van. “Give me a hand, would you?” he asked.

Evan helped Max load the bike into the back of the van as best as he could. He did everything possible to avoid hitting his broken finger. They had to lower the rear seats and even then, the bike barely fit. As they went about this business, Evan found himself looking into the blackness of the night, waiting for a gunshot to sound out or for someone to scream. It just seemed to fit the scene.

“What do you know about the Tribe?” Evan asked as they piled back into the van.

“Enough,” Max said with a sigh. “Are they the reason you ended up here tonight?”

It was Evan’s turn to sound angry now. “Yeah,” he said, and proceeded to tell Max the entire story of how he had been sent to Shinoe by his boss, Emile Gorrengo. He then told him about meeting with Sam and how Sam and his companion had set him up. Max listened with great interest, frowning at certain parts and grinning at others.

“So the Tribe thinks the bus is a competing drug market?” Max asked. “That’s priceless.”

“They’re serious about it, too. They had people on patrol out there tonight, driving around to make sure I got on the bus.”

This seemed to startle Max a bit. He said nothing about it though; he simply furrowed his brow and thought long and hard about something.

The headlights continued to unravel the darkness ahead of them and Evan eventually saw the highway spring into view. Max took a right, headed back to Shinoe, and remained silent for quite some time.

“What are your plans?” Evan asked, not sure if he wanted to hear them or not.

“We’re going to go to my house and grab some things. I’ll properly splint your finger for you, too. Then I think we’ll pay your friend Sam a visit if we can find him.”

“Oh, that’ll be easy,” Evan said, brightening up a bit. “He’s waiting for me at my motel room." He would be delighted to meet Sam again. Especially with a cop in tow. And with the knowledge of what really happened on that bus.

They traveled east, back into Shinoe, winding down the longest night Evan had ever experienced.

Chapter 13 (part1)

Evan and Max left the hallway in a scramble, Max retreating backwards and aiming his gun down the hallway in the event that any of the creatures decided to follow them. While Max had closed the door, there was a gaping hole along its base where he had shot the lock. Apparently, the monsters preferred the darkness because not a single one of them came through the doorway in search of them.

They came to the main room where Evan had had been questioned and had his pinky snapped in half. It was here that Evan realized that the place was deathly quiet. He recalled hearing the gunshots and the starting of an engine, wondering if Max Young had come here by himself. This idea seemed odd, but after the events he had seen tonight, who was to say what odd really was?

“Did you kill most of them?” Evan asked.

“I don’t know,” Max said. “I took down four, wounded one other one, and then a few of them piled into a van and left.”

As he spoke, Max looked terrified and slightly shocked. It was clear to Evan that Max had not been expecting to see such horrors in the cellar. Max looked as if his mind was still struggling to process it all.

“There was a man with white hair,” Evan said. “Really skinny. Did you kill him?”

“No. The others did everything they could to protect him. He got away with about four others in a van.”

“What about the bus?” Evan asked. “Where is it?”

Max looked at Evan suspiciously. “How do you know about the bus?” It wasn’t an accusatory tone, but one of disbelief.

“It’s a long story,” he said, wincing at the pain that continued to flare through his left hand. His back was also hurting a bit now, a result of falling down the stairs.

“I need you to tell me anyway,” Max said. “But not right now. First there’s something I need to check out.”

Max turned and headed back through the hallway from which they had come. Not knowing what he was supposed to do, Evan followed him. When they passed the door to the cellar, they both cut their eyes towards the door. They both heard the clucks and cries of the creatures and it caused them to quicken their pace. The darkness that bordered the door’s edges seemed to melt out towards them, eager to grasp them if they turned their backs.

Evan followed Max out onto the network of walkways, the boards creaking beneath their feet. They passed one of the men that Max had shot, the bullet having taken him in the upper chest. Evan looked away as soon as his eyes fell on the body. Having witnessed the beheadings, he had seen enough death for the night. Still, he followed Max into one of the other shacks without asking questions. He was just thankful that he was alive and that there was someone here to share this madness with him. With a companion, the threat of insanity didn’t seem as progressive.

In this particular shack, there was a door that had been kicked in (part of Max’s assault, Evan assumed), two more bodies, and various books scattered here and there. Two maps hung perfectly aligned on the wall. One of a map of New Mexico and the other was a more detailed rendering of one particular county within the state. Entering the room, Max headed straight for these maps.

He studied the detailed map, trailing his finger over it quickly. Evan looked over Max’s shoulder and saw that it was a map of the area in which they currently stood. To the east, roughly in the center of the map, was Shinoe. It had been circled in red. Other small towns were scattered here and there, several of them having been tagged with bright red X marks.

Max used his finger to follow these X markings, tracing their course along the map.

“What are you looking for?” Evan asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Max said, stepping away from the map and looking around the room. “Help me look through these books, would you? If you see any other maps, let me know.”

Without question, Evan did as he had been asked despite the fact that his instincts told him to get as far away from this place as fast as he could. But if Max Young had not come here tonight, he (Evan) would most likely be having his insides removed by those slithering things in the basement. So if Max needed his help, he’d gladly give it. Besides that, Max had a gun and the cult apparently did not posses any; knives and axes they had, but perhaps guns were against their religion.

Evan almost laughed at this but was afraid of what his laughter would sound like. He focused on the books, flipping through them for any signs of maps. Most of them were journals, sloppily written in and with no apparent organization. But there were others that were nothing more than notebooks with dates and figures written in them.

They looked the room over for about three minutes before Max found what he was looking for. It was a Rand McNally publication, a book full of maps of every state in America. Max flipped through it with purpose and stopped when he came to the maps of southern Utah.

“This,” Max said quietly, “is what I’m looking for.”

Chapter 12 (part 2)

He saw the texture of the stairs and his shoes. There was blood on his shoes as well as some other residue, a slimy substance that looked like snot. He wondered if it was the product of whatever had touched his shoe while he had sat on the cellar floor.

The cellar now seemed to be filled with the clucking noises. They were defiantly communicating with one another and they were getting closer.

From somewhere further off, there was a gunshot. The noise made no sense to Evan at first. The thought of a gun was too real and authentic to have a place in this absurd nightmare. But, as if to assure him that he was still awake and attached to the real world, the sound came two more times in quick succession.

He then heard a voice screaming out, “You have no right, you are not…” but another gunshot cut this short.

The gunshots told him that there was something unexpected going on within the complex of shacks. Had an outsider found the place? Maybe even the police?

Wasting no time, Evan turned around and practically leaped up the remaining stairs. He pounded at the door with both hands, temporarily oblivious to the pain in his left hand. He screamed to the top of his lungs, banging on the door in fear and desperation.

“Help me! Please, someone, help me!” These pleas became nothing more than urgent shouts of terror and anxiousness, wordless cries for a rescue.

Still, no matter how much he shouted, he could still hear the sounds of the creatures that he shared the darkness with. He heard them advancing towards him, climbing the stairs in an organic-sounding march: slap-slither-slide, slap-slither-slide.

There was another shot, another scream and then a loud clamor as something crashed to the ground. Two more shots sounded out, these a bit closer, and then Evan thought he heard an engine start up. It was too small to be the bus, but maybe one of the vans.

Realizing that he could hear these things clearly, he understood that he was no longer dazed. His hope of rescue had brought him around and now he seemed to even block out the noises and advancing sounds of the monsters in the dark.

This kept him grounded until he felt their touch at his legs again. There were three at once, one on his ankle and two closer to his knee. He felt them sliding around his leg, looking for purchase and trying to grab him.

Evan shouted, his throat seeming to expand with the effort. It was a scream of pure terror, a scream that amplified a bit more when he felt several other shapes slapping gently at him. He pressed himself to the doorway, screaming and pounding. He was in such a horrified frenzy that he barely noticed that someone was shouting to him from the other side of the door.

“Hold on,” a man’s voice was saying. “I have to shoot the lock. Step back.”

“I can’t,” Evan said. “There’s something here with me…I can’t.”

It was then that there was a tug at his leg and he went sliding down the stairs. As he fell backwards, he felt several other shapes grabbing at him: something fell across his chest in a wet, sticky caress; something fell in his face, a bitter tasting appendage slipping into his mouth and over his tongue.

He hit the ground hard and something juicy popped under his weight. There was a child-like wail of pain from one of the odd clucking voices, followed by an excited clamor of clucks and other throaty sounds.

Evan tried to open his mouth to scream but realized that his mouth was already open. There was something in it, something with a texture of raw fish and tasted a bit like dirt and vomit. He tried to voice something but only gagged.

Above him, at the top of the stairs, a gunshot sounded out. This was followed by a loud metallic clanking sound, and then the sound of something dropping to the floor. Despite having been overtaken by his still unseen assailants on the cellar floor, Evan recognized this sound as the lock falling from its place along the door.

There was one last crashing sound as the door at the top of the stairs was kicked open. Weak yellow tinted light spilled into the cellar in a flood.

Evan could only see the shape of a man standing there. There was a moment of hesitation and Evan could barely hear the man say, “What the hell?” over the eager cries of the things grabbing at him.

Then the man hurried down the stairs, kicking at several shapes along the way. He fired his gun twice at a few of the creatures as he made his way to Evan. He knelt by Evan and grabbed the thing that was working its way into Evan’s mouth, voicing a cry of disgust as he touched it. Evan felt the reaching appendage in his mouth withdraw and heard a defeated cry from the thing’s throat.

As the man tossed the creature to the side in a violent pitch, Evan saw what the things were. They were the same monstrosity he had seen in the restroom on the bus. Some of them were small, about the size of a softball, but a few of them were easily three feet in length. All of them had swarming tentacles and at least six eyes along their tiny heads.

Also, his estimate of six individual creatures was way off. As he got to his feet and helped his rescuer kick the creatures away, Evan glanced around furiously and saw that there were at least twenty of them. All of the eyes on all of those heads…seeing it was dizzying.

There were easily one hundred eyes staring at them in hunger.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” the man beside Evan said.

“Yeah,” Evan breathed, not even worried about Lott and his minions at the time. He’d gladly face Lott and another broken finger to get out of this mess. He could still taste the arm or tentacle or whatever of the thing that had reached into his mouth and when he realized that it had actually been inside his mouth, a creeping madness tried to take hold of him.

He looked past that madness as he and his savior climbed the stairs. Both men took the stairs in three bounding leaps. Once he was out of the doorway, Evan collapsed on the floor and started screaming. He was weak, he was hurt, he was tired and he was very much afraid that he might be losing his mind.

Above him, the man closed the cellar door and reached a hand out to him. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped short. He cast a curious look at Evan and then smiled thinly.

“I’ll be damned,” the man said. “A small world indeed.”

Confused, Evan looked up and really wasn’t all that surprised to see the face of Max Young looking down at him.

Chapter 11 (part 2)

Max left the window and then checked around both sides of the shack. The three other shacks that sat behind the first one were just as featureless, the windows boarded over and looking as if the slightest wind might knock them over. He trailed around the left side of the first shack, looking for another window.

What he found was even better. At the far end of the main shack, there was thin wooden door. It hung loosely to the building on faulty hinges, its lower left side jutting out of the frame a bit. Max experimentally stuck the toes of his boot into this area and pulled the door towards him. The door gave a bit but, even in its dilapidated state, was still locked from the inside.

He looked to the weak doorknob and was sure that a single shot from his pistol would blow the lock apart. But there was no sense in bringing attention to himself. He holstered his gun for the moment and then kneeled down by the bottom of the door. He grabbed the crooked, swollen edge of the door with both hands and pulled forward as hard as he could. The door groaned and popped in protest. Over his head, one of the hinges popped out of the frame and clattered to the ground.

The door didn’t come out of its frame, but the lower half of the door was now completely free and loose. Max eyed the bottom of the door and the frame, pretty sure that he could squeeze through it. He peeked inside first, but only saw darkness.

Inside, he heard another scream of pain. It sounded like it belonged to the same voice that had issued the first scream.

Max paused for a moment, waiting for another scream or any indication that things were still progressing for the worse inside. After ten seconds of silence, Max started crawling through the bottom of the weakened door and into the darkness of the shack.

Inside, it was far too dark to make sense of anything. But now that the outside walls no longer separated him from the people inside, Max could hear things more clearly. He heard faint footfalls, walking away from him. He brought up a mental snapshot of the grounds and the shacks and thought that the footfalls were headed away from that first large room. Perhaps they were headed out to one of the shacks in the back.

Max took the binoculars from his shoulder and put them to his eyes, switching on the night vision feature. After adjusting the sights, he saw that he was in a hallway of some sort. Directly in front of him there was another door, closed and just as weak -ooking as the one that had allowed him entrance into the shack. To both sides, lined up against each wall, were several cardboard boxes and torn fragments of magazines.

Keeping the binoculars to his eyes, Max slowly crept forward. When his hand fell on the door in front of him, he prayed that it wasn’t locked. He took the binoculars away from his face and tried the knob.

It turned freely and with a slight rusty sound. When Max slowly opened the door, a faint murky light spilled into the hallway. Before opening the door any further, Max listened for any signs of a presence immediately beyond the door. The only thing he heard was the faint mumble of conversation coming from somewhere very far off to his left.

He took the chance and poked his head out of the door. He found himself peering into another thin hallway, lit by three kerosene lanterns that hung from crudely made hanging devices that were attached to the roof.

To his left there was an open doorway that looked out onto the three other shacks. A wooden walkway ran from the doorway in both directions, towards the adjoining buildings. He could still hear two faint voices from that direction, seeming to grow farther away, maybe into one of the other shacks.

Max looked to his right and saw two doors along the far wall. One was cracked open a bit, revealing a filthy restroom. The other was a fairly large door that seemed almost inappropriate in the fragile shacks. Five huge locks ran down the side of the door like large metal fingers digging into the wall.

Beyond this locked door there was the open walkway that led into the main room that Max had looked in on through the boarded up window. He listened intently and was certain that the room was empty.

Flexing his grip on his gun, he walked deeper into the darkness of the hall. He closed his eyes, said a silent prayer just in case God was listening, and walked towards the walkways and the voices.

Chapter 11 (part 1)

Through his binoculars, Max saw the small building a few hundred yards ahead and allowed himself a fleeting moment of triumph. The two vans had come to a stop outside of this small shack but the bus had kept driving into the desert. Assuming that the men inside the vans were more important than the passengers aboard the bus, Max slowed the dirt bike to a crawl and then killed the engine altogether. He set the bike down on the desert floor and hunkered down beside it. Then, lying on his somtahc, he brought the binoculars to his face and watched as events unfolded.

He saw two men remove a single body from the back of one of the vans. Within a few seconds, Max saw that this was the body that had been clubbed with a tire iron. He also saw that this man was still alive. He was obviously groggy, but was able to walk with a little urging from the two men that hauled him out of the van.

Once these three men were inside the shack, Max continued to look in that same direction, making sure no one came outside to take guard duty. The fact that the bus had kept driving out into the desert was a bit puzzling, but Max was sure that this was where he needed to be if he wanted any suitable answers.

Taking another look around with the binoculars, he felt sure that there were no guards anywhere around the odd composition of shacks. He slowly got to his feet, holstering the binoculars around his shoulder. Now that he no longer had the steady drone of the dirt bike’s engine in his ears, every single movement he made seemed impossibly loud. He winced with every movement, afraid that he would somehow be found out.

With extreme caution, he quietly reached down to his gun holster and withdrew his Smith and Wesson .9mm. It was his own personal gun, not the service weapon he carried on his hip while on duty. This way, if things got out of hand, he could not be traced to his service gun. It seemed like an overly cautious approach to the night’s events, but Max didn’t want his fellow officers to find out about his ongoing investigation.

From time to time, Max was sickened at the knowledge of the Shinoe Police Department’s leniency and allowances granted to the men involved with the bus and their horrid practices. Of course, there were only certain members of the force who were aware of it; he had been on the force for five years now and he still hadn’t been filled on what they knew.

But that was okay. Max was certain that he knew much more than anyone on the Shinoe Police Department. Hell, maybe it was wrong to be angry at them for hiding this dark secret. He’d been keeping secrets of his own for quite a while now, so who was he to judge? He was just as guilty for hiding the acts and, as a result, the deaths of countless innocents.

Holding the .9mm in his right hand, Max hunched over and trotted closer towards the shack, bringing the binoculars to his eyes once more. He saw no guards posted anywhere along the perimeter of the building. The lack of security made him feel uncomfortable, as if there were hidden eyes spying on him from somewhere in the night.

He approached the two vans and took cover behind them. He looked into both of the vehicles and saw that their interiors were spotless. There was no trash, no papers, no signs of their foul play. Taking a moment longer to hide behind the vans, Max craned his neck out from behind the rear of the van closest to the shack.

Both windows along the front of the shack had been boarded up. Still, through a few miniscule cracks in the boarding, he could see faint traces of light from inside. They came dancing through the cracks in the boards like knives into the heart of the night. Once again checking the immediate area for anyone who might be outside, Max quickly left the cover of the vans and headed for the front door.

When he approached, he cocked his head forward, listening for anyone who might be inside. Standing by the building, the night seemed darker than ever now; he felt like he was walking on the moon, solitary and alone, rather than in the deserts of New Mexico. As he concentrated, he realized that he did hear someone speaking from behind the closed door and boarded windows, but the voice was too faint to be heard properly. A few seconds later, as Max remained perched at the door, he heard a slight scream from inside.

Shuddering from the sudden cry of pain, Max stepped back a bit, his gun aimed at the front door in case anyone came out. When it was clear that no one was coming out, he reclaimed his place by the front door, rigid in the shadows. Now as he listened, he heard a single chanted word.

“Amen.”

This was followed by the obvious sounds of a scuffling of some kind. Max thought of the man that had been taken out of the back of the van and imagined that he might be trying to escape now, hence the frantic sounds of movement from beyond the closed door.

Irritated at his lack of vision, Max went over to the window to his right. It had been boarded over from the inside, but there were a few minor cracks that he managed to peer between. He could just barely see two shapes, then three. They were moving around frantically for a moment and then a bit more relaxed. Narrowing his eyes to peer through the crack between the boards, Max finally managed to see the scene for a moment.

There were three men, one of which had a headful of disarrayed white hair, forcing a fourth man forward and away from the central large room of the shack. They were moving this fourth man into a hallway and as Max watched, the four men rounded the corner into the hallway and then disappeared from his sight.

Chapter 10 (part 1)

Evan sensed that he was being moved. He also felt something very cold on his head and something wet touching his mouth. His lips recognized the wetness as water and he opened his mouth to receive it. He gulped at it greedily and when he swallowed, his head began to ache. He heard a door close somewhere behind him and he instantly thought of the bathroom door on the bus. That recollection brought to mind the horrible creature he had seen pulling itself out of the toilet and he began to panic.

Evan opened his eyes but his vision was incredibly hazy. He tried to scream but as soon as he opened his mouth to do so, his head seemed to explode. He could vaguely remember being hit in the head, but that seemed like a dream right now. As his vision swam in and out, he could imagine several of those horrible toilet-monsters scurrying around him and that made his panic intensify.

He felt himself being lifted and then felt solid ground beneath his feet. “Walk,” said a smooth yet demanding voice from beside him.

He then felt a hand grab each one of his arms. He was carried forward by what he thought was two men. They assisted him with the first few steps but then Evan’s disoriented mind seemed to remember what walking was and how to do it.

His vision finally settled down and he was able to see a small house in front of him. It was actually more like a shack than a house, its construction no more inspired than a ten year-old’s clubhouse. There were two windows on the side that he faced, both of which were boarded up. It’s roof sloped down in a sharp triangle, the shingles peeling and falling off.

Behind this shack, there were three other similar structures. The four buildings seemed to be connected by crudely built walkways that were barely boarded over. The construction was flimsy at best, but the almost symmetrical sloppiness of the buildings and the walkways as a whole seemed abstract in the open spaces of the desert.

The two men to his side remained quiet. They stopped for a brief moment as they approached the shack so that the man to his right could open the front door. Evan looked at both men and recognized the one to his left as the bearded man that had spoke to him on the bus.

“Stop looking at me,” the man said. He gave Evan a slight shove towards the open door. “Go inside.”

Evan did so without struggling. He was a fighter at heart and would normally have refused to follow the bearded man’s orders. But it seemed useless to fight in that moment. His head hurt too badly and the pictures from the night that were zooming through his head seemed like a nightmare. He saw the beheadings again, saw the little monster-type thing in the toilet, saw the fat meaty leg sticking out in the aisle of the bus.

Inside, Evan looked around and saw that the shack consisted of a single large room that was lit by several candles and two kerosene lanterns. All of these light sources sat on an enormous table located in the center of the room; the light was so abundant that it was almost as bright as natural overhead light. Scattered around the table there were a few empty chairs and stools. In the farthest corner of the room there was a thin entryway that most likely led out to one of the connecting walkways.

“Take a seat,” the man to Evan’s right said, pointing to the large table. As he pointed with his right hand, his left hand drew a large knife from the waist of his pants. “If you go along with what we say, I won’t have to do anything nasty with this,” he told Evan.

Giving this man an awkward glance, Evan did as he was instructed. He took a seat at the head of the table, noticing for the first time that all of the candles that sat upon it were black. Uneasy with this, Evan looked back to the two men that had carried him in. They were also taking their own seats at the table, sitting at the sides a good distance away from him.

The sight of the black candles made Evan incredibly uneasy. Just what in the hell had he stumbled onto here? Certainly, it was something more than Sam’s crazy drug-trafficking theory.

Before he could give this any thought, he heard footfalls coming from the entry-way across the room. The sound of the footsteps carried as if coming from the depths of some amplified cavern, a sound that added to the ache in Evan’s head. He looked to the entryway, awaiting the source of the footfalls with dread.

The man that finally came through the doorway was frail and looked slightly underfed. His white hair was all over the place and unmistakable. Evan stared at the man and his heart sank. It was the man that had sat in the back of the bus…the man with the electric white hair and the axes…the man that had beheaded those people. The only difference in his appearance as he approached the table was that he was now wearing a shirt and he was not holding his axes. That, at least, put Evan a bit more at ease.

“Good evening, Evan,” the white-haired man said.

He reached into his back pants pocket and withdrew a wallet. He hefted it in his hand and gingerly tossed it onto the table in front of Evan. He then followed the wallet’s progress and took the seat to Evan’s right. He hunkered down calmly, as if he were about to discuss something trivial. He seemed incredibly relaxed and this somehow bothered Evan more than anything else. There were no signs at all that he had just killed four people in the desert.

Evan eyed the wallet on the table and recognized it at once as his own. He then looked stupidly at the thin white-haired man as if to ask a question that he did not yet have the words for.

“I apologize,” the man said. “We never have guests on our bus, so I felt it necessary to find out who you were.”

“Did you come to that decision before or after you had me brained with a crowbar?” Evan asked, not caring if he angered the man or not. The black candles and the memories of the beheadings from earlier led Evan to believe that he was doomed no matter what he did or said.

“Before,” the man answered without a trace of sarcasm. “We wanted to make sure you were an innocent and that you were not sent to snoop around in our activities.”

Evan didn’t respond right away. He looked from this man to the other two that had led him into this room. His original two captors stared in the direction of the thin man with much admiration. The flames from the black candles pasted an eerie wavering light onto their faces.

The thin man habitually ran a hand through his wild white hair and then offered the same hand to Evan. “Well, it’s not fair of me to know your name and not introduce myself, now is it?” he asked. “The name is Lott.”

Evan blinked in surprise at the gesture. “I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t want to shake your hand,” Evan said, looking at the man with as much hatred as his fear would allow.

“I suppose so,” Lott said, withdrawing the offered hand and smirking. Evan was surprised to see that he actually looked a bit hurt at Evan’s response. “I hope you know that we had to bring you here. I know that you saw what we do. I’m not really worried about that, though.”

Lott drummed his fingers on the table and then eyed Evan with suspicion. “What interests me,” Lott said, “is how you knew about us.”

“I told your driver what happened to me when I got on the bus,” Evan said.

“Yes you did,” Lott said. “However, my driver is not stupid, nor am I. So I’m going to give you five seconds to tell me what I want to know. So, I ask again, how do you know about us?”

Evan didn’t know what to do or what to say. But he knew that if he were to change his story, the punishment for his lie might be rather painful. He didn’t have to look back to the man with the knife to be reminded of the blade that was waiting to do him harm.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Evan replied. “I got jumped and I needed a ride.” As the words came out of his mouth, he was achingly aware of how paper thin they sounded.

Lott leaned back in his chair a bit, considering Evan’s explanation. A good ten seconds passed before he made any sort of reply. When he did, it was to his partners. He gave them a simple nod and before Evan was completely aware of what was happening, all three of the men were in motion towards him.

Lott got to him first and did nothing more than grab his left arm. While Evan began to struggle against this, the other two came to assist Lott. The man with the beard wrapped an arm around Evan’s neck and held him in a sleeper-hold position while the other one helped Lott with his left arm. Evan squirmed against the seemingly mammoth arm that was firmly planted around his neck, but there was no resistance. In fact, the harder he fought, the tighter the hold seemed to grow.

Evan knew within moments that he was helpless. So, hoping that it might pay off in the end, he simply stopped fighting. He relaxed against the man’s grip and allowed Lott and the other man to have his arm.

The man that had pulled the knife out moments ago placed Evan’s left arm on the table, securing it by the wrist. It was a peculiar thing to do and Evan found himself tensing up in anticipation of whatever might come next. As he tensed, the vice-like grip at his neck flexed and Evan found that if it grew much tighter, it would be very difficult to breathe.

With his arm on the table, secured even tighter now by Lott’s henchman, Lott took a firm grip on the top half of Evan’s pinky.

“I tried to give you a chance,” Lott said almost sympathetically.

He then pulled Evan’s pinky hard and to the right. Before he was aware of what Lott was doing, Evan heard and felt his finger snap in two. He screamed in the chair even though his throat was mostly closed off by the bearded man’s grip. He tried to fight away from his three tormentors but to no avail. He shuddered in pain and finally relaxed his back against the chair in defeat, breathing hard and grimacing from the pain. The scorching ache in his hand was excruciating, but he knew that he would have to look past it if he hoped to get out of here alive. And besides that, he did not want to sob or whimper in front of these men.

Gasping for breath and in horrendous pain, Evan looked down to his left hand once Lott released his pinky. The finger was hanging onto his hand at a sick slanted angle and it made Evan sick to his stomach to see it. He whimpered against the pain as the other man released his wrist but Evan did not bother attempting to get out of the chair. What would be the point? One of them had a knife and Evan knew that there were axes around here somewhere. He also knew what these assholes were capable of when armed with those axes.

“I hate doing things like that,” Lott said. “But you forced my hand.”

Evan bit the remark before it left his mouth, but he thought, Yeah, breaking fingers is a huge step down from cutting off people’s heads, you crazy fuck!

“Now, Evan,” Lott went on. “I’m going to give you another chance. And here’s how we’re going to do it. I’ll keep asking you and you can keep telling lies if you want. But the next time you lie, I won’t break any more fingers. I’ll simply cut that broken pinky off. And I’ll do that to all ten fingers until you tell us the truth. So save us the time and trouble and save yourself the use of your hands by being truthful.”

The maniac was still speaking calmly and in a soothing tone, as if he were explaining the alphabet to a preschool class. Evan cut his eyes at him, trying to use his anger as a means to control the fear and the warm flashes of pain that were slamming through his left hand and head.

Somehow, Evan got a few words out beyond his trembling lips. What he said was true, but he didn’t think it meant much to Lott and his two helpers. “The truth,” Evan said, “sounds even dumber than what I just told you.”

“It often does,” Lott replied with a smile. “I can tell when I’m being lied to, so as long as you tell me the truth, you’re in good shape.”

Evan found himself feeling more exposed and vulnerable when he noticed the bearded man looking at his broken finger with interest. Evan withdrew his hand from the table slowly and cradled it carefully in his lap, trying not to wince at the pain that flared through his hand as he moved it. He found himself wanting to hide his pain from these three; it wasn’t because it seemed the macho thing to do, but because he knew that they would take him more seriously if he made it through this interrogation without crying like a baby.

“The truth, Evan,” Lott said. “Quickly, or we’ll cut that finger off.”