Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (9 page)

Before the sun set, Dog decided to head back toward the highway finding nothing in the city he wanted. They were working their way through one of the suburbs headed back to the highway when something caught Dog’s eye. He was leading the four and he accelerated quickly down street and the others followed.

Dog skidded his bike to a stop outside a nondescript house on a corner lot and fenced in on every side. He dropped his kickstand and jumped off his bike grabbing for his gun.

“Women!’ he hollered at the other riders and motioned Slick and Taffee around one side of the house while indicating Chuck should follow him. He kicked in the fence door to the side yard and chased after something only he’d seen.

It took 15 minutes of searching, but Dog heard whimpering in one of the rooms he were searching and slid a bookcase to find two women in hiding.

The older of the two was an ebony dark woman in her mid 30s with very short hair and an athlete’s body. The younger of the two women was an early-20s woman with tangled dirty blonde hair, dark shadows under her eyes, sharply defined features and she looked like she hadn’t eaten in weeks she was so thin and frail. The younger also has a yellowish bruise on the side of her face, an indication she’d been struck in recently.

The older woman was trying to protect the younger but Dog would have none of it. He yanked them out of their hiding, making both scream.

Dog laughed at them. Slick entered the room just after Chuck had. Taffee was still outside the house and the 17 year old was still on Taffee’s bike.

Dog kept his gun aimed at the two women as they flinched from his rough handling.

“You got a pretty face,” he told the black woman as he ran the back of his hand against her cheek.

“I want the little one,” Slick said reaching for the younger girl. She tried to crouch behind the older woman, afraid of Slick reaching for her. “I like ‘em when they fight.”

“No, dude, she ain’t got no meat on her bones like this one does,” Dog said pulling the older woman closer to him. “Look at her tits. I’m gonna love playing with them,” Dog said to Slick and laughed as the woman tried to pull away.

Chuck was looking around and saw the house had been a safe house for battered and abused women. There were signs on the wall about keeping the place a secret and not letting any strangers in. There were business cards for lawyers who would work for free, posters about women not having to take abuse and pictures of women who had been abused.

These two women had hidden here in hopes of being safe and the worst thing had happened. They’d been seen by a man with no conscience, no morals and was aware there was no law these women could turn to for help. There’d been a time when Chuck just wouldn’t have given a shit. These weren’t women he knew and why should he care what these dirt bags did to them? If he didn’t want to take part in their “fun” he could always get on his bike and leave.

Dog was pulling the black woman closer so he could smell her hair and she started screaming to be left alone. Dog slapped her. “Shut up nigger or I’ll shut you up for good,” he said pointing his gun at her head. Slick laughed at Dog’s statement as he pulled the waif from the black woman’s side. The girl screamed and Slick, who was 6’ 2”, manhandled the younger girl who was probably 5’ 5” and 105 pounds soaking wet.

A memory came back to Chuck. He remembered the look on his step-dad’s face as he was kicking Chuck’s mother and brother. Maybe with the beard, clothes and hat, or just Dog’s stupidity that he hadn’t guessed Chuck might be part black, but when Dog spat his racial epithet he knew he no longer wanted to be associated with scum like him.

Neither did he want to be in any gang with someone like Slick who was ready to rape the young girl who had obviously been abused already. He backed away from where Dog was already grabbing a feel of the black woman’s breasts a Slick was pulling at the younger girl’s clothes. The screaming and the tears grated on his conscience.

Another memory came back to him as well, something about God helping those who help themselves. Chuck pulled his gun out of its holster. He was going to help someone besides himself for the first time in his life.

“Let ’er go, Dog.” Chuck said evenly, raising his voice only slightly to be heard over the crying and screaming women.

Dog turned to look at Chuck and saw the Beretta aimed at him.

Slick saw it too and let go of the younger girl to reach for his gun that he’d stuck in the waistband of his pants. Chuck saw the movement and shot Slick in face. Bone and blood splattered over the younger girl, but the man fell straight to the floor, blood pumping from the hole in his face. The girl screamed a shrill, ear-shattering yell. She used both hands to try and wipe the mess from her face.

Dog who still had his gun in his right hand but pointed at the black woman spun to aim at Chuck, but the black woman was still struggling and ruined his aim when she drove an elbow into his big gut. The shot missed Chuck by two feet. Chuck wasn’t so encumbered and his first shot went into Dog’s side, just below his right arm, the biggest target he could get a clean shot at. The black woman broke free of his grip and Dog stumbled. He tried another shot at Chuck but with the woman clear, Chuck put two more shots into the man’s upper torso.

Dog fell to the floor leaking blood from three wounds. He was conscious, but wouldn’t be for long. One of Chuck’s shots hit an artery or something, the former inmate speculated.

Chuck thought the killing of the two had been just as easy as it was to kill his step dad. There was legal justice, then there was righteous justice and Chuck felt what he did was righteous justice.

“Come with me if you want,” Chuck told the two women in a smooth, calming voice. To the women, it was an anchor of solidity. Slick’s body was still twitching and the younger girl was continuing to scream. “There’s another one of those guys outside.”

Chuck headed down the stairs and out the door. He hated what he’d been forced to do because in his heart, he knew he was a peaceful man. In his mind he rationalized he’d had no choice in what happened. He couldn’t stand to see these helpless women be raped and tortured after what they’d probably had already been though. He hated it but he felt he was right to do it.

Killing Dog and Slick was a reaction. He didn’t have any plans other than get away from this place. He also wondered why he cared. It was not like the man he had been, but something inside was changing the way he looked at other people.

The women followed him out the front door. Chuck saw Taffee’s boy toy still on the third man’s bike. The boy was chewing on his fingernails, not caring about what was going on around him. He heard Taffee call from the side yard. “What’n hell’s going on with you guys?’ he asked coming around front. The younger girl, who had stopped screaming, whimpered at the sound of his voice.

Taffee saw Chuck’s gun aimed at him. “Drop it,” Chuck told him and Taffee immediately dropped his gun. “Back up.” Taffee did and looked over at his boy. The kid wasn’t paying attention to anything but his fingernails.

Chuck retrieved the gun, an older M1911 .45 caliber pistol, and handed it to the black woman without taking his eyes off Taffee.

“Can either of you drive a bike?” The older woman told him no and the younger just shook her head hard enough tears were flung off. “Okay, both of you get on that last bike in line but leave room for me.”

They did as he told them. Chuck walked over to Dog and Slick’s bike and kicked them over. He pulled the keys out of both and tossed them as far as he could. When he got to Taffee’s bike he asked the boy toy if he could drive and wanted to leave. The kid looked at Taffee then back at Chuck. The kid shrugged and climbed forward onto the bike, started it and pulled away from the house without looking back or saying a word of thanks.

Taffee started hollering at the kid until Chuck aimed at him again.

When the kid was long gone, Chuck told the black woman to keep her gun on Taffee until he got his bike started. She nodded.

Chuck put his gun in its shoulder holster and straddled the big bike. It was heavier with two women on it, but Chuck was strong enough to handle the big Harley. He had his head turned and had just started the bike when he heard the black woman fire off two rounds. Startled, he looked back and Taffee was on the ground, clutching his leg. Chuck caught a glimpse of another hand gun on the ground. Taffee must have had a second gun hidden somewhere. Chuck hadn’t thought of that and it might have gotten them killed.

The younger girl started screaming again and the black woman was hollering something at the man on the ground.

“Shut up, woman. Just shut the hell up and let me get us out of here,” he hollered at her over the sound of the Harley.

She continued to holler at the man on the ground as Chuck put the bike into gear and started to accelerate away. She shot again and Chuck almost dumped the bike.

“Dammit woman, put the gun away. He can’t catch us now and he can’t shoot us and you’re going to get us killed,” Chuck said over his shoulder, concentrating on not wrecking the bike. “And make sure the safety is on so you don’t shoot me in the ass.”

“I know how to use a gun, mister. I ain’t a stupid helpless woman who doesn’t know how to defend herself. I know how guns work…”

“For the love of God woman, just shut up. I just killed two men and I’m not in the mood to hear any shit. Just put the gun away and sit still until we are far enough away from here.”

The woman shut up.

Chuck weaved the bike around wrecks and bodies in the road until he hit a clear area. The sun was over the mountains now and it was starting to get dark, but Chuck wanted at least 20 miles between him and where he’d killed two men.

Half a mile from where they’d left a wounded Taffee and two dead bodies they saw the boy toy again. He must have lost control of the big bike and laid it down. Without a helmet, the boy’s head hadn’t stood a chance against the pavement.

Chuck didn’t stop.

He got on State Road 99 and followed it to I-5. He was trying to outrun the memory and didn’t pull back off the highway until he saw some industrial buildings west of the highway. He slowed the bike and took the off ramp. There were no street lights or building lights and it was getting hard to see beyond the headlights of his bike.

He found a truck stop, pulled into the parking lot and turned off the bike. All three climbed off. The young girl still had blood on her face and Chuck could see tear streaks from the wind.

The black woman was stretching and talking quietly with the girl as Chuck walked around the building.

He walked back to them. “There’s an open door. We can probably find flashlights inside and probably a place to sleep for the night and clean up.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked. “Why kill your friends for us?”

Chuck paused, lost in thought for a long moment. “They weren’t my friends and I did it because if my mom had had the nerve to get away from my step-dad, maybe things would be different for me.” He then cocked his head, “this way.” That was all he was going to say on the matter.

They found flashlights and bottled water with which to clean up. There were some clothes on the first floor and the younger girl found something clean to wear. Chuck located rooms with clean bedding and the two women took one while Chuck took the other. “You want me to wake you up in the morning or what?” he asked before going to his room.

The older woman appraised Chuck and the kindness and nerve he showed today. She didn’t think she owed him anything and she didn’t think he thought she did. He hadn’t put any moves on her and had saved the two from a brutal future. There were worse people to hook up with in this dangerous world.

“Wake us up in the morning, mister. We’ll decide then.”

Chuck nodded in the darkness and the light he was carrying disappeared into the room he’d use for the night. He left the door open a crack so he could hear if anything happened in the hall. He also opened the window in the room so he could hear outside. The sun was fully down now and the darkness outside was near absolute. The stars Chuck could see were brilliant without street lights to obscure them.

Chuck moved a chair beside the window so he could look at the stars until he was tired and ready for bed. He heard animals moving about outside and shined the flashlight down at them. One of the women he’d saved must have had the same idea because he could see a beam from their room doing the same thing. He realized he didn’t know either of their names. He’d never thought to ask and he was sure they didn’t know his name either.

He got up from the window and washed his hands and face with water from the bottles he’d brought to the room with him. He put his gun and holster on the table and pulled off his shirt and pants. The clean sheets felt good and it didn’t take long for him to fall asleep.

It was a dreamless sleep and he woke only once in the middle of the night at the sound of wild animals fighting outside the building. Chuck got up and closed the window and went back to sleep.

The sun woke him in the morning. He sat up and felt rested. He got dressed and was halfway through making the bed when he realized how stupid the action was. He needed to use a bathroom before doing anything today.

As he was walking by the women’s room he heard them talking.

“I’m going to go find some breakfast and gas. I’ll be outside,” he told them and walked on before hearing their answer.