JACK KILBORN ~ AFRAID (7 page)

Safe Haven didn’t have many emergencies. Even when the population tripled during the tourist season, Josh responded to only a handful of calls a week, and they usually amounted to overzealous campers with fire pits that exceeded safety standards or search-and-rescue operations for teenagers who snuck off into the woods to have a quickie. Though Josh became a firefighter because of a strong need to saves lives, he had never actually saved anyone.

Josh navigated through a copse of wrist-thin birch trees, and found his mind drifting to Annie, as it often did. He didn’t need grief therapy to realize she was the real reason for his vocation. Soon he would leave Safe Haven and move to Madison, or the Twin Cities, where firefighters actually did risk their lives and do real good for the world.

On his days off he took EMT classes in nearby Shell Lake, and he planned to take his National Registry Paramedic exam next year. Josh didn’t know if there was a statute of limitations on mourning, but if there were, his ran out at four years, three months, and eleven days. He had made a promise to Annie, but it was time to move on.

Josh set foot on the sand road and began walking south when he heard the scream. The Mortons were the only folks out here this time of year, and it came from the direction of their house. Josh sprinted toward the sound. Though the night had gone from cool to cold, sweat broke out on his forehead, neck, and underarms. The sand sucked at his shoes, and he almost lost his footing hurdling over a pile of scrap wood next to Sal Morton’s mailbox.

Josh jogged to the edge of Sal’s property just as the screaming stopped. Josh took a few gulps of air and then cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Hello!”

No one answered.

Josh wondered who was shrieking, and why. He had no doubt it had been a cry of pain. Had the person passed out? Died?

He looked to the house and saw the front door hanging open. That wasn’t right. Josh hurried to it and stuck his head in. Darkness and silence greeted him.

“Hello? It’s Josh VanCamp, from the firehouse! Does someone need help?”

The wall switch didn’t work. Josh went inside, his flashlight sweeping the living room. Empty. He’d been in the Mortons’ home before, for Sal’s sixtieth birthday, and could vaguely remember the layout. He navigated over to the laundry room, found the circuit-breaker panel open, and noticed the main had been tripped. He pressed it. Nothing happened. Not unusual; in northern Wisconsin, the power went out frequently.

Silence followed him into the kitchen, and then up the stairs. He knew Sal hunted, which meant he had at least one gun, so Josh again announced his presence.

“Sal! Maggie! It’s Josh from the fire department!”

He stopped at the top of the stairs and waited. Where were they? Why was the door open? Who had been screaming?

Josh felt wind on his cheek and turned the flashlight to see what could be causing it. A bedroom, the window shattered, white drapes dancing like specters. Then, from the room on the other side of the hallway, a cough.

Josh hurried over but couldn’t quite understand what he saw. The bed was soaked in blood. And sitting in the middle was Sal Morton, slack-jawed, staring into space, cradling a right arm that boasted the most horrible compound fracture Josh could have ever imagined. The bone jutted out five or six inches from the flesh.

“Mr. Morton, I’m here! We’re going to get you some help.”

Josh tried to recall his EMT training. He checked for a pulse in Sal’s carotid and found it to be strong, which surprised him considering the amount of blood on the bed. Sal’s skin was cool, clammy, and his eyes fixed on a point beyond Josh. Shock. Josh needed to get him to a doctor, which would be quite the trick since his tanker truck was stolen. Sal probably had a car. And Sheriff Streng should be here any minute. Josh pulled out his cell and hit redial, then looked for the upstairs bathroom.

Awful as the fracture appeared, it didn’t seem to be bleeding much. The immediate concern was for infection. Josh found a rag and soaked it with some hydrogen peroxide he found in the cabinet under the sink. He placed it over Sal’s mangled arm just as the line picked up.

“Hello?” came a strange voice. Whoever answered the sheriff’s phone wasn’t the sheriff.

“Can I speak to Sheriff Streng?”

“He’s indisposed at the moment.”

“Who is this?”

“My name is Santiago.” The man had a lisp and sounded Spanish, and Josh had the impression that he was smiling as he spoke.

“Are you with the sheriff?” Josh said.

“Yes. But you can’t speak to him.”

Josh didn’t have time for games like this. Why was Streng even lending out his cell phone? Didn’t cops have rules about that sort of thing?

“I need to speak with the sheriff. It’s an emergency.”

“I don’t think he can speak. I believe I just ruptured his kidney.”

“What?”
What the hell is going on?

“Is this the man who just went into the Morton house? How’s Sal holding up? Still grieving for his dear, dead wife?”

“His wife? Where’s Maggie?”

“She’s not on the bed? Hmm. Interesting. I suppose Ajax has her, then.”

Josh stared at the huge bloodstain on the bed, and then his eyes climbed up Sal, who continued to stare, mouth agape, across the hall to the adjoining bedroom. Josh followed Sal’s stare with the flashlight.

It came to rest on the huge man standing next to the window, quietly slow dancing with the naked, mutilated corpse of Maggie Morton.

F
ran’s upper body hung out of the diner’s broken kitchen window, Al’s murderer clutching the ankle of her right foot, preventing her from getting away. Glass shards dug into her chest, and the smell of rotten food from the alley Dumpster to her left made her eyes water. Fran kicked out with her free foot, connecting with the killer several times, but her rubber-soled shoes bounced off without apparent effect.

Her hands frantically sought something to grab on to, something to hold so she could pull herself out. The Dumpster, a foot away, might as well have been a mile. Her palms couldn’t get any kind of purchase on the brick wall. All Fran could do was lean forward, hooking her armpits around the window frame, and try to resist the inevitable yank back into the kitchen.

The yank didn’t come. In fact, the killer didn’t tug on her at all. He simply held her ankle—hard enough that she couldn’t twist away—but without pulling. Fran remembered being a child, getting a booster shot at the doctor’s office, and how waiting for it was just as bad as getting it. She wondered how being stabbed with a knife compared to an inoculation needle. Or would he prefer slicing to stabbing?

But seconds ticked away, and still he did nothing but hold her. The anticipation was torture.

Then his other hand touched her bare calf and began to knead it, rubbing up and down.

Fran screamed, this intimate gesture somehow ratcheting up her terror. A moment later, her shoe was pulled off. Then she felt her sock peeling down. What the hell was this guy doing?

She found out when something warm and wet enveloped her toes.

He was sucking them.

Fran squirmed and kicked, but she had no leverage, no way to bend her legs while she was on her stomach. She planted her free foot on the attacker’s forehead and pushed, trying to keep his face away. It had no effect. As his tongue squirmed between her toes, his free hand traveled up her leg and rubbed the inside of her thigh under her skirt.

If both hands were holding her, that meant he wasn’t holding the knife.

Fran tried to figure out how she could use this to her advantage. Had he dropped the knife? Set it down? Put it in a sheath?

His teeth scraped the knuckle of her little toe, then locked around it.

Oh, Jesus, no …

First pressure. Then pain. The killer sawed his teeth back and forth and shook his head like a dog, but apparently the toe didn’t want to come off no matter how violent the movement. The agony spiked to unbearable levels, going on and on and on, and Fran kicked his face and pushed against the outside brick wall and then suddenly she slipped free, spilling face-first onto the asphalt, hands out to break her fall.

Fran rolled onto her butt, her back against the wall, hands seeking out the unrelenting throb that now occupied her entire body and soul. She’d stubbed her toes many times in her life, once while she had an ingrown nail. That pain was a joke compared to this. She probed the wound, trying to judge the severity of the damage in the darkness, sobbing at what she discovered. Her toe was completely gone, a tiny sharp nub of bone sticking out where it used to be.

Fran howled, and then howled even louder when a hand reached through the window and snagged her hair, yanking back her head.

She managed to grab on to the side of the Dumpster, and a tug-of-war ensued. Her neck wrenched backward, but she fought it, felt some hair rip free, and then she was on her feet and hobbling down the alley as quickly as her injury allowed.

When she reached the street she turned left. The darkness covered town like a black blanket. There wasn’t a single light anywhere up and down Main Street. The hunter’s moon, full and orange, was partially obscured by clouds. No cars. No people. Just a long line of empty stores: Hutch’s Bakery, the Fudge Shoppe, York’s Books and Cards, Red Cross Pharmacy, Safe Haven Liquor. With their power off, the buildings looked abandoned, dead.

Fran limped to the parking lot, squinting to make out the silhouette of her Jetta, and five steps away from it she let out a cry of anguish.

Her keys were in her purse. Her purse was in the diner.

Fran tried the car door anyway, knowing it was locked, knowing that even if she got inside she couldn’t drive without keys. When the door didn’t open, she glanced over her shoulder to see if the killer was following her.

He stood directly behind her, and his hand reached out and grabbed her by the neck.

“Hello, Fran,” he said. “I’m Taylor. We need to talk.”

G
eneral Alton Tope didn’t believe in luck. Victories and defeats were decided by intelligence, firepower, and strategy. But he had to admit it was a fortuitous circumstance to have the Twenty-sixth Special Forces Group already in Wisconsin, training here at Fort McCoy. They had been putting a prototype tank armor through the paces—it was electrically charged and virtually impervious to rocket-propelled grenades—and were set to return to Fort Bragg tomorrow. Operation Angel Rescue changed their status.

The twelve Green Berets standing at attention in the war room were dressed for combat but hadn’t yet been issued weapons. Though they were called after only an hour of sleep, each man appeared alert and determined.

“Parade, rest,” Tope commanded, and his men put their hands behind their backs. “Operation Angel Rescue is classified top secret and shall not be discussed ever with anyone in possession of less than two stars. Understood?”

“Yes, General.” Unison, strong and loud.

Tope continued. “The town of Safe Haven, Wisconsin, two hundred and seventy clicks northwest, population nine hundred and seven, is under siege. Your job is to capture the insurgents. Dr. Ralph Stubin, a civvie, will be accompanying you on this mission and providing intel.”

Tope hit the power button on the remote control, and a TV in the corner of the room came on. The screen filled with a fish-eye close-up of Dr. Stubin, colored green due to the night-vision camera. The background was indistinct, but the sound was unmistakable; Stubin was in a chopper.

“Am I on? I am? Okay.”

The doctor focused on the camera, looking grim.

“My name is Ralph Stubin. I’m a brain surgeon. My specialty is behavior modification, specifically transhumanistic neuropathology. By stimulating portions of the brain electrically, it can be prompted to function more like a computer, with sequential input rather than parallel. In layman’s terms, you can download information directly into a person’s mind, and programs will automatically execute when certain conditions are met.”

Stubin looked right in response to someone speaking to him—probably a soldier telling him to stay on track. He nodded and again stared into the camera.

“Many nations, friend and foe, have experimented with behavior modification. The code name for units composed of modified soldiers is
Red-ops
. A Red-ops unit is a strike force, meant to be dropped behind enemy lines. Their goals are threefold: isolate, overpower, annihilate. They’re inserted into small towns, and they torture, rape, and murder everyone they encounter. Red-ops exist to demoralize, intimidate, and frighten the enemy. Basically, they’re government-sponsored terrorists. Unfortunately, because of some colossal mistake that we still don’t understand, a Red-ops unit is now operating on U.S. soil, and it seems they were accidentally sent by one of our allies.”

Stubin looked ready to throw up. Tope couldn’t tell if it was from the whirlybird or the situation.

The brain surgeon wiped the back of his hand across his mouth before going on. “The unit has infiltrated the small Wisconsin town of Safe Haven. We don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. Because of their transhuman behavior modification, we have to assume they’re following protocol. They’re treating Safe Haven like an enemy territory. If we don’t stop them, they’ll wipe out the entire town.”

Then Stubin bent over and commenced with the vomiting. Tope switched off the TV.

“The briefing will continue on the Huey. Keep in mind that the Red-ops unit will view us as enemy combatants, even though our countries are buddy-buddy at the United Nations. We want to take them alive, with minimal civilian casualties. This is going to be easier said than done. Red-ops commandos have all had the equivalent of Special Forces training. They’re experts in hand-to-hand and armed combat, munitions, stealth, tactics, interrogation, and communications. Plus, they’re cold-blooded bastards. I’ve seen what these men can do, and it isn’t pretty. Questions?”

The SF-A team captain raised his hand.

“Captain Haines.”

“Which country are they from, General?”