The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) (30 page)

“There are so many…” Jamie said.

“They won’t send a radio car.”
Simoneaux said, “Once you give them this address they put you on a waiting
list.”

“Chloey, Rachael. Why don’t you both
come on back here?” I said, leading Katy with my hand on the small of her back.
“Maybe even head back into the storeroom and lock yourselves in.”

Chloey nodded, and the three of them
took cover.

I joined Pauly at the window and gave
him the bat. “This is for you, man. Take the first shot. You deserve a little
payback.”

“What about you?”

“Pool cue or mic stand? One is poetic,
one is classic. What do you think?”

He gave me a small smile. “Mic stand.”

Jamie watched Ben roll out of the back
hallway. I couldn’t quite read Jamie’s expression. Based on the way my own
interactions with Ben had been for the last few days, I’d say it troubled him
to see his son enjoying this. Ben gave his dad a revolver.

“Listen up,” Ben said as he moved to
the center of the room. He took his pistol off safety and snapped the slide
back to make sure there was a round in the chamber. “I want to give them the
door. Keep the lane clear and I’ll unload on them as they pop through. Once they
hear shots they’re going to back off. I guarantee it.”

“You saw these guys at the river,
man.” I said. “They’re like zombies. Bullets didn’t stop them back there.”

“You just worry about yourself,
Preston. I got this.” He positioned himself at the end of the bar and set two
extra clips there in front of him.

“I don’t think we should give them the
door. Give the cops time to show up,” I said. “If anything, we can reinforce
the door to buy time.”

Jamie added, “Maybe Preston’s right.
We need to try to keep a lid on this situation for as long as possible.”

Ben’s face got red and he kicked a
stool over. The noise made me jump.

After a long pause, I said, “Jesus,
Ben, you do what you want. This is your gig. I’m going to go back and see how
everybody’s doing. I’m not going to fight you too, man.”

I wasn’t being sarcastic, and didn’t
say it with any kind of passive-aggressive tone. “When I come back out I’ll do
whatever you tell me to do.”

He took a deep breath and released it
without saying anything.

I said, “We good?”

“We’re good,” he replied low enough so
nobody could hear. “Just trying to keep everybody safe, Pres.”

“I know, man.”

“If there’s something I’m good at—”

A crash from the back cut him off and
sent us both running for the storeroom at the same time. Ben yelled, “You guys
keep this secure up here,” as he passed by the kitchen’s service window.

Near the office we could see the
orange glow from a sodium vapor light falling across the tile—the first sign
the door had been kicked down. A cool breeze blew in from the night. As my eyes
adjusted to the change in brightness, Ben raised his pistol. I stopped a few
steps behind him.

He said, “I got the storeroom.”

I waited for Ben to give a sign. As
soon as he pointed at the door I rushed into Simoneaux’s office, catching one
of the men from the church by surprise. A tall, wiry guy with a bit of a gut
lunged at me. I swung the chrome boom from my mic stand and caught his forearm
as he tried to shield his head.

He took a step back and I swung again,
this time hitting his right temple with a thud. He dropped to his knees and
crossed his arms over his face. The purple, hemorrhaged skin on his forearm
jiggled like a water balloon. Blood and watery puss dripped out of puncture
wounds that skipped, two by two, from his wrist to his elbow. Patches of stiff,
black skin on the palms of his hands cracked and bled around the edge.

I swung the metal mic boom as hard as
I could and hit his elbow with a snap. He tucked into a ball on the floor. I
took a step to the side, lined up my shot and hit him again in the ribs. He
held up a palm in surrender as a brown snake slid out of his jacket pocket.

Adrenaline made me bigger than I’d
ever been in my whole life. My arms felt huge, like they’d burst through my
shirt. My breathing came faster, which scared me. I broke the snake’s back with
a quick tap from the boom and backed into the hallway to tell Ben how I’d taken
care of the man in the office.

The storeroom door hung wide open. I
nearly tripped over a woman sprawled out on the tile. Blood ran out of her
hairline onto her face. She had the same purple blotches all over her arms and
hands as the man in Simoneaux’s office. But something else hid there, amidst
the blood, and I had to look to see it. Tattoos on her palms. And when I looked
at her face again I saw that blood wasn’t real. Right below the black ink that
represented a spiky crown of thorns.

On the floor near the woman’s feet lay
a dead rattlesnake. The front third of its body appeared flat and shapeless.

I immediately made eye contact with
Katy to see if she was okay. She spoke with somebody on the phone, which didn’t
really make sense to me.

Ben turned and said, “Hold this while
I get the first aid kit from the office.”

“Holy shit.” I dropped to my knees and
held a bloody mass of white paper towels against the skin above Chloey’s
collarbone—too close to her neck. “Chloey, you okay?”

Rachael, fighting to maintain her
calm, handed me another wad of paper towels. “She needs to get to an emergency
room.”

“I knew her, Preston.” Katy looked at
the woman on the floor. Her voice sounded a little weak. “She acted like we
were friends.”

“Did Ben kill her?”

“Ben didn’t do shit,” Chloey said,
with a bit of a smirk. “She came at me with that big old knife and Katy hit her
with a can of beans.”

“This is an emergency,” Katy said with
a weak smile meant to keep Chloey calm. She held her hand over the mouthpiece.
“The dispatcher says there’s a major accident over on I-59. It’s going to be a
while.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

“Here,” Ben said, cutting me off. He
signaled for me to get out of the way. “They got dad and me blocked in with
their trucks.”

“Listen.” I wracked my brain to come
up with a plan. “Maybe Andre can get you guys to a hospital. I’ll tell Pauly to
call him. Just stay on the line with 911, okay?”

“You and me are still going to need to
clear a path to the street.” Ben said, “Tell Pauly to have Andre come down the
alley to the back door. Might be a little better than taking Chloey out the
front.”

“Go out there and fight those people
face-to-face?”

“Maybe,” Ben said. “You’re going to
have to get your hands dirty sooner or later.”

I bent down and gave Katy a kiss on
the forehead. Chloey watched me with sad eyes, so I bent over and gave her a
little kiss on the cheek. “We’ll take care of this.”

“I know.” Katy took my hand when she
said it.

Just before splitting I said, “I’ll
make this right.” I turned and looked back at Katy. “Stay on the line. Somebody
will have to come, right?”

“I will.” She looked at me with her
watery blue eyes. “Preston?”

I couldn’t make eye contact with her.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“I’m making a vow to you right now,
with your mom and baby sister as my witnesses that I will fix this.” I backed
away slowly, taking a last look at the woman on the floor. The sight filled me
with anger and disgust. Figured I needed a little extra fuel if I expected to
hang with Ben out there. “Were you going to tie her up?”

Katy said, “One thing at a time,
Preston.”

Ben interrupted, “Tell my dad to come
on back. He can help take care of Chloey and watch the door.”

Thunder pealed in the distance like a
kettle drum boom. Wind blew a moist chill in from the night.

“On it,” I said before turning and
running to the front.

In the bar nobody spoke. Simoneaux sat
on a stool at the window, watching the scene on his sidewalk. Pauly sat at the
foot of the stage, bouncing the baseball bat off his toe.

“Jamie, Ben needs your help back
there.”

He stood and walked toward me.
“Everything okay?”

“You’ll see.” I relaxed my grip on the
mic boom and let it fall to my side.

Simoneaux said, “Are the girls okay?”

“Well, I got one of them bastards in
your office and the girls got one in the storeroom.” I rubbed my eyes, because
saying it finally made it real. “But she got Chloey first. Pauly, can you
please call Andre and see if he can come around back to pick Chloey up? She
needs a hospital.”

“Shit.” He pulled his phone out of his
pocket and dialed immediately. “All over it.”

“Tell him back door as fast as
possible.”

“He can’t get back there with all
those people,” Pauly said while the phone rang.

“I know. Ben wants me to help him
clear a path.”

“Good luck with that,” he said as
Andre picked up. Pauly relayed the info to Andre using almost the same phrasing
I’d used.

I said, “Anything new out there?”

“No man,” Simoneaux said. “Lots of
freaks. Lots of snakes. More coming all the time.”

“Where’s Boggs and his gang?”

“Don’t see them,” Simoneaux said.
“Their rides are still there, but they ain’t.”

I peeked through a gap in the old
two-by-sixes. In the distance the dark sky glowed with the lightning of an
oncoming storm.

“I guess we’re going to do this then.”

“Stay safe, man,” Simoneaux said. He
gave me a little wave as I went back up the hall to join Ben.

“Ready?” he said, bouncing on his toes
a few times.

“I guess. Ain’t shot a gun in a
while.”

“No, no. My old man keeps the gun. In
case anybody comes through the door?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to process
everything. “That makes sense.”

“Hopefully you ain’t going to have to
shoot anybody any way. But if it makes you feel better, you can have this.” He
held his pistol out to me.

“No, man.” I waved it off.

“Eyes on your six at all times.” Ben
stepped past the splintered back door. “Stay on my tail, okay?”

I nodded as he dropped down the steps
and went left, hugging the building, crouching until he got to the trash-cans
and barrels of used peanut oil on the corner. Lightning flashed bright enough
to cause the dusk-to-dawn lights to reset. As their glow brightened, thunder
cracked. I followed.

He waved his hand. “Four,” he said,
pointing to the alley around the corner.

“Boggs?”

“Look at the shadows.”

I heard the rustling of their leather
jackets against brick a yard or two away. Just before I saw the shadows myself.
A light rain fell.

Ben held a finger to his lip and took
two steps forward.

I lingered, afraid to do something
stupid. “Subtle” and “quiet” were two things I hadn’t mastered yet.

Ben held a fist up and I stopped.

A cold gust of wind blew loose papers
up the alley. I shivered as my shirt grew wetter in the rain.

“Now,” Ben said.

I hesitated, waiting a moment to give
him space to work. As soon as I took that first step the woman with the tattoos
from the storeroom screamed “Zeb!” from the back door. She stomped down the
stairs and stumbled into the alley. I lunged for her as she ran past.

Ben bolted ahead. “Stay with me!”

He fired a shot as Boggs closed in.
The man Ben shot twisted and fell to the gravel. Boggs swung a metal rod at
Ben.

The woman took cover up the alley as
Ashby came at me. I swung the mic boom and he ducked, lowering his head and
driving me into the dirt.

Unable to get any leverage on him, I
swung my elbow at his ear as hard as I could. Ashby lifted his head and I
caught him on the shoulder with a short swing that didn’t do any real damage.

He pushed off me and hit me in the
face—right between my nose and my eye. Cold pain shot through my head as warm
blood fell past my lips, over my chin. Twisting and flailing were worthless. I
tried to bite his ear but couldn’t get close.

“Get off him,” Jamie shouted from the
back porch. He fired a round into the grass off to my right. Ashby hesitated,
then hit me again in the same spot.

Jamie shot again, aiming to miss. “Get
up. Now,” he said, edging toward us.

Ashby stood and backed toward the
alley, taking slow steps to where his companion lay, holding his belly. Blood
came through his fingers.

Ashby said, “Get up, Ferlin.”

Jamie helped me to my feet, and
quickly went up the alley to where Ben had Boggs wrapped up in a chokehold.
“Ben—”

“Shoot them!” Ben couldn’t get an
angle on the retreating bikers himself.