LIFERS Chapter Nine

Vicky’s panic-level increased as she watched the man who arrested them continue to crush the life from her friend. His reddened face, contorting with anger as he tightened his grip, told her he wasn’t going to stop until he’d finished the job. And if she didn’t do something soon he’d get his way. She had to think, and she had to think fast.

‘Hey, Hal,’ she shouted.

When he turned to look, his stare filled her with an intense dread she’d never known the likes of. His teeth were clenched in frenzied rage as saliva dripped from his mouth in thick, syrupy globules. His breathing was ragged, animal-like, coming in short, fast, powerful blasts.

Now what?

She looked at the cell bars then back to Hal. He looked at the cell bars then back to her. Then she ran at them face first, the bars giving out a dull “Thwong” as she bounced off. An instant later her nose started to bleed, a deep gash had opened up below her left eye, and her bottom lip had a split almost an inch long. She saw a milky-grey mist begin to close in; her peripheral vision reducing to little more than an opaque dot as she swayed and dropped to her knees. And, just before total white-out took her, she saw Hal let go of Jill and move toward her. At least she got that bit right.

...

Jill began to cough, it hurt like hell, hurt like someone had ignited a fire in her throat and was trying to stamp it out whilst wearing crampons. She had no idea where she was or what just happened, or why someone was kneeling over a body just out of her reach. Someone big, someone huge in fact, someone as big as that cop she just fought with in her dream.

Dream?

In a single, blinding flash, the nightmare of their situation returned to her as she sprang for the open door, and in one swift movement, she closed and locked it and pulled out the key.

Hal shot to his feet lunging for the bars as the door slammed shut before him; he went for his gun only to find an empty holster.

‘Open this door, you little bitch,’ he shouted.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Jill said, sounding like Donald Duck.

He moved back to Vicky, lifted one of her arms and put his foot on the side of her chest, then started to pull.

‘Open it right now, missy,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll pull this fucking arm clean off.’

Would he do that? Or was his fear of that Ella woman greater than his anger right now? But the real question was closer to home; did she have the guts to call his bluff?

She tried hard not to show the fear welling in the pit of her stomach as she sauntered closer to the bars, and, as bold as her recovering voice would allow, told him, ‘No you won’t, you daren’t harm her any more than she is already. Or else.’

He dropped Vicky’s arm and rushed the bars trying to grab at Jill but she had no trouble avoiding his reach. She looked at Vicky to see her face covered in blood but had no idea what she’d done to get like that. She knew Hal hadn’t done it, not with Ella’s embargo in place. But how long would Vicky be safe with him? How long would Hal allow that embargo to encumber his hatred?

She dropped the keys on the desk and picked up the gun. It felt heavy, much heavier than she expected it to feel. But what could she do with it? Vicky can’t walk out of the cell, and threatening the cop at gunpoint will do nothing. She put it back on the desk and picked the telephone's receiver. She could call for help, she could call the state police and get them out there to have son-of-Lurch arrested along with the rest of these crazy bastards, but the line was dead just like he said it was.

She turned to see him look at the open hatch a second or two before hearing thunder, then a grin formed on his pock-marked face.

‘Hey, lady.’

Jill looked to see the shackled man moving his head.

‘Hey, lady, can you hear me?’

She picked up the keys ready to try them in the lock when a modicum of common sense kicked in. What if this guy really was one of them? He could be; ugly fuck said he was. He told the truth about the phone, had he told the truth about him? She swapped the keys for the gun and pointed it at the now, not-so-dead man lying on the floor.

‘Who are you?’

‘Like I already done told you, missy, he’s just some nosey little shit thought he could outsmart us,’ said Hal.

Jill turned. ‘I wasn’t talking to you, fuck face.’

‘My name’s Pieroni, Gregg Pieroni,’ the man said, his voice strained like he’d been punched in the gut, or maybe hit by a car. ‘I’m a private investigator from Richmond, and if you get me out of these I’ll show you some ID.’

‘You don’t have ID, I already checked. What are you investigating?’

‘I’m out here following a lead,’ he said. ‘Some girls have gone missing and if my source is correct they may have ended up in this shit-hole.’ He stopped, taking a few breaths. ‘But when I started to ask questions about them, well, let’s just say that this is the result of those questions. So, are you gonna let me up or what?’

Rain began dropping through the hatch and small dark dots appeared on the grey concrete around him, a couple of drops hitting his chest and smoldering.

‘Hey, what the fuck is that, acid rain?’ he said

Hal moved to the bars dividing the two cells and rested his arms over the cross-beam. ‘It is to you, hot-shot.’

More rain came through the open hatch hitting and burning Gregg’s torso, he began shouting and pulling at his shackles. ‘For Christ’s sake, lady, get me the fuck off this floor.’

Jill dropped the gun to sort through the keys to get the door open. And as the raindrops increased in quantity, Gregg twisted his head left and right, trying to turn away from them.

‘C’mon, lady, hurry the hell up, will you?’

‘I’m going as quickly as I can,’ she told him. ‘And if you’d stop shouting at me and calling me lady, I’d probably do it a damn site quicker.’

Hal’s laugh boomed in the small room; he sniffed the air, taking in the scent of Gregg’s broiling flesh. He raised the pitch of his voice in an attempt to mimic some wicked old witch. ‘Oh save me, save me. I’m melting,’ he chortled.

When Jill eventually got the door open, she picked up Gregg’s jacket and T-shirt and laid them over his face and body before attempting to unlock the shackles.

Once out of the cell, Gregg checked to find a dozen small pock marks dotted about his upper body. 'Christ,' is all he said as he pulled on his T-shirt and jacket. He picked up the 3.57 the pretty young girl dropped to the floor. He moved to the cell the cop was in and aimed, point-blank, for his head. Then, of all things insane, the girl who just rescued him from the shackles pulled down his arm.

‘No don’t,’ she said. ‘If you shoot him the whole town might hear.’

Gregg snatched away and again raised the gun, but her intrusion was enough to stall him, enough to make him think about what she said. One thing he didn’t want was that lot with their crazy rabid dogs chasing him around those woods again.

He lowered the gun and moved over to the desk where he pulled open a couple of drawers before finding his own weapon, a Colt M1911 semiautomatic .45. Accurate for the first fifty feet or so, after that, it was little more than a short, fat, noisy stick. What he didn’t find were the two spare clips he carried, leaving him with only nine shots.

He placed both guns on the desk and sat in the cop’s chair ready to pull on his left boot. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Where’s my phone?’

The girl pointed to something crushed by the cell. ‘I found it lying next to you after I hit … after you ran into the car.’

Gregg either didn’t hear or he chose to ignore her explanation as he picked up the receiver from the desk phone.

‘I tried that already, it’s dead,’ she told him.

He took a leather wallet from the same drawer his gun was in and passed his ID to the girl. ‘There, are you satisfied?’

She looked and handed it back. ‘Okay, so you are Gregg Pieroni, but you have some explaining to do.’

‘Fine, but first I want some answers of my own. Who are you for starters?’

‘My name’s Jill Gordon, and that’s Vicky Meredith,’ she said, indicating to a blonde girl lying in the cell. ‘We were on our way to Richmond when you ran in the road. Then Robocop there decided to haul us in.’

Gregg looked to see the blonde, Vicky, lying motionless on the floor with a bloody and swollen face, and Hal, standing at the cell door holding the bars with his face pressed between them.

He picked up his Colt and went over. ‘What the hell’s going on with that rain?’ he said.

Hal raised his eyebrows. ‘You can’t guess, hot-shot?’

Gregg chambered a round and again aimed for Hal’s head. ‘Well let’s just say I’m not in the mood for guessing games right now. So, what the fuck was it? And think on, big-boy, this gun’s only half as loud as the other one, but just as deadly.’

‘You’re one of us now,’ Hal said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Chupacabra.’

‘Chupa-wotra?’

‘No way,’ Jill butted in. ‘Are you’re shittin’ me?’

Gregg turned. ‘What? What the hell’s a chup-wa-cara-warra?’

‘Chupacabra,’ she corrected. ‘That would explain why you didn’t die when I hit you with the car. And why you managed to repair all your injuries.’

Gregg frowned. ‘I didn’t what when you hit me with the car?’

‘Basically,’ she continued. ‘The speed we hit you at, and the way your body looked out on that road, you should be dead right now, but you’re not.’

‘Look, miss…’

‘It’s Jill, Gregg.’

He carried on. ‘The only reason I didn’t die when you hit me with the car, is because I didn’t die when you hit me with the car.’

‘When we got to you you looked pretty much dead at the time, all twisted and banged-up.’

‘Well did you check? Did you physically check? Had I stopped breathing? Did you even think to feel for a pulse?’

‘Yes, well almost. I was in the middle of doing that when he showed up and stopped me.’

‘So you just assumed I was dead, is that right?’

‘You were broken, Gregg. Smashed. You should, in the very least, be crippled right now. But look at you … there’s not a mark on you. And if what he’s just said is true, that would explain why.’

‘Well go ahead then.’

‘Go ahead what?’

‘Explain why, you seem to know what the hell he’s talking about, so tell me.’