The Stone Scry Page 12

  Sam tumbled between the bed and surface, impacting lagan in a blinding flurry of bubbles and silt. Fingers slipping through mud and soft water grass, he grasped for stones heavy enough to ignore the current and clawed onto the shore. Reflexively, he reached back into the river and clasped onto Shaquan’s hand.

  Both men collapsed on the shore and stared up at wafting clouds while sucking in deep breaths.

  Sam tasted the air carrying a fragrance of pine mixed with spring water spray. Finally, he broke the silence. “My God”—Sam’s shaking hand wiped Carolina clay from his cheeks—“how far do you think we were carried, man?”

  “About a dozen city blocks, I think. That treeline cover better be worth the distance lost getting to it.” Shaquan propped himself on his elbows. “There’s Abu.”

  Facedown, north of them, lay their friend resting his forehead on a pillow of scuba fins.

  “Hey!” Shaquan hollered, “You alive?”

  A thumb lifted above the still body of Abu signaling he was ok.

  “Awe, he’s ok.” Shaquan turned to Sam and chuckled. “Remember the time those jackers jumped us near Rocky Point!”

  “He looked exactly the same, will never forget.”

  Shaquan slapped the mud and quipped, “Playing possum until they were right on top of us.”

  “Did you notice one of the jackers there wore a Buckeyes tee shirt?”

  “Most of them were pasty. They were jackers, Sammy. Could’ve lifted the shirt from some techie living in New Jersey. What, you think they aren’t coming down the coast?”

  “It makes more sense if they came from the Midwest”—Sam uncorked mud from his ear—“following the Appalachians. Seems obvious to me, and everyone knows their stronghold is in West Virginia.”

  “The mountains would better connect them, wanting to take over the water trade.”

  “Easier to block off the Northeast than conquer it, right? They are batshit crazy, Shaquan, but their overlord is not.”

  “Maybe, I guess it makes sense. I never thought about it, you know—who’s pulling their strings?”

  Crushing leaves stirred Sam upward. He reached for his bagged rifle, but then relaxed and exclaimed in joy, “Juan! Man, if the river had not already kicked the crap out of me, you would have made me shart.”

  Juan laughed and helped Sam up. “Abu playing dead again?”

  “You noticed,” Sam replied.

  “Homey,” said Juan rubbing knuckles against his outer layer, “I notice everything. Including that muckbear print near your head.”

  “What!” Sam sprung upward and drew his rifle from the sealed bag. Fingers guiding his eyes, he traced the tracks southward to the wood’s edge. There he stood, peering into the dense greenery hearing his own heartbeat. He wiped his hand on his wetsuit coated in river mud repeatedly, not knowing whether his hands were wet from the neoprene or clammy sweat.

  “The tracks are at least a day old,” Juan said, positioning next to him. “Don’t worry about the beast.”

  “What’s not to worry.” Sam scraped chips of leaves off his face. “A nine-foot-tall mass of muscle that craves human flesh, coated with a bacterial slime that sends someone with the smallest scratch into toxic shock. Nah, not worried. If we go that way,” he said, pointing north.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  The spotters replaced neoprene with denim and trekked north, avoiding the sight of muck bears and scaring off a pack of fangers on the Barney Coe Trail. Badger Gang patrols were easy to spot and easier to avoid. Drunk gang members looking for hapless victims, carrying dirty rifles and the stench of low tide, stumbled about primary trails without care of acoustical physics. Nature’s way of ringing the dinner bell for large predators.

  A normal day.

  The spotter’s path zagged around the Cape Fear River reminding Sam of switchbacks on a mountain. Bleached white river birch pierced backwater hernias near straighter segments. The four men covered long stretches of river, passing Drunken Run.

  In the afternoon, they reached the unofficial border of the Britt family territory south of Singletary Lake. A couple of hours’ hike further, they would be knocking on the famous wooden gate of the tribe’s home, Elizabethtown. A barrier capable of repelling anything except heavy artillery, it had protected the tribe from both hungry beasts and bastard gangs.

  Juan found leftovers from a confrontation between the Badger Gang and the Britts. The site was detestable. Chewed carcasses told a story of close combat using blunt objects. Both sides were inexperienced—the scene looked as if intoxicated hobos fought with sledgehammers. Anyone left on the field died a slow, excruciating death. Smashed ribcages, crushed joints, and mushed skulls. Juan plucked bullet casings around the focal point for his Sako bolt-action rifle, promising Abu he would cast half for Abu’s Marlin. Shaquan rested away from the site and applied a special homemade liniment to his knee.

  A short rest, and onward to Elizabethtown.

  Dusk tucked in the sun under a blanket of clouds as they reached the outskirts. Ragged squatters of long-abandoned homes slunk away behind the sky’s purple hues as the team passed. Cast out and forgotten by the tribe, they substituted protection for access to tribal trading posts.

  Sentry campfires outlining I87 like candles along a fancy backyard walkway guided the spotters further inward. Beyond the next switchback, underbrush shivered ahead of them. The team hid, unslung their rifles, and formed a perpendicular firing line.

  “We know you’re there,” called a voice from the nighttime forest, “who goes?”

  Sam shouted back, “We seek information from the Britts. Will you grant us passing to the town center?”

  “I am Sheila,” the voice replied, “and this is my dusk patrol. What say you?”

  “Sam Mason of the Divers. I know Lawrence Trenton of the dawn patrol.”

  “What color is his hair?”

  Sam shook his head and said, “He has none I am aware of.”

  “You may pass.”

  Moonlight overtook the forest illuminating away shadows as Sam met the dusk patrol; ten armed Britts wearing several layers of protective red outerwear. He stepped forward, hand extended, and asked, “Who is Sheila? I am Sam Mason.”

  A slender, broad-shouldered woman took his hand. “I am. Good to meet your acquaintance, Sam Mason.”

  “These are my friends: Abu Zaid, Juan Delgado, and Shaquan White.”

  “Pleasure, I’m Sheila Briggs. What brings you to Elizabethtown?”

  “Information and a warm bed.”

  “You stayed in Armour, I take it.”

  “Yes. The residents were gracious but have not yet met their full potential.”

  “They’re gracious only if you trade things of value. We are not so petty.” She cocked her head in Abu’s direction and said, “We are God-fearing people.”

  “So are we”—Sam maneuvered to block her glare—“some just worship in different looking churches.”

  She raised an eyebrow succoring old memories of Sam’s mother, Lisa Mason. Raleigh beckoned.

  Sam continued, “We make way towards Fayetteville. Been a long time, Sheila, since I have traveled this far north. The last time, we wiped out a jacker scouting party at Rocky Point.”

  “Not many can brag a story with those words put together. Rocky Mount is near the Virginia border, much farther north than us.”

  A slight cough crept out from one of her men.

  Hearing it, Sam cracked a smirk. “You’re doing well in your training, Sheila. I detect no accent, so you must have learned Spanish in the states. But you are not from North Carolina, are you? Rocky Point, not Rocky Mount.” Hand on a hip, he added, “One rule of ambassadorship: know your brand.”

  The coughing man blurted, “Goddammit, Sheila! Git over here.” She returned, head low and lower lip out, to the dusk patrol. He stepped forward and clapped his hands. “Alright, son. Good catch. You’re not from Carolina either, am I right?”

  “I could say yes, but that would reiterate
your implication.”

  Sam shook the man’s hand. It felt softer than Sheila’s.

  “Yes, sir, how true. Yeah, I see that look yer giving. I don’t normally travel with patrols. I’m training this whelp”—he motioned back to Sheila—“she’ll KO you in a fistfight and she looks pretty. My job is to teach her how to put those together. She’s a refugee from Atlanta. Used to be a school teacher. Grew up in…where?”

  Her head remained low, avoiding reproof.

  “Child, I ain’t going to yell at you. Fine, I think she grew up in New Mexico. She’s language savvy and sharp as saw grass.”

  New Mexico. That state looks kind of like California, where Mom and Dad met. Close enough. Sam nodded.

  “Alright, son. I hate to do this, but I can’t let you go further until I know what you want.”

  The request caught Sam off-guard. “But…I disclosed our intent.”

  “Yep, smart as a processor and slick as its polished desk. Come on, Mr. Glib, spill it.”

  “I don’t know how else to say it, man.”

  The older gentleman moved in close. His grey muttonchops fanned out, making his face look like it was cutting through ocean swells. Eyebrows bushed out to the tip of his helmet, his pale blue eyes looked deep into Sam’s. “Let’s try this again. My name is Mr. Barry Trenton. I’m Lawrence Trenton’s father. There, now we know each other, right? Tell me.”

  Sam looked back at his friends and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Let me rephrase my inquisition, son. Are you working for the stompers?”

  The old man rested a hand on his holster, flap unlatched, but the flap separated his palm from the handle. Barry was not looking for a fight, though his question invited one. Every tribe in the network, whether they held a treaty with them or not, despised swamp stompers.

  Sam swayed forward putting them nose to nose and said, “I am a Diver, Mr. Trenton. More, I am a spotter, and even more, I am a master hunter. Think more clearly before asking me that question and get your goddamned breath off my neck. Sir.”

  “Another rule of ambassadorship, Samuel,” Barry swaggered several steps back, wagged a finger, and said, “never let them know yer angry.” Speaking in the direction of the dusk patrol, he said, “We don’t like stompers here. They ain’t nice to us, so we tend to be unpleasant around them. Thing is, stompers are trying to make a truce. If the tribe doesn’t sign on the dotted line, the stompers remove them. Ain’t that right?”

  Several grunts from the patrol answered Barry’s question. Looking back to Sam, he continued, “So we don’t trust other tribes no more.”

  “You granted us to pass.”

  “So we could gauge how many of you there were. I see four men wearing ne-o-prene tops and carrying rifles. I see a bolt-action and a lever-action. Hell, I got double that with semi-autos and body armor. You don’t fit as a dense fruitcake, which means yer desperate. Or am I wrong, master hunter?”

  “You are correct. I need to get to Raleigh. My parents live there.”

  “Why go through Fayetteville? Why not follow I40? It’s faster. You said you kill jackers and you’ve got some stealth in you.”

  “My dad…well…”

  “Spit it out, son. What about your father?”

  “My dad works at Fort Dix.”

  Barry frowned and nodded. “Mm-hm.”

  Sam tried to pull the albatross from his neck. “He is a scientist, not a soldier! Do you know Dr. Thomas Mason?”

  Barry’s face became solemn. Placing hands on hips, he asked, “Mason, the mosquito guy?”

  “Yes!” Sam’s teenage years passed by while his dad slaved away for the Stones. He used the only weapon his dad gave him. Name-dropping “Dr. Tom Mason” had occasional perks. “He contained many disease outbreaks using his technology,” Sam added. The adulatory comment churned his gut, remembering his dad’s laboratory.

  “Mason…” Barry twiddled his muttonchops and tapped a foot.

  Sam asked, “Do you begrudge my dad?”

  The question injected a shot of adrenaline into his friends. Depending on Sam’s next words, they would either scatter and position for potshots or have a warm night in Elizabethtown. Barry was right, they were out-manned and outgunned. But they were spotters, chosen by the elder knowing if death had them in a corner, they would not die in garish whimpering.

  Old man Barry Trenton rubbed his nose and said, “No, I don’t begrudge your father. I didn’t connect you to him at first, that’s all.”

  Juan slipped his hand behind his back and gripped a sharpened throwing knife.

  Abu ducked both hands near his belt on a .50 caliber M1911 pistol.

  Shaquan fingered two throwing knives sheathed in his belt.

  Drumming fingers in rhythm with crickets roaring about the woods, Barry asked. “You expected to hook up in Raleigh?”

  “Yes.” Sam knew he was withholding something. Barry’s reaction demonstrated confusion versus plotting. The old man knew not what to make of this new information. “Please look at me, sir.”

  Barry’s eyes returned, intertwining Sam’s.

  “What you know, I need to know.”

  “Yeah, well that’s the truth of it. Smart as a processor, that’s what you are, boy. Should’ve named you Chip. Come on, we’ll escort you to town, how’s that sound?”

  “If I need to wait and find out what you’re hiding, I can be patient.”

  “I ain’t hiding nothing”—he bristled—“I’m trying to be nice, ya’ little spitfire.”

  Sam stammered, “Oh my God…”

  The old man was not playing politics. He was not stalling or calculating. Embarrassed. The only reason Barry could be ashamed, if he knew something personal. Sam was calculating. He played out game theory formulating matrices to reach optimal conclusions. Determining the most likely outcome, his lungs felt like they contracted air into his cerebellum.

  Light-headed, Sam grasped for words, “He’s...”

  “Yeah, that’s right, dammit. Your daddy’s here.”

  Chapter 9

  The scenery passed by Sam Mason like walking through an existential dream as he entered Elizabethtown. Following Barry Trenton, he passed by checkpoints of various functions. Some rested in the night air void of any light, tucked away in the Britt family’s closet to clean up a mess should jackers or an unruly gang seek to make one. Others fueled large fires acting as spotlights for an event. An obvious strategy; the bright light lured in outsiders, and the monsters in Britt closets ensnared them.

  Behind the town’s massive gate waited his dad, Dr. Tom Mason. Smears of chalk dusted Sam’s mental writing board: (1) His dad was here, not in Raleigh. Was he a prisoner? (a) Dad collected samples in the field and analyzed them at Fort Dix. (b) Swamp stompers escorted him. (c) The Britts loathed stompers. (2) Dad was fast, but not military fast as far as Sam could remember. A runaway? (a) He did not move at the speed of stomper; they were Navy SEALs on steroids. (b) He would be wearing stomper camos when the Britts found him. (c) Running, why would he be running? Sam needed information.

  Picturing his dad in a prison cell ached his chest and knotted his insides.

  “How did you know?”

  Sam’s positing snapped, “Huh?”

  One of the armed escorts, Sheila Briggs, repeated her question, “I’m curious, how did you know I speak Spanish?”

  “Oh,” he replied, rubbing his shoulder, “ambassadors interact with the outside world. Some tribes, like the Rock Hill Gang near Charlotte and the Brotherhood at Kill Devil Hills, speak Spanish. A smaller tribe might not find a Spanish speaking intermediary, but most larger ones like the Britts have at least one. Figured they could find a refugee smart enough to fill the position.”

  Her gait lifted and she asked, “Hablas Español?”

  “Si, hablo un poco. Puedo hablar a un intermedio… Nivel, I think, is the word.”

  “Muy bien!”

  “Gracias,” he said, smiled, and slipped back into speculation.

&nb
sp; A courtyard gate swung open in a tide of scrapping rust punctuated by heavy thuds. Multitudes of heavily armed guards waved and hailed Barry and Sheila. They either scowled at the Divers or ignored them outright.

  Sam caught Sheila studying his body movements as he ascertained security, rupturing his thought bubble again. “What are you looking at?”

  “Watching you work”—she creased a thin grin—“you do have a reputation, you know.”

  “I do?”

  “Your dealer, Merle Dower, comes out here to trade. His entourage always has this jerked meat from the sea. I think it’s calamari.”

  “Octopus. We call them eights.”

  “Oh. The dealer was here two weeks ago. Told us about the shark that ate Lester O’Connell. Told one of our escorts, anyway.”

  “Escorts? Aren’t the Britts God-fearing folk?”

  “Escorts live outside the city.”

  As the entourage made through a busy market sporting nighttime flare, Sam started feeling squeamish, between Sheila’s fluttering and keeping pace with Barry. Their roles reversed, he would lead them to a military enclave using her as a distraction to obscure feasible ideas. He would not want outsiders assessing weapon capacity and noticing tucked away doors leading to more intimate areas.

  “Hey Barry,” Sam asked, tugging at the old man’s shoulder, “where are you taking us?”

  “Hang in there, son. You’ll see him soon.”

  “Right, but I want to know where. Is my father in the guest suite or the dungeon?”

  Barry turned to Sam and said, “I want you to know something, spitfire. I have the utmost respect for Dr. Mason.” He stopped the procession of Divers and Britts and ran his hand through thinning, frizzy hair in contemplation. “Ah, heck, Samuel. He ain’t in good shape. Maybe we should sit down.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Barry gestured to Sheila: “Go tell the elders we’re treating the Divers here to some supper, would you dear?”