March 2/3, 2012

“Let’s go!” Andy shouted. “Put the booze down and get your ass moving.”

I snapped to and after jamming several arm loads of cans of beer into a bag, lurched out the door and uneasily up into the idling old truck.

Without waiting for the door to close, Andy gunned it and the old terrain ripper sounded like an annoyed goose at it grinded around a corner. In a minute, Andy was racing through the old stone gateway and back up into a pulsatingYellowstone.

“Ack…umm,” I ventured and gave up. The buzz was too good to waste. I snapped open another beer and sulked, “You want one?”

His silence said enough, but I noticed that his vibe was mellowing. The complete irrational terror that had seized me earlier had subsided with each beer consumed. The filled bag at my feet gave me reason to believe I could keep it at bay until he actually killed me – which could be any moment, I realized with a slurp of fizzy mountain water.

I watched the stone archway grow smaller in the door mirror and numbly thought of Carrie. A number of years previously we excitedly stopped and photographed the famous gate as a bold rainbow spanned over the sharp yellow and tans of the surrounding landscape, directly behind the archway. It disappeared from my sight as we rounded a corner.

A swirling, warm wind, fitting considering the intense solar winds hammering into the world, followed Kenneth as he marched up and down the streets of West Yellowstone. Numerous forays into yards and rummagings through garages came up empty, until he swung a pair of large, wooden garage doors open. A late 1960s model Camaro, sitting beneath a blue tarp, brought a large smile to Kenneth’s face, rarely cracked by such a thing.

“That should do nicely,” he said. “Bit of a gas pig but she’ll do fine.”

As Kenneth set about finding keys, gas and anything else that would come in handy in the adjacent cottage, Jess Oliver and nine fellowdemons rolled into West Yellowstone.

In need of better vehicles, they entered the former tourist town with their eyes peeled and nerves frayed.

On the other side of Yellowstone National Park, seven fellow demons approached Grant Village Lodge in rattled stupors.

The driver, a tragically stupid hick who, thanks to being terribly abused as a child by a series of stepfathers and a barbituate and seconal addicted mother, grew up to become a woman beating coward and a bully who excelled at sheer ignorance, brought the crowded vehicle to a jerky halt in front of the lodge.

Ridley decided he would give the men a chance to live and took up a position behind a long wooden bench near the back inside wall of the lodge foyer. This allowed for, he hoped, all the occupants of the vehicle to come inside to fall under his gunsight.

Weeks of endless violence and slaughter had taught the men to remain wary, despite their exhaustion and fears, and two of them lingered outside while the driver hick and four others stumbled into the lodge.

A loud sniffing noise followed the hick into the foyer, as his nose clamped onto the smell of the recent blaze in the large stone fireplace.

“Ahh, I love that smell,” he shouted.

The other men filed in past him and stood in a perfect semi-circle in front of the lodge entrance. Ridley’s voice came out of the darkness of the deep foyer like a suckerpunch/

“I have you all dead to rights. Drop your weapons,” he said firmly. Ridley was scared shitless.

One of the men dropped his weapon immediately and received a snide rebuke from the man nearest him. “You fag!” He blurted.

“Who’s there?” The hick demanded.

Ridley repeated his demand but added, “now! Or I will fire.” He worried that his voice sounded frightened.

Two more men dropped their weapons and the same homophobe squeeked, “you fuckin’ fags! Fuck you! Show yourself!” He pointed his weapon toward Ridley.

Because he showed that he may be the one to start trouble, Ridley already had his rifle pointed at him and he fired. His shot hit the homophobe in his belt buckle, splitting the shell into two pieces that tore into his mid-section. He spun sideways and his gun discharged, nearly clipping the man nearest him. The hick fired his weapon into the darkness but missed Ridley by several feet.
The park ranger fired again. The hick doubled over and dropped his weapon, as Ridley’s shot tore through his large intestine and came to a burning rest against a floating rib and his back.

The men outside, not the most strategic or brightest of the lot, foolishly opted to barrel into the lodge, rather than wisely take up secure positions outside. The three unarmed men were flat on their bellies when they blundered in.

Ridley only needed one shot to deal with them. He fired chest high at the lead man and hit his mark. The shell tore through his right lung and severed shit part of his spine and then tore spinning and angry into the tailing man’s neck.
The stand-off took a matter of seconds. Ridley didn’t even have to reload. He stood over the three sobbing prisoners and muttered, “You must be the smart ones.”

Once satisfied there were no others, Ridley tied them to the timber posts in the lodge and set about trying to figure out what to do next.

Kenneth simply said he had to make sure Serena and Madeline would be safe. Doubting these men could find a room to sleep in, let alone find two people ‘somewhere’ in Yellowstone, he figured his job was done and opted to take the mens’ vehicle and head north to meet up with them.

Ridley didn’t feel any remorse leaving the three whining and crying men tied to the posts. The lines and knots were solid and he doubted they’d be able to get free anytime soon. He rounded up all the weapons and tossed them in the back of the truck and rolled away, honking once to bid adieu to three defeated pseudo demons.

If he had any idea what kind of sordid sickos he was leaving lashed to the lodge, Ridley would have felt elation.

 

Kenneth didn’t hear Oliver and his demons approach as he had the Camaro running, but the rumble of its powerful 350 engine caught the ear of one of the visitors.

“Shhhh,” said Dennis Sandalman, a former mixed martial arts wannabe, steroids pedaler, child porn afficianado and fraud artist. Seated in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, he hissed, “I think I hear something!”

Oliver pulled the vehicle over and ordered his men out. The following vehicle emptied, too.

“What’s up,” the other driver said, emerging.

The passenger, straining to hear, announced that he could hear “an engine. It’s down there, to the left I think… maybe five or six houses down.”

For unintended effect, Kenneth revved the Camaro and thrilled at its snarling power.

Oliver quickly detailed his men into three units. He sent one three man team up to the top street and ordered them to move toward the back side of the engine noise, while he sent another three man team back and up the neighbouring street. Oliver lead three men straight toward the sound of the Camaro, which Kenneth revved one more time before clumsily clunking it into gear.

As he pulled onto the street, he spotted Oliver and his men, four lots away.

Without hesitating, Kenneth wheeled the car into the opposite direction and punched it. The four approaching men let loose with their weapons but Kenneth rounded a corner and disappeared from danger. By turning north and then west, he was moving away from where Carrie and Stacy were located. Realizing he needed the men to follow him, Kenneth slammed on the brakes and  thought hard – what to do? Coming up the other street was the first unit and their rounds were slamming into and around the Camaro before Kenneth saw them.

One shell chewed against his left shoulder and he pushed the car spinning and screeching forward.

Stacy and Carrie were in a deep conservation about positive thinking when Stacy said she heard something. The squeeling tires of the Camaro confirmed that.

Unfortunately, she assumed it was just Kenneth returning with some wheels and he was having some fun. The thought of Kenneth having fun didn’t resonate with Carrie. She suggested they get their weapons and go have “a look see.”

Oliver and has men reunited in a matter of seconds and the chase, if you can call it one, was on. Two old shit box trucks versus a well-maintained classic Camaro.

Kenneth decided to lead them out of town via Highway 287, slowing just enough to ensure they caught sight of him.

In the lead vehicle, Oliver radioed to other vehicle, with six men in it, to stay in town and look for others. He pushed the gas pedal down and the old truck barreled out of town after the black Camaro.

Kenneth felt slightly embarrassed, as he had wandered off armed with only a buck knife. Luckily, he found an old 12 guage shotgun in the cottage, along with a box of shells. He tried to visualize the former owner and silently expressed his gratitude for the bounty he left behind.

Rounding a corner near Earthquake Lake, Kenneth quickly decided that this would be the place to make a stand. He expertly throttled the car, wheeled it around on a halfpenny and tucked into a roadside pull out. Kenneth was out and in a firing position before Oliver’s truck arrived. He squeezed the trigger and the shotgun erupted. Oliver saw the muzzle flash in the green murk and over-reacted.

The truck jerked onto the shoulder and the front right tire glanced off a wheelbarrow-sized boulder. One of the men in the back of the truck screamed and looking in his rearview mirror, Oliver spotted a body flying out of the box. The wayward foot soldier’s head exploded upon impact with the highway, killing him instantly.

Kenneth fired again and buckshot peppered into the box side of the old truck as it smashed along a wall of rock as it groaned past. His third shot missed but Oliver lost the battle and the truck rolled, nose over box. The man in the back was dashed against the hard Montana ground and, thanks to not wearing seatbelts, Oliver and his passenger were badly injured in the ensuing crash.

Kenneth calmly re-loaded and darted up to the wreck. Oliver could see him coming but couldn’t move. Blood poured over his eyes and before he become blinded by the mess, he realized he felt no fear. The approaching man reminded him of his childhood – an uncle or a teacher. Safe; secure; loved.

Two shots rang out, echoing across Earthquake Lake, and Jess Oliver’s life came to a fitting conclusion.

Kenneth reached into the truck and rummaged around for intelligence and weapons and walked away only with weapons. It seemed to be the way in this new old world. He was glad he was leaving it behind.

He threw the guns into the back seat of the Camaro and climbed in. He turned the key and instead of the thrilling grumble, the car sputtered and clicked and refused to start. One of the rounds the Camaro absorbed back in West Yellowstone had emptied the fuel tank.

 

Oliver’s men, once again out of their vehicle, spotted Carrie and Stacy first. They were meandering toward the source of the noises and, just in case it turned out to be nothing, they angled toward Carrie’s favourite teahouse. Why waste a trip, Carrie thought, a fresh cup of green tea perched on the cusp of her senses.

 

Andy was forcing our old truck alongside the Obsidian Cliff, toward Madison Junction. All the way back up into Yellowstone, he stared ahead, focused and silent. In my left hand was a beer and in my sweaty right hand was my Glock. I knew it would be no good against Andy, but it was all I had. I’d been realizing, after seven or eight beers, that I was actually enjoying the concept of being alive again.

A simple glimpse of Carrie; a touch of her hair, her face, her warm breath… blasted new power into my soul and while I didn’t know where she’d been taken to again, I trusted in Andy, who could kill me any second.

He found Carrie once – he’ll do it again, I assumed. And damn, those beers were going down good.

 

The de facto leader of the six lurking demons was the first to notice that the two people moving toward them were women.

“Boys – are you seeing what I am seeing? Or have I died and gone to heaven?” He said spectactularly off-base. Ray Lesley was a partner in a northwest Nebraska fertilizer plant before the disappearance. In his spare time and during monthly sales trips around South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming, he also picked up and murdered hitch-hikers or anyone he could lure into his mini-van. If they were young and female, all the better. He’d take it slow with them. If he could, he’d find an isolated motel – ala the Bates – and sneak them inside, where he’d spend hours raping and torturing them.

His disposal methods were always the same and they were there to be seen in the back of his van. Large yard waste bags, a bone saw, a couple of shovels and a bag of lye. Those items sat in the back of his van for more than a decade. His wife and kids had never enquired about why he kept them there nor did his business partner.

Ray had even been stopped and searched during a police highway check in the middle of bald ass Colorado a few years back. The inspecting officer picked up the two-thirds empty bag of lye and coughed when white powder puffed off it. The bag was almost empty because Ray had, the day before, buried his 17^th victim – an angry housewife from near Lamar. Half pissed and totally steamed at her old man for not coming home for two nights, she started walking to town, three miles away. She was still a nice looking lady, despite 20 or so hard years since graduating as the homecoming queen runner up. Alcoholism, a couple of ungrateful kids who buggered off for Denver and Las Vegas when they both turned 18 and a mildly abusive husband, as well as a mother with Alzheimer’s, had turned her sour.

She was more than willing to accept a ride from Ray when he rolled up and once he handed her a cold Miller, at about the time the van’s automatic transmission shifted into third gear, her road in life was heading away from troubles to deadend terror.

It had been a long and weird road from the time of the disappearance to now for Ray. He was home in Alliance when it happened and like many terrible people in small towns everywhere, he experienced the bolt-through-the-heart madness of believing they had been left alone in the world. Naturally, Ray assumed it was his extra-curricular activities that were responsible for his predicament and he quickly recovered and got on with things.

That led him west to Cheyenne, where he began his killing and raping rampage in 1989 and straight into the clutches of the fledgling Wyoming Militia. He was captured a few weeks later after the Battle of Rawlins, against the Morman Army. He was given the ultimatum – change sides willingly or die. And that is how Ray became a Morman.

 

Stacy stopped dead cold and Carrie, who was telling a story about how her youngest son enjoyed hunting and was also a Ted Nugentite, took several more steps forward and turned to see what was up with Stacy. Her eyes were wide and locked in a forward gaze. Carrie’s head snapped around and she the saw the six men, who were staring back at them with equal shock.

Always gregarious, Carrie waved at them. Old habits.

Ray Lesley waved back. “This is gonna be easy,” he thought to himself.

James Hillman, a debaucherous insurance salesman from Orem, waved back.

When his hand moved, Stacy moved faster. Her rifle, which she’d been carrying in her right hand, with the barrel pointed to the ground, rattled up and Carrie’s world exploded. Stacy’s 30-06 shot hit Hillman in the thigh, severing his femoral artery. He screamed and fell backward.

Ray, not used to women shooting at him, fumbled hopelessly to bring his rifle to bear while his fellow untrained and generally useless riff raff meat stick soldiers scattered for cover.

After firing her shot, Stacy grabbed Carrie by the armpit and bulldozed her into a neighbouring yard. Carrie screamed as she ran.

When they hit the cover of the side of a cottage, Stacy spun and dropped to the ground, while ordering Carrie to do the same.

She peeked around the corner of the house and saw the dark shape of Hillman’s body on the ground, but no one else.

“Carrie, be careful, but go to the other end of the house and see if you can see anything,” Stacy said firmly. Carrie was impressed with how cool under pressure Stacy was as she darted to the corner of the quaint getaway bungalow. She thudded to the ground and peeked around the corner like Stacy, hoping to see nothing. She held the Glock I gave her in right hand.

A voice, piercing from the greenish murk of the dying day, demanded, “Hold fast!”

On her elbows, Carrie dropped to her left and fired the Glock into the shadowy glow. Six feet away, against the side of the bungalow, Tommy Blunstone, formerly of the cell blocks in downtown Salt Lake City, dropped dead as a drowned rat – his heart blown to smithereens. Behind him, the always cowardly Brian Jackson screamed and darted backwards. Carrie fired another blind shot that served only to force the now four remaining attackers back to re-group.

“Are you all right,” Stacy yelled at Carrie. Her voice carried a tone of fear that unseated Carrie’s battle rage. Her eyes focused on Blunstone’s fresh corpse and filled with tears. “Oh God,” she sobbed. “What have I done?”

Stacy fired a shot at nothing, just to keep the attackers at bay and swallowed hard. After a few seconds of hard effort to get herself under control, she said, “You’ve done what you had to do, Carrie. It’s them or us – don’t you forget that.”

“Where is Kenneth?” Carrie asked.

On the other side of the house, pressed against the outer wall, the four Morman Army soldiers panted hard and with hisses and grating whispers, debated what they should do.

“Where the fuck is Oliver?” Moaned Dale Watts, a meth head and pervert from St. George who graduated to pure evil when he drifted to Las Vegas after dropping out of high school.

After 15 minutes of a stand-off, Dale seized on the idea of smashing what looked to be a bathroom window and climb into the cottage. “We can get the drop on them through a window,” he said, feeling big because his comrades liked his plan.

“You first,” Jackson said after his elbow pushed the tinted glass in.

Stacy was starting to think they needed to back away from the cottage and find better cover. She suggested it to Carrie and then ordered her to “get your skinny ass back there, into that other yard and … you see that wood pile – get there!”

Carrie took another look at Blunstone and shuffled to the centre of the cottage wall. Once she believed she had the best cover, she run hunched to the neighbouring property, cleared the short picket fence and hit the wood pile with a pained grunt.

Once Watts was inside the cottage, he helped Jackson in and told the other two to keep a watch on the two ends of the bungalow. The two demons crept through the greenish black murk of the one-time holiday home, furnished with cast offs from ‘regular’ homes.

 

Andy slowed the truck as we passed the West Yellowstone park gates and chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, cracking open my 10^th beer.

He chuckled again and repeated my question.

“This is going to be fun,” he said.

“What?” I yalped.

He said no more as he steered the truck into West Yellowstone.

“Look!” He pipped, “See that?”

In my beery fog and through the weird green light of the crazy northern lights, I could see an exhaust plume curling from a truck. “Oh shit,” I gulped, dropping the can of beer on the floor and pulling my Glock out.

Andy stopped the truck and turned it off. He slid out in silence and told me to “cover his back.”

While that was like a NFL running back asking a lightweight pee wee to block for him, I felt honoured in a drunked fit of egoism.

Andy took long, quiet strides and occasionally stopped to smell the air and listen. He led us forward with a purposeful pace and stopped suddenly. “Get down,” he whispered and pointed at a cottage ahead to our left. “There,” he said.

That was when Stacy decided to bolt toward Carrie.

We both saw the dark green blur and then a muzzle flash exploded from the cottage. The blur hit the ground, skidding and flailing. The shape screamed – it was a woman.

Without realizing I was doing it, I fired at the cottage and another muzzle flash replied. A bullet zinged by left ear. I hit the ground and noticed that Andy had disappeared. More shots rang out and ricochets whizzed around me. I inched forward to take cover against a small rise from a lawn to a driveway.

Andy arrived at the back of the bungalow in seconds and the two men left outside made no noise as they died throatless and with loosed bowels.

More shots pierced the green darkness and I realized they were aiming at the shape on the ground, about 60 paces from me. Anger welled and then a rage – a monsterous snarl and a complete loss of mind overcame me. I jumped to my feet and charged the cottage.

Watts and Jackson were too amused to fire at me, and why waste ammo when you can wait for a closer shot?

I fired the Glock and my shot hit the window frame by Watt’s ear. Jackson fired as Andy’s blade shot into his liver.

“Huh?” Watt said, stepping back to see the dark shape before him. He blinked because he thought he saw dark wings unfurl – but it was the shadows of his death dance as Andy’s blade cut through rib cage and tore his heart to pieces.

Still advancing I fired another shot that missed Andy by several inches and he shouted, “It’s me!”

I veered toward the still shape and saw Carrie kneeling beside Stacy.

“Help me!” She pleaded, unaware of who she was speaking to.

I’d like to say we had the reunion that every romance writer in existence toiled to describe but failed to achieve but Carrie was too busy trying to stop Stacy’s bleeding. “Help me?” She asked with a querying sob.

Andy appeared before us and Carrie screamed.

I reached her side and held her. Before she saw my face, she recognized my hold and my scent. “Rob?”

Andy scooped Stacy up like a Saturday shopper hoisting a loaf of French bread. “Come with me,” he demanded and disappeared back toward our truck.

Carrie’s hand found mine and we ran after Andy.

He gingerly placed Stacy on the ground beside the truck and fumbled in the back, retrieving a first aid kit.

Andy told Carrie to keep pressure on the bullet hole in Stacy’s left shoulder blade, as he felt about, searching for an exit wound. I stood and gawped like a drunk wrenched from a stupor.

“Rob, keep alert. There could be more. Where’s Kenneth?” Andy demanded.

Moving away, staring at her, I couldn’t hear Carrie’s answer, which was “I don’t know.”

It took me about 10 minutes to scout the surrounding area and I returned to find Carrie holding Stacy, who was bare chested in the middle of the cold green glowing street. She was unconscious and had lost a fair amount of blood.

“I really don’t think the bullet broke any bone,” Andy said, carefully poking something into Stacy’s bullet wound. “It came out over here, I guess from bouncing off her shoulder blade or something,” he continued, pointing at a small tear along the bottom side of Stacy’s left breast.

Carrie suggested we take Stacy “back to the cabin” and taking great care, Andy lifted Stacy and urged, “Lead on.” Carrie quickly moved away into the emerald darkness and Andy followed.

I shut the truck off and, old habits, locked it, and followed.

Once inside the swank bed and breakfast, Carrie led Andy to Stacy’s room and he placed her on the bed.

“Is she going to be okay?” Carrie asked. Andy said he had no idea.

Stacy’s face had lost its usual rosy glow and I found myself choking up. Seeing such a beautiful soul as Stacy badly hurt and finding the love of my life, again, in a world turned into a living hell, was doing a number on my beer-bashed brain.

Carrie’s arms tightened around my neck and I fell into her. The feeling was a perfect blend of joy and relief – all masked by my grateful sobbing.

Andy gently guided us from Stacy’s room and said, “I’ll watch over her.” He shut the door as we stepped out of the room.

“Who the hell is that?” Carrie asked.

Andy’s help and the security he exuded had rubbed the initial terror from Carrie’s mind. When she first saw him appear before her, she looked into a burning eyes of thousands of years of human misery.

 

The glowing evening turned into a serene morning as the uncaring, semi-suicidal fool I had become transformed back into the lovestruck fool I had been before Kenneth took Carrie from me.

I didn’t care where Kenneth was, I admit. I must also admit that I hoped he was dead, though my natural journalist’s skepticism, bolstered from what I had seen Andy overcome, told me the old bastard would be back.

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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