Escape – excerpt 1

Escape – excerpt 2

Escape – excerpt 3

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He opened the door and peered inside.  It was dark, gloomy and there were food cartons and trash strewn about the single room.  It stank of rancid milk and rotting vegetables.  Deke winced from the smell and quickly closed the door.  That’s how it always was. 

The Sheriff turned and headed toward the shed.  As he came around the corner, he saw the door open and something lying on the ground.  He quickened his pace, only to find his brother in a heap over the threshold.  His skull was caved in and there was a hammer a couple of feet away.  Blood was streaked across the floor. 

He hadn’t heard the other squad car pull into the gravel drive behind his and almost jumped out of his skin when Deputy Tate appeared behind him. 

“Betsy, this is Tate, I’m at the Sheriff’s brother’s place.  We need an ambulance,” he said into his radio, startling the Sheriff who was on his knees next to his brother.  “Might call the State Police about getting their crime scene unit out here, too.”

“Ten-Four, Unit Two, Dispatch out,” Betsy Williams, the dispatcher, replied. 

A second later the Sheriff’s radio crackled to life, “Dispatch to Unit One, we have a report there is a problem at Von Stutz’s place, over.”

“I’m already here, Betsy.  Cancel the ambulance.  He’s dead.  Call Henderson Brothers,” he said, referencing the funeral home in town. 

“I’m sorry, Deke,” She relied over the radio, dropping the jargon. 

The Sheriff suddenly turned to Deputy Tate.  “I passed a Jeep when I was leaving here.  I’m going to head up the mountain and see if I can find it.  Don’t.  Touch.  Anything.  Got it?”

“Yes, Sir.  I’ll make sure everything stays just like it is, and I’ll meet Jack Henderson when he gets here to collect your brother.  I’m sorry, Deke,” Deputy Tate said as he put his hand on the boss’s shoulder.

The Sheriff jogged back to his squad car and headed up the mountain on the narrow road.  It had been a while, but the Jeep either went to run the old road over the mountain, or it went up to Hilltop Estates.  It was probably too late, but his gut told him they were running the old road.  Jeeps ran that road all the time. 

His tires spit gravel and he floored it heading back out onto the road.  He squealed up the mountain, looking for the Jeep he’d passed.  It had been an hour, but people running the road often stopped just before the rock garden and aired down their tires and got ready to drive the real part of the trail.

The girl couldn’t have gotten the drop on his brother.  He’d seen her.  She was petite… maybe a hundred-ten or a hundred-twenty pounds, and only about five-four.  His brother was six-three, and even if he couldn’t take care of himself, he still seemed to recall everything he had learned about hand-to-hand combat in the military.  Someone had to have helped her.  He didn’t care that his brother had done horrible things to a bunch of girls… Von was sick and couldn’t help it.  She wouldn’t have been able to overpower him and murder him.  He knew he needed to find her and silence her before she exposed his brother… and him. 

This concludes the first chapter. I’d love for you to read it and give me your feedback. As I mentioned, this one is a departure from my other novels, so I would really like to hear what you think. Thank you, Lane

Garrett pulled back out, but when he looked up in the rearview, Steve was still sitting in the gas station.  Garrett rolled to the side of the road and called out to him on the radio. 

“Sorry, Man.  My mom just called.  I gotta bail.  Her car died and I have to take her to work.  I’ll call you on the cell after I drop her off and maybe I can catch up to you,” he said over the radio. 

“Whatever, Dude.  Later,” Garrett replied.  He put on his blinker and pulled back into traffic and turned up his stereo.  He knew there was no cell coverage anywhere around Booth Valley, where they were headed.

A few miles later he turned off the main road onto a two-lane country road, then onto the dirt road that led back to the trailhead.  He slowed and moved to the side of the road as the Sheriff’s car passed by him going the other way and waved.  When it was past him, he sped up a little and kept driving. 

He loved driving by the old farms out here.  Aside from a few he’d run across, everyone he met had been very friendly.  Often, when he was getting ready to hit a trail, he would end up in a conversation with a local.  More often than not, they would know of another trail for him to try.  He kept a little notebook in his console with directions.  He had found several challenging runs that way… and that was how he had found the trail he was on his way to today.  It wasn’t challenging, but it was fun. 

A mile after the police car he turned onto narrow two-track.  “Stage Road” it said on the street sign.  He always thought it was funny when there was a street sign in the middle of nowhere, especially when the “street” was a pair of muddy ruts. 

He drove a few yards up the trail to a wide spot and jumped out.  He walked to the front and locked in both hubs.  He checked around his Jeep to make sure everything looked the way it should… it always did, but it was a habit his father had pushed off on him. 

He hopped back into the Jeep and pulled the transfer case shifter back into 4wd high, then a little further back into low-range.  When he let the clutch out, the Jeep lurched forward and smoothed out at a pace just below walking speed.  He could have done the first mile in two-wheel-drive, but that was another habit his father ingrained… not to spin tires trying to see how far you could make it before shifting into 4×4.  Besides, in low range the Jeep just rolled along at a little more than walking speed, idling in second gear.

“What the…” he said as he pulled up to the creek crossing.  There was a girl huddled on the far bank, a little downstream.  She looked naked.  The temperature outside was probably hovering around fifty, and being wet and naked… she had to be half frozen, he thought to himself.

“Hey, are you ok?” he yelled at her.  She looked up and even from twenty yards away, he could see the terror in her face.  “Do you need help?”

He drove across the creek to the side she was on and cut the Jeep off, leaving it in the middle of the trail.  He jumped out and started walking along the bank toward her.  “You must be freezing,” he said calmly, “let me help you.”  The girl had twigs stuck in her hair and mud smudged on her face and all over her body.

She hadn’t moved.  It was like she had been rooted to the spot.  But she also never took her wide eyes off him.  He raised his arms wide to show her that he wasn’t carrying any sort of weapon and meant her no harm.  Then he saw that she had a knife in her hand.  She was holding it low, but she could barely control her shivering.  

Her lips were cracked and purple, and her teeth were chattering so much that when she finally spoke, he could barely understand her.  “C-c-c-c-c-old-d-d-d,” she said. 

“Let me get you a blanket, I have one in the Jeep,” he said as he started backing away from her.  He turned and trotted back to his Jeep and pulled out an old horse blanket he kept behind the seats.  It was rough and stiff, but it should also help her warm-up.  It was all he had.

When he turned around, she was only a few steps away.  She was crouching and trying to cover nudity, but she was still trying to look threatening with the knife.  

“It’s gonna be ok,” he said to her, “I promise.  My name is Garrett.”  He put his hands out, but she just stared back at him.  “Yeah… ok… well, here’s a blanket,” he said, unfolding it.  “What are you doing out here like this?  You could freeze to death.”

She wrapped the blanket around herself, but still held the knife in her hand, sticking out past the edge of the blanket.  “H-h-h-he t-t-ook-k-k m-m-me,” she said softly, shivering violently.  “W-w-w-as g-g-g-onna k-k-ill m-me.”

He approached her again, hands still held wide.  She looked at him warily, but he could tell she was losing strength.  Before he could catch her, she toppled to the ground.  He scooped her up and carried her back to the passenger seat of the Jeep.  He ran to the back and got the doors and put them on, then hopped behind the driver’s seat and started it up so he could turn on the heat. 

He dived into the back again and rummaged up some socks and shoes, a pair of rain pants, a flannel shirt and a jacket.  Everything was going to be huge on her, but it would be better than nothing.

He went to slip her feet into the socks when he saw how cut-up they were.  He grabbed his first aid kit from behind the seat and went to work cleaning up the worst of the cuts and the bloody, raw skin around her ankles, then he slipped her delicate feet into the socks.  He winced to himself as he pulled the scratchy wool socks over her injured feet and ankles. 

He reached up and stroked her face with the back of his hand and plucked some of the sticks from her hair.  Her skin was still cold, but not as cold as it had been a minute ago.  He slipped the knife out of her hand, folded it and set it in the cup holder on the front of the console.  Then he noticed her wrist had the same type of bloody, raw skin all the way around her ankles.  It looked to him like a rope burn from a manilla fiber rope, but he’d never seen it as bad as this. 

He slipped her hand back inside the blanket and wrapped it a little more tightly around her, then pulled out the seatbelt and put it around her.  Just he was getting ready to close the door and go to the other side, she started struggling against the seatbelt. 

“Hey, hey, hey… it’s ok.  You’re ok now,” he said to her. 

“No, stop, leave me alone,” she screamed back.  She was hysterical, thrashing against the seatbelt, which had locked from her sudden movements.  “I’ll kill you.”  Then she looked at him.  She slowly calmed down a little bit.  “Please let me go.  I won’t tell anyone,” she said, pleading. 

“Won’t tell anyone what?  I didn’t do anything.  I was just trying to help you.  You were freezing.  I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Why do you have me tied up?  I can’t move.”

“Here,” he said, reaching past her to unbuckle her seatbelt and then stepping back.  “I just want to help you.”

She looked at him for a minute like a cornered animal after she made sure she could move.  She was scared and cold and didn’t want to trust anyone.  But he really seemed to be trying to help her.  “Did you put socks on me?” she asked, her voice barely above a squeak. 

“Yeah.  I have some other stuff, too, but I figured you didn’t want me peeling back the blanket.  She flinched as he reached across her to pick the small pile of clothes up from the driver’s seat.  He set them on her lap.  “I’ll go over by the creek and wait if you want.”

“Th-thank you, she said.  As soon as he stepped away, she quickly slipped on the rain pants and flannel shirt.  He’d left some boots on the floor of the Jeep and she slipped her feet into them, but they were so big she wouldn’t be able to walk in them.  She pulled the jacket on, then stole a look over her shoulder to where he was standing.  He was staring off into the distance, and not looking at her.  “Ok,” she said, barely loud enough for him to hear.  “I’m ready.” 

He turned around and smiled at her before he moseyed back in her direction.  He walked straight to the side of the Jeep she was sitting on.  “Those going to work for you?”  Even sitting on the seat, the clothes hung limply off her.  He was over six feet tall, and she couldn’t have been more than five-four and must have only weighed about half of his two-hundred pounds, if that. 

“Thank you.  I’m sorry,” she replied. 

“Do you want me to take you to the police?” he asked. 

He saw her start to shake.  “Please… no… not the police.  This was a bad idea.  I have to go.”  She started trying to get out of the Jeep struggling and shaking while she tried to get the blanket off again.

“Easy.  It’s ok.  What’s your name?” he asked her, trying to calm her down. 

“Kelly,” she replied. 

She’d gone back to the quiet voice.  He was worried about her.  She was still shivering. 

“Kelly, when was the last time you ate?”

“I… I don’t know.  What day is it?”

Garrett ran around to the back of the Jeep and opened his cooler.  He had several bologna and cheese sandwiches and some Cokes.  He brought her one of the sandwiches and put a bottle of Coke in the console cupholder by the knife she’d been carrying.  “Bologna and cheese with mustard,” he said, smiling and handing her the sandwich.

Her hunger overcame her fear, and she devoured the sandwich.  He grabbed another one for her, then went around and got back into the Jeep.  He slipped the Jeep into reverse and started to back off the trail.  She needed help, and it wasn’t going to come to them here. 

“No police,” she said again, louder this time. 

When he looked over at her, she was shaking again.  He knew it had to be fear.  “Did the police do this to you?” he asked. 

“No… I don’t know… maybe.  Or they knew,” she said, pulling back into her shell. 

He shifted the Jeep out of four-wheel-drive and turned back onto the dirt road and started heading down the mountain.  Just before he got to the switchbacks, she saw the Sheriff’s car on the road below them, heading their way.  The first switchback was probably half a mile away.

“STOP,” she yelled, “go back… they’re coming.”  He thought that if he didn’t get turned around, she would jump from the moving Jeep and stumble off into the woods again.

Garrett slammed on the brakes and threw the Jeep in reverse.  He backed up into the ditch on the side of the road and turned around as quickly as he could and headed back toward the trail.  He quickly made the turn, stopped and shifted back into four-wheel-drive, but left it in high-range. 

Normally he liked to take his time and didn’t hurry on the trail, but he wanted to get out of sight, so he pushed along the trail as fast as he dared.  He made it a couple of miles, to the beginning of the hard part, before stopping and shifting into low range. 

She looked in front of the Jeep and saw a boulder strewn wash.  To her eyes, there was no road, only giant rocks.  She was surprised when the Jeep lurched forward and started crawling over the washing-machine sized boulders, climbing up and falling off of them, rocking back and forth. 

Garrett was in deep concentration, sitting up in his seat, scanning the route ahead.  He fought his inclination to keep a death grip on the steering wheel.  Sometimes, the wheel would jerk one way or the other suddenly and he didn’t want to break a thumb with one of the spokes of the steering wheel when it snapped back. 

“Where does this go?” she asked, breaking her silence for the first time since screaming about the police car.

“It goes over Booth Mountain, and then down into the valley on the other side.  There is a little ghost town in the valley.  Then, it follows a small river for a couple of miles and climbs out of the valley toward Meridian.  I’ve driven it a few times.  There are some other branches, but that is the one I usually take.”

She regarded him for a moment.  She was starting to feel more trust for him.  He didn’t seem like he was trying to trick her.  More importantly, she trusted his eyes. 

“What’s your name again?” she asked him after a moment. 

Without taking his eyes off the route in front of them, he replied, “Garrett, but sometimes people call me Sparky.”

“Why?”

“When I was just a kid, my dad taught me to weld.  The welding throws a lot of sparks.  He was joking around and called me Sparky in front of a couple of the guys… it stuck.”

“Do you like it?” she asked. 

“I guess.  I don’t know.  My nickname could be Booger or something.  That would suck,” he said, looking over at her and smiling. 

She smiled back. 

“You have a really pretty smile,” he said.  Even though it had been strained, he did see her beautiful smile.  But it was offset by the gauntness of her face and how far her eyes were sunk into their sockets.  Her hair was stringy and dirty, and she looked terribly pale.

She turned and looked out her window at the passing trail. 

Even if he killed her, it would be an improvement over this torture. 

“Don’t be that way,” he said, his voice crackling with lust, excitement and rage.  “Just let yourself like it.  You could grow to like me.”

She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a response.  She just continued to struggle. 

She felt him pull back, “Answer me, Bitch,” he yelled before backhanding her hard across her face.  She tasted her own blood in her mouth. 

His hand leapt to her throat, cutting off her airway.  Again, she could feel herself fading away.  As her vision closed in on her and what was left turned gray, she hoped she would never wake up.  She wondered what she had done to deserve this fate.  Tears rolled down her cheeks as she prayed for an end to the torture. 

***

Garrett Wilson pulled the screwdriver from his back pocket.  He wormed it through the fuel lines and vacuum hoses to adjust the carb mixture… again… for the fiftieth time, it seemed.  He loved his Jeep but hated this stupid carburetor.  He wanted fuel injection, but that was out of his price range. 

Maybe in the summer when he could pick up more hours.  School would be out in a few weeks and his boss had already mentioned several projects he’d wanted Garrett to complete for him.  But that was still a couple months away.

Satisfied that it was as tuned as it would get… until the next time he needed to fiddle with it… he laid down the prop rod and closed the hood on his old Scrambler.  He walked around to the driver’s side and hopped up into the seat. 

“No time like now,” he said to himself as he pushed in the clutch and slipped the Jeep into first gear.  Easing the clutch out, he idled up the driveway.  He goosed the throttle and the Jeep jumped forward. 

“Hot damn,” he said out loud, “the off-idle stumble is gone.” 

He turned out of the driveway and headed to the gas station to fill it up.  In the morning he was supposed to meet up with a couple of the guys and do a little four-wheeling in the mountains.  Of course, even though they had confirmed the plan two hours ago, there was a fifty percent chance they would flake out.  It wouldn’t be the first time, he said to himself.    

No matter, he planned on having a good time whether they were there or not.  Life would be easier if something happened and he had someone there with him, but he needed a good Saturday trail ride. 

***

Bright and early the next morning, Garrett loaded up his Scrambler.  He checked his parts and tools that he normally carried, and grabbed his recovery gear, a cooler with some food and drinks, an extra set of rain gear and the soft doors.  He preferred driving without the doors, but there was a good chance of rain, so he strapped the doors in the bed of the rig, just in case.  “I better grab some extra jackets, in case I get wet,” he said, looking over everything.  Be prepared. 

It was a little before nine when he yelled up to his dad that he was leaving and pulled out of the garage heading to Ian’s house.  Steve and Luke were supposed to meet up with them at quarter after. 

Ian strolled out of the house as Garrett backed into the driveway.  He walked around to the driver’s side of the Jeep, hanging his head. 

“Hey man,” he said, “my old man told me I can’t go.  I gotta knock out a project for school.  Sorry.  He just reminded me a minute ago or I woulda called.”

“Dude,” Garrett said, wanting to give him a hard time, but realizing he had a few of his own things he should have been catching up on, too.  “No big deal, I guess.  Heard anything from Luke or Steve?”

“Yeah, Luke called, his Land Rover had a puddle under it this morning.  Nothing from Steve, so he should be here any minute.”

As if on cue, Steve Bird’s Land Cruiser pulled up next to Garrett’s Scrambler.  He waved before dropping out of his driver’s seat and walking around by his friends.

“Hey guys,” he said, “are we just waiting on Luke?”

“He begged off…” Garrett said.

“Let me guess, he found a drip on the driveway, right?” Stave says, laughing.  “I guess it’s just us.”

“I’m out,” Ian said, eyes downcast, “got schoolwork to catch up on.  Sorry guys.”

“You and me,” Garrett said.  “Let’s roll.”

Steve headed back to his truck and hopped in, keying up his two-way radio and letting Garrett know he was good to go. 

Ian’s sister walked out of the garage and playfully smacked her brother in the back, “I coulda gone with them,” she said.  “I’d ride with either of them.”  She smiled. 

“Yeah, I’m sure Dad would LOVE to send his fourteen-year-old daughter out into the woods with a couple of sixteen-year-old guys.  Give it a rest, Sis.”

“Whatever,” she replied, waving as they drove away.  “Besides, Dad likes Garrett.  Still time for you to get your Eagle… then Dad would like you, too.”

“Bite me.”

***

“Look, Von, you HAVE GOT to get control of yourself.  I can’t keep cleaning up your messes.  I might be the Sheriff, but I can’t fix everything.”

“I’m sorry, Deke.  Sometimes I just can’t stop myself.  She was so pretty, and she didn’t have anyone anymore… I wanted her.  I’ll get rid of her and I promise not to do it again, ok?”

Deke looked at his brother.  Von was ten years older, but because of a head injury from the Army, he was like a giant six-year-old with hormones and impulse control issues.  Their parents were gone, and their mother’s final words to Deke were to make him promise to take care of his brother and keep him out of trouble.  Of course, she reminded him that the injury that made him like he was, was all Deke’s fault.  He never understood her rationale for that, but regardless, Von was his responsibility.

That’s what he had done for the last fifteen years, taken care of him and kept him out of trouble… no matter the cost.  He kept a roof over his head, even though it wasn’t much, and made sure he had food.  And, like he was getting ready to do now, he took care of his messes.  This was the third girl in the last year.  There had been several others since his mom died, and he was pretty sure there had been several more before that.

“You head up to the shed, I’ll be along in a while,” Deke said, pulling out his radio to respond to a call from Betsy in dispatch.  “Von, sounds like I gotta go deal with something.  I’ll be back as soon as I can, ok?” he shouted after his brother.

“Ok, Deke.  I’ll have everything ready,” he shouted back. 

Von turned and headed to his trailer to get a couple of tools and a tarp.  A few minutes later, with everything he needed, he trundled back toward the shed.  He whistled as he made the short walk.  He figured he would have time to ask her if she’d changed her mind and fallen in love with him again before he “fixed her up” for his brother.  That made him happy.  He didn’t mind fixing her up, but he would have preferred to not have to do that.

He opened the door to the shed and saw that the light was off.  As he turned to flip the switch, juggling the stuff in his arms, he was thrown off balance by the door hitting him in the back.  Before he could react, he felt something slam into his head. 

The girl jumped down from the counter, letting go of the claw hammer, which had stuck in her torturer’s head.  As she landed on the floor, she collapsed in a heap from the weakness in her limbs.  When she hit him, he’d just crumbled to the floor.  She struggled to her feet and looked back at him as she stepped through the door and saw the claw of the hammer had embedded itself into his head all the way to the handle.  She jumped back toward him and ripped the knife off his belt.  Blood was pooling up on the rough concrete floor around him. 

She hobbled into the woods as fast as she could.  She was completely naked, and her feet were raw from stepping on branches and rocks before she was even out of sight of the shabby little shack and trailer.  The morning chill wasn’t yet gone, and she tried to wrap her thin arms around her naked body to hold in the little heat she had.

As she stumbled along, she heard an engine.  She looked up and saw a Sheriff’s car running along the road.  She dropped to the ground and watched as it drove out of sight around a bend in the road.  She was pretty sure she’d heard the Sheriff talking with the man that had taken her.  She couldn’t risk him finding her… not if they were talking about “getting rid of her,” she thought.