Dragged into Darkness (26 page)

“Am I bleeding?” Donkey asked and jabbed his face in Vee8’s direction.

“No, you’re not, you dumb shit,” Vee8 said.

The BMW had stalled and Vee8 tried to start the car.  He was greeted by an overlong electronic whine before the engine caught and fired.  He jammed the selector into reverse and stamped on the gas.  The wheels spun on the soft earth and the car went nowhere.  The tires and the engine whined. 

“Come on, you bastard,” Vee8 hissed.

As if by command, the tires bit into the earth, found traction and the car lurched back.

“Where are we going?” Donkey asked.

“We’re going to get that son of a bitch.”

The BMW bumped down off the curb, raced away from the scene of the collision and joined the coast road as planned.  The engine sounded off key and the steering sucked.  Only one headlight cut through the darkness, the passenger-side light was obviously lost.  But none of this bothered Vee8.  The coast road went on for miles with no intersections to any other major roads.  He had no doubt that he would catch the Civic driver.  It was just a matter of when.

Vee8’s passengers were still bleating about their injuries and the accident. 

“Shut the fuck up.” Vee8 shouted.  “Keep your eyes open.  Yell when you see that bastard Civic.”

Vee8 scanned the fields to his right and the beach to his left.  Deep thoughts of what he would do to the Civic driver when he got a hold of him clogged his mind.  It wasn’t the first time he’d used a vehicle as a weapon and it wouldn’t be the last.

Vee8 caught sight of his quarry in a twisting section descending towards the ocean then lost him when he hit a series of switchbacks.  He drove miles without seeing him again.  He turned to faith that the Civic remained ahead and his faith was rewarded on the descent into the town of Stinson Beach.

“There it is.  Down there.”  Donkey pointed at the beach falling away from the roadside to their left.

The Civic, with its passenger side taillight snuffed out, sat untidily on the beach. 

Vee8 swung the BMW left onto a private road the Civic had taken.  He didn’t stop at the road’s edge.  He followed the Civic driver’s lead and drove onto the beach.  He bumped the BMW over the curb and the car slithered on the sand, the tires failing to grip the shifting surface.  The car tore down the sloping beach before crashing into a sand dune where it leveled out. 

Vee8 and his crew flung the doors open, leapt from the stricken BMW and charged down the beach.  The Civic sat cocked at an angle to the rolling waves, with the driver’s door open and the engine running.  Beyond the car, the headlights picked out its driver, an East Indian, standing at the water’s edge.

The broad-shouldered man stood some six inches taller than Vee8.  He might have the strength advantage but Vee8 doubted the guy possessed the fighting skills.  Not that Vee8 cared.  His blood was up.  The prick was going down.

 “Hey, bitch,” Vee8 shouted.  “We need to talk.”

The man didn’t react.  He stared out across the darkened ocean with the moon reflected on its surface.  Vee8 heard the man mumbling something but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“What’s that?  I can’t hear you,” he barked in a mocking tone.

The man took a step forward into the waves.  That stopped Vee8 in his tracks.

Vee8 glanced back at his boys and found they’d already given up the chase.  They’d picked up the strange vibe early.  Vee8 had been too pissed off to see it. 

He gestured to his crew for answers.  Donkey shrugged at him with a what-the-fuck expression plastered across his face.

The man strode out further.  The water lapped over his knees.

There was something very wrong here.  It looked pretty obvious what it was.  Vee8 wasn’t sure he wanted to be part of this but he already was.  Slowly, he followed the man to the water’s edge, but no further.  This guy might get lonely and want to take someone with him.

“Hey, Gandhi,” Vee8 said.  “What are you doing?”

Vee8 had hoped the slur would provoke a reaction, but the Indian didn’t respond.  He continued to wade out, chanting his incantation.

“Hey, guy.  It
don’t
have to be this way,” Vee8 offered.  He looked down at his feet.  A wave licked at his
Lugz’s
, chilling his toes, and he edged back.

“I think we should get the hell out of here,” Donkey suggested.

Vee8 turned to face him.

“He’s right,
Vee
,” D.J. echoed.

“I don’t think we should get mixed up in this,” Trey added.

“But we can’t just let him kill himself,” Vee8 said.

“Can’t we?  Just watch me,” Donkey said and started to back away.  D.J. and Trey followed suit.

Vee8 swore under his breath and chased out into the waves after the guy.  He caught his breath the moment the ice-cold water hit him.  Its chill climbed up into his core, but it didn’t stop him from reaching the Indian.  Vee8 reached out and placed a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder, which stopped him in his tracks.  The strong surf thrust against them, urging them back to shore.  Vee8 hoped the guy would take the hint. He took the man’s hesitation as a positive sign.

“You don’t have to do this,” Vee8 said.  “Nothing can be that bad.”

The Indian turned to Vee8.  “I have done a terrible thing and I can’t be forgiven.  I must pay for it.  This is the only way.”

Vee8 could have argued with man to get him to see sense, but he knew there was no point.  He’d seen a lot of broken people. 
Fathers and mothers beaten down by mistakes.
  Friends lost to booze or drugs.  No matter how far gone they were, they still clung to hope.  While they hung on, they could be saved. 
But not the Indian.
  He’d let go.  Vee8 had never witnessed total hopelessness before, but he saw it in the Indian’s eyes.  He’d surrendered to whatever haunted him.  There was nothing Vee8 could do for him. 

“I have to do this,” the man said.

Vee8 nodded and removed his hand from the man’s shoulder.

The Indian smiled and resumed walking out to sea.  Vee8 watched him go.  The man’s final gesture was hypnotic in its incomprehensibility.  But by the time the Indian was waist deep, Vee8 had managed to wrench his gaze away and was heading back to shore.

When he reached dry land, Vee8 glanced back at the suicidal man just in time to see a wave wash over his head.

It was obvious the Civic driver wasn’t turning back.

The following is an excerpt of
PAYING THE PIPER
by Simon Wood, from Dorchester Publishing and available in bookstores everywhere.

Chapter One

Scott leaned on his horn and roared through the red light.  Six lanes of traffic on Van Ness with the green light on their side lurched forward then slithered to a halt in the same breath.  A barrage of blaring car horns trailed after him.

Geary Boulevard rose up on the other side of the intersection.  Scott tightened his grip on the wheel and braced for the jarring impact.  His Honda sedan bottomed out on the steep incline, but maintained its speed.  With the gas pedal floored, the car accelerated and closed in
on a slow moving SUV switching lanes
.  Scott jumped on his horn again.  The SUV froze, straddling both lanes to block his path.

“Idiot,” he snarled and shouldered his way past the other driver.

Traffic was everywhere, but when wasn’t it in San Francisco?  He weaved between two cars, jerked out from behind a MUNI bus and still had a stream of vehicles ahead.

His cell phone rang.  He snatched it from its holder on the dashboard.  “Yes.”

“Scott, where are you?” Jane squeezed out between sobs.  “You said you’d be here.”

Hearing his wife cry split him in two.  His own tears welled, but he bottled them for later.  He needed to be strong.  If he let this overwhelm him, then what good was he to his family?   

“I’m nearly there.”  His hoarse voice cracked in the middle of his short reply. 

“Just hurry.”

“I am.”

He hung up and tossed the phone on the passenger seat next to him.

How could his life have changed so irrevocably?  Just twenty minutes ago, he’d been living a normal life. 
A good life.
  He was a reporter for the San Francisco Independent.  He and Jane had a loving marriage—a miracle in this day and age.  They owned a house in a good neighborhood in the city, even with its insane real estate prices.  It was the perfect place to bring up kids—and they did.  They had two great kids. 

Had
two great kids.

It had only taken a moment to lose one of his children.  Some sick freak had snatched him out from under them.  How could that happen?  He and Jane took every precaution.  They’d entrusted their children to a good school—the best they could afford with their two incomes.  They’d gone private to prevent this kind of thing from happening.  He palmed away the tears clouding his vision and swerved around a UPS truck.

He felt the guilt spreading through him, eating away at his spirit.   He’d failed his son, Sammy.  Abduction was a parent’s worst fear, but he hadn’t wanted to be one of those parents who saw phantoms on every street corner.  Putting bars on the windows and deadbolts on the doors didn’t keep them out, it kept you in.  But that cavalier attitude had led to this.  His worst fears had been realized.  Someone had taken his son.

“I’m sorry, Sammy.”

A new sensation swept away his guilt.  Imagination, strong and invincible, assaulted him.  He’d always been able to conjure up images from secondhand accounts.  That’s what made him such a good reporter.  He didn’t just relay facts.  He told stories—living, breathing stories.  He turned readers into eyewitnesses—transporting them to the actual locations, inserting them inside the people present at the celebration or the tragedy.  Now that talent turned on him.  From the meager facts available, Scott constructed a nightmare.  Sammy appeared to him, his smiling face melting into a scream as the abductor dragged him kicking and screaming inside a van.  His imagination blinded him with these false, but true, images.  The abduction was true, but the events were lies, just images his fear conjured up.  He would know nothing until he reached the school.  He stabbed down on the gas again and frightened a hybrid hatchback out of his way.

At the cost of a door mirror snapped off against the corner of a Safeway trailer truck, he made it to the school.  Half a dozen SFPD cars were staked out in front.   Was that
all his
son warranted—six patrol cars?  Not that these cops were any good now.  Talk about closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.  Where were these bastards when Sammy was being snatched?

He ground to an untidy halt in front of the cop cars and abandoned his Honda in the roadway. 
Let the city tow it
, he thought.  He spilled out onto the asphalt, gathered himself up and raced towards the school gate.  He hadn’t gotten ten feet when his cell rang.  He darted back and snatched it off the car seat.   He hit the green key on the run.