Poisoned Soil: A Supernatural Thriller (40 page)

The sounds around the cabin were deafening. Branches snapped loudly and crashed to the ground with increasing regularity. Hard, driving rain pounded the ground unmercifully, and the little stream that normally flowed peacefully fifty yards from his front porch now raged over his front steps.

Hal stood at the door and knew this was his moment. He had come out here to die alone, to be a burden to no one. Now death swirled around him, encircled him and tightened its icy grip until Hal had only the doorway to stand in. And now that it was here, it terrified him. He walked back inside and peered out the small window he had cut to see behind the cabin.

To the left of the garden lay a large Sycamore tree that had fallen the year before. Through the torrential rain, Hal peered at a red blob near its root ball. He stared pensively until he was sure he could make it out. Tammy lay on the ground and slept contentedly, riding out the storm and at ease with her survival instincts. Hal thought about how he had lived five years in the woods alone but, unlike Tammy and Ozzie, he was utterly at the mercy of nature. He needed shelter. And, he realized, perhaps too late, he needed companionship.

A bolt of lightning lit up the forest and blinded Hal just as if sunshine had reflected off a mirror into his eyes. He shielded his eyes and jumped back in the cabin as an earth shattering sound of thunder shook the cabin. A moment later he felt a bone rattling thud and saw a giant oak crash across his porch, ripping a third of his roof off in the process. His bed flew off the floor and crashed back down as Rex dug his claws into Hal’s neck.

Hal shook uncontrollably, drenched and overcome with terror. He thought about Tammy, how she was a creature of nature and knew how to survive. He thought of Ozzie and figured he was just as safe...hoped he was just as safe. Mostly, he though of Connie, picturing her face as he shuffled his feet to what was left of his front porch and allowed the rain to wash away his tears and his pain. He had come to forest to die, to put an end to his suffering. He found that now, just as when he had come five years earlier, he couldn’t embrace death. When push came to shove he realized what he wanted was to survive.

He stepped out of the cabin into rushing knee-deep water knowing that he had discovered that too late.

Chapter 33

Lonnie sat at his desk in the sheriff’s office surrounded by his deputies eight days after Hurricane Isabel hit Savannah and a week after it dumped thirty-two inches of rain on parts of Rabun County.

“Well, all righty then, anything else before I head out with my church to Savannah?” Lonnie asked. No one spoke. Lonnie surveyed the expressions and paused as he became, for the moment, Pastor Lonnie. “Let us say a prayer before I leave,” he said. Everyone bowed their heads and interlocked their fingers, none even questioning if an elected official could ask them to pray. Even the atheists and agnostics among them felt the loss and suffering that surrounded them and knew this was the time to remain quiet.

“Father–thank you,” Lonnie began. “Thank you for reminding us of what we have. For showing us what we all can be by being here for one another in each of our greatest times of need. For allowing us to remember that we are here, Lord, not to enrich our own lives, but to serve you and our fellow man. Please be with us, Lord, as we set out to do that, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

“Amen,” was shouted as men cried in the office, some uncontrollably. The losses they had witnessed first hand that week were permanently etched in their visions, as if a video game image was burned into an old television screen that was finally turned off. The vision would linger, forever.

Lonnie grabbed a bag and walked to the door. “I’ll see y’all in a couple of weeks if all goes well,” he said as he walked out the door.

“Oh...Sheriff,” Freeman shouted, and walked to the door.

Lonnie stopped. “Yes, Freeman?”

“I—I heard from the medical examiner this morning,” Freeman said. “He said it’ll be at least a week, maybe more, before they get results on the dental records from that head— uh, the remains of that head that washed up down on Warwoman. They think it’s a young man but they’re not completely sure yet.”

Lonnie turned his head away. “Well,” he said with a quivering lip, “when you hear something, you call me and let me know, no one else.”

“Understood, Sheriff. Good luck down there.” Freeman reached to shake Lonnie’s hand but Lonnie pulled him for a hug. Then the sheriff walked through the door and drove with members of his church to help victims begin rebuilding in Savannah.

***

Clint sat alone in the conference room at the USDA building on Alabama Street as the meeting ended. His supervisor, Clarence Green, walked back into the meeting and sat beside him.

“Clint—I’m sorry, but you got nothing on this guy,” Clarence said.

Clint fumed and bit his lip. He shook his head as he felt his blood boiling. He threw his eyes at Clarence and then checked the door to make sure no one else was coming back. Clint grabbed Clarence’s arm. “I know this guy is guilty, Clarence. I know it.”

“You know what, exactly?” Clarence asked.

“I know he sold tainted meat that wasn’t inspected. Hell he butchered those animals himself. I know he’s responsible for those deaths and illnesses!”

Clarence shook his head. “Clint, we’ve been over this, and we’ve been over this. You−”

“Anthrax doesn’t just come out of the air, Clarence! It comes from the soil, unless we’re talking about a biological weapon. And we’re not. What we are talking about is infected, tainted meat that wasn’t inspected and was served to an innocent, unsuspecting public. That’s a clear violation of the Federal Meat Inspection Act!”

Clint paused, before continuing. “People died, Clarence!”

Clarence removed Clint’s grip from his arm. “Maybe you’re right, Clint. MAYBE. But there’s a difference between thinking something and knowing something. You don’t know it, you think it.”

“Ya but—”

“But WHAT, Clint? But you went up there to see him a few days ago and found, what? Oh, that’s right, you found nothing. Absolutely nothing! A man living in a small house on a small piece of land where he couldn’t possibly have raised and butchered a bunch of pigs.”

Clint jumped to his feet. “You know good and well there’s thousands of acres behind him that—”

Clarence stood, looked Clint in the eye and interrupted, “That has a bunch of trees in it. That’s all I know. Most of ’em laid flat by that storm last week. Face it, Clint, you don’t have anything on this guy. And we don’t have any resources for you to go after him chasing a hunch. Hell, it’ll take us months to figure out when all the restaurants and retailers are safe to reopen near the Georgia coast.”

Clint looked down and tapped the conference table loudly with his fingers. “So that’s it? We don’t have the resources so we just let this guy slide?”

Clarence furrowed his eyes and pointed his finger directly at Clint. “L-E-T it go, Clint. You just focus on what we do know.”

Clint looked up at Clarence and caught his stare.

“We do know that Nick Vegas served all the meats,” Clarence continued. “And we know that the meat was, in fact, tainted with anthrax. Those are the facts.”

Clint exhaled and dropped his shoulders.

“That’s your target, Clint. Nick Vegas.”

***

Nick sat in the plush leather window seat and stared down at the sights of Atlanta as the 767 climbed. Turner Field and the Peachtree Plaza hotel led his eyes to Buckhead. His sprawling home, which seemed so big to him, was lost down there somewhere. The Delta pilot flew over Stone Mountain and the flight attendant brought Nick another Jack Daniels once the chime indicated they had reached 10,000 feet.

Nick pulled the envelope out of the brief case in front of him that his lawyer had sent over that afternoon. “Just look this over this weekend and let’s meet Monday to strategize,”the lawyer said. Nick had glanced it over. He had seen the $30 million class-action civil lawsuit carefully drafted by IBM’s team of high-priced lawyers who had nothing better to do than to go after Nick. To make him a poster child for wrongdoing while making themselves look good to the public. Enhancing their image as sticking up for what they thought was right.

More than anything he wanted to stay and fight and clear his name, but everything transpired against him. Nick slugged the Jack Daniels and asked the flight attendant for more. To his way of thinking he had done nothing wrong. He really believed that. Mostly he wanted to break Blake in half for what he had done to him. For what Blake had cost him.

Yes, Nick wanted to stay and fight. But he’d lose and he knew it. So he transferred what money he could to banks in Barcelona. He’d lay low and fight the battle from there, hopefully holding on to the house and the restaurants but, if not, getting as much cash out as he could. And keep his freedom.

Chapter 34

Easter Sunday arrived on the last day of March, earlier than most years. The date made little difference to Ozzie. Nor did the day of the week or the event itself, for that matter. He walked down the slope after patrolling the ridge. He looked up as he walked and noticed that most of the trees were still bare. Leaves would be coming soon enough, along with all sorts of new life on the mountain. Ozzie walked past Hal’s old garden to the pile of strewn lumber scattered about; all that remained in the woods of Hal and his cabin. Ozzie listened, hoping to hear the sound of the thumper keg, the sound of Hal’s guitar. To hear Hal rant one more time. He heard the sound of silence.

A solitary, juvenile grunt from underneath the woodpile broke the silence. Then another. Then a chorus of them as six little piglets came out to greet their dad. Ozzie looked down at the motley crew. Three were soot black, just like him. Two were black with tan or orange spots. One little fella was bright, solid orangish red, just like his mom. He was the squeaky wheel of the bunch, always whining until he was fed first, always the one claiming there was a monster in the woods coming for him. They named him Rusty.

Tammy came out from underneath a cove of boards that she and Ozzie had built from Hal’s old cabin. They pushed and shoved them around where his porch formerly stood just before Tammy had given birth two months earlier. She walked over and stood next to Ozzie and watched the little torpedos squirm around, snorting, sniffing and smelling everything in sight. Everything new and wondrous to them.

“Where’re my grand babies?” Isabella called from beside the stream.

Rusty looked up and started running toward her. The others took off, racing as well, and passed him. Rusty came to a log lying down in his path, one that the others had magically hurdled over, but seemingly impossible for him.

“Wa, wa!” Rusty squeaked and squealed.

“Rusty, grow up!” Ozzie said, looking at him firmly.

Tammy walked to Rusty and glanced back at Ozzie, shaking her head. She put her snout under his rump and lifted him up. He ran sideways toward the stream and soaked up his grandmother’s love.

***

The children raced out of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church as the Easter egg hunt was about to begin. “Not this year for you, little one,” Angelica said as she tickled her three-month-old son’s nose. “But you girls run along and have some fun,” she said to Rose’s daughters.

The girls ran off in the matching Easter dresses Angelica had hand sewn for them on her grandmother’s Singer sewing machine. Bright yellow dresses with shoulder straps, hemmed on the bottom in six inches of pink fabric with red flowers. Angelica had put a pink ribbon in their hair that flapped now as they streamed toward the eggs.

“They’re so beautiful,” Rose said to Angelica as she walked out of the church and soaked up the midday sun with John. “I just wish they’d never outgrow them.”

Angelica laughed. “Well, I want to see this little munchkin grow up,” she said. Rose smiled as Angelica looked down to her newborn son.

“I just love the name Clayton,” Rose said. “Surprising you never hear that name up here. I don’t know anyone up here named Clayton.”

“Well, now you do,” Angelica said as she leaned down and put her face right in front of her son’s.

Rose nodded as her eyes fixed on a tearful, middle-aged couple, dressed in black and kneeling to place flowers in the creek. “Who is that?” Rose asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dixon,” Angelica said. “They live down on Earls Ford Road. Shane was their son.”

Rose thought for a moment. “Oh God, you mean the remains of that boy that washed up, that head that—.” Rose was unable to complete the sentence. The flood of memories overcame her. Her own near personal disaster, such a tragedy at the time that became eclipsed by the horrific losses that everyone suffered from Savannah up to Clayton and beyond. Everyone had a story of loss, a story of a hero who helped and saved. The grief was so great for everyone that they had to surrender and allow themselves to focus not on what they had lost, but what they had left. Rose stood beside Angelica and recognized for the first time that those catastrophic events had brought her closer to church and closer to Angelica.

Angelica stood and watched the kids scramble for eggs along Warwoman creek. Rose took her hand in hers. Angelica looked at her with a smile, which unleashed a flood of tears from Rose. She threw her arms around Angelica and hugged her as if she hadn’t seen her in many years.