Shelter: Book 2, A Long Days Night (19 page)

“It should be interesting to see how Dutch reacts to the Sheriff paying him a visit.”

Tony, John, and Todd agree it’s a good idea for us to wait and see how Dutch reacts to the visit from our local sheriff. The sheriff arrives at my front door, as he dismounts his horse, he nods his head toward the street twice. John moves the camera to check on the people hiding along the street. He says, “They’re moving. They’re experienced, look how they move. One group moves forward while the second group provides over-watch. They reverse the roles as the second group moves forward. They’re heavily armed and expecting problems.”

“John, can we give them some problems they didn’t count on.”

John smiles, “I’m sure we have a few tricks up our sleeves. Give me a minute to see what surprises we have left in their path.”

“John, can you put the image from the camera watching the front door on the large monitor while you see what surprises you have?”

The monitor clears showing the sheriff pounding on my front door, it slowly opens showing a guard holding a shotgun at the door. “John, turn up the speakers.”

“Who the fuck are you? Where’s Jay?”

“Who the fuck are you and who’s this Jay?”

“I’m the sheriff, I give the orders around here. Where’s Jay?”

“Who’s Jay?”

“He’s the asshole who owns this house and the farm. I have business to discuss with him, send him out to see me.”

“Listen crap head, I don’t know who you are, or who this Jay is. Big Dutch owns this house now. Want I should wake him?”

Sheriff Grover nods his head to the left, giving a signal to his men to start cleaning out this nest of assholes. They quietly enter the other houses where they go room to room killing everyone they find in the houses using silenced 9mm semi-automatics.

Grover answers, “Yeah, I want that you should wake him. That would be a very good idea before I kill you.”

“You’re a shithead if you think I’m going to wake Dutch for some local county sheriff. I’ll put you down before you can draw you sidearm.”

“Hey asshole, look behind me. See those shadows moving in this direction? Those are my men, I have the house surrounded. I’m going to kill all of you in about thirty seconds.”

“Whoa, there sheriff. Come in, I’ll get Dutch for you.”

“Much better.” Grover nods his head to the right telling the men behind him to begin clearing the house. The slip into the back of the house where they kill everyone they encounter.

Dutch comes down the stairs sleepy and angry. “Who the fuck is here at this hour and what does he want?”

“Mr. Dutch? I’m the sheriff. I’m looking for the owner of this house. Jay Tolson.”

“Don’t know any Jay Tolson. This is my house now.”

“What did you do to the owner?”

Dutch begins to raise his side arm when he’s shot in his right arm. He drops his gun screaming. “Son of a bitch, Sheriff, you’re an asshole, you shot me.”

“Next round goes through your balls, now where is the owner of this house?”

“I don’t know who he is. We beat his ass and took his house.” The Sheriff pushes his way into my house, He shakes his head looking at the holes in the walls. The sheriff says, “Remodeling?”

“Yeah, I forgot where I put the safe.”

“That’s because it’s not in the walls. He had at least one safe in the basement. I came for what’s in the safe.”

“We searched every inch of the basement, there’s no safe there. If there were, anything in it would be mine since I own the house now. We found food, beer, and wine. I know there must be something else of value here, we haven’t been able to find it.”

“If I help you find it, do we split it?”

The Sheriff smiles while thinking,
I’ll tell this asshole anything if he can locate the safe. When he shows me where it is, I’ll kill him. Maybe I should just kill this moron now and be done with him. I don’t know where Jay is, this asshole couldn’t have killed him. I wonder where Jay is hiding, I know he’s not far. He wouldn’t leave his house and the farm. He must be watching these morons until it’s the right moment to take them out.

Dutch opens the door to allow the sheriff entrance, the sheriff’s men have already entered from the rear and are killing the gang and their women. “Dutch, if something happens to me, my people will burn all of you down. First they'll shoot you in the feet, each shot will go further up your body, after your feet, it will be your knees, then your balls, your stomach and finally your head. You’ll die in horrible pain. Don’t play games with me. I want what’s in the safe.”

“What’s in the safe?”

“Don’t worry about it, just take me to the basement. By the way, if Jay returns and sees what you’ve done to his house he’s going to skin you alive. It won’t be pretty.  I’d like to stay and watch him take you apart.”

“You aren’t going to help me?”

“If you don’t play ball with me, I may hold you and turn you over to him. I’d be in his good graces, he’d owe me a big favor and I’ll get to see you skinned alive.”

“Whoa there Sheriff, why don’t we try to work together? We’re both after the same thing, whatever’s in the safe. Come on, I’ll take you to the basement.”

John turns to look at me, “Jay, any chance he’ll find the sub-basement?”

“I doubt it and if he did, none of them would live to see the safes. I think the sheriff will think Dutch screwed him by already removing the safes, this may be good. The sheriff may get rid of Dutch for us.”

Tony shakes his head, “I bet they shoot each other, the sheriff’s men are already killing Dutch’s people in the house. I hope they don’t have a firefight in your home. Man, that’s going to cost a lot to repair.”

“Tony, it might be worth the cost if they kill each other off for us. Any of the MC who survive the Sheriff’s visit are going to split. They won’t want to mess with him again. That will leave only the mostly unarmed mob for us to deal with.”

John frowns saying, “Jay, that mob overran us.”

“Yes, but this time the element of surprise will be on our side. We should be able to pop up and take down their leaders causing them to run into the winds.”

Todd smiles saying, “Dad, I hope you’re right.”

“Watch, I bet you a dollar, I am.”

“I’ll take that bet.” Replies Todd.

Dutch leads the sheriff into the basement, “Look asshole, there’s no safe in here. My people have torn this basement apart many times. We’ve never found a safe or anything except for the food and beer we’ve been living on.”

“I want a share of the food and beer.”

“Fuck off and die. I’ll share what’s in the safe with you, if you help us find it, but not the food.”

Both men are thinking they’re going to shoot the other when they find the safe. The men enter the basement which has been stripped and searched, many times over by Dutch’s men. The sheriff stands in the middle of the basement shining his flashlight into every inch of the basement, “Where the fuck is the safe?”

“I told you it wasn’t here.”

“You lie, you must have opened it and found a way to dispose of the empty safe.” The sheriff aims his gun at Dutch.

“Bullshit, I told you there was no safe down here. Why would I bring you here if I had already emptied it?”

“I think you’re screwing with me and I don’t like being screwed with.” BANG BANG. The sheriff turns off his flashlight while dropping to the floor and rolling to his left. The men behind the Sheriff open fire at the spot the sheriff had been standing. He aims and fires at the muzzle flashes, hitting two of the club, the third spun around to run upstairs, he runs into the sheriff’s men who kill him. The sheriff flashes his light three times to let his people know he’s coming up so they don’t shoot him. “Boss, did you find the safe?”

“No, the basement was empty, nothing but empty beer and food cans. I bet the assholes already emptied the safe. Did you leave anyone alive?”

“A couple upstairs in case you needed to question them.”

“Good thinking, go upstairs and bring them down. We’ll make them tell us where the safe is.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fifteen minutes later twelve men and women are pushed to their knees in front of the sheriff. “One of you is going to tell me what I want to know. I’m going to start at my left. I’m going to put a bullet into every one of you until one of you decides you want to live and tells me what I want to know. Are you ready?”

Jose, pleads, “Look, sheriff, we don’t know nothing. Dutch has been pushing us every day to find anything of value and the owners of the house. We never found any safe, we tore the walls open, we dug up the yard around the house. We looked for the owners everywhere. We never found a trace of them. We were fighting them, they exploded smoke bombs when the smoke cleared they were gone. Man, I’m telling you the truth. One minute they were shooting the hell out of us and the next they were gone, poof, gone with the smoke.”

“Bullshit, no one can disappear. I know the owner, he’s not the type of person to run, he has to be here.”

“Then you find him because we spent weeks and didn’t find shit.”

“Then why do I need you?” The sheriff turns to his men, “Guess we have no use for these assholes, you know what to do.”

Jose yells, “Sheriff, wait. You’re the law. You can’t just kill us. What about our rights? Where’s our lawyer? Don’t we get a trial? You can’t do this!”

“I’m not doing it. Shoot them.”

A moment later the Son’s of the Devil MC are with their father in hell.

The sheriff kicks some empty brass out of his way thinking,
if I was Jay, where would I have gone? Where would I hide? It has to be close. It has to be someplace that I could keep an eye on my house. Wait, the last time I was here I saw a large hole in the field, wish I could remember where in the field. He must have a bunker out there. I’ll come back with some metal detectors. Jay, I’m going to find you and get what’s mine.

Chapter 12

As we’re walking towards the door of the shelter, we stop mid-step, wincing from the blaring alarm. We look at each other trying to figure out what’s going on. Todd says, “Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Todd, that’s the alarm alerting us that someone is trying to open the door. We didn’t see anyone outside that got close to the door, it must be someone from inside trying to get out. Who would be that stupid?”

Todd’s face turns bright red, “Dad, Ricky, it has to be Ricky. He won't stop fuming about getting out of this ‘bargain basement’, as he calls it. He wants to demand that either you move us home or he will open the door and leave.”

“Shit!  John, Todd thinks it's Ricky, I’m sending Todd to run ahead and check the doors.”

Todd begins running towards the door. John works on the alarm panel, it is essential that the alarm stop blaring or none of us will be able to think. The siren is deafening. “John, hurry and get that damned thing turned off so I can think.”

“Jay, just one moment more. There I got it.”  The shelter is again filled with silence. Our ears are still buzzing like a swarm of cicadas infiltrated our hideaway, as we grab our guns and run toward the entrance door. A fraction of a second after the alarm stopped, we’re overcome with voices of our shelter mates who are running in our direction. Fred and Franco are the first to reach us, Franco asks, “Jay, what’s going on? Has someone broken in?”

Trying to speak while running and carrying my rifle and equipment is harder than I remember it. I’m out of practice. I didn’t design a gym into the shelter. If I survive tonight, I’m going to close hallways for wind sprints. “Franco no, I think someone is trying to break out.”