Blood and Rain by Glenn Rolfe Page B

wanted to say “like you”, but did not, “…tortured.”
    He waited for the sheriff’s verbal scolding, but the admonishment never came.
    â€œThat’s fine, Dwayne. I know where to find him.”
    The sheriff turned to Deputy Hines. “Did Kimball get everything all right?”
    â€œHe brought the body over to Hollis Oaks General Hospital with the rest of them. Should be there by now. Said he’d get to it right away and ring you directly when he had something,” Hines said.
    The sheriff turned to Deputy Clarke. “You and Glescoe are on tonight, aren’t you?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œKeep your heads on straight tonight. No fucking around. I want you armed and loaded at all times this evening. Understood?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Joe looked him in the eye. “I mean it, Dwayne. Keep your sidearm and a shotgun with you at all times while you’re out in the cruiser. I want you guys to be on high alert for the next couple of days, understood?”
    The sheriff looked back to Deputy Hines. “You too, Randy.”
    Hines nodded in acknowledgment.
    Joe pardoned himself and strode to his office. Regardless of what Kimball had to say, the three bodies they had found in the last twenty-four hours meant one thing. They had another month before the next ones showed up.
    Joe thought about the people who had been there to help the first time around. He thought of Stan.
    He hadn’t spoken to Stan since the day the man first came back from the mental health facility. That few moments of trivial conversation had taken place at Mel’s Café while Joe stopped in to grab his morning coffee. He wasn’t even a hundred percent sure as to why he had been avoiding the former sheriff, just that he had.
    In the time since their last conversation, he had grown leery of the man. Stan’s gruff, disheveled appearance, coupled with the fact that he was normally only seen while walking to or from the café, all added to Joe’s ever-growing apprehension.
    Stan Springs had been his mentor, practically grooming Joe for his present position. He thought of the day Stan resigned. He remembered how scared he was when Stan said “Joe, it’s your turn to soar” and handed him the gold pin of an eagle in flight, which he still had to this day. Joe had admired many things about the former sheriff and did his best to emulate those same honorable traits, along with his top cop etiquette.
    Prior to Stan Springs’s sudden and rapid mental atrophy, he had been everything that was good and right about Gilson Creek. He could have easily run for mayor and won. It wouldn’t have even been close. Stan had been a straight-talking, no-nonsense type of guy with a penchant for making you feel as cool and calm as he was, even under the most intense or devastating conditions. It was Stan, along with the McKinneys, who had been there with Joe as he watched Lucy deteriorate from the cancer that had ravaged her body. After her death, it was Stan who, even in the midst of his own psychotic breakdown, had lent an open ear and broad shoulder for him to weep on.
    And Stan was there again for Joe after the unexpected and messy demise of the McKinneys. And then, of course, there were the weeks of research and brainstorming that ultimately led to helping Joe rid the town of the curse that would be responsible for at least nine deaths over the spring and summer of ’97.
    That was the place Joe had been trying so hard to divert his thoughts from going since last night when he first laid his eyes on the body of Brian Rowel.
    Joe’s mind broke like the levees of Galveston, flooding with the memories of the sweltering summer night he faced down and shot the murdering beast terrorizing his community.
    After piecing together the evidence and coming to grips with the idea that they might be facing a creature that was a supernatural entity, they began studiously researching