To See the Light

To See the Light

Author, Ben Sharp

To See the Light

an original novel by author Ben Sharp

Cover Photography by Ben Sharp

Copyright © 2013 by Smooth Sailing Press, LLC.

To See the Light

ISBN: 978-1-61899-020-4

All rights to this book are strictly reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.

For information regarding copyright issues please contact:

Smooth Sailing Press

Attn: Publisher

20519 Sunshine Lane,

Suite B

Spring, Texas 77388

(281) 826-4026

www.smoothsailingpress.com

SAN: 257-2680

Printed in the USA

Acknowledgements:

I would like to give a special thanks to my mother, Dr. Elaine Sharp, for her help with a portion of the language translations in this book. But a caveat is in order. She provided this assistance from afar (usually via text message or telephone call), and, considering that I am quite ignorant of the Spanish language (despite four semesters in college!), there may occasionally be instances where I didn’t get things quite right. For whatever I got correct, hold her responsible. For any such error, please blame me.

I would also like to thank my wife, Kristen Sharp, for her tireless role as reader, idea contributor and supporter. She is the best cheerleader in the world, and my debt to her (for all of this and so much more) is something I will never be able to adequately repay.

This book, Kristen, is for you.

Author’s Note:

Although some of the cities, topographical features and locations surrounding Rockville and Rockville County are real, Rockville and Rockville County (and all the towns and individuals located therein) are creations of the author’s imagination and are entirely fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or places is unintended and coincidental.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.                              John 1:5

Prologue

El aliento del diablo.

To Julio Herrera, huddled beneath the dusty, rotted timber of this bridge, that’s exactly what the air feels like – the Devil’s Breath. It’s hot, moist, and as foul and filthy as the stench steaming off a compost heap in the dead of summer.

His lungs cough in protest, and the sound echoes from Julio’s cramped perch as if amplified through a megaphone. He curses softly, praying that his partner didn’t hear the cough. Julio’s compadre – he knows him only as Red – is supposed to be hidden out somewhere in the woods, maybe twenty yards down the creek bed, and Red has made it clear that if there are any sounds from under this bridge, there will be hell to pay.

Julio knows it’s not an idle threat. Red outweighs him by probably sixty or seventy pounds, most of that dense muscle. Back in high school he could have stood toe to toe with the irritating redneck, but over the last decade Julio’s lost pretty much all of the build he had carried as a halfback (who needs ephedrine when you’ve got crack cocaine?) The flannel shirt he’s wearing at this moment clings to his boney arms like a raincoat hanging from a coat stand, and in the farthest recesses of Julio’s brain he understands that the coughing has worsened over the last six months – and that it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the stench trapped beneath this bridge.

He’s worked with Red before, and, like this time, the bigger man has treated him like an amateur, a beginner, an idiota. Julio considers himself far from either. Sure, he’s screwed up before (though there was no way he could have known the liquor store had a camera above the register), and yeah, when he needs to get straight he can sometimes get shortsighted (and pocket more than his fair share), but that doesn’t mean he should have to do everything the bigger man says. Like cutting the fence (the barbed wire had sliced his palm); or lassoing the cow (it had kicked him nice and hard right in the jewels); or, worse yet, having to hide here in the shadows, the air as thick as mesquite smoke, the stink like a mix between the dump and the cemetery. Twice already Julio has gagged hard enough to retch.

At least he didn’t have to do the cutting. Red had at least volunteered to do that much, though it had been unsettling to witness how much the big man appeared to enjoy doing it.

Taking a swig from the bottle in his right hand, Julio tries to guess how much longer he will have to linger in this nightmare of horrors. The cerveza will hold him for a moment, but soon – very soon – he’s going to need something stronger (and he’s already smoked all that there was to smoke).

But Red didn’t say how long this will take. All Julio’s been told is that they are waiting on someone else – a gringo whose name Red did not feel like sharing. 

Red had wagered that this visitor will take the bait (Julio has no idea what bait Red is referring to, and he dislikes the big man enough to accept the fifty dollar bet – though he has no idea how he’ll pay should he lose) and it’s clear that they’re going to wait until dark or even later to see if the hombre shows up. 

Though the thought of staying out here after the sun’s gone down – cramped in the shadows underneath these rotten, termite-infested beams – makes Julio’s stomach lurch even worse than the stench does, there is still something deep down inside of him that hopes – that prays – the man will not.

Chapter 1

Clumps of bloody fur sizzled on the asphalt, and the vulture picking at the stinking road kill seemed to think it was a four-course meal. The scavenger bird paid little attention to the high-throttled approach of the jet black Dodge Stratus (unwilling to lift its wings to fly off to a safe distance), choosing instead to arrogantly hop twice to the shoulder out of harm’s way and then hop right back over to continue its late afternoon feast.

Rick Hoskins hardly noticed the bird as he nosed the Stratus off the paved farm to market road and onto the gravel-covered surface of County Road 501. His attention was ironically distracted by his own dinner plans. He had been running late all day, and in his haste to get to the office this morning he had neglected to eat breakfast. Lunch had been a quick hamburger in the car as he drove between interviews, and the food had made him so nauseated that he had eaten only half of it.

He was aching for a home-cooked meal, but he knew the possibility of getting that was remote. The refrigerator in his one-bedroom apartment was nearly bare, stocked with out of date Miracle Whip and Seven Seas salad dressing and a case of Slim Fast that had rested untouched in the hydrator for the past six months.

For a brief moment, he allowed his thoughts to drift onto Kate, wondering what kind of dinner she would be cooking tonight. How long has it been? Rick’s eyes, shielded by polarized lenses, drifted off the road. The cerulean sky was as clear and blue as it had looked all those times sitting with her on the South Padre Island shoreline. As the wind whipped through the open windows of the Stratus, he could almost smell salt in the air.

The steering wheel jerked suddenly to the right, and Rick came back to the present as the car shook and shimmied on the gravel surface. He had to jump on the brakes to make his turnoff, jerking the wheel to the left and gliding onto another roadway.

This one was in worse shape than the one he had just been on, more dirt than rock, and Rick grimaced as the bottom of the car scraped against the surface. Apparently years of use by tractors, 4x4 trucks and other heavy machinery had rutted out the road, leaving deep tire tracks and a raised center strip that was ill suited to his car’s low clearance.

In some ways, it was hard to imagine any vehicle at all traveling down this road anytime recently. In addition to the ruts, grass shoots had sprung up throughout the surface, so heavy in some places that it was difficult to distinguish between the overgrown shoulder and the actual roadway. Rick traveled the entire length without seeing the bridge.

The dead end road was marked by a rusted gate and a bullet-riddled sign stating TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT, (a bit dramatic, don’t ya’ think? Rick thought absently) and he had to shift from reverse to drive several times, inching the car forward and backward, before he was successful in turning the Stratus around.

As he headed back, Rick turned the wheel slightly, aiming the car’s tires onto the raised strip and the bushy shoulder, allowing the Stratus to straddle the ruts and drive more normally. He silently cursed himself for having such an impractical car, but then quickly consoled himself with the fact that the 10-year-old vehicle was paid for.

It’s been in worse situations anyway, he thought.

Putting his foot on the brakes, he punched the button to automatically roll down the driver’s side window. He leaned his head out and peered into the deep ditches that bordered the roadway, his eyes scanning the heavy brush and weeds for anything that resembled a creek or the edges of a bridge. With the sun now well below the tree line, shadows had already overtaken much of the undergrowth, making it appear – and feel – much later than it actually was.

Rick glanced at his watch and noted it was just after seven at night.

His stomach gurgled. Turning his eyes back to the road, he slammed the brakes to the floor. Up ahead, nearly obscured by Johnson grass and scrub brush, was the bridge. From the opposite direction, it had been entirely obscured.

He crossed it, pulled over onto the right hand shoulder and killed the engine. Grabbing a notepad, he pulled the Nikon D300 from his camera bag and opened the door. Before exiting, he flicked the switch to turn on the hazard lights.

Looking up and down the deserted road, Rick considered turning the blinking lights back off to preserve his car’s battery but then decided against it.

Old habits die hard, he said aloud to himself, smiling as he realized he’d used such a well-worn cliché. How would Kate have put it? For a man of your experience – and your age – you should know better.

Scolding himself for thinking of her again, Rick slung the camera over his left shoulder, slipped the reporter’s notepad in his back right pocket and slammed shut the door. The car chirped as he armed the alarm with his keychain (probably more unnecessary than the hazard lights, but even more of a habit). Though it was approaching sunset, the air along the road was stifling and oppressive, as if warmed over the coals of an open pit. Only away from his car’s air-conditioning for a few moments, the front of Rick’s shirt clung to his skin in a sticky, moist embrace.

Rick was as cognizant of the light as he was the heat, worrying that the remaining rays of sun would vanish before he could snap any pictures that would be worth using. That’s provided there was anything worth shooting in the first place. A quick peek over the edge of the bridge made him wonder if he should have just left the camera in his car.

Clustered in the center of the dried creek bed below were about a half dozen automobile tires. Nearby were the remains of an old refrigerator, a rusted car door, a couple of trash bags and what appeared to be a grocery store’s metal shopping cart. Not exactly an environmental nightmare, Rick thought. Such sights were actually quite typical for this area, found in low lying areas along most of the county’s rural roads.

Rick had seen most of them first hand, writing numerous articles on environmental violations in the county and taking ride-alongs with the county’s environmental enforcement officer to gain a better understanding of how such violators were prosecuted. He couldn’t imagine there being much to pursue in this particular case.

And that was odd. This alleged dump site had been reported to him earlier that afternoon. The caller, asking for Rick by name, had claimed there was a shitload of tires, car batteries, used pesticide containers, paint cans and dozens of oozing metal drums dumped off the bridge on County Road 501.

Folks ‘round here scared ‘bout their water wells, the raspy male voice had said (the Southern accent so strong that water had sounded like "war-ter").

Rick had asked for a name and contact number, but the man had provided neither, saying he didn’t need no shot cows. Figuring the caller must have been mistaken – or just plain ignorant – Rick un-tucked his shirt, wiped the sweat off his brow, and headed back to the car. He stopped halfway there, realizing he had not checked beneath the bridge. There was a possibility – probably remote – that the shitload the caller had complained about was hidden under there.

Rick frowned at the prospect of trudging down the overgrown embankment. Pulling the camera strap across his chest and over his head to prevent it from slipping off his shoulder, he walked to the edge of the road and slowly worked his way down, avoiding tangles of weeds, chunks of gravel and heavily eroded sections of dirt.

The undergrowth was heavier near the bottom, and Rick scrutinized every green patch as he came to the base of the incline. He was looking for the three-leafed pattern of poison ivy, something he was dreadfully allergic to and had suffered with various times in his life. It had resulted in a trip to the doctor and a needle in the hip more than once.

There were suspicious looking plants everywhere. The bank appeared to be more overrun with poison ivy than the embankment, and despite a few moments of careful contemplation, Rick couldn’t find a clear route through. Holding the camera closer to his body, he finally just leaped over the plants, landing heavily in the weed-free silt of the creek bed.

Despite the heat, there was still moisture here. Mud clung to the soles of Rick’s boots, and, for an instant, he turned to look at the tracks he was leaving behind. There was something nostalgic about seeing his own footprints in mud, but for some reason he couldn’t place the when and where.

Though the sun was now blocked by the trees, the air was stifling and thick, as still as a stillborn calf. After the excursion down the embankment and the jump into the creek bed, Rick’s breathing was labored as he trudged closer to the bridge. He leaned against a small sapling at the bottom of the embankment and tried to catch his breath. The unused Slim Fast in his refrigerator came to mind.

The stagnant air did little to alleviate his breathlessness. The smell didn’t help, either. An aroma of death hung like a fog along the creek bottom, so strong that Rick felt his stomach rise into the bottom of his throat. It was not an alien stench, as there had been a similar odor just a few minutes ago as he had passed the vulture on the farm to market road.

But the smell that now assaulted his nasal passages was one of the strongest ever, and for a moment Rick had the urge to return to the car. Reminding himself that he had not yet found anything worth writing about – and stubbornly refusing to return to the office empty handed – Rick pressed on, taking a few more steps toward the bridge.

Passing the cluster of discarded tires (surely that can’t be the worst thing down here) he suddenly froze. In front of the pile, leading toward the darkened confines of the bridge’s undercarriage, were footprints. The tracks looked fresh, and scattered nearby were maybe a dozen seemingly empty Budweiser bottles and cans – brightly labeled and clean of dirt in contrast to the faded and rusted junk strewn about the creek bed. Despite the as yet unidentified stench, Rick could still pick out the sharp aroma of the hops.

Scattered amongst the cans were the remains of cigarettes and thin cigars. Rick had seen such cigars before in the police department’s evidence room.

They were Swisher Sweets, a favorite choice among drug users who liked to modify the cigars to provide a more serious high. The normal method was to hollow out the tobacco and repack it with marijuana, then dip the cigar in formaldehyde before smoking it.

Referred to on the street and by narcotics detectives as wet, the altered cigars were extremely potent and dangerous, often causing the user to turn aggressive or even psychotic. 

Rick felt his heart thump in his chest, and he realized he had been holding his breath. He inhaled deeply, trying to slow down the beating as his eyes wildly scanned the shadows. Stepping backwards with his right foot, he started to turn but then froze again.

The distinct sound of glass hitting rock echoed from the shadows beneath the bridge. Rick didn’t need to be able to see into the darkness to know it was the sound of a half-empty bottle being tossed down against the ground.

"You just cost me fifty bucks, maldito cabrón."

The voice reverberated off the underside of the bridge, making it sound artificially amplified and yet oddly muffled at the same time.

Rick’s heart beat faster as a figure emerged into the light. Just over six feet tall, the man looked gaunt, his brown flannel shirt hanging loosely from his shoulders.

He had a belt of ammunition strung diagonally across his chest, and, with his thick Spanish accent, had he been wearing a sombrero he might have resembled a bandito from an old Mexican Western.

Instead, the man wore a stained, faded green John Deere baseball cap with a curved brim pulled down so low that it kept his eyes in shadow. The rest of his face was hidden behind a filthy blue bandana, which stretched from below his chin to the bridge of his nose.

The man coughed hoarsely, and in an odd moment of clarity, Rick realized that the bandana had muffled the guy’s voice, making it sound so strange when he first heard it.

But the guy’s voice was far from Rick’s primary concern. His gaze instead was fixed on two things: a long, forked shaft of a cattle prod (which hung loosely from the man’s belt) and a scoped deer rifle, which at that moment was pointed at Rick’s chest.

The barrel appeared to waver from side to side, as if the man was standing atop the deck of a seafaring vessel, and Rick thrust his hands toward the sky, fearing the weapon may go off before he had a chance to even speak.

Hey, look, I’m not a cop. I’m with the newspa … Rick began to say. His voice died in mid-sentence, a chill racing up his spine as he heard twigs snapping behind him. Before he could turn, a second voice spoke.

Told you he’d show.

The new voice was much deeper and powerful, and as Rick spun around, his hands still upraised, he saw a large, broad shouldered man materialize out of the woods from several yards down the creek bed.

You owe me fifty dollars, you lazy ass, and this time you gonna’ pay, the big guy said, directing his comments to the first man, who responded by breaking into a series of bone-rattling coughs.

Like his counterpart, the second man wore a bandana (this one was red) to obscure his facial features. He was wearing a cap also, but it was a jagged camouflage pattern. The cap didn’t quite shade the man’s upper face, and Rick couldn’t ignore the man’s eyes. They were a pale blue-gray, nearly transparent and almost glowing in the refracted light along the creek bed. He was tall, likely over six-four, and though he had a sagging gut, he was well proportioned. Rick guessed he was in the ballpark of 275 or 280 pounds.

The large man zipped up his fly as he walked forward, and Rick noticed a holstered pistol on the right side of his belt next to a sheathed hunting knife. On the opposite side was another holstered weapon, this one having a bright yellow grip.

Without saying another word, the man un-holstered the yellow-gripped weapon, raised it to eye level and pulled the trigger. In the instant before the man fired, Rick knew he was about to be electrocuted. The yellow weapon was undoubtedly a Taser, a non-lethal tool carried by police. It was painted yellow to distinguish it from the .45-caliber Glock service handguns officers also carried. Similar to a stun gun, the Taser administered high voltage, low amperage electricity through wires attached to two barbed prongs that were fired at a target and lodged in the clothing and skin.

Rick had witnessed a training seminar only four months earlier where local officers were forced to endure a three-second round of electricity.

This familiarity with the Taser did not prepare Rick for being shot himself. The impact felt like a baseball bat to the chest. As the fifty thousand volts radiated through his body, Rick’s arms, legs and neck clenched rigidly and he fell backwards, bouncing off the stack of discarded tires and then falling onto the creek’s floor.

Within seconds, the pain stopped. Rick’s muscles relaxed and his thoughts cleared, allowing him to realize what had just happened. Before he could think further, though, another wave of electricity surged through the probes still embedded in his chest as his attacker administered a follow-up shock. His muscles went rigid, and his thoughts clouded as the agonizing pain washed over him again.

"Otra vez!" the thin man shouted, prodding his buddy to shock Rick again. He broke into another round of coughing, and, from Rick’s troubled perspective, it sounded as if everything were coming from miles away.

Rick tensed for a third blast but it never came. Instead he felt himself being dragged along the ground. He had trouble concentrating on what was going on, his mind clouded and groggy, feeling as if he had just awakened from a deep, feverish sleep.  As best he could tell, he was being pulled by one leg, the grip of the large man like an iron clamp on his ankle.

The pain in the joint helped to cut through the haze leftover by the Taser attack, and Rick managed to stammer, his voice thick-tongued to his own ears.

What … do … you … want?

The big man answered by turning around and thrusting the heel of his boot between Rick’s legs. Though still slightly numbed from the Taser, Rick cried out from the strike.

Everything went black.

The force of someone tugging on his arm brought Rick back to consciousness.

It was darker now, and it took a minute to realize that he had been dragged beneath the bridge. The clear blue Texas sky had been replaced with the darkened, dirt-covered beams of the bridge’s undercarriage. The pulling on his arm was from the thin man, who was trying to raise Rick’s left arm to un-sling the Nikon. Though the lens was dented and cracked, the rugged camera body had survived the fall and the violent trip along the bottom of the creek bed.

Still on his back, Rick tightened up the tingling muscles of his left arm to resist the pull and managed to grab the camera’s strap with his right hand. He held on with all his might.

The effort was futile as the thin man jabbed the cattle prod into Rick’s ribs and sent out a jolt of electricity.

It wasn’t as powerful as the Taser, but the sudden shock broke Rick’s concentration, loosening his grip and allowing the man to free the camera. Even after it was out of Rick’s grasp, the thin man continued to jab, shock and kick Rick across his body in a spastic rage.

The assault stopped suddenly as the man was propelled backwards. The large man had picked him up from behind and dumped him on the ground in one swift motion.

Save the batteries in that thing, you dumbass, the man barked. I ain’t got no more cartridges for the Taser.

Kneeling down, the big man wrapped Rick’s wrists with a short, coarse rope, so tightly that it cut through the skin.

Rick inhaled sharply from the pain, getting a face full of the big man’s breath. The reek of onions and alcohol penetrated through the man’s bandana. The smell was nauseating, but it was overshadowed by something much more horrendous.

It was the stench that Rick had encountered when first walking into the creek bed, he was sure of it, only now it had intensified tenfold. Feeling acid in the back of his throat, Rick strained his neck to look back over his left shoulder. There, less than 10 feet away, was the body of a newborn calf, its face matted with blood and what Rick guessed was the remnants of the mother cow’s placenta. There was movement in the animal’s eyes, and, at first, Rick thought it might still be alive. As he looked closer, he realized in horror that the motion was from hundreds of maggots that were feasting on the calf’s lifeless eyeballs.

Rick snapped his head away from the calf (swallowing down a plug of vomit as he did so), but the big man squatted down – his gigantic hands pressing like iron bookends against the sides of Rick’s head – and turned Rick’s head back toward the animal.

Think that’s bad? he said, nodding toward the calf. Rick could see laugh lines crinkle at the sides of the man’s eyes.

Well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

With that the man rose, shouted at the thin man to come over and help him, and together they lifted Rick from the ground, pulling him up from the shoulders. Carrying him to the darkest corner of the bridge, his feet dragging in the dirt, they dropped him to the ground.

The impact knocked the wind out of Rick’s lungs and for a brief second made his vision go dark again. Gasping for air, Rick was again invaded by the sickening stench. As his vision returned, he understood that the smell was not emanating from the dead calf, as he had first surmised.

Only a few yards away lay the mama cow. It was on its right side, its feet stiff and straight and pointed in Rick’s direction. There was a roughly twenty-four inch gash in the animal’s left side. Dried blood caked the area around the cut.

The smell was overwhelming. As Rick fought off an urge to vomit, the large man bent over the carcass, plunged his hunting knife into the gash with a muffled grunt and