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  The Tracker

  John Hunt

  © Copyright John Hunt 2018

  Black Rose Writing | Texas

  © 2018 by John Hunt

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61296-984-8

  PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to my wife, Louise. She doesn’t like horror, but because I write it, reads it anyway.

  Special thanks to my sister Alana, who, once again, spent countless hours of her free time to help me make the book better.

  Thanks again to the boy for his tips and wisdom. And of course, thanks to my family and friends who have shown nothing but support for my writing.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  -1- Taylor got tired of running…

  -2- Stephen takes a fall…

  -3- The interrogator…

  -4- Before all this, Taylor had one shitty year…

  -5- Addicts die alone…

  -6- Night games…

  -7- The day-to-day grind…

  -8- Oh, how the weekend flies by…

  -9- A return to monotony…

  -10- The dark man cometh…

  -11- Taylor packs light…

  -12- The red light motel…

  -13- That lawnmower was really loud…

  -14- Taylor takes a break…

  -15- Taylor takes a shower…

  -16- The calm…

  -17- The storm…

  -18- More questions than answers…

  -19- The confrontation…

  -20- Imaginings…

  -21- Dead weight…

  -22- The rookie pulls guard duty…

  -23- 10-33…

  -24- Rewind…

  -25- Early mornings are lame…

  -26- Snakehunt…

  -27- A forced reunion…

  -28- Don’t tell a grumpy person they are grumpy…

  -29- Where it all began…

  -30- Retirement is boring…

  -31- The bucket and a rat…

  -32- Bad time to be a hero…

  -33- Rosie gets a history lesson…

  -34- What the fuck…

  -35- Aftermath…

  -36- Slept in…

  BRW Info

  -1-

  Taylor got tired of running…

  Taylor sniffed and tasted the blood trickling into his mouth. He grimaced and plodded forward, his sodden feet squelching in his boots. His stomach growled and he looked down at it as though it were separate from him. He grabbed a roll of fat in his hands and thought he could stand to lose a few pounds. Hell, he could probably lose the weight of another person and he’d still be overweight but that was a problem for another day. Considering everything going on in his life, this was the first time he couldn’t give a crap about his weight.

  He squinted at the sign hanging above the squat building. It read GUELPH POLICE DEPARTMENT. To Taylor, it looked like a bunker in an old World War II movie, one with John Wayne leading the charge against the villainous Nazis. It wouldn’t seem out of place to see a platoon of soldiers walk out of the front door with rifles slung on their shoulders and their feet stomping in perfect marching cadence. He was so tired. He couldn’t remember being this tired ever in his life. He wiped a hand across his mouth and tasted more blood. He must look a sight. He could feel the blood all over his body, sticky and hardening on his skin and in his hair. He knew the police were looking for him. They had been since the first body had been found. He had been seen on video running from the scene. The police had released the surveillance video to the news stations and they flooded the TV with the images. They cut frames out of the reel and although not the Ultra HD 4K everyone is used to seeing, the pictures were recognizable. Good enough for someone who knew him well to identify him. Not too many people did know him well. Taylor never had many friends. After this, it wasn’t likely he ever would.

  Still, Taylor thought he had won in the end. He had beaten it. He made it past the timeline. He couldn’t feel it behind him, gaining ground on him anymore. It had left some bodies behind though. It sure had and the police thought Taylor had killed those people. Since he had been present for all them they had every reason to believe that. His lips trembled and his eyes misted. He hadn’t done it. He’d seen it. Right up close. Got their blood all over him, didn’t he? When it twisted that poor man’s head around, so his face was in the middle of his back…Taylor shivered.

  A police car cruised by and Taylor stopped breathing as it passed him. Then he remembered he was going to them for help, so what was he worried about? He wasn’t worried. Terrified was a better word. Because the story he had to tell, who the fuck would believe it? He didn’t believe it half the time. Oh, but when it slid out of the dark, gurgling its gravel voice, promising to eat him, starting at his feet, telling him to run fat boy, run, then he believed it. He believed it like he believed in gravity. It just was. And boy did he run. It was over and time for him to stop. He didn’t want to run anymore. He didn’t want to be afraid anymore. He could run from the police but they would find him. For something like this they would never stop looking for him. And then where would he be? He would be right where he was now, just more tired.

  Taylor moved toward the sign, hoping to hell someone would believe him and knowing in his heart no one would.

  -2-

  Stephen takes a fall…

  Stephen became a police officer because he thought the uniform looked sharp and it would confer respect on him without actually having to do anything. He didn’t need to expend much effort in high school to test well and he figured, with his brain, he could work his way up the ranks and maybe retire with a full pension as a Staff Sergeant or something. But he was lazy and he didn’t particularly like violence and within a month of being on the job, after all the training and running and getting in shape, after all that happy horse-shit, he thought maybe policing wasn’t for him. Within that month he’d been spit on by a kid, got punched in the nose breaking up a bar fight and was called racist by some white woman pushing her stroller down the sidewalk. He couldn’t think of anything he did to cause the comment. He hadn’t spoken to her or arrested a minority in front of her. She said it in the tone someone would use to comment on the weather, like it was a fact.

  All in all, policing was very unpleasant, no, worse than that, it was dirty. He would scrub himself raw after a shift, using a brush to even get under his nails though it didn’t matter. He felt unclean. And he didn’t want to do policing anymore. Except it paid w
ell and there was the pension and healthcare benefits to consider. He couldn’t walk away that easily and he also couldn’t imagine thirty years of it. The thought made his heart race and not in the cliche way, it actually jiggled in his chest like it was trying to jump out. Getting stared down by men bigger than him and teenagers with their wiry strength and their home-life adding a nothing to lose glint in their eye. They could smell his fear and if it wasn’t for the other officers with him, he knew they would be all over him. He was afraid of stumbling on one of them with no back-up. It woke him up at night. Thirty years was a long time to deal with that. He felt trapped. The lack of options barred him in and he couldn’t see a way out. Then he learned about the walking wounded. You get hurt at work, get a family doctor to say you can’t do the job and they have to accommodate you. It’d be a human rights violation if they didn’t. From what Stephen understood, they had to stick you somewhere marginally useful and pay you the same wage and cover you with the same benefits. Stephen liked that idea. He liked it a lot.

  So one day, he and his partner Alice were arresting some drunk who crapped himself at the splash pad on a hot summer day with families sprinkled around like sesames on a bagel. Some brown fluid leaked into the clear water and a kid ended up splashing around in it. A parent screamed and the dad was so mad he told the dispatcher that if the police didn’t get there soon he would do something about it and it wouldn’t be pleasant. The defecating homeless guy had been too drunk to go in the cells so Stephen and Alice stood there waiting for the ambulance to arrive. The crew showed up, less than impressed they were getting the drunk guy and when Stephen leaned down to help the drunk get up, he felt a twinge in his back. It was a little one but Stephen saw his moment and he seized it. He screamed, “Ahhhh, Jesus! My back!” He dropped to the ground, away from the drunk and his faeces, moaning until another ambulance showed up to transport him. A bunch of parents stared at him while some teenagers smirked and Alice gave him the dull gaze of disbelief unique to police officers but Stephen didn’t care. He had his out!

  The thing about back injuries was no doctor could tell you the pain wasn’t real. It wasn’t like a broken bone. With a bone an x-ray would show it was broken. A back? Could be anything. Could be nerves, muscles, bulging discs, whatever. It didn’t matter. He suggested to his family doctor, Dr. Grayson, whom he had known since birth, that he had fibromyalgia. So that was what the doctor wrote. A vague disorder with equally vague symptoms. Symptoms included chronic muscle pain, fatigue, sleep problems, and painful tender points or trigger points, which can be relieved through medications, lifestyle changes and stress management. Trying to prove he didn’t have that was impossible.

  He was transferred to the front desk, working with the same platoon he started with. He answered the phone and greeted people when they came in. He didn’t have to arrest anyone (potentially strenuous activity was against the doctor’s orders) and he rarely had to do reports. He was a receptionist, really, and he got paid the same as the other officers. His shift didn’t believe him about his bad back. They figured he was another guy who didn’t want to go on the road so he faked an injury to get out of it and they were right. They didn’t care too much after a time. No one wanted to work the front desk except for Stephen. Truth be told, he was good at it and because of that, he wanted to do well. He got along with the public who came in and who talked to him on the phone. He wrote thorough reports and remained professional when he dealt with the prisoners. And when it was slow, like on a night shift, he would help the other guys on his platoon with reports and packages to be submitted to court. Most officers hated the front desk. They became cops so they wouldn’t have to sit at a desk all day long. If Stephen wanted it, he could have it. And, surprisingly, he happened to be useful there.

  The night Stephen met Taylor he had his feet propped on the counter, a coffee by his hand and a movie magazine open on his lap. It was two in the morning and the lights were dim. Stephen could see the sky outside and through scraps of dark cloud, stars, lights from distant galaxies, twinkling at him. Only two police cruisers sat in the lot. The police radio sat silent by his elbow. Early Monday, working people didn’t have the time to get into any mischief. Besides, most of them were hunkering inside, hoping the dreaded Taylor didn’t kick down their door and twist their heads off. Most of the officers on the street were out looking for Taylor. If they could bring him in, it would be quite a collar for them. Stephen wanted nothing to do with it. The music radio played hair rock from the 80’s (Def Leppard) and the coffee was still hot and he couldn’t wait to read what Jennifer Lawrence had gotten up to. It never occurred to him a mass murderer would walk in the door. Weren’t those guys supposed to be running away from the cops?

  The front door chime activated when someone opened it. Stephen, on these night shifts, didn’t pay the chime a lot of attention. He would wait until the person got to the counter before he deigned to look up and say in his best authoritative voice, “Can I help you ma’am?” Or sir, depending on the gender or the implied gender. At this time of night, it would usually be drunk kids looking for their drunk friend, hoping they were sleeping it off in the drunk tank. But not on a Monday. No one ever came in on a Monday. He was so used to ignoring the chime that when it beeped pleasantly at him, he continued to read about the wonderful Miss Lawrence. He registered the smell first. He flinched his nose at it and any long time street cop would have been able to tell him it was the smell of blood. Stephen’s stint on the street had been so short he didn’t recognize the smell and he’d never dealt with a dead body or a really bloody person. Still engrossed in his magazine, he heard a heavy tread that squished and the smell pushed against him, like a heavy hand. Only this time there was mud and crap and sweat mixed in with the coppery scent. He coughed and glanced up to see a monster staring down at him. A large man covered in blood with eyes glowing white out of the black and red mess.

  The man said, “I’m Taylor. I, uh, think you guys are looking for me.”

  Stephen yelled, “Sarge!” He tipped back trying to get his feet off the counter and fell sideways out of his chair, the magazine fluttering, his coffee a hot mess on his forearm. His boot got caught on the corner of the counter and as his body twisted his left boot got pinched between the counter and the chair. A muscle in his back tore, a tremendous pain causing him to scream a high-pitched yell that cut off when the pain in his back took his breath away, “Sar-! Argh!”

  He heard running towards him from the back office. He couldn’t see the faces of who was coming, only boots and the cuffs on pants. Stephen wanted to turn back and get his foot unstuck but the pain was too much so he lay there on the floor, riding the waves and grinding his teeth hoping Taylor wouldn’t hop over the desk to rip him from this life. His Sergeant and another cop (he couldn’t tell who) yelled, “Stop! Let me see your hands! Let me see your fucking hands!”

  Taylor said, “They’re up! They’re up! Jesus Christ! I’m innocent!”

  “Don’t fucking move!”

  Stephen heard the chirp of the radio and then his Sergeant say, “Taylor is in the station! At the front desk!” Then he said, “Alright Taylor, my partner there is going to cuff you. I’m going to keep my gun pointed right at your heart. Don’t fucking move. You got me? Don’t you even fucking twitch.” From his place on the floor, Stephen couldn’t see anything and he couldn’t move to change that fact. The pain stole the breath from him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Stephen heard the cuffs snap in place and Taylor’s squelching feet receding into the back. After a few minutes, when no one came back for him, he said, “Hello?” No answer.

  The front door chimed. Stephen, with a lot of effort, said, “Help!”

  Alice peered at him from over the top of the desk and said, “Jesus, Stephen! What are you doing down there?”

  “My back.” He grimaced and inhaled, “I hur
t my back.”

  She came around the desk and gave him that same look of disbelief she’d given him when he said he hurt his back all that time ago.

  “For fuck’s sake, for real this time! Can you un-stuck my boot?”

  Alice pulled his boot from the counter and he lay on the floor, staring up at the tiles, breathing in and out. His back tingled and the pain stretched all the way up his neck.

  Alice said, “I’ll get you an ambulance. You look kinda fucked up.”

  “I told you!”

  She called in a request for an ambulance and then she squatted down and said, “So? Did you see him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “He was a big motherfucker. Covered in blood. I don’t care to ever see him again, that’s for sure.”

  She curled her lip and said, “He’s not the boogeyman, Stephen. Get a grip.”

  “I know that.”

  But he wasn’t so sure and he turned his head away from Alice so she wouldn’t see the lie.

  -3-

  The interrogator…

  Owen said, “That’s him, huh?”

  “Big fucker, isn’t he?” Earl said as he popped a Nicorette gum in his mouth. This was his eighth, no, ninth attempt to quit smoking? Three weeks so far. Owen knew he’d gone eighteen months before. Then Earl’s younger brother died in a motorcycle accident and he started up again because it calmed him. Owen kept his eyes on Taylor and studied him.

  Taylor sat in a chair secured to the floor. Both hands were cuffed to an eyebolt positioned in the centre of the stainless-steel table attached to the floor and the wall. They watched him on the monitor in another room. His hair was wet, his eyes puffy and his nose red, as though he had a hard cry. He wore a white jumpsuit and slip on white booties. They had photographed him, taken his clothes for evidence and cleaned him up the best they could. Taylor filled the one-size-fits-all suit to bursting. An oval of blood could be seen behind his ear. He missed a spot.