Hellfire Drop (Brimstone Cycle Book 2)(6)

One of them is the sheriff, his brow knit into a steel etched look of determination. The other, the younger deputy with the breakout covered skin, follows closely behind. Unlike the old sheriff, who seems quite calm for a man whose retirement party has been ruined by an explosion, the young deputy looks nervous, and fiddles nervously with his badge.

Nervous or not, the pair are obviously brave.

In my experience, it’s the brave ones who die first.





CHAPTER FIVE


I hear new noises, shotgun blasts, that come in a quick pair. Unlike the explosion, which rumbled through the floor of the diner, these come with a bark like that of a Rottweiler, albeit with its voice dialed up to maximum volume.

The pellets from each blast slam into and shred the deputies standing outside. I watch the youngest one crumple after being hit, as if he were an oversized puppet with its strings cut by an impatient master. The sheriff stays standing for a while after being hit, and for some reason I’ll probably never understand, keeps striding forward a few steps before lowering himself, wobbly and slow, to his knees.

Moments later, a third shotgun blast takes him in the side. He tips forward and falls face first into the gravel parking lot. All the while, the blood he leaks out seems to dance in the firelight of the car burning nearby.

I don’t catch sight of whoever shot at him, because the following sound of half a dozen handguns, those belonging to the surviving deputies, opening up on the parking lot distract me too much to keep track of the carnage.

The remaining deputies keep firing, and start scrambling for whatever cover they can find in the open diner. One of them takes the time to shove me behind the bar counter near the cash register before taking a position near the door, his head peeking out a few inches beyond the frame.

Another shotgun blast flashes out in the darkness, and the next thing I know, the deputy’s fallen and is clutching at his neck.

I let out a curse and duck down lower behind the bar counter. While I still haven’t caught sight of the shooter outside, the gunplay I’d just seen is terrifying me. I’m an gun runner, so I know how precise shotguns can be in the right set of hands. The muzzle flash that I’d seen in the darkness before the last deputy had gone down had come from the outside edge of most buckshot’s effective, one hit knockdown range. The man using that weapon outside wasn’t just someone with some experience in loading a few shells. He was an expert, or an artist, if you were twisted enough to find beauty in that kind of thing.

Anyone with enough training to make a shot that far and that quickly would be too savvy to merely sit outside in the dark, pinning down a room full of deputies. Even in a place that looks as out of the way as this diner, a response for other deputies or even highway patrolmen, couldn’t be any further than a few minutes away. Staying out in the darkness with a gun is a dumb waste of time.

Or at least it would be, I realize, if the man who’s been shooting outside is acting alone.

Like the explosion, this shootout is just a distraction for someone else, maybe several someones, to swing around and come inside from another direction.

I take a chance and poke my head up from the bar counter just enough to catch another view of the layout of the diner. Open doorway near the front, complete with the corpse of the lawman I’d watched get shot in the neck. Windows on each of the walls. No exit near the bathrooms save for the window I’d been unable to sneak out of… and a doorway, currently open, at the back of the kitchen area, in plain sight of my hiding spot behind the bar counter. If push comes to shove, and I can’t find a lighter, that back exit may be the only chance of escape I have left.

Cursing again to myself, I scramble over th the entrance to the kitchen area of the diner, and try to place myself in a spot where I can’t be seen from either of the open entrances, front or back. I partially fail on both counts, but sweet Jesus, that’s ok, because while moving, I see the one thing worth chopping off my right hand, if only I could hold that item in my left.

I’m talking, of course, about the open pack of cigarettes I notice on the floor near the cash register. Inside of it are three bent cigarettes and a small, bright blue plastic Bic lighter. I’m not sure, but I think the waitress must have dropped it once all the commotion started up. If I survive this, and she does as well, I’m coming back to giver her the biggest damn tip she’s ever seen.

I reach a hand out for the pack of cigarettes that lay discarded and forgotten on the floor. The package looks crumpled, as if someone stomped on it. When I pick it up, I see that the three cigarettes inside are tattered or bent, but the lighter appears to be fine enough when I take it out and give it a once over. The lighter lacks the cool, comforting slickness of the old Zippo that I’d carried along with me on jobs for several years. I can live with that, though, assuming it calls a flame. Give me that and I’ll find a way to get the job done.

Right then, I hear a sound that raises the hair up on the back of my neck. It’s coming from behind me, from the direction of the kitchen in the back of the diner. For a moment, every fiber of me wants to lean out around the frame of the door that I’m crouching beside so that I can catch a glimpse of whatever it is that I hear lurking in the back of the building. I don’t know why I want to do it. It’s not like seeing whatever’s back there with my own eyes as opposed to hearing it with my ears will make me any safer. Quite the opposite, in fact, if whoever’s back there sees me in return.