He snatched up the phone and swiped his thumb across the screen. He placed it gently against his ear and held his breath, listening.
“Ty?” said a soft voice he recognized. “Did Pizza Bayou deliver your pizza?”
It was his mom’s voice. He trusted his mom. She was the only one who helped him—the only one who believed him. But what if they had captured her and turned her? What if she was a double agent now and was calling to spy on him?
Nodding slowly, he removed the phone from his ear and disconnected the call. He was about to put it back on the table when he heard what sounded like two men talking. The sounds were coming from behind his camper. The soldiers were back!
In a panic, Ty grabbed the pizza box and rushed out of the camper. He tripped on the metal steps and lost his balance, crashing against the outer wall of the camper. The pizza box flew from his hands and slices of pizza rained down on the driveway. Hungry, but in too much of a panic to stop, he abandoned the pizza and headed for the shed behind his mom’s house. It was the one place he felt safe. It was bomb-proof and the roof and walls were made of a material that could scramble the frequencies of even the most sophisticated of all listening devices.
As Ty ran, he heard pounding footsteps approaching from behind him. It sounded like they were gaining on him. Panic filled his chest. The soldiers would get to him before he could reach the bomb shelter! Letting out a scream, Ty pushed his legs as hard as they could go. The muscles burned and his breath came in gasps, but he finally reached the shed.
“I made it!” he cried as he pushed through the door.
His triumph was short-lived. Just as he started to slam the door shut, the soldiers burst in and came at him. There were two of them and they were heavily armed. One had a machine gun and the other had a sniper rifle.
I knew I could feel the crosshairs burning on my forehead! He thought as he glanced around, searching for a weapon. He grabbed the first thing he saw—an orange extension cord on the work bench.
Ty grinned wickedly when his hand wrapped around the familiar cord. This wasn’t just any old extension cord. No, it had disabling properties that could drop an elephant with a single swipe, and it didn’t even have to be plugged in to work. On its own, the electricity flowed like lightning and could kill a grown man with a single swipe.
This extension cord couldn’t hurt him, though, because he was immune to the vacant electrical charge. He didn’t know why—he just was. He had even licked the prongs on the cord and nothing had happened. This was different than regular electricity, he knew. He was susceptible to regular electricity. He had learned this the hard way when he stuck a screwdriver in an electrical socket one day. He had felt a jolt, and sparks had flown from the socket, throwing the entire shed into darkness. He didn’t dare do that again, but this extension cord was his secret weapon, and that’s why he picked it up now and turned to swing it at the soldiers. One swipe from this secret, praying mantis-type cord and they would both be put down hard.
“Die, both you sons of—”
Ty’s words suddenly caught in his throat and he gasped in mid-swing.
CHAPTER 2
It was a lazy Sunday morning, and it had been a lazy two months since our community had been rocked by a string of violent attacks that had left a Chateau Parish Sheriff’s deputy dead and one of our own officers critically injured.
“Be careful, Clint Wolf!” Susan hollered from the ground beneath me. “You’re gonna back right off of that roof!”
I stopped what I was doing and twisted around to look down at my wife. She was staring up at the roof of the outhouse, her hands on her hips.
“What?” I asked innocently. “I’m fine. I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re too close to the edge,” she insisted. “You’re gonna fall and break your neck.”
“Daddy gonna break his neck!” Grace cried with glee, running in a circle around Susan. Our German shepherds, Achilles and Coco, were sprawled in the shade several feet away. They lifted their heads and stared lazily at Grace, wondering what all the fuss was about. Once they were satisfied everything was secure, they lowered their heads and resumed their naps.
“I’ve got this,” I said, gulping inwardly when I realized exactly how close I’d come to walking off the edge of the roof. “I was a construction worker for a bit before I came to Mechant Loup, or have you forgotten?”
She grunted and went back to loading broken pieces of the old outhouse throne into the bed of my truck.
Keeping true to my promise, I’d been coming out to the Waxtuygi Wildlife Nature Park every weekend and doing my best to clean up the place. I had begun by clearing tree limbs and other natural debris from the trails. That had taken four days of can-see to can’t-see labor, with barely a break for lunch.
Next, I had finished cutting away the old throne to the outhouse commode. Melvin had lopped the top off with a chainsaw during
