The Outkast

Chapter 14

“Where the hell’s Cave Kushi?” Allan grunted when they got outside.

“Twenty miles northeast of River Sebastian.” Brian’s curtness rang clear. To Deputies Craig Nelson and Dwayne Haughton, he said, “I’ll ride ahead with Allan while you follow us.”

“Where’re we going?” Dwayne asked.

“Down the River.” Brian dashed to Allan’s patrol car, searching for a map.

“Oh,” Craig observed. “We’re heading back to the crime scene?”

Allan moved closer to Craig, and placed one hand over his comrade’s shoulder. “No, buddy. We’re actually heading to Cave Kushi.”

Craig frowned.

Allan said, “You know where that is?”

Craig shook his head.

Allan looked in Dwayne’s direction. “Do you?”

“Never even heard of it,” Dwayne said.

Brian returned with a big map. “We gotta be on the move presently.” He gave them a quick run-down of the situation and why they were heading that way.

“A fantastic way, in my book,” Allan commented.

“Get in and let’s hit the road, boys” Brian said, walking to the driver’s side of the cruiser.

“Hey, Sheriff,” Allan called after him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“No time to think. Get your butt right in the car. Now!”

Brian pulled out and drove off.

Allan was his right-hand man, in a manner of speaking. He could be a very dependable lieutenant when he chose to be such. But he could equally be an outright jackass whenever he so desired. Brian had learned enough about Allan to take him in hand without getting himself excessively ruffled in the process.

******

With the map laid out on Allan’s lap in response to Brian’s instruction to check it intermittently as their journey progressed, he said, “This still looks like some fantasy tale to me, Sheriff. We don’t even know where we’re going.”

“How many times have you said that, and how many times have I given you an answer as to where we’re going?”

“I mean, we know it’s some kind of cave, but we don’t know our way there.”

“We’ve got the map.”

“Damn right. I have it all spread over my lap. Point is, what if this map doesn’t lead us anywhere? What if it’s not up to snuff to do the job-provided there’s any job to do in the first place?”

Swerving from side to side to avert potholes, Brian said, “It’s done the job so far, hasn’t it?”

“It’s done the job so far ’cause we’re still in a familiar territory. Over there, I can see Cynthia Drake’s house. On the left-hand side, a little ahead of us, is Ted Folsom’s place. We just drove past Michelle Charles’s cottage.”

“Brilliant. You’re paying attention to your surroundings.”

Allan pressed on. “So, we’re still in the real world, where this map can count for something, not yet in Robert Smallwood’s mysterious universe.”

“Well, when we get to that other world, we’ll utilize the Greater Map. The one on your lap is only supposed to be a back-up, after all.”

Unmasked puzzlement: “What’d you mean?”

“Rob’s diary.”

“Greater Map?” Allan laughed. “A mindless note from a troubled twelve-year-old boy-and you call that a Greater Map, Sheriff?”

Brian turned right at the beginning of the grove, driving towards Sebastian River. The other cruisers rode closely behind them. “Are you getting laid tonight, Allan?”

Shocked: “What?”

“Wondering if you have a piece you wanna taste tonight, ’cause it looks to me your mind is pretty far from here.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Oh, just a hunch. You know, the same feeling that made me think the troubled boy’s little writing might be a valuable map that would point us in the right direction. And I might be wrong, in which case we’ll turn back and go home. But if I happened to be right about my second feeling-”

“There’s no piece of ass, Sheriff. I only thought we could have waited till the day breaks, designed a better plan, and maybe even requested help from outside-anywhere we could get one. But you’re the boss. Besides, I’m all for this search,” Allan remarked, looking out his window into the moonlight-soaked trees.

“Ah, beautiful. Glad you’re in.” Brian patted his deputy’s shoulder quickly.

Chapter 15

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

The Outcast couldn’t put his finger on it, but the curdling foreboding that kept swelling within his bowels warned him something just wasn’t right, and he’d better act fast before a chain reaction of catastrophes began.

But what? What? What was wrong and what should he do to right it?

For the first time in a long while, he became deeply discombobulated.

After he had snatched the boy from his bedroom and placed him in the backseat of his SUV, all doors locked, he had intended to return to the woman’s house, where the two deputies were. Had intended to return so as to kill them both. Returned he had, but killing both sheriff’s officers he hadn’t. He had fatally wounded one and then run off without even making an attempt to do the second officer in.

He had never left a job unfinished. Never. Until tonight.

What had come upon him? Why did he become so restless at that instant-at the very instant when he could have cut down two more enemies? And why had that antsy feeling haunted him till this very moment?

Sitting in the gloom of his room, he felt distraught.

Now, he was shaking. Shaking with rage and frustration. Rage because he had just failed himself for the first time since the start of this purging mission; frustration because he just couldn’t figure out why everything had started sliding south.

He rose from his recliner, dashed across the blackness of his den, blood pulsing through the veins on his temples. The thin-layered darkness in the lightless room blended into the thick one building up inside him.

What should he do?

First, he would need to find a way to decipher the problem. Then, he would have to understand the best action to take to quench the fire so as to prevent himself from being ravaged.

He walked out of his den, going toward the pantry now, going to fall off the wagon and relapse into his past life. For almost two years, he had been a teetotaler, an exercise engineered as part of the rituals he had to fulfill in order to accomplish his mission. However, two weeks ago, he had stowed away two bottles of his two favorite wines (in his past life). He had done so with the hope that soon, he would have a one-shot celebration, drinking with his True Blood as they both toasted the absolute fall of their enemies, but he hadn’t gotten the wines for the purpose of permanently falling off the wagon.

Steering clear of the deception and clutches of the bottle had enabled him to think and act with precision. But