PART TWO
Copyright 2007 Mike Suchcicki
Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Sheriff Sealy met them in front of the hotel and suggested that they follow his cruiser in a separate car. "In case I get pulled away on an official call," he said. He turned to Gray. "Perhaps I could persuade you to ride along with me, Miss?"
Gray smiled. "I'd be happy to, Sheriff."
The sheriff drove up the main stretch through town, but quickly pulled off onto barely paved side roads through sparsely populated areas and then onto dirt roads that cut straight into the heart of the woodlands that surrounded Johnson Ridge.
Sealy said, "That friend of yours seems an excitable sort."
"That he is. But like a lot of us, he's lost several family members in the Infestation. This whole idea of hunting Ghouls … demons … for sport doesn't sit too well with him."
"But the way you folks call it 'sport' assumes that we take it lightly. We don't. We know what kind of danger we're facing. We know that it's a greater threat than any wild animal we've ever faced out here. Next time you're back in town, take a good look at the townspeople. See how many of them are operating with artificial arms and legs, or with one good eye. Go to our cemetery and you can easily tell how many times we had to tear down the old fence and build new ones because the graveyard keeps growing."
"But if you know that it's so bad, why are you sending your children out there, Sheriff?"
"Because this is the world they've inherited. This is the world they're going to grow up in. Things aren't going to improve any time soon. Probably not even in their lifetimes. So they better learn as soon as possible how to deal with this world. You can't tell me things are any different in the big city where you come from."
He was right. Gray had grown accustomed to the sight of children playing on the sidewalks in front of their homes, their Ghoo rifles and guns leaned against walls only inches away. She had spent plenty of time in hospital emergency rooms observing doctors as they attempted to save the lives and limbs of children as young as toddlers.
"But some of your townspeople seem downright proud that their children are out there fighting demons."
"You're right, and I can't tell you that it's a good thing. Part of it is, in fact, true pride, and yes, there's a kind of competition among families to see who can field the youngest demon-killer. But part of it is a front. A brave face that we're putting on for our own kids. We don't want them to see how scared we really are. So we train them and we give them the biggest and the finest weapons we can get for them and we tell them that the demons are more afraid of us than we are of them. And we tell them that they have the power to keep the demons from their door. We put them in control, as soon as we can and as young as we can get them."
They rode along in silence for several minutes. Gray thought to ask about the Colliers' daughter, but just at that moment, Sealy said, "Here's his place."
Ferrell Coggins' cabin looked like the cabin of a scientist, particularly one who was trying to reconcile his work and his love for nature. Though the structure certainly was rustic and even ramshackle in parts, it connected here and there to incongruous parts, such as a massive generator surrounded by steel barriers, and a small-but-sturdy laboratory "wing" jutting from the back, built with oversized concrete blocks and inset with small, thick, safety-glass windows. Propane tanks were stacked against one side wall (and a few rusted and neglected ones were strewn throughout the grounds).
A few chickens strolled the yard, piquing Lake's interest. (After all, any kind of roaming wildlife was rare in malectoplasm-heavy areas.) In a pen by a small barn-like structure about thirty yards from the main house, several pigs watched them with lazy expressions. Lake smiled as he considered what a pig-Ghoul would look like. He noticed no dogs or cats or other roaming stock.
They didn't have to go to the door; Coggins appeared on the porch as soon as they stepped from the cars. He was wiping his hands on a napkin.
Tall and stocky, the scientist had a thick helmet of heavily grayed hair that fell close to his shoulders in a jagged mess that hadn't been trimmed in months. Neither had his bushy beard, also gray, that now revealed scraps of biscuit that he rushed to brush away with the napkin. He wore a flannel shirt in a dark plaid, open to reveal a blue T-shirt that read, "I Told You Not To Push That Button." His brown corduroy pants were somehow out of place in the ensemble, Cornealius thought. Worn away in spots but otherwise too clean and creased. Obviously he had "dressed" for the occasion of Gray's arrival.
"Gosh darn it, Pammy, I waited with lunch as long as I could, but I just couldn't help myself. I started without you. Please forgive me." He swept up Gray in a tight bear hug that she returned with equal affection.
"Don't worry about it, Cog," Gray said, smiling. "I wish we could have given you a better time of arrival, but we just don't know the roads around here."
"Pammy?" said Lake with a smirk.
Gray pointed a finger at him. "And that's the last time I want to hear that from your lips."
She made the introductions all around. Sheriff Sealy then stepped forward and tugged at the brim of his hat, nodding toward Gray.
"Since my work is done here, ma'am, I'll be heading back to town," he said. He gave Lake and Cornealius an odd look, not entirely trusting. "Gentlemen," he said, nodding again. To Coggins he said, "Cog, I'll leave you to it. You need anything, you know where I'll be."
"Thanks, Tom," Coggins said. "We'll be just fine, I suspect. I'm sure they've seen and handled their share of demons."
Sealy glanced in Lake's direction. "I'm sure of it," he said, then climbed into his car and drove off.
As the gravel-crunching sounds of the sheriff's car faded into the distance, Coggins beamed and said, "Look, even though I've made a pig of myself, there's still plenty of pig left inside. And it's my own sauce recipe. I haven't perfected the Ghoo thing, yet, but I can mix up a fine barbecue sauce."
"Well, I guess we are hungry," Gray said. "But we're also eager to meet this inventor you wrote us about."
"And the sooner the better," Cornealius said. "We always have to assume that Wynn is one step ahead of us on these things, if we're to have any hope of staying ahead of him."
"It's OK," Coggins said. "I just spoke to Hope a couple of hours ago. She's expecting us and she's not going anywhere."
Lake raised an eyebrow. "Her name is Hope? Are we dripping in irony yet, or what?"
Gray rolled her eyes and turned to Coggins. "Don't pay any attention to him. Ever. OK, Cog, let's go have a quick bite and then go meet your friend."
Coggins didn't lie: His barbecue sauce was excellent. And the roast pig was perfect.
"Not bad for leftovers, eh?" Coggins said, allowing himself another small helping of everything on the table. "I've been working on this one now for the past several days, although not by myself. I gave half of it to the Winstons, who did the butchering."
"So you're able to keep pigs and chickens," Lake said, licking sauce from his fingers. "You must work hard to keep this area spore-free, then."
"Most of the spore settlement has moved to the valleys," Coggins said. "The theory of most of us science types around here — mostly high school teachers and arboriculturists, by the way — is that it has to do with the higher humidity. A couple of them are attempting to figure out some sort of field study to prove it. Anyway, once I had this place cleared I didn't have much of a spore problem. By then I'd lost a lot of my wayward animals, though."
Cornealius said, "So tell us about this woman's Ghoo formula. What has she found that we haven't?"
Coggins grinned. "You mean, what has some woman out in the sticks using turpentine and beeswax been able to concoct that you big-city scientists with your test tubes and fancy chemicals haven't?"
Lake asked, "She really uses turpentine and beeswax?"
"It was a joke, meathead," said Gray.
"Well, the beeswax part, at least," said Coggins. "Actually I'm not sure. She won't give me specifics. Apparently, though, the key ingredient is a rare substance, otherwise she'd be making it for the whole town. Also, apparently there's a stability problem."
"Stability?" said Gray.
"As in, it blows up or something?" Lake asked.
Coggins shook his head. "No, as in, it simply breaks down. Becomes a useless liquid, not even effective on a demon's weak spot. Unless Hope gets the mixture exactly right, the Ghoo's effectiveness is transient. That's why she was willing to have you folks come out and talk with her. She knows that she's on to something, but she also knows that she can't properly test her mixtures out here in the field."
"She needs our big-city test tubes," said Lake.
"Precisely. She knew I had connections with ADEF, so she asked me to make contact."
Cornealius asked, "You don't have the facilities here in your personal lab to help her perfect her mixture?"
"I'm pretty sure I could, and I've told her that. But she's not convinced. She wants to turn over her recipe and her notes to someone she doesn't consider to be a hobbyist."
Gray reached over and patted Coggins on the shoulder. "There, there," she said mockingly. "Don't let it get to you, Cog."
"Any indication that Wynn knows about her?" Cornealius asked. "Made contact with her already?"
Lake added, "And would she sell out to him if he made her an offer?"
"No, she's not a profiteer," Coggins said. To Gray he added, "Much like you and your mother. She wants to see her recipe perfected and given to everyone. And no, I haven't seen any indication that Wynn knows about her. Haven't seen anyone strange around here, although with the Demon Festival going on in town, there's no telling what strange types might show up in the next few days."
"All the more reason, then, that we should get to this lady and get her information right away," Cornealius said, standing.
"Off we go, then," Coggins said. "Hope you folks brought weaponry. She lives in a pretty saturated area."
"Don't worry, we're prepared," Cornealius said.
"Aren't there safer places she could move?" Gray asked.
"Are there safer places that any of us could move?" Coggins replied. "No, she's stubborn, like a lot of folks, country or city. She's not going to let some monsters from wherever they come from chase her from her home. Besides, she gets a lot of hunters coming by her place, and they help keep her safe."
Coggins rode in the back seat with Gray on the trip out. In between giving directions through the back roads — and they were really back roads, some barely even identifiable as roads — he reminisced with Gray about days gone by and about Gray's mother, killed years before in a Ghoul attack that Pamela Gray now knew had been orchestrated by Heston Wynn.
They turned onto a grassy trail that inclined upward into the tree-covered hills. Coggins said, "Up ahead here you'll come to a tiny clearing. That's as far as we can go by car. We hike the rest of the way. It's not far, but it's strenuous."
"Looks like someone already is paying her a visit," Cornealius said.
Ahead in the clearing was parked a familiar car.
"Isn't that Sheriff Sealy's vehicle?" Gray asked.
"That's the one," Cornealius said, pulling up and stopping alongside it.
"Could he be visiting someone else out here?" Lake asked.
"No, Hope Hartley's the only one who lives on this hill," Coggins said.
"Let's hope he's not here for bad news," Gray said.
Cornealius reached down and pulled the trunk release. "Just in case, let's get prepared before we head up that way."
They climbed from the car and Cornealius went back to extract four Ghoo rifles from the small armory he had in the trunk. He also strapped on a pair of Ghoo pistols and a bandolier of refill cartridges. Lake and Gray also took a sidearm, Lake slipping some cartridges into his satchel. Coggins seemed satisfied with the rifle.
Coggins led them along a barely discernible trail through the tall grass away from the clearing and into a bank of trees. Lake noticed a familiar sight scattered among the fallen branches, leaves and thick grass.
"I see a lot of evidence of Ghoulash, but no signs of fresh 'plasm," he said. Ghoulash was the term he had coined for the little, dull-green bits and pieces of Ghoul left behind after it exploded from a Ghoo hit to its weak spot.
"As I mentioned, hunters come through this area a lot, so they've most likely activated most of the 'plasm between here and Hope's cabin," Coggins said.
They continued on for another couple hundred yards, the passage getting steeper the further they progressed. Finally they broke through the woods into a broad, level clearing that seemed to be cut from the hillside. Hope Hartley's house sat in the center, a white, two-story wooden home surprisingly large and sturdy for one so remote. Lake had expected some sort of backwoods caricature: a ramshackle cabin with a tin-pipe chimney and a still out front; instead he found the kind of house he would have imagined to belong to Grandmother, the one who lived "over the river and through the woods."
"Wow. Nice place," he said.
"The Hartleys go way back," Coggins said. "They have branches all throughout these hills and down into the valley. Hope's the only one left here at this house, though."
The house was still, no sounds, no signs of movement. They picked up the well-trodden dirt path that met them at the edge of the woods, leading to the front porch.
Just as they reached the porch, Sheriff Sealy emerged from the house, surprised to see them. He had his own Ghoo rifle slung over a shoulder.
"Sheriff," said Gray. "We thought you were headed back to town."
"Got a call as I was heading back. Hope needed some help. But now I've got to ask, what business do you folks have with her?"
"I just wanted to introduce her to my friends, Tom," Coggins said. "Let's just say they share the same hobbies as Hope."
"Well, as it turns out, she's not here," Sealy said. "Searched the whole house. Looks like she just up and left. I was getting ready to take a walk up the hill, see if she had a sudden urge to go hunting."
"Mind if we take a look around inside?" Cornealius asked.
"In fact, I think I do," Sealy said.
Gray decided that the time for discretion was over. "Look, Sheriff, we're from the city. We're affiliated with the Aberration Deterrent and Eradication Forces. We're here to talk with Hope Hartley about a formula she was working on."
Sealy thought about this for a few moments, then waved them up. "Come on in. Maybe you'll see something I didn't. Then you can help me take a look around."
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