than he knew what to do with. What the hell was he doing reading old case files and accident reports?
You still haven’t seen Kate and her son in the hospital, and you’re going to call Ambrose Olson to tell him about his brother who’s been dead fifty years? That’s crazy.
The sheriff peeled back more of his sleeve.
Stop listening to the voice in your head. It is lying to you. It is making you forget.
Okay. That’s crazy. You must be delirious to write something like that.
“Who is that?” the sheriff said out loud.
You know who it is. It’s you. And you look like an idiot talking to yourself.
You are not an idiot. The voice is distracting you. It is making you sleep.
“Who’s there?” he said again.
The voice went silent. The temperature in the room plummeted. The sheriff thought he could hear breathing. He turned around. The room was empty. He was suddenly terrified. He rolled his sleeve up past the elbow.
You know what the tools were for! Run to Kate now. What happened to David is happening to Christopher. Run now!
The sheriff woke up in the records room. He didn’t know how he had fallen asleep again. But this time, he didn’t listen to the voice in his head. He was not distracted by any blinding headache. And it didn’t take him a minute to find the writing. He looked down at his arm. The sleeve rolled up past the elbow. And he knew there was one more message hidden under his shirt. The records room was freezing. The sheriff held his breath, then rolled the sleeve up to his shoulder.
Too late, Sheriff. I hit them with a car.
The sheriff was running before his feet hit the ground. His heart pounded as he raced through the records room. He didn’t care if there were a hundred more bar fights to break up. He didn’t care if a hundred people needed to be put in the holding cells. There was only one emergency that mattered. He was going to get Kate and her son. They were going to find Ambrose. Because somehow, they were the only ones with the information about how to stop this madness or flu or whatever it was from destroying the town from the inside out. The sheriff ran up the stairs and raced into the main office past the poster of Emily Bertovich.
That’s where he saw Mrs. Russo and four of his deputies.
They were all shot and bleeding on the floor.
The sheriff looked around. The office was empty. There was no one in the holding cells. All of the criminals were gone. Instinct and training took over his body. The sheriff rushed to his crew. Mrs. Russo was the first.
He checked her pulse. Thank God she was alive. The sheriff made a field dressing out of Mrs. Russo’s blouse as he grabbed the radio.
“Five officers down. I need backup!”
The radio crackled with silence. The sheriff forgot all about rushing to Kate Reese and her son as he triaged the four deputies.
“I need backup at HQ! Now! Somebody answer me!”
There was no response. The static was unsettling. It sounded like a deranged Geiger counter announcing that the police force was completely gone. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the sheriff began to make contingency plans as to how he was going to deputize people. Track down those criminals. Get to Kate Reese. Find Ambrose Olson. The only good news in this whole tragedy was that Mrs. Russo and all four of his officers were still alive.
“Hi, Sheriff,” a voice said behind him.
The sheriff spun around. He saw Mrs. Henderson standing with one of his deputies’ pistols. Her clothes were soaked with blood. Her bare feet making little crimson footprints.
“David Olson touched my arm a long time ago. He knew I would stab my husband,” Mrs. Henderson said.
The sheriff took cover behind a desk.
“Drop the gun!” he shouted.
Mrs. Henderson took another step toward him.
“The lady said I could get my husband to love me again. She said he was going to take me on a trip, and if he didn’t, I could stab him again. And again. And again.”
The sheriff raised his gun.
“Mrs. Henderson, put the gun down!”
“Why should I put it down? Sheriff, it’ll never end. Don’t you understand what’s going on?”
“Put the God damn gun down NOW!”
Mrs. Henderson calmly put the gun on the desk.
“Okay, Sheriff, but it won’t make any difference. She has him trapped now. And once he’s dead, it will never end.”