Black Oak 1 by Charles L. Grant

Author:Charles L. Grant [Grant, Charles L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2016-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Cory Nathan was not in the best of moods. As he drove out of the Kat Kave parking lot, he couldn’t help a feeling he’d had a lot lately—that he should just chuck it all, pack his bags, and get the hell out of Dodge before the roof fell in.

The girls hadn’t helped any, either.

No sooner had he returned from the hospital and settled himself at his desk, when Grayleen Simms called, damn near hysterical, babbling about some pervert sneaking around the woods back of the Kave. Normally, when there was an alarm from the strip bar, the deputy who took the call would leap to his feet, yell, “To the Batcave!”, and run out to his cruiser. Unless Nathan decided to go himself. Then just about everyone in the office gave the yell, and waited until he either blew his stack, or snarled.

Then they would yell it again.

Today the dispatcher had said, “Disturbance at the Kave, Sheriff,” and nobody had said a word.

Nobody wanted to go out there. Nobody wanted to leave town.

What he expected when he arrived was someone like Dewey Plowman, lurking in the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the dancers on her break. Why, he had never been able to figure out, since all he had to do was go inside and see them practically buck-naked for not much more than the price of a damn beer. Dancing, too; not just standing around, smoking.

What he got, however, after a lot of poking around with his flashlight, water dripping down the back of his neck, was a goddamn deer. Not even a decent buck. A doe barely old enough to be called the name.

Grayleen, and beetle-brained Helly Trapp, insisted it wasn’t a deer they had seen, they weren’t that stupid, but he had no patience for them. He’d bitten their heads off, chewed Charity out for running a damn freak show, and left before he said something he’d really regret.

He headed for town deliberately slowly. His hands shook, and he gripped the wheel more tightly.

He was supposed to be the man folks looked up to in times of crisis; he was supposed to be the one who kept his head; he was supposed to be the one who, when he wasn’t doing a million other things like keeping the law from falling apart, was supposed to keep those folks safe.

Today he wasn’t any of those things. This was her fault.

She should have called him, damnit; she should have warned him. That damn spur-of-the-moment story he’d come up with this time didn’t hold water. He knew it. Those two men knew it, he could tell. And it was only a matter of time before they called him on it.

The older one especially.

There was something about him Nathan didn’t like.

He wasn’t all that big—not more than six foot, not a whole lot of visible muscle; and he wasn’t one of them big-town, I’m hot shit and you’re a country bumpkin kind of guys.

It wasn’t that.

It

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.