Thomas Craig - The Outkast

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.

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 tonight, he might just as well fall into the hole of the bottle once more, because the power of reasoning had been stolen away from him. He just couldn’t think.

Tonight, his composure was falling apart.

He opened the cabinet, brought out one of the bottles, but quickly replaced it in its niche. He closed the cabinet door and ran out of the pantry.

He dashed across to his recliner and fell upon it. With his face buried in his hands, he let out a deep growl of frustration.

From a room, Robert Smallwood was shouting something in an urgent and sonorous voice.

When they drove to the very end of Sebastian Road, Brian poked his head out the window, checking to see if the map had started to fail them, searching for the landmark-a dirt road.

There was none.

Brian heaved a deep sigh.

In his writing, Robert had described the dirt road as a wide boulevard lined with apple trees on both sides and running for more than a million miles. Such a description possessed a sharp contrast to the typical feature of a dirt road. And it was this sort of disjointed piece of information that had detracted from the value of the direction they had had at their disposal when they had set out-at least, in Allan’s view.

But Brian knew enough to separate the wheat from the chaff, to disregard the discrepancies, and just use the rational parts of the boy’s message-or try to demystify the undertone of whatever message Robert was trying to deliver, rather than taking things at face value.

He got out from behind the wheel. Without casting caution to the winds, he pulled his gun out and scanned the whole area as quickly and effectively as he could.

Craig and Dwayne joined him, their weapons drawn as well.

Allan brought up the rear, playing the perfect grumpy old cop.

Brian thought they had reached the end of their quest, until he took a closer look and saw tire threads in a number of places.

At first, they all missed it. But for some reason, Brian paced back the same way they had come, and it caught his attention-an overgrown footpath. Not an obvious landmark by any standards. The path was hardly visible even when they moved closer. They also noticed huge footprints in places.

Ahead of the weed-grown trail was a cluster of trees blocking the view that lay beyond, which they later discovered to be a long stretch of dirt road.

“Is that the road the kid wrote about?” Allan’s voice carried loud over the calm layers of air.

“I suppose,” Brian said, walking back through the trail towards their cruisers.

“Thought the dirt road comes before the trail, and not the other way around,” Allan said as they all followed Brian.

“Yeah, that’s the way it should be.” Brian walked swiftly past the cruisers. He was in search of another hint. “But I’m more concerned about something else.”

“The access route to the dirt road?” Craig observed.

“That’s right.”

There was no path in sight at all for a vehicle to go through in order to connect to the dirt road on the other side. Of course, along the trail, in the light of the moon, they had noticed very huge footmarks, which, in all likelihood, belonged to a proportionately huge individual crossing from the end of Sebastian Road to the dirt road. But there was no means of driving a vehicle across without being impeded by the multitude of trees hugging one another.

Cognizant of the amount of time that had elapsed, Brian began to grow a bit agitated. “There has to be a way to drive our goddam cars across to the other side.”

“This ain’t looking good,” Craig said, his pop-eyes darting in every direction. “God, we’re kinda trapped here. And the temp’s dropping, too.”