Hungry Independents (Book 2) Read online

  A PERMUTED PRESS book

  Published at Smashwords

  Trade Paper ISBN: 978-1-61868-318-2

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61868-117-319-9

  Hungry Independents copyright © 2014

  by Ted Hill

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Claudia McKinney, Phatpuppy Art and Jeroen Ten Berge, Jeroens Ltd.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Hunter

  Chapter Two: Hunter

  Chapter Three: Molly

  Chapter Four: Molly

  Chapter Five: Scout

  Chapter Six: Scout

  Chapter Seven: Hunter

  Chapter Eight: Hunter

  Chapter Nine: Hunter

  Chapter Ten: Molly

  Chapter Eleven: Molly

  Chapter Twelve: Margaret

  Chapter Thirteen: Scout

  Chapter Fourteen: Scout

  Chapter Fifteen: Jimmy

  Chapter Sixteen: Hunter

  Chapter Seventeen: Hunter

  Chapter Eighteen: Hunter

  Chapter Nineteen: Scout

  Chapter Twenty: Scout

  Chapter Twenty-One: Margaret

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Jimmy

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Hunter

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Hunter

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Scout

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Margaret

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Jimmy

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Hunter

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Hunter

  Chapter Thirty: Scout

  Chapter Thirty-One: Jimmy

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Hunter

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Margaret

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Scout

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Jimmy

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Hunter

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Margaret

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Scout

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Jimmy

  Chapter Forty: Hunter

  Chapter Forty-One: Scout

  Chapter Forty-Two: Jimmy

  Chapter Forty-Three: Margaret

  Chapter Forty-Four: Hunter

  Chapter Forty-Five: Scout

  Epilogue: Margaret

  About the Author

  One

  Hunter

  Hunter teetered on the edge of teeth-gnashing insanity from the pain. Most of the time his shoulder felt numb and he was able to cope. Other times, like this one, he wanted to rip his arm from the socket and beat the pain to death. He wished he was at home in his nice big bed next to Molly, instead of messing around in a rainstorm.

  The pain flared up as he climbed the rusty ladder to the grain elevator’s roof in Cozad, Nebraska. A late-summer thunderstorm lashed upon him violently in the dark hours after midnight, while sheets of water cascaded down the white concrete wall, making the climb more treacherous than anticipated. At least the rain provided good cover. The kid up top would be oblivious to Hunter’s approach in this mess.

  Hunter reached for the next rung and his foot slipped, his body dropped, and his right arm took the weight. Pain seared through his shoulder. He clamped his other arm around the ladder, trembling with fear from the thought of ping-ponging all the way down the safety cage. Rain pelted the hood of his waterproof jacket, loud and harsh in unison with his terrified panting. The ground waited to catch him fifty feet below. Another fifty feet of climbing and he’d reach the top where the sniper roosted.

  Five months ago when Hunter had died, all his cares and worries had been washed away. He was saved when his older brother, Jimmy, made the ultimate sacrifice. That gift would be wasted if he fell and crash landed on his head.

  Earlier that day, he had slowed his motorbike as he approached the small town of Cozad, visiting as an emissary from Independents to find out if Cozad’s food crops were also suffering from the infestation of grasshoppers. That’s when the shots rang out, throwing up puffs of dirt around him from the bullet impacts. Hunter understood the message perfectly—Go Away!

  The warning shots had ticked him off. Jimmy didn’t give up his life so some yahoo could take Hunter out by accident or otherwise. Whatever reason the kid had for scoping him with daddy’s deer rifle, he was about to learn the terrible consequence of jacking with people in the Big Bad.

  With his grit back in check, Hunter climbed the rest of the way with no more thought about his shoulder. He peeked over the top, where a hundred yards of puddles collected the rain on the flat surface. Thick drops clattered on the metal roof of a narrow structure that housed the spouts where the elevated grain filled the different bins underneath. No one was in sight.

  Hunter stepped up and moved away from the edge before he was blown off like a kite in the gusty wind. He huddled against the narrow building and worked his bad shoulder, lifting his arm and rolling small circles. It still hurt, but that was expected. He could manage.

  A taller outbuilding at the other end of the grain elevator was barely visible through the curtain of rain. Maybe the sniper was inside cleaning his gun, or maybe the kid went home at night, and maybe Hunter would just have to wait until morning. He had lived through worse weather out in the open.

  Hunter caught a rotten whiff and pinched his nose. Whatever remained in the grain elevator had definitely turned. He crept alongside and peered with his right eye into the dirty windows of the lower building and saw only darkness. He lost sight in his left eye the day he lost his brother. He’d gotten used to the change in depth perception, but still struggled with Jimmy’s absence. That was going to take a while.

  He closed within fifty feet of the other end, where a dark form huddled on the edge. A loud, thunder-like crack reverberated around the rooftop of the elevator. After a brief fire-flash, Hunter realized he’d been shot as the bullet ripped through his stomach and knocked him backwards into the building. He doubled over in agony that quickly subsided, and lifted his shirt in startled amazement. The bullet hole closed without one drop of blood escaping.

  When Hunter had been beaten to death—a broken, bleeding and checking out for good kind of whooping—the ultimate sacrifice his brother made involved Hunter being healed by a little girl named Catherine. Right then, Hunter thought the healing had some residual effect. Cool for him. Bad for the guy holding the gun.

  He advanced and another shot fired, catching Hunter in the shoulder. He spun off-balance and landed in a giant puddle. Hunter screamed for one excruciating moment before the pain ceased, reverting to its normal dull ache, with no blood and no bullet hole. The only thing he felt was a boiling desire to kill.

  Hunter pushed up to his feet and sprinted for the kid, but something wasn’t right. He skidded to a stop on the wet roof and wiped water from his eye. The boy’s clothes were drenched and his exposed skin rippled like ever-changing waves on a pond. He stared at Hunter with clouded eyes the color of milk.

  “You!” the boy-thing hissed. “How did you get here? You won’t stop my master.”

  Hunter wiped his eye again. Sure enough, he’d been shot by some kind of gun-toting demon-kid. If little girls could heal people back from the dead and some kid could unleash a plague that killed every adult around the world, then demons—why not? Hunter searched the sky for a guardian angel and was rewarded with a fat drop of water in the eye.

  “You just shot me. Twice!” He poked his belly, then his shoulder, and frowned
at the holes in his jacket. “Look what you did to my brand new jacket!”

  “That is nothing compared to what my master will do. He will rend your flesh and eat because he hungers. He always hungers.”

  “It sounds like your boy needs a pizza. I don’t deliver. Now, drop the gun.”

  The creature rushed for Hunter, wielding the rifle like a club. Hunter ducked as the swing cut through the rain above his head. He tore the rifle from the little demon’s hands, hurling it over the edge to the ground below. He lifted the creature up and plowed it against the building, imprinting a nice demon shape in the sheet metal.

  The demon sank its teeth into Hunter’s shoulder and tore away a bloody chunk of skin. Hunter screamed, more from horror than the quickly subsiding pain. Again his body healed, but now he had an even bigger hole in his jacket.

  He gripped the thing by the throat and bashed it in the face repeatedly before releasing it with a final punch. The demon scrambled away from Hunter’s fury.

  “You’ve ruined my brand new jacket my girlfriend made me. Now I’m going to hear all kinds of crap about how I never appreciate anything she does for me.”

  Hunter grabbed the back of the demon’s shirt and dragged it across the roof with every intention of throwing it after its rifle. The pounding rain washed away some of the madness, and Hunter hesitated. The creature jumped with inhuman speed, flipped behind Hunter, and shoved him from the roof. Hunter caught the edge and his shoulder popped.

  Dangling by his fingertips, he watched the demon pace in quick, tight circles. It smiled and its forked tongue lashed out, flicking blood at him.

  “You don’t have your wings. The fall won’t kill you, but it will hurt.”

  The demon lifted its bare foot, clawed toenails sharp and threatening. Hunter strained to pull himself up, but his bad shoulder wouldn’t allow it.

  Thunder roared as a bolt of lightning streaked across the dark clouds and blasted into the demon kid’s chest.

  The air smelled of ozone and burnt toast. Hunter strained harder, his boots finding traction and his bad shoulder holding. The other arm hauled the rest of him over the edge. He flopped onto the rooftop and rested a cheek on the cool, wet surface. The rain lessened, with giant drops splashing in puddles. A grasshopper twitched three feet away and then flittered into the open air. Hunter closed his good eye and considered taking a nap.

  “What are you doing, silly?”

  He opened his eye. “Catherine?”

  “Huh? Not even.”

  Hunter flipped onto his back and sat up. A teenage girl in a white T-shirt and blue jeans dropped the demon kid’s limp body onto the roof. Behind them, a large smoking hole had been blown into the grain elevator. He gagged from the overwhelming stench of rot.

  “Stinks, don’t it? Try living down there. I’ll never get that smell out of my hair.”

  “Who are you?” Hunter asked.

  “I’m Barbie,” the brunette girl said, flashing a bright smile. “Thank you for finding me.”

  Hunter fell back in a puddle and watched the clearing storm shake the last raindrops from the clouds. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Two

  Hunter

  “What the fuck is this thing?” Hunter prodded the inert body of the gunman with his foot. “And why doesn’t he have a big hole in his chest from the lightning?”

  Barbie looked up from her examination of the creature. “Watch the potty mouth, mister. You’re in the presence of a lady.”

  Hunter crossed his arms and his bad shoulder offered a twinge in protest.

  Barbie rested on her knees and continued checking the thing’s pulse and temperature. She brushed its wet bangs away from its closed eyelids.

  “This thing is a little boy who got into some trouble, but we can fix that. He’s possessed by a demon and apparently it’s impervious to lightning strikes.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you that already.”

  “Yeah, Barbie, I know. But where did you come from?”

  “You may be cute with the eye patch and smoldering good looks, but you come off a little thick.” She pointed back to the hole in the grain elevator where the stench still emanated, and wisps of smoke climbed into the night sky. “What else?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What else do you want to know, or can I go ahead and exorcise this demon before he wakes up and we have to go through it all over again?”

  “Are you related to a little girl named Catherine?”

  “I used to wheel around with a Catherine,” Barbie said, followed by a girly giggle.

  Hunter rubbed his forehead, anticipating a future migraine. “I think we’re talking about the same person.”

  “I’m sure we are, Michael.” She smiled, pulling her long dark hair back. She produced a hair band from her pocket and wrapped the length into a ponytail. The front of her wet T-shirt stretched.

  Distracted, Hunter watched. When he returned his gaze to her face, she winked at him.

  “Wicked thoughts?” she asked.

  Hunter burned with embarrassment. He shook his hands out, rotated his bad shoulder, and tried to rid himself of impure ideas. “How did you know my name?”

  Barbie flashed a fascinating, lip curling, gleaming teeth in the darkness smile at him. She tapped a finger against the side of her head.

  Hunter sighed. “Yeah, we’re definitely talking about the same person.”

  The possessed boy moved his legs and shifted his body. His skin rippled again as his eyelids began to flutter. He opened his mouth wide and his pointy teeth glistened with bands of saliva stretching between his lips.

  Barbie snapped her fingers twice at Hunter. “Hurry, hold him down!”

  Hunter dropped to his knees, straddled the boy’s stomach, and clamped his hands over the demon’s arms. Milky eyes popped open and a rush of wind hammered the top of the grain elevator. The demon screeched when it saw Barbie.

  She rubbed her hands together like she was about to perform a neat trick. “Yes, yes, it will all be over soon. Lie back, relax and Aunt Barbie will make all the badness go away.” She patted Hunter on the shoulder. “You got him, right?”

  Hunter winced. “Yeah, just don’t tap me on that shoulder. It hurts like hell.”

  “I thought you knew Catherine?”

  The demon boy bucked and Hunter added more pressure to keep him down. Sharp teeth snapped at him and the forked tongue flicked at his good eye.

  “Less talk. More action.”

  “Yes, master.” Barbie rested her hands on the demon boy’s head. The contact sizzled and popped like an electrical current. White sparkling light encompassed her arms and hands. Her ponytail fanned out, standing on end, and her eyes glowed.

  The wind pounded them again, swirling up puddles and spraying water in their faces. Where the water touched Barbie, sparks flew and water transformed into steam.

  A shock raced through Hunter, leaving his body tingling and constricting his muscles. He shifted his arms slightly, afraid of electrocution from Barbie and all the water. The demon bucked harder.

  “Hold him down!” Barbie’s voice clapped like thunder.

  Hunter fought through the panic and shoved the thrashing demon back down.

  Barbie flickered like an old fluorescent bulb, back before the worldwide electrical system winked out. Then she powered up and shined like a newborn star.

  Hunter focused on the boy’s face, not wanting to go blind, but also not willing to close his eye and allow the creature an opportunity to try something. Barbie murmured a chant in a language Hunter didn’t understand. Skin on the demon’s forehead smoked. The crackling hum illuminating Barbie continued to make Hunter nervous.

  The demon boy’s features rippled and then something separated. A translucent mask of the demon lifted like a smoky apparition, rising above the anguished face of a young boy. A pulse ran through the image as Barbie’s light snapped up a notch and the apparition expanded. The demon’s teeth gn
ashed together, eyes wide in what appeared to be fear, and the struggle ended with a final gust of wind stripping away the demon and leaving only the sleeping boy.

  Barbie removed her hand from the child’s head, revealing his smooth, unmarred skin. She touched Hunter, who still held the boy’s arms tight. He flinched, afraid of being electrocuted, but her hands were freezing and she shivered all over.

  “You can let go now. He’ll be fine.”

  Slowly, Hunter relaxed the pressure and held Barbie’s hand as he lifted himself off the boy. He stood and helped her off the ground. She wobbled and fell against him, pressing her icy cheek against his neck.

  “I’m so cold, Michael.”

  “It’s Hunter. My parents called me Michael, but they’re gone.”

  She gazed up at him with sad, confused eyes. Her lips parted, but she remained silent. Hunter fought an impulse to kiss her, and then looked over the dark horizon instead.

  She sighed. “Whatever. I’m so cold.”

  Hunter copied her sigh, opened his brand new jacket that his girlfriend had made, and allowed Barbie inside. She was cold and wet and felt very, very nice.

  Three

  Molly

  Whenever Molly’s dad went out of town on business, her mom would let Molly sleep in their bed, saying the bed was too big without him. That was a long time ago, but lying in bed in the middle of the night worrying about Hunter, Molly now knew exactly how her mom had felt.

  Finding sleep impossible, she rolled out from under the sheets. She pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt and left her lonely bedroom to shake the nagging feeling that something was wrong. She lit a candle in the living room and looked over her bookshelf containing twenty-seven books ranging from self-help to anger management. Molly had read them all twice and wanted more. It was nice to be passionate about something that benefited Independents.

  Unfortunately she wasn’t in the reading mood. Nervous energy had her up and going, so she tied on her tennis shoes and headed out the door of her apartment, down to the cobbled pavement of Main Street, Independents. Grasshoppers jumped about as she disturbed their slumber. Moonlight reflected in the potholes that had yet to be repaired. A rainstorm had passed through, filling them up like little ponds.