Friday (serial) Fiction: Devil's Walk Through Galveston, Ch. 7 (plot thrown forward)

Here's the next installment of Devils Walk Through Galveston.  

It's a great book with ten five-star reviews on Amazon, including this latest review: This book gripped me from chapter one. The twists and turns were a wild ride. I really enjoyed how the author took the reader from the criminal's point of view, to the lawyer's point of view, and finally the police officers' points of view. The "Devils" in the title certainly refers to more than just the killer in the book; you see that all of the characters wrestle with their own devil and are corrupt in one way or another.
The ending had me longing for more; the story lives in my mind, hoping that the author will soon release a sequel to this engaging first novel.
I am definitely recommending this book to all of my friends looking for a good read.

Its supposed to be an awesome week in Texas and cold everywhere else.  It's a good weekend for a new book for you or a friend.  Get a taste below.  Get the whole thing on Amazon. 

The prologue, Chapter 1 (which introduced the crime and criminal), Chapter 2 (which introduced the police officers), Chapter 3 (the seduction of the initial victim), Chapter 4 (which follows the fleeing killer), and Chapter 5 (police begin tracking the killers) and Chapter 6 (backstory of Eli, one of the key police officers) were earlier.  Here is Chapter 7, where the killers make their way to Galveston and the story is thrown forward.  I hope you enjoy it. Please read it and share (noncommercially).  Go to Amazon and get the book for the rest.

7.  Riding to Galveston

John Doddy rode the rails two days to Galveston, Texas.  Down all the way through Mississippi.  Two hundred miles of flat cotton and soybean land and little towns of leaning shacks, low brick projects and a few nice, gabled houses giving way to fields.   Little river towns with falling down ghettos and huge cows walking the levees snaking along the river.  Slept through Greenwood.  Glad when he woke to see they hadn’t stopped.  The ground suddenly rose outside of Vicksburg into low, hot hills and houses set back in the woods.  Tracks close enough to see children playing on dirt streets and men drinking and working on old cars in the shade.  They rode through the heat of the day, straight south, watching the shadows in the box car shift sides, shifting their shoulders with them.

Their train crossed the river in Baton Rouge and headed west.  Settled in at a massive yard between the chemical plants of West Baton Rouge Parish.  They got off and away before anyone came to look for cargo or switch cars to a different engine.  It took longer than they would have liked to find another box car with mesh metal sides so there would be wind and an open door they could get in.  They walked the big yard slipping over couplings and between cars, looking for something with freight that wasn’t a closed container or the miles and miles of tanker cars pouring out in three directions. 

Judas was glad their train turned right and headed for West Baton Rouge and not down to Gramercy or further down the river. He didn’t want to have to take a ferry across and walk through the Atchafalaya swamp basin where only a few of the oil workers spoke English and a strange man afoot drew lots of attention.  And then there were the alligators and snakes and two lane winding roads so narrow that two inches from the yellow line was porous mud and vipers hanging from cedar branches.

They found a boxcar with a broken lock on the sliding door.  Inside it was empty and fetid and dark.  Walls solid but for some metal mesh in strips at the top and middle. Slid in as they heard the engines starting up on the other side of the yard.  Heard the couplings to the west start to join.  They worked the door shut with a clang and found their backs to the wall, slid down to the floor to let their eyes adjust to the interior dark. 

Fifteen minutes in and they were going through the Atchafalaya swamp.  West Baton Rouge Parish and its odor of ammonia and butadiene were fading away.  John smelled the cleaner, humid air.  Smelled the placid water the train slid over.  Started to smell another man.  The smell spoke:  “I assume you got some weed.”

John silent.

It again: “I heard you get on, motherfucker.  Don’t make me come over there.”

“You do and you won’t be walking back.”

“So it does speak.”

John silent.

“How bout that weed?  I can smell it on you.”

“No weed on me. You’re hoping.  I don’t have shit.  In fact, if you’ve got some whiskey, I could use a sip.”

“Now, I thought you wanted to be left alone.”

John could hear him moving, maybe standing.

John told him, “Sit down.”

And the man’s voice saying “fuck off,” coming from higher now and closer.

John sprang forward low toward the sound and unleashed a punch about belly high.  His fist found a buckle and he felt his pinkie snap.  But he hit the tall man solid and the man fell back against the far wall and slumped down.  John heard him moving around, caught the glint of metal in what little light there was.  Pulled the lock-blade of his knife out and waited, back to the wall. 

Neither man moved.  The train rocked and groaned.  A shot rang out in the swamp and John saw a shadow flinch in the dark.  Nothing more.  Nothing to show him the exact location.  Had to get close enough to use the blade.  John waited.  Looking for movement until his eyes pixilated and he blinked.  The smell rose.  The smell shifted and swirled.  The knife passed back and forth between John’s hands on his knees, squatting.  He could hear them coming up to a short bridge.  Sounds louder from the front.  The train rocked and John caught a glint of light a few feet from his face and stabbed forward.  Felt his fist meet cloth and tugged up as hard as he could.  John felt the body  lurch forward as he slipped left and pulled his knife back and the man hit the wall behind him.  John over onto his knees, punching to find distance, to find a head.  Fist meeting bone.  Pinkie breaking worse with pain shooting up his arm.  The body slumping to the floor.  John punching again. Finding a jaw.  Hitting and holding.  Slicing neck with the knife in his left hand.  Then John kneeled on the back of the man’s shoulders.  Grabbed his jaw and the back of his head.  Twisted and yanked up as quick as he could and felt the neck snap.  Smelled the urine flow out of him.  Rolled off before he shit.  Staggered to the other side of the car to rest.  Felt the blood on his knuckles.  Half paying attention, licked it off and tasted the iron.

Low and faint.  He knew the voice: “You don’t know whose blood that is, before you start drinking it.”

John looked up absently, “What’s it matter, whose blood?  It lets me know it’s real.”

“It lets you know shit.  Get his pockets.”

John: “What?”

“Check his pockets and open the car door and wait for the next swamp to roll him out of the car.  No need to smell him or be in a train car with a dead man when we stop.”

A question, an accusation: “Where were you?”

“Watching from this here corner.  You were doing fine.”

“Fuck, my hand hurts.  You couldn’t have grabbed him after I hit him?”

“Was quite a show.”

“Glad you liked it.  What the fuck.  What the fuck.”

“Settle your nerves.  We’ll get you some tape when we get to Texas.  Some ice.  See what he’s got and roll him on out.”

John found ten dollars and a Zippo lighter.  Kept the money.  Pitched the lighter out in the grass.  Opened the door a bit and waited for the next piece of wet ground away from any houses.  Hoped an alligator would find him before some Cajun fisherman did. 

§§

They rolled into the Port of Houston train yards deep into the night.  Miles of train cars.  Acres of automobiles and trucks unloaded from huge ships to be sent across the country after they sat on this lot with their tops covered in white plastic.  Full tankers sliding up the ship channel.  They’d looked for a good place to jump off before the port, but found none.  They didn’t want to get lost in the yards.  There was no easy way to walk out.  All the tracks led to the backs of refineries or chemical plants or warehouses.  That or right up next to cranes that took the containers off and set them on trucks that would take them to other points. 

All this under the bright floodlights of the towers and the glare of too many eyes on the third shift.  All this under the flares rocketing blue and orange fire into the night sky.  Flames screaming to the thick air, parting the steam rising off the turbines.  Increasing the heat.  Increasing the din and conflagration.

They closed the door and hoped their car wouldn’t get dropped in the port.  Waited.  Being jostled every few minutes as the cars moved and they lost some or more were put in the line.  Then the train moving forward and southeast down the forty-five miles of the channel toward the Gulf of Mexico.  Slowly moving for hours as the heat finally let up and the humidity set in and they got past Texas City and close to the coast.  The night got darker as they smelled the salt in the air.  Then morning broke cobalt blue as they crossed the thin stretch of water to Galveston Island.  This island more desolate than the mainland.  Never recovered fully from Hurricane Ike.  Never even recovered from the one in 1906.  Less activity and less light than the mainland.  Still though, the stirrings of morning. 

They could look through the slats and see emaciated women in the street light glare shuffling toward low brick project apartments, looking for a fix.  Young men sitting in a Cadillac under street lights listening to the radio, smoking a blunt, waiting for someone to approach, to pass a hand through the window for a rock.  They saw trucks rumble through and knew the port was coming soon.

The hunger of two days travel set in as they knew they were drawing to a stop.  They got close to the port and could hear the fishing boats heading out.  Could smell the barbecue joints fire up their smoker pits.  The smell of cooking meat ripped through John and doubled him over.   Thirst, long delayed, took over his will.  He slid open the boxcar door and slid out onto the gravel lining the track, not caring if anyone saw him.  Knowing that here, in northeast Galveston, no one would care.

§§

Hunger drew John west into the island.  Past the projects with nothing.  Past the ghetto stores.  It addled his mind and made him forget the money in his pocket.  Made him forget to be careful.  Drew him to a large house with a back door and no car in the drive.  None in the garage.  No light on, but a garbage can with one bag in it.  No one likely home.

Judas: “What are you doing, man?”

John ignored him, closed down the garbage can lid, walked to the back door.  Looked through the paneled glass.  Saw a clean kitchen.  Nothing around the sink.  Saw the refrigerator.  Began to look at the door and its locks.

Judas insistent now: “We’ve got a little money.  Let’s find a McDonalds.  John, quit fucking around.”

John drew the knife and slid the blade as far in the dead bolt as it would go.  Still some cover from darkness.  Still a little time.  No neighbors stirring.  He wasn’t paying attention.  Slammed the heel of his left hand into the butt of the knife handle.  Felt the blade slip an inch.  Heard metal bend.  Turned the knife and the bolt went with it.  Opened the door and pulled the blade out – jagged now - and went inside. 

Judas a harsh whisper: “Shut the fucking door!”

John turned and complied. Eased it shut.  Moved to the refrigerator and opened it, knife still in his right hand.  Blade out.  Broken pinkie forgotten.  Hand swelled visibly.  Saw milk and pulled the carton out to drink it.  Looked deep inside and found lunch meat.  Tore the package open.

Judas: “Take it and go.  Leave here, man.  Light is coming up.”

John ignored him and ate.  The taste of flesh in his mouth was too much.  The taste of salt he needed.  He didn’t notice the streetlights turn off.  Didn’t hear the footsteps.  He did hear the shotgun cock.  Turned lashing out with the blade.  No time to think.  No time for her to fire.  Only time to grab her throat and fall.

Judas quiet now:  “No, man.  No.”