Debauchery Falls Ch. 07

"Just go into the goddamn light," Galloway was snarling through clenched teeth. "Just go already."

Quinn was cringing, terrified that the shots would draw attention. He listened for the inevitable-- men and cultists arriving to see what the commotion was.

Graver also sensed the urgency, because as soon as the Sheriff was disarmed, his knife flashed. "Move, Galloway," he said calmly. The blade caught the firelight, and within seconds, it was over.

The Sheriff had given up the ghost, and the room was quiet, except for the soft sobbing of Andrea.

Galloway was on her feet, fetching Andrea's discarded clothes and tossing them to the girl. "Get dressed. Pity party later," she was saying, to snap the girl out of her shock and crying.

Quinn marveled that just that easily, Galloway was back to normal. Then it dawned on him. Abernathy's only command to the four of them when he'd taken hold of their minds was to listen to the Sheriff and obey his commands. The Sheriff was dead now. They were free... for the time being. Abernathy had made a mistake. They needed to seize this opportunity, because they probably wouldn't get another.

Graver looked at the two naked women, hurriedly dressing. "Somebody want to catch me up?"

Galloway spoke quickly as she swiped the handcuff key from the Sheriff's belt, and freed Quinn and Brad. "Foster and Delacruz are dead. The Sheriff's department looks like a bunch of escaped convicts. There's a cult. I think they're mostly the missing town's people. The cult is led by this weird guy who can control your mind and your actions."

Graver blinked, his face slightly incredulous... though only slightly.

Galloway explained everything that had happened while she snugged back into her jeans, and vest and combat harnesses-- the video that Emily Tanner had left behind, the chase through the fields, and what happened in the cabin before Graver had arrived.

Graver considered all of this as he reunited his men with their pilfered weapons and equipment. Quinn inspected his shotgun, relief in his face to have it back.

"It sounds crazy, I know," Andrea piped up, fixing her skirt.

Graver regarded her. "Trust me, kid. I've seen weirder shit." He was standing by the door to the cabin, peering out into the night. He could hear them before he could see them-- truck engines. Someone had heard the shots-- probably the whole valley. They were coming.

"We don't have time for this," Graver said.

Galloway joined him by the entrance, and swore when she saw the half-dozen headlights coming north up the main road. Andrea joined them, her eyes wide when she saw the dead 'deputies' that Graver had dispatched. Even wider when she saw the headlights coming right for them.

Graver turned to Galloway. "Take the civilians up into the mountains, and get them as far away from here as possible."

"What the hell are you going to do?" Galloway asked.

"I'm going to draw them away from you guys," Graver was already running back to his Jeep. "There's a shed around the back of the cabin. I saw something in it that you'll like!" He was shouting over his shoulder as he ran. "Just go! Get the hell out of here, Lieutenant!"

Galloway swore, and collected her group. Together, they ran.

***

The Lantern Glow Inn tavern and bar was in disarray. Chairs were broken, bottles were smashed, most of the booze had been pilfered. Dozens of lanterns and candles were set out, having been extinguished recently. Clearly they had missed the party. It looked like there had been a bar fight. The place had been ransacked by a gang of lunatics over the past couple of days. The phone cord behind the counter had been cut, along with any other means of communication with the outside world.

Jessup peered out the windows to hide his wounded pride. Brubaker checked the back rooms, the kitchen, bathroom, and dining hall. The hotel wasn't terribly big. There was a second floor and a basement. He returned to the main room again. The pool table took up most of the space. There were hardly any tables. Mostly the bar, and the row of stools.

Before any discussions could be had, they needed to clear the building and make sure they were alone. It didn't take long, in addition to threats, they sought out supplies. Halley found a lighter behind the cash register along with a switchblade. The basement-- if it could even be called that-- was so low that they had to hunch over. Walls were stone, not concrete, and cobwebs hung in thick clumps.

The highlight was when a very large brown spider dropped from the low beams and landed on the back of Jessup's neck. The young rookie almost screamed as the bug scrambled about. Halley pinned him and batted it away. "Wolf spider. They can get big," she explained.

"Do they bite?"

"Yes, but they're only dangerous to house pets," Halley left out that a bite was still very painful. When she was little, she'd been playing in her mother's garden and had found one crawling up her bare thigh. She tried to shoe it away, and it had bitten her. She had sniffled all the way to the doctor.

The basement was only kegs and spiders.

The second floor contained half a dozen cramped hotel rooms that lined either side of the hallway. They'd only glanced in a couple before turning back. All of the beds had been used, and not for sleeping. There was something unsettling about the well used, messy sheets.

The building was secure. They returned to the first floor and sat in the dark, collecting themselves. Brubaker and Halley barricaded the doors and windows with furniture, tables, or whatever else they could find. Brubaker had managed to wedge a long two-by-four between the door and the staircase to the second floor-- thus making it impossible to muscle open without ripping the whole door down.

"What the hell happened here?" Jessup was uneasy-- restlessly pacing the room. He was coming off of the adrenaline rush from earlier, and his fears were closing in.

"We don't have much to go on," Halley said, dusting her hands on her jeans. "Just speculation."

Brubaker ticked the points off on his fingers as he inspected the barricades, and found them satisfactory. "Natural disaster. Town's missing. Our guys are missing. And there's violent weirdoes blowing up our camp or taking shots at us."

"What did we stumble into?" Jessup asked.

Brubaker only shrugged and crossed the open room. "At best, it's a gang of looters that we interrupted."

"And at worst?" Jessup's brow was pinched together.

"They're too organized," the older man responded, inspecting the bar with curious interest. "At worst... some kind of weird cult, or secret society, or hill billy militia. I don't know what their goals are, and frankly, I don't care. But they've got business with this town, and they don't like us being here."

Halley knew he was right. "We're in trouble," she said and planted her butt on the edge of the pool table, kicking her feet back and forth while triple checking the ammo on her pistol.

Brubaker was idly looking over the shelves of booze. An expensive bottle of scotch had been broken on the floor. "Goddamn Greek tragedy," he commented to himself, before taking a swig from one of the remaining bottles.

"I need you sober," Halley cautioned him.

He grunted and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, then passed her the bottle. She sighed, took a swig and passed it to Jessup. The rookie looked at the two of them like they were crazy. Then after a second thought he caved into the peer pressure. He threw back a huge mouthful, gagged, and spit it out.

Halley and Brubaker snickered softly.

Jessup reddened. "So what now?"

"The nice thing about life and death situations," Halley gestured for the bottle again. Brubaker helped himself to a sip and passed it to his boss. They shared it back and forth as they talked. She sighed in pleasure, enjoying the burn, before continuing, "is that things become really *really* simple. We've got three options. We can barricade this place, bunker in, and try to ride out this shit storm. We can get the fuck out of town, and come back with help. Or... we can take matters into our own hands, for the sake of our missing men."

She looked back and forth between the faces of her two officers, swinging her legs back and forth slowly. Despite the dire situation that she just laid out for them, she felt surprisingly good-- surprisingly *alive*. It was amazing how danger tended to wake her up. Although her two partners might not share that feeling.

"My opinion," Brubaker began, tossing back another gulp, before handing it back to Halley, "We grow a set, we go back out there, and we go get our guys."

Jessup paled considerably at the mere suggestion. "No. No fuckin' way. I'm not going out there again."

"We don't leave people behind," Brubaker shot back. "Those are your fuckin' friends out there too. Remember Chaney patching you up when your dumb ass stepped on that pallet, and a nail sliced open your shin? Or Lincoln, pretending to be a previous fling, talking you up to that skanky bartender that you normally wouldn't have had a shot with? Or the Sarge, covering for you when you had to put your cat to sleep and you couldn't stop fuckin' crying all day during training? That's your *family* out there right now, and they need you."

Jessup frowned in misery and self-loathing, but was insistent. "Well my family is probably dead now, like we'll be if we go back out there. I say we stay right here, we keep quiet, and maybe those illuminati freaks out there will go away."

"This is a tiny town, asshole," Brubaker shot back. "They'll find us eventually. And they'll find a way in here. They'll burn this place to the ground with us inside it if they have to."

Halley listened in thought as they argued. While Brubaker's suggestions were definitely the more scary to consider, he was right-- they couldn't stay. Even with the barricades in place, this building was hardly a fortress. Jessup's argument wasn't based on practicality. He was scared, pure and simple.

Jessup illustrated that point even more when his voice became shrill, bordering on panic. "You can go out there if you want. But I'm staying right here and hiding. You can't make me go out there. I won't budge an inch."

"Enough," Halley said evenly. Both men quieted down. "Brubaker is right. We can't stay. We need to go out there and either try to find answers, or get the fuck out of here, and come back with the cavalry. We can hike all the way the hell back to civilization if we have to, but staying here and hiding... that's the easiest way for this group of hostiles to make us disappear."

She addressed her thoughts to Jessup, but he was pale and sweating. The thought edging him close to panic. When he met her eyes, his expression melted to one of apology. But the way he gripped his rifle and hurriedly shook his head in protest, his mind was made up. He wouldn't be budging. He had distanced himself from the team, and there was no bringing him back. His mind had been made up to splinter off alone, if he had to. Because the idea of hiding alone was much less scary than potentially dying as a team.

Fight or flight. Never freeze. Freezing meant death. And that's what Jessup was doing. He was freezing.

Halley hopped off the pool table. "Jessup, I want to have a word with you," Halley said. As she approached, Jessup momentarily cringed, as though she might hit him. Instead, she merely took him by the hand and led him to the next room. It was a shoddy little dining room with a few square tables.

When they were alone, she said, "You know why mass shooters are so successful at hurting so many people?"

He blinked stupidly at her. "B-because they're attacking soft targets?"

"Because most of their victims don't know what to do, so they hide. The ones who run, or fight back usually live. The ones who stay behind and cower under desks or in closets... they're the ones who get found by the very monster they're trying to avoid. Do you understand where I'm going with this?"

He nodded slowly. She held his eyes and he looked away. "I'm scared," he confessed.

She knew this. She could see the poor kid visibly trembling beneath all that manly equipment. "You've had training, Jessup. We taught you how to handle this stuff. We trust you. You're a soldier."

"Am I?" Jessup blinked at her. "Everyone here treats me like a little kid. Everyone. Like I'm just some fuckin' joke because I'm young and nervous. Even you. You called me a damsel in distress. So maybe everyone's right. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm just fooling myself."

Halley sighed. He wasn't wrong. She really had laid into him earlier. It probably did more than just bruise his ego. "I'm sorry I said that." She said finally. "You were a lot more confident on the drive up here. Checking me out in front of my fiancé, your Captain... that took some balls. Where'd *that* Jessup go? Because I think we need him right about now."

He laughed, a little awkwardly. "I'm sorry I tried to kiss you, and everything got all weird."

"No you're not," she said immediately. When he looked up, he was startled to see her staring at him, not breaking eye contact. Her hair had fallen across one eye again, in that way that he liked, and that confident ghost of a smile was tugging at her lips. Even in the dark room, there was something about her expression that stirred something in him. It was her confidence. "You're not sorry for trying to kiss me," she went on, knowingly. "You're only sorry that I pulled away and made a dick out of you."

He reddened. Even in the gloom of the empty bar, Halley could see it. It was kind of cute. Jessup was a very good looking guy. Definitely a young stud. She'd noticed him before, and in the darkest corners of her mind, imagined what he might look like beneath that uniform. She was willing to bet the twenty two year old muscle jock could fuck like an animal. Although she tried to tell herself that wasn't the reason she was about to say what she was going to say. She told herself that it was because Jessup was scared, frozen, and in desperate need of a reminder that he was a part of a team that needed him. But she'd be lying to herself if she said she wasn't curiously turned on by all the attention the rookie had shown her. A hottie was showering her with attention and thinly veiled flirtations. How could she not resist?

"Well try it again, and see what happens this time," Halley said, peering dangerously at him from behind the hair that had fallen across her eyes.

"Huh?" Jessup's brows raised in surprise. There was a daring look to Halley's expression, that both excited and frightened him.

"You heard me," she said, dead serious. "We're alone right now. You're probably not going to get another chance... try it again." Her smirk grew to a dangerous and oh-so-tempting smile.

Jessup was trembling, a little afraid that there was some punch line or trick coming that would end in his humiliation. But he wasn't willing to risk turning down an invitation... not from Halley. He'd wanted her the moment he first saw her. Which is exactly why, appropriate or not, taken or not, dangerous situation or not, he leaned in.

This time she didn't pull away. When his lips met hers, his heart nearly jumped into his throat from the shock. He parted his lips and began to taste her mouth. She leaned into him, grabbed him by the back of the head, running her fingers through his hair as she forced his shocked mouth open with her lips, and offered her tongue to him.

Holy shit! He was kissing his boss! Hellfire Halley Hargrove was actually kissing him. And there was nothing sweet about it. Her tongue was ravenous. He could only dumbly tickle hers with his own, and when he did, he felt like she was tackling his tongue.

They were both panting hungrily in the dark for what felt like an eternity. Their lips locked together. The steady push and pull of their tongues, of their lips, of their breath. It was as steady as the tide.

Finally, Jessup had the briefest moment of clarity through the haze. He parted their lips just enough to gasp it out softly.

"I'm so confused... What-- What changed?" He asked.

The fact was that Halley needed Jessup. She needed to bring him back from the brink of panic, calm him down, and boost his confidence. But she didn't want to tell him that-- that would only sound like she was manipulating him. Maybe she was a little. But the fact was, there was another reason that she was doing this... and she decided to go with that one, because it was just as true as the first. "Because we might die tonight. I've always noticed you-- you're hot and have kind of turned me on before. I know you want this, and I'm kind of horny."

Jessup's face was shocked to hear this. "But what about--?"

Halley was tired of his damn gentlemanly protesting. She didn't need a gentleman right now. She needed an animal to ravage her hard and fast. "Jessup, shut up and fuck me." She grabbed his hands and thrust them into her chest. Through her wet shirt, he could feel the soft warm flesh of her boobs. Her nipples were hard beneath his touch.

Her words spurred something in him. He didn't question it further. His hands squeezed her chest and he forced his mouth back into hers, harder this time. She moaned beneath his aggressive tongue, pleased by his sudden display of assertiveness.

Her head spun as he whirled her around, and shoved her back against the nearest wall. He grabbed her by the ass and picked her up, putting those hard young muscles to use as he lifted her like she weighed nothing. She threw her legs around his waist, locking her sneakers behind his butt.

...His butt. That was one thing that Halley couldn't resist. She needed to squeeze this young buck's hard ass. She ran her hands down his backside, moaning excitedly into his mouth, and cupped her hands on his butt. Firm and round, just like she imagined. She could feel the muscles jumping and flexing, and she pulled him into her. The bulge in his fatigues drove into her crotch, and she was pleasantly surprised by the rookie's size. Delighted even. She would not be disappointed tonight. How lucky for her.

She moaned softly against his mouth. "Do whatever you want to me..." she whispered against his hungry mouth. "But do not stop."

Jessup grabbed her shirt and yanked it up, revealing her smooth bare belly, and her tight bra. He needed to kiss them. The sight of her milky tits, so vulnerable and ready for the taking drove him mad with sexual lust. "Don't give me orders," he snarled hungrily at her. "You might be the boss at work, but right now you're the one asking me for it, so I give the orders." Despite Jessup's typical uncertainty, he said the words with such force, such unthinking need, that Halley believed him.

"Yes sir," she gasped softly. "Take me... please..." And the sincerity and submission in her own words was sincere. The roles had reversed, and she was so turned on by it that she could feel the wetness forming between her legs, even as Jessup thrust against her like an animal.

Halley was thrusting back, wiggling her body with Jessup's movements, grinding herself on his thickening manhood. Jessup held her tightly, working her bra down to free her tits. They were better than he imagined-- round and perky. Her nipples were pink and puffy. He took one into his mouth and sucked like his life depended on it.

"Mmmmm... harder... harder Jessup. I like it rough," Halley squealed beneath his touch. The way she wiggled and writhed under his suckling drove him mad. She was a little bundle of a sexual energy. He always knew she was, deep down. Like a coiled spring.

She ran her fingers through his hair, pulling and breathing his natural manly scent. For a moment, she lost all state of mind-- they were merely two animals with the sudden uncontrollable urge to mate. Their names didn't matter. They'd selected each other, and were following their instincts.