HARDCORE: Storm MC(81)

Then Gaspar and his men came to town and paid Tip a visit to let him know they'd be taking over the coke and H distribution in the county. They gave him the choice of either accepting their packages instead of the ones from Chicago—and paying him sixty percent of their profits—or shutting down his whole operation. Tip, whose father had taught him never to back down or take any shit from fools, told Gaspar he'd sooner roast in hell than roll over for, in his words, “a bunch of greasy spic pimps.” He spit a mouthful of chewing tobacco on Gaspar's boots as a final insult.



Two days later, when a convoy of Tip's drivers made their way up the old dirt road leading to the dairy farm so they could make their regular pick-up, what they found looked like something out of a horror movie.



Every cow in the field had been methodically hacked to pieces, their limbs and hides strewn across the grass like a red carpet.



Tip, his wife Vernice, and their seven-year-old son Taylor had been hung from an oak tree in the front yard and lit on fire. The drivers had looked up at the charred, swinging corpses, their faces frozen in terror as birds pecked at the dead faces above them.



The crime was never investigated, which sent a very clear message indicating that Sheriff Hemmick knew which side his bread would be buttered on from that point forward. The Tibbons homestead still stood empty to this day, and most of the locals claimed it was haunted.



Missy finished dressing, slipped her shoes on, and headed down into the basement. She found an old duffel bag, took a small key from its hook on the wall, and opened a tall metal cabinet in the corner. All of Hunter's guns hung inside, along with several of her own. There were revolvers, semi-automatics, hunting rifles, a sawed-off shotgun, and even a huge, lethal-looking AR-15 that had never been fired except when Hunter took it to the range now and then.



Missy wished she could take them all.



Instead, she contented herself with a .38 snub nose, a box of hollow point rounds, the sawed-off, and about two dozen shotgun shells, placing them all in the bag. She briefly considered the AR, but she'd never used it before and she didn't trust all of its shiny moving parts. For reliability, it was better to stick with weapons that were basic and brutal.



She started to close the cabinet, then paused and looked inside one more time. A massive, sheathed hunting knife caught her eye and she grabbed it, clipping it to the side of her belt. She hoped she wouldn't get close enough to use it.



“Still, better to have a knife and not need it than to need a knife and not have it,” she said out loud. “Now before I go, is there anything else in here that could possibly save my ass, like a chainsaw or a grenade launcher? A hydrogen bomb, maybe?”



Nope. Just the same set of firearms staring back at her blankly, and looking like a sad collection of cheap toys compared to the kind of firepower she knew the Barros boys had access to.



Well, shit, she thought. It'll just have to do.



Missy locked up the cabinet and headed back upstairs. She hopped into her car and drove the short distance to Cain's house as the sun started to sink. When she got there, she pulled into the short driveway and got out, taking the bag with her and wondering whether she should have brought anything. Food? She didn't know what Cain liked to eat. Stuff for him to read or watch if he got bored? Same problem.



As Missy walked up to the house, she heard a sharp smacking sound on the street behind her. She flinched and spun around, her hand reaching into the open bag and closing around the snub nose.



A tall boy with black hair was staring at her as he practiced jumps on a battered old skateboard. He looked Hispanic, and Missy's arms started to search his skinny arms for gang-related tattoos before taking a closer look at his face. She recognized him and instantly relaxed—his name was Fernando, he bagged groceries at the Food Mart downtown, and he was sixteen years old. She'd seen his family around town for years, and she inwardly kicked herself for racial profiling.



Still, it wasn't like Gaspar's gang was particularly ethnically diverse, and she didn't feel like dying over pangs of political correctness.



“You looking at something, Fernando?” Missy asked.



“You,” he replied, still jumping on his skateboard. Each time, it came down on the pavement with a ragged thwack. “Is that your boyfriend's house?”



“No,” Missy said. “I don't have a boyfriend.”



“You want one?” Fernando asked. Jump. Thwack. Stare.



Missy let out a derisive snort. “Don't you have homework to do, kid?”



“Nah. Already did it.” Jump. Thwack. Stare.



“Well, go watch some cartoons or something, then,” Missy snickered.