Brush Creek Charlie by D. B. Reynolds (which ebook reader .txt) 📖

Charlie and Bruno. The large husky dog sprinted into the air and jumped onto Charlie’s back.
Bruno tackled him with superb execution. The dog’s upper and lower rows of teeth sunk deep into the thick flesh of Charlie. His skin broke open and blood shot out like water from a mini fountain. Despite the pain he felt from the dog’s scissor-sharp teeth, Charlie made not one sound. Bruno locked stronger and wouldn’t let go. He jerked side-to-side like he could’ve ripped off his arm. Using brute strength and military tactical training, along with high levels of pure insanity, Charlie wrapped his other arm the neck of Bruno.
If he could snap the neck of enemy personnel in Vietnam, surely he could do the same to a canine. After several hard jerks, Bruno released his lock from around Charlie’s arm. The vertebrae in his neck had been snapped like a pencil. The whines of death echoed throughout the tunnel. Officer Richard Dolan and Master Patrol Officer Seth Jacobson knew something terrible had happened. Officer Jacobson trained enough canines to know the danger they faced. Too bad he didn’t know how dangerous the man was he’d sent his canine into the tunnel to apprehend.
“Bruuuuuuuuuuno!” Officer Jacobson yelled, jogging the bright floodlight along the dark tunnel walls. “Bruno! Bruno! Are you alright, boy? If you’re okay, then respond to me, Bruno.”
The dog didn’t respond. He waited to see if his canine partner would return to him. Meanwhile, Charlie ran to the other end of the tunnel with large amounts of blood slinging from his arm. Bright street lights and the back end of Satchel Paige Stadium were there to greet him. Charlie didn’t know which direction to run. Still, he could hear Officer Jacobson screaming out for Bruno. No response translated to how the dog could’ve been dead. Officers Jacobson and Dolan knew they weren’t dealing with a normal human being. Clotting blood formed a thick patch at the edge of Dolan’s eyes. With both of their weapons drawn, Jacobson and Dolan crossed the filthy sewer waters in their clean and pressed police uniforms.
Once inside the tunnel, both officers flashed their bright lights around every inch of space. Water dripping from the top and the annoying sounds of more large sewer rats sharpened their senses. One of the largest rats imaginable raced across several yards of sewer water. Dolan aimed his revolver in the same direction. Jacobson moved around in circles to make sure no one would sneak up on them.
“Richie, I’d hate to think the worse,” Jacobson told Dolan, possessed with extreme fright. “But something tells me that Bruno’s been killed by that maniac. He would’ve come back to me by now.”
“We both heard the whine made by Bruno,” Dolan replied with a nod. “Seth, we should’ve called for backup a long time ago.”
“That we definitely should’ve done.”
“Think that sonofabitch is still here inside the tunnel?”
“Either in here or somewhere over by Satchel Paige Stadium.”
“Never in all my years on the force did I think I’d come up on a nightmare like this.”
“It’s a part of our job. Always expect the unexpected.”
“Brush Creek is enough to give the biggest weirdo the creeps.”
Dolan and Jacobson traveled further into the tunnel with their service revolvers ready to fire at anything which looked or moved wrong.
Unaware, two big sewer rats rushed from behind a thick pile of raw sewage. Both officers pointed their lights and weapons in the same direction. The rodents had been feasting on garbage and dead fish. Too bad their meal had to be interrupted by a couple of KCPD officers who sought out a serial killer on the run.
Dolan sucked in a breath of weariness. “I’ll tell ya something, Seth. If one of those big juicy rats charge me, I won’t hesitate to fire a couple’a slugs into him.”
“It’ll be ammunition well used.”
“A diet rich in trash swells them up bigger than possums.”
“We need to keep our lights shining all over this tunnel.”
“Sure, before they decide to have us for dinner.”
Slightly past the middle of the tunnel, the bright lights of Dolan and Jacobson landed on a dead animal lying on its side. They rushed to see if it was Bolo. Heartbreaking enough, it was.
“Oh dam!” Jacobson crackled in denial. “We got here way too late. It’s Bruno and I’ll betcha that bastard killed him with his bare hands.”
Dolan bent down to do a quick diagnosis of the dog’s neck. “Seth, I’m no expert veterinarian here, but he broke Bruno’s collarbone like a popsicle stick.”
“Bruno chopped away at that sonofabitch before was killed.”
“All this blood around his mouth and his coat is proof of that.”
Jacobson shut his eyes and tucked in his bottom lip. “Why’d it have to be Bruno?”
To console his fellow brother in law enforcement, Dolan helped him shake off some of the hurt. “Seth, it’s gonna be alright. We’re going to make him pay for what he did to Bruno.”
“Richie, Bruno was like a family member to me. I would’ve never sent him into this Brush Creek tunnel after that sicko had I known he’d been killed.”
“Don’t go blaming yourself.”
“But I was his teacher, his trainer, his friend, his mentor, all of those things.”
Dolan bounced his floodlight towards the end of the tunnel. “Look Seth, there’s a blood trail leading out of the tunnel and over by Satchel Paige Stadium.”
Jacobson shot his floodlight in the same direction. “You’re right, Richie, there’s lots of blood going to the back of the stadium.”
“You think he might be closeby?”
“It’s a strong possibility.”
“The canine unit didn’t work in helping us apprehend this sicko sack of shit.”
“If he’s closeby, then the air unit’s gonna be a big help to us.”
“Air Support Division might be the last leg for us to stand on.”
“We better radio for backup.”
“Maniacs like him is a lot more dangerous than we know.”
Officer Dolan spoke with frustration into his radio. “Can you respond?”
“912 to respond,” answered the dispatcher.
“Are you clear?”
“Clear, go ahead.”
“Can I get an air unit out here by Brush Creek?”
“What’s your exact ten-twenty?”
“Brush Creek Boulevard and Swope Parkway.”
“Standby.”
“Ten-four.”
Dolan seem to have waited the longest seconds of his career.
The dispatcher came back over the radio. “An airborne unit is en route.”
“Ten-four.”
Officers Dolan and Jacobson moved further towards the end of the tunnel. Their weapons were drawn and pointed as though they’d wanted to take on an army. Jacobson took it as a personal affront how his dear canine had been killed. The trail of blood led them to a few feet beyond the tunnel. Mysteriously, the trail stopped. They were left wondering what happened to their suspect. Standing on the solid concrete roof of the tunnel was Charlie. The arm in which Bruno tried to bite off held a thick tree branch. A makeshift tourniquet was wrapped around his bloody arm.
Dolan and Jacobson bothered to not look up. Charlie studied both officers from above. Extreme levels of adrenalin charged him with power. He leaped from the top of the tunnel with the club-like tree branch drawn backwards. The branch landed perfect blows to the back of their heads. The impact leveled them to the ground. Their guns and bright lights went sliding across the wet slimy concrete. The stars in the nighttime skies weren’t the only ones they were seeing.
Like a major league slugger, Charlie swung at them with aggression. The branch pounded hard into the chests of Dolan and Jacobson. The damage had been done. A brilliant burst of light commanded its presence in the dark Kansas City skies high above. Charlie disappeared from the scene once he looked up and saw the helicopter whipping across the air. He sought refuge anywhere he could. No one knew the dynamics of Brush Creek better than Charlie.
The backup Dolan and Jacobson dispatched had arrived. Charlie rushed inside a separate tunnel on the other side of Satchel Paige Stadium near the Deerbrook Apartments. Chief Tactical Flight Officer Barry Lockhart of the KCPD Air Support Division spotted Charlie running inside the tunnel using the helicopter’s SX-5, thirteen million candlepower searchlight.
Using the chopper’s 800 Mhz Motorola radio, Tactical Officer Lockhart communicated with the ground officers. “Suspect fled into the tunnel on the other side of the stadium and the apartments.”
“Was the suspect armed when you spotted him?” asked one of the ground officers.
“Not from what I could see from up here.”
“Barry, this guy is considered very dangerous.”
“Yeah, I heard what he did to Richie and Seth.”
“We’re not dealing with your average criminal.”
“Homicide tells me that he’s probably responsible for the murders of those two women found in Brush Creek.”
“We’re going to request another canine unit.”
“You sure about bringing out another canine unit?”
“Why not?”
“Stop and think.”
“There’s nothing to think about.”
Before Officer Lockhart juiced up his chopper, he’d been briefed on what happened to fellow officers Dolan and Jacobson. The ground unit told him about how their suspect had twisted the neck of Bruno as only an expert killer could do.
“We’re dealing with an animal here. An animal kills another animal. If this psycho could kill Bruno and keep going, what makes you think that he couldn’t kill another one of our dogs?”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. This guy has got to be caught.”
“Whaddaya know about these tunnels in Brush Creek?”
“Not much.”
“Going on strong intuition, our suspect knows Brush Creek like the hand