Deputy John Allenbeck had not seen the Stigandr boy, or any member of the Stigandr family, for some years. Naturally, he was surprised when Bjorn, who had barely stood to his chest seven years ago, stumbled into the station. At first he was startled by this giant of a man, spattered with blood, lumbering up to his desk wielding a scythe that was just as bloody. Then he recognized the rugged sculpted features and the golden blonde hair of the family. It was uncanny how much the man seemed to be a younger clone of his father. Apparently, the Stigandr men had a strong Norse influence in their genes.
The deputy didn't need Bjorn to tell him what happened. Although he may not have known the details of why the young man was arriving in this state, he could have predicted the general theme. He remembered well when the boy's family had lost its patriarch. He had only been a new recruit for a week when a twelve year old Bjorn led him and the sheriff to his father's mangled body.
"Deputy," Bjorn panted in a deep voice, "ma's dead...gnolls..."
"Are you alright?" John felt really dumb asking, but he needed to know if the young man needed medical assistance.
Bjorn answered by toppling to his knees and sprawling across John's desk. His scythe clattered to the floor. The deputy thought, for a moment, that the exhausted young man had simply passed out, but he could hear a faint sobbing. He tried several times to move him. He even tried explaining that he needed him to collect himself so that he could ask him some questions, but Bjorn would not be budged.
Deputy Allenbeck felt terrible for the boy, but he found himself wondering why this had to happen tonight, on his shift. Feeling he had no other choice, John called the sheriff.
"Ah, Christ," sheriff Jessup swore groggily when the deputy explained the situation. "That poor kid. Hang on. I'll be there in a bit."
Fifteen minutes later, the sheriff looked over 'that poor kid' and realized he was very much a grown man. Rubbing his eyes, partially to wipe away the last remains of sleep, but also in disbelief at the size of Hallbjorn, Jessup sighed heavily. He looked to deputy Allenbeck and raised his eyebrows.
"Well, son?" the sheriff asked the blood-covered man, still prostrate on the front desk. "Why don't you set down and tell me what happened?"
Bjorn, recognizing the vaguely familiar voice, lifted his head from the hard wooden surface and looked up at the sheriff. His forlorn eyes looked out from the camouflage spattering of blood on his face. They were pleading orbs set in the chiseled and battle-painted visage of a young man with too much life experience. While it seemed he wanted to get up and take a proper seat, he did not seem eager to recount the events of the night.
Jessup saw the anguish in his expression and nodded sympathetically. "I know. It's hard. Listen, why don't we just get you cleaned up and give you a place to rest tonight. If you like, we can wait 'till tomorrow to do all of this."
For a moment, Bjorn looked grateful, but then another shadow crossed his expression. He thought of his mother lying cold on the kitchen floor in a circle of her own blood. Somehow, it didn't seem right, waiting until tomorrow. As unpleasant as it was, he decided it would be for the best if he took care of this now. No, he would not leave his mother alone for the night, her blood attracting whatever curious animals were wandering close by.
So, with much difficulty, Bjorn told the two men all that had happened that night. His tears flowed freely, but he showed notable control of his voice as he clearly spoke the story without wavering. John wrote down everything he said with great interest. When he finished his tale, he looked from the sheriff to the deputy expectantly. He received looks of great pity in return.
"You're a brave man, son," sheriff Jessup said. "And you've had a hard night. Why don't you go in the back and grab a shower. I'll give you a place to sleep, and me and John will go out to the farm and check things out. We'll get everything in order, don't you worry."
"What about the gnolls?" Bjorn asked hesitantly. "Now will you do something?"
It was like a horrific parody of when he was twelve. The two men gave each other the same look he had seen them give one another nine years ago. The sheriff seemed to be wracking his brain for an acceptable response.
"Listen, Bjorn," Jessup began cautiously. "From what we've seen over the past several years, those gnolls run with quite a large pack. Frankly, we don't have the man power to do anything. We've tried settin' up traps, but you know they're not as dumb as some of the other animals. See, the problem is the state doesn't give us enough funding to launch a large scale initiative to get rid of these things. We're a hick town in the middle of nowhere. They're not going to spare the resources they use to protect the big cities to come out here and help us. They figure it's wild country out here, and if we can't handle it, maybe we shouldn't live here."
Bjorn sat silently for several minutes before saying, "How can that be your answer? Won't you do anything?"
Sheriff Jessup sighed. "I know it doesn't sound fair, son, but what can we do? I got me and the two deputies in this whole town. How can we go against all of them?"
"Can't you get the town involved?" Bjorn asked angrily. "Isn't this their problem too?"
"Really, Bjorn," the sheriff said impatiently, "here in town we've never had a problem."
The disbelief that Bjorn felt at this response made him unable to reply. It sounded like the sheriff was telling him that it was his parents' own fault that they were dead, that they shouldn't have come here, spent their savings on farmland, and worked so hard their entire lives. His shock kept him silent as sheriff Jessup showed him where the shower was and where he could sleep for the night. He flinched when Jessup patted his shoulder before walking out the door with deputy Allenbeck.
Bjorn went to the locker room where he stared with a distant sort of ire at the wall of empty lockers. What did a police department with three officers need with twenty four lockers? He stalked into the shower where he stood motionless under the warm water for almost a half an hour. By now the sheriff and the deputy would be looking over the scene, doing whatever little investigation they were going to do. Words were not enough, come to think of it, neither were thoughts, to express the disbelief and resentment that he felt toward law enforcement right now. It made him wonder why his parents had been so worried about paying taxes.
Then a funny thought struck him. When he was younger, his father always used to tell him, "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." Now, as those words echoed in his mind, their significance seemed especially poignant. Suddenly, his mind began to race with ideas.
In seconds Bjorn was back in his bloody clothes and searching the locker room. Most of the lockers were empty, but three contained a few things. There was a jacket and a pair of pants in one. Another contained some clean socks and a folder. Weren't police supposed to have body armor and guns?
Pepper spray. He found pepper spray in the third locker.
He left the locker room in a huff and looked around the back office. There were two desks, a filing cabinet, and three doors. One of the doors was open and led out to the front office where he had come in. The door behind him led back to the locker room. The third door was labeled with the word EVIDENCE in what looked like electrical tape.
It only struck him after he had busted in this third door that what he was doing was surely illegal, but at this point, he really didn't care. He turned on the light and stepped in. On his left were a series of shelves stacked with boxes that had case numbers written on them. Bjorn found it hard to believe that there was enough crime in this town to justify so many boxes. He peeked into one and found a single plastic bag containing a pair of broken sunglasses. He shrugged and looked to his right. There were some more boxes, but these were larger and did not have any case numbers that he could see. Next to these boxes was a tall metal cabinet. Bjorn walked over to this and opened it.
Jackpot.
A black handgun glistened on the center shelf, and two magazines lay next to it. Bjorn really didn't know much about handguns. He had only ever fired a shotgun. He picked up the weapon and looked at it. Down the barrel was stamped a big 'G' with the word 'LOCK' written inside it.
"Glock?" Bjorn muttered curiously. He figured that was the name of the company that made it. Next to the 'GLOCK' logo was the number 22, then in smaller letters 'AUTSTRIA'. Right above the trigger it said '.40 SW'. "Whatever the hell that means," he added.
Noticing that there was no clip already in the gun, he picked up one of the full magazines and slid it into the weapon until he heard it click. Then he noticed that there was what looked like a switch over the trigger and then a button a bit further back above the grip. Curiously, he pushed the button. The magazine fell out and clattered to the floor.
Bjorn sighed. He was beginning to think that this was more trouble than it was worth. He picked up the magazine and slid it back into the gun and put the loaded glock into his front pocket. He grabbed the other magazine from the cabinet and pocketed that as well. Then he turned his attention back to the shelves in the cabinet. Surely there had to be something else of use in there.
"What's this?" he gaped at a small silver flask with the letters 'SS' ornately etched upon its smooth surface. He twisted off the stopper and held the flask to his nose. It smelled an awful lot like brandy. With a shrug he tossed it back.
When he was younger his mother had given him a shot of brandy whenever he had caught a cold. It had always helped him to sleep soundly at night and, thus, recover more quickly. As an adult, he was familiar with the effects of larger volumes of alcohol and figured if there was ever a time he needed a drink, it was now. He was completely surprised by the effect of the content of this flask; it was certainly not brandy. It burned harshly as it went own and, for a moment, all the color left his vision. It was gone in a fraction of a second, however his skin, it appeared, remained a stony gray color. Now that he thought about it, perhaps it was not the greatest idea to drink from a random flask in closet labeled 'EVIDENCE' in the sheriff's department.
Regardless, time was wasting, so he tossed the flask back into the cabinet and, trying to ignore the strange color of his skin, rummaged briefly for anything else that might be useful. At the very bottom of the cabinet, he found it. There in a metal case was a stockpile of long, red, tube like sticks that Bjorn could only imagine was dynamite.
"That can't be safe," he muttered with a raised eyebrow. Whatever he thought about the safety measures employed, or not employed, by the sheriff's department, it didn't stop him from taking one of the sticks. He looked it over curiously, as there as no fuse that he could see, but he did notice that it was capped on both ends with plastic. Well, he didn't have time to puzzle over it now. He stuffed it into the pocket containing the extra gun clip.
Satisfied that he had enough to at least make things interesting, he exited the evidence closet and headed toward the front door. As he stepped through the front office, he noticed his blood-covered scythe still lying on the floor. He went over and picked it up. Of all the things he was bringing to the fight, this felt the most comfortable in his hands. Besides, at some point he was sure it would become a close quarters battle. Somehow he couldn't see that little handgun cutting as large a swath in a group of opponents as his reaper would. Gripping the scythe tightly, he walked out the door and headed down the west road out of town, on a path that would lead him just north of his family's farm.
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