The Promisor: A Suspense Thriller

by Dustin Stevens

  A standard iron barricade, it was made from rounded bars. A half dozen of them stacked horizontally one atop the other with six-inch gaps between them, held in place by four vertical supports spaced at equal intervals. Looking to have been in place for decades, the exterior of it was rusted to the point that none of the original color remained, replaced entirely by the reddish orange of oxidation.

  Along the left side of the lane, a length of chain was looped over a fencepost. A way to keep it closed, requiring anybody approaching to step out and manually push it open.

  A means of either keeping pets or livestock inside or deterring any visitors from approaching.

  A choice Reed was willing to bet trended more toward the latter.

  “Doesn’t look to be locked,” Reed said aloud. Drawn forward by the sound of his voice and the increase of his pulse, Billie pushed her muzzle forward between the front seats. There she waited as he put the sedan in park before pushing open the driver’s side door.

  An exit she was not about to be left behind on, spilling down after him as he stepped out onto the drive that was equal parts earth and gravel. Ground that stayed moist beneath the heavy canopy above, allowing for tire tracks to be plainly visible in the mud.

  Signs of recent passing, hinting that Reese had been by in the not-too-distant past.

  As had animals of some sort, a series of paw prints interspersed between the passing of the vehicles.

  “Down,” Reed commanded, waiting until Billie lowered herself to the ground beside the sedan before heading on toward the fencepost nearby. Alternating his gaze between either side of the gate, he watched for signs of movement before lifting the chain and beginning to push.

  A decision he knew instantly was in error.

  The sequence came at Reed in distinct parts. A trick of the mind that allowed him to experience them each individually, despite no more than a fraction of a second separating one from the next.

  A slowing down of time, meant to impart maximum effect. A sensory assault attacking him from multiple angles, conveying everything from realization to dread to panic to pain, his body barely able to register it all, let alone do anything to stop it.

  The instant Reed heard the clear sound of a line snapping, he knew he was in trouble. The moment right after he’d raised the chain and began to push, when the sagging bottom of the gate had just started to scrape across the muddy lane.

  The exact instant when any bit of excess on the string attached to the lowest rung had been exhausted, the line holding taut for just a moment before the tensile strength gave way.

  A release that was as loud as a thunderclap in the silence of the wooded lane. A warning bell, setting off every internal alarm Reed possessed, his entire body seizing as he jerked to a halt.

  A combination of sound and movement that Billie picked up on instantly, a sound rolling out from deep in her diaphragm, almost begging him to release her from the command so she could join him.

  Man and animal both bracing on instinct as the broken string recoiled. Frayed ends of a dark green cordage serving as a tripwire Reed hadn’t noticed before.

  A booby trap, perfectly concealed through the combination of the dense foliage abutting the edge of the lane and his own haste. An error in magnitude he barely had a chance to process, his eyes opening wide, his lips parting to call out, before the final piece arrived. The thing he had seen happen countless times before, but never at such a close range.

  And never aimed directly at his chest.

  Any question as to what the other end of the line was attached to ended with the eruption of the shotgun hidden just inside the edge of the lane. Fixed into position and pointed at the exact spot he was standing, it was devised to mow down any unwanted intruders.

  The real impediment that the gate was just a smokescreen for, meant to keep out anybody that dared try to enter uninvited.

  The instant the three-part progression was complete, the world moved back into full speed. Rushing forward in a blur, barely had the shotgun unleashed a plume of blinding orange light before Reed felt its payload strike him full in the chest. A sledgehammer mashing into his body armor, the vest keeping the buckshot from penetrating his vital organs but doing nothing to stem the kinetic energy of it.

  A transfer of force far greater than his body could absorb, the concentrated power lifting him into the air. Two hundred pounds flung straight back as if he weighed nothing at all.

  A grown man hanging suspended, helpless to stop it. A weightless flight that lasted for what felt like seconds, time enough for every nerve and pain receptor in his body to come alive at once. A thousand evoked responses to the piercing jabs spread across his chest plates. The blunt force driven into his solar plexus.

  The blinding flash of light in his eyes and thunderous reverb of the explosion in his ears.

  A full-body message that he had messed up, delivered in a manner far more potent than ever before.

  Eight feet in total, Reed was tossed backward. An unplanned flight that ended with the back of his neck and shoulders making first contact. An unabated shot to the front grille of his vehicle, the impact enough to snap his head forward, stars bursting across his vision.

  Pops of light to accompany the heightened buzzing in his ears. A visualization of the pain hurtling the length of his neck and spine.

  Initial impact serving as precursor to the rest of him toppling to the earth. An unceremonious crash of limbs landing in an uneven tangle. A twisted mash of humanity, kept upright only by the bumper of the sedan behind him.

  A broken heap of a man swimming on the edge of consciousness.

  Opening his mouth wide, Reed fought to draw in gasps of air. He forced his eyes open wide. Anything he could do to keep the darkness from enveloping him, leaving him exposed in the center of the lane.

  An easy target should Brooks Reese come along right now to finish things.

  For the first time in more than two years together, Billie abandoned a command. Relinquishing her spot on the ground beside his door, she bolted forward. Pressing her chest into his shoulder, her damp nose and wet tongue brushed across his features.

  Frantic movements punctuated by low whines. Audible calls imploring him to rise and let her know he was okay.

  Pleas that, no matter how much he wanted to, Reed could not bring himself to answer. Not with his entire ribcage feeling as if it was in a vice, his mouth gaping as he fought for precious oxygen.

  A losing battle, as no matter how hard he battled, he could not keep the darkness at bay. A veil slowly settling over him, creeping around the edges of his vision, brought on by the traumas of the blast to his chest and his impact with the front of the sedan.

  A haze enveloping him, the last thing he registered being a pair of silhouettes drawing closer. Dark specters, the sources of the paw prints in the mud around him, sprinting closer. Drawn in by the shotgun blast, now passing through the stripes and shadows formed by his headlamps and the gate.

  Approaching enemies he wasn’t able to hear through the ringing in his ears. Just as he couldn’t hear the response of Billie as she turned to face them, placing herself between Reed and the pair of dogs.

  An impending battle Reed was helpless to prevent – or even assist in - as his world slipped completely to black.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The alert came directly to The Promisor’s phone. A double pulse of the vibrate function that was enough to get his attention without becoming a nuisance. Twin nudges letting him know that something was amiss at home, there and gone before it could become an impediment to whatever he might be doing.

  A system that he had installed weeks before in anticipation of a possibility such as this. Additional firepower to aid Kratos and Bia in their efforts and a warning to him that whatever head start he might have had vanished, the authorities at his front gate.

  A timing that couldn’t be by coincidence, paired with the two cruisers that had arrived at the home of his third target an hour before. Four
officers in total that had pulled up in front of the house and made their way to the front door, finding the place deserted save the single elderly housekeeper that oversaw the place.

  Damned fools that had obviously been alerted that something was going on and were dispatched to warn the impending target, but hadn’t taken the time to check the man’s schedule. Law enforcement personnel who weren’t aware that he always left work early to play golf on Thursdays.

  Someone that right now was a few miles away on the back nine of the Running Bear Golf Course, his phone off, nothing rising to the level of concern to warrant interrupting the steady whittling of a handicap currently resting at +3.

  Facts that The Promisor knew all too well, counting on them to help him finish what he came here to do.

  Same as he was counting on the officers posted up nearby to have badly misconstrued who the actual target was.

  Seated in a lawn chair on the opposite bank of the small lake serving as the centerpiece of the cul-de-sac the target lived on, The Promisor was surrounded by all of the necessary camouflage. Items pulled from his own personal collection now lined out before him, helping to serve as the perfect cover.

  Equally spaced on the ground before him a trio of fishing rods. Poles of uniform size and length with bobbers affixed, all cast out toward the center of the lake and left to dance on the small ripples atop the water.

  Lines that were loaded with enough weight to keep them in place and bare hooks, The Promisor not the least bit interested with actually having to pay them any attention.

  Open beside him was a plastic tackle box. An item that had just the barest of essentials lined across the top should any nosy neighbor wander by.

  Otherwise, it was stripped nearly bare, intended to be grabbed on the fly or left behind entirely when the time for exiting arrived.

  Little more than window dressing, the real item of importance was stowed in the small copse of trees just a few yards away. The Mossberg rifle that was brought in hours before and stowed beneath the layer of brittle leaves and pine needles lining the ground.

  The reason The Promisor needed to get to the cemetery so early this morning, so he could be sure to get to the cul-de-sac and hide what he needed to before daylight broke. A task he managed to pull off and then disappear, idling away the hours in a café and a public library before returning in the early afternoon.

  Just as he had done several times before, to the point that he doubted anybody living nearby would even think to notice him sitting along the water’s edge.

  The last thing The Promisor had done before leaving the house this morning was to engage the homemade security system. A design of his own hand that attached to both the front gate and back door, meant to eliminate any threat that might arrive and alert him of their presence.

  Two goals rigged to simple sensors, held in place by basic tripwires. Strings that nobody would think to look for, let alone notice tucked away amidst the dense leaves pushing in tight along his driveway or at the top of the doorframe.

  A system that had, apparently, worked perfectly.

  Even if such a thing provided little in the way of comfort, The Promisor’s vast preference being that there was no need for it to begin with.

  Leaving the phone stowed along his hip, The Promisor kept his gaze aimed straight ahead. Not a soul alive even had the number for the phone he carried. Existing for the singular purpose of letting him know should the cabin be disturbed, there was no need to look at it. No point to check to see if he had received a text from an old friend or was getting hassled by some political campaign asking him for a donation.

  Ideally, he would have been able to rig the system to cameras of some sort. A live feed giving him a visual of whoever was intruding and the greeting they received from the shotgun rigged to go off the instant a sensor was activated.

  A front row seat thereafter to the blue nose pit bulls flying in to perform cleanup, responding to the sound of the blast just as they’d been trained to.

  Requiring far more expertise than he possessed, The Promisor had opted against it. Content with what was already in place, he had conceded that all he really needed was the signal. The heads up that his timeframe was narrowing. The torn scrap of his pants or a traffic camera or any of a thousand other possible mishaps had put them on his trail.

  A message imparting that, just as he had told his wife earlier, there would be no returning until things were finished.

  A timeframe that now had been accelerated even further, meaning that once his third target finished his round at Running Bear and returned home, The Promisor would be waiting.

  Just as he would be later still for his fourth and final target.

  The last remaining piece, allowing him to fulfill his most important promise.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Reed Mattox’s life path had been the very definition of rough and tumble. An existence that saw him play every sport imaginable through high school. Own a dirt bike as a young kid. Participate in plenty of intramurals during college.

  Later on, it included years in various forms of training with the Columbus Police Department, ranging from the academy to his ongoing education working with Billie, to say nothing of countless encounters with various criminals and perpetrators of illegal acts.

  Three and a half decades that saw him take plenty of shots over the years, but only twice rattled him enough to lose consciousness.

  The first was during a wrestling match in high school. A scrum in the league championships that saw him and his opponent accidentally go tumbling off the mat, sending the back of Reed’s head into the bare gym floor beneath.

  A few quick seconds of darkness that he still doesn’t consider losing full cognizance, though his parents and coaches ardently disagree.

  The second occurred in his first months at the police academy. A training exercise in which the bastard he was squaring off against took a cheap shot with a pugil stick. A blow delivered deliberately after the whistle, multiplied by pulling up higher on the handle to ensure that the pipe comprising the middle handle made direct contact with Reed’s temple.

  A shot that erupted in a flurry of bright lights, everything fading out before eventually he awoke to see Riley standing over him wearing an expression mixed of concerned and thoroughly pissed.

  The first of many times he would view such a look over the years, forever thankful that he was never the instigating factor for it.

  This was nothing like either of those previous instances.

  Cracking open his eyes, Reed’s brain felt as if it was two sizes too large for his skull. His tongue resembled sandpaper, scraping against the backs of his teeth and against the roof of his mouth.

  His vision blurred, twin images passing in front of him before slowly starting to merge.

  “Mph,” he muttered, the small groan being the best he could manage as he lifted his chin from his chest. The closest thing to a full word that could be produced as he blinked repeatedly.

  Extending a hand, he reached for Billie pressed beside him, her chin balanced atop his thigh. A slow and pained movement that saw him instinctively place his hand along the length of her neck, reaching for the thick tuft of fur between her ears.

  An effort that made it no further than resting his hand atop her before jerking it back, her coat warm and sticky to the touch. A damp and matted sensation that pushed through whatever fog existed, causing him to recoil.

  A reflexive action making him look down to find his fingers slick with blood. Bright reds droplets coating his skin, resting in the creases and ridges of his hand.

  “Billie?” he managed, his entire core seizing tight at the sight of the fresh blood marring his skin. Red streaks that extended clear to his wrist, hinting at the damage done to his partner.

  A sight that pushed a bit of adrenaline into his system, strong enough to nudge aside more of the residual fog of a moment before. Palpitations hurtling up through his core, he rocked forward from the bumper of the sedan,
extending both hands before him.

  “Billie?!” he gasped a second time, each heartbeat thundering in his chest as she lifted her chin from his thigh, twisting her head to look up at him.

  Easing his hands past her muzzle, the jet black hairs matted with blood and saliva, Reed touched the thick fur of her cheeks. His eyes wide, he thought back to the last images he could recall before losing consciousness.

  The pair of pit bulls hurtling themselves his way, Billie squaring off across from them.

  “Girl? Are you okay?” he whispered, keeping both hands on her as he lifted his gaze to the driveway beyond. The mix of mud and gravel with a tale of battle inscribed upon it, paw prints and claw marks and elongated streaks of blood all plainly visible.

  All the key indicators of a battle having taken place, the lone exception being sign of the other combatants.

  “What happened here?” Reed asked, still not trusting his head to speak in anything above a whisper. Sweeping his gaze over the scene before him, he released one hand from Billie’s coat, using it to reach for his phone.

  Holding it out before him, he alternated his gaze between the device and his partner, using a blood-soaked thumb to navigate the touchscreen. Red smears across the plastic ignited every chemical his body seemed capable of producing as he found what he was looking for.

  Mashing on the button to place on outgoing call, he flipped to speakerphone before dropping the phone to his lap and returning both hands to Billie again.

  An ongoing damage assessment, hoping, praying, that the bulk of the blood painting her coat and the ground before them wasn’t hers.

  “Grimes,” the captain answered after just a single ring.

  “I need an emergency vet to my location, right now,” Reed said, pushing the words out as fast as he could, the sound of them a bit distorted through the faint ringing still present in his ears. “Or a trauma vet, or whatever the hell the equivalent is for animals.”