by James Hunt
Grant flexed his grip over the blade’s handle. The gloves he wore made the weapon bulky in his hands. He didn’t like it, but he knew that the temperatures were cold enough to freeze his hands should they be exposed for too long.
Low-hanging branches still fresh with frosted morning dew smacked Grant’s face. The wetness and cold lingered long after the branch’s touch, but he didn’t slow his pace.
Grant snapped a twig with his heel, and a scream cut through the woods. It was faint, and the echo of the forest made the voice come from every angle. He paused, quieting his breathing, and crouched. He scanned the woods, hoping, waiting.
“C’mon. Give me another sign,” Grant whispered, the prayer evaporating into the air like the condensation from his breath.
Another scream, louder, closer. Grant stood, moving swiftly toward the right. A second pair of hurried footfalls echoed somewhere beyond the trees, and that’s when Grant spied the bouncing blonde hair between a cluster of trees on his left, parallel to him.
The pair were running in the same direction, and Grant veered to intercept, tackling her to the ground the moment a gunshot shattered the frigid air.
The gunshot, the scream, the contact from their collision, it all blurred together like the cluster of arms and legs that flailed about in a human whirlwind over the rough forest floor.
When the duo rolled to a stop, Grant clamped his hand down over the girl’s mouth to stifle any of the woman’s cries before they had a chance to give away their position or condition.
“Don’t move,” Grant whispered. “And stay down.”
The woman nodded, her eyes wide with terror. She was dirty and covered with sweat, horribly underdressed for the cold in her pants and undershirt. Her skin was pale and covered with grime.
Grant looked behind him, searching for Dennis, waiting for the second shot, but none came.
“Please,” the woman said, whispering through short and labored breaths. “He’ll kill me.”
Grant reached for the woman’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s all right. I will get you out. I promise. But you must do exactly what I tell you, okay?”
She nodded.
“Good,” Grant said. “What’s your name?”
“M-m-missy.”
“Okay, Missy, can you see the cluster of rocks over there behind us?”
Keeping flat on the ground, Missy slowly turned her head, her body trembling. After a pause, she nodded, then looked back to Grant. “Yes.”
“When I tell you, you’re going to run as fast as you can toward those rocks, so go ahead and flip to your stomach so you can get up faster, but don’t raise up too high, okay?” Grant knew that the only reason the pair hadn’t turned into Swiss Cheese was because of the small ledge that they’d fallen behind.
Missy flipped onto her stomach and her palms were flat against the ground. “Okay.”
“Good,” Grant said. “Now, when I tell you, I want you to run toward those rocks as fast as you can and do not stop, no matter what, okay?”
“Okay.”
Grant inched closer to the ledge.
“One,” Grant said, whispering. “Two.” He tensed. “Three.”
Grant sprang upward, positioning his body as a human shield for Missy, who sprinted toward the rocks, grunting from her quickened and determined pace.
The world blurred when Grant first straightened up, his legs stumbling over the rocky terrain like a newborn deer.
Missy ducked behind the rocks and in the same instance another gunshot shattered the frozen air and skimming off the top of the boulders as Grant collapsed next to Missy, who grabbed hold of his arm.
“It’s okay.” Grant caught his breath and checked them both for any wounds, knowing that adrenaline had the ability to mask his pain. “We’re okay.”
Missy trembled at Grant’s side, furiously shaking her head from side to side. “I can’t do this. Christ, I can’t fucking do this.”
Grant took hold of Missy’s face in his gloved hand, and a pair of cold, dark eyes peered back at him. Stripped of her humanity, Dennis had left Missy with only fear and pain. “You’re not going to die. But I need you to believe that, Missy. I can’t do it for you.”
Missy held his gaze, still trembling, but the slightest glimmer of hope replaced the cold fear in her eyes, and she nodded. “Yes. I believe it.”
“Good.” Grant squeezed her shoulder. “I have a car, and it’s far, but we can make it. We just have to keep low, and keep moving.” Grant pointed to a path through the trees off to the right that were clustered tight on either side, which would provide good cover. “We’re going to go right through there. When I say go, you get up and run with me again, okay?”
Missy dug her fingers into Grant’s shoulders, nodding quickly. “Okay.”
“Go!” Grant stepped from the rock face first, and Missy darted forward.
The adrenaline funneling through Missy’s veins kept her at a good pace, and Grant found himself struggling to keep up, but that was better than the alternative.
“Good work, Missy, just keep moving.” Grant stole glances behind him. “Take a left down those rocks, go.” Grant had expected more from Dennis, a hastier pursuit, but the farther they ran without incident, without gunfire raining down over them, the harder it became for Grant to keep his guard up.
Halfway toward the car, the adrenaline that had kept Missy alive had run out, and she collapsed to all fours, gasping for breath, breaking out in a cold sweat, secreting what little hydration she had left. “I… need to… rest.” Her words were sluggish and numb, and Grant knelt by her side, eyes still scanning the woods for any sign of Dennis.
“Missy, I know you’re tired, but I need you to get up.” Grant took hold of her arm and lifted her upright, and he practically held all of her weight in his one hand. But she was so light. Too light. “Just one foot in front of the other.”
Missy tried to walk, she tried to stand, but her feet just scraped across the ground, unable to put any weight down. She whimpered, her cries unintelligible.
“We’re so close, Missy,” Grant said, suddenly filled with a heightened sense of awareness. “Just a little bit farther. Just a little bit more.” He repeated that aloud for a while, the words meant for him as much as they were for Missy.
Missy lolled her head to the side, her eyes rolling in their sockets, unable to focus on anything. Her mouth hung open and her breathing accelerated in quick, short bursts. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Grant looked down at Missy, who grunted in pain, then gagged like she was choking on something. “No.” He gently set her down and checked her pulse. It raced against her finger, and even though she was lying still, her pulse was closer to a sprinter’s pace. “Missy, can you hear me? Missy, I—”
The quick rise and fall of Missy’s chest suddenly slowed, and then stopped all together. Grant felt for a pulse, and where there had been hastened thumps against his finger, he now felt nothing. She had gone into cardiac arrest from shock. “No.”
Grant adjusted Missy’s head to open the airway. He puffed two breaths and then located her sternum, worked two inches to the left, and started compressions. He counted quietly and with a steady rhythm.
“C’mon, Missy.” Grant pumped her chest, refusing to give up. He just needed to jumpstart her heart long enough to get her to the hospital. “Just a few more steps, Missy. That’s all you need, girl. Just a few more.”
Two more breaths. Fifteen compressions. Two breaths. Fifteen compressions. Two. Fifteen. Two. Fifteen.
Grant whimpered, his lips dipping into a frown. “C’mon.” He had lost so many already. He couldn’t lose another.
After completing another cycle, Grant checked for a pulse. It was hard to tell if there was one, his hands were shaking so much, but he concentrated and they steadied. And then he felt a bump. Then another. He exhaled relief. She had a pulse. He bent his ear to her open mouth and again felt the light rush of life from a breath.
Grant scooped Miss
y into his arms. Careful with his footing, Grant carried her all the way back to the car, which was thankfully still in one piece upon his return. He laid her in the backseat, checking her vitals once more before jumping into the driver’s seat and speeding toward the nearest hospital.
42
Even after Grant had disappeared with the woman, Dennis kept his eye glued to his scope. He’d lost another one.
He leaned back, his mouth twisted in a snarl, sniffling and unable to keep still. He shivered not from the cold, but from rage. He’d taken that girl four days ago. Four days of wearing her down, breaking her, and now it was all ruined. “Time to step up my game.”
He returned to the camper, knowing that he’d need to move quickly. He had been waiting for his fabled return to the city, to his home.
After the events with Grant three months ago, Dennis had migrated farther south to avoid the city of Seattle, which had turned into a hotbed of federal, state, and local authorities called in to track him down.
But Dennis stuck to the woods, which had never let him down. However, these were not his woods. The trees, the rocks, the soil, the water, it was all different. He needed to be on his home turf. And it was time for his big move, the trump card that he’d been waiting for.
Dennis laughed, flinging his head back and letting it greet the rising sun on his trek back to the camper. He was giddy.
When the camper came into view, Dennis slung the rifle over his shoulder, skipping toward his humble abode, but then stopped when he was only a few feet away.
The door hung open. Dennis had shut it when he left. He was sure of that. He always shut the door when he left. But had he not locked it? No. He had been too excited about the hunt.
Dennis lowered the weapon and then hurried into the camper. “No.” The place was in disarray. It had been a mess before he’d left, but it was a mess that Dennis was familiar with. This was different. He set the rifle down and then lunged for the sleeping bag. “No.” He flung the empty bag across the room, and then pounded both fists against the rickety floorboard. “No, no, NO!”
The notebook was gone. Dennis needed to move quickly. He packed only the essentials, taking what remained of his ammunition and food. He kept his cash on his person. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get him back to Seattle and buy supplies for his final stand.
With his backpack stuffed, Dennis stepped out of the camper and headed toward the nearest logging trail, which he’d follow to the edge of the highway. It would be a long journey back to Seattle, but it would give him time to think of just how to proceed. He would need to throw all of himself into this. And he would need to do it sooner rather than later.
43
The drop-off at the hospital had been tricky. Grant needed to make sure that the woman received the medical attention that she needed, but he couldn’t stick around to speak to the police, despite the nurse’s request that he do so.
Once the woman was in the safe hands of the doctors, Grant snuck out of the back, evading the security guards on duty as he sped off in the car, which he was forced to ditch after the encounter because he knew that it would be reported.
The walk back to the broken-down motel he was staying in on the outskirts of Portland provided too much time for Grant to be inside of his own head.
Of all the places that Grant thought he would have ended up, he never would have thought he would be on the run after murdering a police detective. And it was all because of one man, Dennis Pullman, who had decided to concentrate his efforts on the one detective who had brought him down. Ex-detective. Fugitive.
The media’s coverage of him had caused the public to cry for his head on a stake. And so he focused on finding Pullman and stopping him from spreading his reign of terror.
It was afternoon by the time Grant finally made it back to the motel, and after the long night that had bled into a long morning, Grant was in desperate need of a shower.
The room was small and had a musty, sour scent to it that Grant suspected was due to some mold issues. But it was cheap, and it had working heat, and that was more than a man in Grant’s position was willing to ask for.
Grant removed the pair of tickets and the notebook that he’d collected from Dennis’s camper from his jacket and set them on the nightstand by the bed. He discarded his clothes on the walk to the shower but kept the blade by his side, resting the weapon on top of the toilet well. He always kept a weapon within arm’s reach. It was part of life on the run. He couldn’t afford to be caught with his pants down. Not this late in the game.
Grant’s skin was so cold that when he stepped beneath the warm water, it burned. But after a few minutes of torture, the skin numbed, and his body finally embraced the water’s warmth.
He lingered in the water longer than he should have, the mirror fogged and the room weighed down with a heavy mist. When he was done, Grant basked in the warmth before draping a towel around his waist, which had grown considerably thin over the past three months, and sat on the edge of the stiff bed.
Stress and hunger had dissolved all of his fat, leaving behind only lean muscle. He hadn’t had abs like these since his twenties. But the bruises and scars that riddled his body weren’t going to land him on the cover of GQ anytime soon. He ran his finger along one of the scars on his stomach, remembering the blade that had slashed at him during the arrest of some kidnapper during his days as part of the Missing Persons department with Seattle PD.
Long since healed, the scar was still raised against his flesh, and it would be there until his body was six feet under and the worms finally got to him. Circle of life.
Grant spied the notebook on the table. He knew he’d have to read it eventually, but after the day he’d had, he wasn’t sure if he was up to it, because he knew that delving into the mind of that mad man more than once a day had its consequences.
But it might be better than falling asleep and facing his nightmares.
Grant grabbed the notebook off the nightstand before he could think better of it and leaned back against the wall. With his hair and beard still wet from the shower, water dripped down the front of his exposed torso as he opened it to the first page.
The handwriting was neat, legible, but written hastily. Sentences were short and efficient, not a lot of fluff as he described the sensations of stalking the woman before snatching her off the street on her way to work.
Grant skimmed the first few pages, avoiding the more gruesome details of their time together. He only looked for clues as to what Dennis might do next, because while Grant had been successful in tracking him down, he was always a step behind, and until he could head Dennis off at the pass, he was never going to be able to stop him.
Finding nothing, Grant slammed the book shut and tossed it aside. His breath had quickened. He shut his eyes and rested his head on the wall. Maybe the notebook wasn’t better than the nightmares.
It was getting harder for Grant. Every day he felt himself step a little bit closer to Dennis Pullman. And he was afraid he would become what the media had painted him as: a killer.
It was a fear that was inching closer to reality every day. He had been able to track Dennis down and stop the past three murders because he had been able to think like Dennis. He had been able to step into the slimy scales and become that person.
But every time Grant stepped back out, a little bit of that Dennis residue would remain, and it was getting harder and harder to scrub that shit off.
A heavy buzz echoed from the dresser drawers that was pressed up against the wall at the foot of the bed.
Grant opened his eyes and lifted his head, but he didn’t move from his seated position. The drawer buzzed a second, third, and then a fourth time.
The phone had never rung since Dennis gave it to Grant three months ago, but Grant had kept it charged on the off chance that he would call.
Frozen, Grant remained on the bed, but when the phone started up again, he quickly leapt off the bed and then opened the drawer. Inside, th
e old flip phone lit up, rattling the empty drawer with every ring.
A sense of dread formed in the pit of Grant’s stomach and slowly spread through the rest of his body. It bubbled like some black tar, but he answered, keeping silent as he brought it to his ear and waited.
Silence lingered, and then Grant heard breathing, and then laughter.
“Did she live?” Dennis asked.
Grant grimaced and slowly made his way toward the window, then pulled back the curtain just a few inches and peered into the parking lot, finding nothing but the handful of cars that belonged to the other sad residents of the Motor-Inn.
“You’re getting sloppy,” Grant answered, letting the curtain fall back.
“And you’re getting better.”
Grant could hear the smile in Dennis’s voice.
“You took something from me at the cabin. Well, two things, if you include the woman.”
Grant stared at the notebook on the bed, and that sickness bubbled in his gut once more. It was sour and hot, like he’d eaten bad Chinese food laced with cyanide.
“Have you taken a peek yet?” Dennis asked.
“I’ve spent enough time in your head,” Grant answered, turning away from the notebook. “I don’t need to do it in my free time.”
“Free time? That’s liberal, don’t you think?” Dennis chuckled again. “How much longer do you think you’ll have ‘free time’, Grant? How much longer until either I kill you or the police find you? You’re good, but we both know that the walls are closing in. We’re both preparing for our final act.”
Grant sat slowly on the edge of the bed, the springs groaning from his weight. He focused on some stain on the wall. It could have been blood, water damage, or some drink someone had splashed against the paint in anger.
The stain had survived whatever minimal cleaning that the room had received over the years, slowly eating away at the paint.
“Don’t tell me you’re ready for your swan song already?” Grant asked, still staring at the wall.