The Creator

by Neil Carstairs

  As she ran towards what remained of the media pool Kramer drew fire from the gunmen. Ben put two bursts across the roof of the Journey. As the shooters ducked Ben hustled around the back of the SUV and down the side of the patrol car. He heard Kramer fire and glimpsed both gunmen as they angled towards her. Ben brought his HK up to his shoulder. He took a second to steady his breath, sighted on the lead shooter and put a three round burst into the guy’s body. The second gunmen hesitated for a fraction of a second and died when Kramer took half his head off.

  Ben looked across the street. Kramer pointed to the other Journeys. One burned with the fury of a gasoline fire. The other had made it a short distance down the road. Its occupants were out and mixing it in a furious firefight with the three other shooters. Ben paralleled Kramer, running hard. He saw Kramer’s team retreating, using trees as cover. The shooters stalked them as they raked the scene with uncontrolled fire from their AKs. Off in the distance Ben could hear sirens. Closer in came the crackle and pop of a burning car. He glanced to Kramer again and she held up two fingers before pointing ahead of him.

  He saw them. Two of the gunmen trying to outflank his teammates. They appeared ahead of him. Ben went to one knee. He rested against a tree and fired. One shooter went down and the other dived for cover. Ben rose, then ducked again as the gunman fired at him. He heard the bullets go by in time with the hammering of his heart.

  Kramer opened up from her position and drew return fire. Now the situation had changed. They had the two shooters trapped in crossfire. Kramer and Ben were able to pin them down as the guys from the Journey moved back up. Ben saw one gunman rise, his voice a long, angry scream as he ran towards Kramer and died with his chest torn apart. The last terrorist was the one closest to Ben. He stepped out from behind a tree and emptied his AK. Ben heard the branches above him splinter. Shredded wood and leaves fell like snow. The shooter died as Ben put three rounds through his face. Silence dropped over the street like a blanket.

  ***

  They were twenty miles on from the turning to Emerson. Twenty miles from the body of a middle-aged woman named Karen O’Riordan. Julie drove and Jane sat in the back with Emily. The girl had fallen asleep against her mother, worn out by the constant worry of her visions. Jane stroked her daughter’s hair just to soothe her own feelings. This was turning into the worst day of her life. She was a fugitive from a military base and now a killer on the run. If it wasn’t for Emily, Jane would have broken down by now, but she had to stay strong for her daughter. If not for herself.

  ‘We need to find out what’s happening.’

  Jane looked up. Julie spoke over her shoulder, concentrating on driving as much as she could. ‘I’m not using Emily like Karen did,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t expect you to. I was thinking more like a rest stop. They’ll have televisions, maybe wi-fi, because this radio is useless.’ Julie patted the console of the car.

  ‘I guess you don’t want to try to make contact with anyone.’

  ‘My spirit guide isn’t around at the moment. Can’t say I blame him. If what happened to Karen is anything to go by then he and I will be in danger if we try any contacts.’

  ‘Whatever took over Karen called itself The Creator. Have you ever heard of that?’

  ‘No. If I heard that in any other situation I’d think it was a spirit who thought highly of itself. You get some people like that. They think they are the special one. But seeing it control Karen so completely, and knowing that maybe it killed Alan as well, means that this spirit is strong.’

  ‘Don’t you mean evil?’

  ‘Well, yes I suppose I do. But I’ve always thought that evil was just a tag we put on acts we disapprove of.’

  Jane stared out of the window. Another mile passed in silence until Julie asked. ‘Back there, Emily mentioned someone called Grandpa Pete. You said he might be in Chicago.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he your father?’

  ‘No.’ Jane felt the odd sensation of a laugh bubbling in her throat.

  ‘Father-in-law?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘He’s not a blood relation Emily always called him Grandpa because of his grey hair.’

  ‘So he’s a family friend?’

  ‘You could say that. We keep in touch and he and Emily bonded when…’ Jane hesitated.

  ‘When what?’ Julie glanced back.

  Jane sighed. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Julie said her eyes on Jane in the mirror. ‘But if we need somewhere to stay in Chicago would he help or would you want to ask for help.’

  ‘He’d help,’ Jane said. ‘And I would ask because I want Emily to be safe.’

  ‘Good, it gives us a place to aim for. Can you contact him?’

  ‘I can phone him.’

  ‘We’ll find a place to stop and you can do it from there.’

  ***

  The CSI team allowed Ben and the others into a staff annexe at the mansion. Most of the investigation concentrated on the main kitchen. After the gun battle outside, the CSI lead investigator figured the perpetrators of the Fenton killings were now dead so using this part of the house wouldn’t compromise the murder enquiry. The annexe had its own kitchen, office and rest rooms. Ben was in the bathroom as he splashed what felt like another pint of cold water onto his face. He straightened, stared at his pale face in the mirror, and tried to blot out the images of death that filled his head.

  He didn’t care about the terrorists because they had been trying to kill him. No, it was the three members of the team who had died in the Dodge Journey that he couldn’t escape. They were dead by the time he and Kramer reached the SUV but he’d seen enough through the smoke and flame of the burning car to sicken him for life.

  ‘Don’t do this to yourself.’ He spoke to his reflection and half expected, in his current frame of mind, to get a reply.

  With a shake of his head, Ben left the bathroom and walked through to the kitchen. The surviving members of the team were there except for Kramer. Ben could hear talking through the closed door of the estate manager’s office. He sat down in one of the empty chairs and looked round. Each man avoided his eyes. They all knew that luck more than skill had brought them through the gun battle. No-one wanted to speak yet. Let alone make eye contact.

  So Ben sat back and stared out of the kitchen window. He could hear helicopters as they hovered above the property. What had been a media pool had become an ocean in the last hour. One of the local news networks had been running a live report from outside Fenton’s mansion when the attack started. That report ended up a national and international exclusive. The female reporter’s terrified commentary, as stray rounds slapped through journalists and civilian onlookers, provided the perfect accompaniment to the pictures provided by her cameraman.

  Ben had seen some of the film. It now played in an almost continuous loop on network channels. Kramer had looked good sprinting across the road. The cameraman caught Ben in perfect profile as he provided covering fire. The media were told that the terrorists had ambushed a Homeland Security unit sent to hunt them down. The talking heads on the television were calling them heroes. Ben didn’t feel like a hero. He felt like shit.

  The office door opened and Kramer came out. She looked pale and tired as she slumped into the chair next to Ben. ‘That was Dawson,’ she said. ‘He passed on the President’s condolences for the loss of our friends and his thanks for our actions in stopping the terrorists.’

  ‘We were lucky,’ Jason Buhl said.

  Kramer nodded. Buhl had been driving the lead vehicle and his reaction was quick enough to get them out of the main arc of fire. The men in the second Journey hadn’t been so lucky.

  ‘That’s all it takes sometimes,’ Bobby Pruitt, the youngest on the team, said. He had a bandage on his right forearm where a round from an AK47 had clipped him.

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to thank you.’

  It took Ben a moment to realise that Kramer was talking t
o him. He shrugged, not sure what to say. ‘I’m just glad I didn’t freeze,’ he said.

  ‘You looked like you’ve been doing this for years.’ She gave him a smile that warmed his heart.

  ‘Well I’m hoping my sister doesn’t watch the coverage of this,’ Ben said. ‘Otherwise she’ll make me stop.’

  ‘Dawson wants us to stay in Seattle until what’s left of DSI are bedded into their new base. He’s persuaded the local Secret Service office to give us two armoured Chevy Suburbans for us to use.’

  ‘Too late.’ Buhl stood and left the room.

  Kramer looked like she wanted to call him back but stopped. She looked at Pruitt and Daniel Mack. ‘I need you all rested and ready for action. This has put our investigation to the top of the pile. All intelligence agencies are being tasked to support us. Dawson also said that Julie Zabel and Emily DeForrest are missing. We may be asked to go look for them so get Corporal Buhl and make sure he’s okay. We’ll rendezvous at the motel.’

  The two servicemen left the kitchen. When they were alone Kramer put her head in her hands and whispered, ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘What? No.’ Ben instinctively reached out and rested a hand on her back. ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘Because I should have thought about the possibility of an ambush,’ she said.

  ‘Kramer, that’s junk. Complete junk.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. We saw the recordings of the men disappearing into the wormhole. There is no way we would have expected them to reappear a couple of hundred yards down the road.’

  ‘I’m their commanding officer,’ she said. ‘Or should I say Acting C.O. After this, I don’t think I’ll get the permanent position.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ Ben said. ‘Look at the way you reacted. You were the perfect professional.’

  She sighed and half shook her head as if she still disagreed with him. Ben wanted to say something else but his phone chimed with an incoming email. He opened the message, read it twice and then a third time before he said, ‘We’ve identified two of the gunmen.’

  ‘So quickly?’ Kramer leant in close to read the email, close enough that Ben could feel the warmth of her body next to his.

  ‘Fingerprints from the dead were run against CIA and FBI known terrorist databases. It’s a pretty short list, but add in the faces we had from the security cameras and we have two one hundred percent hits.’

  ‘Our first breakthrough.’ She smiled, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘No.’ Ben scrolled further down the message.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they’re both dead.’

  ‘I know they are. We shot them.’

  ‘I mean they are, or were, verified dead. Both men had been picked up by coalition forces in Afghanistan as foreign insurgents. They spent time in Pul-el-Charkhi prison but were shot dead during a prison breakout organised by the Taliban.’

  Ben turned the phone so Kramer could see the images on the screen. They were taken on a mortuary slab. The face of each man slack and unresponsive.

  ‘Are they sure?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll look into it.’ Ben closed the message. ‘There could be a case of mistaken identity in the prison.’

  ‘Maybe someone has hacked our database and put this in to confuse us.’

  Ben felt an edge of disappointment as Kramer sat back away from him. He continued to stare at the screen, not wanting her to see the look on his face. The dead men filled his vision and that sparked another thought. ‘Or maybe they are dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Forget I said that. I had a crazy thought for a moment.’

  ‘Wait up.’ Kramer put a hand on his arm. ‘Dawson wanted you on the team because you were open-minded. Don’t dismiss something because you think it’s too crazy. What were you thinking?’

  ‘Where do the monsters come from? The photos you showed me were unreal, like creatures out of a nightmare. So give me a one-word description of where they might originate from.’

  Kramer’s blue eyes were unblinking. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Yes you do. A shark comes from the ocean. A tiger comes from the jungle. These creatures come from?’

  ‘Hell,’ Kramer said.

  Ben smiled and resisted the impulse to kiss her. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘They come from hell.’

  ‘So what are you saying? You think…’ she paused as Ben held up one hand.

  ‘It’s another theory, that’s all.’

  ‘Your theory is that the monsters we saw in Africa and the ones who invaded Kenyon Base came from Hell.’

  ‘And the dead terrorists,’ Ben added. ‘They died in a prison break. Where do terrorists go when they die?’

  ‘I hope they go to Hell,’ Kramer said.

  Ben put a hand on her thigh and said, ‘Yes. Hell.’

  Kramer looked down at his hand. ‘I know we’re working together, but I am your commanding officer and putting your hand there is not a good idea.’

  ‘So order me to remove it,’ Ben said, with more confidence than he felt.

  ‘I’ve got a better idea. Use both your hands to compose a report to Dawson with this latest theory. He can ask the psychics to look into it.’

  Ben left his hand in place until her right eyebrow rose. He turned to his laptop and said, ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  ***

  They stopped at a town named Hubbard. Julie parked up outside a mini-mart at the same time that Emily woke on the back seat. The girl sat up, yawned and said, ‘I need the restroom.’

  ‘There should be one inside,’ Julie said. ‘Otherwise it might be a quick hop round the back.’

  They got out. Jane was pleased to be able to stretch her legs. The back seat didn’t do much for her back and she hoped that Emily would be okay enough for her to sit up front when they started off again.

  ‘Do you think they’ve got a pay phone as well?’ Jane asked.

  ‘I’m sure they will.’ Julie leant back into the car and began rummaging through the glove compartment. She came out with a smile and holding an envelope and said, ‘Bingo.’

  ‘What is it?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Karen had to use her credit card when she hired the car but I asked her to bring cash as well. Enough to keep us off the grid for a few days if we need to be.’

  As she talked, Julie counted through the notes in the envelope. ‘About two thousand dollars,’ she said.’ We’ll need to buy a few things for the journey and you can get change to call your friend.’

  Jane didn’t think she had ever seen that much money in real life as she took the notes Julie handed her.

  The cool and quiet of the mini-mart came as a relief from the cramped heat of the car. Julie browsed the shelves while Jane and Emily disappeared out the back. When they re-joined her the three of them took a few minutes to choose snacks and drinks to see them through their journey. They paid, got change for the telephone and then Julie and Emily disappeared to wait outside while Jane made the call.

  Jane stood with her back to the shop. She held the receiver and stared at the numbered buttons as if they were painted with hieroglyphs. The tone in her ear hummed like the blood in her veins. Her hands shook as she pressed the buttons. The dial tone changed to a ringing tone. Jane rested her forehead against the cool metal of the phone stand. She closed her eyes and counted the rings. She expected with each one that it would be switch to a voicemail recording.

  ‘Hello?’ he answered. The soft voice she remembered so well and for a moment she got choked up and couldn’t speak. ‘Hello?’ he must be able to hear her breathing because he said. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Pete, it’s me.’ She heard her own voice say.

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said after a moment’s silence. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘No.’ Jane heard the fear in her own voice and tried to clamp it down.

  ‘What’s wrong? Is it Emily?’

  �
��We’re in danger,’ Jane said in a rush.

  ‘Danger?’ she could almost see him frowning down the line. ‘That’s a strange thing to say.’

  ‘We need help. Somewhere to hide for a few days. I thought of you. I know I haven’t been in touch for months but I can explain when I see you because I can’t talk about it over the phone…’

  ‘Jane, Jane.’ Pete spoke into her flood of words. ‘Slow down, take a breath. If you’re in trouble you can call the police from where you are. They’ll help you.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’ Jane felt tears squeeze out of her eyes. ‘We’re not in trouble. We’re in danger and the police can’t help because they wouldn’t believe us but I know you would if we could just sit down and explain it to you.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Pete said. ‘Can you tell me what this danger is?’

  ‘Not over the phone. We need to come and see you. We have a friend with us, we can tell you then.’

  ‘This friend,’ Pete said. ‘Is this a male friend?’

  ‘No.’ Jane choked out a laugh. ‘Julie is female and just a friend.’

  ‘Just checking.’ Pete laughed as well, and for a moment Jane remembered the better times of the last few years.

  ‘We’re in Nebraska, in a town called Hubbard. Are you in the same house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is…is Lyndsey there?’

  ‘No, she moved out the best part of a year ago. We’re getting divorced.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you to call.’

  Silence. Jane didn’t know what to say. Was that an invitation? He was almost single. She was single. Too many thoughts crowded into her head.