Prey

by C. A. Shives

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prey

  More From CA Shives

  PREY

  C.A. Shives

  Firestorm Editions

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PREY

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Firestorm Editions

  Copyright 2014 by C.A. SHIVES

  Cover art by COVER SHOT CREATIONS

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  First Printing: JUNE, 2014

  Printed in the United States of America

  It wasn’t the hooded sweatshirt or gloves that drew Artemis Herne’s attention to the young man who walked through the single glass door. It was the way the man scanned the scene—glancing at each individual person in the small convenience store—that aroused the instincts Herne had long ago buried deep inside of himself.

  A swirl of crisp autumn air blew in as the man entered. But despite the cool temperature, sweat dripped from Herne’s forehead and trickled down the side of his face. The acrid scent of whiskey seeped from his pores and mingled with the bitter perspiration that soaked his skin. After three days of steady drinking, hunger had finally overpowered his need for alcohol. So he had sobered up and driven to the store. He hoped he’d stay clean permanently—or at least for a few weeks—but in his heart he knew that he’d be drinking again in a matter of days.

  Maybe a matter of hours.

  He was surprised he noticed the young man in the hooded sweatshirt. Even now, as Herne stood amid boxes of tampons, bottles of aspirin, and tubes of sunscreen, his vision blurred and his head pounded. He struggled to focus on the painkillers he grabbed with his thick fingers. A shiver shook him. Although he felt detached from his detox symptoms, a brief pang of regret shot through his gut. There had been a time, not long before, when his senses had been sharp and his reflexes had been quick. A time when his life had mattered. Mattered to his wife. Mattered to his fellow cops at the department. Mattered to him.

  But now his wife was dead. He wasn’t a cop anymore. And he didn’t give a shit about his own life.

  When the young man looked in his direction, Herne steadily met his stare. The man’s light blue eyes glittered in the florescent lights as he turned away and sauntered to the back of the store, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans.

  Herne looked at the wares on the shelf in front of him, his eyes focused on it although he didn’t really see it. Shupp’s Shop was nothing more than a small town convenience store owned by a family of Mennonites. Crammed on the six rows of shelves were items someone might need at the same time they filled up their truck’s gas tank and checked the pressure in their tires: snack foods, magazines, cookies, and lip balm. A carousel display of Bibles and religious pamphlets sat by the door. Along the back wall of the store were refrigerator cases filled with bottles of milk, soda, juice, and water, as well as a few extra groceries like butter and eggs. Beside the cash register was a small deli counter where a clerk would prepare fresh sandwiches for customers.

  Today the store clerk was a young Mennonite girl, wearing a long blue dress patterned with small flowers, her brown hair in a tight bun covered with a starched white cap. A few wispy strands of hair fell across her forehead. The strings of her bonnet hung loosely, brushing against her soft cheeks. The girl’s brown eyes reminded Herne of a rabbit, skittish and edgy, as if she believed the evil of the world would grab her if she let down her guard.

  It was exactly the same thing Herne believed.

  It was exactly what he knew to be true.

  She spoke to the middle-aged customer who shuffled up to the counter, a woman so rotund that the rolls of her stomach flapped over the waistband of her stretchy, cotton pants. “How are you today, Mrs. Perry?” the girl said.

  “My hips been botherin’ me a bit,” Mrs. Perry answered. “Doc Calahan says I’m gonna need surgery soon. But he’s only talking like a doctor. They’re just thieves who want to rob patients like me and then rob insurance companies, too. I’ll be walkin’ on this hip for years.”

  “I’m sure you will,” the young girl responded. Her voice, soft and polite, was barely audible over the hum of the refrigerator case. “Is there something special I can get for you today?”

  As Mrs. Perry placed her order—one roast beef sandwich with extra mayonnaise, one turkey sandwich with extra mayonnaise, and one ham sandwich with extra mayonnaise—Herne glanced at the other customers in the store. A man, probably in his late thirties, stood in front of a line of coffee makers, waiting for a pot to finish brewing. He wore a scowl of impatience, as if the time it took to make coffee was an unspeakable inconvenience. His dress pants and tie bespoke of office work, as did the softness of his hands. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and began texting in earnest, the set of his narrow shoulders and the frenetic typing of his fingers making him appear a parody of a self-important businessman. An accountant, Herne thought. Or a banker.

  It didn’t really matter to Herne what the businessman did to earn money. Herne knew everything he needed to know about the man. The man was soft. Soft because of his desk job. Soft because his self-centeredness had killed his instincts. Soft because he lived a life of entitlement, a life where he believed he should not have to wait for a coffee pot.

  The only other customers in Shupp’s Shop were a young blond woman with a child not quite old enough to be in school. The woman gripped the child’s hand in her own as if frightened someone in the store would, without warning, snatch the child from her and run off into the streets. She glanced at Herne with narrowed eyes, perhaps smelling the booze on his breath. He knew what she saw: a man who looked too old for his age, covering a stained t-shirt with a black leather jacket, three days too late for a shave, and bloodshot eyes that darted with paranoia around the room. He shrugged his broad shoulders and turned away from her, though he could still see her in his peripheral vision. The woman wore blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and hiking boots. When the child tugged on the woman’s shirt and asked a question, the woman barely glanced into the child’s open, earnest eyes. Not the mother, Herne thought. Maybe a step-mother. Or a nanny.

  His throbbing headache reminded Herne of the reason for his visit to the shop. He gripped the bottle of aspirin and started carrying it to the counter, contemplating an order of some fried potatoes and a ham sandwich, when a deafening noise reverberated through the shop. Bits of plaster snowed from the ceiling, and he felt it crumble on his bald head.

  He’d heard gunshots in the past. Sometimes from his own gun. Sometimes from another cop’s. Sometimes from the thugs they were chasing down the street. He didn’t even flinch when the noise sounded.

  Deep down, in the darkest part of his gut where his instincts still sparked, he had been expecting the gunshot. But that was a thought he squashed. Because if he had anticipated it, then he could have done something to prevent it from happening. And Herne wasn’t ready to believe that he was so far gone that he’d put innocent people at risk.

  Even though he knew that he had done exactly that.

  Most of the people in the store dropped to their knees or ran for cover behind a display or a counter. The young woman pulled the child behind a case of boxed cookies. The banker crouched and hugged the corner of a table.

  The woman ordering sandwiches, Mrs. Perry, was too old and fat to move quickly. So she was the one the youn
g man targeted. He pointed his gun at her head.

  One bullet already gone in the ceiling, Herne thought. The young man held a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver. Five shots. He’s only got four left, Herne thought.

  But four bullets was a lot. Four bullets was enough to kill four people.

  Herne didn’t care about himself. The scar across his abdomen told the story of a bullet taken in the belly. A similar scar crossed his left arm. He’d been shot and lived to tell about it. And he would accept being shot again.

  But part of him—the part that still remembered his oath to protect and serve—didn’t want to see any of the innocent people in the store get hit by one of those four bullets. So he shook his head to clear away some of the fog from his hangover, and he watched the young man carefully.

  The young man had pulled his hood over his head, trying to screen his face. But his eyes still peered out from the covering, blue and bright and cold. “Nobody move,” he snarled. “Don’t move a fuckin’ muscle. Don’t even twitch or this fat bitch is gonna get a bullet in the head.”

  Silence fell over the store. Herne cursed himself for not wearing a gun. Not carrying a knife. He didn’t even have a nail file. The most lethal thing in his pocket was a quarter. He’d been wandering in a drug-induced haze for so long that his basic tools—the ones that used to be as much a part of him as the heart that beat in his chest—sat collecting dust in his kitchen drawer.

  “Everyone behind the counter. Now. Move.” The young man gestured with his gun, but no one reacted. He slammed his fist against the cash register so that it issued a small jingle. “Move!” he cried.

  The banker scurried behind the counter, keeping low and small against the floor. His eyes were wide, and Herne could see the panic and fear that colored them. Just as Herne had expected, the banker was soft. He’ll be no help to me, Herne thought.

  The fat lady followed the banker, waddling on her injured hip. The young woman dragged the child by its hand until they, too, were behind the counter. Her lips were pressed together tightly and made a thin line on her face. Herne saw that she was scared. But she wasn’t panicked. Not yet.

  Herne scuttled to join the rest of them. He averted his gaze from the young man. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, so he played the part of the frightened victim.

  It was a role Herne had never played before, and he found it uncomfortable.

  Once the young man had them all lined up behind the counter, he said, “Sit down. Except you.” He gestured to the young Mennonite girl. Not more than 16-years-old, her pale face froze with an expression of fear.

  “Open the cash register,” he ordered.

  She stumbled toward it and punched buttons, her fingers flickering over the keys. The machine beeped and whirred, but nothing happened.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m trying.”

  “Try harder, bitch,” the young man hissed. He pulled his hand back and slapped the girl with the end of his gun. It wasn’t a hard slap—the girl’s head barely bobbed on her shoulders when she was struck—but Herne could feel the electric wave of fear that sliced through the other people in the store.

  Herne heard a gasp beside him. Before he turned his head, he knew that the sound had come from the young woman with the small child. Her eyes narrowed at the robber and he saw her hand clench.

  She might be useful, Herne thought. Maybe. Unless she gets distracted by the kid.

  The fat lady fingered the hem of her flowered shirt as she openly sobbed. The banker’s brown eyes darted back and forth as he shrank against the wall, like an animal in a lab who hopes avoiding eye contact with the scientists will prevent the next round of testing.

  Herne gritted his teeth. When did people get so damn gutless? he thought. He’d spent too many years among men who acted tough. Cops. Firefighters. Prison guards. Pimps. Drug dealers. They were all either truly strong or pretending to be so. They’d all learned that it didn’t pay to back down. That a show of bluster and strength would pay off in the streets. That acting the part meant living it, too.

  But, with the exception of the woman with the kid, everyone else in the store was soft. Weak. Cowed by the gun that the robber waved.

  Herne was going to have to do it on his own.

  He glanced at the shelves below the cash register where the store kept some business related items. He saw a box of paper receipts. A bottle of water. A trash can. A stack of paper bags. And a small red bag with tools.

  It was the tool kit that caught his attention. On the sides of the red bag were pockets containing a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, and a tape measure.

  The tape measure was useless. The pliers weren’t practical. But the screwdriver… Herne thought. He remembered a case from his time as a Detective with the Philadelphia Police Department. A burglar had entered a house with a screwdriver. He’d expected an empty home, and had been surprised to find the female homeowner in the kitchen. The burglar had used the screwdriver as a weapon by threatening to turn the woman into Swiss cheese with it. The woman, scared and overpowered by the burglar’s strength, had initially complied. After the incident, when Herne interviewed her, he had asked why she’d been frightened of a screwdriver.

  She had responded, “When someone twice your size has a good hold on you, and is holding the business end of a screwdriver right at your face, and is telling you he’s gonna skewer your eyeball like a shish kebab, you get pretty scared.”

  In the end, she had managed to grab a pistol from a drawer and make three new holes in the burglar’s belly.

  Guns are faster than screwdrivers, Herne thought.

  But he had no other choice.

  The scent of greasy deli meat and processed cheese assaulted Herne’s nostrils. His stomach churned, rebelling against the odor of food and the whiskey he had poured into it only a few hours earlier. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog that enveloped his mind and threatened to cloud his reflexes.

  A small clanging ding signaled the opening of the cash register. The robber pushed the young Mennonite girl aside and looked inside. When he looked at the girl again, his gaze was cold.

  “Is this it?” he asked.

  She nodded her head, mute.

  “Fuck,” he cursed. “There’s not even a hundred bucks in there.”

  He grabbed at the bills and shoved them in the pocket of his jeans, his eyes roaming over his hostages. When he had emptied the cash register drawer, he looked at the people lined against the wall. “Don’t move,” he hissed. “Don’t any one of you assholes try to be a hero, or I’ll kill you.”

  Then he grabbed the arm of the Mennonite girl and pulled her close, pressing his lips against her ear. She struggled against him, pushing her hands on his chest, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I came here to get something,” the young man growled. “And I’m going to take it out of you.”

  He pushed the girl toward the floor, forcing her onto her knees. Her modest, flowered skirt puddled around her as she bowed her head. When she clasped her hands in front of her chest, Herne thought she looked like a girl in prayer. Then he realized that she was, indeed, praying. Her lips pronounced silent words and her eyes were tightly screwed shut.

  The young man looked at the rest of the hostages. A grin—sick and twisted and evil—spread across his face. “Enjoy the show,” he commented.

  Then he looked down at the Mennonite girl. “Unzip my pants,” he commanded.

  The fat lady customer uttered a groan, but the young man didn’t glance at her. When the Mennonite girl pressed her lips together and shook her head—one small act of defiance—he slapped her with the gun again. The girl’s head whipped back, and a crimson spot appeared on her cheek. Herne had heard the crack of the metal against her skin. He knew that within a few hours the spot on her face would turn purple and blue and black.

  If the girl lived that long.

  “Do it,” the young man said.

  Herne noticed that the banker, for the first time since the robbery h
ad begun, was watching the scene with interest.

  Not just interest. Excitement, Herne thought. That sick fucker is going to get his balls off by watching this girl get assaulted.

  Herne’s palm itched to slap the banker, but he restrained himself. Hurricane was a small town. He was certain he would see the banker again, and when it happened, Herne would deliver the punch that the man deserved.

  The robber groped forcefully at the Mennonite girl’s breast, making her gasp in pain.

  Beside Herne, the young woman with the child snarled. He felt the woman’s muscles tense. Herne wanted to stop her. Wanted to tell her to wait until the time was right. When the young robber was in the middle of a blowjob, he’d be distracted. He’d be easier to take down.

  But Herne said nothing. Even if he could have spoken without the robber hearing him, he knew his words would have been lost. They would have been written off as the talk of a callous man. A man so cold that he would allow an innocent girl to be sexually assaulted in the interest of waiting for the best opportunity to attack. A man who was heartless. A man who was dead inside.

  He didn’t have time to explain that he still had emotions. He still felt compassion. He still felt mercy.

  He still felt those things, but he chose to ignore them.

  He felt her muscles coil, and he prepared himself for what would happen next.

  The woman jumped on the robber, her fingers outstretched. “Leave her alone,” she yelled. She scratched at the young man, raking her fingernails down the side of his cheek.

  As the robber yelled and smashed his gun into her face, Herne moved.

  He grabbed the screwdriver from the toolbox and turned to the young man. For a moment, time stood still.

  The Mennonite girl had scurried off to a corner. The banker’s gaze had changed from excitement to fear, as if the sudden violence had shocked his sexual desire into panic. The child, abandoned by the young woman who had attacked the robber, sat with her face buried in her hands to block out the world. And the young woman lay sprawled across the floor, grabbing her nose as blood poured from it.