All The Way Back

by David Kearns

  Chapter Twenty Three

  We drove for half an hour on the twisting road that hugs the Oregon coastline. We saw other cars and trucks occasionally, but minutes would pass when the whole world seemed to consist of our van, the pavement, and the darkness that enveloped us. Our headlights flared into the black emptiness of the coastal highway, the high beams painting the pavement in front of our car with a pale grey light. The road writhed like an asphalt serpent in the moonless night, the highway coiled against the boundary of the coastline as tightly as a python wraps itself around its prey. It felt like we were on a bus ride to hell.

  “You want to tell me what you know about this guy?” Eric said.

  I told Eric everything that Sandy had said about the torture kit, about the way Peter entered through the window with the sap and the chloroform rag, about Peter drugging the dog, what little I knew about the Backett family and the son in prison, and about the reverse image search of Emily’s face that matched her through a dating website to an address in Tillamook.

  “I told her not to post any pictures of herself online,” Eric said.

  “I guess she thought a profile picture on a matchmaking site didn’t qualify.”

  Eric sighed. “Doesn’t leave us much choice, does it?”

  “No question,” I said. “He’s a serial predator, and next time he’ll succeed. He’d come after Emily again if he had the chance.”

  “And I can’t put him into the system,” Eric said. “The Backett family will find a lawyer and they’ll get it plead down to a simple breaking and entering that went wrong. You and I both know different.”

  “We do.”

  “People like this have no place in our society. The only way to make them stop is to put them down permanently.”

  “I don’t disagree, Eric. If Sandy and Emily hadn’t swapped places, Emily would be dead and he’d be on his way back to Phoenix.”

  “I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “I already do. I’m not bothered by it.”

  “You haven’t been through it yet,” Eric said.

  That was when Peter revived. The chloroform rag had come loose from Peter’s face as he’d rolled back and forth on the floor of the van, and he’d decided that making noise was his only option. It’s hard to yell through duct tape, but Peter’s muffled screams were primal, loud, and they grated on my nerves. After a while I got enough of it, and I took Eric’s bump stick to the back of the van to give Peter another jolt. Peter was still handcuffed hand and foot to a chain attached to the floor of the van, but the chain was too long to keep him from covering up, and he was still dangerous.

  Peter had managed to get to his feet and was leaning against the back doors. He saw me coming, and he jerked and twisted his body to keep the skin on his face and neck from being exposed to the stun stick. After I wrestled with him to get him turned, he whipped around and head-butted me in the cheek. I dropped the stun stick, then backed up half a step and hit him with a right cross, a left, then an uppercut that started at my waist, went through his jaw, and finished above my head. When I connected with the last punch, his teeth knocked together so hard that there was an audible clack. His head rocked back and then forward before he dropped to the floor of the van.

  When he went down, I retrieved the stun-stick from the floor. I turned the stick on, listened to the whine of the stick charging, and then I held it against the side of his neck while his body jerked like a crippled bronco bull. I pressed the metal probes against the skin until the unit turned itself off.

  I returned to the passenger seat.

  “You okay?” Eric said. “It sounded like you got into it back there.”

  “This guy is really quick,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sandy said he had fast hands, so it’s not like I wasn’t warned, but he turned on me and popped me with a head butt so fast I didn’t even see it coming.”

  “Thanks for the warning. He’s quiet now, so I guess you got the upper hand.”

  I put the stun-stick on the console and held my hand against my cheek where he’d head-butted me.

  “How much farther?” I asked.

  “Five minutes.”

  We both watched the road. We rounded a curve, and I heard the chain clattering against the floor of the van as Peter’s body slid across the bare metal.

  “Emily is going to have to move,” Eric said. “No question.”

  “I agree.”

  “Even if she left WITSEC, she’d still have to go. The Backett family knows she’s in Tillamook now. No way around that problem.”

  I nodded.

  “Damn,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Anything new with Anthony Peck?” he asked.

  “Peck sent six guys after Emily and me on Oceanside Beach. Emily and I got away, but in the process we ended two of Peck’s people.”

  “Was Emily involved?” Eric asked.

  “She hit one of them with rocks and he fell into a ravine,” I said. “They were shooting at us at the time.”

  He shook his head.

  “So now she’s in this thing with you and Peck,” he said.

  “I don’t think they know who she is,” I said.

  “Yet,” Eric said.

  “Right.”

  When he spoke, his voice sounded deeper and sadder than I’d ever heard it sound before.

  “When we get back, I’m going to expedite her exit,” he said. “She needs to be relocated immediately. Between Peck and the Backetts, God help her.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  The van slowed, and we turned left on an unmarked exit from the highway. We went down a short slope, the tires thrummed across a cattle guard, and we continued for several hundred yards on a narrow logging trail. The van pulled from side to side as the tires bumped up against the sides of the ruts that the tires followed. Our headlights cut across the trunks of Douglas Fir trees, and several times illuminated the reflective silver eyes of deer and coyotes deep in the woods. Then the headlights flashed across a hinged gate made of steel pipe.

  Eric got out, unlocked a padlock that held the gate closed, and moved the gate out of the way. We drove through and re-locked the gate, then continued on for another quarter mile before the road terminated in an opening large enough for a small number of cars to park. Eric slowed the van to a stop.

  “What now?” I said.

  Eric tipped his head towards the forest on the right side of the van. I looked to the right, and there was a red lightbulb glowing maybe fifty feet from the van.

  “You an ordained minister?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “We’re going to preside over a funeral. You want to stay in the van, you can do that, or you can come along. It’s my mess to clean up, so I’ll do the dirty work.”

  “It’s my mess, too,” I said.

  Eric nodded. “I guess it is now,” he said.

  We went to the back of the van, and Eric opened the double doors. Peter was curled on the floor in a fetal position. Eric unhooked him from the chain that connected his handcuffs to the U-bolt in the center of the floor of the van. We each took hold of an arm and dragged him to the rear of the van, then stepped onto the dirt and slid his body out.

  “Lay him down,” Eric said.

  We were gentler with him than he deserved.

  Eric closed the back door of the van, locked it, and pocketed the keys.

  We picked Peter up by the arms and pulled him towards the red light bulb. The night felt like we’d dropped into a kind of alternate reality. The only sounds came from our breath and from the twigs that snapped beneath our feet.

  The red bulb was mounted on a piece of galvanized steel pipe that jutted fifteen feet from the forest floor. At the top of the post there was a metal screen protecting the bulb, a motion sensor, and a video camera. When we approached the base of the pipe, the proximity sensors at the top of the pipe must have registered our arrival,
because the red bulb went out. Everything was completely dark for a second, and then another bulb began to glow, this time about a hundred yards deeper into the forest and to our left. This time the bulb was white.

  “What the hell is this place?” I said.

  “Doomsday preppers built it,” Eric said. “I bought ‘em out for the price of unpaid property taxes when the financial markets cratered. The demand for concrete bunkers isn’t very big. The lights are part of the security system that came with the property. There are video cameras on each of the poles, too. Gives the occupants a chance to see who’s coming, and to turn the lights off if they don’t like what they see.”

  “Couldn’t people find it during the daytime anyway?”

  “I gather that the plan was to shoot anyone who showed up during daylight hours.”

  “Of course. I should have guessed.”

  “These were not what you would call run-of-the-mill home builders. There was a certain kind of sense to what they were doing, but craziness, too. Refusing to pay property taxes was part of their philosophy.”

  As we reached the post for the white bulb, the light went out, and then a few seconds later a blue light illuminated deeper in the forest and to our right.

  “Very patriotic,” I said. “Red, White, and Blue.”

  “No doubt,” he said. “In their minds this is what it meant to be free.”

  “Are we being watched?” I asked.

  “Only by God,” Eric said. “Nobody’s lived here for years. I come a few times a year to make sure the electricity and water still work when I need it to.”

  By the time we reached the third bulb, my eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness, and the outline of a one-story concrete building was visible among the tree trunks. The blue bulb was mounted over the front door of the building. There were no windows, but there was a steel door with three deadbolt locks and a simple pull handle screwed into the face of the door.

  “Put him down,” Eric said.

  We dropped him without attempting to be gentle. Eric took a flashlight and a set of keys out of one of his pockets. He unlocked the deadbolts and used the door handle to pull the door partially open before hooking his fingers around the steel door and opening it wide. Then he stepped inside and flipped a light switch. Beige linoleum floors, metal rack bunk beds, and a kitchen with stainless steel appliances were visible through the open door.

  “Inside,” Eric said.

  We picked him up and dragged him through the door. Once we were inside, Eric locked the deadbolts with the key. It smelled musty and damp, like a storm cellar that hadn’t been opened in a long time.

  “You’ve done this before,” I said.

  “Twice,” he said. “Nearly got killed the first time. Stopped paying attention for one second and he almost took my head off with the chain on his handcuffs. Taught me a lesson.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “All the way to the back,” Eric said.

  We dragged Peter past the beds and the kitchen into a room that was probably twenty feet by twenty. There was no furniture, no windows, just linoleum on the floors and concrete on the walls and ceiling. There were a few dark marks on the walls that looked like old blood stains, but otherwise it was very clean. The room was lit by a square of bright LED bulbs mounted on the ceiling.

  “In the corner,” Eric said.

  We dragged Peter to the far side of the room and laid him down in the corner. Both of us took a few steps back. Eric pulled a thirty-two caliber Beretta from his coveralls and handed it to me.

  “He gets past me, kill him. Kill me, too, if you have to, but he doesn’t leave here under any circumstances. No matter what. Understand?”

  “I get it. What’s the plan?”

  “You and I are going to teach him some empathy before he leaves the land of the living,” Eric said. “He likes torturing people. I think he should understand what his victims felt like, if only for a few minutes. Don’t you?”

  Eric walked over to Peter’s prone form and unlocked the handcuffs on his hands and feet. He tossed the two pairs of handcuffs back to me before pulling on a thin pair of leather gloves and squatting down beside Peter. He slapped Peter hard on the face and said “Wake up, Romeo.”

  Peter groaned and shifted himself into a sitting position. Eric and I stood back and watched as Peter became alert and aware. Peter scanned the room with calculating eyes and checked his joints with subtle movements to see if anything was broken. It was like watching a spider that had been dropped into a bottle. After a little while it uncurls its legs, and then it starts looking for its next meal.

  Eric said “I think he’s ready.”

  Eric walked over to Peter, squatted down, and put a hand on each side of Peter’s head. The he used the power in his legs to pull Peter upright by his ears in a single, swift motion. Peter’s eyes went wide and he screamed in pain as his head reached chest-high on Eric. When Peter’s fists swung at Eric’s face, Eric snapped his arms to full extension, bouncing Peter off the concrete wall. One of Peter’s fists connected with the side of Eric’s head, but Eric didn’t seem to notice.

  Peter fell to the ground briefly before getting to his feet. Then he peeled the duct tape off of his mouth and ears. His nose and cheeks were burned from the chloroform rag, and his neck had a bruise the size of a silver dollar from the pressure of the stun stick.

  Eric took three steps back and said “You like hurting people. You’re about to understand pain from the other side. I’m going to break your arms and your legs, maybe your jaw, and then I’m going to drag you out into the forest and bury you alive.”

  Peter straightened up and began moving in a dazed manner towards Eric. When Peter was close enough to make contact, he snapped a very fast roundhouse kick at Eric. Eric rotated into the kick and caught it with his hip before pinning Peter’s leg against his side with his left hand. Then Eric punched Peter in the mouth with a savage right hook before lifting Peter’s leg and launching him into the wall. Peter grunted when he hit the concrete.

  Peter came off the wall like a fighter bouncing off the ropes in a boxing match. He had his hands in tight fists and his arms raised to block punches to his head. Eric circled slowly to the right, forcing Peter to circle, too. The two of them began to close the distance to each other. When they were close enough to each other to make contact again, Peter threw a side kick from the hip. The kick was so fast that I barely saw it happen. Eric deftly stepped aside and threw a vicious down block on Peter’s knee. Peter grunted and then began circling again. After a few steps, Peter moved quickly towards Eric, jumping forward and throwing a powerful front kick at Eric’s chest. When Peter began the kick, Eric stepped just out of range once again, and he punched Peter full-force in the ribs when Peter landed. Peter doubled over in pain.

  Eric said “Maybe you’re a big deal in some dojo, but I’m a lot better at this than you are. When you’re inferior to your opponent, the sensible thing to do is to wait for an opening and exploit it. Not attack head-on and hope you get lucky. You know that, right?”

  Peter bent over and spit a mouthful of blood on the floor. He rested his hands on his knees like a boxer who’d had enough.

  “Another thing,” Eric said. “You telegraph every kick by shifting all your weight to the supporting leg about half a second ahead of time. All I have to do is wait for you to do that and then move out of the way. You’ve got speed, but you’re so obvious about what you’re doing that it doesn’t matter.”

  Peter lifted his head and stared menacingly at Eric.

  “Finally,” Eric said. “Even when you have the chance to use your hands, like you did when I picked you up by your ears, it was obvious that you’re about as strong as watered-down beer. You should have spent the last few years in the weight room, instead of stealing panties in your ninja suit. When you want to continue, do it, but I think I could probably take you with both hands behind my back.”

  Peter ran full speed at Eric. As Peter closed the
distance, Eric rotated his hip, grabbed hold of Peter’s arm and rolled him over his hip, sending Peter flying into the wall. Peter’s back and head hit the concrete with a sickening thud.

  “I don’t think you’re worth fighting,” Eric said. “I’ve seen plenty of street kids tougher than you. Not meaner than you, but tougher. Is that what your costume is about? A way to convince yourself that you’re deadly?”

  Peter rolled over on the floor, put his hands against the wall, and started pulling himself upright.

  “It’s reckoning day,” Eric said. “You’re not that tough and I’m tired of playing with you. If you believe in God, start praying. I’m breaking bones from here on out.”

  Blood streamed from Peter’s mouth and nose. He leaned against the wall as if he was having trouble standing upright. Then he reached behind his back, fumbled with something in his waistband, and his hand came around. He held a pencil-thin blade no longer than a finger.

  “He’s got a knife!” I shouted.

  “I see it,” Eric said. There was no fear in his voice. Eric extended his arms and made an X-shape with his wrists, one arm crossing over the other so that he could trap the knife hand if Peter lunged with it.

  “Did you hear that bell ring, Peter?” Eric said. “This is the twelfth round of your last fight. You got anything left let’s see what it is.”

  Peter formed his left hand into a fist and held the knife in his right hand. He shuffled a few feet to the side so that he was backed fully against the corner, making it harder for Eric to get at him without getting cut in the process. I thought about an incident that occurred when I lived on my aunt and uncle’s farm. A fully grown rat had been cornered by my uncle’s dog on the back porch of their house. The rat tried to crawl under the siding of the house to escape, couldn’t find a way out, and then dropped back down onto the concrete patio. Each time the rat moved left or right to escape, the dog moved too, blocking the rat’s escape. The dog was a mutt, but a big and fearless one, and he growled with a force that you felt in your gut. The rat bared its yellow teeth and hissed, challenging the dog to attack. The dog growled and bared his teeth, too, daring the rat to try to escape. My uncle watched the drama for a minute before he went to his farm truck and returned with a single-barrel shotgun. He strode casually over to stand beside his dog, pointed the shotgun barrel in the general direction of the rat, and fired.

  “You going to make me come in there and take that knife away from you, Peter?” Eric said. “I’m going to bury that thing in your Adam’s apple.”

  Peter’s knife hand was shaking. “Come on then!” he shrieked. “Come on!”