Taken: A Christopher Lance Thriller

by L. Jerome Word

  I had borrowed Templeton’s sad, gray Ford Granada for cover; Angel would surely notice my vehicle in the neighborhood. I wore sunglasses and had a faded baseball cap pulled down over my brow. The make-shift disguise was the best I could come up with in a matter of minutes. I was chasing a maniac. The only weapon I could find was an unimpressive but sharp pocket knife, which I held in a sweaty palm as I walked toward Kima’s home. Then my eyes almost failed me. Angel walked out of the front entrance to Kima’s apartment building, except it was more like a stroll -- almost slow motion. He had a large duffle-like bag on his shoulder. What was it? And what evil had he performed in the apartment where Kima lived?

  I saw him saunter to his trunk, taking his time, and that’s when I made my decision. I had to go upstairs and make sure no one was clinging to life, wounded by death’s angel. Before he could see me, I sprinted into an adjacent alley and then dashed to the back entrance. I turned the knob. Locked! Using a small brick nearby, I broke glass and entered. The first four flights were all adrenaline but, by the fifth, I felt a stinging sensation in my thighs. The pain from my thighs migrated to my stomach when I saw the dead cop on the floor with a model of the Empire State building rammed down his throat. Now, I was positive this was Angel’s finale. No turning back -- not anymore. Checking the apartment, I found the grandmother lifeless. No sign of any physical damage, probably asphyxiation. An angel of mercy, right?

  In a matter of seconds, I was back in the Grabber’s car racing down highways, chasing a killer. I didn’t want to waste time calling the police until I picked up his trail. I was the only one who could stop him. Playing half a hunch and half a lead, I headed north on I-75, bobbing and weaving recklessly.

  For more than an hour, I sped north away from Atlanta with no Angel in sight. I wanted to call Milan and Pettis, but I needed to concentrate. Since I had left little Kima’s apartment, I hadn’t let my hands leave the wheel. Forget APD’s finest anyway. I had told them what I knew and they blew me off. I’d have to get him myself. That’s when I saw him riding along, as if this was a Sunday afternoon drive in the country. Pretty calm for a guy who had just rammed a model building down someone’s throat. Then without warning, almost as if he had been jarred from a daydream, Angel jerked his car rightward to exit at Brockville. I slowed down to keep from being noticed and then exited behind him, all the time hoping I wasn’t driving into an ambush. After being taken through a series of curves and hills, all the time struggling not to lose him, Angel stopped at a small abandoned cottage and began to walk. It was then that I felt comfortable enough to call Milan with my location. I reversed my car and parked farther up the road, and then followed Angel’s tracks into the woods of northern Georgia, not knowing what was in store for me.

  I stopped several yards from a small log cabin that could barely be made out behind the large oaks and elms that surrounded me. They wouldn’t have found the children here -- not until it would have been too late. Thinking it best to approach the cabin from the rear, I circled around until my back was planted against a large oak a few feet from the back door. My breathing was quick. Sweat dripped from my forehead.

  Now was the time. On your mark, get set -- Go!

  I dashed to the back door and found an adjacent window. Using the pocket knife, I jimmied the window lock. Taking a quick peek around, everything was dark. The trees held the sunlight at bay. I slid one leg inside and then the other. I tumbled to the ground and lay still for what must have been five minutes, my heart racing faster. Thump! Thump! Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dark like a nocturnal bat, I could make out shapes. The house was full of furnishings and paintings, as if someone lived there all the time. Based on my research, this was his grandfather’s cabin. Thomas Franks was his name.

  I needed to find the children, and I felt them nearby. I slid into a hallway and continued to move. The walls of the cabin were cold and slimy. On one side of the cabin, I searched every room I could find until I reached the open front door. I flinched and then was later relieved when I saw his figure outside. Angel walked toward the trees from where he had approached the cabin earlier. But the open front door also assured his return soon. I moved through the rest of the house hurriedly, now knowing that I had short period of time to operate alone. I found nothing -- nothing but an unpainted, wooden door with an imposing lock that appeared to lead to some type of basement. I thought a dungeon more likely. There was firewood stacked out back and I remembered seeing an ax lying beside pile. I ran to retrieve it and, during my return, knocked over a lamp, shattering it on the floor. There was no sign of Angel. I lifted the ax high over my head and on the fourth swing I was in.

  I returned to the open front door to see if he had returned -- the terror who called himself by a heavenly name. Nothing and no one was in sight. Reversing my direction, I went back to the dungeon door. I dashed down the stairs and into a naked darkness. When I reached the bottom, there was dim light. I was confused, looking around for the light source, when I saw two slit-like windows. They were near to the top of the ceiling at ground level, maybe ten feet up. The slits provided just enough light to reveal a pull string hanging from above. I pulled the string and the room lit up, causing me to briefly raise my forearm to shield my eyes. After a split second, I looked around at my surroundings -- at what I believed was the home of the taken children.

  The space was a dungeon. Small doors lined the perimeter of the room, ten of them, and behind those doors I believed to be rooms used to hold captives. I surveyed the entire room until my eyes came upon a small girl sitting on the floor, curled up with her head between her knees, sobbing. Kima, I thought and walked toward her.

  “Kima.” I reached out and touched her elbow. She shook all over and then raised her head, and I could see her terrified face and the tears flowing down her....

  My eyes flickered, seeming to open one millimeter at a time, until I could focus on the cement floor and the blood that cover it. Damn. The back of my head felt as if it had been split open with a lead pipe. Then I heard a sickening laugh -- the type you’d hear from the villain in a Bond movie. I moved to my knees and whirled my body around, landing in my own blood. I looked up and lost my breath. Hardling, the fucking high school teacher, was staring at me with a bloody Louisville Slugger in his hands.

  “You bastard.” That was all I could think to say with my head bursting. If not for the shock and danger, I might have passed out again.

  “Names, names...you are a bad student, Lance. You and Miss “Cry Baby” Pittman over there. Well, come on kids, get up! It’s time for Mr. Hardling to teach you a lesson,” Angel said with his face contorted, full of hatred.

  Then all of a sudden he brandished a gun, the kind that was night black and had a big, long barrel. As I struggled to my feet and grabbed Kima’s arm, lifting her up, I heard the sobs of children from inside the dungeon rooms. I wanted to snap Angel’s neck, but he’d have blown my head off before I could have even touched him. The stairs creaked as we left the dungeon, and the muffled cries became faint. Angel with his gun’s barrel jabbing at my back, as if he wanted to punch a hole through me instead of using a bullet, led us to third door exiting the house, one that I hadn’t found earlier. And this door was the most treacherous of all, leading to wooden deck that overlooked a steep ravine.

  I noticed fresh blood on the deck’s rails. Had he just killed someone recently, I thought, maybe a child? Then again, perhaps someone had entered the house without Angel noticing, someone other than me. It didn’t seem likely, but Angel was too enraged to notice much of anything, including the fresh blood on his deck.

  “I really do hate killing, Lance, I do.” Angel lowered his eyes, only for a second, seemingly distraught with remorse for what he was about to do. “You haven’t left me any choice -- you and that idiot Bryan.”

  “Why did you kill Bryan? He was your cousin, wasn’t he?” I moved Kima behind me with a brush of my arm, shielding her from his immediate sight.

  “Let me see, L
ance, you’re the investigative reporter, so why don’t you tell me what you think.” Angel smiled again -- a horrific grin -- all of his earlier remorse long gone, maybe absorbed by the ominous gun in his hand.

  “You know that’s not how it works. I wrote the stories from facts, actual accounts. I don’t make things up. Besides, I’m your reporter, remember? It’s your story,” I said. Maybe if I kept him talking, he would lose the urge to blow my head off.

  “Bryan was my cousin, but we were never particularly close, not even when he moved to Atlanta to live with my family years ago.” He lowered his gun while he spoke. “The stupid kid came to stay with us after his father died. His mother had left his old man, my uncle, when Bryan was two or three, I think. He was always such a big cry baby, kind of like Kima over there. That’s why we got beaten so much, because he wouldn’t shut up. My father hated cry babies, but Bryan would never suck it up. He’d just cry and cry, and we’d get hit over and over again. I guess you know that my father was a principal. He believed children should be discipline with the rod. You know, ‘til this very day they’ve not found my father’s body, and they won’t either.”

  He seemed to be in a trance, and I was more scared than ever. Kima hugged me tight, almost to the point of cutting off circulation in my leg.

  “So what happened between you and Bryan? Was he your partner?”

  “You could say that, although the saving of children was my idea. He’d have never thought to do something so daring. Then he started to chicken out -- fucking cry baby. ‘Why did you kill those children’, he’d say with tears running down his face the whole time. But I had to kill them. They were trouble makers. They were only causing trouble for the good children. Just like Bryan, so I cut off his head. Anymore questions Lance?”

  I did want to say something, but couldn’t because the sight of a bloodied Tommy Willis standing behind Angel brought a tennis ball sized lump to my throat. My eyes widen, prompting Angel to turn.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Startled, Angel raised his gun and placed his finger on the trigger.

  “Did you know they were coming for me, Mr. Hardling,” Tommy said. “I didn’t do anything.” Tommy was wobbly, holding his hand to his stomach, blood seeping through his fingers and trickling to the floor.

  “The police did that to you?” Angel’s voice rolled from his mouth with anguish, the sort of painful resonance of a mentor who knows his pupil will soon die. “I’m so sorry, Thomas, that I couldn’t save you, but it had to be this way -- to save the children.” He lowered his gun and moved toward Tommy until he touched his shoulder in an attempt to offer comfort to a man bleeding to death.

  Doubled over, Tommy looked up at Angel, his face colorless. Breathe whistled from his mouth as he spoke. “You said you’d watch over me. You said I wouldn’t get into any trouble by helping you. I didn’t hurt anyone.”

  Angel knelt down in front of him, so he could see Tommy’s face better. “I’m sorry, but you knew this was about saving children, like I saved you once, except you’re not a child anymore.”

  “So you knew they’d come for me?” Tommy’s back straighten, as he forced whispered words from his mouth. “Why did you let them shoot me? You said---”

  “I’ve already told you why I couldn’t save you, Thomas. You’re not listening!”

  “Yes, I am listening. You lied to me”, Tommy said, spitting blood that splashed on Hardling’s forehead. “You wanted them to come for me.”

  Tommy swung his arm out to his side, landing a fierce blow to Angel’s head, crushing him to the ground. Enraged and bloodied, Tommy went for the throat, swinging wildly in all directions. I leapt toward the men, hoping to dislodge the gun, only to be knocked to the ground by one of Tommy’s flying elbows. From a prone position, Angel landed an extended leg kick to Tommy’s chin. Stumbling backward, Tommy fell and lay motionless. His remaining energy used on that last and futile assault. He opened his eyes and pleaded for help, using only the vulnerable look on his face.

  I scrambled to my feet, holding a broken nose, eyes fluttering, focusing in on Angel standing over his pupil, who might as well have been his son -- gun poised at his head. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. I was stunned and motionless for a moment, until Kima’s shrieks snapped me back to reality. I noticed Angel’s eyes remained closed, as if scared to open them and see the carnage, his one-time student lying on the ground with only half a head.

  I gathered myself and leapt toward the gun attached to the killer’s outstretched arm. Angel reacted and swung away. Hitting the blood soaked ground with a sickening splat, I managed to crawl to my knees but only for a moment. Angel delivered a quick kick to my stomach. I fell again. This time my arms jerked forward, searching to hold in the air escaping my body. I gagged and coughed. But then I realized something, I had knocked the gun from his hand, and Angel, dazed, searched for the weapon. We eyed the gun at the same time, spinning on its side behind the both of us. Angel bent to pick up the gun, and I went for his back with the fury of a wild animal. Grasping his shoulders for what I knew to be my life and Kima’s, I saw that Angel had the gun pointed in the air. I locked an arm around his neck and tightened the vise. He fired a shot, straight into the air. As the sound of the bullet pierced my ears, mixing with Kima’s screams, I knew that I couldn’t let go. I grabbed his throat, twisting it in hopes that it would snap, and the bastard would die. In response to my onslaught at his neck, Angel let out an inhumane growl, while running backwards into the side of the house, impaling my back against the frame. The pain was sudden and sharp, as if a bomb that had been taped to my back had gone off. Then it was my head that smacked the wall and my vision that went dark, although I was still conscious. I fell to the floor beaten and defenseless. As my sight began to clear, I could make out the barrel of the gun pointing at me. Angel smiled like a demon with destruction only a finger flex away. Then I heard a shot ring out and then nothing at all.

  I looked up with my eyes burning and vision blurry. I could barely make out Phillip Pettis. The barrel of his gun was smoking. Leaning against the wall, I slid to the ground beaten, bruised, and relieved. Thank God.

  “Hey, Christopher buddy, hang in there. We’re bringing you some help,” Milan said.

  I put my arms around Kima, closed my eyes, and thought about watching Kobe and the Lakers. Go Hawks.

  ###

  About the author:

  Born near Nashville, Tennessee, after bouncing around the Midwest and Deep South, the author now resides in Jackson, Tennessee with this wife. At night, during those nocturnal hours, he writes, but during the day he ‘makes a living’.

  Nocturnal

  Connect with Me Online:

  Blog: https://www.jeromeword.com

  Sample Chapters - Nocturnal

  Part I

  Shadows from the Grave

  PROLOGUE

  Harmony, Tennessee

  15 Years Earlier

  Every person – man, woman, and child – believed the girl was probably dead…

  Still, townspeople searched in shifts from the eastward dawn to the sun’s setting in the west behind the rolling hills of the Cumberland basin. And even though no one would say it, at least not until a body was found, most everyone believed she’d been killed by a madman, possibly a serial killer, and probably raped. The entire town searched and waited – half in shock and half in terror that in this sleepy hamlet their children were not safe.

  Under gray skies, volunteers flanked out across the field led by Deputy Ralph McNaughton, and as instructed, each person walked slowly looking from side to side. If the rag tag group were given rifles and redcoats they might be mistaken for British soldiers during the Revolution. The troop of civilians stepped in perfect time as if they had just graduated from boot camp but, actually, they were tense with anticipation. Then someone yelled. A volunteer had seen something and now everyone scattered about, like a group of mice might when the kitchen light is flicked on, forgetting about their ear
lier discipline.

  The child they searched for was Gabrielle Toms, a charming twelve year old with a devilish streak. This was the third day that she had neither been seen nor heard from. Gabrielle was a stunning child and sure to grow into a woman that would wreak havoc on the hearts of unsuspecting and suspecting men. She had a bronze complexion, flowing dark brown hair, and large, vibrant eyes that bounced and danced when she laughed. And now she was gone.

  “It’s nothing. Just a damn raccoon!” someone shouted. Most people took deep breathes, secretly saying thanks for the small sliver of hope that remained. Instead of reforming their rigid line the crowd mulled around as if needing a break and the false alarm provided a nice time-out for them.

  Richard “Dickey” Lighter, the coroner at the local hospital looked noticeably shaken as he attempted to usher everyone back into their methodical format. He yelled and waved his arms in the air as a young fledgling just dropped from his mother’s nest might. No one paid him much attention though as he always droned on about something. Finally, he realized his efforts were useless and with his head down, shuffled back toward his pick-up truck parked on the shoulder of the road.

  The sky was murky, a dense gray, and the wind whipped about in swirling motions, taking several baseball caps off their owner’s heads only to lay them to rest several yards away. The morning temperature started well above freezing but had steadily dropped during the day. The volunteers had brought out their mittens and scarves and stocking caps months earlier than normal.

  “Okay everyone,” Deputy McNaughton said, thrusting his chest outward in order to better project his voice. “Let’s get back in our formation. The commotion is over.”

  McNaughton’s voice carried a bit more weight than Dickey’s but not much. Still, people slowly began to reform their line, although a smattering of disgruntled comments could be heard from some of the men. Then the rains started. First, the rain fell light and no one really paid any attention to it, then in a matter of seconds the sky appeared to be a waterfall. Scurrying for shelter, the crowd ran toward the road and to their automobiles, except for Christopher Lance.