by Tim Kizer
However, Mary had always been ready to change her ways. To turn over a new leaf, so to speak. Not that she had dreamed of a banal family life with its plain pleasures, such as a balding husband, a couple of kids getting on your nerves, a house in a suburb, and a pair of knitting needles in your hands. No, it wasn’t the kind of life that would make her jump with joy. It simply seemed to be a lesser evil compared to prison or a bullet in her head. She would imagine different scenarios of how she would meet her future husband, most of which were based on romantic movies and books. The reality, of course, turned out to be more prosaic than what she had envisioned.
Richard... He was a nice, good looking guy, he could make you feel loved, he had a sense of humor, and he was good in bed. If it had been in her plans, she would have fallen in love with him. She felt attached to Richard, but there was no love on her part.
She needed stability, material wealth that Richard could provide for her; she was not looking for love. To her, Richard was a means to an end, a business enterprise which generated profit. She had no pangs of guilt about it because she knew, she was sure that Richard didn't care about love.
Why had she decided to help him?
It was hard to specify her motives. Perhaps she had realized she didn't want Richard to die. Perhaps she was trying to atone for betraying him. Or maybe it was about Marcus and his crazy friends, who believed that the Universe would favor you if you sacrificed humans to it. She couldn’t bear the thought of these wackos winning.
In order to save Richard, she had first had to make Marcus believe that she had embraced their religion. She was a natural born actress, so she had pulled it off without a problem. It probably helped that she was cute: men were predisposed to trust pretty women. Then she asked Don to help her stage her death. She told him she wanted to end her old life, and for that Mary Brower had to be officially dead.
"I don't think we should do it," Don said when she explained her plan to him. "If they find your body, they won't be able to put him in prison for murder."
She had expected Don to say that, so she gave him another reason: her life insurance policy. If her body was never found, Richard wouldn't receive the insurance money until she was declared dead by the court, which was going to take at least seven years. Besides, he wouldn't get this money if he was found guilty of her murder.
“What’s in it for us?” Don asked. “How are we going to get that money?”
“We’ll make him sign over all his assets to Marcus.”
In addition, they could receive Richard's life insurance money. All they had to do was force Richard to name Marcus the beneficiary of the policy.
Don said that they really wanted Richard to go to prison.
"Why not just shoot him?" Mary replied.
“Or we could frame him for something else.”
Don promised that he would discuss this matter with Marcus. Luckily, Marcus agreed. Mary Brower was buried, and Richard was saved from prison—for now.
Then Marcus invited her to an upcoming gathering in Idaho, where she was going to meet other brothers and sisters. Now that she had decided to join their family, it was time for her to start participating in their social events.
"We’re planning to hold a major ceremony in a couple of weeks,” Marcus said. "We’re going to sacrifice your husband. This will be your initiation."
They were going to sacrifice Richard. Very soon, in a matter of days. She was lucky to find out in time about their plans and now had to do something. She couldn't let them kill her husband, even though he was a jerk. She still loved him, and believed he still had feelings for her, too.
Don said they were going to spend two days with two dozen of his friends in Portland, Oregon. As far as she understood it, it was some sort of spiritual gathering. After that, all of them would go to the temple for the sacrificial ceremony. Mary had to find the way to save Richard. And she found it.
CHAPTER 31
1.
“Are we going to the temple?” Mary asked Don as they boarded the charter bus.
Don nodded.
“Where is it?”
“In Olympia.”
Forty five minutes after they departed Portland, Mary stood up and stepped out into the aisle. As she took the duffel bag with her clothes and toiletries from under the seat, Don asked, “Are you going somewhere?”
“I need to check something.” She grabbed the bag and headed for the front of the bus. When she reached the end of the aisle, she unzipped the bag, fumbled in it for a moment, and then produced a pistol.
She had purchased the gun from a guy in Everett a week ago, using a fake ID. The good thing about Washington’s gun laws was that you didn’t need a permit to possess or purchase any rifle, shotgun, or handgun. And there was no waiting period for sales on the private market.
Mary held the gun out in front of her and said loudly, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Springfield XDM. There are nineteen rounds in the magazine plus one in the chamber. And I have three spare magazines. In other words, I’ve got enough bullets for all of you. I’ll shoot anyone who tries to be a hero. I’d be happy to kill you all, because you deserve it, you sick assholes. Now put your hands up.”
She stuck her left hand into the bag and withdrew a pair of handcuffs, one of the twenty six she had bought at a military surplus store in Lynnwood.
“What’s going on?” asked a man sitting in the fourth row on the left side of the bus.
Mary slapped one handcuff on the driver’s right wrist, and the other on the steering wheel.
“What are you doing?” The driver gave her a puzzled look.
Pointing the pistol at the passengers, Mary asked the driver, “What’s your name?”
“Jason.”
“What’s our destination? I need the exact address.”
Jason pulled a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Mary. She read the address written on the sheet and compared it to the one entered into the GPS unit. The addresses matched.
“Is it a joke?” shouted a woman in the third row on the right side.
“No, my dear, it’s not a joke.” Mary aimed the gun at the woman. “Do you want me to prove it?”
The woman did not reply.
To the driver, Mary said, “Give me your cellphone.”
“Please don’t kill me,” the driver said, handing Mary his cell.
“Are you one of them?” She nodded at the passengers.
“No.”
“If you get us to the destination on time, you have nothing to worry about.”
Jason could be lying, but Mary decided that it was not in her interest to make the driver too nervous. Right now, she needed him to focus on getting them to the temple.
To the passengers, Mary said, “Now I want you drop your cellphones and other electronic devices into the aisle. Do it slowly, no sharp movements, okay?”
When the first cellphone hit the floor, Mary said, “If you try to hide your phone, I’m going to shoot you. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Don sprang from his seat and headed toward Mary.
“Don’t move!” Mary shouted, pointing the gun at Don.
Don stopped at arm’s length from the pistol. “Give me the gun, Mary.” He stretched his right hand forward.
“Get back in your seat. Now.”
“Or else you’re going to shoot me?” Don cracked a smile.
Mary nodded. “Get back in your seat.”
“Okay.” Then Don made a grab for the pistol, and Mary pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Don in the chest. His right arm dropped to his side, and a moment later he collapsed to the floor, striking his head on an armrest on the way down.
Mary looked around the bus, and said, “I couldn’t wait to do that, to be honest with you.” She blew on the barrel. “Anyone else?”
There was no response.
“Very good.”
Five more people tossed their cellphones into the aisle.
“Excellent!” Mary pulled Don’s cell from his jeans pocket.
After the last electronic device dropped on the floor, Mary instructed a man from the third row to put Don’s body in a seat behind the driver. Then she ordered a long-haired guy in the last row to sweep the sectarians’ cellphones and tablets with his feet to the front of the bus. It took him about five minutes to accomplish the task. After that, Mary made a few changes in the seating arrangement. When she was finished, all twenty four sectarians were sitting in a six-row block of seats in the middle of the bus.
“You have two options. Either I kill you all or we do this.” Mary jangled a pair of handcuffs in the air. “So what do you say? Do you want to live?”
A chorus of voices replied, “Yes!”
“Okay. And let me repeat: I will shoot anyone who doesn’t cooperate, is that clear?”
Mary fixed her eyes on the man who sat by the aisle on the right side of the bus in the first occupied row. As far as she remembered, his name was Matt. She gave him the handcuffs and said, “I want you to cuff yourself to him.” She pointed at the man’s neighbor.
After Matt carried out her order, Mary turned her face to the woman across the aisle from him and dropped a pair of handcuffs in her lap. “I want you to do the same thing.”
Then she distributed handcuffs to the passengers in the remaining five rows, directing them to cuff themselves to their neighbors.
“We’re not done yet.” She spent fifteen minutes executing the next step, which was to cuff the sectarians in such a way that they were linked together in two continuous chains—one on the left side and the other on the right side of the bus.
“We’re almost there.” She went to the back of the bus and ordered the two passengers that sat across the aisle from each other in the last occupied row to get up.
“What’s your name?” she asked the man who stood to her right.
“Aaron.”
“And yours?” she looked at the guy to her left.
“Hugh.”
“Okay, Aaron and Hugh. I need you to squat on the floor.”
After the men did as she had commanded, Mary said to Aaron, “I want you to reach under the seat.”
Without hesitation, Aaron stuck his left arm under his seat between its leg and the bus wall. Mary produced a pair of handcuffs from her jeans pocket and turned her face to Hugh.
“Now take his left hand, Hugh,” she said.
Hugh obeyed. Mary stooped down and handcuffed Aaron’s arm to Hugh’s.
Mary glanced at her watch. It was an hour and forty minutes since they had left Portland.
She went to the front of the bus and handcuffed together the two passengers that sat across the aisle from each other in the first occupied row.
“Okay, now we’re done,” she announced.
Now that all the passengers were cuffed together in a circle around the leg of Aaron’s seat, there were only three ways for them to get out of the bus: to detach Aaron’s seat from its leg or the bus wall, to pick a handcuff lock, or to cut someone’s hand off. Chances were it would be at least an hour before they broke loose. She figured one hour would be enough time to do what she was planning to do.
She put the sectarians’ electronic devices in the bag and asked the driver how far they were from the temple.
“Three miles,” the driver replied.
When they were a hundred feet from the entrance to the parking lot of the temple, Mary told the driver to stop the bus and open the door.
“Okay, guys.” She slung the bag with the cellphones over her shoulder. “I have to step out for a minute. Don’t try to escape unless you want to die. I’ll be watching you, so behave.”
Mary pulled the key out of the ignition. “Everything will be all right.” Then she got off the bus.
The temple was located in a secluded area, with no other building in sight, so no one was going to hear the sectarians’ cries for help.
2.
"Where are the others?" Norris asked.
Mary shifted her eyes from Richard to Norris, profound concern was on her face. In her right hand, she held her jacket. Richard stood speechless, shocked to see Mary alive and well. He was not surprised that Mary knew Norris, though.
"There’s been an accident," she said in a soft voice.
"Are they in Olympia?"
Mary shook her head. "They’re dead. All of them are dead, Marcus."
"Dead? What are you talking about?" Norris exchanged glances with Harry and Nick.
"They died in the accident," Mary replied.
"And you?" Norris smiled absent-mindedly.
"I survived." Mary walked up to Norris. "I got lucky."
"They’re dead. And you got lucky."
Richard sensed that Norris was itching to give free rein to his emotions, but for some reason he refrained from doing it. The smile on Norris’s face seemed forced.
"When are you going to kill him?" Mary pointed at Richard.
When her left hand stopped in the air, Nick drew his pistol from the holster and aimed it at Mary. However, he didn't have time to pull the trigger: in rapid succession, Mary fired three rounds at him, and he fell on his back with a suppressed moan. One of the bullets hit Nick in the forehead, shattering the back of his skull and splattering blood and brains on the walls and the floor. Another bullet struck him in the stomach. For a moment, Richard was deafened by the gunshots. He couldn't take his eyes off the bleeding hole in Nick's head.
"What are you—" Norris did not finish the sentence, interrupted by three more shots Mary had fired to bring down Harry, who had tried to make a run for Nick's pistol. Sweaty with fear, Richard darted for Nick's gun and grabbed it from the floor.
"You betrayed me, Mary," Norris muttered, his face red as a beet. He looked as though he were trying to lift a car. "You betrayed me."
"Mary, I think we should kill him," Richard said in a hoarse voice. He aimed his pistol at Norris, placed his index finger on the trigger. “You know what—I’ll shoot him right now."
"I agree. We have to kill him before he kills us."
Richard pulled the trigger, and a shot thundered, making his ears ring. The bullet missed Norris's chest because the detective jumped into the well.
3.
NORRIS
Steve was confident he could take out this jerk. Richard was a weakling. The man couldn’t handle his own wife, for God’s sake!
Unfortunately, today was not a lucky day. But he was not giving up. What had just happened wasn’t a defeat. Those twenty men and women were but a fraction of his followers. He was going to get out of here, regroup, and avenge himself on Richard Brower. He must get out of here. He had almost made it!
4.
RICHARD
Richard took a deep breath, inhaling as much air as he could, and dove under water. He opened his eyes and turned them to the bottom of the well. As he descended, memories flashed in his mind of removing the cuffs from Sean's wrist and the steering wheel. A few seconds later his feet touched the bottom. He squatted, looked to his right, and saw a circle of pale light thirty to fifty feet away. In the middle of the circle was a dark silhouette that was constantly changing its shape. Soon the silhouette vanished. There must be another well! Norris had left the tunnel through the second well.
Richard started toward the light. He couldn’t wait to get some fresh air into his lungs.
5.
NORRIS
He was a spiritual teacher, he was the master of these people's souls. He was practically a saint. Of course, he was far from being as big as the Pope or even Dalai Lama, but it was just the beginning. Just the beginning! Two thousand years ago no one had thought that Christianity, a religion professed by a bunch of pitiful rabble-rousers, would conquer two thirds of the world in just a few centuries, that Popes would appoint and dethrone kings, that in the name of Christ hundreds of thousands of human lives would be destroyed in religious wars and in the prisons of the Inquisition. He had neither a magn
ificent palace nor multi-billion-dollar bank accounts like the Pope, but he was sure that he would have it all in the future. He’d had a good start. All he had to do right now was to survive.
He started pressing buttons and turning switches; the propellers came to life, he could hear their rumble. The rumble was getting louder.
6.
RICHARD
He hopped into the helicopter when it began to lift off. He did not feel the weight of his heavy wet clothes. The world around him ceased to exist. At the moment, Richard only saw Norris—his head, which he was going to strike with his fist or foot; his neck, which he was dying to throttle; and his ears, which he would love to bite off. Richard wanted to destroy him right now; he knew he could do it.
He charged at Norris, intending to lock his arms around his neck in a stranglehold. Norris turned around, intercepted his right hand, and then hit Richard in the jaw with his fist.
"Motherfucker," Norris hissed. Richard barely made out the word he had uttered. In the meantime, the helicopter was slowly picking up speed.
Richard licked his bleeding lips, threw his fist forward, aiming at Norris's face. Norris evaded the blow and struck Richard in the temple. Pain burst through Richard’s skull. He fell backwards to the rear seat and then collapsed to the floor. For a few moments, he lost his bearings. Norris remained in the pilot's seat, his hands back on the controls.
After regaining his orientation, Richard rose from the floor, noted that he had lost his right shoe. The helicopter rocked, Richard clutched at the back of the left front seat to keep his balance. Norris turned his head to him. The man’s face was distorted with fury.