Darkness Follows

by Mike Dellosso

  Sam’s hands went numb, and his mouth felt like it’d been stuffed with cotton. He tried to swallow but couldn’t.

  The man, his skin shimmered like glitter.

  What had Eva said about Jacob? That he looked like he’d been dipped in glue and rolled in glitter?

  Jacob.

  It couldn’t be, but he was standing right there in the midst of the crowd, still staring Sam down through the scope. No, it couldn’t be. It was another one of Sam’s hallucinations. Tommy was gone, and now Jacob had replaced him. The stress of the moment was causing his mind to go haywire, to conjure up some image of hope.

  But as much as Sam tried to focus on the mission, on the task at hand, Eva’s voice wormed its way into his mind again.

  I love you, Daddy.

  Despite his awful treatment of her, she still loved him. And now she was in the hands of a nut-job—and what was he doing about it?

  Those tiny points of light slowly grew as Eva’s voice in his head drew nearer.

  Daddy, do you know I love you?

  Yes. How could he deny such unconditional love?

  Perspiration rolled down the back of Sam’s neck, between his shoulder blades. His hands began to quake again. He moved the scope to the rostrum and found Lincoln still speaking. The suits around him scanned the crowd and talked into their lapel mics.

  He had to take the shot. Had to take it now.

  Nevertheless he hesitated, filled with thoughts of Eva’s arms around his waist and Molly sweeping up broken glass. Thoughts of family, of love. Of hope.

  He placed the pad of his finger on the trigger, put the crosshairs on Lincoln’s head, dead center. With the scope, it was an easy shot. There was no way he’d miss.

  I love you, Daddy. Please, I love you no matter what.

  No matter what.

  The voice of Eva’s abductor filled Sam’s ears as well, that high-pitched tone. Creepy and dark.

  But the shot was here, and he felt a great urge, a need, to take it, to end all this. Besides, if he wanted Eva safe he had to take the shot, didn’t he?

  Or was there another way?

  A thought came to mind, just a glimmer of hope, but growing brighter. Eva was calling him, drawing him. Her voice was a rope pulling him up from the murky waters, up toward the light.

  There was another way. And he would take it.

  He shut his eyes, opened just the right one, sighted through the scope, inhaled, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.

  Sixty-Two

  STEPHEN LINCOLN GRIPPED THE PODIUM WITH BOTH HANDS. He’d insisted on presenting the speech even after Tony Wu told him of the call they’d received. A woman claimed her husband was going to make an assassination attempt. They had no validation of the threat, just a wife’s panicked phone call. To be safe, Lincoln told Tony to get Emily off the platform. Tony wanted to shut the whole thing down, call it quits, and get Lincoln and Emily out of town as quickly as possible, but Lincoln refused. Twice. And Tony wasn’t happy about it.

  Now, as exposed as a lighthouse on a rocky point, Lincoln felt a fear like never before. But he couldn’t show it. He couldn’t let the crowd notice even a waver in his voice, a shadow of anything less than confidence in his demeanor. This was his time, his message, his passion. He had to deliver it with full and true conviction.

  But the fear was still there. At any moment he expected the crack of a rifle shot and the sharp punch of a bullet.

  He paused, said a quick silent prayer. His eyes surveyed the crowd. He doubted the shooter would be among the spectators. Security was too tight for anyone to sneak a weapon past the checkpoints. He considered the schoolchildren in front of him and had second thoughts about continuing with the speech. What of their safety? He threw a glance at the agent on the ground to his right. He didn’t even know the man’s name. He was tall and well built, had to be over two hundred pounds. His hand was at his ear, his eyes focused on a strip of shops and hotels to his left.

  Lincoln glanced at his notes. He’d memorized his speech and delivered it to himself countless times, but suddenly he felt he knew none of it. This was ridiculous. The threat may be nothing at all, just the paranoia of a bitter wife. It was not validated, that’s what Tony said. But obviously they were taking it seriously.

  “My fellow citizens,” Lincoln began. “Men and women, young and old, we stand here together on hallowed soil, on the fields of ancient battle where Americans shed their blood for the right to liberty and justice for all. For freedom.

  “I too long for freedom, for personal choice, and in fact have fought for that right during my political career, only to have my world and my beliefs shaken last year by—”

  To Lincoln’s left the brick pillar supporting the rostrum’s roof exploded in a spray of red dust and mortar, even as the crack of a distant rifle pierced the air. He flinched and ducked. Pandemonium broke out. Two agents were on him before he could turn around, pulling him to the platform’s deck. Men scrambled. People screamed and yelled. Cursed. Children cried. Panic was in the air like a pelting rainfall.

  How many shots had there been? Lincoln had heard only one, but in the commotion following there may have been another; he couldn’t be sure. The men on top of him were hollering something, but he couldn’t make out what it was. Though he tried to get up, they had him pinned.

  Emily. All Stephen Lincoln could think of was Emily.

  Had she made it to the car?

  Sixty-Three

  SAM NEVER SAW THE CHAOS UNLEASHED BY HIS SHOT. HE’D missed intentionally for just that purpose: to cause a distraction. A major distraction. As soon as his finger pulled the trigger and the bullet left the barrel, he tucked the rifle into his duffle bag and bolted from the room.

  He headed for the motel’s back exit. Behind him people poured out of their rooms into the hallways, wondering what was going on—was that a gunshot? Where was the shooter? In the distance sirens gave mournful wails. He had to hurry before the roads out of town were barricaded.

  Down the steps he ran, taking them two, three at a time, almost falling more than once. He burst into the parking lot. The Escort was there waiting for him. He had no time to think about what had just unfolded, about Eva’s voice in his head, in his heart, about the man with the glittery skin—Jacob—about the shot, the assassination that never was, about his daughter in the hands of a madman. He just ran.

  He unlocked the Escort’s door, tossed the duffle bag onto the passenger seat, and climbed in behind the wheel. The car started without hesitation, and he had to remind himself to stay calm, follow the plan, avoid drawing attention to himself.

  It was beginning to rain again, sporadically, fingernail-sized drops here and there on the windshield. And he had no idea where he was going. He needed to get to Eva. If the psycho who had her was watching the speech on television, which seemed safe to assume, then he had seen the shooting and whatever holy mess had followed. No doubt the senator had been tackled to the ground for his own protection, as the whole area erupted in bedlam. Reporters wouldn’t know for hours whether the senator was hit or not.

  Sam’s nightmare, though, was not knowing his daughter’s whereabouts.

  He needed to get out of town, get clear of the activity around the cemetery that was already rippling outward like shockwaves after a bombing.

  Taking side streets, trying to stay close to the posted speed limit so as not to draw attention, he managed to find Fairfield Road and head south out of town beyond any erected roadblocks. Beyond the town line, he pulled the car to the side of the road and gripped his head with both hands. The adrenaline rush was waning and opening the door for his emotions to emerge. He had to keep it together; this was no time for a breakdown.

  A township police car, one of the decked-out Chargers, headed toward him, siren and lights on full display. Sam scrubbed his face and held his breath, but the cop behind the wheel didn’t even glance over as he sped by.

  A sense of panic overtook Sam. Eva, his baby girl, his little buddy,
was in the hands of a psycho, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t go to the police, not now. They’d see right through him. Besides, if Molly was the one who called in the warning, the authorities were already looking for him. He’d have to find Eva on his own. But how? How? The question pounded in his skull like a jackhammer chipping away at granite.

  Sam gripped the steering wheel and paused to pray. Nothing eloquent or elaborate, just a simple plea for help. But it was something. It was a start.

  About a quarter mile ahead, a figure was standing alongside the road. The water on the windshield blurred Sam’s view, and he swept the wipers once over the glass, revealing an oddly familiar man whose skin seemed to shimmer in the rain.

  And he was pointing to Sam’s left.

  Sixty-Four

  SYMON RUBBED THE TIPS OF HIS FINGERS AS HE PACED THE sunroom. While waiting for Sam Travis to take action, he’d squeezed the arms of the overstuffed chair so hard that he numbed the ends of each finger.

  Then Sam had taken the shot.

  A spray of red.

  The senator dropping to the deck.

  Sam had done it, actually hit his mark. On the television the pandemonium that unfolded was almost comical. In fact, it was comical. With Lincoln down, Symon had let out a sharp yelp, like a coyote, and startled Eva. She understood what had taken place and sat in stunned silence, watching with Symon as the news reporter, in a shaky voice, tried to comment on unfolding events.

  Someone had taken a shot at Senator Stephen Lincoln. Of course, Symon knew full well who that someone was. So did poor little Eva. Her daddy was now the most wanted man in America. A very bad man indeed.

  With eyes still fixed on the plasma screen, Symon patted her tiny shoulder. “It’s OK, darling Eva. Daddy did the right thing. You’ll come to understand that in the future.”

  He backed away from her and sat in a wicker chair. It creaked under his weight. Outside, the rain left silvery tracks down the glass panes. On the TV they were replaying the moment before the shot—Lincoln speaking, looking down at the podium, at his notes, glancing to his right, then flinching and going down, instantly covered by security agents willing to take the next bullet in his stead. At normal speed it looked like a clean shot, but when replayed at half-speed, Symon saw something that sent waves of heat through his blood. There, to Lincoln’s left, an instant before he flinched and went down, something struck the brick support column and erupted in a spray of red dust.

  Sam Travis had missed. Intentionally or not, he’d missed.

  Anger flared in Symon like a stoked fire. The flames licked at his nerves. He sprang from the chair and rushed the television, kicking it over and shattering the plasma screen. Eva flinched and hunched down into the chair.

  Symon paced the room like a criminal on death row whose time had come. His nerves burned, itched, twitched. His mind raced in all directions at once. This wasn’t part of the plan, and he had no idea what to do next. He looked at Eva in her chair, so small, so vulnerable, and again thought of his own daughter. He’d warned Travis that if he didn’t complete the mission Eva would die, but now he found himself unable to carry out that threat. She was too much like his own child, his Bethany.

  Bethany.

  That was her name, wasn’t it? Now he had not only a face but also a name. He said it aloud, “Bethany.” It felt comfortable, natural, coming out of his mouth. Like he’d said it a million times before, imprinting each syllable in the muscles of his tongue and lips. “Bethany.” He was somebody. He was a father, a dad.

  Bethany’s daddy.

  From the chair Eva said, “Who’s Bethany?”

  “We need to move, Eva. Daddy did a very bad thing, and we need to leave this place.” He reached his hand toward her and had an image of doing the same thing with his Bethany. “We need to move now.”

  Sixty-Five

  IN SPITE OF HIS ONCE-ACTIVE FAITH, SAM TRAVIS HAD NEVER believed in miracles, at least never believed they would happen to him, but what he saw, whom he saw, standing in the rain on the gravel shoulder along Fairfield Road made him a convert.

  Jacob. It couldn’t be, but it was. It had to be. He was the same man from the crowd, the man who’d found Sam in the window from so many yards away.

  He was looking directly at Sam, pointing at something to his right. From this distance Sam couldn’t tell what it was, but it had to be something off the road.

  On a far hill, the flashing lights of another police car appeared. Sam knew he needed to get moving. He checked his side-view mirror and pulled onto the pavement. Just ahead, the road was empty. Jacob was gone. Sam hit the steering wheel hard. Had he been duped by another hallucination? Despair overtook him, tearing at him like the teeth and claws of ravenous wolves. The police car was upon him now, heading toward town where some nut had taken a shot at the senator. He had a sudden impulse to jump out of the Escort and surrender, to give himself wholly to these wolves. But the cruiser howled past in a blur of lights.

  Up ahead, where the Jacob apparition had been pointing, a gravel lane cut off the main road, its deeply worn ruts divided by a grassy median. Maybe there was something to this after all. Sam decided to see where it led. What harm could that do? He had no other grand scheme to fall back on. No other way of finding Eva.

  Gravel crunched beneath the tires, and dry grass scraped the car’s undercarriage. His wipers were beating steadily now to battle the increasing rain.

  The lane stretched out through grassy fields, its destination obscured by a rise. On the crest Jacob stood next to a tree. He was pointing over the slope. This time, as Sam grew closer, Jacob did not disappear. He was no more than fifty feet away now. Nevertheless, Sam was still convinced he was a hallucination, an image his brain had conjured from the descriptions given him by Eva. Thirty feet now, and Jacob’s skin glimmered ever brighter, despite the downpour. It seemed to catch and refract whatever light was in the air, as though encrusted with miniature diamonds. Ten feet, and Sam could see the color of Jacob’s irises, a brilliant azure, the stuff of the clearest, bluest skies on the sunniest of days. They were radiant, seeming to create their own light.

  Now Jacob was right outside the car.

  Sam thought of stopping and rolling down the window but didn’t. It didn’t feel right. Instead he met Jacob’s eyes and felt warmth pour over him, a hot shower after being caught in the cold rain for too long. Those eyes spoke of hope, love, assurance. They had a quality that pierced Sam through his flesh, muscle, tendons, organs, all the way to his soul, infusing him with something he couldn’t quite put a finger on. But it was good. This was no mirage, no hallucination. Sam didn’t know what Jacob was—an angel? He’d probably never know, not really, but at the moment it didn’t matter. Jacob was telling him that he was on the right path, heading in the right direction, to Eva, and that there was still light in the darkness, still something to grab hold of and hang on to. There was still hope.

  Pushing the accelerator to the floorboard, Sam crested the hill. He glanced in the rearview mirror as he passed Jacob and saw that he had vanished again. But up ahead, another two hundred yards along the gravel path, a capacious white house appeared through the trees, the kind of mansion seen on plantations in the South—the kind where psychos hid with their abductees.

  Sixty-Six

  SYMON GRABBED HIS JACKET AND DRAGGED EVA ALONG, HIS hand large enough to overlap his first knuckles and thumb around her wrist. He had no plan, but he did have the advantage. He had a hostage. And if he played the game correctly, he might yet persuade Travis to complete the mission. Although now the mission was less important to him than surviving this whole thing so he could find his Bethany. And Eva would be his ticket for survival.

  Out the front door they fled into the chilly November air, damp and thick with humidity. Overhead, the rain pattered on the porch roof in a syncopated rhythm, like a chorus of finger-tappers drumming on school desks.

  Symon stopped and his breath caught in his throat. A car was app
roaching, and quickly, no more than a hundred yards away. It was him. Travis. Coming for his daughter.

  Eva let out a sharp gasp and yanked free, but Symon caught her by the jacket before she made it off the porch.

  “That’s my dad,” she cried, fighting his grip.

  He yanked her hard, and she fell. “Come, Eva; we must be on our way.” When she refused to get her legs under her, he stooped low, hoisted her with one arm wrapped around her waist, and carried her against his hip. She lashed and flailed like a salmon snatched from its upriver journey.

  The car stopped, the door opened, and Travis popped out, holding his rifle at shoulder level.

  In one quick and anything but smooth motion, Symon ripped the Beretta from his jacket pocket and pressed the barrel against Eva’s head. Time seemed to freeze, as if the inner workings of the earth’s machinery had frozen tight and ground to a sudden halt. Raindrops fell in slow motion, each one impacting the earth with such force that the sound reminded Symon of tribal war drums. Travis had his elbow propped on the open car door, rifle pointed in their direction, crosshairs on Symon’s forehead (he could feel those crosshairs on him, tattooed on his flesh), while Symon had Eva in his grasp, the cold metal of the Beretta against her skull. He’d never shoot her. No, it would be like offing his own daughter, and he would never, ever, do that.

  But Travis didn’t know that.

  Symon began working his way slowly back across the porch to the front door. If he got inside, he would have the advantage.

  “Let her go,” Travis yelled. His voice sounded shaky.