The old man’s smile grew into a toothy grin. It was such a beautiful day and he couldn’t wait to offer his special deal to a few more people. Maybe someone would surprise him today after all.
You just never knew. Not on a beautiful day like this. Almost anything could happen.
12.
Sheriff Logan slammed on the brakes as he passed by the Windbrook Diner on Main Street. Something wasn’t right. The CLOSED sign hung in the front window and there was a red stain splashed across the window glass.
He parked and hurried to the door, which was locked, something it had never been during business hours in his entire life as far as he knew.
“Bill?” Sheriff Logan called. “You in there?”
He studied the stain and he didn’t have to think twice before smashing the glass door with his heavy Maglite. He had seen more than enough blood in his lifetime to recognize it drying on a window.
13.
“Hello there,” the old man said. “Could I ask you a question?”
His demeanor was friendly, his suit was neatly pressed, and his black fedora hat made him look like your favorite grandfather.
Of course, the answer came, of course you can ask me your question.
So he asked, and as always, he was told the deep, dark truth of the person’s most guarded secret desire.
He was always told. Always.
People found his strange eyes to be irresistible.
14.
Sheriff Logan stepped over the broken glass and he discovered what he most feared.
Bill Smith was dead, slumped in a booth by the window, the side of his head splattered onto the glass. Clots of blood and hair and dark shiny brain tissue glistened on the tabletop.
Splayed against the counter where Ben had drunk a thousand milkshakes as a kid was Deputy Meyer, his service weapon dangling in his limp hand. After executing Bill, he had shot himself in both legs and bled out all over the black and white checkered floor.
“Jesus, help us,” Sheriff Logan whispered. He felt like he was losing his mind. None of this made any sense. None of it.
He turned his back on the scene, struggling to maintain his composure. These men were his friends. Good, steadfast men. It didn’t make any damn sense.
He was out of deputies in the field to call upon, so he radioed the State Police barracks and explained what was happening.
“Additional officers are on the way,” the young man on the other end said in an excited voice.
“Send everyone you can,” the sheriff replied. Then he returned to his car and took the necessary steps to secure the scene.
In the back of his head, a little voice suggested he call Jennifer and tell her to go straight home and lock the doors and windows and not let anyone in, but that voice was drowned out by a thousand other louder voices delving into what Ben had seen and done so far today, trying to connect the dots and make sense of the senseless.
Thoughts of Jennifer melted away into the chaos, and he didn’t think of her again until it was much too late.
15.
Across town, the final bell of the day was ringing at the Community School, and Jennifer Logan was on her way to pick up her kids for the last time.
16.
Forty minutes later, the State Police had arrived at the Windbrook Diner and Sheriff Logan was back in his car. Now Deputy Dayton wasn’t answering the radio in the station.
Sheriff Logan drove along Main Street in the middle of town, his eyes scanning for anything out of place, but everything felt wrong and out of place given how the day had gone. CLOSED signs hung in several storefronts and the sidewalks seemed much emptier than usual for this time of day, but the sheriff didn’t stop to investigate. He was in too much of a hurry to check the station and reestablish communication with his men.
The sheriff glanced at the darkening sky as he drove out of the town proper. Even the weather had changed for the worse out of nowhere. Clusters of black thunderclouds spotted the slate gray sky, screening the sun’s rays. A strengthening wind swept down from the east carrying the promise of rain.
Sheriff Logan carefully steered around a wide bend in the road and that was when he saw the parking lot for the Windbrook Grocery and Farmer’s Market. People were running and cutting across the lot with their heads down, scurrying behind cars like children playing a game of tag or hide-and-seek.
These weren’t kids playing games, though. They were people of all ages, fleeing in fear, trying to hide, screaming and running, running for their lives.
And then Sheriff Logan heard the gunshots.
17.
Gunfire echoed across the valley, and this time it wasn’t coming from hunters in the state parks.
Sheriff Logan hit his siren and swung into the parking lot where the dead and wounded were scattered across the pavement. A few crumpled bodies lay perfectly still, others hugged the gravel lot in terror, and one man was trying to drag himself to safety, leaving a bloody smear behind him.
The shooter was nowhere to be seen as far as Sheriff Logan could tell, but he pulled the patrol car as close as he could to the crawling man to block him from further fire. Glock in hand, the sheriff got out, knelt behind the car door, and called to the man. He had stopped crawling and rolled onto his side. The sheriff, staring at the gaping hole in the man’s stomach, could see why. The man had been holding a clump of his intestines when he died. His stomach organs were squirming in between and around his curled fingers like worms, his digestive juices spilling onto the lot. The man’s face was frozen in death, his mouth hooked in a death-fighting snarl. The dead man, Logan realized to his horror, was Windbrook’s former sheriff, Leroy Callahaun.
Fighting the panic rising in his own stomach, Sheriff Logan sprinted behind a green Buick with a shattered windshield. Chips of asphalt stung his arms and legs as bullets tore into the parking lot. The shooter was still active, but where the hell was he? People were crying out in pain and panic and yelling at the sheriff from all directions, but he only caught snatches of words and sentences. “I’m hit…started shooting…my arm…Christ Almighty…think she’s dead…help us…please…where is he…Lord Jesus, please help… help…”
At first, the sheriff thought one of the shoppers had gone berserk or that maybe there was a robbery-gone-wrong in progress, but now he realized the gunfire was coming from a higher elevation, from the tree-covered hillside behind the store. A sniper who knew how to pick a strong vantage point.
Sheriff Logan gazed through the windows of the green Buick, scanning the series of steep cliffs that marked the edge of town. After a long breathless moment, he spotted a fire flash in the trees as another shot rang out. Bingo.
The sheriff scooted to the back of the Buick and peeked around the trunk, searching the parking lot for any wounded in the line of fire. He was relieved to see that they all had reached safety with the others. He didn’t want to go out there again if he didn’t have—
Logan’s heart skipped a beat and then almost stopped when he glanced to his far right and saw it:
Jennifer’s car was parked neatly in a space not far from the store’s entrance. He scanned the parking lot again, but he didn’t see Jennifer or the kids anywhere. His heart jerked in his chest and his lungs felt deflated and heavy.
“Jennifer!” he yelled as loud as he could muster. “Paul! Mary!”
He was answered by another gunshot, the sound of breaking glass, and the muffled sobs of a scared teenaged girl hiding nearby. Whoever was up on that hill was a hell of a shot.
“Jennifer!” he called again, louder this time.
There was no answer.
Where the hell were they?
Dying?
Dead?
A mental image of Jennifer squirming on the ground, her hands grasping her bullet-riddled stomach, flashed in Sheriff Logan’s mind and he squeezed his eyes shut, pushing it away.
18.
Sheriff Logan swallowed his fear and panic. It was his sworn duty to protect this t
own and he intended to do just that. He quickly informed nearby civilians of the shooter’s location and yelled at them to remain where they were until more help arrived. He desperately needed to call for backup, but he had left his radio in the car, which was too far away to reach safely, and his cell phone was sitting forgotten on his desk back at the office again. He always forgot that damn thing when he needed it the most.
I should have called in before I left the car, he scolded himself. Someone inside the store must have called 911, though, by now. But it was his job, not theirs.
Sheriff Logan knew he had to do something and do something quick. He couldn’t just wait here and let the shooter flank them. If that happened, they’d all be sitting ducks, like targets in a shooting gallery. He spotted a pair of green dumpsters at the far end of the parking lot. The seconds ticked on his watch as he breathed deeply, steadying himself. He wondered again: who the hell is on that hill?
The thought barely had time to register in his mind when he bolted from safety.
19.
Sheriff Logan weaved across the parking lot bracing for the burning lead impact of a bullet. His ears strained for the quick burst of gunfire, but the shots never came. He slipped behind the dumpsters, sucking in huge gulps of air. Why hadn’t the sniper fired a shot? Maybe he’d already fled. Or maybe he was moving into a better position to pick off more victims.
Other questions surfaced as Sheriff Logan contemplated his next move.
Where was his backup? Someone had to have called for help by now. The State Police could be here in a matter of minutes if they were coming from the diner. Maybe less.
Leroy Callahaun was dead. The man who had hired him and given him a new purpose in life was now a corpse growing cold on the pavement of the Windbrook Grocery and Farmer’s Market.
How many more were dead or wounded?
His own family?
Please, God, no.
Sheriff Logan checked his watch and realized only ten minutes had passed since he’d left the diner. That meant he had been at the scene for only four or five minutes at the most.
He carefully leaned his head around the dumpster. The wood’s edge was maybe fifteen yards away, beckoning him. Staring at the broken row of trees, he knew what he had to do.
He lifted his Glock in front of him, moved to the side of the dumpster, and then broke into a dead sprint for the tree line. As the trees grew closer, he left his feet, diving for cover among the green shrubs. He hit the ground hard and rolled to his knees behind a tangle of thick brush. His left hand was bleeding from where he had landed on a piece of shattered bottle, but he ignored the blood, realizing again that he had drawn no fire. Maybe the sniper had really left.
The sheriff edged his way around a fallen, decaying tree and crawled on his belly to the next natural barrier. The process of moving from cover position to cover position was intimately familiar to him. How many times had he participated in this exercise in his teens and early twenties? Without sparing the thought, he flashed back to boot camp. Life was but a wheel, spinning ’round and ’round again, everything old was new again.
He made his way slowly and carefully up the steep hill, hurrying to stay behind the protection of the old growth trees, stopping every few minutes to listen for movement ahead. A novice might believe he was alone in these woods, but Ben Logan wasn’t a mere beginner at the world’s most dangerous version of hide-and-seek.
A long peal of thunder sounded above the trees, startling him. The storm rolling into the valley was quickly turning day into night, and the shadows jumped and chased after him.
Feeling very much like the soldier of his youth, Sheriff Logan became one with those shadows.
20.
The sheriff paused below an outcropping of enormous rocks, wiping both hands on his pants, removing the greasy sweat. When he was finished, he regripped his Glock and continued stealthily forward. His shirt was soaked and his face and arms were scraped raw and bleeding from the dozens of thorn bushes blocking his progress. He squinted into the murky woods ahead, studying the trees and the darker spaces in between. The woods were still and silent around him. Even the animals had gone quiet. Each time he halted his progress he heard only his own thundering heartbeat.
After what seemed like endless climbing, he stumbled across what he was looking for. Scattered at his feet were several dozen empty cartridges. A small army of red ants swarmed among the tiny shells.
Gazing down the hill, the sheriff was awed by the sight before him. From this over-watch position, the sniper had a perfect view of the parking lot. The nearby buildings were laid out like a miniature scale model in some architect’s office. But the distance was incredible. Just as Ben wasn’t a novice to making war, neither was the shooter. To actually hit and kill moving targets from here was the work of a professional shooter, maybe one of the best he had ever seen.
The sheriff spotted his cruiser among the other cars, and the tiny still bodies of those people he hadn’t been able to help. None of his deputies or the staties were in sight.
Where the hell is my backup? he thought. They should have been there by now. Something else must have gone very wrong in town for no one to respond to an active shooter situation.
Logan visually retraced his path from the cruiser to the edge of the woods and felt even more confused. The sniper had a bird’s eye view of everything, and his path had been out in the open for at least thirty-five yards.
This guy could have easily blown me away, he thought. So why did he decide to cut and run?
Before the sheriff could consider the question any further, something moved behind him.
21.
The sheriff registered the movement and reacted before his brain even processed the source of the sound, his old military training kicking into high gear. He dropped to his stomach at the sound of dry, crackling branches under approaching feet and slid himself under a thick bush.
Why was the shooter coming back now? He wasn’t finished? Maybe went for more ammo? But that wouldn’t have been very professional, not to have been carrying enough on him for whatever grisly task he meant to accomplish.
The sheriff further concealed himself with overgrown ferns, his hand squeezing into his gun’s grooved handgrip. The footsteps crunched louder as they drew nearer and with each step the sheriff’s heart gained momentum.
The approaching figure was making too much noise for the sheriff’s liking. The person who had made those amazingly brutal shots had to be a professional soldier and a pro wouldn’t be moving so loudly. He would be quiet and precise in his steps.
Sheriff Logan glanced upward through a gap in the trees. The bloated storm clouds had gained strength in the battle for the sky and the forest grew darker in what seemed like a matter of seconds. A blanket of darkness was drifting down upon him, smothering him in night during the middle of day.
Straining through the gloomy grayness, the sheriff watched as a ghost-like figure emerged from the shadows, cutting through the waist-high shrubbery—and walked directly toward him.
22.
A bright flash of lightning illuminated the sky, sending jagged shadows across the small clearing where the sniper had set up position to target the parking lot.
Sheriff Logan could barely make out the faint outline of the person in the flickering darkness. It had to be the shooter. Tall and thin and carrying a rifle, stopping twenty yards short of Logan’s position. The sheriff couldn’t quite see what the shooter was doing but reloading the rifle seemed likely from the controlled movements. The idea of opening fire on the unsuspecting shooter crossed the sheriff’s mind but he quickly decided against it. If he shot him in the back, the sheriff would be no better than the murdering bastard.
Sheriff Logan quietly shifted his weight, clinching his jaw tight, holding his breath. His fingers tightened on his weapon. Should he rush the shooter? Could he cover that much ground in time? What if—
Another bolt of lightning scratched the black sky, and the sniper
turned, revealing his identity.
23.
Shock twisted the sheriff’s face into a mask of agony as he recognized the person standing before him. He felt a sledgehammer sucker punch land in his stomach and he had to steady himself on his elbow to remain still.
A spectacular series of white flashes stabbed at the sky, giving the sheriff another, better view of the sniper.
He saw his son’s smiling face.
24.
Ben Logan’s heart stopped dead. Air refused to enter his lungs. A tornado of emotions shook his body with uncontrollable pain and confusion. It felt like he was stuck in one of his nightmares and couldn’t wake up yet nothing had ever been more real than this moment before him. His son was a killer. But how? Why? The idea didn’t make any sense.
Paul laid a dark red scarf on the ground and spread more shells on it. The sheriff immediately recognized the scarf; it was his wife’s favorite, a Christmas present from two winters ago. Crouched on one knee, Paul loaded the rifle, whistling happily as if he were merely at the firing range for a fun afternoon of target practice.
Sheriff Logan edged out from under the bush, scraping his back on a heavy dead branch.
Paul continued to sort the shells, unaware that he wasn’t alone.
Darkness Whispers Page 4