The Great Crime Spike: A Dystopian Thriller Novel (Liberty Down Book 1)

by Eric M Hill

  The chief looked earnestly at his neighbors, many of whom had personally suffered vicious attacks. “I’m the chief of police, but I can’t speak for anyone but myself and those who are under my command. Predators have declared war on society. We can’t continue to think defensively. We have to go on the offense. We have to take the fight to them. I don’t care what the Constitution or the Bill of Rights say. The only right a predator has in Austin is the right to die.”

  The holographic reporter was shocked and speechless.

  ***

  President Cuning was neither. “Chief King is nothing if not predictable,” he said. He repeated the chief’s words, “I don’t care what the Constitution or the Bill of Rights say. I like this cowboy. We get enough people thinking like that and we can make America great again.”

  “Congratulations, Mr. President,” said the chief of staff, “looks like you have your catalyst.”

  ***

  Dr. Anderson looked at Chief King beat the predator to death and knew that killing one or two or three predators at a time was not the answer. They had to do it in mass. Thousands at a time.

  Chapter 24

  Lucky’s birth name was Luke, but no one called him that any longer. He was more Lucky than he was Luke. Things just seemed to fall into place for him. Like now. He hadn’t planned to rob anyone until later, when it was darker. And he hadn’t planned to have sex until after he robbed someone and picked up some fortunate girl at a bar.

  But there she was. Right there, not half a block away. Walking with her head down, unaware of her surroundings, probably doing something on her phone. He did a quick scan of the area as he drove toward her as she approached from the opposite direction on the right. He put his hand to the right side of his face and lowered his head a bit as he passed her.

  She was gorgeous. Long black hair, low-cut, cleavage-showing, little black dress barely covering long, luscious white legs. He turned slightly as he passed. “Yes, Mama!” he exulted softly, when he saw all that back out. “Where in the world are you going, sweetheart?”

  Lucky went to the end of the block and made a U-turn on the quiet residential street. He appreciated the mature trees and the darkness they ushered onto the block. He kept a safe distance and hoped she didn’t make a sudden turn up into someone’s home. He started talking to himself. “What’s my name? Lucky. Why do they call me Lucky? Because I’m Lucky. Am I Lucky tonight? I’m Lucky every night.”

  Then it hit Lucky. Austin Rocks. She’s going to Austin Rocks! Awesome club; horrible parking. She was carrying her fine behind two blocks to Austin Rocks. His pulse rate quickened as he thought about what was under that little black dress. His mind sifted through a few scenarios.

  Show her my gun. She panics and obeys. She screams. She runs. She screams and runs. She pulls out a gun. No, she’s got a tiny purse. Ain’t no gun in there.

  Use stun gun. No, I’d have to carry her somewhere instead of making her walk.

  Use pepper spray. She coughs and throws up all over the place. I still gotta knock her out.

  Make it easy. Just knock her out.

  An idea popped into Lucky’s mind that he’d thought about off and on, mostly when he was smoking dope and watching porn. He’d take her. He knew guys who’d snatched girls and kept them for months. Two dudes he knew, Ace and Trey, kept a girl for over a year. They had two girls right now chained in a basement.

  Lucky watched his future first sex slave and porn star. Now she was talking on her phone. His car inched forward as she walked and talked, not knowing that her master was watching. If she passed the alley and kept going toward the main street, he’d beat her there, do a U-turn, come back and jump out the car, show her the gun to shut her up, then shoot her with the stun gun, drive off and party, party, party. If she turned the corner and took the alley short-cut, he’d do basically the same thing. It would just be easier to grab her in the alley.

  The girl got to the corner of the alley. She stopped. “Really?” she said into the phone. “He likes me. You think so? Can’t wait to meet him? Okay, see you in a minute.” She turned left toward the alley and took off her heels.

  Lucky grabbed his homemade license wrapper and stopped the car. He jumped out and put it on the back plate. He jumped back in the car, went to the corner, and turned on his left blinker. There were no cops around, but he always used his blinkers. Any habit that helped keep the cops away was a lucky habit. And Lucky wanted to stay lucky.

  What? he wondered, looking at her. How’d she get so far? He’d have to hurry. She was already close to the end of the alley. He sped up and was baffled, but relieved that she turned toward an alley. Didn’t make sense to him. She was going out of her way.

  Wait a minute, Lucky. Did she tell you she was going to Austin Rocks? he scolded himself. Don’t worry about where she’s going. Just get that black dress into the car! He grimaced. He knew that alley. It was a one-way, and not the way he needed. He tapped the steering wheel for a moment, seriously thinking of copping out on this chick and finding someone else.

  Who are you? came the thought.

  “I’m Lucky,” he said. He sped down the alley and parked. He got out and took a quick scan. Nothing, and no one but the little black dress right around the corner. Cool. Plan. Simple. Run up on her and shoot her with the stun gun. Simple if she didn’t do that Wonder Woman crap she did when she came down this alley.

  Lucky ran to the edge of the alley and peeked around. He pulled his head back and looked up. “Oh, yes.”

  That little black dress was only about twenty feet away. The girl had stopped and was arguing with someone on the phone. Her back was to him. He kissed the stun gun and turned the corner. He took a few trots, then settled into a happy, animated walk, complete with wiggling shoulders.

  That long black hair. Those long white legs. And all that back.

  She turned and as beautiful as she was, she looked like death. It was the gun in her hand that gave her this feature. “Hello, Lucky, don’t you wish you were gay right about now? You wouldn’t be in this alley staring at a gun barrel.”

  “How do you know me?” he stammered.

  “Oh, Lucky, Lucky, we’re going to talk. Just not here.”

  Not here? he thought. This girl is flipping the script. I ain’t going—

  Little Black Dress saw his thoughts in his eyes. She turned a little to the right and straightened her gun hand on him. Her left hand held her phone to her ear. “Glock versus stun gun. Are you feeling lucky, Lucky?”

  He tossed the stun gun. “Look, I don’t how you know—”

  “Quiet,” she calmly ordered . She spoke into the phone as she smiled and winked at Lucky. “You were right. He does like me. I think he’s going to like you, too—at least until he gets to know the real you.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” said Lucky. Then he followed her eyes. He turned and beautiful got ugly again. Two beautiful women, one white and one black, came walking around the corner in slow motion. The white girl had a phone to her ear and a shotgun propped on her shoulder. The black girl was as hot as he knew her pistol was cold.

  “You can come out, too, James,” said Little Black Dress.

  Lucky waited for whoever James was to come from around the corner.

  “Predators can’t say no to that little black dress, can they, Nicki?”

  “Ahumm,” one of the girls cleared her throat in protest.

  “And you. And you, too, Jada,” James corrected.

  “Thank you,” said the two girls.

  Lucky turned around at the sound of the deep voice. The voice belonged to a black guy whose name had to be Hulk. Predator? Oh, no. These people are hunters. I can’t believe I fell for this.

  Lucky had never felt so unlucky in all his life.

  He had also never experienced the effects of his own stun gun. Until tonight.

  When he came out of the electricity induced stupor, he spent the next several days in captivity telling the predator hunters everything he
could think of about other predators. He even made up some stuff, hoping it would save his life.

  Chapter 25

  Terrell closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He held his hand to his face as he took a couple of deep breaths. He covered his eyes with a thumb and index finger and then traced the bridge of his nose. He was trying as hard as he could to not cry.

  “It’s alright to cry, Terry,” his mom said. “You’ve worked hard for this. Kept yourself out of trouble. Applied yourself. You went to school when others chose not to. You studied when everyone else watched television or went to parties.” She reached across the small, modest kitchen table of their cramped two-bedroom Austin home. “It’s your time now, Mr. Medical School Man. This is why I’ve worked so hard. To give you a chance to get out of this neighborhood.”

  His mother’s words broke him down. Tears rolled out of his eyes. “I’m going to pay you back, Mom. I’m going to get you out of here. And I’m going to put Tamara and Dennis through school, just like you did me.”

  “Terry, you don’t have to do anything for me. I love you. You’re my son. This is what parents do.” Her eyes watered. “But Tamara and Dennis…” her voice trailed. “They’re good kids.”

  He stood up and draped his arms around his sitting mother and hugged her. “We’re family. When I make it, we all make it.”

  Now she was the one overcome with tears. “You better go on before you’re late.”

  ***

  Lucky was in the back seat of the car again. James was driving. Nicki was up front with him, and the other two girls sat on both sides of Lucky. His hands were tied behind his back, which didn’t help his broken arms any. The girls had all been raped, and had used him for therapy.

  He didn’t believe in God, but he had thanked Him for James. For James was the only reason his penis was still attached to his body. But the girls were back at their talk of cutting it off if he didn’t give them more predators, preferably rapists.

  The problem was, unless they wanted to leave Austin, and they didn’t, he didn’t know any other rapists, except the ones he had no way of reaching. He was crying again. Not boo-hoo crying, but tears were flowing and he was sniffling. It was that girl, Jada, again. She was psycho, and it seemed no matter what he did for them, she was determined to cut his penis off.

  Jada opened her knife. She placed her hand on his thigh and slowly rubbed up and down, smiling at him the whole time. “You did good ratting out your predator friends, Ace and Trey. Five girls freed. That’s good, Lucky,” she said. “But I think you’re holding out on us.”

  “I’m not. I swear, I’m not. I wouldn’t lie to you. Please…” begged Lucky.

  Jada started rubbing between his legs. “I’m not convinced.” Her voice was soft. “What about you, Crystal? You think we can trust this predator?”

  “I don’t think so, Jada.”

  “What about you, Nicki?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not going to ask you, James. You’re biased,” said Jada.

  “Leave the man’s package alone, Jada,” James said, but not with nearly the conviction Lucky would’ve like to have heard.

  Lucky felt himself getting hard. This was the first time in his life he regretted an erection. He closed his thighs together when she brought the knife closer to his crotch.

  “Ah ah ahhh,” she said. “That’s what the guy who raped me said when he cuffed my hands to the bed. When I closed my legs, he said, ‘Ah ah ahhh. You open your legs or I’ll open your face.’ And since he had already beaten me, I had no reason to not believe him. You don’t want hot Jada to unzip your fly, do you?”

  All shame was gone. Lucky was crying like a baby. “Noooo, please, noooo.”

  She kept rubbing his crotch. “Okay, big man, like the man told me—spread your legs.”

  He did.

  She began to gently poke him with the tip of the blade. “Any more names come to mind?”

  “Nooo, I really don’t—”

  She jabbed a little harder.

  He yelped.

  She began rubbing his crotch again. “How does this feel, rapist?”

  “I’m sorry,” Lucky said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry!” screamed Nicki from the front seat, turning around. “Sorry for what?”

  “For hurting people,” Lucky cried.

  “People?” screamed Nicki. “For hurting people?”

  “For hurting women,” Lucky pled. “For hurting women.”

  Nicki glared at the crying predator. She’d been raped twice, and both times she’d been beaten and tortured even though she’d done everything the rapists demanded. “Jada, cut it off right now! I don’t care what James says!”

  Lucky stopped crying and bolted up. He saw someone on the street. Had his luck changed? Maybe he could give this crazy woman something. “Him!” he yelled.

  “What?” Nicki yelled back.

  “Him,” said Lucky. “The guy at the bus stop. That’s Terrell. We grew up together. He raped a girl at a party,” he lied. “He put something in her drink.”

  “He raped her?” James asked suspiciously. “Where were you? Washing the dishes?”

  “Okay, we both did it. But, man that’s it. If you let me go, I’m through. I’m not doing anything like that again.”

  “Stop the car, James,” said Nicki.

  He pulled over.

  She opened the door.

  “No,” said Crystal, stopping Nicki. “I got this one. You got the last one.” She opened the door and crossed the street.

  ***

  This was a bad neighborhood, but everyone knew him and his family. So his fear didn’t really set in until he’d get on the bus. He knew some people considered people like him lambs to the slaughter, but he had never carried a gun. Lately, however, he’d been giving it a second thought. Honestly, though, he wondered whether the risk of being shot dead by the cops was worth it. Sometimes it seemed that just the fact that a black man had a gun was reason enough to kill him. I don’t know, he thought. I know I need one, though.

  He looked at a black woman about fifty feet away walking toward him. He tried not to stare, but it was nearly impossible to resist. She was as fine as they came. Still, it was tough on women. They had to put up with a lot of crap from men. He didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. So he turned away from her approach, a little to the left.

  Why would a woman walk around this neighborhood dressed like that? he wondered. Was she lost? He was surprised when she stopped at the bus stop.

  “Hey,” the woman said, softly, with a smile.

  Terrell turned toward her. “Hey,” he said, prepared to give her directions.

  “I’m looking for someone. A guy named Luke…a white guy.”

  Terrell thought. Luke. Luke. Luke. It didn’t click. “He lives around here?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You may know him as Lucky.”

  Terrell thought again for a few seconds. “Luke Brady?” He smiled. “Yeah, I know him. You’re looking for him?” He was about to tell her that Lucky hadn’t lived around there in years.

  “You ever go to a party with him?” she asked, her smile barely able to conceal the rage that was bubbling in her chest.

  Terrell looked at her with puzzlement. That was an odd question. “Nooo, I don’t ever remember going to a party with Lucky.”

  “Never?” she said, her smile fading.

  “Ne—wait,” he thought, “yeah, once—”

  Crystal pulled the gun out of her thigh holster and shot the predator three times in the chest, turned and walked away.

  Terrell lay on the ground struggling to breathe, wondering why he had been shot for going to Lucky’s birthday party when he was in the sixth grade.

  The hunters drove away in search of other predators.

  Chapter 26

  The house was being watched, but not by police officers or other duly appointed law enforcement personnel. Had this been the case, there might have been a mist of a chance
that the people inside the home would live through the evening.

  But Frank, Danny, Russ, and Lindsey were not law enforcement. They were four of the one hundred million people who had now seen on television or Worldnet, the Austin police chief beat a predator to death whose hands were tied behind his back.

  They’d heard his speech, felt his rage, and vicariously helped him beat the home-invading predator to death. They also shared his vision. It was time to take the fight to the predators.

  The people who waited in the bushes and behind the trees were hunters.

  ***

  They saw car lights turn onto the long, gravel driveway. It was nearly three in the morning and cold. The hunters were angry that the predators had taken so long to get home. It was Tuesday, or it had been Tuesday. Now it was three o’clock a.m. on Wednesday. What would predators be doing out at this hour but committing violent crimes? This thought got the hunters angrier.

  When the car stopped and the four occupants got out, they were quickly surprised by three pistols and one shotgun pointed at them. None of the predators felt the slightest inclination at heroism, so they obeyed without incident and gave up their guns, car keys and door key, and went inside the home.

  The predators weren’t the only ones surprised, however. The hunters were hunting the infamous Hernandez brothers, Diego and Felipe. Robbers extraordinaire. The two women with them weren’t part of the plan. Why hadn’t it crossed their minds that the Hernandez brothers may return home with other people?

  “Diego, face the wall. Get on your knees. Put your hands behind your head.” Russ stood behind him with a gun pointed at his back. Diego obeyed and Russ backed up and looked at Felipe. “Felipe, mi hermano, you do the same…but the wall over there.”

  Danny and Frank had been on one hunting trip with Russ and Lindsey. They’d shot down those murderers before they knew what hit them. But this was different. The plan had been to shoot the brothers in the driveway and take off. Now, though, they were up close and personal in the house with the predators—and two beautiful women. Women who were now under their control.