by Glenn Trust
“I warned you. I’m afraid that’s gonna leave a mark.” Under the fierce eyes, the grin was back.
Lyn forced her eyes to find his and looked into the gray eyes of the beast. They were full of life. They observed her, considered her every action and reaction with an inhuman, animal curiosity, like the cat toying with a captured mouse.
Her gaze into his eyes was what he wanted. He released his grip, and the sharp pain from the pinch subsided.
“Don’t you want to look at me?” he asked, again taunting.
Lyn said nothing.
“You know you should talk and be nice. After all, I’m the one who’s taking you to Canada.” His words mocked her.
Lyn blinked and said nothing. Canada was gone.
She became aware that the man was stroking himself with the hand that had pinched her thigh. She stared blankly into the gray eyes, not wanting to see or know what he was doing. The trauma and fear were suffocating her. Any reason she had left was rapidly departing, leaving an empty shell behind. She welcomed the emptiness.
He grinned at her. “Did it really hurt?’
Lyn said nothing. She just looked at him through tear clouded eyes.
Lylee took her wrist and twisted. Lyn gasped as he bent the wrist backwards.
“I said, did it hurt?’
“Yes, it hurt,” Lyn gasped.
“Did it hurt bad?” Lylee twisted harder on her wrist.
The pain moved up her arm to her elbow, and Lyn could only whisper through clenched teeth, “Yes. It hurt really bad.” The pain in her wrist and elbow was blinding. “Please, stop….please,” she whispered.
Lylee released his grip, and her limp arm fell to the side of her trembling body.
“Good. So which would you rather be? Hurt or dead?” He looked at her, and the animal was back in his eyes staring hard into her. “I can make dead hurt a lot more than that.”
Lyn said nothing. He couldn’t really mean for her to answer.
But Lylee did mean for her to answer and choose. It was part of the game, and he needed an answer.
“Which? Dead or hurt? Answer me!”
Forcing her to make a choice, to choose the pain he would inflict, was like honey to him. Her torment was his sweet. His tongue moved over his lips as if he could taste the sweetness thrown out by her raging emotions. Fear. Confusion. Hopelessness.
Lyn saw the contortion of pleasure on his face. She didn’t understand it, but she knew she must answer.
“Please. Just hurt me…don’t kill me…please.”
Lylee smiled happily. “All right then. Hurt it is. You know I’ll give you what you want, honey. Now you give me what I want.”
Lylee’s mind and body were awash with surging arousal. Lyn trembled at the realization that she had taken a step, a long stride, towards the end.
She was losing, and soon he would have all that he wanted from her. When that was done, it would be over. He would feed on her living remains until her corpse ceased twitching and she was no longer alive. She wondered whether not being alive would be better.
She was oblivious to the knock at the door, but the moment of surprise and indecision she saw in the gray animal eyes caused her brow to furrow in confusion. Something had happened. What, she wondered.
Pushing her hard into the chair, he moved quickly and lightly to the window where he peered out between curtains. His thumb rotated the large knife in his hand as he contemplated the source of the knock at the door.
Then a voice from some faraway place drifted into the room, pulling Lyn ever so slightly from the reality of the cabin.
“Rye County sheriff!” the voice called. “Need to speak with you for a minute. Open the door please.”
83. Silence in the Woods
Standing on the porch to the side of the door and away from the window, Deputy Grover Parsons saw the curtains part slightly as someone peered out.
“Open the door please,” he repeated. “I need to speak with you for a minute.”
“Just a minute, deputy,” a male voice with a definite Texas twang called out from behind the door. “My wife and I been sleeping and, you know, well, we’re not dressed. Let me grab my pants!”
“Right, sir. Just hurry up and open the door!” Grover called back. His hand was on the pistol at his side.
Inside the cabin, Leyland Torkman, felt the pressure of being the hunted, and although it was a new sensation, he did not panic. Lyn watched motionless from the chair as he pulled on his blue jeans and tee shirt and slid his feet into his shoes.
Looking at Lyn, he said in a hissing whisper, “Any sound and I will slit your throat and gut you before I kill him. You understand? He cannot save you, but I can hurt you. And I will hurt you…bad.”
He stared at her, waiting, and was about to speak again when she finally nodded her comprehension. Lyn watched from the chair in helpless torment as he moved to the door, desperate to call out, to make some sound, but frozen instead. It was as if she were watching the drama play out on a screen, and she could only sit, breathlessly waiting for the next terrible scene.
Partially opening the door with his left hand, he peered out, the hand holding the edge of the door as if to slam it shut at any second. From behind, Lyn could see the hunting knife in the waistband of his jeans over his right hip. She could not see the deputy, who was so close, but still an invisible voice to her.
As the door opened, she became aware of the rushing of the creek outside. It seemed to rush into the room, the sound pulling her a little further into the reality of the here and now.
“Hey, deputy. What can we do for you?” Lylee’s voice was light and friendly, and non-menacing. He could see that the deputy’s hand rested lightly on the butt of his sidearm.
“Need to come in and talk to you…and your wife.”
“My wife, too?”
“Your wife, too,” Grover replied, pausing and then adding a formal, “sir”.
Parsons watched as the man at the door turned his head and called over his shoulder, “Honey, cover yourself up! We got company.”
And with that, the man at the door opened it slightly farther to allow the deputy to enter the cabin. The deputy started into the room, tensed and alert, eyes searching for the girl somewhere in the dim interior of the cabin.
Something glittered in the afternoon sunlight shining through the door. Parsons’ eyes flicked to the right. The reflected light sparkled from the Texas longhorn ring on the finger of the man’s hand, holding the door, just at Parsons’ eye level.
It was an awkward way to hold the door, the deputy thought. At the same moment, he knew that it was the ring described and noted carefully on the small pad in the breast pocket of his shirt, along with the description of a medium built man with a Texas twang and driving an old Chevy with Texas plates. He knew it instantly, but it was an instant too late.
As the deputy’s hand began to lift the pistol from its holster, the man’s left hand jerked the door fully open and then came across the back of the deputy’s shoulders until the forearm was across the front of Parsons’ throat.
Simultaneously, the knife moved with practiced precision and uncanny speed from the waistband of his jeans into Lylee’s right hand and then to the opening between the front and rear panels of the protective vest the deputy wore. The deputy’s pistol had not fully cleared its holster when the heavy blade was pushed deep into his side.
A gasp, followed by a deep-throated grunt of pain escaped through the deputy’s quivering lips. He clutched at the man who had just taken his life. They stood in an intimate embrace in the doorway. The deputy struggled to turn and put his arms around the man that had killed him while the other tried to extricate himself from the grasp of his dying victim.
As light and life faded from young Deputy Parsons’ eyes, he saw the girl, seated on the chair across the room. Their eyes met, and he struggled to hold more tightly to the man in his grasp. The girl’s eyes were wide and staring into the deputy’s face.
&n
bsp; “Run.”
The girl stared back. He had said something, and somehow, dimly she knew he had spoken to her.
“Run!” The deputy’s voice was a hoarse grunt.
Grover Parsons sank to his knees as the girl’s eyes cleared with understanding. She sprang from the chair and through the cabin’s back door as the deputy’s eyes clouded and his life bled out onto the cabin floor. Yet still, in death, he clutched at the man who had killed him.
It only took seconds for Lylee to pull himself from the deputy’s death grip. But those seconds were enough for Lyn to make her attempt at escape, and as she moved, her mind came crashing back into the real world of the present.
Clay knelt in the foliage at the edge of the tree line behind the cabin, resting the shotgun on his bent knee. Deputy Parsons had disappeared around the front of the cabin not more than three minutes earlier, when Clay heard the noises. They were indistinguishable, muffled sounds, barely audible over the creek’s rushing. For a moment, he thought to go to the front and help Deputy Parsons with whatever was happening, but then the rear door of the cabin slammed open.
Startled, he raised the shotgun to his shoulder, fearing what might happen next. Kneeling in the brush contemplating taking a man’s life was far different from sitting in a tree stand stalking white tail deer.
An instant later, he lowered the shotgun to his side and stood up. The girl, completely nude and covered in bleeding cuts, ran across the cabin’s small backyard. He stood still in the shock of the moment.
It was Lyn. It was the girl they had dropped at the truck stop just yesterday morning; the girl that had become his obsession. The object of his pursuit and search was before him, and yet seeing her so suddenly and in that condition immobilized him. He watched her run, directly at him, her eyes unrecognizing. He tried to speak and move, and think what to do next.
But what to do next took care of itself. The cabin’s rear door banged again. A man in tee shirt and jeans sprinted from the back door and into the yard, clearly in pursuit of the girl.
Lifting the shotgun to his shoulder, Clay shouted, “Drop! Lyn, drop!”
For the first time in her panicked flight, Lyn became aware of the young man in work clothes standing in front of her. He shouted something. He looked familiar. Why was he shouting? What was he shouting?
She saw him raise a big gun to his shoulder, pointing it at her. Why would he do that? Why would he point a gun at her? He was shouting again.
Fearing the shotgun’s blast, one more in a long series of fears she had faced in the last two days, Lyn dropped to the ground. Behind her, Lylee slowed as he became aware of the young man at the edge of the woods pointing the shotgun at him.
“Whoa! Hold on, don’t shoot, son. I’m one of the good guys.”
“Stop right there!” Clay gripped the shotgun tightly. “Who are you? Where’s Deputy Parsons?”
“I’m Tommy Sims,” Lylee said, the lie tripping off his tongue as if it were a truth he had learned from his mama. “Maintenance man here. I was down by the creek, and I heard the commotion so I came to check it out. Found the deputy and some other fella inside on the floor and saw the girl running out the back door.” He smiled and put his hands out, showing the young man that they were empty. “Just trying to help. Please take it easy with that shotgun, buddy.”
The young man was still wary and cautious, but Lylee saw the small signs as the boy relaxed, just slightly. A small change in his posture. A slight variation in his breathing.
Lying in the cool, damp grass between the two men, Lyn became aware of talking above her. Why were they talking? She recognized one of the voices. It was the boy, Clay. He had given her a ride. She closed her eyes and smelled the fragrant grass.
The other voice spoke again and she recognized it too. It was…the man. Her throat struggled to form words. Her breath came in pants, and she tried to push herself up to flee once more, but could barely come to her knees.
“No,” the sound came from her in a whisper. “No, no.” She struggled to form other words, to warn the young man. None came.
Hearing the whispers, Clay looked down at the girl. That brief second was all that the Lylee required.
Reaching in his rear pocket, he pulled the small .38 Smith and Wesson taken from old Harold Sims in his moment of death two nights earlier. An instant later, as the young man with the shotgun just barely became aware of his movement, he pulled the trigger of the small revolver, and then pulled it two more times.
Thunder cracked over her head, and Lyn tried to claw her way into the ground. And then after the last thunderous crack, a deeper louder roar that seemed to shake the ground and grass around her, pounded down on her, taking her breath away.
The three bullets slammed Clay in the chest and abdomen plunging him into stunned and breathless shock. He fell with the realization that he had failed. He had found Lyn only to know that she would be murdered.
The ground came up and slammed him in the back. The shotgun rose slightly from the impact. He became aware that he still held the gun and that his finger was still locked on the trigger as he fell. With one last conscious thought, Clay put the slight amount of pressure required on the trigger, and the shotgun roared as it bucked from his hand. It was the last thing he knew.
Leyland, “Lylee”, Torkman, predator, howled and snarled his curse in pain. The shotgun blast had not been a direct hit, but three .00 buck pellets had struck him in the left leg, one piercing his kneecap.
The voice of caution screeched in his ear, End it! I told you! END IT!
The agonizing throbbing in his leg and the screech inside his head forced him up to stand on his remaining good leg. The girl lay trembling in the grass before him, face buried in the dirt.
He would have preferred the knife. Even in the disappointment of not having all that he wanted from the girl, the knife would have made the end better…sweeter.
But the knife was lodged in the side of the deputy lying on the cabin floor. He had left it there in his pursuit of the girl. The small revolver would have to do.
There were three rounds left. It would only take one. He raised his arm and pointed the pistol at the back of the girl’s head. The muzzle of the pistol was barely two feet from its target. He smiled at the thought that the medical examiner would find powder residue in the wound.
The Pickham County pickup came fishtailing off the highway and down the drive of the Creek Side Cabins. Roaring past the office, George and Sharon ignored the couple still standing there arm-in-arm and pointing down the drive. They knew from the alert given by the Rye County deputy where they were going.
At the turn along the creek, they saw no one by the Rye County car. The deputy had advised dispatch that he was going to check the situation and then explained tersely to his sheriff over the open radio waves that if the girl was there, she was in danger, imminent or not. Every minute of delay constituted an increase in the threat to the girl. He was going to check it out, despite the sheriff’s objections.
After that, no one had come on the radio to argue with him. Any one of the units responding might have made the same decision, probably would have.
Correct procedure in law enforcement is often a very subjective thing. This was not accounting or engineering. Answers were not defined by mathematics and science.
The right or wrong thing to do usually depended largely on an officer’s interpretation of the facts, the perceived threat, and a million other subjective bits of information. Often, there was no absolute ‘right’ answer, and the right or wrong of it was determined by the outcome, or the press, or the courts years later.
Gunning the engine as they made the turn along the creek, George brought the pickup to a sliding halt just short of the last cabin. From the angle, he could see that the front door was open. There was no movement inside.
The crack and roar of Sharon Price’s pistol reverberated through the cab of the truck as George started to climb out, scaring the shit out of him in the process. Pri
ce stood just outside the truck with the door open, surrounded by the dust of the pickup’s braking. Her pistol was pointed towards the backyard, visible from their angle on the road.
The pop of a small caliber weapon and the whiz of a round overhead caused George to crouch by the car as Sharon’s weapon discharged again. Peering over the hood of the pickup, George saw a man limp into the woods carrying something that looked like a rifle or shotgun. Clearly, it was not the weapon he had fired at George and Sharon.
Two bodies were visible on the ground where the man had stood a moment before.
“Did you hit him…or anything at that range?” George asked, judging the distance to the backyard at about seventy-five yards, a long distance for an accurate shot from Price’s nine-millimeter pistol.
“No, pretty sure I didn’t, but he was about to put a round into one of those bodies. Had to get his attention.” Still holding the pistol, Sharon Price had jogged half way up the side yard towards the back before George made it around the pickup and started after her. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder.
Approaching the bodies on the ground, they slowed. George could barely bring himself to examine them. They were bloody. The girl was nude. The young man was… “Shit,” he said. “That’s the kid from last night, isn’t it?” George stood with his Glock at the ready, in a two-handed stance, watching the woods where the man who had fired at them had disappeared.
Price knelt to check the bodies as George stood watch. “Yeah. It’s him, Clay was his name.” Three spreading red spots covered his work shirt, the same shirt he had been wearing the night before as they sat talking in the state patrol office.
She turned towards the nude girl. “This would be the girl they left at the truck stop, the one on the voice mail.” She knelt beside the girl and placed her hand on her head as if trying to take away the terror and fear she had felt in the last day, in her last moments.
The tear that ran down George’s face dropped silently into the grass beside the girl. Late. Again.
Frustration and desperate anger rose in him, and something else. George Mackey was the hunter now. He knew how to hunt, and he would hunt down this animal.