Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense

by Fynn Perry

  John was about to have his instincts confirmed.

  The woman slid the messenger bag from her back to her front. It looked like she gave Donovan something from it. A greedy grin broke out on his face as he clutched a small package about the size of an inch-thick stack of dollar bills. Two things then happened almost simultaneously. First, the lid of the trunk silently opened behind Donovan, and John heard a short and intense whooshing sound. Immediately, Donovan stumbled backward, doubled over in pain, clutching his stomach. For a moment he looked up in surprise, his hands now covered in blood. John heard the same sound again, twice. This time, he saw the gun. It had a suppressor, and it had let off two bullets to Donovan’s head. He collapsed like a deckchair into the trunk, banging his head on the lid, and leaving his legs splayed and dangling over the lip.

  Panic momentarily rooted John where he stood, but his fear for Jennifer’s and David’s lives forced him into action. He ran back to the elevator as fast as he could and pumped the call button. The elevator seemed to be stuck on the first floor. The building is half empty, for Christ sake! Who is keeping it on the first floor? He guessed he only had a few minutes ahead of the assassin, at best. Given Donovan’s size, John figured it would take the woman longer than usual to fit him in the compartment.

  He took the stairs and ran up two flights. The elevator was still there on the first floor––he was still in front of her. One of the chrome posts that usually held the velvet rope by the main entrance had been placed in the door opening, causing the doors to close and hiccup open in a continuous, annoying loop while the cab was being filled with chairs. He debated whether to commandeer it and decided not to––there was a good chance it would first descend to the parking level in response to calls by the assassin.

  Running up the stairs, he cursed his decision. He was losing valuable time and energy. As he approached Apartment 12, he feared the worst.

  Jennifer immediately stood up when she saw John run through the entrance door.

  “Jen… the assassin is in the building…. And she’s on her way here! … She could be here any second!” Every phrase was an effort after his sprint up the stairs.

  “My God, the assassin, Dad! The assassin is here!” she whispered, a little too loudly, to David.

  “Quiet!” John hissed, pointing at the door.

  They all looked, and then heard it. There was the sound of a lock being picked. Jennifer took off her slippers and held them. She motioned to David to do the same.

  “The safe room! The closet in the main bedroom!” Jennifer rushed the words out, her heart starting to palpitate. She grasped David by the hand, and they ran out of the living space and into the small lobby leading to the bedrooms.

  “No, wait!” John had raced in front of Jennifer, but she passed straight through him before being able to stop.

  “Aargh!” Jennifer barely restrained herself to a whisper, as she felt the freezing cold shoot through her.

  “Hide in the other bedroom’s closet!”

  She looked at him, confused.

  “Trust me, Jen, if you survive this time, she won’t stop until she gets you and your father another time.”

  “You mean trap her?”

  “It’s the only way. Leave it to me.”

  Jennifer had a split-second to decide. Blood pulsated through her head; the stress was becoming unbearable. “OK,” she gasped as she fought for breath.

  “Other closet!” she whispered to David and pulled him in another direction.

  Before he could argue, they heard the entrance door click open. Jennifer and David moved as quickly and quietly as they could along the marble floor and into the walk-in closet of the second bedroom, closing the doors behind them. The expensive, German-made hinges were both smooth and silent. They stood with only the sound of their quickened breathing and heartbeats pounding.

  John had moved to the end of the wall to look around the corner at the entrance foyer. He could see the assassin sideways on as she approached the study, the first room from the foyer, with her arms outstretched, holding a black pistol with a suppressor. Her profile was sharp and her features unmistakably Asian and fiercely attractive. She looked every part the elite assassin, clearing all angles in the sector of the room she could see through the open doorway, the muzzle and her eyes always pointing in the same direction. She looked through the gap between the door and the frame and then entered the room in seconds.

  John didn’t wait for her to emerge. He had to think of a way to lure her into the safe room and then use the room’s secret function to lock her inside. He would have to do it before she got to the closet of the second bedroom.

  He made his way to the master bedroom, through the en-suite closet and the bathroom that doubled as the safe room. Somehow, he would have to get her to come a sufficient distance into the bathroom so that she wouldn’t have enough time to stop the safe room door from closing. He looked around for something he could use to attract her attention and spied a couple of perfume bottles. He made the surface of his fingertips connect with one of them and pushed it off the shelf. It fell onto the floor with a loud clatter. She must have heard it, and would surely run in at any second. Now all he had to do was wait.

  But she didn’t run in. He cursed softly. He had underestimated her. A professional killer wouldn’t be so easily distracted and risk the escape of a target from an unchecked room.

  Fearing that Jennifer and her father were about to be discovered, he was about to run out to the assassin when he saw the suppressor of the gun slowly appear. He was to her right, and, as he had hoped, she first went to clear the section of the bathroom to her left, eyes following the arc of the barrel. Then the muzzle and her face swung round to her right. John had already started moving toward her, intent on passing her in the doorway, when he saw her face. He was expecting her to be beautiful and her eyes to be vacant of emotion. He was right on both counts, but beyond her soulless, mortal eyes flashed fire, orange fire. She was possessed!

  As he passed her, the head of the possessing spirit emerged momentarily. It was the rugged face of an Asian man with a strong square chin, hair pulled into a tight bun on top of his head. He looked like a Samurai warrior John had once seen in a history book. Or was he a ninja? Wasn’t that worse? The girl was the perfect host for a spirit with the same mindset as her: a fellow assassin. Two killers in one.

  John ran to the hidden, armored door. Within seconds the assassin would clear the bathroom and notice the door closing. He pulled the door handle, swinging the door outward, and twisted the top knob below the handle. The central panel swiveled out from the frame. The assassin slowly exited the bathroom, still pointing her gun in front of her, still sweeping its barrel––this time to clear the corners of the closet on either side of the doorway––before quickening her pace and moving toward what appeared to be a door closing in two parts on its own. She approached John with the face of her possessor now imprinted on her own, both expressions cold and calculating, only one registering John’s presence.

  He passed backward through the doorway and out of the room just as the outer section of the two-part door connected to the doorframe and was locked in place. The inner panel was still catching up and had only passed the halfway point, on its way to connect with the rest of the door, when the assassin let off a volley of bullets. They ruptured the wood finish of the moving panel before being stopped dead by the Kevlar plate underneath.

  John looked behind him to see who she was aiming at. His surprise turned to horror at seeing Jennifer running toward him. She must have heard his distraction, figured out what he was doing, and decided he would need help. She hadn’t been shot, but David had been less fortunate—he had caught a bullet in his shoulder and was lying on the floor.

  John barreled against the swinging panel to make it engage quicker, but as he did so he felt unexpected resistance. The gloved fingers of the assassin had appeared in the narrowing gap on the other side and grasped the edge of the panel. John pushed h
ard, but it wasn’t hard enough. The assassin’s pull was stronger. He was competing against the strength of a trained killer and the spirit inside her. Without the central section being fully engaged, and the locks turned, the door was useless. The assassin would soon open the panel wide enough to allow her to step through, and that would mean a bullet in the head for Jennifer and David.

  Jennifer shrieked from the cold as she thrust the palms of her hand through John, slamming them into the side of the panel. The momentum was enough to tip the balance of strength back in John’s favor, and the panel swung towards its closed position again. A terrible scream of pain came from the other side of the door, along with the sound of cracking bone within fingers that had not escaped in time. The panel bounced back a fraction from the impact and created a gap just wide enough for the assassin to withdraw her crushed fingers before Jennifer, John, and now David forced the panel in place with the desired click. Jennifer quickly turned the top knob clockwise. The panel was now locked. She turned the second knob to activate the multi-point deadlocks and typed in the six-figure code on the keypad on the wall. She had remembered it without hesitation. The door couldn’t now be opened without the code. The assassin was trapped.

  Another round of bullets hit the door, and then they suddenly stopped. There was the sound of someone falling to the ground. John knew what was coming.

  The head of a spirit had penetrated through the safe room door and John was now looking straight at the same stoical expression that he had seen earlier: the same thick, leathery skin and permanent scowl. This was the face of someone who had been no stranger to death when he’d been alive: a trained killer from a feudal empire. John hoped that meant he might follow a strict code of honor. He waited, his heart again pounding, for the spirit’s next move. The spirit looked over to the keypad. His expression momentarily gave way to a hint of admiration, as if he realized that, without the code, there was nothing he could do to free his host. Bowing his head, he disappeared back through the door.

  “Was that a Samurai?” Jennifer asked, astonished, and still trying to catch her breath.

  John nodded. “I think he conceded defeat. You know, that we beat his host fair and square.”

  “That’s what I felt. He gave a sign of submission. Like he’s not going to go after us,” Jennifer said, a wave of relief clearly washing over her. She focused on her father’s arm. “Poor Dad. But it looks like just a flesh wound, and luckily it was right on the edge of his shoulder,” she confirmed. “Thank God!”

  “There should be a first aid kit in the kitchen. You need to get it properly bandaged,” John advised. He watched as Jennifer quickly found it and started to carefully dress the wound. “We have to get him to a hospital as fast as possible,” John urged. “I think we’re all finally safe, Jen! For real! No more surprises, I promise!”

  Jennifer nodded and started to cry as a torrent of emotions flooded out of her. “John, this must be your time! Your time to come back to the living! Not only do you have the answers you wanted but you saved our lives and banished an evil spirit. All along, you felt that you had to do something good, something to earn your way back to the living, John! Surely, you’ve done that now! You have to see if you can re-join your body!”

  The excitement in her eyes re-ignited his deep longing for her and made him want to believe her. Could they really be as close to each other again as they had been that fateful night––able to sense each other’s heat and passion, and revel in them––in the way that only two mortal beings could?

  It made what he had to say all the more difficult. “Jen, I still need to know why Donovan was involved.” Seeing her grimace, he continued gently. “If I don’t find out now, I may never find out and that will drive me crazy. I need to know why my father’s best friend would betray him. Take your father to the ER. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “If you think I’m going anywhere now without you, after waiting so long to see you, you’re crazy!”

  John was relieved; he didn’t want to spend another moment without her, either. He’d just have to fill her in on his plan—fast. “Jen, Jim Donovan was shot in the basement garage and stuffed into the trunk of the assassin’s car. I bet his spirit is still there, stuck on the spot where he was murdered, unable to move, just like I was.”

  Sensing the change in mood and beginning to recover from the shock of all the sudden activity, David asked Jennifer about what had been said between her and John and she ran through it quickly, bare bones only.

  “Don’t worry about me in that case—the ER can wait,” David said, staggering to his feet. “I’m good, let’s go.”

  They left the apartment and took the elevator down to the parking garage level and followed John as he walked along the wall of the elevator enclosure. “Wait here with David,” he cautioned Jennifer and then carefully looked around the corner to where, a short distance away, the BMW limousine had been parked.

  As he expected, the spirit of Jim Donovan stood right at the center of the car’s trunk where his corpse lay. For a moment, John marveled at the exact glowing copy of his father’s friend, right down to the tattoos and ineffective comb-over. Donovan was lost and forlorn with an expression of panic on his face, just as he had been immediately after he had changed into a spirit but John had zero sympathy for him.

  “Oh, my God! John! You’re like me! What happened to us?” Jim asked with a mixture of confusion and fear.

  “You’re dead, Jim! The body you knew is lying in that trunk with bullet wounds to your head and stomach. You’re dead because of greed. Because you tried to sell out everyone you possibly could. Why didn’t you just move on and accept your destiny? There’s nothing for you here on Earth!”

  “What are you saying? No, it’s not my time! I’ve been cheated…I need to know why. I need answers!” Donovan’s voice was panicky. He was truly scared, as he should be.

  “No, I need answers, you son of a bitch! You’re the reason why I’m like this. You were involved in my stabbing. What’s your connection with Hardwell and El Gordito?

  “I don’t know what you are talking about! Who’s Hardwell? El Gordito? The narco-gangster?” He scoffed and a nervous smile of feigned confusion crossed his lips, “How would I know––”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me, Jim! You picked up your employee Brian McGinty in your car after the detective called him in to look at mugshots at the police station. You were checking up on him. You wanted to make sure he hadn’t identified Vernon Hardwell as the attacker. You argued. He wanted money for keeping quiet. You refused, and then you threatened him with people who could hurt him before you kicked him out of your car.” John paused and added, “I was there Jim… Streams of Whiskey was playing on the radio.”

  Donovan looked stunned.

  “And I know you sold the pub to El Gordito! I saw the documents.”

  “You were at my apartment?”

  “Yes, and I saw you shooting up, Jim. You’re nothing more than a pathetic junkie, a parasite.”

  “You don’t understand. I needed money! Hardwell wasn’t supposed to stab you. I don’t know where he got the knife. He must have gone berserk! It wasn’t part of the plan! Neither of us wanted you dead. You have to believe me,” Jim blurted.

  “And what exactly was the plan?” accused John.

  “You were to be kidnapped for a ransom to be paid by your father. I owed El Gordito half a million dollars. With all the money your father made on his property investment deals I was sure he would be able to pay it. El Gordito was going to have me killed, for God’s sake!”

  “But why Hardwell?”

  “I caught him stalking your girlfriend. He was scared that I would report him to the cops. I wouldn’t, of course, not given my own problems which I didn’t want to draw police attention to, but he didn’t know that. He confessed to me about his obsession with Jennifer but told me he would never harm anyone––all he wanted was for you and her to be apart. He seemed perfect—a strong man with a weak min
d––easy to manipulate. It wasn’t hard to convince him. If he helped me, I would make what he wanted happen. I would get you and Jennifer to split up. He didn’t want any money for carrying out the kidnap—he was that obsessed with getting you away from her. I even managed to convince him to take the fall if he got caught. I figured that if he went back on his promise and went to the police, nobody would take his word over mine. But never, I swear, did I think he would actually harm you, John, not like some thug.”

  “Hardwell wouldn’t have been able to kidnap me on his own! He must have had an accomplice. Who was with him?” demanded John.

  “I was,” Jim admitted. “I lied to you in O’Donnell’s about the cop checking IDs that night. As soon as I told you to leave, I went to meet Hardwell near a van I had parked a block away. He went on foot toward the pub and I followed him, at a distance, in the van. As soon as I saw the struggle, I drove up. I was to stop and open the side door and help him pull you inside.” He paused, seeing John’s eyes now full of rage. Stammering, he continued, “We...we had masks…Like the cartels wear—with the print of a skull on them… I figured any witnesses would think a narco gang was involved.” He paused, as if frightened to say the next part.

  “Go on!” John demanded.

  “Except Hardwell must have forgotten to put his on...He was acting strange... Then as I got closer and saw you both lying on the ground and the blood...I panicked and drove off.” He paused for a moment. “When the plan failed, all I could do was offer El Gordito the pub in return for my life. I knew then that the debts would really start mounting. I would have to pay inflated rent to continue to run the pub. I would have to launder money and move drugs. Then, a day ago, a woman contacted me. She offered me money—a lot of money—just for information on where David Miller and his daughter were staying. She must have seen me visiting your father. I found out about the rental, and I told her you could be hiding there. She made me go up to the apartment and check. I heard voices before I knocked... I didn’t know she was an assassin and was going to kill me!”