by Ethan Cross
Her mind fought for a way out of the predicament, and a thousand different scenarios flipped through her head in the space of a few seconds. Maybe the person had already been dead? Maybe they were still alive and needed medical attention? Should she call 911?
And then the darker thoughts started to come. It was pitch black outside, and they were on a desolate country road. No cars or houses for miles. No witnesses. Audrey glanced at the ditches surrounding the roadway. They were deep and overrun with weeds and tall grass. She could easily drag the body into the ditch, and it could go undiscovered for weeks. It was probably some drunk who had wandered out and fallen asleep in the road. Why should her life be torn apart because of that person’s stupidity?
But such thoughts evaporated nearly as quick as they had come. She was an honest person. Brad had wanted to siphon Internet access from their neighbor’s unprotected network, and she couldn’t even stand the thought of that. It had been worth it to her to pay the twenty bucks a month not to feel like she was a criminal each time she checked her e-mail. It would tear her up inside whether or not the incident had been her fault.
The decision made, Audrey opened her car door and walked back to where the crumpled form lay in the middle of the roadway. Each footstep seemed like a great labor, as if her limbs were covered in concrete.
Finally she reached the pale form and bent down to feel for a pulse. The body was turned away from her, and all she could see was a matted mop of brown hair. When her fingers touched the person’s neck, her hand jerked back reflexively.
What the hell was going on here?
Audrey rolled the body over with her foot and gasped. The eyes were dead and wooden, but not because she had stolen the life from them. The eyes that stared back at her had never been alive.
It was a dummy. A very lifelike mannequin.
At first, relief and joy overwhelmed her. She hadn’t killed anyone. She was off the hook. But as the moment stretched out, the feeling of relief turned to anger. Someone had done this to her on purpose. Someone had placed a dummy in the road as some kind of sick joke. She wondered what the hell was wrong with people these days.
She looked around, half-expecting to catch sight of a snickering group of teenagers in a nearby field, but there was no one there. Then she realized that there might have been some damage to her car. She gritted her teeth and fought back a scream of frustration. She would need to file a police report, but she could call that in once she got home.
Grabbing a leg of the dummy, Audrey dragged it off the road and returned to her car. Maybe the cops could find a fingerprint on the damn thing and teach the little punk who had done this a lesson. She slid in behind the wheel and pulled the door shut. She grabbed her seat belt with her left hand and clicked it into place.
And then she felt the presence.
It was like seeing a flitting shadow out of the corner of an eye or having that strange animal sense of being watched. But whatever it was, she knew that someone was there even before her attacker reached over her left shoulder and started to strangle her with her own seat belt.
She fought back with all her strength, trying to pull the nylon strap of the harness away from her neck, but it was of no use. Her mind quickly kicking into survival mode, she changed tactics. Maybe she could reach the steering column and get the car in drive?
A strange pinch and pressure bit into the side of her neck, and her extremities began to tingle and go numb.
Audrey’s fingers raked against the handle that would throw the vehicle in gear. She stretched out and raged against the darkness creeping over her vision.
The man in the back seat spoke. His voice sounded deep and strange, as if he were a character in a movie being played in slow motion. In fact, the whole world was starting to feel slowed down somehow. And then Audrey realized the source of the pain in the side of her neck. She had been injected with something. She tried to reach out to the gear shifter again, but her arms were useless now. Her whole body had gone numb and cold.
“You know what I love about this, my dear,” the deep slow-motion voice said. “It’s the fact that I didn’t stalk you or choose you. It was completely random chance that you were the one driving down this road tonight. It could have been anyone, but fate chose you. Fate chose you to die.”
62
THE DIRECTOR PULLED THE SUBURBAN RIGHT UP TO THE FRONT DOOR OF THE DILAPIDATED FILLING STATION. Graffiti covered the front of the building, and weeds had taken over the lot. Vines snaked up the sides of the old gas pumps. An oval-shaped sign still stood on a large metal pole out front, but the logo of the business was gone with only the skeletal structure of the sign surviving. He could understand how the place had gone out of business. They were miles from a town or any houses on a road that was barely traveled.
He could see through the station’s front window, and the light shining from the garage area betrayed the fact that although the building was not in service it was also not unoccupied. He pulled out his Beretta pistol and chambered a round.
From the passenger seat, Fagan said, “Let’s try to reason with him first.”
The Director nodded and put the Beretta back in its holster. “Of course. Just being prepared.”
As they exited the Suburban and walked toward the entrance of the abandoned filling station, a cold breeze made the hairs on the back of the Director’s neck stand at attention. He heard the clanging of a loose piece of sheet metal, and the rhythmic sound of metal on metal reminded him of the tolling of bells.
They entered through a small room that had served as the station’s storefront. Now, it was empty except for some racks that had once contained rows of oil, a desk, and an ancient cash register. Fagan was first through the door to the garage. The Director followed at his heels. Although he didn’t have his gun out, he still scanned the room in his mind in the same way he would have if they were breaching and clearing the building. Then his eyes focused on Andrew. Blood covered his friend’s face, but the worst damage was a foot that appeared to have been smashed by a sledgehammer that the Director spotted sitting upright nearby. The sight of it made the Director’s blood boil toward eruption.
Even in his ruined state, Andrew had enough presence of mind to think tactically. He caught the Director’s eye and then looked toward a small oak door at the side of the garage. The Director placed his hand over his gun and was about to move toward the door when he heard a voice behind him say, “Don’t. Take it out slowly. Two fingers and lay it on the ground.”
He glanced back to see a large black man aiming a pistol at them. The man wore the same kind of dark tactical clothing that the mercenaries at the farmhouse had favored. He had apparently circled around the building to get the drop on them when he heard their vehicle pull up.
The Director complied with the man’s demands and then said, “Where’s Craig?”
“Right here,” Craig answered as he emerged through the door that Andrew had indicated. His dark fatigues were pulled down around his waist, exposing a white tank top stretched tight across his thickly muscled chest. He held a blood-stained towel, using it to wipe one hand and then the other.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here, Craig?” Fagan asked.
“My job.”
“I hired you to capture and contain Ackerman. Then you were ordered to eliminate him. You failed. Your job is complete. What would compel you to detain and torture one of my agents?”
The Director noticed the way that Fagan had taken ownership of Andrew as one of his men. Maybe there was hope for the bureaucrat yet.
Craig tossed the towel onto a nearby shelf. “I’m reacquiring the target, sir. And to be perfectly honest, the mission parameters changed the moment your agents decided to kill one of my men!”
Fagan shook his head and glanced over at the Director, accusation in his eyes. He said, “That’s unfortunate, and a situation that will be dealt with internally. Your services are no longer needed, but you will, of course, be paid in full. With
an added bonus for the loss of your man.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll just take my payment in blood.” Craig pulled a gun from the small of his back and pointed it at Andrew.
The Director stepped forward, but Fagan stopped him with a hand on the chest. Fagan said, “Mr. Craig, we’re professionals here. Let’s not be rash. I’m sure that we can come to some mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Can you bring back my friend?” Craig said, sighting down his gun’s barrel at Andrew’s bound form.
This time, the Director did step forward, placing himself between Craig and Andrew. He said, “You want vengeance? You want someone to blame? These are my people. Andrew’s my friend, and I’m responsible for him. You want an eye for an eye? Blood for blood? Take mine. Kill me and let him go.”
Craig stared at him for a long moment. The Director saw the barely contained rage bubbling just below the surface. Craig was only one step away from the men whom the Shepherd Organization hunted, and the Director wasn’t sure if there was any way to reason with him. He could very well kill all three of them without a second thought.
Craig’s finger tightened against the trigger, but then he lowered the gun and shoved it back into his belt. “Take him. He’s already told me where the others are headed anyway. And you can keep your blood. I want Ackerman. He’s the one who started all this. I want that bastard’s head mounted on my wall.” Craig gestured toward his man, and they gathered their things and left through the back of the station while keeping a cautious eye on the Director.
As they headed for the exit, the Director said, “Do what you feel is necessary with Ackerman. He can handle himself, and he probably deserves much worse than you can give. But if anything happens to Maggie, I’ll hunt you to the ends of the Earth.”
Craig didn’t respond. He backed out of the room without another word. Once they were gone, the Director rushed to Andrew’s side. As he worked at removing the bonds, he asked, “Are you okay, Andrew?”
Andrew looked at him as if the older man had lost his mind and replied in a rasping voice, “Not really.”
63
THE SUDDEN ILLUMINATION PIERCED MARCUS’S EYES LIKE A MILLION TINY PINPRICKS. It took several moments for his vision to adjust beyond a white blur. When his eyes finally did start to focus, he saw the dark form of a person standing with him in the cell. He reflexively recoiled away from the shadowy form and retreated into a corner.
His father’s voice—not the recording that had played over and over, but an actual voice coming directly from a real person—said, “Hello, son. It’s time to play a little game.”
It was the first human interaction beyond the beatings Marcus had experienced in months, and it took a moment for the implications of his father’s words to sink in.
“Come with me, son.”
Marcus hesitated but then pushed himself up on trembling legs. He still couldn’t focus completely, but he saw the blurry figure gesture toward the door and say, “This way.”
He headed toward the door, but once he was within range, he lunged at the blurry figure, going for the throat. He had no plan, hadn’t thought it through. He doubted he had the strength to overpower his father, but he had to try. He had to do something.
A surge of pain spiraled down from his neck and reached his toes before he had come within three feet of his father. He dropped to the stone floor and convulsed in agony, the terrible spasms turning his whole world into all-encompassing pain.
After a moment, he lay there panting on the stone floor, the residual aching still causing his whole body to tremble. He smelled sizzling bacon but couldn’t be sure if his senses were just out of whack from the jolt or if the smell was that of his own flesh cooking.
He had completely forgotten about the shock collar still secured around his neck. His father said, “If you’ve gotten that out of your system, let’s try again.”
This time, Marcus stood and followed directions. As he entered the hallway beyond his cell and caught sight of his surroundings for the first time, he tried to soak in all the details. But his vision still wasn’t fully adjusted to being back in the light after so much time in the darkness, and what he could see wasn’t of much help. It was just a long corridor with dirty stone walls. They were obviously underground, but he had surmised that already. Three more doors on the left side of the corridor appeared to lead off to more cells similar to his own.
His father directed him to the next cell down the line. Inside were two chairs facing each other with a strange home-made electrical device sitting between them. The contraption looked like a cross between a generator and the equipment that one would find in a hospital room. A woman was bound and gagged in the farthest chair. Black streaks of mascara covered her cheeks, and she wore a white sweater with jeans. She looked like a recent acquisition.
“Marcus, meet Audrey. She’s volunteered to help us with a little experiment.”
Marcus noted that wires and electrodes ran from the device in the center out to both chairs. The wires were already connected to Audrey. They snaked up her back and under her sweater and another pair connected to her temples.
“Have a seat, Marcus.”
He didn’t want to comply. He wanted to do anything that he could to defy his father, but another jolt of electricity knocking him to the floor wouldn’t do anyone any good. So he sat down in the chair and looked deep into Audrey’s eyes. He tried to tell her to have strength, and they’d get through this. But he didn’t really believe that and was sure that seeing his emaciated form didn’t instill much confidence.
“Place that belt around your chest.” His father pointed at a black belt that looked similar to the kind found in gyms for lower back support. As the older man pointed, Marcus noticed the gun in his father’s hand for the first time—a snub-nosed revolver, either a .357 or a .38.
Marcus secured the belt around his midsection, and his father said, “Excellent” as he bent down and started fiddling with the strange device. Marcus, his vision improving, examined the older man. His father wore a three-piece suit minus the jacket, and small round spectacles sat on his angular nose. His hair was the same brown color as Marcus’s, but baldness had started to creep in.
After a few seconds, the device began to emit a familiar beeping sound that Marcus had often heard in hospital rooms coming from a heart-rate monitor. His father said, “I’ve always been fascinated with electricity. I guess it started when I saw Boris Karloff play Frankenstein when I was a small boy. I used to hook electrical current up to dead animals and watch them twitch, something first discovered in 1771 by Luigi Galvani. It was actually his experiments which led to the idea of reanimating dead tissue through electricity. Which obviously played a role in the birth of Frankenstein’s monster. Such power—the power to give life or take it away. It’s no wonder that our ancestors attributed lightning strikes to the actions of angry deities in the clouds. Now we know better. And through technology, we all have the ability to wield the power of gods.”
His father pulled a black folding stool from a corner and sat on it between his two captives as if he were about to enjoy a show.
“What is all this?” Marcus asked.
Ackerman Sr. crossed his arms and pursed his lips. “Are you familiar with exposure therapy, Marcus? It involves a person suppressing a fear-triggering memory or stimulus by confronting their fears. It can be quite effective and therapeutic. We’re going to attempt a form of that today. You have a deep-seated fear of failure. There’s this compulsion to try and save everyone and a responsibility that you feel toward the safety of all the people around you. I guess I would call it a ‘tragic hero complex.’ And as I told you, I’m going to show you a world without fear.”
Ackerman Sr. pressed a button on his device, and Audrey started screaming. “Audrey is now receiving a mild electrical shock due to an increase in your heart rate. You see, the natural physiological response to fear involves a lot of body processes. Accelerated breathing rate, constriction of the p
eripheral blood vessels, increased muscle tension including the muscles attached to each hair follicle which contract and cause what we commonly refer to as ‘goose bumps,’ sweating—”
Audrey’s screaming intensified, and Marcus yelled, “Stop this! You’re killing her.”
His father ignored him, continuing with his lecture. “—increased blood glucose, increased serum calcium, increase in those white blood cells called neutrophilic leukocytes, alertness leading to sleep disturbance and ‘butterflies in the stomach.’ But, most importantly, it leads to a drastic increase in a person’s heart rate. So you see, Marcus, I’m not killing her. You are. It’s your fear that’s killing her. The level of electrical current that she receives is tied directly to your heart rate. If you master your fear and control it, then you can stop her pain. If not, then she will slowly cook in her own skin.”
Marcus reached up to pull the heart-rate monitor from his chest, but his father held up a small remote and said, “I wouldn’t try that. I’ll give you a shock of your own, and I can just imagine what that would do to your heart rate.”
“You sadistic prick! I’m going to—”
Audrey’s shaking increased, and she started to make gagging noises.
“Careful, son, anger is just fear in a different form, and it too increases your heart rate. And I tell you what, if you can learn to control your fear and keep her alive, then I’ll let her go. You can save her, but only by playing the game.”
Marcus fought to bring his mind into focus and his body under control. He tried to calm himself, to go to a happy place, to distance himself from the situation. But it was nearly impossible with the sounds of Audrey’s agony echoing throughout the stone chamber. Her tortured screams pierced his soul, rattled through his brain. He couldn’t block them out. He was failing her.
He grabbed hold of the thought and realized that his father was right. He felt responsible for everything, even things that were beyond his control or not his fault. He hadn’t kidnapped Audrey and strapped her to the chair. Why did he feel responsible for her fate? Why was it his job to save her? He couldn’t even save himself.