The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset

by Ethan Cross

  “We can’t trust him.”

  “Who said anything about trusting him? Besides, the only person that hates my father more than me is my big brother.”

  “That’s another thing. I don’t like how easily you’ve started referring to him as your brother. He’s not your family.” Maggie placed a hand on his chest. “We’re your family. He’s a monster.”

  “If he’s a monster, then what does that make me?”

  “You’re nothing like him.”

  Marcus sat down on the bed and closed his eyes. The room stank of Maggie’s cleaning fluids. “You don’t know me,” he said, “Not really.”

  50

  Marcus was ripped from a nightmare as Captain Yazzie threw a cup of cold water into his face. He spit out the water that landed in his open mouth and smiled at his captor. He found it funny that reality was actually favorable to what he had just woke up from. He had been dreaming that he was back in his high school gymnasium. He sat Indian style on the basketball court’s free-throw line. It was dark along the periphery of the gym, but he could see the non-distinct shadowy forms of several people. All standing and watching him. He could feel their eyes judging him, crawling over him. On the opposite free-throw line, there was a medical gurney with a body under a white sheet. Blooms of red slowly grew across the sheet. He heard a noise to his left and looked away from the body. When he turned back, the single gurney had multiplied into four. He shot to his feet as it multiplied again and again, until he was faced with a basketball court full of rolling medical carts and bodies.

  In the dream, he had known that Maggie’s body was beneath one of those sheets. But now, as he woke up and looked into the face of a man who might know where she was, he felt pleasantly surprised. As if he had just gone from knowing she was dead to having hope that he could still save her.

  “I don’t suppose declaring myself as a federal agent would do any good,” Marcus said.

  The tribal police captain’s face was unreadable, hidden behind his

  Marcus was bound to what looked like a chair from an old kitchen table set. His hands were tied behind his back with the restraints also tied to the chair. His feet were tethered in the same manner. Blinking himself fully awake, he looked from Captain Yazzie to his subordinate officer whom Marcus knew as Ernie Pitka, a local with only a few minor infractions on his record as a youth. Glancing between the two of them, Marcus said, “Good morning, fellas. Can one of you fetch me a cup coffee? Maybe some Tylenol?”

  Yazzie said, “You and your partner must have a mutual death wish. And neither of you knows when to shut his mouth. I’m gonna ask you one time, before this gets unpleasant, where is the truck?” Then, producing a switchblade knife from his boot, Yazzie sliced Marcus’s tactical pants starting at the foot and running all the way up to mid-thigh. Then he pulled the material apart, exposing Marcus’s naked flesh.

  “These were my favorite pants, jerkwad.”

  Yazzie struck him hard across the jaw, and Marcus noticed that with every further escalation, Yazzie’s young lackey was growing more and more apprehensive.

  He said, “I don’t even know what truck you’re talking about.”

  “The one that your partner stole.”

  “I don’t have a partner. I’m a lone wolf.”

  Yazzie was unperturbed. “We don’t know where your friend Agent Carlisle is. We don’t know what happened to her. For all any of us know, she could’ve wrecked her car or gotten lost somewhere up in the hills. It’s not all that uncommon. You really want to come in here and go to war with the wrong people?”

  Marcus replied, “I think we’re barking up exactly the right tree.” He then turned his gaze to the younger officer before adding, “What about you, Officer Pitka? Are you ready to die for your boss here?”

  The stunned officer looked between the captive and his captain, but said nothing.

  Marcus continued, “We’re going to find Maggie one way or another. If we have to tear the whole Navajo nation apart to do it. And I’m getting tired of playing this game. I’m tired of talking. I’m a jackhammer, and I intend to get right to the heart of things as quickly as possible. You like to give ultimatums, Captain? Here’s one for you: Tell me where to find Maggie Carlisle, or you’re not going live to see tomorrow.”

  “It’s not very polite to threaten a fellow law enforcement professional.”

  “You’re not a cop. You’re a cockroach.”

  Yazzie smiled, the first time he had shown any human gesture or expression in the time they’d been sitting there. He asked, “Do you like bugs, Agent Williams? I’ve got a friend I’d like to introduce you to.” Yazzie reached down and retrieved a brown paper bag that sat on the floor beside him, out of which he produced a Mason jar. Inside of that was the biggest scorpion Marcus had ever seen.

  Without showing any reaction to the contents of the jar, Marcus said, “That’s not an insect or a bug. It’s an arachnid, jackass.”

  After striking him again, Yazzie continued, “My little friend is an Arizona bark scorpion. But don’t let the name fool you, we have plenty of them here in New Mexico. So I had an ample choice when I went out to find the biggest, meanest, and nastiest one I could find. Scorpions show up under a black light, and so it was a simple matter of taking a little stroll with a black lens over my flashlight.”

  Marcus said, “That’s fascinating. Why don’t you write me a letter about it.”

  As he shook the jar a little to get the scorpion riled up, Yazzie asked again, “Where is the truck that your partner stole from the ranch?”

  “You guys seem to have gotten pretty wound up over a truckload of sheep. You haven’t even asked about the Canyon boy.”

  “We already have your partner surrounded at the trading post, and we know that he has the hostages there. The only thing keeping us from taking him out is that we need to know where the truck is.”

  “Do you honestly think that telling me you’re going to kill someone if I give you the information would make me want to tell you more?”

  Yazzie shrugged. “You know what, I don’t even care. It’s John’s problem anyhow. But either way, you and your partner are both dead men.”

  Then Yazzie shook the jar, unscrewed the top, and jammed it against the side of Marcus’s exposed thigh, giving the most venomous scorpion in all of North America full access to his naked flesh.

  51

  Liana still wasn’t sure what he intended to do with a microwave and car battery, but she nonetheless helped Frank into the back room where he went to work. She watched as he moved with speed and efficiency. He unscrewed and removed the housing and then started pulling out the internal components and wiring until he retrieved a small metal box with wires coming out of it.

  She asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I just removed the transformer. Now, I’m going to break it open to get at the primary coil.”

  “But why?”

  Still fiddling with the microwave components, he turned to Liana and replied, “All will be revealed in due time. Please fetch me several of the fifty caliber rounds from the front room.”

  Having learned it wasn’t worth asking questions or arguing with Frank, she reacted quickly and returned with the massive bullets a moment later. Handing her a pair of pliers from the small tool kit he was working out of, Frank instructed her to remove the projectiles so that they could access the gunpowder. Then, while she worked on the bullets, he used a cordless cutting tool to break open the transformer box.

  As he worked, he said, “Did you know that the first documented blood transfusion to a human was performed using sheep’s blood?”

  “Umm, no, I didn’t.”

  “Jean-Baptiste Denys was a French physician who performed the deed on a fifteen-year-old boy in 1667. By pure luck, the boy survived. Emboldened by what he perceived to be an early success, Denys went on to perform another transfusion on a mentally-ill man in Paris. He thought he could cure the fellow’s madness by replacing his blood with
the pure blood of a calf.”

  “But human blood often isn’t even compatible with other human blood. Blood from an animal would kill a person.”

  “Quite so. However, it ultimately wasn’t the transfusion that ended the patient in question. Instead, the man was poisoned by competing surgeons in an attempt to discredit Denys. Ultimately, the court acquitted Denys of any wrongdoing in the man’s death, but nonetheless banned the practice of transfusion. Not because they understood the incompatibility or dangers, but because they feared that the mixing of blood would forge monsters. Half-human, half-animal hybrids, if you will.”

  “So you’re going to use the parts from the microwave to perform a blood transfusion on yourself?”

  Still working on removing and combining components, he replied, “No, that would be silly. I’ve just created a very powerful electromagnet. You’ll hold it over my wound, and it will pull the pieces of metal shrapnel back out through my flesh and up to itself.”

  “Won’t that be extremely painful?”

  “Oh yes. I’m quite looking forward to it.”

  “Do we have any kind of sedative or painkiller?”

  He grinned. “Pain, my dear, is one thing that I have no interest in killing. To be honest, I only feel alive when I’m experiencing it or inflicting it. Which brings me to something I wanted to mention…. It’s a bit awkward.”

  She cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “As we move forward with the procedure, and as the pain starts to course throughout my body, it will illicit several small physiological reactions that I can only describe as pleasure. During this time, something may happen.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Okay…”

  “I’m trying to say that as you hurt me, I may become aroused.”

  Her eyes went wide. “So that’s what it takes to get you—”

  “Oh no, I function perfectly fine in that department with or without the pain. You see, it’s not the only thing that gets me aroused, but it’s certainly one of the things.”

  Unsure of how to respond to such a declaration, she said, “Thanks for the heads up, I guess.”

  “And we should probably hurry. I fully expect some type of attack from your friend, Mr. Canyon, to be coming very soon. Now, if there are no more questions, your patient is ready, Dr. Nakai.” Then he reached out, took her hand, looked deep into her eyes, and said, “I’m so pleased that you could join me on this little adventure, Liana.”

  “Umm, okay. I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s all anyone can ever ask of you.”

  “But I don’t know… I don’t know if I can do any of this. I mean, this is—”

  “What, crazy? Life is chaos, my dear. You may be sitting here thinking that your world is spiraling out of control and there’s nothing you can do about it. But the truth is that you never had any control. That was all an illusion. The only thing that you can ever control, Liana, is what goes on between your ears. You have to be able to find peace and joy in any moment, anywhere, anytime. You can do this. I know that God has placed you here on this night for a reason, just as he has placed me here in such a place as this and such a time as now. You can do this, my dear. I have faith in you. I knew from the moment that I walked into that police station and looked in your eyes that there was something very special about you. I saw that you had a pure heart. And I know that you’ll do your best now to save my life, but even if I die, I want you to know that it’s been a pleasure knowing you for the short time that we’ve had together this evening.”

  “I just hope this contraption works. We’ve used up a lot of time on it.”

  “Time is certainly our enemy, but this isn’t my first rodeo. It will work.” He started to lay down, but then looked back up at her and added, “Oh, I almost forgot, after the magnet has pulled all of the shrapnel from my wounds, we’ll need to staunch the flow of blood. So I’m going to need you to pour the gunpowder you stockpiled into the holes and then light me on fire.”

  52

  Two weeks earlier…

  The brightly colored beadwork was familiar to Maggie, but her memories had been of duller colors and being surrounded by giants. Now, she was among the giants, and the colors were vivid. Feathers and shells adorned sleeves and skirts. The scent of leather filled the air. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and many of the spectators watched the dancers from picnic tables and blankets beneath shade trees. She moved to the back to observe the festivities more closely. As she scanned the crowd, she considered that the Taker could have been any one of these men, still traveling the circuit all these years later.

  Over her shoulder, a husky male voice asked, “May I help you, ma’am?”

  Maggie turned back to face the officer. He wore a tan uniform with a gold badge and a gold patch displaying Navajo Police over the year 1868. She estimated him to be around thirty years old with dark hair cut short. He was tall and well-built, possessing a round face already bearing the signs of laugh lines. She removed her sunglasses to look at him directly and gave a half-smile.

  “No, thank you. I’m just watching.”

  She was about to turn back toward the crowd, but then she added, “It’s been years since I’ve been to a pow-wow. Not since I was a child. I’m just…trying to remember.”

  His smile was large and genuine. “I hope they were good memories.”

  Maggie changed the subject. “I didn’t realize they had such tight security at these events.”

  “Most pow-wows are policed by the performers. We have our own rules that almost everyone follows. There’s been a rise in gang-related activity recently, but nothing to worry about. We’re just here to make sure everyone stays safe.”

  “Gang-related activity? How long has that been going on?”

  Latching onto the detail, her mind started to race through the possibilities. Could a gang have been there when her family had been? Had they zeroed in on her family for some reason?

  The officer cocked an eyebrow and tilted back his head in suspicion before replying, “Gangs have been following powwows, selling drugs and making trouble, for as long as I can remember. A big part of our job is trying to help kids find another alternative to joining the gangs, which are often unaffiliated or only loosely affiliated with the larger criminal organizations they mimic. We have our versions of Latin Kings, Bloods, Crips, the usual gamut.”

  She nodded but was only half-listening now. The gang element made sense with the children going missing, since gangs often involved themselves in human trafficking. She’d checked the dates and locations. There had been a pow-wow within fifty miles of each child that had been taken, but since none of the children had attended, except for her brother, the cops hadn’t looked too deeply.

  “Do any of the gangs have any specific signs or characteristics? Navajo-specific ways of doing things or traditions? Tattoos? Painting faces? Colored contacts?”

  The remainder of the officer’s smile fell, and he asked, “Are you a reporter?”

  She blinked a few times, surprised by the question. “No, actually, I’m an agent with the Department of Justice. I’m investigating a cold case that could have involved the pow-wow circuit. Would have been over twenty-five years ago.”

  After examining her credentials, he said, “That’s way before my time, ma’am. I could probably put you in touch with some of the old timers, if you’d like.”

  “No, that’s okay. I was just stopping in to see if the environment might spark some new ideas. What made you think I was a reporter?”

  Looking uncomfortable again, he shrugged and said, “There have been a lot of reporters around recently asking questions about our beliefs and the like ever since the FBI database made the connections and figured out that a serial killer might be at work around the border towns. Flagstaff and the like. Some people are saying it’s a skin-walker, which has made the story more sensational for the people who make up the news.”

  Maggie asked, “A skin-walker?”

  “It’s just
a myth, and superstitious people being caught up in the hysteria. But in our culture, a skin-walker is a witch with the ability to possess or transform themselves into animals.”

  “Like a werewolf?”

  “More like a werecoyote, but that’s the idea. Talking about witchcraft and skin-walkers make my people very uncomfortable. Still, every once in a while, we do get a case where someone claims to have been cursed by a skin-walker or poisoned by corpse powder or the like. It’s all nonsense, but no one ever said people were rational.”

  Maggie nodded in understanding and asked, “What about a man named John Canyon? You ever hear of him?”

  The officer’s kind face turned to stone. Ignoring the question, he said, “Well, I had better be making the rounds, ma’am. You have a nice day and enjoy the festivities.”

  53

  Sometimes Marcus considered his eidetic memory to be a wonderful blessing. Other times, he considered it to be a terrible curse. This was one of the latter. From a Discovery Channel special he had watched while bored one Sunday afternoon, he remembered quite a bit about scorpions. He knew that the Arizona bark scorpion was the largest variety of the arachnid in North America. It was also the most venomous. But even a mature specimen wouldn’t be able to kill him, unless he had some sort of allergic reaction or oversensitivity to the venom. Still, he didn’t much relish the idea of enduring a scorpion’s sting, or any of the sickness that accompanied it. Perhaps if he kept his leg loose and didn’t tense the muscle, the alien-looking creature wouldn’t see him as a threat.

  Yazzie said, “I think he’s taking a liking to you.”

  “I’m glad because I think he’s adorable. Do I get to keep him? I mean after we’re done with the whole torture thing. I’d like to name him Harvey, if that’s okay with you.”