The Shepherd (25 page)

Remembering her training, she kept the gun ready, ever vigilant. She walked across the dim customer area and headed for the back.

When she entered and looked around, she saw no sign of the baker. It appeared that he had left treats baking in the oven, and a thick dusting of flour covered the table.

But where’s Alexai?

She spotted something strange and walked closer. What she saw made her heart skip a beat.

There were droplets of blood spattered across the flour-covered table.

Human blood? Alexai’s blood?

She continued around the table with the pistol stretched out in front of her. Her finger rested on the trigger, ready to bring a quick end to any possible confrontation. As she moved forward, she noticed a stream of red flowing from behind a neighboring table.

She rounded the second table and saw the body of her friend laid out on the floor. Deep gashes covered his body, and chunks of flesh had been torn away, exposing bone and internal organs. Torn from his abdomen, his intestines lay strung across his right shoulder.

The bile rose, and she threw up. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. She stared at his lifeless body—transfixed, mesmerized, in shock. She had seen dead bodies before, but nothing like this.

A voice from behind snapped her out of the stupor.

“Admiring my work?” the voice said.

She spun around and pointed her gun at the man behind her. He stood on the opposite side of the flour-covered table.

“Don’t move!” she said.

She wondered how had he gotten so close without alerting her.
Where did he even come from?

“I was paying homage to one of history’s most notorious murderers, Jack the Ripper. I took a bit of creative license in the moment, but it’s meant to be a tribute not a true recreation. My father forced me to study all the gruesome details of every known killer’s work. I’ve always found the method behind Jack’s madness to be fascinating.”

She stood ready to blow his head off if he moved a muscle. She knew that he must have been able to see that, but he didn’t seem concerned. In fact, he looked calm and collected—a man without a care in the world.

He held a towel and appeared to have just finished washing his hands. She could see that he had cleaned a great deal of blood from his face, but a few rogue streaks of red remained.

He continued to dry his hands and ran his eyes up and down her form. She could almost feel his gaze as it crawled over her body. “You’re quite beautiful, and there’s a certain… fire in your eyes. I like that. Not much family resemblance, but I can see why Marcus is interested in you. And that’s why I’m here. You’re the intersection. The connection that binds all the threads together. You’re the key to unlocking my destiny.”

He looked deep into her eyes. She felt him knocking on the door to her soul. “I wanna play a game, my dear…a game called
Cat and Mouse
.”

She had never killed anyone before, but there was a first time for everything. She increased pressure on the trigger and considered squeezing.

“Let me guess,” she said. Her voice shook, but she tried to mask her terror. “You’re the cat, and I’m the mouse?”

He shook his head. “Oh no, sweetheart. I’m afraid that you’re merely the cheese for the mouse trap.”

Without warning, Ackerman dropped the towel and swept his hand across the flour-covered table. The movement stirred up a white cloud that made her lose sight of him for a split second.

She fired into the cloud only a second after his movement, but it was too late. He was too fast. Her shot sailed wide. She fired blindly in the area she had last seen him. Flour filled the air and obstructed her visibility.

Before she could react, he had rounded the table and was upon her. He wrenched the gun from her hand and struck her across the face. She hurtled through the air and pounded against the linoleum. Blood flowed from her mouth and nose, and tears welled in her eyes.

She considered running, but she knew there was nowhere to go. She pulled herself up on her hands and knees and spat blood on the floor. A small portion of her fear had evolved into rage. She wanted to kill the man who had struck her, not only for herself, but for all of those who had suffered at his hands.

She turned back to her attacker and said, “You can’t kill me. You need me as your bait, and I won’t be very good bait if I’m already dead.”

He placed her gun in the back of his pants and picked up a carving knife that lay next to Alexai’s body. He twisted the knife, appearing to admire the blade. “You’re partly right, my dear. But what you’ve overlooked is the fact that they only have to
think
that you’re alive. Plus, I truly hate to admit this, but sometimes…I simply can’t control myself.”

“Something’s wrong,” Andrew said as he placed the cell phone back in his pocket. “She knew we were coming. She wouldn’t have just left.” He had already attempted to reach her twice, once on the road and once in front of her building.

After a cursory scan of the area, they decided to investigate. Marcus went upstairs to her apartment while Andrew went to ask Alexai if he had seen or heard anything. They met back on the landing that led up the stairs.

“She’s not in her apartment. No signs of a struggle,” Marcus said as he came down the stairs. “Did the baker know any…” His words trailed off when he saw the look on Andrew’s face.
She’s dead. I’ve failed everyone. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for me.

His knees felt weak. His heart pounded, and the air in his lungs grew heavy. The act of breathing became a chore instead of a reflex.

“What’s wrong?” he said and tried to steel himself for the response.

Andrew wouldn’t meet his eyes. After what seemed like an eternity, Andrew said, “Ackerman’s been here.”

He didn’t wait for another syllable to be uttered. He pushed past Andrew and ran into the bakery. Visions of Maureen Hill flashed into his mind, only now he saw Maggie in her place. He couldn’t shake the thought of Maggie nailed to the wall and tortured—her lifeless husk trapped in an eternal scream, torment forever carved onto her face.

It was no way to die. He held to the belief of what a warrior from the past would have called “dying a good death.” His father said it was “dying with your boots on.” He simply thought of it as a death with meaning. It was almost as important as a life with meaning. But the atrocities left in the wake of Ackerman’s rage were senseless and pointless tragedies that only served the purpose of quenching a madman’s thirst for blood.

He pushed his way into the bakery’s back room. From somewhere far away, he heard Andrew asking him to wait, but he pressed forward anyway. He had to see for himself.

It only took a moment for him to find the mutilated body of the baker, Alexai. He searched the rest of the kitchen but saw no sign of Maggie.

“She’s gone,” Andrew said from the doorway.

A wave of relief passed over Marcus, but he felt guilty for the emotion. He hadn’t found Maggie lying there in a pool of blood, but there was still an innocent man dead on the floor whose only crime was being in Ackerman’s way.
And it was my fault.
He had allowed Ackerman to escape in the first place. He cursed himself for feeling relief in the wake of such tragedy. Plus, there was still no sign of Maggie, and if Ackerman had taken her, the chances of a happy ending would be about the same as winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

He leaned over one of the tables to keep from falling to his knees. He wanted to drop to the ground and weep, but he didn’t have time to cry. Now was a time for action. He turned to Andrew and said, “I’m gonna get her back.”

The words gave him strength. He stood straight again, and a look of determination filled his eyes. “I’m gonna save her… and put an end to this.”

Just then, what sounded like an explosion pierced the night. It came from somewhere close, no more than a couple of blocks away. He and Andrew glanced at each other and didn’t have to say a word. Within seconds, they were both out of Maggie’s building in pursuit of whatever had caused the sound.

His determination grew with every step. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was certain that Ackerman had caused the noise. They were on a collision course. All of his inhibitions and reservations were gone. He would save Maggie, no matter what the cost.

If Marcus was his other half, then he would come and put an end to this. If Ackerman’s suspicions proved to be true and there was meaning to the universe, Marcus would save these people.

Ackerman raised Maggie’s gun and took aim at the propane tank that he had placed by the back door. He had draped a flaming towel over the tank, in order to ensure that the escaping gas found a spark.

He stood at the back corner of the Asherton Tap and prepared to run—not only to get out of the path of the explosion, but also so he could get to the front of the bar before the people began to pile out.

He squeezed the trigger and rounded the corner. He wished he could have seen the explosion, but that wasn’t part of the plan. He had to settle for auditory gratification in the form of the shocked screams emitted by the bar patrons.

He reached the front of the building and took aim.
Here they come. Like lambs to the slaughter.

The first person out was a young, blonde woman, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two. He squeezed the trigger, and the woman’s head snapped back.

The next victim was a thirty-something man with wavy black hair, who had apparently never heard of “women and children first.” A squeeze and a pop, and the man joined the blonde on the pavement.

Apparently still in shock from the explosion and not comprehending what awaited them, the people kept coming.

He aimed and squeezed with cold, mechanical movements.
Pop, pop, pop.
A couple members of the group escaped and ran down the street, but he expected some stragglers. They weren’t important. He had plenty of playmates still within his grasp.

Finally, the herd seemed to realize that the act of stampeding carried them into the jaws of a predator, and they retreated away from the doorway. So far, everything had gone as anticipated. By now, he surmised that the fire from the explosion should have eaten its way through the back portion of the building. It wouldn’t be long before it reached the main part of the bar, but that was far from the only concern of which the establishment’s patrons would have to contend.

They also had to worry about the madman blocking any escape from the front. Unfortunately for those trapped inside, there were only two ways out. One was into the jaws of the fire, and the other was into the jaws of a wolf.

But he wasn’t satisfied with waiting for them to come to him or burn inside. That was just the beginning.

While keeping a watchful eye out for anyone trying to escape or be a hero, he walked over to where he had left the can of gasoline. He reached down to pick up the can but caught movement in the bar’s doorway.

A pale, young man with red hair tried to make a break for it. He raised the gun.
A squeeze and a pop.

The terrified screams and shocked gasps were music to his ears. He wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else trying that again, at least not until they saw what he was about to do. By that time, they would be past the point of no return.

He retrieved the gas can, walked to the front door, and doused the front of the bar with gasoline. He almost emptied the large can but left just enough in reserve to run a trail of liquid to act as a fuse.

He tried to stay in the moment, but his true thoughts wandered away from the events taking place around him. His inner ponderings remained fixed upon the young man he had met earlier that night.

He wondered whether Marcus would show. Maybe his epiphanies of meaning and preordained purpose were only delusions conjured by a warped mind and a twisted perception? Maybe the grand ideas of meaning and destiny were only what he wanted to believe?

He reached into his pocket and retrieved a lighter. He fired a few shots into the building, just to let them know that he was still there, and flipped open the top of the Zippo held in his left hand.

He struck the flint and lowered the beautiful flame toward the trail of gasoline.

Then, he paused. The flame hovered less than a foot from the gas. A sound had come from behind him, and with it, all of his prior doubts faded away.

“Don’t you move,” the voice behind him repeated.

He had heard that voice earlier in the evening.

Marcus.

Maybe there is such a thing as destiny after all?

He turned to see two men standing about twenty feet from him. One of the men, the one with the sandy blonde hair, pointed an H&K 9mm pistol at his head. The other man wielded only a fierce look of determination. Given the choice between them, he would have rather gone up against the man with the gun.

He had outrun bullets and beaten armed gunmen in the past, but he had never faced someone that filled him with a sense of dread the way that Marcus did. He wondered if this was the same sensation that his victims felt when they met his gaze. He couldn’t explain from where the feeling stemmed, but when he looked into Marcus’s eyes, he saw death.

~~*~~

Marcus stared into Ackerman’s eyes and tried to anticipate the killer’s next move.

“Slowly close the lighter and drop the gun.” He saw the gas can and knew what Ackerman had been about to do. He also knew that, if Andrew fired, the lighter’s flame would fall into the stream of gasoline and burn everyone in the bar alive. Unfortunately, he didn’t know if Andrew had seen and realized all that he had.

“I knew you would come,” Ackerman said. “You were meant to come. Both of our lives up to this point have been leading to an inevitable confrontation. You’re one side of the coin, and I’m the other. It’s who we are, who we’re meant to be.”

He and Andrew moved closer and tried to slowly circle Ackerman. But he didn’t want to get too close. As long as Ackerman held the flame, they were at the killer’s mercy. “Just close the lighter, and then you can tell me all about our destinies and how we’re connected.”