Deadly Days: A Gripping Detective Thriller (Logan Stone Book 1)

by Brad Hart

  “You cannot escape. Not from me, or from this world that I have allowed you to breathe in,” the master said.

  “Shut the hell up,” Walsh said. “You win the prize for being the most delusional person I’ve ever encountered in my life.”

  The cloaked figures in the distance were not dropping their weapons. Logan started to sweat.

  “Come on,” he said. “Drop your weapons, or we’re going to shoot.”

  “You’ve only got one gun,” the master said. “They’ve only got ONE gun,” he said loudly then, grinning.

  “But you have a gun too,” Logan said, and then he reached forward and grabbed at the old man’s waist. He felt the cold steel of the pistol and then he pulled it forcefully from the holster and smiled, raising it above his face. “Now we have two. Drop your weapons.”

  “Do you know why I do it? Kill?”

  “Don’t care anymore,” Walsh said.

  “Because it’s fun. That’s all. Because when I kill, I’m really in control. All this cult shit, it’s just for fun. But my followers – they actually believe me.”

  “Tell your men to put their weapons down,” Logan said.

  “What? No, I won’t do that. I refuse to tell them. They protect me. They listen to me. They actually believe the wild things I tell them. You know, I’ve made my own little imaginary universe, and I’m the king of it,” he smiled, looking down at the ground. “I’m proud of that, even if it’s all a bit of a lie… So, is this the part where you kill me?”

  “Okay, final warning,” Walsh shouted. “Lower your weapons. Put them on the ground and then put your hands slowly into the air.”

  “They’re not going to do that,” the master said. Then he screamed, “Kill them, children. Shoot them for me!”

  He ducked for cover as he screamed, and bullets whizzed past Logan’s ear. They fired back as Walsh jumped to the ground and rolled behind a thin tree, holding her pistol out and keeping her eyes on the group of four figures that quickly dropped to three, two…

  “Walsh, you got eyes on the other two shooters? I just lost visual.”

  “Damn,” she said. “I lost visual too. And where’s the master?”

  “Stay low,” he said.

  Logan hurried through the mist, holding his gun ahead of his face. He was ready to blow someone away if they jumped out at him, but that was the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario would be him not even seeing the bullet coming. They could have taken him out from their hiding spot, wherever that happened to be, and in these deep and darkened woods, there were many.

  Then he jumped flat onto the ground with his pistol in the air as a dark shape emerged out of the shadows, and he fired until his gun was empty. He looked up through the smoke and the mist, and as it slowly cleared, he saw the unmoving shape of a man on the ground.

  Dead as a doornail. But there was still one left, and not to mention the master himself. Logan wondered where the psychopath had run off to in the ensuing chaos. He glanced to his left, to his right, behind him and in front. There was no sign of anyone. If he had run off, he had run off quick, safe and not wounded. Logan wish he’d put a bullet right through his skull.

  Walsh was right behind him, crawling. “There’s two left, Logan. They must be close.”

  “I think both of them took off running. The master did, at least, and he probably took the grunt with him. He needs a right-hand man who can protect him, a security guard.”

  “Shh.”

  “What?”

  “Quiet.”

  They were partially hidden from view behind a large pine tree. Logan grabbed the pistol off the corpse after checking and seeing that it was fully loaded. He liked a fully loaded gun, it made him sleep soundly at night, and it made him feel slight comfort in darkened woods like these.

  They stayed still despite Logan getting antsy. He thought they might have been wasting time, but Walsh was probably right. The woods were so quiet that if the two men had taken off running, they would both have heard them at some point. Which meant they must have been close.

  But there was no sound, so they had probably stayed put just like them, not moving, just waiting, waiting for Logan or Walsh to move first. Probably hiding behind a rock or a tree just like they were. Waiting. Hoping and waiting.

  Then Logan felt something drop on his head. He felt his hair and brushed pine needles from it. He stared at Walsh and barely nodded up with his head, opening his mouth to whisper. His eyes were stern, his lips were pursed in a cold whisper.

  “He’s above us in the tree,” he muttered.

  Walsh took a breath. “On three.”

  “One,” they began to count together, “two…”

  On three they swung their arms upright, pistols firing blindly toward the sky. Twigs, limbs, and pine needles rained down on them. Logan kept firing until he heard a click, then stopped.

  There was silence, and then a body fell and shook the earth beneath their weight.

  It landed about two feet next to Logan and he almost jumped out of his skin. He was lucky it hadn’t landed right on top of him. That was it for the grunts, then. But where was the ring-leader of the bunch?

  Logan reached into the dead man’s pockets and found a knife, but no gun. If there had been a gun, then the two of them probably wouldn’t have ever known he’d been up there. They’d have been dead when he took his chance to fire on them both from above. He handed the blade to Walsh. Then he reached into another pocket and pulled out a phone. It was unlocked with no passcode needed. Logan sighed and handed it to Walsh.

  “Make the call for backup. They can triangulate on wherever the hell we even are…”

  He turned to the right as Walsh dialed, and something on the ground caught his eye. A small puddle of blood on the dead pine needles that lay across the ground. Logan stood and walked to the blood, noticing that it turned into a trail of droplets that went in the direction of the cabin.

  “I shot him,” he said, voice hushed and full of dismay.

  “What?”

  “Walsh, come on!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  He ran in the direction of the blood, and Walsh followed, phone to her ear, voice shaking as she spoke into the other line in rhythm with her quick footsteps on the ground. If the master was wounded, then he couldn’t have been as fast as usual, but he could be well ahead of them by that point, having the advantage of taking off minutes before they had the chance to… And it also meant he was one step closer to Brianne Jones and Isabella Weir, who wouldn’t know he was coming.

  They ran like bats out of hell as the blood finally trailed off into nothing. He had stopped dripping it onto the ground, but the trail he had paved with his hurried feet was still visible in the caked dirt and loose leaves on the ground, churning onward toward the cabin, never ending, not until they finally reached the edge of the woods where the ground suddenly became hard dirt, and where they found Brianne Jones and Isabella Weir huddled up next to one another behind a large pine tree.

  “You alright?” Logan said, not waiting for an answer. “Did you see him?”

  “Who?” Asked Brianne, startled.

  “The leader. The master; he ran this way. Did you see him or hear anything?”

  “No,” Isabella answered for her. “No one came.”

  Logan glanced around, his head darting back and forth. “Walsh, get closer up to the road. Stay with the girls and wait for backup. I don’t think it’ll take them too long coming by chopper. It’s not safe here. It’s not safe anywhere, not while he’s running around.”

  “Where is he?” Walsh said. “Damn, he just had to get away, didn’t he?”

  “I’m not going to let him get away,” Logan said, and then he smiled as he stared off into the distance.

  He ran back and forth, looking like a crazy person to Brianne and Isabella as he stared down at the ground some sixty feet to the right of where they sat. Then he saw it – a single droplet of blood on a bright green blade of fresh grass. His head
tilted slowly back as he stared up the long hill toward the direction of the cabin. No doubt about it, there were indentions in the wet grass. Foot prints. Unnoticeable to the untrained eye, but clearly visible and glaringly obvious to someone like Logan Stone. He rushed back to Walsh and the two others. “Stay hidden. Keep them safe,” he said, and then went off from where he’d came from.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Walsh wanted to follow him. She knew he might need backup. The last thing she wanted was to hear a gunshot and not know who was on the receiving end of the bullet. But she had to keep Brianne and Isabella safe. That’s what they’d come here for. Besides, she knew Logan could look after himself.

  His heart was beating like a drum. He’d never run this fast in his life, not even back in the days of his short distance sprinting during high school. Champion track star at the age of seventeen, Logan thought to himself with a weary grin as he ran next to the master’s footprints. They should get a look at me now. Who says an old guy can’t beat the young ones in a race?

  Sweat was streaming in buckets from his burning skin as the sun beamed down on him from high above. The sky had turned from gray to baby blue and the desert air must have blown in from somewhere far away. It was hot, scorching hot, and he felt the orange blaze beat down on the back of his neck as he hurried along up the hill and finally crouched to his hands and knees, crawling like some kind of frog creature before he reached the top. There was no sight of anyone else around him when he reached the top of the hill, but he kept himself low and worried about not having a gun if anyone happened to jump out at him from a distance.

  If they attacked him at close range, it would have been a cake walk. Logan had confidence in his close combat street fighting abilities, but if someone were to fire a gun at him from twenty feet away then he’d be out of luck and dead as a doornail, as dead as the guys he’d left back in the woods. He wasn’t going to let that happen. It would eat him up inside. If he didn’t catch this guy here and now, then his worry, his guilt, and his ego would torment him until he did.

  Stay hidden, he thought, feeling his blood boil up inside him when he remembered the sadistic smile of the master, along with the gloating about his ability to brainwash those who followed him. The guy knew he was full of it, and he relished in that… He relished in the idea of creating a make-believe world and being the absolute and only God of it.

  “You’re not going to be a god for very long,” Logan said softly.

  There was no sound of anything around him except for a bee that kept buzzing around his left ear. He smacked at it and went on toward the cabin.

  Then came the sound of rustling from the inside which froze him in his tracks. He was out in the open, in clear view of anyone who may have been peeking through a window from the cabin. He rushed forward on tip toes until his hands touched the wood of the house and then he ducked down beneath a window and leaned with his back against it, breathing heavily.

  “Detective…” Came a sudden voice, loud, from inside the cabin. “I wish to surrender at once. If I come out, will you not shoot?”

  Logan had no gun, but apparently the master wasn’t aware of that. He hesitated for a moment. “Come out with your hands up and I won’t blow your head off. Back door. Now.”

  “I don’t believe you,” the master replied. “You’re not a good man. You’re bad. Worse than me, maybe.”

  “Stop playing around. You’re going to be surrounded soon. Police are on their way now in helicopters. It’ll be any minute when they arrive. You think they’ll be as generous to a cult leading serial killer? I’m offering you a chance to live.”

  “In a tiny jail cell?” Came the voice. “What kind of living is that?”

  It sounded as if the master was directly across from Logan on the other side of the wall. Logan breathed in. “If you don’t come out in thirty seconds then I’m going to come in there and kill you.”

  Ten seconds went by. “Perhaps that would be better than living for the rest of my life in prison.”

  “I’m going to count to thirty, and then I’m going to come in,” Logan lied, and quickly crouched to his feet and moved as swiftly as he could toward the front door, making it in seven seconds and then rushing inside the open doorway.

  He glanced at the area from where he had suspected the voice to be coming from, by the window above where he’d been squatting moments before outside the cabin. There was nothing there, save for a few coin sized drops of blood which were also sprinkled in bits across the rest of the floor.

  Then a dark shape emerged from Logan’s right, directly from the kitchen’s pantry. It was quick, too quick for anyone to react successfully. A blow bore down onto the side of his head and it felt like it came from a pipe or a wrench. Logan’s knees buckled and he dropped onto them with a crash. His face twisted into a grimace and he began to plunge face first onto the ground in his dizziness, but managed with all his might to regain his senses in a split second and caught himself on the ground with his elbows.

  He rolled onto his back just as the second blow was coming down. He saw the wrench as if it was in slow motion, barreling down on him. It missed him by an inch, thudding into the hardwood floor next to him with a dull clang, and Logan swung his foot upwards, directly into the master’s bony crotch. The pain must have been agonizing, because the master dropped the wrench instantly and doubled over, clutching at his balls before Logan pulled himself to his feet and slugged him in the face as he bent over.

  Logan hit him again and again, and he didn’t stop until the master’s face looked like a piece of bloody meat when he finally lay on the ground, arms sprawled, legs twitching. He stood up, gasping for breath, raising his knuckles and staring down at the mess he’d made of them. He wondered if it was his blood, or the master’s.

  Then came the sound of heavy wheels on gravel. Logan’s head spun up and he saw a big diesel truck boring down the driveway; a cloud of smoke behind it as rocks and dirt were spat up into the air from the back tires. He rushed to the limp body of the master, clutching at him and reaching into his pockets. There was no gun, no knife, no nothing. He settled for the wrench on the ground and then he began to stand up just as bullets shattered the front window and hammered the front door like a series of heavy fists knocking.

  “Damn,” he dropped down to the floor and scurried toward the back door. The shooting stopped. A series of heavy foot steps came running up the front porch and began to kick at the door.

  “We’re coming in through the back, too! You’re surrounded, punk!”

  How did they know I was in here? They must have been watching on foot from the road. They must have been parked somewhere nearby. They must have been waiting. Oh, damn, I hope Walsh has kept the girls safe.

  He crawled as quickly as he could to the pantry and stood in the same hiding place that the master himself had stood in moments before, taking his place and method of attack before the sound of running feet filled his ears on the grass outside. He kept his eyes wide open, waiting, clutching the wrench and ready to hew it down onto the head of anyone who walked in. He didn’t have to wait long, and he said a silent thank you when he saw that it was only one man. However, it was one man holding a double-barreled shotgun, and that meant it could be trouble.

  Regardless, Logan had no other option. The man didn’t see him in the darkness as he approached the open back door, and so Logan stayed there and waited. Come on, he thought to himself, come on inside and see what I’ve got for you as a surprise… He felt a surge of sudden adrenaline as the man placed one booted foot into the cabin, followed by another. It’s go time. Logan burst from the darkness of the pantry and slammed the heavy wrench onto the head of the man, hearing a crunching noise as the man cried out in pain and fired off a shotgun blast into the cabin. He dropped to the ground, dropping the shotgun as he did so, and then the front door burst open just as Logan stooped down and swept the gun up off the floor.

  He spun it around and then pulled the trigger and felt the gu
n go off.

  He stood there panting slowly, looking like an untamed beast, wild-eyed and unfriendly, fighting for his survival. The gun barrel smoked. He stared ahead at the body of an overweight man in a leather jacket who lay flat on his back.

  He looked down at his feet. The man he’d smashed on the head was breathing, but he wasn’t conscious. He ducked down and slapped his face, but he wouldn’t wake up. He glanced at the master, then, and saw he was groaning on the ground, barely awake himself.

  He slammed the butt of the shotgun into the other man, wanting to make sure he slept nice and long, and then he checked his pockets and pulled out a pistol and a wallet with no ID. He glared up at the master.

  “What’s your name? I’m sick of thinking of you as the ‘master’, because that’s a title you’re not worthy of.” He grabbed him by the collar, shaking him brutally with one hand, holding the shotgun in the other after having put the pistol in the back of his pants. “Answer me, you whiny little bastard. Give me a name.”

  The master said nothing, so Logan dropped him to the ground. He stared down at him, and then he smiled. “I’ll call you dirt,” he said. “Because that’s what I figure you’re worth. You’re worth less than the worms that crawl around in it.”

  The sound of helicopters filled the room. Logan sighed. He looked down at the master, or dirt as he liked to think of him, and wanted to gloat. He opened his mouth, but he didn’t speak. He only smiled. He wasn’t worth Logan’s words. He wasn’t worth anything. And judging by the tears that swelled up in his eyes, he knew he was in deep trouble, probably wishing Logan’s shot back in the woods had killed him.

  “Please,” he said, staring up at Logan.

  “What?”

  “Just kill me. Tell them I attacked you. Just kill me, man.”

  Logan grinned. “You’re not getting of so easily, dirt. You’re going away for a long time. You’re going to get to think of me, and this smile of mine, when you lay in your cell at night. You’re going to think of how we stopped you.”