The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset: 1-6

by Ethan Cross

  “I think we just found Conlan’s room,” he said.

  He stepped forward and twisted the knob. It was locked. He directed Beaman and Maggie to stand back, and then he kicked the door. It flew inward with a sound of splintering lumber.

  This room and the ones above were a study in contrasts. Not that the bedroom was something you’d find in a mansion, but it was also anything but utilitarian. Rugs covered almost the whole length of the floor. A large and ornate oak desk sat in the center, littered with pens and paper and a small plastic container. A padded rolling chair sat behind it. Books and bookshelves covered the back wall. A king-sized bed was at one end. There was an armoire and a nighstand next to the bed.

  Marcus stepped up to the desk and opened the sealed plastic container resting on its surface. It contained plastic baggies filled with tin foil. He opened one of the bags and unwrapped the foil. Small squares of yellow blotter paper had been crammed inside. He pictured Conlan dispensing the blotter papers onto the tongues of his flock like a priest giving out Communion wafers.

  He showed the foil’s contents to Maggie and commented, “LSD.”

  Maggie growled in disgust and said, “I bet this creep was sleeping with every member of their group. Bastard had the nerve to live down here like a king while women and children were living in conditions harsher than most prisons.”

  Marcus didn’t comment, and Beaman hadn’t spoken a word since they’d descended the ladder. “Are you both feeling okay? No dizziness or disorientation?” Marcus asked.

  “No, I’m good,” Maggie said.

  “Beaman?”

  “Fine,” the old man said in a barely audible whisper.

  They all walked back into the main room of the second floor, and Marcus shone his light down to the far end of the chamber. He stepped toward the door there, but he had a bad feeling about what they’d find on the other side.

  He expected to find death, but what he saw shocked even him.

  86

  The room was the biggest open space in the bunker. Marcus estimated that it was thirty feet wide by thirty feet long. The walls had been completely covered from floor to ceiling with mirrors. A massive black pentagram covered the floor. At each of the symbol’s five points rested a chair. Each chair contained the small burnt body of a child. Their hands had been bound behind their backs. Their heads were tilted at odd angles. Agony was etched onto their charred features.

  Maggie covered her mouth and looked away. Beaman stumbled back into the previous room. Marcus could hear his whispered prayer clearly in the silence of the bunker.

  He shone his flashlight around the rest of the room and found more bodies stacked in the corner like a pile of garbage. Adults. Five women, three men. The parents of the murdered children.

  Stepping closer, he made a quick visual examination of the bodies. He wished that Andrew had been there to tell them an exact cause of death. With the level of decay, it was difficult for him to determine much about how they had died.

  Maggie said, “I bet they tried to stop Conlan when they found out that he planned to …”

  She didn’t finish her sentence, and she didn’t have to. Marcus guessed that Conlan had been a very charismatic and persuasive man. After all, he had convinced several families to move into a hidden underground bunker. But apparently his brainwashing techniques hadn’t been effective enough to convince these people to sacrifice their own children. But Conlan wouldn’t have cared about them, anyway. He had been prepared for their objections and had dealt with them. Poisoning would have been the easiest way. Marcus pictured all of them sitting down for a meal. Maybe laughing. Maybe even happy in their simple lives. And then they were gone.

  He turned back to the pentagram. When he had first looked at it, his eyes had been immediately drawn to the burnt bodies on the symbol’s periphery. Now he saw there was also a small stool at its very center. And it was empty.

  Stepping to the core of the dark annulus, Marcus sat down on the stool. His eyes swept around to the faces of the children. They were all looking in at him. Their eyes accusing him.

  “This is where the Anarchist sat,” he whispered.

  “Oh my God,” Maggie said. “He sat there and watched all the other kids burn to death. His friends.”

  The room was silent.

  As Marcus looked around the circle, he wondered what he would be like if he had been subjected to even a fraction of the pain and suffering that men like Ackerman and the Anarchist had endured.

  He sat there for what felt like a very long time, but finally he said, “We should go. We’ll get some fresh air and then come back down. See if we can find any other clues.”

  Maggie nodded, and they stepped back into the previous chamber, leaving the death and pain behind. Maggie placed a reassuring hand on Beaman’s shoulder and ushered the old man forward.

  But then Marcus heard a strange sound, like the quiet rumble of a distant shower or faucet running. And he smelled something as well. He sniffed the air.

  Then everything clicked, and he ran toward the ladder. He scrambled up it. He could hear Maggie and Beaman saying something, but he didn’t have time to listen.

  His body was halfway through the trapdoor opening when he looked up toward the cellar doors and the other ladder that led outside. The figure standing there was lit from behind, but the man was also leaning down into the opening. What looked like a sixty-four-ounce bottle of Kingsford lighter fluid was turned upside down in his hands. The contents of the bottle flowed down the ladder and pooled on the floor.

  Marcus looked up into the man’s face. Their eyes met.

  Then the man lit the stream of liquid. Fire exploded down the ladder, and the cellar doors swung shut.

  87

  As the flames burst to life, Marcus released his hold on the ladder and dropped back down to the second floor of the bunker. His leg slammed into the concrete as he landed. Pain shot up through his ankle, and he dropped to the ground.

  Maggie grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back from the ladder and the opening where the flames were licking at the air on the floor above. She helped him to his feet. The ankle protested when he put weight on it, but he had more important things to worry about.

  Marcus willed the pain away and stepped back toward the ladder. He looked up to the next floor, trying to see if there was still a way out. Flames had begun to devour the plywood and the ladder leading to the surface still burned.

  “Dammit!” he shouted.

  They weren’t getting out that way. With limited oxygen, the fire might burn itself out. But by the time it did, two other things would have happened. First of all, they’d have no oxygen left to breathe. And second, the man who had lit the fire would have already used the shovel they’d left on the surface to re-cover the opening with at least a cubic yard’s worth of topsoil. A cubic foot of dirt typically weighed anywhere from ninety to one hundred and twenty pounds. So even if they could reach the cellar doors, there was no way they were going to be able to lift the 2,400 to 3,200 pounds of soil that would separate them from the surface.

  Marcus shone his flashlight around the room. There were obviously no windows, nor were there any other entrances or exits. They were trapped.

  Beaman was screaming hysterically. “I don’t want to burn!” The old man lunged for the ladder, but Marcus hauled him back. Beaman twisted and fought. Marcus released him, and he fell to the concrete.

  “You won’t make it!”

  “What are we going to do!”

  Maggie bent down and grabbed hold of him. She tried to quiet him down. “We need to be calm and think. We’ll get out of this.”

  Marcus admired her composure under the current pressure. He thought that maybe he should cut her a bit more slack if they lived through this. He also noted the confident look in her eyes. She had faith in him. Faith that he would figure something out. Faith that he would save them.

  The only problem was that he was coming up empty. There was no way out. />
  He closed his eyes and pictured the structure in his mind. He analyzed it. Broke down its components. Looked for weaknesses. The cellar doors were blocked. The vents and pipes were sealed and were too small anyway.

  Maybe they could blow the doors with something. Marcus thought of their handguns and the ammunition they used. Each .45 ACP round contained about seven grains of gunpowder. His gun had a ten-round clip, with one in the chamber. He had two extra magazines and imagined Maggie had the same. Her 9mm rounds would have less gunpowder, but there were also more of them, which would even out. Plus two backup weapons. He estimated they had close to one hundred rounds between them. That was about seven hundred grains of propellant.

  Not nearly enough force to blow the door. Plus, how would they get it there through the fire? And they’d have already suffocated by the time they could open all the bullets and empty them of the propellant they contained.

  He hadn’t seen anything else flammable on this floor or the one above.

  Dammit, Marcus. Think. Adapt, improvise, and overcome.

  But he was drawing a blank. There was simply no way out. They were going to die down there.

  88

  The flames were consuming the upper floor of the bunker, and Marcus could already feel his lungs burning from the smoke and lack of oxygen. But he still couldn’t find a way to get them out of this mess. They couldn’t push their way out. They couldn’t blow the door. They couldn’t call for help. Even the closest neighbor would never reach them in time. This place would be their tomb.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie. There’s something that I need to tell you before—”

  She stood up and smacked him hard across the face. “Don’t you start that crap with me. I know you. You’re much too stubborn to give up on anything. Now we’re getting out of here.”

  “I’ve got nothing! There’s no way out.”

  “There’s always a way. Think harder.”

  The sound of the crackling flames filled the space. Beaman started to hack and cough from the smoke.

  “What about Conlan?” Maggie said. “He’s paranoid enough to build an underground bunker out in the woods, but he’s not paranoid enough to have a back door leading out of the place?”

  “You’re right. Holy crap, you’re absolutely right. I’ve heard of some cult and militia compounds where they built secret escape tunnels in case they were ever raided by the federal government. Conlan might have built something similar. We just have to find it in time. The two of you check the room with the mirrors. Maybe one of them is on hinges. I’ll check Conlan’s bedroom.”

  Ignoring the pain in his ankle, Marcus sprinted toward the bedroom and shone his flashlight’s beam over the walls. He grabbed high on the bookshelves and pulled, tipping each one over. The sound of them smashing against the concrete reverberated off the block walls like cannon blasts. There was nothing behind them. The light played over the walls, and he quickly scanned them for any symbols or markings that would indicate a hidden mechanism of some sort. He shoved Conlan’s bed aside and checked beneath it. There was nothing there.

  Any escape tunnel had to be in the next room. If there was an escape tunnel.

  The smoke was quickly filling both floors now. The trapdoor was gone, and the plywood was caving in near the back wall. They didn’t have much time.

  He ran into the room containing the bodies and the pentagram and found Maggie and Beaman working their way around to each of the mirrors lining the walls. They were pulling on them, shoving against them, and feeling their surfaces. Marcus ran to a point in between them and started doing the same thing, working his way toward Maggie.

  But he stopped when Maggie said, “Wait. I think I’ve got something.”

  “What is it?”

  “This one’s colder than the others.”

  Marcus ran over to her. “Stand back.” He grabbed the Sig Sauer from his shoulder holster and smashed the butt of the gun into the mirror. It shattered and the pieces of glass rained down onto the concrete floor.

  And there it was. A small and ragged hole in the earth just big enough for a man to crawl through. Marcus shone his light inside. The tunnel traveled up for about fifteen feet that he could see, but then it curved off.

  Something crashed down in the adjacent room. The floor above was giving way. They needed to move.

  “Beaman. You go first.”

  “I don’t like tight spaces.”

  “Do you like burning to death?”

  The old man swallowed hard, made the sign of the cross, and climbed into the hole.

  “Okay, Maggie. Your turn.”

  She smiled. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Later. We’re not out yet.”

  She climbed inside and crawled forward down the tunnel. He allowed her some space, and then he followed. The shaft was cramped, and its floor was just hard dirt and rock. It grated against his forearms and elbows as he crawled and squirmed through the small space. He had never experienced claustrophobia before, but he understood the sensation now. It felt like the entire weight of the world was pressing down on his chest.

  Then Maggie stopped her forward progress, and Beaman’s voice echoed back. The old man said, “The tunnel’s blocked!”

  89

  A loud crash echoed down the tunnel from inside the bunker. More of the floor above must have collapsed. But the noise wasn’t the only thing following them down the shaft. The smoke rolled in after them as well. It was as though the fire was still reaching out for them, trying to block their escape.

  Marcus coughed. His lungs and eyes burned, and he was feeling light-headed. The taste of smoke was heavy in his mouth.

  “What do you see?” he yelled up to Beaman.

  “It’s a wall of mud and sticks, like the tunnel’s collapsed!”

  He swore and fought for a solution. The cult members had reinforced the tunnel at certain points with 2x4s wedged into the side walls, but encroachment from a tree’s root system could have easily caused a cave-in.

  Glancing back down the shaft, he noticed a faint orange glow coming from the darkness they had left behind. The fire must have been spreading through more of the compound. Going back wasn’t an option.

  “Beaman, can you see through the blockage at all?”

  “No, it covers the entire tunnel.”

  Marcus shone his light up beyond Maggie and examined the tunnel. It was slightly larger here. He could try to squeeze past Maggie and Beaman and see if he could dig out the obstruction or muscle his way beyond it. But he dismissed the idea. His shoulders were tight against the side walls, and he barely had room to move. If he tried to squeeze through, they would just get tangled and become stuck.

  The tendrils of smoke had reached Beaman and Maggie, and they both coughed and choked as the air turned toxic.

  “Wait. Did you say that it’s mud and sticks?”

  “Yeah, all clumped together.”

  Why would there be a clump of sticks this far beneath the ground?

  “Does it look man-made? Like someone put it there on purpose?”

  “Could be. Yeah, I think it does.”

  “Try to push it forward.”

  Marcus had an idea about what the purpose of the obstruction might be. He hoped his suspicions were correct, otherwise they would all die from smoke inhalation within another few minutes.

  “It won’t budge.”

  “Yes, it will. Push with both hands evenly. Like sliding a loose block out of a wall. You can do this.”

  He could hear the old man straining to push the blockage clear, aged muscles that hadn’t been used in years complaining at the unexpected demand. Tears filled Marcus’s vision as the noxious fumes attacked his eyes. He hacked and squinted to see through the haze of smoke that was quickly enveloping them.

  Then light burst into the end of the tunnel, and Maggie shuffled forward. Marcus squirmed along after her. His head pounded, his lungs ached, and he felt faint. But he pressed ahead, and after a
moment he dropped three feet to the ground, landing in the snow next to Maggie beside a small creek. The tunnel terminated beneath a rocky outcropping that overlooked the water. The cult members had used sticks and mud to construct a barrier that would cover the end of the shaft and make sure that no one came across their escape route by accident.

  They all took in generous gulps of the cold air and coughed the smoke from their lungs. Marcus flopped his head back into the snow. Right then he wanted nothing more than to sit on that spot and rest.

  Beaman asked, “Does this kind of thing happen to you guys a lot?”

  Marcus nodded. “You get used to it.”

  Maggie stood and brushed the snow from her clothes. “Somebody tried to kill us back there. Do you think they’re still around?”

  “I doubt it. They probably sealed off the entrance and got the hell out. And I’m too damn tired to chase after someone right now anyway.”

  “Who knew we were even here? We weren’t followed.”

  Marcus didn’t answer, but he pulled the cell phone from his pocket, turned it off, and removed the battery. His eyes fell closed.

  Maggie cursed and said, “Our best lead just went up in smoke, and you’re just going to sit there?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “That’s great. You picked a hell of a time to give up.”

  Marcus didn’t open his eyes. “Calm down. I just need a minute to think about how I’m going to set up our next move. We need to play this right.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw the man who set the fire. Got a real good look at him. And it changes everything … because I know the guy.”

  Day Six – December 20 Afternoon

  90

  Andrew walked past the guy behind the glass and gave him a nod and a little wave. The man must have recognized him, since he didn’t ask any questions or require any ID. The guard buzzed Andrew inside, and he walked down a long beige and white hallway to the stairs.