The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset: 1-6

by Ethan Cross

  She heard his voice in her head. That’s the spirit, little sister. Hearing his voice made her angry. But the anger fueled her adrenaline. And she needed the adrenaline for what was about to happen.

  Clarence O’Neal—an impeccably dressed black man, not a button or hem out of symmetry, the habitual actions of a former soldier—spoke first, clearly taking charge over his partner. Clarence held a black semi-automatic pistol in his left hand. He said, “We tried to think of another way. We really did.”

  Maggie said, “Well, you tried. That’s what’s important. But you know, Mr. O’Neal. I thought you would be smarter than this.”

  “It’s Officer O’Neal, and I don’t think you want some sad attempt at tricking us or buying time to be your last words, do you?”

  Maggie felt the reassuring little button just beneath the big toe of her right foot. During her last adventure with Ackerman, he had taken a switchblade knife and cut it into the toe of his boot so that he could eject the blade out past his toes. She had taken things a step farther, adding a level of comfort and safety, making the adjustments necessary to conform to a sensible woman’s shoe. But the idea behind the little toy that she now hoped would save their lives was definitely Ackerman’s. Although she never planned on him finding out that she had ever learned a single thing from him. She hoped never to see him again altogether if possible, but she knew the chances of that were slim.

  She said, “I just figured that a criminal mastermind like yourself would realize that you don’t want to be inside this room at the time of our murders.”

  Clarence’s partner chuckled at the words: criminal mastermind. Clarence scowled at the other man and said, “Why is that?”

  “Because you can’t inflict fatal gunshot wounds on two people in a space like this without getting all kinds of evidence all over you. I told them you weren’t smart enough to have planned the prison shooting.”

  “I planned the prison shooting? Why would they think that?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Maybe because of all the oddities in your financials due to your drug business here and the fact that you’re the only psychopath that the academy instructors could remember.”

  “They called me a psychopath?”

  “They called you much worse than that, Mr. O’Neal.”

  The other man said, “Let’s just get it over with, Clarence. She’s trying to mess with your head. Just shoot her.”

  Maggie fake cried and said, “Please, don’t kill us. I’ll tell you what the task force knows about you and your operation.” She lowered her voice and dropped her head low. “I’ll tell you where it is!”

  Clarence said, “Where what is? What did she say?”

  He leaned in closer.

  Maggie fake-cried some more and mumbled, “I’ll tell you where it is.”

  Clarence leaned closer.

  Maggie pushed the button with her big toe to eject the knife blade from her shoe and then kicked Clarence O’Neal in the abdomen. When Ackerman had done this, he had stabbed his target right in the neck, but from the look on Clarence’s face, her kick had made its point just as well.

  Still, Maggie had hoped that one of their attackers would have had cold feet. Then their greatest threat would have been disabled by her actions. But now, although Clarence O’Neal was likely incapacitated, his partner was still a threat.

  Clarence grabbed her boot, the toe still lodged in his side, and held it there with all his strength. The look in his eyes didn’t speak of planning or anger, just shock and pain. He was acting purely out of surprise and natural instinct. But O’Neal’s instinctive reaction was also successfully holding her in place—one foot stuck to Clarence’s side, and the other dangling awkwardly.

  Her hands were still secured behind her back, and she balanced her weight on her shoulder and struggled to pull herself free before Clarence’s partner could come to his senses and walk over and shoot her.

  She tried to pull the boot free from O’Neal’s iron grasp, but he was too strong. With her right foot wedging a blade into Clarence’s side, her left foot was in the perfect position to kick the muscular little man in the crotch. Which she did. Twice.

  He doubled over and cracked his head on the countertop. This caused him to release his grip long enough for Maggie to pull her foot free and kick away from him.

  She could only think of one move. One solution that could save her life. Clarence’s gun.

  She kicked and clawed against his feeble attempts to restrain her. She scooted back under the counter and tried to pull her hands up and under her feet. She glanced out and saw Clarence’s partner waving his gun back and forth in a shaky up-and-down motion. He caught sight of her watching him and squeezed the trigger. But apparently his deceased partner wasn’t the only one dipping into their drug reserves because Shaky’s aim was way off. Clarence screamed again and grabbed his arm, the stray round having clipped him.

  She heard glass breaking above her as the poorly aimed bullet ricocheted around the kitchen. The chemical smell grew stronger and then black smoke started rolling off the countertop and filling the trailer.

  But she couldn’t worry about that now.

  Maggie tried to imagine where Clarence’s gun would have fallen.

  He had been holding it with his right hand. He had then grabbed her boot with his left hand and, considering the iron grip, he had probably held onto the gun in his right hand.

  Clarence was now on his knees, one hand to his side and one to his shoulder, screaming at his friend. She didn’t see the gun.

  She finished pulling her hands out from beneath her feet as she spotted the black pistol. It had fallen, at some point, and had slid beneath the trailer’s old refrigerator. The fridge was a grimy yellow, and it had no bottom plate.

  Maggie did her best to ignore her own internal warnings of how many viruses and bacteria and insects and small mammals had built their overlapping little colonies of disease and infestation beneath that old refrigerator. She pushed every other concern away and convinced herself on a deep animal level that not getting to that gun posed a far greater risk to her health than any number of infections.

  She dove for the fridge, sliding across the linoleum and snatching up the gun from its hiding place beneath the appliance. O’Neal’s partner had barely recognized that she had moved when she raised the gun and shot him six times in the chest and stomach.

  She then turned her attention to O’Neal, but he was no longer helpless on his knees, clutching at his wounds.

  Apparently, some ancient instinct of self-preservation had activated within him because he was now ignoring his injuries completely. He rocked back on his haunches and launched himself toward her like a lion going for a gazelle’s throat.

  She raised the gun to fire, but he was on top of her before she could shift her aim. Her shot sailed over Clarence’s shoulder and through the roof of the trailer.

  She tried to maneuver his weight off of her, but Clarence’s eyes had the crazed look of a wounded animal approaching death. Her father had taken her hunting with him once in Wyoming. She had seen that look in the eyes of a dying predator before. She knew the danger.

  Clarence slammed her arms against the front of the fridge and knocked the gun away. Then his hands found her throat and wrapped around it. His fingers were like the coils of a snake, choking the life from her.

  She kicked and clawed and fought against his grip, but her hands were still restrained by the dog chain, which limited her options.

  He was winning. Despite all her training. All her extra work. All the hours of sweat and pulling triggers and living and breathing for moments like this and, despite all that, he was winning. That’s how pointless it all was. She thought of the results of her medical tests. Of her fight with Marcus.

  The room was growing dim.

  She tried to scrape the old dog chain against Clarence’s wrists.

  Despite all her training, she was going to die at the hands of some small-time drug dealer in a revol
ting old trailer outside Middle of Nowhere, Arizona. Forget that noise. She had more to do with her life. She had more dragons to slay. She had yet to find the man who took her brother. She refused to let this Breaking-Bad wannabe take her down and keep her from all the work still left to be done.

  Then she remembered the knife sticking out of her right shoe. Clarence O’Neal had his hands wrapped around her throat, choking the life from her and, although she couldn’t reach his face or neck with her arms, she could reach him with her feet.

  She kicked up her right leg and drove the toe of her foot into the side of Clarence O’Neal’s neck. He released a bloody gargle, and his grip faded to nothing.

  She pushed him off and called out, “Jerry, are you okay?”

  Unfortunately, the voice that answered was a different one than she expected.

  *

  None of it made any sense. Judas’s instructions were conflicting and overly complicated, but Marcus supposed that was how they were meant to be. That was the whole point. Judas wanted to prove his superiority not just because he was better at some pointless little mind game. He wanted to prove his superiority by transcending the games altogether. By being the gamemaster, moving people around like they were nothing more than chess pieces.

  Marcus stood up from the chair and jacked a round into the breaching shotgun that he had requested from the county’s tactical unit. He dropped the tablet onto the chair and took aim at his door’s hinges. Marcus had always known that the only way to deal with a killer playing games was simple. Don’t play. Rise above. Beat them at their own game only as long as you have to and then turn the game on its head.

  Judas had just spouted a lot of nonsense to confuse them, but he had revealed one detail that Marcus was betting to be true. Renata and Ian were being held down that third tunnel. And that meant that he didn’t need to play this game any longer.

  “Agent Williams!” Bradley Reese’s voice said over the radio. “I heard that whole transmission. He played it in here too. I heard you choose not to share all the info with me. Then I heard that you can sacrifice me to save yourself and the woman and the kid. Is that your plan? You going to—”

  Marcus squeezed the trigger and the specially made breaching round exploded into the hinges of the polycarbonate door. Metal sprayed over the tunnel floor and sparked off the glass. He repeated the shot against a second set of hinges at the top of the door. Then he kicked the door and found the spot holding it on the opposite side, the locking mechanism. He fired again into that area of the glass. The door came down with another kick, and Marcus raced into the room connecting the three tunnels.

  He figured that he had at least thirty seconds left before time caught up with Judas’s deadline. He supposed that right now, Judas would have wanted him and Reese to be arguing over how they should place their coins. Arguing over the nonsense of Judas’s instructions and doubting one another. It was a good game. One that Marcus was glad not to be playing. And he suspected that even if they had played and won somehow by random chance, Judas would have still rigged it for them to lose. Because the game wasn’t the point. Marcus knew that it was the betrayal that was important to Judas. Not just the betrayal between the two people, but the betrayal of every system of belief that person held. Judas wanted to flip people’s worlds on their heads and have them do everything perfectly but still lose in the end.

  Which was why, before they had even stepped into the mine, Marcus had decided to go with door number three and bypass the game altogether. Now, free from his own enclosure, he decided to release Renata and Ian first. Not just because of the whole “women and children first” thing, but also because he figured that he would have a few extra seconds with Reese. Even if Judas had the right and center chambers rigged to fill with sand quickly, Renata and Ian were nearly submerged before this part of the game had even begun. They would only have a moment after the countdown ended. Reese, on the other hand, would have a few more seconds at least. His section of the tunnel would have to start from scratch and fill to the point that the sand engulfed him. Then enough time with him submerged and deprived of oxygen would have to pass to cause brain damage. Marcus believed that he could beat that time and save everyone if he acted decisively now.

  He ran past Reese’s tunnel to where Renata and Ian were being held. After only a few strides into the tunnel, he saw the mother and son beyond a slight bend. He watched their faces light up at the presence of a potential savior.

  “Stay away from the door and cover your eyes,” he yelled to them.

  He gauged when they were a relatively safe distance from the door, and then he raised the shotgun. He fired twice in quick succession, destroying both of the hinges. The pressure of the sand pushing against the barrier snapped the locking mechanism, and the sand inside came flooding out like a tidal wave. Marcus backstepped away from the onrushing sand, but it still nearly toppled him over.

  He regained his balance and was about to rush over and help Renata and Ian, but then Marcus saw a red light flashing overhead and heard an alarm bell ringing.

  He didn’t think enough time had passed since Judas had given his instructions. But, then again, maybe he was wrong. Perhaps Judas had lied about the amount of time they had.

  Or opening this door had triggered some kind of fail-safe.

  In any case, the alarm bells started ringing and, a second later, he heard Bradley Reese let loose a strange, fading scream in the neighboring tunnel. He looked back to Renata and Ian and watched helplessly as another, larger wave of sand fell from the ceiling above them.

  *

  Shaky, Clarence O’Neal’s partner stood up and rasped, “You bitch!” as he tore off his shirt and the bullet-resistant vest beneath.

  Maggie cursed her luck. Not only did she stumble across drug dealers, but they also had to be the ultra-paranoid kind who wore body armor and were pumped up on stimulants.

  She scanned the linoleum for the gun O’Neal had knocked from her hands. Shaky was looking for his own gun as well. They both saw O’Neal’s gun at the same time. They both went for it. Two people injured and out of breath. But Maggie knew she was faster. She wanted it more. She would reach the gun first. Then the dog chain caught her again and jerked her back. The gun had apparently landed just beyond the reach of her restraints.

  Shaky laughed as he picked up the pistol and aimed it at her head. Through scum-filled teeth, he said, “Any last words?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I feel sorry for those little dogs.”

  He tilted his head just like one of those little dogs, and she continued, “You know, always running out and getting yanked back on the chain and then they keep forgetting that they’re attached and they—”

  The ear-piercing pop of a gunshot reverberated through the trailer.

  Maggie blinked a couple of times and said, “Took you long enough. He wouldn’t have let me stall much longer.”

  Jerry said, “I’ve never … I think he’s dead.”

  Maggie looked across the kitchen at where Shaky had landed. He had a nice, clean hole in his forehead. “Yes, Jerry, he’s definitely dead.” She pulled herself back onto her knees and added, “You had to do it. It was him or you. He was going to kill both of us.”

  “I know.” But Jerry didn’t seem convinced.

  “Can you get out of your chains? I think I could probably knock over this—”

  And then the front door burst open, and two armed men stormed inside.

  *

  FILE #750265-6726-693

  Zolotov, Dmitry - AKA The Judas Killer

  State Exhibit F

  Description: Diary Entry

  Now that I look back on it, I realize that killing that dog was the pinnacle of my career as a murderer.

  Everything before and after was just the rise and fall. Every kill after that, at least those from when I was boy, was just some part of me chasing that initial feeling.

  And chase it I did.

  I killed maybe six people that summer.r />
  I varied the genders and ages. Tried out different things to see what I liked. It was easy to manipulate people. Especially when you were just a little boy and didn’t pose a threat.

  But I never found that serenity again, and I quickly learned that, for me anyway, it was about much more than the killing. The feeling I was chasing didn’t come from murder, but from proving something to myself.

  Unfortunately, my search for meaning drew unwanted attention from law enforcement. I had been careful. Had left no evidence. But some cop traced back some of the missing-persons cases to the fair circuit and came around asking questions. That cop took notice of me and my father because of some reports that victims had been participants in our games. Up to that point, we hadn’t drawn the attention of law enforcement with our human mouse race.

  Many states had provisions exempting carnival games from gambling laws. The other states that hadn’t enacted such laws didn’t enforce gambling rules on the midway. And if any gaming official ever did come around, it was merely to fish for a bribe. That was until I drew the attention of a cop who was probably owed a favor, which led to the eyes of the gambling commission falling upon Father and “The Judas Game.”

  We were in the country illegally, and I think Father was wanted for questioning by the police in Kansas regarding an incident with an underage girl. The last thing that my father or I, or anyone else on the midway for that matter, wanted was attention from the cops.

  Fate or manifest destiny or pure luck and coincidence or whatever irresponsible force was to blame then dropped another variable on us. Father had an old friend back in Russia who had inherited a dilapidated theater in a decent part of the city. Apparently, sometime in the unknowable past before my birth, Father had actually pursued an acting career. And he had actually made friends with someone. This past colleague wanted Father to write a play for his newly acquired performance venue. He couldn’t pay us up front, but the main thing would be that Father’s ego would be fed and fat and happy.