Predator

by Terri Blackstock

  Getting both fingers over the trigger, and aiming through the windshield, Krista squeezed…

  The gun fired.

  “I heard a gunshot!” David said, rolling his window down. “He’s killing them!”

  “There!” Ryan said. “A dirt road. Fresh tracks!”

  David slowed, muttering prayers under his breath.

  “We found a road,” Ryan said into the phone.

  “Leave a marker,” Pensky said. “Your shirt or your shoes…Anything to show us where you turned.”

  The shirt could blow away, but not his shoes. He pulled them off, tossed them out the window as they turned onto the dirt.

  The road didn’t seem wide enough for a car, but there were broken branches, and the tracks they saw appeared as wide as Krista’s car. Bushes and limbs scraped the SUV as they pushed through. He heard screaming, and his heart slammed against his chest.

  Was Krista still alive?

  The bullet missed Hearne, but it startled him enough to make him step back. He looked at the car, saw Krista aiming…

  Dropping the branch, he raised his gun to fire back, but she pulled the trigger again. It hit the tree next to him, splintering wood.

  Megan took the reprieve to get to her feet again. She limped away, into the trees.

  Hearne fired, shattering Krista’s windshield, hitting the seat next to her. She ducked down, trying to get her head under the dashboard, and fired blindly.

  When she peeked over, he was walking toward her, cocking his revolver. She leaned toward the door as his gun fired. Pain tore through her arm, hitting nerve and bone, knocking her back. She dropped the gun.

  The screaming had stopped, but the gunfire went on. Ryan felt sick. He wanted to get out of the car and run toward the sound, but knew they could get there faster by car.

  “Let him know we’re here!” Ryan yelled. “Your horn.”

  David pressed his horn as he wound down the path. It blared through the woods, and birds fluttered out of trees.

  Just as Hearne cocked his pistol again, Krista heard the sound of a horn coming closer. It stopped Hearne, and he looked past her, down the dirt road.

  Someone was coming!

  Hearne took off then, into the trees, running away like the coward he was.

  Screaming for help, she looked in the rearview mirror. She saw an SUV…her father driving.

  He slammed to a halt behind her, and he and Ryan tumbled out and ran to her.

  Thank you, God!

  Her father reached her first, saw the blood pooling on her blouse and her seat. “Dad! I dropped the gun,” she gasped. “Get it and go after him!”

  He picked up the revolver. “Krista, you’re shot!”

  “I’m okay…Please, don’t let him get away…”

  Ryan opened the passenger side door, knelt on the seat, and pulled his belt off. He wound it around the top of her arm and made a tourniquet. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes!” she cried. “Please! Megan’s out there too.”

  David checked the cylinder for bullets. There were seven left. Ryan pulled a pocketknife out of his pocket and cut her loose. Her hands fell.

  “He went that way, Dad. Go!”

  Megan’s knee ripped more with each step, but she tried to double back toward the road. She saw a broken branch on the ground and grabbed it in case she had to fight again.

  But she didn’t hear him behind her.

  When she heard the horn and the sound of the car, relief flooded through her chest. Someone was coming. She kept moving, trying to get back to the road, but she figured it was at least a mile away.

  Gunshots fired back and forth…and she prayed that Krista wasn’t hurt. She heard her screaming. She was still alive.

  Then she heard sirens, distant at first, moving closer, louder. Help was here. She turned and started back toward the dirt road.

  In the woods, David saw a footstep here and there, and followed Hearne along the creek bed. Had he crossed? No, if he had, he would have seen his footprints in the mud.

  He kept going, seeing broken twigs and smelling the scent of sweat. He heard barking from somewhere.

  Hatred dug its cleats into his soul, driving him on to kill Ella’s killer, to destroy the man who’d just shot his only remaining child. Hearne would not get away. David would gladly give his own life to take down that monster.

  And then he saw movement just ahead of him, heard a grunt. The barking grew louder.

  Behind him, he heard sirens. But he couldn’t wait for the police. He had him now.

  He raised Krista’s gun and moved closer. Hearne was at the edge of the creek bed, and two dogs were snarling and taunting him. Hearne tried to fire, but his gun was empty.

  David froze, Krista’s .22 aimed at the back of Hearne’s head.

  “Back…boys…” Hearne dropped the gun and held his palms out, as though he could keep the dogs back. “Good boy…”

  But one of the dogs lunged, and the other followed. They attacked, mauling and tearing through flesh, ripping through Hearne with rabid, ravenous appetites. Hearne screamed and shook them off, fought and fell back.

  David didn’t move, for fear of drawing their attention. For a moment he watched as Hearne was tortured, tormented, murdered slowly, as he’d murdered Ella and Karen…as he’d tortured Megan…as he’d intended to torture Krista…

  It was too much to watch. The dogs foamed at the mouth, raged and tore as if Hearne’s own demons had turned on him. Unable to take any more of the bloody scene, David fired.

  One of the dogs fell back; the other kept raging.

  He fired again…once…twice…killing the second dog.

  Hearne lay there, limp, bleeding from his face and throat, his arms, his legs…

  Yes, there was justice. David took a step toward him, another…until he could see the man’s face.

  Bloody eyes looked up at him, beseeching. David moved the gun, aimed between those filthy eyes…

  “Kill me,” Hearne said through his teeth. “Just pull the trigger.”

  David thought how it would feel to pull the trigger, to watch the life drain out of him. But it might be mercy for this perverted excuse for a man. It might put him out of his misery.

  And David didn’t want that.

  Instead, he kept the gun on him and called out, “I’ve got him! Over here!”

  By the time the police had made their way to them, Henry Hearne was dead, like the dogs who lay beside him.

  Sixty-five

  The Eagle’s Wings center had filled up today, and girls lined the tables in the big room. Anticipation hung in the air, but their faces were somber, and the usual chatter had fallen silent. Pachelbel’s Canon in D played softly over the speakers.

  Krista stood at the front of the room, her arm bandaged and stabilized in a brace against her chest. “So we’re here today to create a memorial for someone we’ve lost. Whether it’s a brother who died…”

  She looked at Jesse, and the girl looked down…

  “Or a mother, or a father, or cousin…or a neighbor or friend. Or maybe you’ve had to say good-bye to some part of your life that’s died…”

  Her gaze drifted to Megan, whom she’d invited to join in.

  “You’ve brought symbols of those experiences from home. Be creative, be courageous, and honor them today. And as you’re working, thank God for the time you had them in your life.”

  The girls got to work, and Krista looked at Jesse, who had a stack of her brother’s CDs that she was hot-gluing together into some kind of art piece. She glanced at Megan, who was making a memory box for some of her childhood things.

  Krista went to her own table, where she had dozens of fragments of a broken mirror. It was the mirror that had fallen out of Ella’s purse the day she was abducted. Pieces of it had sprinkled the ground, evidence of a struggle. Since Henry Hearne’s death, the arrest of the two thugs he’d hired to help him, and the conclusion of Ella’s case, the police had returned Ella’
s personal effects. In a Ziploc bag were the mirror pieces that symbolized darkness and evil. Krista had carried them for a while, searching for a way to repurpose them so that they honored her sister’s life. Finally, she’d thought of this way. She’d broken another hand mirror from Ella’s room to give her more fragments to mix with those from that horrible day.

  Now, as the soft music played, the girls worked quietly, wiping away tears. Krista made a mosaic that she glued to a foot-wide floor tile. As she placed each piece, she imagined seeing Ella’s face in it, smiling back at her, fixing her pretty hair, rounding her eyes as she checked herself out.

  She smiled through tears and kept working, carefully placing each piece of glass.

  Later in the day, when the sun was about to set, she and her father stood at Ella’s gravesite. The tombstone had been placed, and at the center of the stone cross was a one-foot square indention for her tile. David held the tile as Krista swept the adhesive onto the stone. Then she took the tile, knelt, and set it in place.

  Getting up, she dusted off her knees. David put both arms around her, and whispered, “I love you, honey.” The two hugged desperately as they turned back to the stone. David kissed the top of her head, then read the inscription on the marker. “‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face…’—1 Corinthians 13:12.”

  Krista wiped her tears. “Thank you, God, for letting us hang out with Ella for fourteen years. She was such fun.”

  She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Ryan approaching them from the car, holding three bundles of pink helium balloons. He’d taken time off from the new Internet security business he and Ian had launched to come here with them, but he’d given them a few minutes alone. Now he joined them, and she and her father each took a bundle of the balloons.

  David cleared his throat. “Ella loved pink. If we would have let her, she would have dressed in pink every single day. Her room was pink on pink. Her bike was pink. Her toenails and fingernails were pink. Even her skin was a little pink…”

  Krista laughed softly.

  “Most of Ella’s days were good days, thanks to Krista, who saw to that.” He smiled at her as tears flooded his eyes. “You did good, honey. I couldn’t have raised her without you.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  Ryan set his hand on the back of Krista’s head, stroking her hair. He kissed her temple as David went on. “So now it’s her mom’s turn to enjoy her. And she’s with Jesus, who adored her already. He has the same photo albums we have. I know he’s thrilled to have her.” He drew in a long sigh, looked up to the heavens, and said, “Lord, please tell Ella we love her.”

  Then he released his balloons, and Ryan released his. Finally, Krista let go of hers.

  The wind caught them, scattering pink across the sky, lifting them toward the light. Krista imagined Ella looking down, waving as she scooped them up, laughing as she ran and tumbled across vast perfection. Joy seeped back into her heart.

  When darkness came and memories crushed, Krista would remember the weightless wonder of pink dotting the sky…and smile for the joy of knowing Ella.

  A Note From the Author

  I have a problem with gratitude. While I have so many things to be thankful for, I never seem to dwell on those much. I rarely talk to God about them. I dwell on the negatives in my life, and those are the things that occupy most of my prayers.

  Today it occurred to me that God sees all of the suffering in the world, and then he sees me with my whiny little prayers that seem so urgent to me. Last night I got a cramp in my toe, and I couldn’t get it to go away. It literally occupied my every thought. I prayed and whined and put compresses on it, and asked God why.

  But how does that sound to God? I tell him my foot hurts, and I beg him to make it feel better. He sees people who have amputated feet, people who are paralyzed, people who have flesh-eating bacteria on dying limbs. He hears their passionate prayers for healing, and then he hears mine. “God, my toe is really killing me. Can’t you fix it? I don’t want to hurt.” And he knows that my pain is nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to theirs.

  I pray for my back pain, which can be significant for me. He hears my prayers, but he also hears those millions across the world from people with backs that have rendered them quadriplegics, backs with debilitating nerve damage, backs that keep them doubled over, unable to look up. He feels the pain of all that suffering, and then he feels mine. While he’s compassionate, I can’t help wondering if he’s sad that I’m not more grateful that I don’t have cancer eating me from the inside out, that I can walk upright and move my hands and do the things I want.

  I complain of having migraines, but there are people whose brain chemistry has been out-of-balance for years. I complain that my house isn’t big enough, yet there are people who sleep under bridges. I complain that my job is difficult and stressful, yet there are people who walk miles for water and do desperate things in order to support their families.

  I complain about my church, how the air conditioning is too cold, how the pews are too hard. And God sees people across the world who are risking their lives to assemble together in underground home churches, so anxious to worship God that they’d give their lives for it.

  I imagine it’s like spending time in a famine-ravaged country, where people walk around like skeletons, desperate for food. And then you come home to America and walk into your own home, where the pantries are stocked and the refrigerator is full, and your kids whine that there’s nothing to eat. It would be more than irritating. Yet that’s what God sees in us all the time. Yes, he still loves us, just like we love our own children when they’re ungrateful. I’m sure he also realizes that we don’t know how fortunate we are. Unless we’ve seen what he’s seen, how can we know that we sometimes sound like crybabies squealing in his ears?

  If earth is a training ground for heaven, then what should we be doing here? Revelation says that thanksgiving and praise will be a huge element of our lives in heaven. Maybe that’s because we’ll then be able to see clearly all the good things that God gave us, all the ways he worked strength and endurance and perseverance into our lives. All the ways he prepared us for our heavenly work. We’ll be overflowing with gratitude, because we’ll know all the close calls he protected us from, all the devastation, all the heartache, as well as the help he gave us, and we’ll learn how he used the things he allowed.

  But we’re not supposed to wait until we get there. We’re supposed to train ourselves in thanksgiving now. “Pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:17 – 18 NIV). “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6 NIV). “I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds” (Psalm 9:1 ESV). “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:14 – 15 ESV).

  So how do we keep our prayers from being narcissistic and self-centered? We take time to focus on how fortunate we are. I know a lady who has ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Though her muscles no longer work (she’s paralyzed), and she can hardly hold her head up or speak, she manages to go to the local jail to do prison ministry once a week. She has hired troubled women (who have been in prison themselves) to care for her during the day. And most of what she asks them to do for her centers around Bible study and praising God. As they’re helping her, she’s helping them. These women say their time with her has changed their lives. This lady will minister to others and praise God until her last breath. Through all her suffering (and it is extensive), her life is a testimony of praise and thanksgiving, because she knows Christ died to cleanse her of her sins, so that one day soon she’ll be raised to new life—completely healed, with an everlasting life to serve the God she served here on eart
h. And since thanksgiving is already a way of life for her here, she’ll enter his gates with even more thanksgiving, and live in joy and gratitude for eternity.

  So let’s be more grateful for what we have, and in our pain, be thankful for how God will use that pain someday. Let’s remember those famous first words in The Purpose Driven Life: “It’s not about you.” If God never did another thing for us than send his Son to die a substitutionary death on the cross for us, so he could forgive us of our sins, he’d still deserve overwhelming gratitude. But he’s done so much more.

  “The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul. ‘Therefore, I have hope in Him’” (Lamentations 3:22 – 24 NASB).

  Predator Discussion Questions

  1. Do you have a profile on a social network? Has this book made you rethink what information you supply and whom you have contact with while online? Do you think social networking has had more of a positive or negative influence on your life? On society?

  2. When Ryan is reluctant to make changes to GrapeVyne that would help protect its members from online predators, Krista tells him that by not taking action he might as well be a predator himself. Do you agree with her? What role does indifference play in the proliferation of evil?

  3. Describe the different ways Krista and David cope with their grief. What negative effects do they each suffer as a result of their coping method? Do they eventually find solace and peace? If so, how?

  4. Krista develops serious doubts about God for not interceding to protect Ella, and fears she will no longer be able to continue ministering to young girls. Do you think her fear is valid? Could her suffering eventually lead her to be a more effective witness, as Ryan suggests? Can you think of someone whose suffering helped them proclaim God’s glory in a way they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise?