by James Hunt
“That man, the one who is in charge of the inmates, he’s Luke’s father.”
Rodney laughed, as most people do who are given such news, but when Kate’s expression didn’t break, when she said nothing else, the smile and laughter disappeared. He stepped away, running his hands through his hair, shaking his head in disbelief. “How is—” He turned around in a circle. “How?”
“That doesn’t matter now,” Kate answered. “All that matters now is getting them back. I don’t know what he’ll do if he finds out who he has. He’s never met Luke, and Luke’s never met him. But I know that if he does find out who he is, he’ll do whatever he thinks will hurt me the most. And that will involve my children.”
The march back to town was quick and then painfully slow. Dennis wasn’t sure how many men he’d lost, but from the looks of the survivors, he would have thought they’d all died. Every once in a while, he would scream, that bug of his burrowing around in his head, and he’d fire his pistol into the woods, striking nothing but snow, rocks, and trees.
A man clutching his stomach, struck by shrapnel from the big gun’s bullets, collapsed to his knees and face-planted into the snow. There he lay still, none of the inmates around even glancing down as they passed. It was just another dead man. All of them had seen plenty of dead men in their lifetime.
Firelight from the windows of Duluth fanned the flames of hope, and everyone sighed with relief. The fires of the town brought warmth from the bitter cold, the layers of ice on everyone’s body starting to thaw.
The moment Dennis’s men were back in their home base, anyone who wasn’t seriously wounded grabbed liquor and food. But mostly liquor. One of them passed by Dennis, and he snatched the bottle from the man’s hands and then smashed it on the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dennis roared, turning every head in camp. “You think that you’re taking a break? No!” He pointed to the building that acted as their armory. “We’re going to find those pigs and kill them!”
“You saw what they had,” a voice cried out from the crowd. “It was a fucking machine gun. Heavy artillery. They mowed us down like cattle. That’s not a fight—that’s a massacre. I’m not going back out there.”
Nods of agreement rippled like a wave through the crowd, and Dennis watched his authority slip away. He wanted to shoot all of them. And the bug that burrowed deep into his mind, urging him to grab a cluster of grenades that they’d found and start flinging them around, was suddenly silenced by a single word.
“Boss,” Billy said, catching his breath, tapping Dennis on the shoulder. “We found them.” He was grinning, smiling from ear to ear, his fucked-up teeth and rancid breath up close and personal.
“What?” Dennis asked, but then he saw the string of bodies that Billy’s brother, Martin, pushed forward aggressively. They all had their faces down, all of them shivering, dressed in the same clothes that they were wearing tucked away in their warm houses.
“These are the ones who attacked the town,” Billy said proudly. “And I know where their cabin is if you want to take a look.”
Dennis clapped Billy on the back, his sour mood salvaged by this wonderful new gift. “Good work, Billy.” He gestured to his house. “My woman is inside. Help yourself to some fun. Hell, take your brother with you.” He laughed, rubbing his hands together greedily as Billy and Martin hopped off to Dennis’s cabin. He didn’t care. He was going to kill the bitch anyway to make him feel better. But this—this was a gift he didn’t see coming.
“So,” Dennis said, walking down the line of lowered heads. “You are the little bandits that got away.” He smiled, noting there weren’t as many as he hoped. “And which one of you was the one in charge?” He lifted the chin of an old woman who was crying, trembling wildly from his touch. “No, not you, I suppose.” He flicked her nose and moved on to the next person, a middle-aged woman, whom he undressed with his eyes. “Was it you?” He leaned close, tilting his ear toward her. “Speak up.”
“She’s not here,” the woman said, her voice shaking like her body. “The woman who helped us. She’s not here.”
“She’s not?” Dennis asked, his voice innocent, almost sweet. And then, like flicking a switch, he grabbed the woman by the throat, his hand clamping down hard, and roared. “Then where is she?”
The woman could only choke, and she clawed at his arm. She looked at him the way everyone did when you killed someone with your bare hands. She was afraid, and her fear only made him feel stronger.
“She’s dead.” The voice came from farther down the line. It belonged to young man, shirtless and with a bandage over most of his chest. His skin was a shiny red and white. He fidgeted in the cold. Another few hours exposed in the weather dressed like he was, and he’d pass out then freeze to death in the snow. “A bullet caught her on the way back from the town. We buried her in the snow.”
“Buried?” Dennis asked, then released the woman who collapsed to her knees, gasping for air. He walked to the young man. “Why? Plan on visiting her grave, boy?” Dennis noted the young girl at his side, clutching on his leg, acting like a crutch to keep him upright. He dropped to his knee and forced her gaze toward him. “Is that true? Did she die?”
The girl’s face scrunched up in preparation in tears. “I-I don’t know.”
Dennis laughed and released the girl’s face, which she buried in the boy’s leg. He glanced up at the boy’s face, and gauging from his expression, the little girl meant something to him.
“So,” Dennis said, standing, the boy nearly meeting his eye line. “This woman died and left you all to fend for yourselves.” He stepped close. “And you’re sure she’s really dead?” His voice was threatening, though his tone was barely above a whisper.
The boy didn’t move, didn’t even blink. It was one of the best poker faces that Dennis had ever seen.
“C’mon,” Dennis said. “Let’s go to my place and chat.” He grabbed the boy by the back of his neck with his right hand, and used his left to swallow up the little girl’s hand, forcing both toward his house.
In the kitchen, they could still hear the moans from Billy’s good time upstairs, and Dennis spit a sharp and fast laugh as he shoved the kid into a chair, the legs screeching against the wood as it slid back. But he kept hold of the little girl’s hand, keeping her close, which triggered an angered snarl from his new captive.
Dennis nodded to the bandage on the boy’s chest. “What happened there? Girlfriend beat you up?” Dennis laughed, but the boy didn’t react. “Oh, sorry. Boyfriend?”
The boy grimaced, and Dennis released a sympathetic moan. “Aww, don’t be like that. Hey, I’m not offended if you like to take it up the ass. Believe me, after a few years in prison, there were a lot of guys that didn’t mind it either.”
The little girl whimpered, and Dennis looked down to see the tears streaming off her face. When he looked back at the boy, his eyes were focused on her.
“So how do you two know each other?” Dennis asked, the innocence in his tone contrasting against the malevolent stare in his eyes. He kept both hands on the girl. “You two…” He bounced his eyebrows suggestively, and when the boy clenched his fists in anger, Dennis released another hearty laugh. “No? Well, then you probably don’t mind if I take a stab then, do you?”
“Ahh!”
The boy launched himself off the chair and at Dennis, his movements lethargically slow, and swung his fists like a windmill. But the boy was so weak it only took Dennis one arm to keep him at bay.
“Whoa! Easy there, cowboy!” Dennis thrust the boy back into his seat and brandished a knife that he placed against the girl’s throat. “Let’s not do anything rash.”
The boy tensed, but he stayed in his chair.
“We’re going to play a game,” Dennis said. “I’m going to ask you a question, and then you’re going to give me an answer. If I think you’re lying to me, then I cut her.”
The girl shivered, the boy’s eyes locked onto the knife at
the girl’s throat.
“Now,” Dennis said. “Is the woman still alive?”
The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed before he answered, “Yes.”
“Where is she now?”
“She went to a highway patrol station,”
“How many more of you are there?”
“Ten left the cabin to go to the station,” the boy answered. “I don’t know how many came back.”
The girl was crying hysterically now.
Slowly, Dennis glanced down at the girl, and when he raised his eyes back toward the boy, he smiled. “Is this your sister?”
The words hung in the air between them, and the boy moved his lips to speak, but the silence spoke volumes.
Dennis applied enough pressure against the girl’s throat to draw blood. “Is. This. Your. Sis—”
“Yes.” The answer left his lips quickly, and for the first time since their interaction, the anger gave way to grief and fear, and the boy’s eyes watered. “Please, let her go. If you want to hurt someone, then hurt me.”
Dennis smiled then looked down at the little girl, pulling her hair back and exposing the soft pale flesh of her throat. “You know, I’ve never killed a kid before. Came close once, though.”
More blood trickled down the girl’s throat and into her shirt, staining the collar red. She sobbed violently now. “Luke, please, help me.”
That bug in Dennis’s head turned its gaze on the boy. The name sparked memories like hot flashes of flint and steel, stoking a blaze that meant to burn and ravage.
Dennis narrowed his eyes, his vision tunneling on the boy. He slowly lowered the blade from the girl’s throat. It was too surreal, and he started to question whether or not he’d misheard what the girl had said. But the longer he stared at the boy, the more that fire grew, revealing the truth right in front of his eyes.
“I knew a boy,” Dennis said. “A long time ago. He had your name. But he was just a baby then.” He released the girl, and she hurried to Luke and flung her arms around him. But all Dennis focused on was the boy. The eyes he stared at were just like his own, so dark that they were practically black.
Dennis grabbed the boy by the throat and slowly lifted him from the chair, the vibrations from the boy’s body thrumming against his hand. “I have one more question before our game is done.” He adjusted his grip to the back of the boy’s neck then raised the blade to the throat. “That woman. The one who went to the patrol station, the one who killed a lot of my men today.” He paused. “Is she your mother?”
The boy trembled. “Yes.”
The bug ignited into a fury Dennis had never known, that stretched beyond madness as his eyes widened and his voice dropped to a whisper. “What’s her name?”
“Kate.”
The name released the boy from Dennis’s hold, and he stepped back, his breathing labored and painful. And at the slow realization of what he had, Dennis trembled with exaltation. The laughter rolled out from him triumphantly, causing both Luke and his sister to retreat against the wall, holding onto one another.
Dennis opened the cabinet where he stored the whiskey and dropped the knife, opening the bottle and taking a long swig. The burn of the liquor helped steady him, and he walked over to Luke, a grin still plastered on his face and the hairs on his chin shiny with drips of whiskey. He extended the bottle to Luke, who stared at it with uncertainty. “Go on. Take it.” His smile widened. “I’ve always wanted to have a drink with my son.”
11
The bodies had been moved outside. No one could think or plan with them lying on the floor, their eyes still open, the flames from the fire offering the illusion of life behind their expressionless stares.
There was nothing to be done about the bloodstains. And while the map was sprawled out on the kitchen table, with Rodney, Kate, and the remaining group hovering over it, their eyes continued to fall to the stains where their loved ones once rested.
“Kate?” Rodney asked, his tone suggesting that it wasn’t the first time he’d called her name.
“Hmm?” Kate peeled her gaze from the kitchen and the bloodstain where Mark had been. Every face was on her, expressions ranging from empathy to violence.
“What do you think?” Rodney asked, gesturing down at the map.
Kate pressed her palms against the table’s edge, her weight causing it to groan. And while her eyes examined their attack on the town, her mind was still very much focused on Mark’s dead body.
Captain Harley spoke up at Kate’s silence. “Any way we slice it, we’re outnumbered. The only good thing about our plan is the element of surprise. We’ve already experienced the bulk of their forces, and for all they know, we still have more bullets for the fifty cal.” Harley rapped his knuckles against the table and crossed his arms. “If we go in quiet, do some recon, we have a chance at getting everyone back alive.”
Kate’s eyes returned to the bloodstain where Mark’s body had been. Her thoughts drifted to Luke and Holly, both of them abducted by murderers and rapists. She knew that Luke would try to keep his sister safe, but he was so weak from the surgery. She wasn’t sure if they’d last till dawn.
“There’s only one way we get them back alive,” Kate said, ending the bickering at the table, as she turned her gaze back to Rodney and Captain Harley. “I give myself over to them.”
Confusion and a hint of skepticism circled the expressions around the table, but it was Captain Harley that spoke first. “You walk into that camp, and you’re dead.”
“They won’t kill me,” Kate answered.
“And how do you know that?” Officer Thomas asked.
“Because the man in charge will want to meet me,” Kate answered. “I imagine he’s been thinking about our meeting for nineteen years.” Her eyes found the bloodstain again, but they didn’t linger on it for long. “The man in charge of their group is my son’s biological father. He was serving a life sentence at Renniger State Prison.” She nodded. “At the very least, he’ll want to speak to me before he kills me. And I know he’ll have my children there, which means I’ll be able to get in close.” She looked at Rodney. “But once I’m inside, I’ll need a distraction to get out.”
Heads turned with Kate, glaring at Rodney, who was already shaking his head. “You walk in there, and you’re not walking out.”
“I’ll go with her,” Stacy said.
“No,” Kate replied.
“You’re not the only one with a child that was taken.”
Kate wasn’t going to argue. And the truth was that if Dennis had discovered who he had, she knew the bastard would want to keep them from the rest of the group. Kate stared at the little town of Duluth, marked on the map, that was Dennis’s base of operations. She looked at Rodney again. “What kind of distraction can you work up?”
Rodney left the table, and while he was gone, a few of Harley’s deputies whispered in the captain’s ears, all the while his eyes not leaving Kate’s face.
Rodney returned with a bag and a box that he laid carefully in the center of the table. “C-4 and detonators. I won’t be able to trigger them remotely, but I’ve got enough wire to keep us safely away from the explosions. We’ll place them behind the buildings, funnel everyone into Main Street, and then shoot as many of them as we can before they realize what’s going on.” He looked at Kate and Stacy. “And hopefully give you enough time to get our people out of there.”
“What we’re dealing with here is a hostage situation,” Harley said then gestured to the explosives. “And what you’re suggesting here dramatically lowers the survival percentage for those hostages—physical confrontation always does.” He looked at every face of the people who had loved ones who were taken, staring at Kate last. “It’s important for all of you to understand those consequences.”
“Do you really think you can get them out?” Lisa, the doctor’s daughter, asked. “Do you really think that guy will let you get that close?”
“Yes,” Kate answered, and then
turned to Stacy. “But I don’t know what he’ll do with you.”
“It’s all right,” Stacy replied. “I can handle myself.”
Heads nodded, and Rodney picked the bag and the box up off the table. “All right. I’ll start wiring these. Everyone else, get plenty of ammo and magazines loaded. The more the merrier. I have a feeling these guys won’t have a weapons shortage.”
“All right then,” Captain Harley said, a thick reluctance in his voice. “It’ll be best if we can get them right before dawn, which gives us about seven hours to set everything up. Let’s move.”
The room broke apart, everyone leaving the table save for Rodney and Kate. Rodney had his eyes on Kate, and Kate had her eyes on the bloodstain again.
“Kate, listen,” Rodney said. “Even with the distraction, there isn’t a guarantee that it’ll do what you want it to. And Captain Harley is right. The use of physical force will drop survival chances dramatically.” He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Kate—”
She left, heading out the door before he could finish.
The cold stunned her senses, and she gasped as if she were emerging from a frozen lake. The clouds above had cleared, and the moon and stars blanketed the black of the night sky. Her legs immediately started walking toward the bodies that they’d stacked on the left side of the cabin.
Tears fell before Kate even turned the corner. The bodies were lined in a row, covered with plastic tarps. Mark’s body was covered at the very end. She just stood there for a while, staring at him, her body frozen by apprehension and cold. She hadn’t helped pull the bodies from inside. It was Captain Harley and his men who’d done all of the work.
It still didn’t feel real. Kate kept expecting to wake up from the nightmare, and that she’d be in bed with her husband back in New York. Holly would be getting ready for school, and Luke would be down at George Mason.
But this wasn’t a dream. Her dead husband was beneath that tarp, and her children were now under the murderous watch of a madman who happened to be Luke’s father.
