Random Acts

by Franklin Horton

  Could Ben have ridden his bike with her?

  He would've been a little less angry if that was the case but she said Ben was going to drive her home. Cole hadn't heard a vehicle. If Ben pulled his Jeep into the driveway, Cole would have seen the headlights reflecting on the trees. He continued to listen and it hit him that there was information contained not just in what he was hearing but in what he was not hearing.

  What he was not hearing was a rolling bicycle. Had it been his daughter pushing her bike, there would've been the faint ticking sound of the rolling bike. He didn't know who this was but he no longer thought it was his daughter. With the realization it was not her approaching the house, Cole went on hyper alert. In this part of the country, people didn’t just wander up to your house at night. If someone came on foot unannounced it was usually people intent on theft.

  It wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion. Cole knew all too well building contractors were a favorite target. Tools were easy to resell and could bring a lot of money. It had happened to him once before.

  He carefully stood and listened. He heard a faint whisper. It sounded like a man's voice but Cole was uncertain at the low volume. He moved to his left so he could get a view of the driveway approaching the side of the house. He walked gently as to avoid any creaking boards. He'd been on the porch a long time and his house was dark, his eyes fully adjusted to the blackness. He clearly saw two men walking carefully around his driveway. They were feeling the hoods of the vehicles, like they were looking for indications of a vehicle that had been recently driven.

  Cole drew his pistol. Because it was his primary self-defense weapon, he carried it with a Streamlight tactical light mounted on it. At the touch of a button he could turn the light into a powerful beam or a blinding strobe. The weapon felt comfortable and familiar in his hand. It was ready to go. No safety and one in the pipe.

  He held the weapon at a low ready position and continued to watch the intruders. They were at the side of the house now, peering into one window, then another, whispering between themselves. Cole had seen enough to know these men had no business here. He had no clue who they were or what they were up to. With most of his body protected by the corner of the house, Cole trained the weapon on the men and hit the powerful strobe.

  The light emitted a rhythmic flashing beam that was disorienting in the darkness. Both men threw up an arm up to shield their eyes. Cole did not recognize them but thought they appeared vaguely Hispanic.

  "Don't you fucking move! On the ground now!" Cole barked.

  They did not immediately respond, stunned and uncertain as to what to do.

  "I have a gun and I will shoot you! On the ground! Now!"

  The man on the left, one hand raised in front of his eyes, suddenly dropped the other hand to his shirttail. Cole knew where this was going. He was doing it. There was only one thing that could be under that shirt.

  He started to issue another warning but there was no time. The guy had his hand on the grip of a weapon and he was drawing. Cole had little more than a second. No time to consider.

  He’d practiced with the Shield so much that firing the weapon took no conscious thought at all. It was pure reaction. Cole double tapped him. Both rounds hit center mass and the intruder staggered backward. The shots were deafening, the echo rolling through the wooded hills.

  The armed intruder didn’t release his gun. He could not pull it together enough to aim but he squeezed off the shot. Perhaps it was only a reflex but he was still a threat. Cole center-punched him again, the third round catching the man at the base of the throat. This time he dropped the gun, twisting and falling into a heap.

  In the chaos, Cole lost sight of the second man. Maintaining cover, he angled the light around, trying to find where the man might be hiding. He needed to check the downed man and make certain he was no longer a threat but he couldn’t until he’d figured out where the second guy went. Then, as the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears subsided, he picked up the distant crunch of gravel. Specifically, gravel under running feet.

  The man had fled. As much as Cole hated letting him go, he was not pursuing the man into the dark. Shooting a robber in self-defense was one thing. Hunting down and killing a fleeing man was another. Cole needed to call the police and let them sort this shit out.

  He was going for his phone when it began buzzing in its case. He pulled it out and checked the display. He didn’t recognize the number. It was a pretty shitty time for a conversation but his gut told him to answer. If it was a telemarketer, they were about to get an earful.

  “Cole Castle?”

  He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice.

  “Yes? Who is this?” He realized he sounded a little demanding but adrenaline was still surging through his body. He was in fight mode.

  “This is Penny at the bike shop. I’m Ben’s mom.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her this wasn’t a good time but then it finally sank in.

  Penny. Amanda’s boss.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes, but I’m not exactly sure what it is. You know about the strange guy we had at the shop?”

  “Yes,” Cole said. He was trying to be polite but she needed to talk faster.

  “I don’t know all the details but I just got a call from Ben. Amanda got a call from her stepfather tonight that upset her. She took off from the shop on her bike. While Ben was trying to catch her on the trail, someone dropped something on him from an overpass and wrecked him. He said it was the same man.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s injured,” she replied. “I don’t know how badly yet. The police are on their way. He said the guy left once he saw it was him. He thinks he’s after Amanda.”

  Cole thought he had no more room for adrenaline. He thought the intruders and the shooting had amped him up as far as he could go. He was wrong.

  “Where is Amanda?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know. Somewhere on the trail between the shop and your house, we think. Ben hadn’t reached her yet. I’m going to tell the police to get ATVs out there on the trail and find her.”

  “Did Ben say how far along they were?”

  “He got hurt at Overpass One,” Penny said. “He thought he was closing in on Amanda until that happened. He thought the guy may be taking off for the next overpass to try the same thing again.”

  Cole hung up the phone and shoved it back in his pocket. He holstered the Shield as he ran to his shop. He threw up the rolling door and pulled the cover off his own ATV. He jumped on, started the machine, and shot backward. In his haste, he crushed a cooler and nearly turned the machine over.

  Once he was pointed in the right direction, he accelerated wildly, shooting down the gravel drive. When he hit the road at the base of the drive, he shoved the throttle all the way forward. The machine squatted and launched forward.

  To the best of his knowledge, the same trails his daughter used to ride to work would accommodate the ATV. The machines were prohibited on the trails but those laws didn’t mean shit to Cole right now. He’d already killed one man tonight and he was bracing himself to kill another.

  51

  In the wooded suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, was an upper middle-class neighborhood called Barberry. The homes were all recent and immaculately groomed due to a strict Home Owner’s Association that micro-managed every aspect of the community. In a home owned by a car dealer, a family gathering was taking place. To the neighbors, it appeared to be a normal dinner party. Several cars were in the driveway. Men and women were entering with shopping bags and covered dishes. People were laughing and jovial.

  In the two-car garage, however, the mood was serious. Twenty-four identical boxes lay open on the garage floor. A group of men was carefully assembling explosive devices. The devices would be remote control activated and the receivers would not be turned on until the packages were onsite, lest someone’s television remote accidentally detonate them. Once the boxes were seale
d, the triggers could be activated by placing a magnet on the bottom of each box, tripping a magnetic switch.

  A windowless white cargo van took up one half of the garage and the sliding door sat open. Shopping bags full of wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, and tape sat in the door. When the men finished packing each box, the women would come in and wrap them. The men would stack them neatly in the back of the van so they would not turn over. Everything needed to look presentable when it arrived at the flash mob location.

  When the guests left at 9:30 that evening, the van departed with them. The car dealer delivered it to the busy parking lot of a nearby chain restaurant. Flipping his hood up over his head to better conceal his identity, he left the keys in the ashtray and returned home by Uber. He did not know who was picking up the van and performing the next step of the operation. He didn’t need to know.

  He didn’t know what was being done with the explosives either, but assumed it would be newsworthy.

  52

  Amanda silenced her phone. She needed time and space to think. The mesh pocket holding her phone allowed her to see the screen. She saw it lighting up with the occasional ring. People were determined to intrude and she’d had enough. Fox’s name kept popping up but she wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. She hadn’t cooled down enough. Then there was Ben’s name on the screen again and she faltered, almost picking it up.

  She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet either. She felt bad about abandoning him at the store without saying anything. She’d probably lose her job over it, and maybe that’s what she deserved. He’d been good to her. His entire family had. His mother Penny had been thoughtful and supportive without being smothering. Amanda didn’t want to disappoint them. She felt an obligation to explain herself. Just not now. Maybe she could speak to them all tomorrow and tell them honestly what happened.

  That was a lot to process. To explain what had happened, to put it into thoughts and release it into the world, would make it all real. She’d have to confront all of it. Her mother’s lies, the attitude she’d shown toward her dad when she arrived here. She’d have to come to terms with it all and find a place to put it.

  It was too much for now though. She was determined to ride as hard as she could. She wanted to burn her pain away with sweat and exertion but the pace was getting to her. She wasn’t enough of a seasoned rider for this. She did not have the road cyclist’s ability to fall into a pace and stay with it for hours. She’d reached her threshold and her muscles were failing her. They called this a bonk, and she was about to hit it head-on.

  Suddenly, a leg cramp blew her rhythm and she stood on the pedals, trying to stretch the muscles. She coasted as far as she could but had to stop. She swung off the saddle and lay the bike down. Her lungs burned and she was still sucking air like a mountaineer climbing Everest.

  She was in sight of Overpass Two now, which she felt like was probably about halfway home. Geez, her dad was going to be pissed if she showed up on her bike. Too late now. She could either ride home or call Ben and have him pick her up. She couldn’t do that though, after ditching him at the store. She was just going to have to keep going and face the music when she got home.

  She tried to mount the bike again but the muscle tightened and she cried out in pain. It was a deep cramp. She rubbed her hamstring, trying to massage the muscle into relaxing but it did not want to go away. She heard two gunshots in the distance, then another. The shots rang through the mountains, echoing until they faded completely away.

  Shots weren’t that unusual here. They didn’t frighten her. Sometimes a man with a few drinks in him would step out onto his porch and blow off a few shots. Perhaps it wasn’t being a responsible gun owner, but this was the mountains and many people still preferred to abide by their own rules regardless of laws and norms. When no more shots were fired, she wondered if it might be a deer poacher. Hunting laws were another of those things mountain folk didn’t always have a lot of respect for.

  She decided she might have to push the bike for a little while. Her muscles needed to stretch and calm down. They felt like rubber, trembling and not operating properly. She pulled a water bottle out of her pack and sucked down a long drink. Surely some hydration would help restore her muscles and get her a little further down the road. If that didn’t work, she thought she might have an energy gel with electrolytes in her pack.

  She picked up the bike and walked toward the trestle. Her lights projected a beam directly ahead of her. It did not provide a wide beam though, and she did not see the man dressed in black peel away from the shadows alongside the trail and fall in step behind her.

  “CamaroChick19,” said a rasping voice.

  She froze in her tracks. She had no idea what those words meant. She turned around slowly and saw a hulking figure in dark clothing just steps behind her. She’d only seen one man that size recently. The man who’d come into the store acting so bizarre a few days ago.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, unsure of what else to say.

  “You are CamaroChick19,” repeated the deep, nearly croaking voice.

  “I don’t know what that means.” She said it slowly, calmly, but she was anything but calm. This man was scaring her.

  “Liar!” he roared.

  She caught the glint of a blade flashing, a blade swinging directly for her head. There was no time to think of final words, no time to wonder why this was happening. She was going to die. In a fraction of a second, her head was going to topple off her body and roll across the gritty trail.

  Then at the last second, the man turned the blade so the broad side made contact with her head. The heavy steel of the curved kukri slammed into her head just above the ear. It was like being hit in the head with a hammer. Amanda collapsed onto the ground completely unconscious.

  “I will tolerate no more lies,” DeathMerchant6o6o6 said. “I will tolerate no more liars.”

  He sheathed the knife and studied the fallen girl. He picked up her bike and threw it to the side of the trail. He hitched his pants, then picked up the girl and slung her over his shoulder. He climbed the steep embankment, dropping her several times, but he didn’t care. She would not live long enough to see the bruises form.

  53

  Cole barreled down the gravel road faster than he’d ever driven it in a car. The ATV was light and powerful, the rear end breaking traction and sliding as he powered around curves. The headlights threw a glowing arc in front of him, enough light to see where he was going but not nearly enough for the speed at which he was operating the vehicle.

  In less than two minutes he was at the intersection where the trail network crossed the public road. Bright yellow bollards were sunk into the ground to prevent anyone from driving a vehicle onto the trail. Laws be damned, that was exactly what Cole was determined to do. He drove the machine into a ditch between the road and trail and powered up the bank, bypassing the roadblock. He hit the throttle and the machine slewed sideways before straightening and rocketing down the trail.

  At this time of night, Cole was not likely to find anyone else on the trail. It was always possible but he hoped they’d be running with lights just as he was. He soon found he was unable to make as good a time on the trail as he had been on the gravel road. The trail was narrower and full of sharp turns. This particular trail had once been a horse trail but never a railroad bed like the trail Amanda had last been seen riding.

  It took him around ten minutes to negotiate this section of trail before dropping onto the wider, flatter abandoned railway. That put him about twelve miles outside of town. Cole pulled out all stops and nailed the throttle on his machine, pushing it up to nearly fifty miles per hour. On this wide trail, his biggest concerns were the occasional railroad trestles that narrowed the trail. Hit one of those and your dead body would be launched into roaring whitewater.

  The first trestle came with plenty of warning. It was in a straight stretch and Cole barely slowed down. The transition from trail to trestle was more abrupt than expected and popped
his machine into the air. He’d spanned half the length of the trestle before all his wheels were back on the ground. Had the trestle been in a curve, he’d likely have hit the side and wiped out.

  After that lesson, he slowed for the next trestles, but ran hard between them. At the first stone overpass he got his hopes up until he saw it was Overpass Three. He wasn’t familiar with the trail system and had thought he might have been closer to town. He had a couple of more miles to go before he would reach the spot where Ben had been attacked. Somewhere between here and there, he had to find his daughter.

  A little over two miles beyond Overpass Three, he approached Overpass Two. He slowed. This was the only overpass remaining between him and Ben. If that son-of-a-bitch had laid a trap for Amanda, it would have been here. Cole came to a stop directly under the stone overpass. He could see nothing amiss. Nor could he see his daughter.

  He walked past it, scanning the ground in the beam of his headlights. He pulled out his phone and tried to call his daughter, hoping this was all some kind of misunderstanding and she was safe. The call connected and it began ringing. As the ringing continued, he noticed it sounded different. He froze and lowered the phone from his ear.

  The ringing was coming from the bushes.

  Cole drew his handgun and touched the switch on the tactical light. The beam flooded the surrounding brush with light. In that light, Cole caught the glint of a reflection.

  A bicycle reflector.

  With his heart pounding and horror surging, Cole crept closer to the bike. He saw a backpack. His daughter’s pack. He saw the glow of a dirty phone screen on the ground. He saw his picture and the word “Dad” on the caller ID. He ended the call.

  “Amanda?”

  He was begging. He was pleading. It was a cry to God that she be there but she was not.