by Ron Ripley
Give them a few more minutes, he thought. If they haven't approached by then, I'll head out and see what I can find.
Shane didn’t have to wait a few more minutes.
Before he could take another drag off his cigarette, a cruiser pulled up and parked across the green from him.
He heard another car park behind him, and he knew it had to be a second officer.
The police officer in the car he could see stepped out, adjusted his hat and belt and started toward him.
“Shane Ryan?” a voice asked from behind him.
Shane glanced over his shoulder and saw a tall, solid, older man in a State Police uniform. The man had sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves and a hand on a holstered pistol.
The safety loop, Shane noticed, was off the weapon and would allow a free, unencumbered draw.
Shane looked back at the Amherst police officer who had almost reached him.
“No,” Shane said.
“No?” the State Police officer asked. “That’s not your car parked here?”
“Nope,” Shane answered. He finished his cigarette and field stripped it, stuffing the remnants into his pants pocket.
“So you won’t care if this vehicle gets towed?” the sergeant asked.
“Not a bit,” Shane said. “Knock yourself out.”
“Could we see some ID?” the Amherst officer asked as he came to a stop a few feet in front of Shane.
“No,” Shane said.
“That’s not really a request,” the Amherst officer said.
“Sure it is,” Shane replied. “See, you’re wearing a body camera, which means that this is all being recorded. Also, did you look outside of the gas station over there?”
The Amherst officer glanced over, and a frown flickered across his face. A group of teenagers sat on a stone wall, drinking soda, eating snacks, and filming the police and Shane.
“Great,” the Amherst officer muttered.
“Yeah,” Shane said. “Exactly. Those kids are watching everything you’re doing. And you know they’re recording too. Hell, I bet a couple of them are even live streaming it. You may even become a viral hit, officer. So, since I haven’t done anything wrong, and since all of this is being recorded for posterity, no, I don’t want to show you my ID. Or any ID.”
Silence settled on them for a minute, and then the sergeant broke it.
“What’s in your coffee cup, sir?” the man asked.
“Nothing,” Shane answered.
“Then why are you still holding onto it?” the Amherst officer asked.
“Didn’t see the trash,” Shane said truthfully. “Figured I’d hold onto it until I found a place to throw it out.”
“Not because you had alcohol in it?” the sergeant asked, baiting him.
Shane almost rose to it, but he shook his head. “No. Just a black coffee.”
“You need to show me some ID,” the Amherst officer said, a frustrated tone in his voice.
“I need to take a walk,” Shane responded. He stood up. “You officers have a nice day.”
He started to leave when the sergeant said, “Sir, is that a weapon?”
“Yes,” Shane said. “Yes, it is.”
“Then I definitely need you to show me some identification,” the sergeant said.
Shane turned around. Anger filled his voice as he answered.
“No,” Shane said. “You don’t. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going now.”
The Amherst officer stepped over to the right, and Shane knew what they were about to do. One of them would draw a Taser, hit him with it, then bring him in. He didn’t know why they were so intent on speaking with him at the police station, and he didn’t care.
Shane knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was going to make them work for everything they had to get.
“Gentlemen,” Shane said, pouring all of the steel and hate he had learned in the Marines into voice, “you are both going to stand down and take a long, deep breath before you do something you’re going to regret.”
“Sir,” the sergeant said. “You need to put your hands behind your head and interlock your fingers so we can disarm you, do you understand?”
“That,” Shane said between clenched teeth, “is not going to happen.”
A small group of people had gathered on the other side of the park, a mix of men and women. Some of them had cellphones up as well.
“Sir,” the sergeant barked. “This is not a request. Put your hands behind your head and interlock your fingers. Do you understand me?!”
Shane opened his mouth to reply even while the Amherst officer’s hand dropped down to the yellow Taser he carried.
And then the world went cold as Courtney burst out of the dog-tags.
Chapter 44: An Unpleasant Surprise
The force of Courtney’s exit from the dog-tags sent Shane tumbling. He rolled, got to his feet, and saw he hadn’t been the only one impacted by her movement.
Both of the officers were down, but they were getting up again. Branches were knocked off of several of the town trees, and there were exclamations of dismay from the bystanders.
Shane found out why a moment later when the Amherst officer drew his Taser and fired it.
As the darts pierced his sweatshirt, Shane braced himself for the shock to follow, but it never did. The Amherst officer squeezed the trigger several times even as Shane ripped the darts out.
Without hesitating, Shane turned and ran, leaping over the sergeant as he got to his knees.
Both officers called for him to stop, but Shane didn’t. It would be better to deal with the ramifications later than wind up in jail for the night.
And there was the real worry about whether or not the officers were working for the Watchers. Shane didn’t want to have to try and survive another assassination attempt. He might not be as lucky as he was before.
Twenty steps into his run and Shane was coughing, decades of cigarettes wreaking havoc on his lungs. He ran through the pain, the officers’ footsteps loud behind him.
He reached a small, dark green house and ducked behind the back of it.
Courtney appeared in front of him, a grim expression on her elfin features.
"Stay here," she said and raced past him.
Shane came to a stop, sucking in huge breaths while trying not to throw up. The coffee swirled and turned in his stomach, his throat tightened, and a moment later, he lost his battle with it. Beneath the sound of his vomiting, he heard a crash and two dull thuds.
Courtney returned, waited for him to straighten up and said, “They won’t bother us now.”
“What did you do?” Shane asked, more out of curiosity than concern for the officers.
“I knocked them out,” she replied. “Do you know where to go?”
Shane shook his head. “I was hoping to look at some maps, but that’s not going to work now.”
“No,” she said, agreeing with him. Courtney looked down at the ground. “But I can help. I can find him for us.”
“Are you sure?” he asked her. “There’s a lot of territory to cover.”
Courtney nodded. “I’ll find him, Shane. Follow me.”
The faint sound of sirens in the distance reminded Shane that he needed to move quickly.
“Alright,” he said softly, “lead the way.”
Courtney glided into the forest behind the house and Shane followed her. He watched her as they made their way; something was different about her. An attitude that he couldn’t identify. Part of him was fearful that she might slip away from him, lose all that she had gained in the past few months. While he didn’t want her to leave him, Shane also didn’t want her to stay.
She needed to be healed, and to leave for whatever was next.
Shane pushed the thoughts away and forced himself to focus on the path they followed.
He noticed, suddenly, that the deeper he moved into the woods, the stronger he felt. Energy pulsed up through the ground, penetrated his shoes, and worked it
s way up through his legs and into his chest. His heart thumped, and a curious, cheerful smile made its way onto his face.
Shane couldn’t understand why since he knew that eventually, he would have to meet Samson.
And meeting Samson, Shane knew, wasn’t something to smile about.
Chapter 45: Hope Springs Forth
Clair sat at her desk with her eyes closed and in darkness. It was her preferred way to contemplate a situation. Especially one as difficult as her current predicament.
Shane Ryan had not been killed.
Frank Benedict had not been killed.
Clair had lost an entire section of seasoned professionals, haunted items, and been forced to execute one of her most effective assassins. Gabby had been unstable following the death of Jenna, but the knowledge of who had killed her sister had made her useless. Clair would have gotten nothing from the woman until vengeance had been enacted. Gabby would have been a risk, in regards to not only the security of the organization but to the limited resources that remained. With the execution of Gabby, Clair had been left with only thirty-four effective members.
Which brought Clair back to the situation concerning the One.
She had to review his terms and to review them with care. The devil, as people said, was in the details. A mistake on her part would undo too much work. Too much sacrifice. She had spent almost her entire adult life in the service of the Watchers. Clair had waited for her opportunity to shine, and she had seized it when the moment had come. One of her greatest memories was the murder of Harlan.
A smile graced her lips as she remembered the man’s death.
She shooed the pleasant recollection away and focused on the One.
While she had not revealed to other members of the organization any doubts or questions in regards to the boy in Amherst, she had suffered from them. The Watchers had been seeking the One for decades and there had been several false starts. The schoolteacher who Shane and Frank had recently dispatched had been one of them.
According to the calculations made by the early Watchers, the One would be found at the intersection of multiple ley lines. The spirit would be powerful, feed easily from both the living and the dead, and when strong enough, the One would be able to share its strength. Each of the faithful would gain nourishment from the One, energy and sustenance that would hold the ravages of age and time at bay.
Clair had never delved into the reasons behind these statements. She, like all of the Watchers, took the words of the organization’s founders on faith. And she had never experienced anything to shake her convictions.
The child in Amherst fit everything the early Watchers had said to seek. He was on the ley lines and powerful. With words only, he could convince the living to do his bidding. And his power expanded exponentially with each individual fed to him.
Anger spiked in Clair for a moment as she thought about the current situation. She was upset with her predecessors as well as herself. Someone should have sought out the intersections of the ley lines decades ago. Such examinations would have revealed buildings, if there were any, and one definitely would have shown them the presence of the Amherst burial ground.
Where the boy, the One, resided.
The boy wanted a new person each day. It would build up his strength, which was weak after so many years without any real sustenance. She estimated thirty to forty days before he would be powerful enough to even begin to try and extend one person’s life. And neither the Watchers nor the One knew how much energy it might require of him.
It could drain him to the extent that they would never be able to work with him again, in which case the quest would continue.
Clair didn’t believe it would come to that.
The boy was on the intersection of the ley lines. His property was the one Emmanuel Borgin had tried to purchase nearly a century earlier. And Borgin had been far from stupid.
No, Clair thought. I have to find out how much the One really needs. When I do that, then we can start to extend ourselves.
The memory of Shane Ryan’s voice filled her mind suddenly, and forced her to straighten up, her eyes opening.
Before the extensions could begin, Shane Ryan would have to be killed.
The only question for Clair was how.
A knock sounded on the door, and Clair snapped, "Hold on."
She straightened her blouse, switched on the desk lamp, and said, “Come in.”
The door opened, and her secretary stepped in on silent feet. His face was pale as he said, "I think you need to turn the news on."
She kept her comments to herself, silently promising him a miserable day if he had disturbed her for some foolish reason.
He hadn’t.
Clair watched the news for several minutes, then when the story changed, she moved on to a new channel. There she received the same information as the other.
An unidentified man had been confronted by police in Amherst, New Hampshire, and then somehow managed to knock two officers unconscious, escaping afterwards. Clair did an internet search and discovered some uploaded video footage that showed the start of the altercation.
A bald man sat on a park bench on the town green, and while there was no sound, the body language of all three men involved was plain enough to read. The air seemed alive with hostility. Clair watched as the bald man stood, walked away, and then stopped to turn and face the officers.
Then there was a flash, and the footage ended. Clair scrolled down and saw there were nearly a thousand comments on the video. Some claimed it was footage of a ghost. The majority ridiculed the rest, saying what they saw was nothing more than a hoax. There were, according to the comments, no ghosts, and the footage’s abrupt ending confirmed that the video was a hoax. The original poster defended the footage, replying that the reason the video was cut short was the sudden draining of the phone’s battery.
Clair, however, watched it again. And then a third time.
Frowning, she pulled up a magnification program, applied it to the film clip, and managed to zoom in on the bald man.
Clair managed to repress a gasp as the man’s face leaped into clarity.
It was Shane Ryan.
He was in Amherst.
He knew about the One.
Forcing herself to remain calm, Clair turned to her secretary. "Pull everyone. From everywhere. Shane Ryan is in Amherst, and he needs to die."
Chapter 46: In the Hotel Room
Marie and David sat at the small table in the hotel room. The curtains were closed against the dusk, and the television was off. David felt drained, as if there had been a plug in his soul and someone had yanked it out. He hadn't realized how much he had depended upon Shirley for his own future happiness.
David had hoped his goddaughter would get away from the world of the Watchers. That somehow the organization wouldn’t taint her.
In that sense, his desire had come through. She had died unsullied by the Watchers, having never fully subscribed to their curious brand of faith. Yet only through death had she been able to escape it.
And that realization broke his heart.
“What do you want to do?” Marie asked him, squeezing his hand.
“I want to hurt them,” David muttered. “I need the weapons in Shane’s house.”
“You won’t be able to get them,” she told him. “At least not yet. With a crime scene this large, it may take a week for them to process it. You’d be better off buying what you need in the morning.”
David grimaced and didn’t answer.
After a moment of silence, she asked, "Have you heard back from Shane at all?"
David shook his head. “Nothing. Not a damned, single thing. Every call I make goes to voice mail. None of the texts get responded to.”
Marie frowned. “That’s not like him. I mean the voicemail. Not with you being out of the house. He may be obstinate, David, but he’s not stupid. He wouldn’t isolate himself that way. He’d be concerned about you. And Frank. Have you found out w
hat’s going on with Frank, yet?”
“No,” David said with a sigh. “I forgot about it.”
“Give him a call,” Marie prodded.
David nodded, picked up his cellphone, and called St. Joseph's Hospital first. When he asked if a Frank Benedict was a patient there, he received an affirmative answer. His next question, asking to be put through to Frank's room, was answered with a polite request for him to hold.
Horrible elevator music, intermixed with advertisements for services provided by the hospital, assaulted David’s ear as he waited. After several minutes, someone picked up.
“Hello,” a man said into the receiver.
“Hello,” David replied. “Can I speak with Frank, please?”
“May I ask who’s calling?” the man inquired.
“David,” he answered.
“David who?” the man on the other end asked.
“Don’t worry about who, just put me through to Frank, please,” David said, keeping his temper under control.
“No,” the man responded, his voice becoming hard. “You need to tell me your last name and your relationship to Frank Benedict.”
David ended the call and swore under his breath.
“What is it?” Marie asked.
“They won’t let me speak to Frank,” David said. “At least not without giving them a name.”
“Why didn’t you, then?” she asked, looking as though she wasn’t quite sure what the issue was.
“Because,” David replied, “they’d want a phone number. And then they’d want an address. When they realize I was the same witness from the house, they might decide to have a little bit longer of a chat with me. I don’t need that. I’ve got enough prints at enough murder scenes to put me away for life.”
Marie’s face paled a shade.
David nodded regretfully.
"So," he continued, "if they decide at some point they need to talk to me a little longer, and I don't want to, I'd be hard pressed to get away in your car. No, it's better not to do anything. I don't like the idea of leaving Frank alone in the hospital, but I don't see anything else I can do."
