Friday Night Frights (Jack and Ashley Detective series Book 1)

by R. D. Sherrill

  “This is serious,” Ashley pronounced, intentionally looking right at Lisa Brewer. “If you know where she is, we need to know right now. She could be in danger.”

  “She’s over at the school!” Lisa revealed. “She got a text from a boy to meet him over there.”

  Jack and Ashley exchanged glances and took off.

  “If she comes back, you tell her to stay right here!” Ashley yelled back over her shoulder as she ran behind her partner in the direction of the school.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Angelica said in a disappointed tone as she saw a large figure step from the shadows – the figure she recognized as the Iron Eagle,

  Angelica had known Jerry Simons since grade school. He took over the Iron Eagle duties as a sophomore, working closely with the cheer squad to entertain the fans on game night. While she considered him one of her friends, Jerry wasn’t exactly in her league.

  “Hey, if anyone asks, you didn’t see me in here. Okay?” Angelica said forcefully as she approached the six-foot-tall mascot. “I know you can talk. Do you understand me? Don’t you tell anyone you saw me. I mean it.”

  Instead of answering her demand, the eagle extended his wings as if to invite Angelica in for a hug. She rolled her eyes, assuming he wanted to give her an embrace to feel her well-proportioned body against his.

  “What the heck, it’s your lucky day,” Angelica said as she entered the eagle’s wingspan. The mascot immediately smothered her in a tight hug. His youthful grope was her penance, she figured, for ensuring his silence about her being inside the building.

  The embrace, however, continued to the awkward stage as the trim cheerleader was unable to push away from his feathery grasp.

  “Okay, that’s enough you pervert,” Angelica said, struggling to fight off the mascot. “We’ve got to get back to the game.”

  Using both hands to push away, Angelica found herself at arm’s length from the mascot, catching a glimmer out of the corner of her eye. It was a knife, poised in the eagle’s right hand.

  “No!” Angelica screamed throwing up her hands as the mascot swung the large hunting blade with ferocity.

  The razor-sharp steel caught her in the palm, completely passing through flesh and bone like a hot knife through butter. Her high-pitched scream filled the halls of the school. The pain nearly caused her to pass out on the spot as she saw the end of the blade protruding through the back of her hand. Blood sprayed like a faucet down her extended arm. In the meantime, the eagle tried to pull the blade from her hand for another swing but the serrated back side of the knife had caught on one of the bones in her hand, holding it fast. She fought to pull her hand away from the incredible pain as the eagle ripped the blade from its lodging. The knife freed itself with a sickening ripping sound, blood spraying on the floor.

  Struggling to remain conscious, all the time hearing her own horrified screams, Angelica threw up her uninjured hand, this time repelling another downward slash which split open her forearm. She turned to run as the eagle readied for another swing of his blade, but slipped on her own blood. Her fall was fortuitous, as the swing, which would have likely caught her in the spine, missed its mark and hit the back of her left shoulder. The knife again buried itself in bone.

  She was unable to run anymore. The blood loss and pain left her paralyzed. She felt herself being turned over, now facing up toward the ceiling. The eagle now sat straddling her, his knife poised ready for the death blow.

  That’s when another blood-curdling scream came, this time from behind them. In the life-and-death struggle, neither had heard the group of students enter from the outside door. Two boys and two girls now stood a few feet from the horrific scene.

  The eagle hesitated for a moment and then stood up, leaving his bleeding prey on the floor. Then, brandishing the bloody knife, the eagle ran down the hall and disappeared into the darkness.

  Ashley and Jack heard the screams as they arrived at the school door. They both drew their weapons and rushed into the building.

  “Oh no, we’re too late!” Ashley cried out as she saw the young girl lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

  Ashley rushed to Angelica’s side. The injured teen’s eyes told her she was slipping into shock as the pool of blood beneath her got bigger. The blood seemed to be pouring out from everywhere. Ashley ripped off her sweat shirt, using the heavy material to try to stem the flow from the wound on the girl’s forearm. She yelled back for the boys to throw her their shirts. Ashley was wearing just a rain soaked undershirt which she was now glad she had worn.

  “Somebody call 911 right now!” Ashley exclaimed as she struggled to locate the girl’s wounds.

  Jack maintained his vigil for the ripper while Ashley attended to the critically-injured girl. He pointed his gun down the hall.

  “He ran that way,” one of the boys offered, pointing down the hall. “We just walked in and he had a knife. He was about to kill her. It was the Iron Eagle.”

  “I’m going after him,” Jack declared as he started down the hall.

  “Call your agents. Tell them to go after him,” Ashley said, momentarily looking up from the victim.

  “There are no other agents,” Jack admitted soberly. “We’re all we have. I’m sorry.”

  With that, Jack disappeared down the hall and slipped into the shadows. Ashley had little time to digest her partner’s confession since she was trying to save the girl’s life.

  “You stay with me, Angelica!” Ashley screamed as the girl’s eyes rolled back in her head.

  Ashley continued applying pressure to the obvious gashes to the teen’s hand and arm as she found the other wound on her shoulder blade, placing another compress over the gaping incision.

  “You’re going to make it!” Ashley screamed, not sure if the girl could hear her anymore as she slipped into unconsciousness.

  In the meantime, Jack picked up the trail. Blood from the suspect’s knife lead away from the scene of the attack like so many bread crumbs. The agent moved cautiously, clearing every door as he worked his way systematically down the hallway, realizing that his quarry could lunge at him out of the darkness at any moment.

  Jack’s finger curled around the trigger. He had no handcuffs and didn’t intend to use any. If he found the killer in his sights, he would impose the death penalty on the spot. He would accept no surrender, not from the man who killed his son, leaving the boy to bleed to death below the bleachers in Rock River.

  Following a couple of minutes of a methodical search, the trail dried up. Ahead, Jack could make out a shape on the floor, a shape that seemed almost human. He moved toward the form with his gun leveled, ready to open fire. It was the eagle outfit. Their suspect had shed his uniform just inside the front door of the school. He was outside!

  He paused for a moment to take a look at the blood-splattered suit, then turned his attention to tracking the fugitive outside. He burst out of the door in pursuit. His sudden exit into the rain was met by the sound of a yell from his right side.

  “Freeze!” yelled a deputy, his gun drawn, pointing at Jack’s head as he emerged from the building.

  “Whoa there, partner. I’m a federal agent,” Jack responded, holding up his hands, gun still gripped in his palm while displaying his badge which hung around his neck.

  The deputy gave the badge a close look before lowering his gun.

  “Sorry sir, we were told there was a stabbing,” the deputy responded.

  “There was!” Jack said. “I tracked him through the school. He came out this way. Tell your officers to get a perimeter around the campus. Nobody leaves, and I mean nobody.”

  The deputy was about to put out the call when a frantic yell came across his radio.

  “We’ve had a carjacking at the east parking lot!” a deputy revealed with an excited voice. “The suspect assaulted a woman and took her car. It’s a late model Dodge.”

  The deputy pointed toward the east parking lot. Jack wasted no time dashing in that direction.

 
; “Seal the exits!” Jack called out. “I’m heading to the parking lot!”

  The rain came harder as Jack sprinted through the soggy grass toward the parking lot. He could hear the sound of squealing tires as another loud roll of thunder shook the ground beneath his feet. Unknown to Jack, the carjacker had mistakenly gone the wrong direction while trying to escape with the stolen car. The squeal he heard was the fugitive slamming on his brakes and doing an about-face. He was now heading back toward Jack.

  Lightning lit the sky as Jack arrived at the east parking lot. The strike was close enough where he could smell ozone in the air. The wind was now blowing at gale force. The storm had arrived.

  Jack stood at the entrance to the lot as another flash illuminated the outline of a car emerging from the lot with its headlights off, traveling at high speed. It was the killer; Jack could feel it! There was no way he was letting him get out of the parking lot alive.

  Assuming a shooter’s position, Jack leveled his gun as he heard the sound of the racing engine. Taking aim at the front windshield, the agent’s finger tensed around the trigger as yet another bright flash of lightning illuminated the area, exposing the figure inside the car. Jack pulled the trigger in rapid succession, getting off three rounds into the windshield before the car struck him. He flew over the hood and into the air.

  Jack slammed onto the pavement with a thud, the air knocked out of him, leaving him unable to cry out. He laid there, rain pelting his face, a bright branch of lighting skirting the sky as he lost consciousness.

  TOUCH AND GO

  Oblivious to the plight of her partner, Ashley held the pressure on Angelica’s gaping wound as the unconscious teen’s blood soaked through the sweatshirt and oozed between Ashley’s fingers. The cheerleader’s face was ghostly white.

  “She’s bleeding out!” Ashley exclaimed as paramedics arrived at her side and began feverishly working on the gravely-injured youth.

  Ashley pushed herself away from the girl as the ambulance crew crowded around the victim. She was covered with the teen’s blood, crimson up to her elbows. The sight almost made her throw up. She sat on the blood-stained floor watching powerlessly as the paramedics battled to save the girl’s life, an endeavor she feared may have been too little too late.

  “We have a man down in the parking lot!” a voice boomed across the paramedics’ radios. The report immediately gave Ashley an odd feeling.

  Realizing Angelica was in the hands of professionals, Ashley ran down the hall tracing Jack’s steps. She came upon the discarded mascot outfit in the hallway. She pushed herself against the far wall as she passed by before exiting out the door and into the raging torrent. An ambulance raced by just as she stepped onto the wet grass. She followed the flashing lights through the sheets of rain until she came upon a crowd of people huddled around a form lying in the parking lot.

  “Oh no, Jack!” she yelled as she rushed past the ambulance to find her partner lying motionless on the pavement.

  “Jack, can you hear me! Say something!” Ashley screamed as she pushed through the crowd and knelt at his side, reaching out to check for a pulse.

  “What happened?” Ashley asked, turning to the gathering of people around her fallen partner.

  “I heard something that sounded like gunshots. At first I thought it was thunder but then it was obvious it really was someone firing a gun,” a man volunteered as he stepped from the crowd. “That’s when I turned my attention this way from the other side of the parking lot where I was parked. As I looked over here I saw this gentleman here flying up in the air and slamming back down onto the blacktop. He was hit by a car.”

  “Which way did it go?” the sheriff asked as he dashed up to the scene, hearing the tail end of the man’s recollection, recognizing Jack as the federal agent he had met earlier that evening.

  “The car headed straight out of the parking lot and took a left,” the witness said, prompting the sheriff to immediately issue an all-points bulletin on his radio for the stolen blue sedan as he turned to run back into the school where they were still working on the wounded cheerleader.

  Ashley turned her attention back to Jack, who was still motionless.

  “Move aside, ma’am,” the first responder said, taking Ashley by the shoulder and pushing her back.

  “He’s my partner!” Ashley yelled back, resisting the grasp.

  “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to move back,” the first responder repeated, again pushing her away.

  She was not thinking straight and the stress of the past few minutes was catching up to her. Ashley again tried to get to Jack’s side, only to feel hands around her waist, ripping her away from the side of the fallen agent and carrying her back through the crowd.

  “Get your hands off me!” Ashley screamed as she turned to face the man who had grabbed her – it was Randy.

  Ashley stood stunned, looking at her fellow ranger in the pouring rain. Randy was the last person she expected to see. What was he doing there? Where had he come from?

  “You need to let them do their job,” Randy said, relaxing his hold on Ashley as paramedics ran toward the downed officer with a gurney.

  Shrugging off Randy’s grasp, Ashley turned her attention back to her partner as paramedics placed him on the back board and secured him in a neck brace before whisking him into the back of the ambulance.

  “Where are you taking him?” Ashley asked as she ran to the back of the ambulance, holding up her badge.

  “The weather won’t let us get a chopper in here so we’re taking him to Seymour General,” the paramedic replied.

  “Is he going to make it?” Ashley called out as the paramedic reached to close the door.

  “I don’t know,” he confessed. “He’s very critical. We’ll do everything we can.”

  The ambulance sped away. Its ear-splitting siren made Ashley jump, despite the thunder and lightning she’d braved for the past few minutes. She stood in the rain, watching as the flashing lights disappeared around the corner and wondering if it was the last time she would see Jack alive.

  Then came the wail of the tornado sirens. The eerie pealing of the warning signal drowned out the remnants of the ambulance. The wail served to disburse the crowd, all of whom headed for their cars and to nearby shelter. They were familiar with the seriousness of such warnings, given their location in tornado alley.

  “Come on, Ashley,” Randy encouraged, grabbing her by the arm. “Let’s get inside. There’s nothing else you can do here.”

  Ashley jerked her hand away from Randy’s and shot him a fiery glare which pierced through the driving rain. They stood in the midst of the gale, locked in a stare down, not a word said.

  “Agent Reynolds!” yelled the sheriff from the school building. “They’ve found the car!”

  His words broke the stare down as Ashley headed for the school with Randy at her heels.

  “What about the driver?” Ashley inquired, already knowing the answer.

  “It was abandoned about three miles north of here in a residential neighborhood,” the sheriff replied. “My deputies are canvassing the area to see if anyone saw anything.”

  “What about the girl?” Ashley wondered.

  “She’s on her way to the hospital,” the sheriff said. “It’s touch and go but if she does live, from what I’ve heard, she’ll owe her life to you.”

  His praise did little to lift Ashley’s spirits as both the young girl and Jack were at death’s door and their assailant was still running around armed and dangerous.

  “Keep me informed, if you would, sheriff,” Ashley requested. “I’ll be in Seymour all night helping with the investigation. I’m pretty sure the man we were looking for tonight was responsible for both crimes.”

  The sheriff walked back down the hall, ducking under crime scene tape which crisscrossed the way leading up to where the student had been stabbed. Randy stood quietly behind Ashley.

  “We need to talk,” Ashley said with a serious look. She gestur
ed Randy toward a nearby classroom.

  Randy willingly led the way inside what appeared to be a chemistry classroom given the periodic table on the wall and its adjoining lab. Ashley stepped in behind him and turned to lock the door.

  “What the hell, Ashley? What are you doing?” Randy asked in surprise.

  His eyes were wide as he looked down the barrel of Ashley’s gun. By the look on her face, she meant business.

  “Are you crazy?" Randy yelled with his voice shaking. "Put that down!”

  “What am I doing? What am I doing?” Ashley growled with a deranged look on her face. “Suppose we talk about what you’re doing, Randy. Suppose you tell me what you’re doing here.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Randy said sheepishly.

  His denial prompted Ashley to cock back the hammer of her gun which she had carefully aimed between his eyes.

  “You better start remembering,” Ashley said as she looked down her sights at her fellow agent, not knowing if he was an ally or the killer. “I’ll ask you one more time. What are you doing here?”

  With his hands still raised above his head, Randy looked from side to side, realizing he had no alternative but to level with her.

  “I found out from the tower where you were going and then I drove down here,” Randy confessed. “I’d just driven up when I found you in the parking lot a few minutes ago. It took me a lot longer to drive here than I anticipated.”

  “Me too,” Ashley mumbled, recalling their close encounter in the corn field hours earlier. “You still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here and why do you keep showing up at places where you have no business.”

  “It is my business!” Randy shouted, despite the barrel of Ashley's gun still pointing at his face. “It’s more my business than it is yours!”

  Ashley relaxed for a minute, disengaging the hammer as she slowly began to lower her weapon.

  “Me and Jana were close,” Randy continued, as he was now resigned to clear the air. “Whoever this is killed her. I wanted to make sure you’d do the right thing.”