The Bride Collector

by Ted Dekker

  “Sh, now listen. Yes you can. He won’t catch you.”

  “You can’t leave me!”

  He paused. “I know I can’t. And I won’t. I won’t because I’m going to go back and put an end to this tonight.”

  “You can’t leave me!” she said again. “Not now. You’ve just found me, you’ve just said you love me, you’ve just…” The words came out in a rush, but all the while her mind was saying, He must, he loves you, he has to go back and kill the monster, he has to because he loves you…

  “You can’t leave me…”

  And you have to let him go.

  He stared at her. “He’s going to get away if I don’t, Paradise. He’ll disappear and then come back for you, and I can’t allow that. He’s obsessed with you. He won’t stop until he kills you. You understand? I can’t let you live with that threat over you. I have to end this tonight.”

  You have to let him go because you love him and you have to trust him to be who he is for you…

  She threw her arms around him to keep him from going and trembled with fear, knowing he must. How many times had she longed to be rescued, written about the man on the white horse sweeping to save the maiden… But now she had found the man on the white horse and she dreaded the thought of losing him.

  “Paradise…” He kissed her head again, then gently pried her arms away. “Paradise, please.” He kissed her face, her lips, just lightly. “Please, I love you. I’ll be back. He isn’t expecting me, right? No one in their right mind would go back, he knows that.”

  She just looked up at him, letting his stumbled-in words fall away because in truth he was right, neither of them was in their right minds, not her for wanting to go earlier, not him for going now. They were thinking with their hearts, and she would trade nothing for it.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said.

  Paradise stretched up and kissed him on his lips. It was the first time she’d ever kissed a man. They were warm and soft. And she wanted to cling to him and cry and kiss him again.

  Instead she put on her bravest face and looked up into his eyes. “Come back quickly,” she said.

  He nodded once.

  “I will.”

  39

  BRAD CUT DOWN the ditch, past the point they’d exited the field, pulled up twenty yards farther, and listened. Crickets chirped in the grove of trees south. A light breeze rustled through the fields like blowing sand on this endless shore of corn gilded by a round white moon.

  He looked back up the ditch. If he used his imagination, he could make out the form of a woman huddled up against the ditch slope in the far distance. A precious woman named Paradise who deserved and now had his complete devotion.

  But without his imagination, he couldn’t see her, and the thought of never again seeing her terrified him.

  Leaving her there to suffer yet another abandonment had wrenched his heart. But he knew that he might never have another opportunity to save, really save, Paradise. As long as Quinton Gauld was at large, Paradise’s life was in mortal danger.

  He faced south, into the cornfield. There was only one way to maintain the upper hand. He had to go in silently, quickly, and with a ruthlessness that once belonged only to those he’d hunted. For all he knew, Quinton Gauld had already fled. But assuming the man was either mounting an effort to sweep the fields or still cleaning up, Brad had to move and move now.

  He stepped into the field and snaked between the stalks as carefully as he could. At this pace, the sound of his brushing against the closely planted stalks could be noticed, but not easily distinguished from the slight swaying caused by the breeze. Either way, he had little choice. The cornfield had to be crossed.

  His plan was a simple one. Without a weapon, he didn’t stand a chance in any kind of confrontation. But there was another way. A way that would require him to gain entry to the barn without being seen. If he could just get in, he could finish this tonight.

  Heart pounding like a large rabbit’s thumpers, he snaked forward. Quickly, low, breathing as quietly as possible. He stopped ten feet from the end of the field and listened for any unusual sound.

  None. What he would give for his gun now. Even the hammer. He could have grabbed something on his way out of the barn, a rake, a stick, a metal rod, a rope, a brick, anything, but he’d neither seen nor considered taking anything. And why should he have? Only a person who’d lost his mind would come back.

  Brad slipped up to the edge of the field and peered out from the stalks. Orange light still flickered in twin upper windows and from a dozen vertical cracks along the wall. Quinton was still here.

  The fissures between the old shriveled boards were large enough to give an attentive person on the inside a view of someone on the outside. He would have to keep that in mind. Now that he thought about it, there was the possibility that Quinton had seen them as they made their escape, illuminated by the strong truck lights shining through the cracks. But he hadn’t pursued them. Either way, it no longer mattered.

  There were fewer cracks on the right side of the barn. Brad crouched low, stepped from the cornfield, and ran across the clearing toward the barn’s far corner.

  THE BARN WAS nicely lit by the moon, and from Quinton’s exterior perspective fifty yards from the southwest corner, he had a perfect view of three-quarters of the building rising like a tomb against the starry sky. He sat with his legs crossed in a yoga position, palms up, thumb and forefinger circular to help him concentrate.

  He blended into the wheat field that rose behind him just above his head. Rain Man’s flight into the field had taken them to the northwest; assuming he returned, he would probably come from the same direction. Even if he changed his angle of approach considerably, Quinton would see him coming.

  Fully expecting Quinton to be inside the barn cleaning up like a madman, the fox would peer through one of the cracks and be unnerved by the fact that his prey was not in sight. The fox would then circle the barn stealthily, trying to pinpoint Quinton’s whereabouts before he rushed in for the kill-assuming Rain Man was as smart as Quinton thought he was.

  If Rain Man did not return, Quinton would clean up and leave in the next hour, long before the sun rose. And he would return later to finish what he’d started. He was a patient man. He’d waited seven years already; another few months would not be a problem.

  All was in order. Quinton would not disappoint those peering eyes from the night again. Particularly not now that he finally understood his true purpose.

  The only thing slightly off was the sound. The buzzing in his brain had become a grinding. It was so loud now that he could hardly distinguish it from the crickets. Not that his hearing mattered at this point. He would rely on his eyesight and superior intelligence, having set hearing and emotion aside for the moment.

  His mind was bright enough to illuminate the world.

  His hatred, on the other hand, was so dark that he had begun to relish the thought of killing Paradise for the smell and taste of the blood alone.

  His advantage wasn’t limited to these strengths. His buzzing intelligence had also shown him precisely how, armed with nothing but sticks and stones, the fox intended to kill him.

  Rain Man would try to burn the barn down with him and his truck in it. And for that he would need only a well-thrown stick or rock. Like David slaying Goliath.

  This was why Quinton waited where he did, safely on the outside, ready to move when the time came. Leaving the truck parked in the barn presented a risk, but he couldn’t remove it without tipping his hand. Either way, sitting in the yoga position against the wheat field put Quinton in the perfect position.

  The cornfield on the opposite side of the clearing suddenly parted and Rain Man darted out, crouched low, offering a low profile to any bullet.

  Quinton was on his feet already. The fox was there, scurrying.

  But the Hound of Hell was ready and his fangs were already barred.

  BRAD CAME TO a gliding halt against the corner of th
e barn and pressed his back against the boards, breathing through his nose. He’d stuffed five rocks into his pockets from the ditch, two in his right, three in his left, but he would use them only if he couldn’t find something large with which to smash the lamps.

  Once broken, the kerosene would spray over the hay-strewn ground and the bales nearby, and in a matter of two or three seconds a blaze too large to contain would be raging.

  Next would be the truck. He’d considered a dozen possible scenarios that might allow him to disable the vehicle, but they all required him to gain an advantage once the chaos ensued. It would take surprisingly few hay bales to stop the truck long enough to smash a second lamp over its hood or bludgeon its radiator with Quinton’s small sledgehammer.

  Brad didn’t necessarily need to kill the man here. A burning barn would make a signal fire visible for miles, and the road out of this place took a considerable amount of time to navigate.

  They were all long odds, but allowing a sociopathic monster of Quinton Gauld’s intelligence to escape offered even longer odds for Paradise’s survival.

  The night was quiet. He eased to his right and peered through a half-inch crack. The truck’s green paint looked dark by the flame’s light. Both lamps sat on wooden barrels on either side of the makeshift wall, untouched. Hay bales rested everywhere. But Brad’s view of the table was blocked by the bales.

  No sign of the man. He had to determine the killer’s location, track him, wait for the right opportunity, create his distraction at the back, then run around to the front and enter the barn with the truck between him and Quinton, who would have been drawn to the rear by the distraction.

  Then and only then would he go after the nearest lamp, and then the truck.

  But there was no sign of Quinton. From this angle he could only see part of the barn, the bed of the truck, the blankets, but little else. The man could be anywhere.

  Thinking about it now, Brad feared something would go terribly wrong. Quinton Gauld wasn’t the kind of man who made many mistakes, and having made one or two that allowed Brad and Paradise to escape, he would be prepared.

  Breathing deep to calm himself, Brad slipped along the wall, keeping low. He had to get to the far side to get a clear view of the table. As soon as he could track the man, a simple bang on the wall would draw his attention while Brad hurried around to the main entrance.

  The details drummed through his mind, rehearsing the unknown, ears tingling with tension.

  The rear door was cracked open. He stopped and considered this. But it made sense-Quinton would have searched at least the perimeter before retreating, perhaps through this door. That was fifteen or twenty minutes ago. So what had he been doing since? Why all so quiet?

  Brad moved forward on the balls of his feet. He had to make visual contact. He had to locate the man first.

  A three-inch gap separated the door from the old rotting frame, filled now with orange light, like a monster’s eye just barely open while it slept. Brad reached it, thought about looking inside, but decided that the door’s slightest movement might betray him.

  Just beyond the door, there was a gap between two boards, he would…

  The blow on the back of his head came out of nowhere, like a giant cobra strike on his skull. Pain raged down his spine. He knew then, as he collapsed to the ground, why he hadn’t seen Quinton on the inside of the barn.

  The killer was out here with him.

  40

  IT WAS FASCINATING and immensely satisfying, and now Quinton knew why his subconscious had allowed him to make the small mistakes that had allowed Rain Man his short-lived freedom. Having faced defeat and overcome it by recapturing the fox, he was now able to relish the man’s demise with unsurpassed satisfaction.

  This is what Quinton Gauld told himself as he gazed at the scene he’d reconstructed. There sat Brad Raines, the man who would steal his bride, tied to the same post he’d escaped from, albeit only the stub.

  Quinton had snuck up behind the man with supreme confidence, gun aimed at the back of his head just in case he turned, in which case Quinton would have shot him before hauling him inside. As it turned out, the man’s pounding heart had likely prevented him from hearing the footfall of Quinton’s feather-light feet on the soft ground.

  One blow to the back of his head had incapacitated the man, and Quinton had dragged him through the door and secured him to the post. Blood trailed down the man’s neck from the fresh cut on his scalp. He was finally waking to play his role. The scene was intoxicating. Beautiful.

  This is what Quinton told himself, but the buzzing in his brain kept him from truly relishing his victory in the way he was meant to.

  He paced around Rain Man, absorbing his suffering, curious as to why this man would risk so much for a woman whom society had sequestered away in an institution.

  He looked down at the slumped form lying on his side. “Please sit up.” He nudged the man with his foot. “Up, up, we don’t have all night. It takes more time than you realize to drill and drain a human body.”

  Rain Man groaned. Because his hands were tied behind his back, he struggled to get his legs under his body and sit. The man mumbled a curse.

  “Please, we’re beyond that, aren’t we? Hmm? Cursing, shouting, spitting, pulling against the ropes-all behaviors that only undermine people like you and me.”

  Rain Man stared up at him with dark eyes as if he was trying to explode Quinton’s head with this bitter stare.

  “And stop looking at me as if I’m some kind of monster. True, I am a monster, but then neither cursing, shouting, spitting, struggling against the ropes, nor harsh stares will help you any more than they helped Nikki. So let’s be civilized for a moment, shall we?”

  The man’s glare did not soften. “What kind of men are we, Quinton?”

  “Real men. Stripped of the facade social conditioning paints on the masses. We see the truth, you and me. I am the hound from hell and you are the crafty fox out to steal my prize. We both recognize beauty and we are both in love with Paradise.”

  “But that’s wrong, isn’t it? I love Paradise. You hate her. Remember?”

  “Well then, I love to hate her. Either way, we both know how to love.” He frowned at his begging carcass of an adversary. “This is the part where you begin to utter bitter protests, attempting to set me straight. One or two would be okay, get them out of your system.”

  The man didn’t, but then Quinton didn’t expect that he would. Rain Man’s resolve began to melt from his face, replaced by a sagging look of defeat. It was a bit pathetic, really. Watching such a worthy mind reduced to this defeated slab of flesh… Quinton had to hold back a sudden urge to kick him in the jaw. Wake up, wake up, you holy ghost! Don’t let me walk all over you like this!

  “You look pathetic,” he said.

  A tear broke from Rain Man’s right eye. His weakness was intolerable! Quinton considered changing his plan on the spot. He should put this shallow shell of a ghost out of his misery with a single blow to his head. Seeing a weak man beg for his life was expected and therefore acceptable. Seeing a frail woman cry for mercy was satisfying because she was only playing a role that reflected the greater weakness of the world.

  But watching this fox of a ghost crumble was beyond the pale. Like the boy whom he’d slapped in Elway’s eating establishment, Brad Raines needed a good blow to his head.

  “Disgusting,” Quinton said.

  “You’ll never catch her,” Rain Man said. His tone was strong and laced with conviction.

  It occurred to Quinton then that the fox wasn’t crying for himself. His tears were for Paradise. This wasn’t a picture of a shriveling mouse accepting his defeat. It was, in fact, the very opposite.

  Rain Man was uncaring of his own life, crushed by the prospect of harm to the one he loved. His tears were for Paradise, not for himself. This was not cowardice but nobility.

  Quinton was so upset by the realization that for a few moments he couldn’t speak. But even
in such a frayed state he had to ask himself why. And even as he asked himself why, his buzzing intelligence gave him the answer.

  He was jealous of Rain Man.

  Insanely jealous. He was, in fact, as jealous of Rain Man’s love and nobility as he was of the beauty in Paradise, God’s favorite.

  It occurred to him that his hands were shaking badly. He looked down at them, mesmerized. This, then, was his greatest test. Not abducting seven brides, not draining their blood to present them unblemished, not realizing his true purpose, not manipulating Rain Man for his purpose, not even luring Paradise in with Rain Man’s screams of pain.

  His greatest challenge was to be who he was. To be what society wanted but didn’t have the guts to be. To resist the respect and honor that tempted him at this very moment and to embrace the evil that haunted him.

  “I find you disgusting,” he said, and he walked to the table, picked up the yellow battery-operated drill, and squeezed the trigger.

  The strong DeWalt electric motor whirred smoothly, filling him with calm. He’d adjust the tension on the clutch so that it would cut cleanly through bone without binding.

  There was something about bones. Something most people found deeply disturbing about the prospect of reaching through the skin of the human body and tinkering with the inner, hidden self. No one wanted their veneer penetrated. By drilling Quinton accomplished two important tasks at once.

  First, he made a small opening through the heel that allowed gravity to efficiently drain the body’s blood supply. But second, drilling penetrated the facade and exposed the true bone of the bride. Or, in this case, the man.

  Satisfied that the drill was fully operational, he lowered it to his side and walked over to Rain Man, who watched him with a surprisingly neutral stare. Was there no end to the man’s valor? He could see that it might take more than one or two holes to make the man scream.

  “Now, listen to me,” Quinton said. “This isn’t necessarily personal…”

  “Yes it is.”