The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset

by Ethan Cross

  Not all of the men were thugs, covered in tattoos and mouths filled full of golden teeth. There was only one of them who fit that mold. Two of the five could have been former military. They were precisely dressed with high and tight haircuts. Another had the look of a former college football player with NFL aspirations. The diversity made sense. The ULF and Lash attracted all types of young black men who felt marginalized by society.

  With one rotation lasting only two seconds, Ackerman knew exactly how the coming conflict would play out. He knew which one of the five men would attack first. He knew which would hang back. He knew the order in which he would dispatch them.

  He laughed to himself at the multitude of tactical errors Lash had made while dealing with him. How had Lash ever risen to such prominence? Ackerman supposed it was all good looks and charm rather than brains and common sense, as it was with many politicians and cult leaders.

  First of all, Lash should have known that it was always a mistake to let your opponent see the attack coming. If your opponent was skilled, that gave him or her a chance to analyze, adapt, and overcome. Surprise was key. Ackerman’s father had always drilled that into his head. A shocking, blitzkrieg-style attack was always more effective.

  Of course, Ackerman couldn’t judge Lash too harshly. After all, he himself seldom followed that particular rule. Something was lost in a surprise attack. He missed the fear on the face of his adversary. The anticipation. The regret. The doubt. Humanity at its best and worst. In a furious stealth strike, the attacker only received a second of that. That had always seemed a terrible waste to Ackerman. He enjoyed the foreplay almost more than the payoff.

  Lash said, “Are you aware that you’re talking out loud? And in the third person?”

  Ackerman shrugged. “Apologies. When I get bored with a situation, I sometimes do a sort of voice narration in my head. Anyway, I already surmised that you had a way of deactivating the security system here at the prison. How else would you plan an uprising?”

  Lash said, “What uprising? How would you know anything about any kind of uprising?”

  “The one that’s supposed to cover your escape.”

  Lash narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

  Ackerman continued, “If you couldn’t speak freely, then you couldn’t work out your escape plan with even your most trusted lieutenants. And to pull off something like this, you would need some help on the inside. You have the money and resources. You could hire someone with the skills to get you out. Someone who could infiltrate a facility like this. You’ve obviously been planning this since you first had the opportunity to come to Foxbury. Maybe you even arranged for you and your men to be some of the ones chosen to become part of Powell’s experiment. And I would also surmise that you have contingencies in place to cover not only your escape from Foxbury but from the country as well.”

  Lash just smiled as he said, “You can kill him now, please.”

  Ackerman raised the extension cord and the pair of scissors above his head. He held them up like a talisman. Like Moses poised to turn his staff into a snake.

  Ackerman had expected this outcome and knew that he needed a way of triggering an alarm. The most direct way he could think of to trigger an alarm was so simple that thousands of toddlers managed it every year. But his tools and options were restricted by the prison’s behavior analysis software. Still, it hadn’t been too difficult to make plugging in an extension cord and using a pair of small scissors seem non-threatening under the guise of the laundry room. He had simply pretended to be a convict mending a shirt.

  Ackerman paused and looked at the floor. Was he thinking all that or had he said it all out loud? He supposed it didn’t really matter either way.

  He held the wires up high and made sure Lash understood what they were before he said, “I set this up so that I could jam these scissors into the end of this extension cord. By doing this, I will succeed in kicking a breaker in this room. Now, ask yourself why would I want to kick a breaker?”

  Lash’s lip curled up as if he wanted to snarl at Ackerman rather than speak. Lash said, “Because kicking a breaker could mean that a resident is trying to disable the cameras, or lots of other things they wouldn’t want happening. A kicked breaker in a room like this, where no one is working, would probably trigger a full-on alarm.”

  “And send the guards and the tactical team running. I think they might find it interesting that you were about to kill me, but their security system didn’t notice.”

  “You don’t know for sure that kicking a breaker will trigger an alert and send the guards,” Lash said.

  As he spoke, Lash gave a signal with his eyes to one of the men behind Ackerman. Lash was clumsily trying to distract him and trigger an attack.

  The whole thing insulted Ackerman a bit. Did Lash really think that he was the kind of man who wouldn’t notice something like that? Did Lash still underestimate him? Did his adversary still not respect him? That injustice needed to be rectified.

  Normally, in a situation like this, Ackerman would have killed all of the attackers, but he had promised his brother not to murder anyone. That promise, however, did not cover maiming or paralyzing.

  Ackerman jammed the scissors into the end of the extension cord, right into the slots where the prongs would normally fit. Then he twisted until the lights went out. As darkness fell, he spun on the large black man who had been trying to sneak up on him. The one with the look of an NFL linebacker. Ackerman ducked under the man’s clumsy attack and brought the heel of his shoe down on the outside the man’s knee. The leg cracked and gave way under his substantial weight. The linebacker dropped to the ground, screaming.

  Ackerman rushed forward a few feet, rolled onto one of the sorting tables, and stood on it to analyze his surroundings. He watched the vague shadows of his attackers get their bearings in the dark, let their eyes adjust, and then he watched them scanning for him.

  The thug in the group reached him first. Thug jumped up onto the metal sorting table beside Ackerman and then came at him low and hard, as if he intended to tackle him. Ackerman dropped all the way to the table’s surface and spun on his axis in a sweeping kick that dragged the thug’s feet out from beneath him. The man slipped off the side of the sturdy, metal sorting table, his upper torso rotating around and his head cracking off the table’s surface.

  Ackerman dropped and rolled to the ground and moved back to where he had originally been standing. He had kept hold of the tiny scissors, not that they would do much damage.

  As he moved, he was very careful where he stepped.

  The next contender was one of the former military men. This one had some training and skill. He had kept hold of his shank and held it out with confidence. He swiped at Ackerman with fluid and controlled movements. Ackerman was impressed. The man clearly had skill with a blade.

  But Ackerman also had skill with a blade. And brains enough to cheat. He held out the small scissors as if they were a bowie knife and gestured for the military man to bring it on. The big former soldier laughed and then lunged forward. He closed up the distance between himself and Ackerman in one big step.

  Unfortunately for him, he stepped right onto the spot where Ackerman had intentionally spilled fabric softener in preparation for this very encounter. The military man fell and cracked his head on a metal post.

  Ackerman hoped the man didn’t die from that blow. If he was going to break the promise he had made to his brother, he at least wanted to savor it and put in some quality time with a knife. He definitely didn’t want to break his promise by having some clumsy oaf break his own skull open.

  The football player was still screaming on the tile floor. Ackerman scooped up the homemade knife that the linebacker had dropped and turned back on the final attacker, who was closing in for one last-ditch effort with his own crudely fashioned weapon, a lead pipe. The final member of the goon squad was a huge bodybuilder type of man, and although his muscles gave this last opponent a lot of power, they hinder
ed the grace of his movements.

  The bodybuilder came at Ackerman in much the same way a gorilla with a lead pipe would approach a poacher. Ackerman spun like a flamenco dancer, slashing his newly acquired blade across the bodybuilder’s abdomen. He made sure not to push too far—just enough pressure and depth to make a painful but superficial incision. In the past, he would have spilled the man’s guts. Not doing so now felt like such a missed opportunity.

  The bodybuilder grabbed his stomach and dropped the pipe. Ackerman reversed the motion of his arm and drove his elbow into the bodybuilder’s spine, sending the big man stumbling forward. Ackerman then kicked out the bodybuilder’s legs, dropping him fully to the floor. The big man caught himself against one of the sorting tables. He was regaining his balance with relative ease.

  Ackerman was proud of him, but he also needed the bodybuilder out of commission, and so Ackerman drove the prison-made shank straight through the center of the man’s hand, embedding it in the surface of the table.

  By this time, Lash had apparently decided to take a more active role.

  He came at Ackerman like a man with knowledge of a blade, like someone who had killed with one in the past and had enjoyed it. But it was also clear that those skills hadn’t been put to use in some time. The knowledge was there and, in most cases, that would have been enough. But to try to take out Ackerman, Lash would have needed daily practice for years. The mind and the body would have needed to work in perfect unison.

  The sloppy maneuvering and desperate attack from the aging ULF leader really was the last straw of disrespect for Ackerman. He felt that he had more than adequately demonstrated that he was both intelligent and formidable to this man, but still Leonard Lash treated him like a common criminal. Did he think he was just some nosy thug who needed to be eliminated like a losing investment from a stock portfolio?

  Ackerman caught Lash by the wrist as the older man lunged with his shank. Then Ackerman drove his own forearm into Lash’s and wrenched back on the man’s wrist with the opposite hand. The forearm snapped, and Lash screamed in agony, dropping to his knees and clutching his damaged wrist.

  Ackerman pounced on Lash, driving his knees into the man’s chest and toppling him back onto the tile floor. He dug his fingertips into the flesh of Lash’s neck. He thought of how easily he could rip out the contents of this powerful man’s throat. To hear the crunch, feel the warm gush around his fingers, hear the gurgling as Leonard Lash’s lungs filled with blood.

  Tactical flashlights lit the room as guards pushed their way inside. They screamed for Ackerman to release his hold and get on the ground. But all Ackerman could think about was drinking Lash’s blood and watching the life fade from his eyes.

  He was glad that the guards at Foxbury were all armed with handheld Tasers. If they hadn’t been, he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to resist tearing out Lash’s throat.

  But, thankfully, he felt the sweet pain of the spikes penetrating his body and the cool rush of an electrical jolt coursing through his muscles.

  In every other prison at which he had been a guest, guards weren’t allowed to carry weapons of any kind, but here at Foxbury, the guards played by different rules. It showed the level of confidence Powell had in his system. A system which Ackerman knew was about to fail. And all the electrical shocks in the world were not going to stop that from happening.

  *

  FILE #750265-6726-692

  Zolotov, Dmitry - AKA The Judas Killer

  State Exhibit F

  Description: Diary Entry

  The first “person” I killed was a little boy about my age. I think I was eleven at the time. It’s hard for me to place events by my age because we never celebrated my birthday as a child. The only memory that ever came close was once when Father tossed me a McDonald’s bag loaded down by a half-eaten quarter pounder with cheese. He said, “Happy birthday. I think you’re double digits now.” That was at the beginning of November, and so I estimate my age based on the time before or after that event.

  But I don’t consider that other little boy to be my first kill. My first kill was the dog.

  We were working a local homecoming festival just a bit outside Boise, Idaho, when I decided to take things to the next level. I never really did much in the animal experimentation phase, torturing alley cats and such. I was usually too busy working for Father. But with the windfall of cash coming in, we had hired some other guys and had started branching out. Father started easing up the leash and allowing me a bit more freedom and free time.

  Well, I suppose the devil makes work for idle hands.

  I had been skimming money off the top of Father’s operation since we started on the midway. At the beginning, that didn’t amount to much, and I spent it all on food. Now with the success of The Judas Game, Father actually had something I could steal.

  I used some of that money to buy a ridiculously large knife from one of the small tent vendors who followed the fair circuit. He smelled like baby oil and had hungry eyes, but he also had all kinds of cool stuff. Imitation Oakleys. Airsoft guns. Toys. But the items in his inventory that interested me the most were the knives.

  I had been having this recurring daydream about killing an animal with a knife. I don’t think I knew what kind of animal it was. The dream was more about the feelings of the act. And I remember fantasizing about it and feeling great power. So I wanted to see if that experience in real life would live up to my imaginings.

  I planned the event in great detail. I went out one night after Father passed out and wandered the neighborhood of the small town we had stayed the night in. I knew we’d be there for at least one more night. So I went on a recon mission that first night. I wandered the barely lit back streets of the town. I moved with the shadows, staying out of sight. I felt like a knight going on a quest. Hell, the knife I was carrying was practically a sword compared to my small frame at the time.

  It took a bit of walking, but I found my dragon. He was some ugly, malnourished mutt. Brown and white and looking like some pit bull and Rottweiler mix. I found him lying in the dirt beside an old clapboard dog house. I could see the spots in the yard where he’d run out and barked his head off at some encroaching enemy. He was guarding his double-wide trailer kingdom.

  During my recon mission, I walked up close enough to get the dragon to charge. I looked in his eyes. The ferocity and animal purity I saw there was beautiful.

  Killing him would be like slaying a dragon. It would be a feat of courage and strength.

  I sat down in his yard just beyond his reach. He didn’t let up. He was going to tear my throat out if it took pulling against that chain for a thousand years. I sat there and watched him until I heard his owner coming to shut him up. Then I ran home and started my preparations.

  The next day was long and tedious, but I finally reached the evening. Father had passed out on the toilet, and I donned my knight’s armor and went out to slay my dragon.

  When I reached the enemy’s kingdom, I crept as close as I could and then I charged. I think he was taken aback. This dragon had probably never been challenged like this. But its confusion and shock lasted only a split second, and then anger and ferocity took over. From that point on, it was biting and blood and slashing and stabbing. Just a blur of well-planned but poorly executed attacks. What I remember most is standing over the body of the dragon, its head nearly severed, my left arm and shoulder dripping blood where the creature’s teeth had torn into me.

  Standing over that beast, having defeated it in combat, proving that I was more than just a slave. I felt like a gladiator winning his freedom. I felt more powerful and free than I ever had before.

  *

  The sign at the entrance was brown and red and yellow and in the shape of the state of Arizona. The top third resembled a sunset and displayed the words Arizona Department of Corrections. The bottom two-thirds was the color of wet sand and announced the name of the facility itself: Correctional Officer Training Academy.

/>   COTA, as Major Ingram had been calling it, sat on forty acres in the western foothills bordering Tucson. The buildings were made of light-red and brown brick. As they pulled through the gate, Maggie wondered what the place looked like from a satellite’s view. Other than a few areas of fake grass and concrete, the facility probably blended right into the desert landscape.

  Commander Emery, the head of the academy, greeted them at the front door and, after a bit of friendly catching up between him and Major Ingram, led them past classrooms and training areas to a conference room adjoining his office. The whole place smelled of lemon-scented cleaner and reminded Maggie of a community college. Two men and one woman in brown and tan uniforms waited for them inside. Emery took a seat and said, “These are three of my best instructors. They have direct contact with all of the recruits. What do you need from us?”

  Maggie slid six manila file folders across the dark cherry table. “The man behind this isn’t just some normal guy who snapped. He has resources and skills beyond what we would expect from a person like that. This guy’s a professional. He’s doing this for a reason. Probably money or some kind of cause. So it’s unlikely that any veteran guards would have committed this crime. We believe that someone who graduated from the academy within the past year would be most likely. Luckily, Foxbury doesn’t have as many guards as a normal prison, and they’ve all been vetted for behavior and psychiatric problems. They’re all clean.”

  Commander Emery said, “If all the guards are clean, then what do you need to speak with us about? Any incidents of note would have been in the files.”

  “Yes, but we want to get an impression of these men. Out of the thirty officers at Foxbury, we’ve narrowed the list to these six men.” Maggie read off the names, saving the best one for last. She kept her eyes on Jerry Dunn as she said the last name. His dark hair looked greasy. His tan shirt was slightly too large, but she could still see that there was muscle beneath it. Dunn wasn’t necessarily small. It was more that he presented himself as being small. As if he sucked in the space around him and shrank in perception only.