Behind the Fire: A Dark Thriller (17 page)

Except, on the occasional stormy night since my dream, I do wonder if behind the lightning and wild wind there could possibly some alien creature watching and waiting. After all, Earth is a beautiful planet, who wouldn’t want to live here?

I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit behind dark doors. Thank you for reading my stories. 

You can find the other collections available in eBook or paperback online. Currently this volume and the other two volumes of Behind More Dark Doors are available in the
Behind Dark Doors (the complete collection)
 at a 
great discount. 
If you have enjoyed this volume, grab the entire eighteen suspenseful short stories in one book:

3 massacres, 2 detectives, 1 writer, 0 answers

“A riveting thriller… highly recommend to every mystery thriller fan.” Suspense Magazine

Discover the book readers are calling
the most terrifying impossible-to-put-down thriller released this year,
by the author readers are naming
the next Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
and the
female Stephen King.

Freelancer Kendall Jennings writes fluff pieces for women's magazines. When a horrific massacre occurs at Café Amaretto, she scores an exclusive interview with a survivor. Suddenly, she's the go-to reporter for the crime.

Investigating veteran detective Lance O'Grady and his partner Trip are tasked with finalizing the open and shut case. Seven people are dead at the hands of an unprovoked killer wielding an axe.

Then another mass killing occurs. This time, arson, and ten eldercare facility residents die in the blaze. Again the killer dies at the scene. The crimes have no motive, and Lance O'Grady is left wondering how evil can strike twice in such a short space of time.

Then it happens again. Even more shocking: a mother with a gun goes on a rampage at a family birthday party.

The killers share one odd detail: none have a murderer's profile. No history of violence. No connection to terrorists. No vendettas. Ordinary citizens suddenly just became killers.

Drawn deeper inside the crime investigation, Kendall finds herself not only clashing with O'Grady but also struggling with old demons. O'Grady resents this interfering reporter, whose presence provokes memories of a personal tragedy.

What Kendall and O'Grady don't realize is they are caught in a plot far greater reaching than just these crimes. Someone is sending a message. And unless they can decipher the meaning, very soon, many more will die.

Deadly Messengers, an unputdownable thriller, poses the question: Does a killer lurk inside everyone? The answer may prove more frightening than the crimes.

TOBY BENSON PAUSED AT THE alley’s entrance to hoist the ungainly blue sports bag higher on his shoulder. Traveling here, the awkward, precious cargo had caused the bag to slip down his arm, forcing him to stop several times to rebalance the weight.

He stared up the dark corridor of gray shadows and fractured shapes, the towering buildings only allowing the barest slip of light to enter from the full moon overhead. Wall lights hung above the back entrances to the establishments illuminating a collection of trash containers, sentinels to the doors. A perfect location to film a horror movie; just add haunting music and the audience would be clued something terrifying was about to happen.

Toby didn’t notice these things. Somewhere deep inside, perhaps, he registered them on a subconscious level, understood he should be afraid or this wasn’t the place for him. If he did, though, the thought didn’t make it through to that part of his brain controlled by self-preservation.

He saw nothing except a strange mist settled over his vision like a swirling film on the surface of a pond. He heard nothing except the voice in his head, which he imagined came from God, spoken with such authority he couldn’t resist. The voice knew him, wanted to help him and guide him toward his destiny.

At the end of the brick corridor a doorway lay, guarded on either side by two tall commercial waste containers. Pieces of trash dotted about their bases as though rejected competitors that hadn’t made the cut—scattered bottles, empty cardboard fast-food containers, plastic bags, paper, and even what looked like a woman’s shirt. Wasteful. Thoughtless. Humanity’s flotsam discarded to become someone else’s problem.

Human beings were filthy creatures.

He noted the fleeting thought, but decided it was unimportant and unrelated to his future. To the mission.

The back door glowed a fluorescent green as though it were showing him the perfect entry. A signal he was on the right path.

Green meant go to him, but he didn’t fully understand why.

On the opposite side of the building would be the front door to Café Amaretto. Toby knew this area well, the entertainment section of the city, populated with myriad restaurants and clubs, ranging from small cafés to silver service establishments.

As he neared the doorway, the green intensified, the light piercing his eyes, making his brain feel as though it were pulsing. The alley, which had been dark upon his entry, now appeared bathed in green. This radiance, like colored breadcrumbs, gave him assurance this was his mission path.

This way. This is for you.

He’d followed the markers for the past hour, and they’d led him here. A streetlight, a car, a crosswalk sign—they were all just like the door. At first they would shimmer softly with a gentle hum of color against the darkness of night, then intensify as he neared, so he never doubted his path.

The voice buzzed again in his brain. He stopped and listened, tilting his head to the left, then the right, stretching his neck. The sound of his joints cracking like a sharp snap, felt like a mini-explosion in his skull.

Then he was moving again. The voice wanted him inside that door. 
He
 wanted to be inside that door.

Ten more steps and he would be inside and then—

Wait.

Toby stopped, his feet felt suddenly magnetized to the ground. He stared at the door a few steps away. Inside the door lay his future, the rest of his life, the thing he was born to do, an act to change the world. 
So said the voice.

Doubts slipped into his mind, a million ideas and images circling simultaneously as the gray film covering his eyes disappeared.

Why did it matter? Why was he really here?

An urgent idea swept over him. He should be home asleep, or watching television, his girlfriend snuggled against him.

The word 
desperate
 hung before his eyes, ferociously demanding his attention, with the same fierceness the door beckoned. He 
should
 be home. Not here. Not in this alley. Not ten steps from that door.

Toby wanted to turn and walk away. His legs wouldn’t move, wouldn’t allow him control. His desire to move forward greater than his desire to back away and abort the mission.

Mission?

Where did that come from?

He didn’t go on 
missions.
 He went to work. He came home. He made plans for the weekend. Plans for dinner. Plans for the future. He thought about his past, only twenty-seven years in the making. He didn’t walk down dark alleys. Not like this.

Toby began to turn, to walk away, but the sight of the door caught him. The deep green flashing: 
Enter me. Enter me, now!

He did want to enter. 
Yes.
 Be inside, on the other side of the door. The need, strong, intoxicating, overpowering him like a drug. The thought wended through his synapses, drilling into his subconscious until thoughts of his girlfriend and his life disappeared, until it became him and the door, and the thing stowed inside his bag.

Ten steps, he now took, the sound of his boots echoing in the hollow of the alley, the reverberations, earthquake loud in his skull. All doubts evaporated, his steps, the sound of destiny as he approached the door.

He shrugged his shoulders and stretched a hand across his chest to yank the bag from his shoulder, allowing it to drop to the ground at his feet. Bending to it, he pulled back the zipper and reached inside, his hand electrified as he found the prize he sought.

Toby drew the axe up, the smooth weight soothing to his palm, his skin melding with the wood as though an extension of his body. This axe had served him well. Last autumn, when he’d removed the tree whose roots insisted on invading the front pathway, its blade swung true and straight. Now it would serve another purpose. Just as true. Just as straight.

He reached for the door’s metal handle. As he turned the knob, he felt the click of the enabled lock resisting him. He took two steps back, examining the impediment. The gray film swimming before his eyes had returned, blurring his vision. Still he saw what needed to be done.

It would take two hands. He knew this from chopping the tree. He moved his left hand to the axe and swung the weighty and powerful tool over his shoulder. Then back at the door. As the blade slammed just left of the handle, the crack of splitting wood sounded sharp and loud.

A fracture appeared in the door, jagged splinters protruding from the dull, white surface.

Again.

He repeated the action, this time swinging with even more conviction. This time his aim was true. The blade sliced through the wood, hitting the internal lock. The door instantly sprang open as if relieved to be free of constraint.

Toby shifted the axe to his left hand and reached down to pull open the door. Coming from behind the entry, he heard voices and the sound of shattering plates and glasses.

The light from within spilled out, enveloping him in a pool of brilliance. He blinked rapidly, momentarily blinded, the light painfully piercing his eyes. Then, as though an automatic recalibration was made, he could see again.

Inside lay a small kitchen, fifteen feet by ten feet wide. Two men, dressed in t-shirts and jeans, wearing white aprons from chest to knees, stood staring at him. To the side, a ponytailed woman, wearing a white shirt and black skirt, covered her mouth with her hands. At her feet lay the shattered mess of an unserved meal and drinks.

Toby looked toward the men, then to the woman. Behind her, he noted another door. The door to Amaretto Café’s dining area filled with patrons enjoying a meal; laughing, drinking, eating, never thinking in the next five minutes their destiny would change. Soon something would enter their lives and they would be part of changing the world. Part of the message.

Those who survived.

“What the hell?” The speaker was a burly man with a carefully groomed three-day beard and blue bandanna tied about his head. His hand clasped a fryer basket submerged in bubbling oil. He hadn’t moved, still standing in the same position since Toby had entered. His eyes were as white as the dinner plates laying on the counter.

“Listen, buddy, we don’t want no trouble. Whatever you’re thinking, we just don’t—”

The third person in the kitchen, a scruffy teenager, skinny, with a pimple-peppered face, stepped back toward the sink. Dishes and pans overflowed the suds as though the sink was some kind of birthing incubator.

The three smelled of fear and confusion, vulnerable human beings now part of something they’d only imagined in nightmares. They didn’t understand. This was a good thing. Soon they’d see. Just like Toby, who didn’t fully understand, but still knew what needed to be done. Thanks to the voice, he was getting the picture, slide by slide, word by word, command by command.

Take the axe.

The voice was inside his mind, commanding his body. He sensed it wasn’t his own thoughts, but he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t need direction on what to do with the axe, so hefty in his hand. He’d never done this before, never seen it done before, yet he knew. He knew to move fast. In seconds, they’d rally. It’d be the waitress, who decided to move, to leave the other two. It was in her eyes, the realization she couldn’t help them. She could only help herself.

She wasn’t quick enough—not for Toby on his mission.

Move quickly forward. Eight, maybe nine steps, is all. Swing now.

Toby accepted the commands firing in his brain, pulled back the gate inside his mind, the guard of all things sane, and allowed the impulses to travel from his head to his body. His arm twitched as the energy flowed through his being, down his arms and his legs, through his hands and his feet. Blue ice travelling at light speed.