Dark Luck (A Suspense Thriller) (10 page)

“You have to be very quick, Zack. Use the knife. One
fast move. And don’t worry: no one is looking, no one gives a shit about the
pigs. These jerks harass folks every damn day and it’s about time someone
showed them.”

“Okay.”

Keeping an eye on the patrolman’s reflection in the
side mirror, Zack pulled the knife out of his hoodie pocket and took a deep
breath.

“Can I see your license, registration, and proof of
insurance, please?” the cop said in a monotone voice, peering into the window.

“Sure, Sir.” Zack flashed a sunny smile. “Do you have a
family, officer?” 

“Can I see your license, registration, and proof of
insurance, please?” No change in the tone whatsoever.

Zack expected the man, who appeared to be in his
forties, to call him ‘son,’ but it didn’t happen.

“Do you have children?” As he gazed at the patrolman,
Zack found himself feeling giddy and proud. He was entering the big leagues
now, you know. The person he was about to kill wasn’t a teenage kid or a
soft-handed chick; this guy could probably knock him out with one punch. And
don’t forget the man had a loaded gun on him.

Would they mention this murder on the news? How would
they describe it?

Making sure not to stick his hand too far out of the
window, Zack presented the registration card, which he had found in the glove
compartment earlier while battling boredom. The patrolman reached for the card,
and that was when Zack struck.

With his left hand, Zack grabbed the cop by the wrist
and pulled him down towards the window. Caught by surprise, the patrolman
didn’t put up much resistance, but even if he had tried to keep from bending
forward, Zack would still have been able to force him down, he had no doubt
about it. Once the cop’s forehead hit the cant rail, Zack swiftly slit the
man’s throat with the knife he was holding in his right hand. Then he pushed
the patrolman’s body away from the car so that blood wouldn’t get sprayed or
spilled into the window.

“There’s a dash cam in his car,” Jeremy said. “I’m
pretty sure they’ll be able to make out the license plate, so we’ve got to find
another ride.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Probably an hour. And no, the recorder is locked and
it’s going to take too long to open it. Let’s just get moving, baby.”

“What about his gun? I’d like to have it. We might need
a gun someday, you know.”

“Okay, okay, let’s take it. But first put the hood on
your head just in case.”

Following Jeremy’s instructions, Zack turned the
steering wheel all the way to the left and backed up, blocking the dash
camera’s view of the cop’s body. Then he got out of the car and, crouching,
stepped over to the patrolman.

“Hurry up, man,” Jeremy said.

Zack quickly opened the cop’s holster, pulled out the
pistol, and hopped back behind the wheel.

“Go, man, go!”

12.

The doctor lived in one of those big
modern-looking rectangular houses with huge windows, which must have cost a
fortune to heat in the winter. There surely was an architectural term for a
residence like Stevenson’s, and Zack thought that he could search for it online
once he took care of the business at hand.

It should be especially upsetting to die when life was
so good. Yeah, poor Mister Stevenson would be mighty pissed off as he took his
last breath.

“Now let me tell you why we’re really here,” Jeremy
said. “You will kill Doctor Stevenson. You could cut his throat with that nice
knife of yours.”

“I thought he was going to help me with my condition.”

“I was just messing with you, buddy. You don’t need
help, you’re perfectly fine. We’re here because it was Stevenson who chopped
the extra finger off your hand fourteen years ago. You obviously forgot his
name, but I remembered it.”

“Yeah, we’ve got to punish him.”

“Right on, buddy, we have to give him what he deserves.
Cut his throat. And don’t forget his wife if she’s there.”

Zack’s string of good luck continued when he climbed up
on the porch and checked if the door was locked, hoping the folks in this upper
class neighborhood had gotten less vigilant. The door was unlocked.

Zack entered the house and drew the patrolman’s gun out
of his jeans pocket. He kept the gloves on in order to avoid leaving
fingerprints, and his head was covered with the hood. As he crossed the living
room, he saw a young boy sleeping on the couch. The kid appeared to be no older
than ten or eleven years old and was probably Shep Stevenson’s son. Or
nephew—Zack didn’t give a shit who he was. His finger on the trigger, Zack
stopped by the stairs and strained his ears, attempting to locate the doctor.
He soon heard the sound of a drawer being shut, which came from the second
floor.

His heart throbbing with elation, Zack raced upstairs,
quickly scanned the hallway, and headed for the room whose door was half open
after spotting a moving shadow inside it. The pleasant sensation Zack was
experiencing right now reminded him of the gratification he felt when he had
taken a nice dump.

He pounced on Stevenson the moment he saw him: the
surgeon was standing between the door and the desk, with his eyes fixed on the
cell-phone in his hand. Zack slugged the man on the head with the butt of his
pistol as hard as he could, rendering him unconscious.

As he severed Stevenson’s Achilles tendons (there was
hardly a better way to ensure that a person wouldn’t be able to run or walk
away), Zack noted to himself that it had to hurt pretty badly. For a moment, he
felt a chill in the pit of his stomach when he imagined his own ankles getting
cut with a knife. Yeah, he would have definitely hated it if something like
that happened to him.

On the other hand, it was possible that Stevenson
didn’t feel pain while unconscious. Wasn’t that how anesthesia worked?

13.

“Oh, you’re up. How is it going, man?” Zack waved at
the surgeon and rose from the chair.

With a stunned expression on his face, Stevenson looked
at his bound legs, then moved his arms, confirming his guess that they were
bound, too. As Doc had drunk his coffee this morning, could he have even
imagined that he would get knocked out and tied up in his own house today?
Judging by Stevenson’s bewilderment, Zack reckoned that he could not.

When the surgeon shifted his eyes to Zack, the boy
winked at him.

“Who are you?” Stevenson asked. His helplessness and
poorly hidden fear made Zack’s stomach feel warm and fuzzy. “What are you doing
in my house?”

“I knew you wouldn’t recognize me. I came here to ask
you a few questions.”

“What questions?” Stevenson winced with pain. “If you
need money, I’ll give it to you, just please don’t hurt my family.”

“Do you remember doing a surgery on a boy with six
fingers fourteen years ago?”

Stevenson spent fifteen seconds digging in his memory
and finally nodded. “Yes, I do remember that.” His high forehead was glistening
with sweat; there was a mixture of terror and hope in his tired eyes. It
occurred to Zack that the doctor must have still believed he had a chance of
surviving this encounter if he played his cards right. He was probably one of
those undying optimists. What a fool!

“Ask him what they did with your finger,” Jeremy said.

“Why? I don’t think there’s much of it left after so
many years.”

“Don’t be so sure, man. I know what I’m talking about.
It should still be alive unless they incinerated it. Wouldn’t it be cool, if we
could find the little guy?”

 “I guess so.”

Stevenson, who was silently observing Zack with a
petrified look on his face, muttered, “Who are you talking to, son?”

Zack waited a few moments to see if Jeremy had anything
to add and then replied to the doctor, “It’s none of your business, man. And
I’m not your son, okay?”

“I’m sorry, I apologize.” Stevenson took a deep breath
and continued, “I can help you. I’ll give anything you want. You don’t have to
kill me. I’ll keep my mouth shut, I swear.”

Zack had no doubt that the doctor had just concluded
his young guest was a nutcase because he appeared to talk to himself. Under
different circumstances, Shep Stevenson would have definitely made a tactless
comment about it; he was smart enough to say nothing
now
although he was
probably itching to refer Zack to his psychiatrist buddy—that’s the power of
the gun for you, ladies and gentlemen.

“I want to know what you did with my finger. The one
that you cut off.”

“The hospital must have disposed of it. I had no
control over that.”

“How did they dispose of it?”

“They probably cremated it. Most amputated parts are
cremated.”

“Just what I thought,” Jeremy said. “Let’s wrap it up,
Zack. We’re done here.”

Zack nodded. Then he wrapped his hand around the knife
that lay in his left hoodie pocket and stepped over to Stevenson. “Okay, man. I
guess I have nothing else to say to you. I think I’ll get going.”

Zack had thought about giving the doctor a false hope
by making it seem as if he had decided to spare his life—he could step out of
the room, say ‘Oh, one more thing,’ and then shoot the guy from the hallway
while grinning—but eventually chose to do without the theatrics.

Stevenson kept silent, looking at him with pleading
eyes.

“I’m going to kill you now, man,” Zack added and
stabbed the surgeon in the chest, aiming for the heart.

As he walked downstairs, he found that Stevenson’s son
(or nephew) had woken up and now was standing in the middle of the living room.
To Zack’s astonishment, the boy was holding a revolver in his hand. Needless to
say, the gun was pointed at Zack.

“What the hell are you doing?” Zack asked indignantly.
“Give me the gun.”

The doctor’s son did not respond. Instead, he pulled
the trigger, and the next second a sharp pain cut through Zack’s right thigh, a
few inches above the knee. As the thunder of the gunshot rang in his ears, Zack
touched the hole made in his jeans by the bullet—its edges were already wet
with blood—and dashed after the boy. Unfortunately, his sprint ended once he put
his weight on his wounded leg: the pain was far worse than he had anticipated;
it felt as if he had stepped into a tub full of boiling water. Flailing his
arms, Zack collapsed to the floor and lost consciousness.

14.

A nasty surprise awaited Zack when he came around
several minutes later: he could hear police sirens approaching the house. The
little fucker had called the cops! Apparently, Mister Stevenson had taken the
time to teach his offspring what to do in case of emergency. Too bad he hadn’t
instructed the kid to never touch his gun.

Thank God the boy hadn’t had the guts to stay inside
and shoot the intruder in the head.

“Now I’m going to do a little magic here, buddy,”
Jeremy said. “It looks like we’re surrounded, so we don’t have much time.”

“Maybe I should jump out the window in the back?”

“No, let’s not take any chances. With a wound like
this, you won’t run very far. I have a better idea.”

“Okay, go ahead.” Zack felt ashamed he was almost
panicking at this moment. Of all his fears, the idea of losing a leg was the
most horrifying to him.

“I want you to trust me, Zack. In a few minutes, you’ll
be completely paralyzed and your heart and breath rate will become extremely
low. The paramedics will rush you to the hospital, and once you get there, you’ll
have no pulse at all and the docs will pronounce you dead. We need to go
through this charade with the ambulance so you won’t have to lie here for
hours, waiting for the cops to take you to the morgue. “

“Why do you want me to go to the morgue?”

“I’ll explain it later, but I hope you’ll figure this
out on your own soon enough. By the way, please don’t panic and don’t try to
open your eyes or move—you won’t be able to do any of that until I decide that
the coast is clear. Your ears will still work, though.”

“You’re going to stop my heart? It sounds kinda scary.
I don’t want to die.”

“You’ll be fine, buddy, I promise.” Jeremy paused.
“Okay, the cops will break in here any minute now. I need you to drop dead
before they get a chance to arrest and fingerprint you.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to try and shoot them
all?”

“It’s the wrong time to be arrogant, man. You don’t
have a prayer against them, believe me.”

“Okay, I trust you.”

“It won’t hurt one bit, buddy. Just relax and wait for
my signal. Hopefully, they won’t take too long to get you to the morgue.”

15.

“Are you going to just lie there and
waste the precious time? Get up and get the fuck out of here, man.”

Jeremy hadn’t been completely right saying it wouldn’t
hurt: there was quite a bit of pain as the paramedics attempted to defibrillate
Zack’s heart with an electric shock. But that was okay with Zack.