Legacy of a Mad Scientist (52 page)

The killer had grabbed Evan by the hair as he sat on
the couch and cut his head from his body. It had been done with a
significant amount of surprise.

After decapitating his son, Mr. Dunkirk, (Ashley
realized there was no reason to guess about it anymore), had chased
his wife, Shirley, to the front foyer where he got a bit more
aggressive.

Ashley snapped a couple of pictures of Mrs. Dunkirk,
followed by a couple of Evan. She attached them, typed MURDER, 1826
CALISTAN WAY, and dialed 911.

Forgetting the phone, Ash found her eyes drawn to the
top of the stairwell.

Mr. Dunkirk stood, watching her, from the open
two-story flight. The short, overweight, and usually harried
businessman had gone triumphantly mad.

Previous to this moment, Martin Dunkirk always
appeared perfectly combed, coifed, and perfumed. He was usually
attired in garments worth an affluent banker's salary.

Today he looked exactly as Ashley had always imagined
him, drunk, unshaven, a rat's nest of greasy, tangled hair, dirty
tank-top concealing his massive gut, wrinkled work pants held aloft
by a single strained suspender.

In his left hand, where Ashley might have pictured a
newspaper or a doughnut, Martin held a large, finely serrated
kitchen knife.

The young girl and the homicidal murderer stared at
each other.

Martin blinked first, and Ash sprinted for the
kitchen door, pocketing the phone as she ran.

Behind her, she heard the blood-crazed lunatic,
thundering down the stairs. The pursuit went silent for a brief
moment, as he leapt to clear his wife's corpse. Then he crashed on,
chasing after her with a series of hard thuds.

As the Micronix naturally monitored all frequencies,
Captain Snow and Chief Warrant Officer Reid both heard the 911 call
go out and saw the images Ashley forwarded to the cops.

Snow was still looking at the images when Ashley
burst from the house.

Ashley slammed open the back door.

Outside, momentarily blinded by the afternoon
sunlight, Ash panicked and made her first mistake, sprinting across
the deck and forgetting her hoverboard, leaning against the
house.

She ran for the low, adobe wall where the property
met the sloping canyon, as Mr. Dunkirk barreled down the kitchen
hall behind her.

Bobby was nowhere to be seen.

Ash cleared the wall as Mr. Dunkirk burst through the
kitchen door. As she ran, she heard him pound his way across the
wooden deck and down the stairs. The heavy steps went quiet as he
crossed into the foliage-carpeted dirt.

Ana and Reid were both caught off guard by the
fleeing Ash and pursuing Dunkirk. Ana immediately chambered a round
and fired on Dunkirk but missed. She fired twice more before he
vanished into the undergrowth.

Ana signaled Reid, gesturing for him to flank Dunkirk
at ground level, from the East, so he’d be outside her field of
fire as she lined up a shot from the air.

Ash recklessly sprinted down the paths, her feet
hardly touching the ground. She didn't know she could move so fast.
If she fell, the impact would fracture bones. She morbidly joked
with herself that if ballet didn't work out in the long term, she
might follow in her mother's footsteps and enjoy a career running
track.

Well over two hundred pounds, wide-shouldered and
thick-necked, Marty Dunkirk hurled himself after her. She didn't
risk looking back, but she could hear him gaining on her.

She could hear the knife-wielding hand, chopping and
hacking at the obstructing vegetation.

The leafy trees obscured the sky overhead as paths
cut through the forest. Ashley ran, downhill mostly, turning often
enough to slow down and avoid losing control all together.

She heard Dunkirk fall, twice, then again a third
time.

She thought she’d lost him, but he’d come down the
mountainside the hard way, and she could now hear him approaching
from a different angle.

Ashley ran harder. She heard him burst onto the path
behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. He followed, closer than
she'd imagined.

She accelerated, moving faster, but he kept
coming.

Ashley took a turn to her right, a slight upward
angle, past the glen where Bobby liked to sit with his disciples.
Of course she didn’t know that.

She slid down a sharp defile, the grass and weeds
coming loose under her feet, luckily reaching the bottom without a
twisted ankle.

To her left, where the defile became narrower and
continued up the mountainside, there was an area that had recently
collapsed.

From her place at the bottom of the stack, Ash could
see the bodies, piled atop one another, surrounded by loose dirt.
Dozens of bodies, stacked almost twenty feet high, loose earth
poured in between them, like mortar. A thick funk of decay and rot
hung in the air.

Behind her Dunkirk roared with laughter as he
clumsily made his way down the hillside.

Ash turned to run, but vomited after the first
step.

She dragged on, stumbling and spitting out the
remainder of her lunch, as she fled the lumbering psychopath.

She took another uphill path, dense with trees and
underbrush.

She didn't think, she just ran. The mistake hit her
too late.

The path led to a narrow sliver of high ground, a
peninsula with sheer-drop cliffs ahead and to both sides.

Mr. Dunkirk howled with primal blood lust as he
pursued her.

To her back and both sides, a few sparsely covered
feet of dirt was all that stood between Ash and a fall of forty
meters or more.

Back down the trail was the only safe way off the
sliver of high ground. The sweat soaked Mr. Dunkirk appeared at the
mouth of the trail behind her and stalked forward.

Ashley backed out further onto the plateau.

Dunkirk paused in the shadow of the trees, just a few
meters away. He hesitated to reveal himself, as the precipice could
be seen by any of several residences, as well as passing
traffic.

Ana waited, her scope was fixated on the big man, but
the shadows, the heat of the afternoon and her angle unbalanced the
shot. She waited for him to step out of the shadows and she would
have him.

Reid watched from a lower position over her right
shoulder.

With a muttered curse, Dunkirk stepped into the
sunlight and raised the knife overhead.

Ash saw bits of green leaf streaked over dried blood.
She backed away, moving further out onto the dangerous bit of
mountain land.

Just as Ana’s finger tightened on the trigger, she
was hit from the back. She released the trigger, the rifle stayed
silent as she tumbled through the sky, trying to get her
bearings.

Below her, two police cruisers filled the sky she’d
occupied until a moment ago. The officers in the cockpits were
focused on the action below. Utterly invisible, they hadn’t noticed
her at all.

Ana’s back ached where the cruiser had punched her,
killing her shot.

Below, Dunkirk continued forward, but instead of
bringing down the knife, he surprised Ashley, leaping forward with
a heavy knuckled backhand, knocking the girl from her feet.

So much for
Don’t Get Hit
, Ashley thought. She
crouched where she had fallen, just a few inches from the edge. His
rings had opened a wicked gash in her brow; blood ran into her eye.
Her head rang like a tower bell.

He was so fast
, she thought to herself.

"Sorry about your Mom," Dunkirk said.

Ashley didn't understand. She looked up at him but
didn't reply.

"It was just a job, not like what you saw back there.
Not like Shirley, that was spectacular."

Ashley and Mr. Dunkirk stared at each other.

He'd just admitted to killing her Mom!
Ash was
furious and near panicking. Her emotions were all over the place,
but then something happened and she just shut off.

The words of Sihing Shou came back to her.
It will
be at that moment when you are weak, tired and probably very hurt,
that is when you must act to save your life.

As Dunkirk stepped forward, she recognized his poor
posture. He let his knees turn inward. They were weak,
vulnerable.

Ashley struck. With her hands planted in the dirt,
she kicked at Dunkirk's left knee. The joint gave with a
splintering crack.

Martin crashed to the ground, screaming.

The knife lay between them.

Dunkirk clutched at his ruined leg, growling, howling
and snapping at her. With a deep breath, he lurched up. Even on one
knee, he towered over the small girl. He reached for the knife.

Ash moved, kicking again. Staying close to the earth,
she unleashed a series of horizontal kicks to the large man's face,
neck and chest.

Her persistence and coordination unbalanced him. She
delivered the last three directly to his mouth and nose, stomping
the deranged killer over the lip of solid ground and from her
sight.

She heard him scream until his voice grew obscured by
cracking branches and then silenced by a muffled impact.

The knife remained where it had fallen.

Ashley stood.

Above her, two police vehicles hovered, watching.
Having just arrived, they were helpless to do anything but
witness.

She saw the nearest officer grin and raise his fist
in salute.

Ashley did not wave back or smile. She did not feel
victorious.

They turned off to land in a nearby clearing.

Ash noticed her breathing had leveled out, her heart,
calm.

Now, calm she did finally feel powerful, capable,
more than just confident. She felt superior.

High above the action, Reid and Snow watched the cops
land and check on Ashley.

“That fifth-wall…” Reid said.

“Completely intact,” Captain Snow answered. “Even at
the cost of my spine.”

Reid laughed. “Nothing a little blue goo can’t fix,
right?”

“Thank God for the blue goo,” Snow laughed.

Sunday, August 2, 2308

Later, Ashley sat in the open back of an ambulance
parked at the end of the street, out past the Dunkirk house. An EMT
checked her vitals.

The tech smiled at her, "I'd say you look perfectly
normal, considering the excitement. Any shortness of breath?"

Ashley shook her head.

The tech removed the sensors and opened a first aid
kit. He gestured to her eyebrow and asked her to look to the right.
The tech cleaned the wound and applied nanotape to help heal and
regenerate the damaged tissue.

"You know, that was really brave," he said, looking
her in the eye. "From what the detectives are saying, you saved a
lot of people's lives today. You're a hero."

Ashley looked away and lowered her head. "I'm no
hero. I was scared. I ran." Ashley watched uniformed officers
stretch yellow and black police tape across the Dunkirk
property.

As the medical tech finished patching up her face, a
pair of detectives approached. The older one said his name was
Urich and that he would like to talk with her for a couple of
minutes. He was going to send her back to the station with his
partner Detective Cole, but before that, it was essential that she
tell him as much as she could remember.

In the distance, Dunkirk was being airlifted from the
ravine. Ashley watched the police vehicles winch up the killer's
unconscious body. She remained silent.

Urich looked at his partner, "They're taking him to
our place?"

"Should be, but I'll double check," Cole said,
turning away to make the call.

Urich turned back to Ashley. "So, Princess. Can you
tell me what happened?"

Ashley looked at the man's face. He wasn't being
condescending with her when he said
Princess
. Her father
never called her that. Ash decided she didn't mind, In fact, she
kind of liked it.

"Mr. Dunkirk killed his family," she said.

"That's whose house this is, with all the dead bodies
in it?"

"Yes, the Dunkirk's."

"So, what happened?"

Ashley paused for a moment, trying to gather her
thoughts.

Urich misread her hesitation for distrust. "Look.
We're here to help you. We need to know what happened. The more you
tell us, the more we can help you, better." he smiled. It was
disarming, despite his otherwise gruff appearance.

Ashley laughed at the detective's unintended humor.
She took a breath. "I met Bobby Dunkirk in the forest, he lives
here. He said he needed my help, that his dad was going to kill his
mom and would I go in and check."

Ashley blinked into the afternoon sun. There was no
quick or easy way to explain everything, so she started with the
important facts. "He's a lot younger than me, and he was
scared."

"Where's Bobby now?"

"I don't know. He was gone when I came out. Did you
get the pictures I sent?" she asked.

Urich looked over to Cole.

"These?" Cole held out the photos Ashley had sent to
911 on his screen.

"There's more," she said.

"What do you mean, more? More what?" Urich asked.

"More bodies," Ash answered. "Out that way." She
pointed out into the canyon. "A lot more."

"Could you show us?" Urich asked.

Ash nodded, "It's not far." She climbed down from the
back of the ambulance and led the detectives down into the forested
canyon.

Two uniformed officers accompanied Ashley and the
detectives as they hiked down the trails.

Fifteen minutes later they stood at the bottom of the
stuffed gorge. The two young officers threw up, as did Detective
Cole. Only Urich held it together, and Ashley although this was her
second time around.

Just as the officers managed to regain their
composure, Cole's radio went off. "Detective Urich, Detective Cole,
we've got feds up here. They'd like a word with you," the officer
on the radio explained. “They’re pretty agitated.”