The Prophet (42 page)

When a fireman or a policeman would visit his school, most of his classmates’ heads would swim with aspirations of growing up and catching bad guys or saving someone from a blazing inferno. When these moments came for Ethan Cross, however, his dreams weren’t to someday be a cop or put out fires; he just wanted to write about it. His dream of telling stories on a grand scale came to fruition with the release of his first novel,
The Shepherd
.

Ethan Cross is the pen name of a thriller author living and writing in Illinois with his wife, two daughters, and two Shih Tzus. In addition to
The Shepherd
and
The Prophet
, he has published two novellas––
The Cage
and
Callsign: Knight
(with Jeremy Robinson).

We hope you enjoyed
The Prophet
and that your heart rate is slowly returning to normal. We thought you might be interested in Cross’s two other Shepherd stories, and you can find a sample of each here:

Jim Morgan watched as reflections of the patrol car’s flashing lights danced across the front window of the remote gas station. He strained to see beyond the strange and ominous shadows into the building’s interior. Although the call from dispatch warranted only a routine robbery report, for some reason, an irrational yet overwhelming feeling of dread crept over the edges of his consciousness. He couldn’t explain the sensation—cop instincts, intuition, or premonition—but he knew something wasn’t right. He took a deep breath and released a prolonged and deliberate exhalation. As he exited the vehicle, he forced away the feeling that something dark awaited him.

He noted the absence of the moon. The darkness seemed solid and eternal beyond the pool of radiance cast by the lights of the cruiser and gas station. He felt as if he sat on the edge of the world, and nothing else existed in the universe. Turning his gaze back toward the station, the feeling took root again.

He couldn’t pinpoint the source of his fear, which frightened him even more. For Jim, the worst kind of fear had always been one without a name. Out of trepidation, he considered calling to check on his wife, Emily, and their daughter. He consulted his watch and decided against it. He didn’t want to wake them.

His partner, Tom Delaine, said, “You okay? You look like somebody pissed in your cornflakes.”

“I’m fine. Let’s get this over with. It’s past my bedtime, and I just want to go home.”

The look of concern was still evident on Tom’s face, but he nodded and walked toward the front door of the station. Neither man had drawn his weapon, since they knew from dispatch that the assailant had already fled the premises. Nevertheless, a proper report needed to be filed, and the station’s attendant had seemed adamant that someone should come right away.

As they entered the building, Jim caught the hint of a strangely familiar smell, but he was unable to identify it. He pushed the thought away and focused his mind on the task at hand.

Once inside, he scanned the room. The station’s counter rested along the back wall, parallel to the door. A man with dark hair and haunting gray eyes sat behind it. The attendant’s midnight black t-shirt stretched tight across his chest, firm muscles bunched underneath. The man didn’t say a word; he simply stared without expression at the two policemen.

As their gazes locked, Jim instinctively moved his hand closer to the pistol holstered at his side.

“Nice night, huh?” the attendant said. “The darkness tonight is . . . oppressive. It has weight.”

He couldn’t comprehend the logic that associated an oppressive darkness with a nice night, and he distrusted the man possessing a mind in which the two were linked. The significance of such a statement was apparently lost on his partner. Tom just raised his eyebrows and replied with a drawn-out, “Okay.” After a pause, he said, “Were you the one who reported the robbery?”

“No,” the man said, “I reported a murder.”

Upon hearing the statement, Jim’s breath caught in his throat. He moved his hand over his gun but didn’t draw the 9mm Glock semi-automatic from its holster.

“Who was murdered?” Tom said.

The attendant didn’t answer, and although Jim couldn’t be sure, he thought a suppressed grin had passed over the man’s face. Instead of a reply, the attendant leaned forward and shifted his gaze down one of the station’s aisles.

Jim followed the man’s stare to where a gruesome image caught him unprepared, bombarding his senses.

The dead man at the end of the aisle had been stripped naked. Blood was everywhere. Numerous lacerations ran along the length of his body, but the frenzied slashes were most prevalent around the heart, lungs, and sexual organs. His eyes had been gouged out.

Without hesitation, both troopers drew their weapons and pointed them at the strange man behind the counter. Tom took a step forward and said, “Get your hands where I can see them!”

The suspect made no attempt to bring his hands up from beneath the counter. In fact, the formation of a smile constituted his only movement as a malicious grin spread across his face. The smile held no joy, nor love, nor warmth. It was cold, making Jim feel like a fly trapped in a spider’s web.

Tom took another step forward and repeated himself with no better results. He had now advanced to no more than three feet from the counter. Jim, on the other hand, had taken a step back and wanted to scream at Tom that he had moved too close. The thought dissipated when the man behind the counter spoke in a calm, yet commanding voice. “Do you like it? It’s my version of a killing by Andrei Chikatilo, Russia’s Rostov Ripper. You’re probably not familiar with him. While you were learning about Lincoln and Washington, I was learning about Jack the Ripper, Albert Fish, Ed Gein, the Zodiac. Those were just a few of my founding fathers.” The killer’s eyes darted between them. “You boys don’t recognize me, do you?”

Tom screamed at the man with even greater ferocity. “I don’t care who you are . . . just put your hands on your head. NOW!”

The killer shot Tom an uninterested glance and said, “You should show me a little more respect. After all, I am a bit of a celebrity. My name is Ackerman.”

Jim felt his breath stripped away once again. When he had first laid eyes upon the man, he had noticed a vague familiarity. Now, his synapses fired, and he made the connection. He had seen the man’s face on television, a two-hour special presented by one of those network news shows. He tried to remember the name of the special. It was something along the lines of
An Experiment in Madness
, but he couldn’t remember the exact title. He did, however, remember the description of the man and his hideous crimes. The program had described the kind of monster that was only supposed to exist in the minds of Hollywood’s most creative—not a person of flesh and blood who found substance in the real world.

Tom repeated his ultimatum, but this time he spoke the words in a soft voice, as if beseeching the madman to submit and end the confrontation without a fight. “Put your hands where I can see them. I’m going to count to three, and then—”

“I wouldn’t do anything rash, officer. If you’re not careful, my pretty little hostage might get her pretty little face blown off.”

“What hostage?”

Ackerman redirected his gaze from Tom to Jim. “The one under this counter with the sawed-off shotgun strapped against her right temple. It’ll make a real mess of her, believe me on that. I’ve seen it before. It’s not pretty. And I know exactly what you’re thinking. You think I’m bluffing.” He turned back to Tom. “And you’re thinking that even if I am telling the truth, you can probably put one between my eyes before I could get my shot off. You’d be wrong, though. My finger’s resting right on that trigger and, as soon as your bullet struck, my muscles would clench and her head would be blown out the other side of this counter. So, gentlemen, it appears that what we have here is a Mexican stand-off.”

Ackerman took a deep breath and continued in his honeyed tone. “Isn’t this fun? You both began your day like any other. You kissed your loved ones good-bye, enjoyed a cup of coffee, maybe read the morning paper, but little did you know that this would be the most significant day of your lives. Today is a day that makes or breaks everything you’ve ever said or done, everything you’ve stood for or believed in. At some point, we all come to a place where we have to choose whether to be the hero, the villain, or to walk away and remain one of the sheep. This is one of those moments, gentlemen.

“I’m going to give you both a choice. You can walk away now and continue on with your lives. Maybe I have a hostage under this counter that I’m going to carve up the second you walk out that door, and maybe I don’t. Maybe you can catch me and make a name for yourselves, or maybe you’ll die trying. There’s no way you can know for sure, but that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? There’s no meaning. Good doesn’t triumph over evil. There’s just random chance and death. You were the unlucky ones who got the call tonight. The gentleman down the aisle was the unlucky one who was working the station tonight. We like to walk around and think of ourselves as being so damn evolved, so much better and more intelligent than all of the other wildlife. But you know what?”

Ackerman looked at the two men as if he was a hungry animal and they were his next meal. He lowered his voice. “In the end, no matter how many delusions of grandeur we blind ourselves with, we are all either hunters or the hunted, predators or prey. Life is just one big game, gentlemen. The winners survive and the losers rot. The choices we make determine our fate. So . . . make your choice.”

Jim stood at rigid attention, entranced by the madman behind the counter. Ackerman had recited the speech with passion, as if the killer were a politician rallying the constituency behind some noble cause. He had never seen a man with two guns pointed at his face remain so impassive. There was no fear in him. Fear to Ackerman seemed as alien a concept as an airplane to a Neanderthal. More than that, it appeared as if the man felt in complete control of the situation.

Despite the gun in his hand, the realization of that fact made Jim feel defenseless.

Tom’s voice cracked and contained a noticeable tremor. “There is no hostage,” he said. “There were no other cars out front. Now, you put your hands where I can see them, or I swear to God in heaven, I will put a bullet right between your eyes.”

Jim wasn’t convinced by Tom’s statement, and neither did it seem to influence Ackerman. He knew that Ackerman would have most likely stashed his own car in back, in order to keep up the appearance of being the attendant. If some woman had stopped and come across the killer, he would have moved her car to the back with his own. The possibility that Ackerman had brought the hostage with him in his own car also occurred to him.

He wasn’t sure whether his partner had overlooked those scenarios, or if Tom’s actions merely represented a desperate attempt to end the situation. Either way, he knew it wouldn’t work. Ackerman wouldn’t allow this to end without things getting messy. He could see that much in the killer’s eyes.

Ackerman sighed. “Well, darling, they apparently don’t believe you’re real. Why don’t you scream for them?”

With Ackerman’s last word, the front of the counter exploded outward, sending pieces of wooden shrapnel in all directions. The shotgun blast tore into Tom’s left side, sending a spray of blood into Jim’s face and dropping Tom onto the linoleum.

Jim dove into the closest aisle. An instant after he was clear, the end cap display of Dorito chips erupted from a second blast.

He regained his feet and fired two shots in quick succession around the corner. He barely had time to see his shots strike the counter when the shotgun answered, sending him back to cover.

He could hear Tom crying and cursing.
His gun must have been lost in the confusion,
he thought. And Tom must have been half delirious with pain since he wasn’t even attempting to find cover. Jim knew that his partner wouldn’t survive if he didn’t immediately end the confrontation and get help.

“Trooper down. Send medical,” he said into his portable packset radio. He didn’t bother to announce his name or location. The radio carried a unique code that dispatch would identify while the GPS in the patrol car would alert backup units of their position.

But, unless he acted now, he also knew that he and Tom would be dead by the time backup arrived.

He tried to stay focused, but he couldn’t keep his thoughts from wandering onto his wife and daughter.
Will I see them again? Will I get to watch my daughter grow up?
He thought of brushing the golden, curly locks of hair away from her face and kissing her on the forehead. He thought of the way her eyes lit up with awe and wonder as she sat on his lap and listened to him read.

He thought of his wife kissing him good-bye and telling him to be careful. He thought of holding her, skin against skin, and running his fingers through her raven black hair.

I have to be strong. I have to make it home to them.
He tried to tell himself that he would see them again, but somehow he knew better. At that moment, he would have given anything for one more chance to hold them.

The smell of gunpowder mixed with the aromas of scented cleaning fluids attacked his senses and made him feel lightheaded. It was that or the adrenaline. Either way, he felt as if he was in a washing machine on spin cycle. He tried to get himself under control, but he was terrified beyond reason. He had no idea of what to do next.

He knew that he wouldn’t survive a frontal assault against the shotgun, so he decided his best option would be to move around to the back of the aisles and perhaps catch Ackerman off guard. Plus, the greater the distance, the more advantage his 9mm would have over the less accurate shotgun.