The Academy: Book 1 (2 page)

Asa kept his hands on the steering wheel and continued to watch the man. His heart was thudding even faster, and he didn’t notice it but he still had his left foot heavy on the break pedal.
It’s okay. He’ll understand. There’s nothing to fear,
he tried to reassure himself.

The officer took his firearm out of its holster and held it by his side as he continued to limp over towards the car. Asa’s eyes bolted wide open and went from the handgun to the vacant face on the massive man. He tried to remember to breathe and he told himself that the firearm was just a safety precaution. The officer was out on a country road with no partner with him.
It’s normal for him to pull out his firearm, right?

When the big man was standing right beside Asa’s door, Asa realized he hadn’t rolled his window down. The officer’s face was peering into the car, his eyes dancing around the seats, and then he looked over his shoulder at the forest behind him, as if he heard something frightening. Asa saw that his shirt had grass stains in it and his metal ID tag was hanging upside down over his chest.

Asa reached over to roll the window down when he froze with fear. The gun was pointed right at his face from outside the car. Asa saw the big, sure hands holding the firearm, and closed his eyes, ready for the blow.

Tap, tap,
tap.

Asa let out a whispered shriek, but then opened his eyes to see the officer gesturing for him to roll the window down. He had only been tapping the window with his firearm.
That’s normal, right? It’s normal for an officer to use the barrel of his handgun to tap a window.

Asa
rolled down the window and the officer bent over and looked into the car. The fourteen year old was shaking, his hands still on the steering wheel, trying to predict what the officer would say.
License and registration or where are you headed? Or do you have any idea how fast you were going back there?

But the officer said none of these. He was a complete stranger. Asa had never seen his face before. He opened his mouth and began to
speak, his voice came out quiet and harsh, like a worried whisper. “Are you Asa Palmer?” His breath smelled sickly sweet like mildew. The officer stood up again and looked around, then stared back at Asa. His lips were pulled down on the corners, and he looked as scared as Asa felt.

“Yes.” Asa was surprised he found his voice.

The officer raised his black handgun in the air and scratched the side of his face with it. “My name is Harold Kensing. SHUT UP!” he screamed, as if he were reprimanding himself. “Don’t say your name. The kid doesn’t need to know,” he was staring at Asa as he said this. He smiled, let out a sob, and grumbled something underneath his breath. “Get out of the car.” The officer stepped back and pointed the firearm at Asa.

Asa pulled the handle, footed the door open, and stood out on White Bridge Road’s asphalt with his hands in the air.

Harold Kensing’s mouth was twitching as though he were having some kind of a spasm. He pointed the barrel of his weapon at Asa’s face and muttered, “Jesus, please forgive me.” The weapon was shaking in the officer’s hands. He closed his eyes and turned his head away.

“
Sir!” Asa said, sweat beating down his face. He was trying to alert the officer that his actions could lead to untrue interpretations.
He looks like he’s going to kill me!
Asa thought.

“I have to, Lord,” Harold muttered to himself
.

“Officer?” Asa asked, his voice cracking. He found that his hands were rising up by his head, palms out.

Harold opened his eyes and looked Asa in the face. He blinked heavily, as though he had just woken up. He took one of his hands off the gun and tugged at his hair. “Come with me. Come sit in the cop car. Go around and get in the passenger side door. Hurry, before they see us!”

Asa didn’t pause to ask who
m the officer was talking about, but quietly made his way to the passenger door with his hands above his head. Harold was still pointing the firearm at Asa; he had one eye closed and was trying to look through the small sight on the shaking metal.

“Open the door with your left hand,” Harold said. Asa looked at the officer and considered turning and running into the woods behind him. Harold’s hands readjusted on the weapon in what Asa thought was dead aim for the center of his face. He opened the car door slowly, slid inside, and shut the door behind him.

It was warm inside the car. The first thing that Asa noticed was that a large portion of the dashboard had been destroyed. The police radio and a laptop had been ripped out of the dash, leaving a tangle of electric cords hanging out into the cabin.
That’s normal,
Asa tried to convince himself.
Perhaps they’re in the process of replacing the computer.
Despite the effort, Asa didn’t believe it. The broken glass on the floor, and the cracked plastic that housed the dashboard computer pointed to a frenzied, unplanned removal of the electronic devices, instead of a professional job.

Harold
Kensing kept the firearm pointed at Asa while he moved over to his door, opened it, and thumped his huge body down into the driver’s seat. He shut the door behind him and held the barrel two inches from Asa’s left eyeball. Asa looked at the man’s huge fingers. Scabs and cuts and dried blood covered the tips. Asa looked back at where the car’s computer system had been and thought:
There’s another reason to believe the job wasn’t professional. Did he just rip the electronic system out with his bare hands?

“PUT YOUR PALMS
ON THE DASH! BOTH OF ‘EM! NOW!”

Asa did and then Harold started to really cry. He was blubbering, slobber running down his massive chin and falling in strings onto his pants. “I don’t want to, Harold. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to.” He began to whisper in between the great gasps he was taking to provide air for his sobs. “Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.”

Asa looked through the dusty glass in the front of the cop car at his mother’s Volvo. The red and blue lights pulsed over the trunk.
He must think that I’m someone I’m not. He must think that I’m some murderer.

Harold was breathing heavily in the driver’s seat. Asa felt the hair on the nape of his neck as it stood erect.
But if that’s all it is,
Asa thought—
if he just thinks that I’m a murderer, why is he acting like this? Why is he pointing a gun at me? Why not just arrest me and then let the legal system take its course?

Asa had heard that the United States legal system, along with the rest of the world’s, wasn’t as effective as it used to be. Often, because of the lowering population, and the loss of legal resources, the courts could be persuaded by money to let a guilty criminal go free. Because of this, there was a growing trend of people taking justice into their own hands. Asa wondered if he was
experiencing an instance of this right now.

Who does he think that I am? And how do I convince him that I’m not the criminal he believes me to be?

Asa felt the cold metal press against his ears. He closed his eyes and started to cry too. “Mr., I don’t understand! Why do you have to do this?” Asa’s legs were shaking. He couldn’t sit still.

“You don’t need to know, Asa Palmer. Trust me. I’ve said your name about a tho
usand times on the drive here.”

Asa’s heart began to pound. His old theory was discarded; there was no mistaken identity here.

Harold’s voice changed to something mockingly serious, “I’m Harold Kensing, and I’m going to kill Asa Palmer.” He sobbed and moaned and cackled for a few seconds. “But who was I kidding? You’re a kid! How am I supposed to kill a kid? But it’s what they want. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!”

“Who wants this?” Asa
cried.

“They want you dead alright. When I asked them why, they said something about your father. I don’t remember now, Asa. I’m having trouble thinking.” The pressure of the weapon increased on Asa’s ear. “Close your eyes, I don’t want to have to do it for you afterwards.”

Asa didn’t close them and kept on talking.
I need to delay this.
“My father’s dead. He died when I was just a baby.”

“I know,
he killed himself. Now shut your eyes.”

“No,” Asa said defiantly. “There is a mistake. My father died of a heart attack. These people are wrong about that! Don’t you think that they could have told you to kill the wrong person?”

Harold shook his head and moaned. “No.” He tilted his head and wiped some of the drool off on his shoulder. “They showed me a picture of you and everything. They had a whole file on you. It said that you were going to be a fishy this year.”

A new stream of hot tears rolled down Asa’s face.
This man is insane!
Asa had no phone, and if he made a move for the door he thought that Harold would pull the trigger. He wanted to keep the officer talking.

“What do these people look like?”

“Oh, Asa Palmer. I’m going to do it. Please get ready. Please just close your eyes.”

“What do these people look like?” Asa whispered. His eyes were closed tightly.

Harold pressed the gun even tighter to the side of Asa’s head until his skull was lodged between the barrel and the glass window. The pressure hurt. Harold spoke. “I just remember the black gums. They have black gums and a black tongue and they held me by the neck and told me that if I didn’t do this that they’d kill me and my whole family. Oh, Asa. They could. They could. And trust me, there’s no reason for me not to kill you right here and now, Asa Palmer, because they are powerful. Much more powerful than the fishy place thinks that they are. They’ll find you anywhere. You’re as good as dead, son. They’ll send someone else like me to do the job, or maybe they’ll do it with their own hands. Close your eyes. That’s good. You’re about to die. And there’s no escaping it. No one is safe. No one. And they want you first. You’re one of the first that they want. I-I-I-I-I.” He was stuttering, crying so hard that he couldn’t talk. He sat up, startled. “What was that?” Harold whispered.

He pulled back from Asa, but kept the gun pointed at his head. “Did you hear something?”

Asa’s eyes looked into the surrounding forest. Tears were coming automatically. He thought that he might throw up. He didn’t know that you could be this scared.
I’m going to die,
was all he could think now, and he didn’t even know why. Asa answered Harold, “no,” even though he wasn’t fully aware if he had or hadn’t heard anything. He was too zoned in on the man with the gun to think of anything else.

All was quiet for a moment. Harold
Kensing kept as still as the dead. Asa turned to look at him, keeping his hands on the dash. Beyond the barrel of the weapon, Asa could see the man’s face in the light that was shooting from the squad car and echoing back from the trees.
Miserable
and
haggard
were two words that came to the fourteen-year-old’s mind when he looked at the officer. His ears were pricked. Beads of sweat were gathering on his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot and impossibly tired. His lips were chapped, and the saliva continued to flow out from his mouth, down his chin, and then fall below.

“I think they’re coming,” Harold whispered. “Close your eyes, now.” The man’s voice was a low grumble. “Close them, or I’ll shoot you with them open. I’m going to do this. I swear. I may not want to, but I can do it.”

Asa was just shaking his head and muttering, “Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t.”

“I’m going to do it.”

“Please don’t.”

“Close your eyes.”

“No, no, no, no, no.”

CLACK!

Asa opened his eyes and was not dead. The gun had not gone off. “What was that?” Harold asked.

Asa saw the hind legs of a large animal stalking off into the woods behind Harold. “A bear or something. I think that it just jumped onto the car.”

“There are no bears in these parts. Close your eyes. Do it. NOW!”

Asa did. He was sweating and crying and breathing and he clenched his eyes closed for the blow.

Two things happened almost at once. CLACK! And BANG!

The cop car shook violently as if another vehicle had charged into the driver’s side and the gun went off. Asa opened his eyes. It was so loud! The window behind his head had exploded and his ears were ringing.

“What…?” Harold asked. He opened the driver’s side door a few inches to see what had collided with him.

Asa only saw the animal for a moment. It was a dog, as thick and heavy as a bullmastiff. It must have weighed two hundred pounds. The thing was snarling and showing white, long teeth as sharp as syringe needles on the ends, and as thick as Asa’s pinky. The dog had black, thick hair and appeared to be well groomed. It had no collar. The top of its skull seemed too big, as if it were holding a human brain in there, and the eyes seemed too blue, too knowing. It did not look like a natural dog.

The dog snarled and lunged at officer Harold Kensing, and in a second, he was on the asphalt and the firearm was off of Asa.

Asa didn’t stay long enough to see what happened next, but he heard. His hand snapped open the door and he was off, his long legs running straight for the shelter of the woods. Tears were still streaming down his face and his legs pushed himself forward as quickly as they could go. He couldn’t be in the thick woods fast enough.