The Cage (10 page)

Her gaze met his, and the intensity that swirled within her emerald eyes made him take a step back. At first glance, he thought that he had never seen such a feral look in the eyes of another human being. But then he remembered the moment when Ackerman had been wheeled into the hospital.

“I won’t be satisfied until Ackerman burns in hell.”

The look in her eyes and the harsh timbre of her voice sent an odd rush of fear through his body. Not more than twenty-four hours ago, he had held this woman in his arms. He had dreamed of a life with her at his side. He had loved her, and he still did. But now, was he also somehow
afraid
of her?

He pushed away the absurd sensation and said, “Fine. But you stay behind me and do exactly as I say.”

She nodded, taking up a position at his back, and they continued on.

Ackerman could sense his prey almost upon him, and he was ready. He had prepared a simple trap for his jailers, simple and direct almost always being the best method of attack. A length of old wiring had pulled easily from the wall for use as a trip wire. Hidden beneath the water and lying against the floor, the snare was all but invisible. A hammer, likely left behind by one of the members of the work crew, served as his weapon. He had placed the .38 Special on a shelf to keep it dry and had opted for a more silent and brutal instrument for the assault.

As the guard swung his shotgun and flashlight into the room and stepped over the threshold, Ackerman jerked the trip wire taut. The ring of illumination reflecting back upon the guard showed the fear on his pale, freckled face as he stumbled forward.

The man caught himself before falling entirely into the water, but it was enough of a distraction for Ackerman to close the gap between them. Grabbing hold of the shotgun’s stock with his left hand, he directed the barrel of the weapon toward the ceiling and lashed out with the hammer.

The blow struck the man on the side of the head, and likely out of pure reflex, the guard squeezed the trigger of the shotgun. The blast sprayed harmlessly into the ceiling.

Ackerman followed up with two more quick and ruthless blows to the man’s head, and the guard fell back into the water, the shotgun slipping from his grasp and remaining in Ackerman’s hand.

The more dangerous of the pair handled, Ackerman turned his attention to the man who had brought him to this hospital. “Dr. Kendrick, I really must thank you for your hospitality. If you and Jennifer hadn’t worked so hard to get me here, I’d still be rotting in a cell somewhere instead of having all this fun.”

Kendrick stood in shock for a moment. His eyes darted back and forth between the guard floating in the water and the face of the killer, as if his mind couldn’t process what had transpired. Finally, it seemed as if his brain registered the danger he faced, and he backed away. The look in the doctor’s eyes and his cowering posture reminded Ackerman of a frightened animal shying away from a predator, and he supposed that was actually a fairly accurate assessment of the situation.

“Please,” the doctor said in a high-pitched whim-per. The man’s hands stretched out before him, palms out. “Please, don’t hurt me. I want to help you. I’ve found a way to treat your condition. I know that your father told you that you’re a monster, but you’re not. You’re just sick, and I can make you well.”

“Did I volunteer to be your guinea pig? I don’t think so. And don’t pretend to give a damn about me or my well-being. You just want to use me to get your picture in the paper, to achieve fame and fortune. My father was a doctor just like you. He wanted to use me as well, to prove his own theories. No difference between him and you.”

“Your father was a sick man and a piss-poor scientist. He wanted to cause you pain, but I want to give you peace.”

Ackerman issued a sharp chuckle. When he spoke, his tone remained calm and conversational. “Why can’t anyone just love me the way that I am? I don’t want your cure, Doctor. I’m tired of being a lab rat. I’m tired of being locked away in a cage.”

Ackerman stepped forward. Kendrick trembled and cowered, as if expecting a blow. “Please, don’t! I’ll give you anything you want!”

Ackerman smiled. “Yes, you will, Doctor. But what I want is to play a little game.”

Having heard the shotgun blast, David and Jennifer hurried to help the others. David’s fear and trepidation grew with every step. Had he once again allowed the men under his command to be killed?

As they approached the area where the noise seemed to have originated, he turned back to Jennifer and said, “I want you to hang back and let me check this out.”

She nodded her affirmation, and he made his way forward through the darkness.

“Ferris? Kendrick?”

He received no answer, and his mind filled with several possible scenarios. None of them were good.

“Ferris?”

Still nothing.

He swallowed hard and resisted the overwhelming urge to turn and run. Memories of a hunting trip with his father came back to him. After checking his son’s gear, Wilson McNamara had told his boy that if they encountered a bear or other predator, the worst thing to do was run. He had said that running would enrage the animal, and it would chase and kill him. He instead instructed the boy to stand his ground and show no fear.

David had never verified if the advice was sound, but he tried to find strength in his father’s words. He realized, though, that he wasn’t merely standing his ground; he was attacking. He was provoking the predator into a confrontation.

With every movement forward, he felt more ignorant for choosing to stop Ackerman. He felt more afraid. He was just some glorified security guard; why risk his life over this? He wondered if he should have simply let Ackerman slip into the night and become someone else’s problem.

But then he thought of the men he had abandoned in Iraq. He had run then, and the predator had been chasing him ever since.

More of his father’s words came back to him, words spoken the day that he had left for war.
Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s taking action in spite of it.
His father’s voice in his head seemed strong and infallible, and it gave him strength. The voice helped him beat back the rising surge of another panic attack.

Swinging the shotgun into the next room, he spotted something strange in the water. After checking the corners for Ackerman, he crept slowly toward the floating shape.

He knew what it was long before reaching it, but he still had to know for sure. He grabbed hold of Ferris’s shoulder and turned him over in the water. The face was a bloody mess of battered flesh.

David fought the urge to vomit and reached down to feel for a pulse.

As his fingers approached Ferris’s neck, a noise at his back drew him away. He swung toward it, shotgun at the ready. The flashlight careened into the water as both of his hands flew to the weapon.

A closet door burst open, and a shadowy form dressed in a guard’s uniform spilled out of the darkness.

David’s first instinct was to run, and he took a step away from the onrushing figure. Bumping into Ferris’s body, he fell back. But as he did, he took partial aim and fired.

The figure jerked to the side from the impact of the blast but then fell forward and onto David. He pushed the body away, and as he did so, it fell into the pool of illumination cast by his floating flashlight.

The face was not the one he had expected.

Duct tape covered Kendrick’s mouth, and the doctor’s eyes contained no spark of life.

Recognizing the mistake, he realized that Ackerman must have shoved the doctor from the closet. He whirled around, but the killer was upon him.

He felt the blow of something rigid against the side of his face, but his quick movement must have thrown off Ackerman’s aim because the strike glanced off his head and struck his shoulder.

Pain lanced down his arm, and the shotgun fell from his grasp. But he recovered quickly, diving forward and ramming into the midriff of his attacker. Having been a linebacker in college, his training came back to him, and his feet churned forward, driving the killer across the room.

Another blow struck his back, but he didn’t let it slow his momentum.

Reaching the far wall, the pair slammed into the rotting plaster and wood with such force that they broke through into the next room. Debris from the wall rained down into the adjoining space. Both bodies tumbled through the hole and smacked into a grouping of the workmen’s tools resting upon a makeshift table fashioned from a piece of plywood and two sawhorses. The plywood slid free, and both men landed with their faces underwater.

David rolled away and righted himself. The killer, having taken the full force of the impact with the crumbling wall, was slower to respond. Seeing his opportunity, David pummeled Ackerman with his fists.

Ackerman lashed out with his own blows, but David lunged forward and straddled the madman. Grabbing hold of Ackerman’s neck, he held the killer in place beneath the churning surface of the water. Ackerman struck out against him, but he held firm, longing for the moment when the killer ceased to struggle.

Then the blows from Ackerman abated, and instead, his hands began questing out to his sides. At first, David thought this to be a sign of the end approaching, but too late he realized that the killer was searching for a weapon.

He seemed to see the next moment in slow motion. Ackerman’s hand burst from the water, a hint of something long and sharp protruding from the fist.

A screwdriver. Then a blinding white pain sliced into his shoulder.

His hand immediately shot from the killer’s neck to the screwdriver embedded into the meat above his chest. He cried out in a guttural wail.

Falling backward and rolling away, he forced his fingers around the screwdriver and tried to yank it free.

But then he felt the killer against his back. A strong arm snaked around his neck. Abandoning the screwdriver, he clawed at Ackerman’s forearm. He could feel the mass of sinew beneath the scarred surface of the appendage.

Unable to pull the arm free, he changed tactics and thrust his elbows back into the killer’s sides. But Ackerman held firm.

After a moment, David’s vision tunneled down into blackness. He flailed his arms and kicked his feet. He reached up and clawed at Ackerman’s face, trying to find the man’s eyes. But the darkness continued to close in on him, and after a moment more, it enveloped him entirely.

Scared and alone, Jennifer abandoned all hope. After hearing the sound of struggling cease, she knew that David was dead. If he had survived and been the victor, he would have immediately called out to her. She had waited for his voice to signal that it was finally over, but the sound never came.

With no weapons at her disposal, only one functional hand, and no chance of defeating Ackerman in a fair fight, she found a quiet hiding place and slipped beneath the water up to her neck. A part of her hoped that Ackerman would come and find her, that he would finish her once and for all. She had caused so much death, and the killer would still go free. It had all been for nothing.

Her mind centered upon the victims yet to come. She had unlocked the cage and released the monster into the world, and now there would be more little girls losing their parents, more families in pain. And this time, she would be to blame.