The Cage (12 page)

Jennifer clenched her eyes shut and wondered what she had just done. What had she become? She was willing to murder in order to have her revenge. And not just murder a stranger, but a person for whom she cared about more than anyone else in the world.

She wasn’t sure what would happen once the switch was thrown, but she expected a scream. Or maybe a sizzling sound? The snap of electricity, at least.

But she heard nothing.

With great effort, she forced open her eyelids. Like the opening of floodgates, the opening of her eyes allowed her own personal river of tears to surge outward.

In that moment, all hope abandoned her.

She willed herself to look back beyond the bars. Ackerman still stood behind David, and they were both very much alive. She found the killer staring blindly into a place far off down the darkened corridor. His fur-rowed brow and downcast eyes indicated an emotion that she could only seem to classify as disappointment. But such a reaction countermanded all that she knew of the psychopath.

She stared at David, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. A glistening sheen covered his eyes, but no tears had fallen. Unable to look at either of them, she slid down the wall and, still atop the table, curled her knees up to her chest.

“I didn’t actually think that you’d go through with it,” Ackerman said. “Or at least, I didn’t want to believe it. You were going to kill a man whom you care deeply about, probably even love. An innocent man. Do you really hate me that much?”

She didn’t attempt to answer. She had no idea of what to say.

Ackerman continued. “I suppose I’ve created a monster, just like my father before me. Seems to be the Ackerman legacy.”

The urge to weep overwhelmed her, and she didn’t try to fight it any longer. Ackerman’s words had struck home. She had become a monster. She had become all that she hated.

“Just a little while back,” Ackerman said, “I told a reporter that we all have a monster sleeping just below the surface. I wasn’t sure if I really believed that. It just seemed like something interesting to say. Something to make people think, to make them afraid, to make them believe that anyone, even their own neighbor, could be capable of the things that I’ve done. But now I wonder if I was right all along. I suppose that I had just expected more from you. I expected you to be better than I am. But I was wrong.”

She snapped her eyes shut to close out the world. She tried to force away the pain and slip into a happier place, a world where she and David were married with children and her parents planned to visit for the week-end. But the lie wouldn’t hold up in her mind, and her happy place crumbled before her eyes.

She had to escape. Her right hand clenched on to her left, and she drove her thumb into the remnants of her left pinky finger. White spots clouded her vision, and the pain shot through her whole body. She wandered into the suffering, trying to become lost in it. Her body shaking, she wailed until she couldn’t stand the pain any longer.

She wanted to die.

She couldn’t imagine living for another second, taking another breath. With a speed that startled even herself, she leaped from the table and screamed through the bars. “
Kill me! Please!
Get it over with. I just want it to end . . .” Her voice trailed off into sobbing.

Ackerman cocked his head to the side as if studying her. He looked away, and then back at her, and then away again. His mouth opened to speak, but he simply shook his head and started to walk away.

She slammed her fists into the bars and screamed at him. She cursed him. She hurled every vile insult that she could remember. Her hands curled around the bars, and she shook the door to the cage. “
Why?
Why leave me alive?”

Ackerman stopped halfway up the steps and turned back. Her screaming stopped as she waited in anticipation of the answer, the solution to a puzzle she had been trying to solve for most of her life. As he seemed to be considering his words, she sensed a deep sadness in him. She felt him wanting to tell her something, felt him holding back.

“Please. I have to know.”

He raised his eyes to her, and his face hardened. The man from her nightmares had returned. “It just seemed the crueler thing to do at the time, just as it seems crueler to let you and David live now. Good-bye, Jennifer.”

With those words, he walked away.

She could feel the weight of every footstep, the pressure building the closer the killer got to freedom. She sank into the water against the bars. Then the back door opened, the sound of a drizzling rain echoed down the stairs, and he was gone, another shadow melting into the night.

~~*~~

When someone finally found them, Jennifer had not moved from her resting spot against the bars. As the paramedics rushed them away, she tried to tell David that she was sorry.

He pulled back from the man trying to help him and met her eyes for the first time since she’d made her choice. He didn’t seem angry. His eyes didn’t burn with hatred. The emotion radiating from him hurt her more deeply than being hated ever could. She sensed that he pitied her.

“One day,” he said, “we’re all going to pay for the things that we’ve done. We’ll be held accountable. I will, Ackerman will, and so will you.”

Stopping for the briefest of moments to catch his breath, Ackerman bent over and placed his hands on his knees. The quiet calm of the Manistee National Forest surrounded him, his breathing and the chirps of insects the only sounds. His eyes turned to the sky, and he checked his heading. The rain had ebbed into a slight mist that helped to keep his body cool during his run, and the stars and full moon shed just enough light for him to navigate the rough terrain. The sweet smell of ozone and moss filled his nostrils.

He had pushed himself beyond his limits for miles, and he knew that his legs couldn’t take much more punishment. Numbness had crept over most of his limbs, and disorientation threatened to make him lose critical time.

He had to make it to civilization before his pursuers could catch up. Within the woods, they could track him. Their dogs and helicopters mounted with thermal vision could easily pick him out among the trees. But if he made it to a city or town where he could steal a car, jump a train, hide in someone’s truck, or secure any other means of transportation, then he was free. He could blend in. He could become a chameleon and hide in plain sight. It was a skill that he had learned long ago in order to survive.

Leaning a hand upon the fissured bark of a white oak tree, Ackerman thought about Jennifer and what she had become. He took full responsibility for the deterioration of the young, beautiful woman he had known—full of life and innocence—into a bitter woman shackled by hatred and revenge. The stain of knowing him had corrupted her soul, and for some reason that he couldn’t pinpoint, it filled him with a deep sadness unmatched by any other that he had ever felt. It was in his nature to destroy all that he touched, and Jennifer had fallen victim to the taint of his depravity.

His father’s voice filled his ears.
You’re a monster.
No one could ever love you. No one will ever love you
. He dug his fingernails into the bark of the tree and tried to shut out the memories.

A low growl spun him around, and he found a pair of yellow eyes tracking him from the darkness. At first he thought that his pursuers had overtaken him, but as the animal inched its way forward, he found that it was a hunter of a different kind.

He smiled at his fellow predator.

The wolf, hackles up, eyed him with a cunning determination. The misting rain rolled off its sleek gray and white coat. Another low rumbling came from deep within its throat.

He locked eyes with the wolf. He raised his pistol, but something stopped him from squeezing the trigger. He was afraid that the noise would draw the trackers to him, but it was much more than that. He felt a strange kinship with the beast. They had both been born into a world that had destined them to be the villains, and there was nothing that either of them could do to change the essence of what they were. It didn’t matter if Ackerman wanted to be more. People had certain expectations. The world had assigned him a part, and he intended to give the people what they wanted.

T
HE
S
HEPHERD

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?”