The Bride Collector

37

BRAD LAY PERFECTLY still in the empty, ribbed truck bed, facing the sky, ready to throw himself over the edge the moment it stopped.

He’d managed to slip over the tailgate and duck low as the truck bounced over the corner. For ten minutes he’d thought through his options, wondering whether Paradise was with Quinton. But the back window was tinted and he couldn’t see inside the cab.

So he lay still, dogged by insecurity and questions and pain from the wound.

He methodically rehearsed his course of action at the end of this road. His chances of incapacitating the killer were nearly nonexistent. But he would have an opportunity to slip out while the man was distracted by the scene in the barn.

And if Paradise was in the cab? Dear God, he hoped she was and was alive. As long as she was still alive and he was in the same vicinity, there was hope for her. How he could save her, he didn’t know. He would have to deal with events as they played out.

A thousand thoughts strung through his mind as the truck rumbled north, back to the barn. Thinking more clearly, Brad estimated that Quinton had left him in the barn seven or eight hours earlier, give or take an hour. He would have needed time to take Paradise and switch out vehicles. The round trip had likely taken him five or six hours.

He was in a green Chevy pickup roughly three hours east of Denver. Not west in the mountains, not south in the dry country, but east. Near the Kansas border. How many large abandoned barns were there in this vicinity?

Quinton likely had the cell phone he’d used earlier. If Brad could get his hands on that phone, place a call to Temple, and tell him to get every law enforcement agency in the region to canvas farmers, cops, residents-anyone who knew the area-to identify all large barns in wheat fields two to three hours east of Denver, they might be able to find him.

No. Even then, it would be too late. His first order of business must be to ascertain if Paradise was alive and in the cab. His second, if she was, would be to get her out. If she wasn’t, he would assume she was dead and kill the demon in his own barn.

It took fifteen minutes at a steady clip to reach the barn. Brad knew they were close when the truck made a turn into the driveway, and he would have rolled out then if not for the possibility that Paradise was in the cab. He was unwilling to squander a chance to act quickly for her sake.

So he lay still against every impulse that demanded he roll out now, while he was still shrouded in darkness.

He’d left the barn door open, and Quinton drove the truck straight in. Yellow light flickered off the rafters from the still-flaming oil lamps. This was it. Quinton Gauld now knew that Brad had escaped. He was surely staring at the broken post already, even as he brought the truck to a stop.

Brad felt naked in the back of the truck, exposed and hopeless. The end would come now. He would rise with cramps, fall out of the bed, and Quinton Gauld would shoot him before he could stand. He should have gotten out as they rolled down the driveway, made a run for it, returned in stealth.

But, no, he’d reasoned this through. Paradise was his first priority.

The truck lurched to a stop. For a count of ten, nothing.

The driver’s door opened. The killer stepped out.

RAIN MAN HAD survived. The man had taken up superhuman power, survived the gunshot, and snapped the post like a twig before fleeing. Quinton cursed himself for not having taken more certain measures.

He took the keys from the ignition but left the lights on to illuminate the scene. He stared at the broken post for a few seconds, flooded with respect and some concern. This was the first time he’d ever been bested by any adversary, and he wondered if it was because Rain Man’s God was stronger than the devil.

A thousand crickets screamed in his head.

He silenced them and stepped out of the truck, bringing a calm reason to bear upon the situation. He surveyed the barn quickly. No sign of the man. No, of course not, Rain Man wouldn’t just stand out in the open like an idiot.

But perhaps he was not superhuman, either. In all likelihood he had only recently escaped and then only after repeated bashing back into the post. He would be too exhausted from the effort to travel far, too smart to stumble out into fields to die. He was likely nearby, passed out in a ditch or crouching in fear.

Yes, Quinton preferred that scenario. The truth was, Quinton hadn’t been bested by Agent Raines because the game was not yet finished. This was only one more test, an opportunity for him to demonstrate to all those looking on that their selection of him as their servant was a wise one indeed. He’d switched sides and now they wanted to know if he was up to the task.

He stepped in front of the truck’s powerful beams and scanned the scene from right to left, methodically surveying everything, making calculations and decisions as his senses absorbed details.

The amount of blood on the ground told him Rain Man was seriously weakened. The post was also smeared with blood. A lesser man would be dead, he was sure of it. Unless he’d misjudged, and the dark stains on the dirt were from other bodily fluids as well as from blood. He could smell no urine, nothing but blood and sweat.

The medical bag had been moved, meaning Rain Man had taken what he needed to stanch his wound. He might be armed with either a knife, a scalpel, or the hammer, all of which were missing from the table.

So then, Rain Man was a worthy adversary after all. This, the final hour, came down to the beast’s attempts to consume the bride and the man on the white horse’s attempt to rescue her.

But whose shadow was larger now? Cast by the truck’s light, his loomed monstrous and dark on the far wall. His veins were full of blood, and he was at full strength. Furthermore, he had guns. He had his buzzing mind.

And he had Paradise.

Quinton knew then that Rain Man would be back.

BRAD SLIPPED OUT on the passenger side like an escapee going over a fence. He lowered himself silently to the ground, thankful that the barn had a dirt floor. The killer stood in front of the truck’s large hood, obscured from view. He’d left the truck’s lights on-if he turned back, his eyesight would be blinded.

Brad crawled to the passenger door, reached up, and tried the handle. Locked. Okay. Okay, maybe that was better, anyway.

He quickly backed away, remained crouched, rounded the back of the truck, then snuck up on the driver’s side, blocked by the open door. The killer could not have suspected that Brad had come back in on the truck and was already moving.

Wasting no time, he hurried to the driver’s door on the balls of his feet. Looked inside. There, with a light blue blanket covering all but the top of her head, and round eyes staring over the dash at the scene before her, slouched Paradise.

Alive.

Alive, awake, and by all appearances unhurt. Relief and panic jolted Brad’s heart. At any moment the killer could turn back.

And what if she yelped in surprise at seeing Brad?

He looked at the ignition. Quinton had removed the keys. Brad tapped on the seat. She spun her head, blinked, and jerked with recognition. He frantically motioned silence. Reaching in, he slid a Dr Pepper can out of the cup holder and set it on the floor. The other cup holder was empty.

He eased the center console up, turning the two divided seats into a bench seat for her to slide across, then motioned her to stay low.

Needing no further encouragement, eyes as round as the moon, she put her elbows on the seat and pulled herself toward him like an inchworm. The sound of her rapid breathing was loud, and all the while Brad could only think that at any moment they would be found out.

The killer still stood in front of the truck, surveying the scene like a good investigator. Rushing out to hunt for his escaped victim before fully reconstructing the scenario would be imprudent, and Quinton Gauld wasn’t an imprudent man. But if he looked back past the glare of headlights, he might see Brad’s feet below the door.

Brad reached for Paradise when she was only halfway across the seat, hooked his hands in her armpits, and dragged her slight frame out of the cab as if she were a doll. But her breath on his neck, and the warmth of her flesh against his arms-these weren’t the makings of any doll.

He pulled her into himself gingerly, careful not to disturb the truck and more careful not to hurt Paradise. He slid his right arm under her legs, cradled her against his chest, turned from the door and walked away as quickly and as quietly as he could.

She was shaking in his arms and he was afraid she might release a sob. So he cupped the back of her head and pushed it gently into his neck as he fled the barn.

He didn’t allow himself to breathe until he was ten feet past the door. Then he could hold his lungs no longer and he veered to his left and sucked at the night air.

Paradise began to cry into his shoulder.

“Sh, sh, sh, not yet, not yet,” he whispered. “Hold on…”

Upon discovering that they’d escaped, Quinton would likely assume they had run away from the barn and headed south to safety. Brad rounded the barn and ran in the opposite direction, north along its side, thinking he should set Paradise down and let her run beside him so they could move faster.

But he couldn’t let go of her. Not now, not after he’d lost her once, not following the suffering he’d put her through, not out here where she was exposed and terrified. So he held her close and he ran.

He considered heading directly into a cornfield thirty yards behind the back of the barn, but they couldn’t do so without leaving tracks through the drying corn and in this moon, their passage would be seen. Instead he ran for a grove of large trees at the edge of the clearing. Reaching them, he spun behind the farthest tree, dropped heavily to his knees, and set Paradise down like an invalid.

Her arms clung stubbornly to his neck. And now she sobbed in earnest.

“Shhhh… It’s okay. We can’t make any noise. Sh, sh, it’s okay.”

“Thank you,” she whispered softly. She pressed her wet face against his cheek and kissed him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

The emotions of the night swelled in his chest and spilled over. He held her as if he were holding on to the last whisper of his own life and let tears fall.

QUINTON SAW THE movement through a crack at the back of the barn, a fleeting form rushing past like a ghost in the night, and his first thought was that Rain Man had come back sooner than expected. A holy ghost. Or a fox. He was outside the barn at this very moment, running like a fox in search of the perfect angle of attack. His judgment was compromised by his affection for the favorite, and he was scurrying in a panic, trying to gain the advantage. But armed with only a hammer, the man was outclassed.

Small-minded and foolish, but admirable in the way an animal was admirable.

Quinton turned and hurried back to the truck to retrieve his gun case from under the seat and to check on God’s bride, whom he’d left alone for too long. It occurred to him as he rounded the open truck door that he should have closed it. The sight of the broken post had caused this slight lapse in judgment.

He cleared the door and stopped.

The seat was empty. The favorite was gone.

Buzzards screamed through his mind.

He knew immediately what had happened.

He considered the possibility that Paradise had flown the coop on her own, but the holy ghost he’d seen was too tall to have belonged to the bride.

This turn of events would have caused any normal man to panic. But this, too, was a test. Quinton aimed to pass it with a calm that would impress even the vilest and most demanding master.

He retrieved the gun case, slipped out the nine-millimeter, chambered a round, and turned off the headlamps. It took great effort to control his anger, this despite his advanced sensibilities. But emotion only impeded good judgment, a fact that he’d proven twice already tonight, first when he’d left Rain Man in a rage after thinking he’d mortally wounded the man, and then again when he’d left the door open upon seeing the broken post.

He would not make the same mistake again.

Thinking clearly now, he walked to the door that led out the back of the barn. Rain Man had headed north, not south along the obvious route, which meant he was thinking clearly enough to do what he thought was unexpected.

But Quinton knew these grounds, having surveyed them during his selection process. If Rain Man was thinking clearly he would avoid the cornfields because this variety grew on small stalks planted closely-they would leave unavoidable tracks of their passing. Instead he would make for the clump of trees at the edge of the clearing. Unarmed and encumbered by bride and wound, Rain Man would be easily caught and killed.

He crossed the clearing toward the trees without fear, gun by his side. The buzzing in his head impeded his hearing slightly, something that had undoubtedly allowed Rain Man to sneak away with the bride. But now he listened carefully past the persistent buzzing. Any attempt on their part to flee the trees would force them to crash through the fields.

He approached the trees, gun extended. The moonlight made the earth look gray, revealing a bed of foot-high grass scattered at the base of the trunks. They would have gone to the back of the grove. Quinton rounded the trees, peering through the trunks for sight of the holy ghost and his little angel.

The ground behind the largest was bare. He considered this for a moment, knowing that he had not been wrong, not again. He was too evolved for that. They had come this way, they had stopped here. In their condition they would have had to, if only to collect themselves.

He lowered his weapon, studied the corn, and saw the broken stalks immediately. So, they had gone farther in after resting here.

Now a dilemma presented itself to Quinton. He could chase them down and surely catch up to them. Kill the fox. Take the bride. Or he could let them come to him.

His mind sifted through the possibilities and as he put himself in the mind of his adversary, he knew the course Rain Man would take. The man was a hunter. His mind was on the bride’s safety, but as soon as he felt he’d secured that much, his mind would return to the adversary he’d pursued for such a long time.

Thinking clearly, Rain Man would realize that by morning Quinton would be long gone. His evidence cleaned up, his truck nowhere to be found. Surely the man must know that anyone as extraordinary and superhuman as Quinton wouldn’t be found by registration and rental records. Rain Man would know that Quinton, having been so exposed, would vanish into thin air. Another state, another country, another world, another universe.

And indeed, by first light Quinton would be gone. As far as the east was from the west.

Furthermore, his adversary would conclude that there was no way to reach either a phone or a traveled road before sunrise. It was now man on man, ghost on ghost, angel on demon, this was it, this was the endgame.

For these reasons and for his newfound love for the bride, Rain Man would come back tonight in an attempt to put a final end to the demon that had entered his world.

And when he did, Quinton would be waiting for him.