Father of Fear (20 page)

The sudden illumination pierced Marcus’s eyes like a million tiny pinpricks. It took several moments for his vision to adjust beyond a white blur. When his eyes finally did start to focus, he saw the dark form of a person standing with him in the cell. He reflexively recoiled away from the shadowy form and retreated into a corner.

His father’s voice—not the recording that had played over and over, but an actual voice coming directly from a real person—said, “Hello, son. It’s time to play a little game.”

It was the first human interaction beyond the beatings Marcus had experienced in months, and it took a moment for the implications of his father’s words to sink in.

“Come with me, son.”

Marcus hesitated but then pushed himself up on trembling legs. He still couldn’t focus completely, but he saw the blurry figure gesture toward the door and say, “This way.”

He headed toward the door, but once he was within range, he lunged at the blurry figure, going for the throat. He had no plan, hadn’t thought it through. He doubted he had the strength to overpower his father, but he had to try. He had to do something.

A surge of pain spiraled down from his neck and reached his toes before he had come within three feet of his father. He dropped to the stone floor and convulsed in agony, the terrible spasms turning his whole world into all-encompassing pain.

After a moment, he lay there panting on the stone floor, the residual aching still causing his whole body to tremble. He smelled sizzling bacon but couldn’t be sure if his senses were just out of whack from the jolt or if the smell was that of his own flesh cooking.

He had completely forgotten about the shock collar still secured around his neck. His father said, “If you’ve gotten that out of your system, let’s try again.”

This time, Marcus stood and followed directions. As he entered the hallway beyond his cell and caught sight of his surroundings for the first time, he tried to soak in all the details. But his vision still wasn’t fully adjusted to being back in the light after so much time in the darkness, and what he could see wasn’t of much help. It was just a long corridor with dirty stone walls. They were obviously underground, but he had surmised that already. Three more doors on the left side of the corridor appeared to lead off to more cells similar to his own.

His father directed him to the next cell down the line. Inside were two chairs facing each other with a strange home-made electrical device sitting between them. The contraption looked like a cross between a generator and the equipment that one would find in a hospital room. A woman was bound and gagged in the farthest chair. Black streaks of mascara covered her cheeks, and she wore a white sweater with jeans. She looked like a recent acquisition.

“Marcus, meet Audrey. She’s volunteered to help us with a little experiment.”

Marcus noted that wires and electrodes ran from the device in the center out to both chairs. The wires were already connected to Audrey. They snaked up her back and under her sweater and another pair connected to her temples.

“Have a seat, Marcus.”

He didn’t want to comply. He wanted to do anything that he could to defy his father, but another jolt of electricity knocking him to the floor wouldn’t do anyone any good. So he sat down in the chair and looked deep into Audrey’s eyes. He tried to tell her to have strength, and they’d get through this. But he didn’t really believe that and was sure that seeing his emaciated form didn’t instill much confidence.

“Place that belt around your chest.” His father pointed at a black belt that looked similar to the kind found in gyms for lower back support. As the older man pointed, Marcus noticed the gun in his father’s hand for the first time—a snub-nosed revolver, either a .357 or a .38.

Marcus secured the belt around his midsection, and his father said, “Excellent” as he bent down and started fiddling with the strange device. Marcus, his vision improving, examined the older man. His father wore a three-piece suit minus the jacket, and small round spectacles sat on his angular nose. His hair was the same brown color as Marcus’s, but baldness had started to creep in.

After a few seconds, the device began to emit a familiar beeping sound that Marcus had often heard in hospital rooms coming from a heart-rate monitor. His father said, “I’ve always been fascinated with electricity. I guess it started when I saw Boris Karloff play Frankenstein when I was a small boy. I used to hook electrical current up to dead animals and watch them twitch, something first discovered in 1771 by Luigi Galvani. It was actually his experiments which led to the idea of reanimating dead tissue through electricity. Which obviously played a role in the birth of Frankenstein’s monster. Such power—the power to give life or take it away. It’s no wonder that our ancestors attributed lightning strikes to the actions of angry deities in the clouds. Now we know better. And through technology, we all have the ability to wield the power of gods.”

His father pulled a black folding stool from a corner and sat on it between his two captives as if he were about to enjoy a show.

“What is all this?” Marcus asked.

Ackerman Sr. crossed his arms and pursed his lips. “Are you familiar with exposure therapy, Marcus? It involves a person suppressing a fear-triggering memory or stimulus by confronting their fears. It can be quite effective and therapeutic. We’re going to attempt a form of that today. You have a deep-seated fear of failure. There’s this compulsion to try and save everyone and a responsibility that you feel toward the safety of all the people around you. I guess I would call it a ‘tragic hero complex.’ And as I told you, I’m going to show you a world without fear.”

Ackerman Sr. pressed a button on his device, and Audrey started screaming. “Audrey is now receiving a mild electrical shock due to an increase in your heart rate. You see, the natural physiological response to fear involves a lot of body processes. Accelerated breathing rate, constriction of the peripheral blood vessels, increased muscle tension including the muscles attached to each hair follicle which contract and cause what we commonly refer to as ‘goose bumps,’ sweating—”

Audrey’s screaming intensified, and Marcus yelled, “Stop this! You’re killing her.”

His father ignored him, continuing with his lecture. “—increased blood glucose, increased serum calcium, increase in those white blood cells called neutrophilic leukocytes, alertness leading to sleep disturbance and ‘butterflies in the stomach.’ But, most importantly, it leads to a drastic increase in a person’s heart rate. So you see, Marcus, I’m not killing her.
You
are. It’s
your
fear that’s killing her. The level of electrical current that she receives is tied directly to your heart rate. If you master your fear and control it, then you can stop her pain. If not, then she will slowly cook in her own skin.”

Marcus reached up to pull the heart-rate monitor from his chest, but his father held up a small remote and said, “I wouldn’t try that. I’ll give you a shock of your own, and I can just imagine what that would do to your heart rate.”

“You sadistic prick! I’m going to—”

Audrey’s shaking increased, and she started to make gagging noises.

“Careful, son, anger is just fear in a different form, and it too increases your heart rate. And I tell you what, if you can learn to control your fear and keep her alive, then I’ll let her go. You can save her, but only by playing the game.”

Marcus fought to bring his mind into focus and his body under control. He tried to calm himself, to go to a happy place, to distance himself from the situation. But it was nearly impossible with the sounds of Audrey’s agony echoing throughout the stone chamber. Her tortured screams pierced his soul, rattled through his brain. He couldn’t block them out. He was failing her.

He grabbed hold of the thought and realized that his father was right. He felt responsible for everything, even things that were beyond his control or not his fault. He hadn’t kidnapped Audrey and strapped her to the chair. Why did he feel responsible for her fate? Why was it his job to save her? He couldn’t even save himself.

Still, he had to try.

He searched for a perfect memory to lose himself in completely, and finally, he found one. A memory of a perfect day with his father, his real father, John Williams. They had hiked into the woods of northern New York and found a small lake nestled between two hills. They had tried to fish but failed to catch any and had ended up eating beans from a can. They had laughed and joked and talked about silly, trivial things and most of all had just enjoyed each other’s company.

When Marcus opened his eyes, Audrey was still sobbing and breathing hard, but her screaming had ceased. He looked at his father with a defiant look of triumph.

Ackerman Sr. smiled and said, “A good start.” He pulled out a pair of pruning shears, the kind typically used in a garden. “But how would you feel if I cut off one of her fingers?”

His father continued with his game for what felt like an eternity. He would torture Audrey, try to anger Marcus, manipulate him, distract him. It was a constant struggle for Marcus to keep himself calm, and he failed many times. But he was always able to bring himself back under control.

Eventually, he found that he had to make himself numb. He had to stop seeing Audrey as a person and start seeing her as an object. She was nothing to him. She was already dead. He repeated to himself that he didn’t need to save her because she wasn’t real, she wasn’t a living breathing person, she was just a thing, as insubstantial and inconsequential as a character from a fairy tale.

When his father was finally satisfied, he reached down and clicked off the machine. The beeping of the heart-rate monitor stopped. He looked at Marcus with a smile and walked over behind Audrey. He said, “You did very well, son.”

At first, Marcus thought that his father was going to untie her and keep his promise, but then the older man placed his gun against the side of her head and pulled the trigger. Her head erupted in a pink mist as the gunshot reverberated with a deafening thunder inside the small stone chamber.

Marcus screamed with fury, and before he realized what he was doing, he was on his feet and rushing toward Ackerman Sr. Then the pain shot through him again, and he dropped to the floor in another convulsive fit.

When it was done, Ackerman Sr. stood over him and said, “You can’t save everyone, son. No matter how hard you try.”

After stealing another vehicle—which Ackerman accomplished with disturbing skill and precision—Maggie and her companion were on their way to New Orleans.
Over seventeen hours in a car with one of history’s most not
o
rious killers … good times
, Maggie thought. She insisted on driving, and thankfully, Ackerman stayed quiet for most of the trip.

But as the hours stretched, she felt fatigue start to set in and her eyelids grow droopy. Needing a distraction, she asked the first question that came to mind. “So how long has it been?”

Ackerman glanced over and said, “Since we left DC?”

“Since you’ve killed someone.”

A pregnant silence hung in the vehicle for a moment, and then he said, “Crowley was the last. And I don’t really feel that a child molester should even count. Killing him was one step above stepping on a cockroach.”

“Is that true? You haven’t hurt anyone since then?”

“I told you that I wouldn’t lie to you, little sister. It’s been months. If I were in Alcoholics Anonymous, I would have received a gold coin by now, or whatever medal it is they give out for resisting a taste of one’s desire.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“How do you resist the urge?”

“Have you seen the film
A Beautiful Mind
?”

“So now you’re going to compare yourself to a Nobel Prize-winning genius?”

“I’ve never been tested, but I’m sure my IQ would qualify me as a genius. That’s not the point. That film was loosely based on the life of mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr. He struggled with mental illness and delusions. He described overcoming his delusional thinking as ‘intellectually rejecting’ such thoughts. That’s what I’m doing. I’m intellectually rejecting my animal desires. And when I need some help, I self-mutilate.”

Maggie slowly took her eyes off the road and looked over at the strange man in the passenger seat. “You cut yourself?”

“Cut, burn, whatever’s handiest. I’ve found that I only feel alive when inflicting pain or experiencing it myself.”

She fought back a wave of nausea, thinking of cutting or burning her own flesh. “I don’t see the appeal.”

“I don’t see the appeal of living in an apartment, waking up every morning for a job that I hate, coming home, watching reality TV, going to bed, and getting up to repeat the same mediocrity the next day. But that doesn’t negate the fact that many people find contentment and serenity in such activities. And I applaud them for that. I hope to find some measure of that contentment in my own life some day. Point being, to each his own.”

They were quiet for another few moments, and then Ackerman sat forward and said abruptly, “Pull over at this truck stop.”

“Why?”

“I need to use the little boys’ room.”

“Can’t you hold it?”

“I could, but I hear that’s not good for your bladder.”

Maggie growled as she clicked on her turn signal and took the exit. Under her breath, she said, “Yeah, you’re a picture of clean living.”

The place Ackerman had chosen provided one-stop shopping for denizens of the road. As Maggie pulled up, she saw through the front windows that two fast-food chains had micro-eateries within the truck stop. Signs in the windows advertised showers and bunks and every other manner of amenity imaginable. She could see displays containing everything from souvenir knick-knacks to books and movies to replacement GPS units. There was even a sporting-goods section.

She flicked the gear shift into park and back to drive, repeated the procedure three times as her OCD dictated, and looked over at her companion. There was a thick black beard covering his cheeks after the days in the woods, but that wasn’t much of a disguise. “Someone could recognize you.”

“I am kind of a big deal.”

“Be serious. We can’t take the chance of you being spotted.”

Ackerman grabbed some tissues from a box left on the passenger floorboard, wadded them up, and stuffed them between his teeth and gums. Then he rolled his neck and jutted out his chin. “How’s this?” he said in a flawless Southern accent. They were all subtle changes, but Maggie had to admit that the way he did it was quite effective. Unless someone had just seen a picture of him or was specifically looking for or expecting him, he should be able to pass a casual inspection.

“See if you can find some reading glasses or something like that inside. Then, if you can keep from attacking any of the truck drivers, we should be good.”

“No promises,” he said, turning up the drawl on the Southern accent.

Maggie stepped out into the smell of diesel fuel and grease and decided to grab a burger for the road. She asked Ackerman if he wanted anything and told him to hurry up. They entered the truck stop and then parted ways. She figured that if he wanted to slip out the back and escape, there wasn’t much she could do to stop him anyway, and she couldn’t very well follow him into the men’s room. So she jumped in line at one of the mini-restaurants and was picking out her meal and deciding if she wanted fries with it when she noticed that Ackerman hadn’t headed for the bathroom but instead had moved toward the sporting-goods section.

She growled under her breath and followed him. Although she had little choice but to offer him some small measure of trust, she wasn’t about to let her guard down completely.

She found him standing in front of a display case and speaking with a clerk, a bearded old man who looked like he’d just crawled off a shrimping boat after a three-day bender. “What are you doing?” she said as she approached, but as she drew closer, she saw what he was admiring and answered her own question. “Oh no. Absolutely not.”

Ackerman twisted the enormous blade in his hands and seemed to revel in the way the light caught its surface. It was a massive knife with a silver hilt and a bone handle. Ackerman gave her an over-exaggerated frown and said in a whiny voice, “But Mom!”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the counter. “Don’t cause a scene. I may have to put up with your company in order to get this done, but I don’t have to sit by and worry that at any moment you might plunge Paul Bunyan’s knife into my gut.”

“Actually, it’s Jim Bowie’s knife. Hence the name Bowie knife, but it’s also referred to as an Arkansas Toothpick. Bowie was a fascinating character. The event that gained him and his knife fame was a duel where Bowie was shot and stabbed multiple times but still managed—”

Maggie closed her eyes and raised a hand to stop him. “I don’t care if Jim Bowie single-handedly won the Revolutionary War and cured cancer at the same time. I—”

“Well, that’s just silly.”

“—don’t want you armed.”

Ackerman sighed, and his previously jovial demeanor melted away. He bent down and looked deep into her eyes. She shuddered and fought the animalistic instinct to run.

“If I wanted to harm you, Maggie, I could do so at any moment. I thought that I proved that in the car when I took your gun. I’m not some guard dog that you can teach to do tricks. You are alive because I allow it to be so. The only reason that I was in custody in the first place was because I allowed it. Because my brother asked it of me. I’m going to find Marcus, but my patience with your lack of respect is growing very thin.”

“You wouldn’t kill me. Marcus would hate you forever, and you couldn’t stand to be without your beloved brother.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t kill you. I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head. But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t gag you and make you ride the rest of the way to New Orleans in the trunk.”

Maggie gritted her teeth. “You just try it.”

From the look in his eyes, she could tell that he was tempted. But after a few seconds, he said, “This is getting us nowhere. We both need to be prepared to defend ourselves.”

“From who? The only ones after us might be the cops, and I’ll be damned if I let you—”

“Not the police, little sister. Mr. Craig and his band of merry men.”

“What? You think Fagan will send that psycho after us?”

“No, I think he’ll come all on his own. You killed one of his men, and I know Craig’s type. His ego won’t allow him to let that go. He’ll demand vengeance.”

“But Andrew…”

“Yes, I’m sure he’s already tortured your friend to find out where we’re headed. And torture is something that Craig excels at.”

Maggie’s face twisted in anger as tears formed in her eyes. “You’re a real bastard, you know that.” She tossed a fifty-dollar bill against his chest, said, “For your knife,” and stormed out to the car. She suspected that Ackerman didn’t even understand why she was upset, but she didn’t care. Insanity didn’t let him off the hook for being an asshole.