Chris Carter - I Am Death

Nothing to his right.

Nothing directly in front of him.

Nothing to his... wait. He paused, leaned forward. There it was. Way up ahead and slightly to his left.

From that distance, and in almost total darkness, Hunter struggled to understand what he was really looking at. It was some sort of construction. From the size of its shadow, it could be a medium-sized, two-storey house — the only issue was, it didn’t look like a house. The building was square in shape, like a big box, and dusky in color, which on such a dark night, out there in a desert, made it practically invisible. Hunter was surprised that he had managed to spot it, even with a pair of binoculars.

He calculated the distance between the building and where he was standing to be about a quarter of a mile. He got back into his car and reached for his cellphone.

Nothing. Not even half a bar of signal. Moving it about also made no difference. He was slap-bang in the middle of nowhere.

‘Great!’

Hunter decided to leave his car by the side of the dirt road and continue the rest of the way on foot. He’d be a lot quieter, and a lot less visible, that way.

He checked his HK Mark 23 pistol. It had a full clip loaded on to the weapon but Hunter was taking no chances. From the glove compartment, he picked up a flashlight and a second, fully loaded clip.

Despite still being another quarter of a mile away, Hunter moved stealthily, hiding himself as best as he could behind cactuses, trees and willows. He moved about fifteen to twenty yards at a time in a half-crouched position, stopped, got as close to the ground as possible and used his binoculars to check ahead. Everything looked as still as death.

He’d repeated the process five more times before he was able to spot something he hadn’t seen before — a black GMC Yukon parked to the right of the construction.

From his window, Marlon had seen the fake telephone engineer climb into a black GMC Yukon after he’d collected the Wi-Fi camera he had placed high up on the telephone pole.

Hunter breathed in, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and carried on moving forward, getting closer and closer until he was no more than forty yards away from the building. He positioned himself behind a cluster of willows and used his binoculars again. He’d been right. The building looked nothing like a house.

Hunter figured that he’d been approaching it from its side instead of its front. He’d come to that conclusion because he could see no doors on that end of the building. With the Yukon parked around to the right, it seemed only logical that whoever had been driving it had parked by the front door.

Hunter was about to move closer when he noticed something else. On that whole side of the building there was only one window. It was way up high and a little to the left, but what made Hunter pause suddenly was the fact that, despite how far from the ground it was, thick, metal bars had been fitted to the outside of that lone window.

That building wasn’t a house.

It was a prison.

Still hiding behind the cluster of willows, Hunter used his binoculars to check the property’s grounds, its roof and all the corners he could see from his shielded location. He found no surveillance of any kind, at least not around that side. Satisfied, he moved closer, reaching the building in front of him in less than twenty seconds. As he did so, he placed his back flat against its west wall before checking left.

Nothing.

Right.

Nothing.

So far, so good.

He then began scooting south, toward where the Yukon was parked. Once he got to the edge of the wall, he crouched down, unholstered his weapon and flash-peeked around the corner.

He saw nothing.

He waited a few more seconds, then peered around again. This time, not so fast.

The Yukon was parked about eleven yards from the building’s entrance — a heavy-looking wooden door. That was it. There was nothing else there.

Great, Hunter thought. Now what, Robert? No way that that door will be unlocked. This is a prison, not a house. Whatever security has been put in place here, it hasn’t been used to keep anyone from getting in. It’s to stop people from getting out.

There was nothing else Hunter could do but get closer and have a better look. And that was exactly what he did. Still with his gun in hand and his back flat against the wall, he rounded the corner and slowly slid his way toward the heavy door. As he got to it, he felt his guts beginning to churn inside him.

There was something definitely evil about this place. Even the air immediately around it felt denser, harder to breathe.

Hunter studied the lock on the door. It looked old, but solid. He took another deep breath and looked around him again.

Nothing but darkness and silence.

He stretched out his left arm, placed his fingers on the door handle, twisted it downwards and gave the door a slow but firm push.

He was wrong.

To his bewildered surprise, the door moved inwards. It was unlocked.

‘What the hell?’ he whispered under his breath.

Hunter held the door in that position for a long moment, his brain quickly trying to figure out what to do next.

He’d come too far to turn back now.

As cautiously as he could, he pushed the door just another inch. Then another. Then another. Then another. Until the gap was wide enough for him to peek inside.

He saw nothing. Whatever this first room was, it seemed to be completely empty.

Hunter held his breath, pushed the door just a couple more inches and furtively slid into the building, slowly closing the door behind him.

The air inside was warm and dusty, heavy with the smell of bleach and disinfectant, very similar to the odor that he and Garcia had picked up inside Mat Hade’s apartment in East Los Angeles.

Hunter stood still for a moment, his back now flat against the inside of the door. His eyes were already used to the moonless night outside so it took them no time at all to acclimatize to the darkness inside, which suited him perfectly. He wanted to avoid using his flashlight as much as possible.

Hunter found himself standing at the entrance to a wide corridor, which had been stripped of all furniture and decorations. The walls were gray and made of cinder blocks, the floor and the ceiling of solid concrete. The entire hallway looked like a square, concrete tunnel — claustrophobic and airless.

It extended about seven yards in front of Hunter, leading to a second door, which lay ajar. A faint light came from somewhere behind it.

With watchful, soundless steps, Hunter quickly moved to it, pausing by the wall to the right of the door. He stood there motionless, waiting, listening.

One minute.

Two minutes.

The silence was deafening.

He finally twisted his body, craned his neck and very carefully peeked through the gap. The light source, which Hunter was unable to identify, was extremely weak, keeping most of the room in shadow. From where he stood, he could only partially see one half of the room without exposing himself, and it looked almost as sterile as the corridor he was in. Toward the back of it, a dark fabric armchair faced a blank wall. To its left, Hunter saw a small, wooden coffee table. On the floor, just in front of the armchair, a rectangular, black and white rug bridged the gap between the armchair and the wall. That was it. Hunter could see nothing else other than dark corners.

With his back still against the wall to the right of the door, he waited another two full minutes.

No sound or movement from inside.

Time to move on.

Hunter took a deep breath and, in a noiseless and well-rehearsed movement, rotated his body into the room, his arms extended in front of him, his gun searching for a target everywhere... anywhere.