Chuck Hustmyre - A Killer Like Me

The killer limps into the room. The mayor’s daughter is where he left her, duct-taped to the chair. Her face is red and swollen from crying and stretched wide with terror. Her nose and lips are crusted over. She looks nothing like the beautiful ebony princess who was honored at the awards ceremony two nights ago.

Her fear strengthens him. He shoves the pistol into his pants.

Wind and rain whip through the busted glass of the French doors as the killer pulls the Khyber knife free from the wall. He hefts the heavy weapon in his hand. It feels good.

He pulls a folded yellow sheet of legal paper from the back pocket of his pants. As he unfolds the wet page, he is glad to see the words are still legible. He has hand-printed four lines of text. The girl will read the lines into the camera. Then he will strike off her head and hold it up for all the world to see. Including her father.

The killer touches his face. His mask is downstairs. No matter. He can edit himself out of the video later. What is important now is that he finish his work. Then he will find Murphy and kill him.

He checks the camera. It is already recording. He remembers pushing the red record button just before he heard the noise downstairs. His struggle with Murphy has been recorded.

God is on my side. I shall not fail.

Murphy pushed open the broken door and slipped into the foyer, the shotgun gripped in both hands. He did not waste time searching downstairs. Jeffries was upstairs. He was sure of it. At the bottom of the stairs, Murphy reached down to unlace and remove his shoes.

He didn’t charge up the stairs this time, not with a busted knee. But he moved steadily, turning as he climbed, keeping the shotgun aimed at the upper railing. He had lost his flashlight, but his eyes were adjusted to the darkness.

The top of the stairwell was empty, but the dark tunnel of the hallway loomed straight ahead. Murphy limped toward the opening. He peeked around the corner with the shotgun ready, his finger on the trigger. The hallway was empty. The first door on the right was still open. Inside, the light was on. He stepped into the center of the hallway.

At the edge of the open door, he paused and took a deep breath. This was it, he thought. Only one of us will leave this room alive.

Murphy pushed off with his good leg and stepped into the room. Jeffries was to his right, his back to the door. He stood next to Kiesha Guidry, who was still bound to the chair. Jeffries held a sheet of yellow paper in front of Kiesha with his left hand. His right hand held a huge knife, nearly the size of a machete. He pressed the tip of the blade against the terrified girl’s neck.

Kiesha sat facing the camera across the room. She was reading out loud from the paper Jeffries held in front of her, but Murphy couldn’t make out the words over the sound of the wind blowing through the shattered French doors. Jeffries was looking down at her.

For a moment, neither of them noticed Murphy.

He could not fire his last round of buckshot without hitting Kiesha.

Then Jeffries turned and saw him. He dropped the sheet of paper and the knife and snatched the Glock from his waistband. Murphy tried to jump behind the wall but his right leg folded under him. He fell on his back in the doorway.

Jeffries screamed something, but the wind sucked his words out of the room before they reached Murphy’s ears.

With the pistol thrust out in one hand, Jeffries took two steps toward Murphy and fired. The bullet smacked into the doorframe beside Murphy’s right ear. Jeffries took a third step and paused to take careful aim. He didn’t seem to notice that the slide on the Glock had locked back on an empty magazine.

Murphy noticed.

When Jeffries pulled the trigger, nothing happened. So he pulled it again. Then he turned the pistol in his hand and stared into the empty chamber.

Murphy raised the shotgun and fired.

The blast caught Jeffries high in the chest. He stayed on his feet for several seconds, looking down at the dozen black holes smoking in his chest. Then he collapsed.

Murphy pulled himself up from the floor. There was no need to check Jeffries for a pulse. No one survives a round of buckshot to the chest from six feet.

Murphy dropped the shotgun and looked at Kiesha Guidry. “Are you hurt?”

She stared at Jeffries. “Is he dead?”

“He’s dead.” Murphy hobbled toward her and reached for his folding knife, but it wasn’t there. He lowered himself onto his left knee and tore at the duct tape with his fingers.

A blast of wind ripped through the broken French doors and shook the house like a dog with a bone. From another upstairs room came the sound of breaking glass. Then from outside, Murphy heard what sounded like a piece of tin bouncing down the street.

Catherine was here.

“We need to get downstairs,” Murphy said. “We’re going to have to ride out the storm here.”

She looked at him and nodded.

“You are Kiesha Guidry, right?”

She nodded again.

“We’ve been looking for you.”

She started crying.

After Murphy tore the last piece of duct tape that bound Kiesha to the chair, he tried to pull her to her feet, but she couldn’t stand. So he bent down and hefted her onto his right shoulder and swung her into a fireman’s carry. His knee almost gave out after the first step, but he managed to make it all the way to the top of the stairs before he had to set her down.

Outside, the wind was a continuous roar, like a speeding train. The hammerlike gusts shook the house to its foundation. Murphy was worried the old house couldn’t stand up to the beating it was about to get.

After a minute’s rest for his throbbing knee, Murphy bent over to pick up Kiesha again, but she laid a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “You’re hurt,” she said. “I can make it.”

She ended up helping him down the stairs.

They took shelter in the bathroom. Three of the four walls were interior walls and there were no windows. They lay down together in the bathtub and Murphy covered them with his raincoat. He wrapped his arms around her.

“What if it floods?” she asked.

“It won’t,” Murphy said. “The levees have been redesigned. They’ll hold this time.”

The storm raged for hours. Early on, a transformer exploded and the streetlights went dark. All around them, Murphy heard trees and light poles snapping and crashing to the ground. Despite the tremendous noise, Kiesha fell asleep. She woke up once when something big smashed into the side of the house, but when Murphy told her it was nothing to worry about she fell back asleep.

Sometime after midnight, the storm started to slacken. The eye was getting close, Murphy thought. After the eye passed, the wind strengthened again.

Part of the roof blew off around 2:00 AM. The sound of the wood being ripped apart jolted Murphy. He expected the walls to fall down on top of them any minute. But the house held. By three o’clock, the worst of the storm was over.

Dawn came late. He woke Kiesha and they walked outside and stood on the sidewalk. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. The wooden awning that had broken his fall and saved his life had blown away. There was no sign of flooding. The levees had held.

“I told you,” he said.

She was bundled in his raincoat and looked up at him. She smiled for the first time. “You didn’t know. You just said that to make me feel better.”

Murphy smiled back. “Did it work?”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Thursday, August 9, 6:30 PM

Catherine wreaked tremendous havoc across the city, swatting down power lines, uprooting trees, damaging and destroying homes and businesses, but because she did not leave a biblical flood in her wake like Katrina, the cleanup and rebuilding began almost immediately.