Ted Dekker: The Bride Collector

She threw her arms around him to keep him from going and trembled with fear, knowing he must. How many times had she longed to be rescued, written about the man on the white horse sweeping to save the maiden… But now she had found the man on the white horse and she dreaded the thought of losing him.

“Paradise…” He kissed her head again, then gently pried her arms away. “Paradise, please.” He kissed her face, her lips, just lightly. “Please, I love you. I’ll be back. He isn’t expecting me, right? No one in their right mind would go back, he knows that.”

She just looked up at him, letting his stumbled-in words fall away because in truth he was right, neither of them was in their right minds, not her for wanting to go earlier, not him for going now. They were thinking with their hearts, and she would trade nothing for it.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said.

Paradise stretched up and kissed him on his lips. It was the first time she’d ever kissed a man. They were warm and soft. And she wanted to cling to him and cry and kiss him again.

Instead she put on her bravest face and looked up into his eyes. “Come back quickly,” she said.

He nodded once.

“I will.”

BRAD CUT DOWN the ditch, past the point they’d exited the field, pulled up twenty yards farther, and listened. Crickets chirped in the grove of trees south. A light breeze rustled through the fields like blowing sand on this endless shore of corn gilded by a round white moon.

He looked back up the ditch. If he used his imagination, he could make out the form of a woman huddled up against the ditch slope in the far distance. A precious woman named Paradise who deserved and now had his complete devotion.

But without his imagination, he couldn’t see her, and the thought of never again seeing her terrified him.

Leaving her there to suffer yet another abandonment had wrenched his heart. But he knew that he might never have another opportunity to save, really save, Paradise. As long as Quinton Gauld was at large, Paradise’s life was in mortal danger.

He faced south, into the cornfield. There was only one way to maintain the upper hand. He had to go in silently, quickly, and with a ruthlessness that once belonged only to those he’d hunted. For all he knew, Quinton Gauld had already fled. But assuming the man was either mounting an effort to sweep the fields or still cleaning up, Brad had to move and move now.

He stepped into the field and snaked between the stalks as carefully as he could. At this pace, the sound of his brushing against the closely planted stalks could be noticed, but not easily distinguished from the slight swaying caused by the breeze. Either way, he had little choice. The cornfield had to be crossed.

His plan was a simple one. Without a weapon, he didn’t stand a chance in any kind of confrontation. But there was another way. A way that would require him to gain entry to the barn without being seen. If he could just get in, he could finish this tonight.

Heart pounding like a large rabbit’s thumpers, he snaked forward. Quickly, low, breathing as quietly as possible. He stopped ten feet from the end of the field and listened for any unusual sound.

None. What he would give for his gun now. Even the hammer. He could have grabbed something on his way out of the barn, a rake, a stick, a metal rod, a rope, a brick, anything, but he’d neither seen nor considered taking anything. And why should he have? Only a person who’d lost his mind would come back.

Brad slipped up to the edge of the field and peered out from the stalks. Orange light still flickered in twin upper windows and from a dozen vertical cracks along the wall. Quinton was still here.

The fissures between the old shriveled boards were large enough to give an attentive person on the inside a view of someone on the outside. He would have to keep that in mind. Now that he thought about it, there was the possibility that Quinton had seen them as they made their escape, illuminated by the strong truck lights shining through the cracks. But he hadn’t pursued them. Either way, it no longer mattered.

There were fewer cracks on the right side of the barn. Brad crouched low, stepped from the cornfield, and ran across the clearing toward the barn’s far corner.

THE BARN WAS nicely lit by the moon, and from Quinton’s exterior perspective fifty yards from the southwest corner, he had a perfect view of three-quarters of the building rising like a tomb against the starry sky. He sat with his legs crossed in a yoga position, palms up, thumb and forefinger circular to help him concentrate.

He blended into the wheat field that rose behind him just above his head. Rain Man’s flight into the field had taken them to the northwest; assuming he returned, he would probably come from the same direction. Even if he changed his angle of approach considerably, Quinton would see him coming.

Fully expecting Quinton to be inside the barn cleaning up like a madman, the fox would peer through one of the cracks and be unnerved by the fact that his prey was not in sight. The fox would then circle the barn stealthily, trying to pinpoint Quinton’s whereabouts before he rushed in for the kill-assuming Rain Man was as smart as Quinton thought he was.

If Rain Man did not return, Quinton would clean up and leave in the next hour, long before the sun rose. And he would return later to finish what he’d started. He was a patient man. He’d waited seven years already; another few months would not be a problem.

All was in order. Quinton would not disappoint those peering eyes from the night again. Particularly not now that he finally understood his true purpose.

The only thing slightly off was the sound. The buzzing in his brain had become a grinding. It was so loud now that he could hardly distinguish it from the crickets. Not that his hearing mattered at this point. He would rely on his eyesight and superior intelligence, having set hearing and emotion aside for the moment.

His mind was bright enough to illuminate the world.

His hatred, on the other hand, was so dark that he had begun to relish the thought of killing Paradise for the smell and taste of the blood alone.

His advantage wasn’t limited to these strengths. His buzzing intelligence had also shown him precisely how, armed with nothing but sticks and stones, the fox intended to kill him.

Rain Man would try to burn the barn down with him and his truck in it. And for that he would need only a well-thrown stick or rock. Like David slaying Goliath.

This was why Quinton waited where he did, safely on the outside, ready to move when the time came. Leaving the truck parked in the barn presented a risk, but he couldn’t remove it without tipping his hand. Either way, sitting in the yoga position against the wheat field put Quinton in the perfect position.

The cornfield on the opposite side of the clearing suddenly parted and Rain Man darted out, crouched low, offering a low profile to any bullet.

Quinton was on his feet already. The fox was there, scurrying.

But the Hound of Hell was ready and his fangs were already barred.

BRAD CAME TO a gliding halt against the corner of the barn and pressed his back against the boards, breathing through his nose. He’d stuffed five rocks into his pockets from the ditch, two in his right, three in his left, but he would use them only if he couldn’t find something large with which to smash the lamps.

Once broken, the kerosene would spray over the hay-strewn ground and the bales nearby, and in a matter of two or three seconds a blaze too large to contain would be raging.

Next would be the truck. He’d considered a dozen possible scenarios that might allow him to disable the vehicle, but they all required him to gain an advantage once the chaos ensued. It would take surprisingly few hay bales to stop the truck long enough to smash a second lamp over its hood or bludgeon its radiator with Quinton’s small sledgehammer.