Kane’s weapon roared, spitting fire inches from Frank’s face.
The two struck the floor and rolled apart, each coming up into a half-crouch with only a few feet between them.
Both snapped up their weapons. Their gazes locked over the gun sights.
“Drop it,” Frank shouted.
The killer’s eyes reflected the ugly orange light of the basement like twin flames set in the sockets of a half- rotten skull. They flashed with undeniable glee as he retracted his upper lip in genuine smile of delight.
“Fraaaaaaank!”
Frank shuddered at the sound of his name. It gusted from the killer’s mouth in an elongated breath of mixed wonder and jubilation.
“I said drop it!”
Kane’s smile only broadened. “You’re early, Detective Atkins. Not that it will do you any good. I’m finished.”
Frank’s heart thundered in his chest. Sweat slipped from under his Kevlar helmet and cut trails down his cheeks. Behind him, the stairwell rumbled and creaked as the SWAT team reassembled.
“Don’t come any closer!” Kane shouted to the officers without taking his eyes from Frank. “I’ve got your man Atkins. I’ll blow his head off!”
Frank’s grip tightened on his weapon. “How do you know my name?”
Kane’s laugher sounded like snakes slithering through dry grass. “I’ve been told all about you. Who you are. Where you live. I’ve stood over you while you’ve slept. You didn’t know that, did you? The veins in your neck have beat against my blade more than once, but each time I let you live. Do you know why? Because you pose no threat to me, Detective. No more than those dead men on the stairs.”
“There are fifty officers surrounding this place,” Frank growled. “You’ve got nowhere to go. Now drop the fucking weapon!”
Kane laughed again. “I’m counting on those fifty officers, Detective. Don’t you get it? You’re here because I want you here. This is where it starts!”
Frank’s trigger finger tensed when amber light suddenly flared to life on the other side of the room. For a split second his mind screamed
“You see?” Kane said within the light. “It’s begun.”
Frank squinted, trying to keep Kane in his sights.
Over the madman’s shoulder the blinding amber light seeped through the frame of a closed door set into the far wall, casting blazing slivers across the room that illuminated the basement. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the light vanished. Kane’s spittle-slick grin snapped back into focus.
“The bible got it wrong,” the killer said in an oily whisper. “The meek won’t inherit the Earth, Frank. They’ll
And with that, the smiling devil pulled the trigger of his weapon.
Each round punched into Frank’s chest with the ruthless power of a sledgehammer, their lethal progress stopped short of entering his flesh by his vest’s protective plating. Pain sunk its teeth into his nerves. Somehow he held the MP-5 steady, gripping it in both hands. He fired back even as he fell, his shots opening a dozen dark holes in the killer’s gaunt torso. Red geysers sprayed from exit wounds in the madman’s back. Unbelievably, Kane continued to grin, firing his gun empty as Frank’s 9mm rounds sliced through him.
The remaining officers poured down the steps and flooded into the basement, filling the room with the explosive roar of additional gunfire. Muzzle flashes lit up the room, creating a crowd of black shadows that danced on the walls like a cheering crowd of demonic spectators.
Frank collapsed to the floor, jaw clenched in a rigor of pain.
The final shot rang in his ears, followed by the shouts of the officers entering the room.
“Cease fire!”
“Officers down!”
“Get the medics in here!”
Frank caught a momentary glimpse of Kale Kane’s blood-splattered face staring back at him from the ground, eyes open. Then fellow officers crowded into the area, blocking the view.
Two of the men helped Frank to his feet. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’ll live.”
He pushed away and edged through the crowd until he stood over Kane’s corpse. The killer lay in an ocean of blood, one cheek peeled aside by a bullet to reveal those shiny white teeth, as if he was still smiling.
Frank sagged, catching his breath.
Across the room wood shrieked against a strike plate. When Frank looked, he saw one of the tactical officers trying to yank open a chipped and faded green door on the far wall, the same door that had contained the unexplainable lightshow moments earlier.
“Wait!” Frank shouted.
The door pulled free even as the words left Frank’s mouth, and the officers that closed in to clear the room beyond immediately choked and recoiled. The stench of rot that had enveloped them since first setting foot in the stairwell magnified to a near-suffocating degree.
“Holy shit,” one of them cried.
Another doubled over and puked.
Despite the overpowering odor, Frank hurried forward. He pushed through the crowd, wincing in pain, but came to a halt when he beheld the unimaginable sight that waited in the dirt-walled room ahead. He stared in dreamlike detachment, his mind straining to make sense of the madness displayed before him.
“My God,” he whispered.
And just when he thought his overstressed nerves had been pushed to their limit, one of the medics who’d bent over Kane’s body ended the shock-induced stillness with a scream.
“He’s still alive!”
CHAPTER 1
Five Years Later…
Jerry Anderson’s eyes snapped opened to see the last flicker of pale blue lightning depart from his bedroom walls, pursued into the night by darkness.
He bolted upright and surveyed the shadowy bedroom with widened eyes, searching his surroundings for the source of what had roused him. By the weakness of the lightning’s pursuing thunderclap, he knew it hadn’t been the storm.
Something moved in the darkness, and Jerry wheeled around to face it.
Outside, the wind gusted against the house and through the nearby treetops, its morose tone overlaid by the sound of rainwater dripping from the gutter. Inside, black shadows swayed on the walls and floor, but he saw nothing to justify his fear.
Nothing yet.
“Get up,” he hissed, shaking his wife.
Margaret Anderson jerked from sleep. “What—” she gasped, but Jerry clapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish.
“I heard something,” he whispered. “In the house.”
Her startled expression cleared, replaced by a look of stark terror. Even in the wan light of the bedside clock the color drained from her face. “No,” she groaned. “It’s been three days. Kern said three days and we’d be safe.”
“Kern’s a fool,” Jerry said. “We were idiots for listening to him.”
Her eyes flicked from his to the door, then back. Lightning flashed outside, and a peal of thunder trembled through the air. They listened to the silence that followed, straining to hear into the deeper reaches of the
