Chapter 9 (part 1)

Max Young was lying on the desert floor with a pair of night-vision binoculars cupped in his hands. He held the binoculars to his face and lifted his upper body slightly by digging his elbows into the dirt. He gazed into the lenses and let his eyes become adjusted to the bright lime green images the night-vision showed him.

He watched for five minutes as the bizarre events unfolded. He saw the men in blindfolds crouch on the ground and then watched as they were beheaded without mercy. This was nothing new to Max; he had seen the entire act carried out four times before tonight.

He knew the routines of these people. After the beheadings, two vans would come from somewhere else out in the desert and take the bodies away. Then the others would pile back up onto the bus, drive further into the desert and eventually cut the headlights off.

It was at this point that Max had always lost them. But tonight was different. First of all, he had purchased the night-vision binoculars from a highly illegal internet site. It had been a risky venture mainly because he was a member of law enforcement. But if he was able to track these lunatics down, he wouldn’t care if he lost his job.

Hell, he wouldn’t even care if he did jail time for it. He had his own reasons for taking such a risk. These were the same reasons that had essentially placed him on the Shinoe police department in the first place.

Another change in the group’s activity tonight was the fact that after the beheadings, something new had taken place. Whatever it had been, Max could tell by their actions that it was being improvised and had not been expected. Max watched as several members of the group boarded the bus while the remainder of them stayed outside. Moments later they had come off of the bus, carrying a struggling man overhead. This man was then thrown to the ground and whacked across the head. The fact that this man was not beheaded was puzzling to Max because the maniacs on the bus were usually very ritualistic in their killings.

Why had things changed tonight? he wondered.

Max continued to watch as two vans with their headlights turned off drove up from the west. Two men got out of each van and then the beheaded bodies were loaded into the back of one of the vans. With the bodies loaded, this van headed back the way it had come while the other one stayed behind. There was a brief discussion between the leader and a few of the other members. They stood around the fallen man that had been pulled from the bus, as if discussing what the unfortunate fellow’s fate would be.

In the end, they had placed this man in the back of the second van. Max was a good two hundred yards away from the area, so he could not tell if the man was dead or not. He assumed that he was still alive because if the maniacs had have wanted him dead, they would have probably swiped his head off, too.

Max remained still and quiet on the desert floor, making sure not to move at all until the killers had boarded the bus again. As had been the case on the other nights Max had spied on them, the leader that carried the axes got into the remaining van rather than the bus. Max had no idea why things were carried out in such a manner, but it was exactly how they had always done it.

As the killers finished up things, Max found himself wrestling with guilt. He had watched this twice times—three times including tonight—and, as a result of his private investigation, at least fifteen people had been beheaded. But Max knew that if he sprung out at them before he knew their exact intensions, the last two years of his life would be wasted.

Maybe tonight, he’d finally be able to find them. Something in the air felt different tonight, something he couldn’t place. Maybe the cult’s ritualistic killings came to an end tonight.
Tonight, maybe Max would get his revenge.

He remained on the ground until he saw the bus’s lights came on. Once Max could tell that the bus was in motion, he got to his feet. He studied the bus for a while longer through the binoculars, making sure he knew which direction it was headed. When he had a general idea of its course, he removed the binoculars from his eyes and began to run in the opposite direction.

About twenty yards behind him, he had parked a dirt bike. It was a sleek black color that was just about impossible to see in the dead of the night. He had purchased it a week ago from a dealership that had customized the bike so that it was exceptionally quiet. The muffler subdued almost all sounds from the exhaust and the engine purred like a kitten. It had gotten him out here unseen and unheard so far, but the next stage of his pursuit would be the toughest.

He adjusted the gun holster that he wore on his hip so that it would be comfortable while he rode. Comfort would be key in the following pursuit; he wouldn’t be able to use his headlight because it increased his chances of being spotted by a ridiculous measure. Instead, he’d have to creep far behind the bus, using the night-vision binoculars very frequently. Not only did he have to keep up with the bus, but he also had to keep an eye out for any rocks, shallow ravines or other obstructions in his path.

Taking a deep breath, Max cranked the dirt bike to life. He took a final quick glance with the binoculars, then kicked the bike into gear and followed after the bus. He’d been after that bus for a damned long time now and by God, tonight he would find out where these lunatics were hiding out.