Stolen Shroud by Daniel Westlund

Author:Daniel Westlund [Westlund, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781733443821
Publisher: For the Win Publishing
Published: 2020-02-23T22:00:00+00:00

19

In the Belly of the Beast

Something terrible’s happened, but I can’t remember what. I open my eyes and look around. Where am I? This is getting old. My head throbs. I’m in a . . . cage? Lying on the cold tile floor. The whir of the air conditioner and other machines sounds like a jet plane. What machines? Computer servers. I’m in a server room, like the one in the data center at the university. The room outside of the cage is about double the size it is inside, lined with racks of servers. There’s a large wooden door with a keypad to the right of the handle. All light is coming from the little rectangular window in the door, or from the red and green server lights, giving the room a creepy glow.

What was this Stuart Hawk guy going to do to me? Nothing good for sure. I think about the times over the past few days when his men attacked me. It was intense and terrifying, but once I got away, things settled back to normal. I suppose I was starting to feel like I was destined to survive whatever came my way. Like I’m the hero in my own story. Not anymore. Not now, now that Amy was killed in front of me. When the priest was killed it felt different. Like he had probably lived a good life, and this was his part to play, as horrible as that sounds now that I articulate it. Now that I think about Amy’s death, I feel despair. I want to feel anger and rage. Those are the proper responses. But I can’t. I just feel an empty uneasiness. I’m tired to the bone and my arms and legs are shaky. What a tragic waste of a good person. It could’ve been me if they didn’t have something else in mind for me, possibly worse than a speedy death like Amy’s. No, I can’t think like that. God has a plan in all this and he’s going to get me out of it like he’s gotten me out of everything until now, even if it didn’t work out for Amy.

I remember the bullets piercing her wispy body. Red circles appearing on her white shirt. Bastards. There’s no honor among thieves. The last thing I remember is landing a punch on that red-headed guy. He must have got one on me as well judging by the way my head feels.

“I’m here. What do you want?” I shout into the empty room at no one in particular.

I look at the ceiling, but the cage is overhead as well. I can see a normal office ceiling above it through the one-inch square holes of the cage. There are no servers in here with me. Just a cold, tiled floor.

I’m not due back at the university for another week since I didn’t teach classes this summer. The only person expecting me back is the grad student watching my dog, and I wasn’t able to call him to let him know about my change of plans.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.