The Monster Hunter Ch. 41-50

"My ass doesn't feel lucky, but thanks." She left, and Michael turned to Reggie. "Where's our client?"

"End of the hall on the right."

"Back in a minute." Michael grabbed Henry's bag and walked to the end of the hall, knocking on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Michael Johnson. I'm the replacement nightshift guy."

"Slide your identification under the door." Michael took it out of his wallet and did so, and a few seconds later, the door unlocked with a half-dozen clicks and thunks. Henry McKnight was almost seventy years old, with a weathered face and receding gray hair. He handed him back his identification and took the bag. "Thanks."

In the short time that the door was open, Michael took his measure of the man. He'd turned his bedroom into a bunker. He'd boarded over the windows with plywood, added a half-dozen locks to the door, and moved his computer and television inside. Michael listened as all the locks reset, then returned to the kitchen table where the security computer was. "Is he always in there?"

"I've never seen him leave the room," Reggie said. "Any questions?"

"Nope. See you in the morning." Michael told him. He attached his custom-fit earpiece to the radio tube and flipped through the screens, watching Reggie and Terry get in a car and head to the hotel. "Tonya, radio check."

"Check sat."

"Roger that." Michael went back to watching the screens as he ate the pulled pork sandwich and potato wedges she'd brought. He wanted the Monster Hunter to get this guy, but he had to do it in a way that suspicion didn't fall onto him or his company.

It wasn't going to be easy.

Michael completed four days of the protection detail assignment, mulling over ideas for how he could accomplish his goals.

Henry McKnight was the only man on the Monster Hunter's list of five men still alive and free. That couldn't continue, or people might think he'd stopped. No, Henry had to either die or confess, and he needed to do it soon.

It had to happen indirectly, though. Michael's assignment to the detail would raise eyebrows with the FBI if McKnight ended up as a Monster Hunter victim. Even if he ignored Angel's warnings to stop, it was too dangerous to abduct and torture this man as he deserved. It couldn't happen while he was around at all. It needed to happen in a way that didn't lead back to him.

The protection was costing a lot of money, and Michael had no idea how long he could pay for it. SecuriTech was neutral on this; he paid for protection, and the company provided it. If Henry died an hour after they packed up and left, that wasn't their problem. If he reduced the detail from four to two people, he could hold out even longer.

The solution came to him as he delivered dinner to him the fourth night. Henry was deteriorating by the day; losing weight, not sleeping well, and his paranoia was getting stronger. It didn't help when he watched the news showing him hiding behind security or when Vegas was taking odds on his fate. The oddsmakers had him lasting three more weeks.

If Michael could shatter his sense of security in his home, he'd break.

The next morning, he got six hours of sleep, then got up and walked down the road to the old mall. There was a thrift store there, and he bought an electronic voice recorder with a 24-hour recording limit for five dollars, paying cash. Michael played with it as he walked to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. It was pretty basic; recording with one button, playback with another, and volume controls.

He set the microphone sensitivity as low as possible, started it recording, and put it inside the extra blankets and sheets in his closet. When he returned the next morning, he backed up to see if it had recorded anything. Even at a loud volume, the sounds were barely noticeable. He continued recording nothing while he slept, getting a total of almost 20 hours of nothing before he paused it again.

He ate his breakfast while he composed the message on the computer. Part of the text he typed, the rest he copied from a website. When it was the way he wanted, he used the program's Text-to-Talk feature to read it into the voice recorder. When he finished, Michael hit stop and verified the file length before backspacing to erase the file. After making sure nothing got saved to his computer and clearing his browser history, he closed it down.

Taking out his bag of supplies from the Wal-Mart run earlier, he retrieved a pair of vinyl gloves and put them on. He wiped the gloves with hand sanitizer, then used a Kleenex soaked in the gel to clean the voice recorder. After wiping it dry with another Kleenex, he withdrew a ziplock back from the box and put the voice recorder inside. He then cleaned off the small tube of epoxy paste, putting it inside the ziplock along with a disposable Tyvek painting suit, a facemask, and two extra pairs of gloves. He stuffed the bag in his jacket pocket and walked downstairs to meet Tonya.

They stopped for Chinese takeout and sub sandwiches on the way out, paying for it all with a company credit card. "Ready for you last night?"

"Ready to get back home," Michael replied. "My fiance' misses me."

"When are you getting married?"

"December 26^th, at her parent's home in Montreal."

"That's fast. Is there a shotgun involved?" Michael just looked out the window. "Doesn't matter. When you find that special one, you have to grab her and hold on, Michael. Our life isn't an easy one when you have a family."

"It's not an easy one when you don't." They talked about what he knew about the wedding plans, which wasn't much, on the way to work. Michael had the first outside shift, and he verified his plan in the daylight as he walked around.

On his last outside shift of the night, Michael stopped in a blind spot of the cameras and took out the bag. He donned gloves first, then pulled the Tyvek suit over his clothes, finishing with the mask and hood. The home had a crawlspace, and latticework was covering it. Michael had loosened one end of the panel earlier. Moving it aside, he quietly crawled under the home until he was directly below the master bedroom.

He calculated the time delay on the player would put this at ten that night when Henry watched the news. He picked out a spot between the joists near the chair he sat on and pulled the insulation back. Michael removed the voice recorder from the bag and hit play, then attacked the recorder flush to the subfloor using the epoxy. He moved the insulation back, pocketed the bag, and backed out again.

As soon as the lattice was back in place, he stripped off the Tyvek and placed the suit, mask, and epoxy back inside along with the gloves. He checked his watch to see the whole evolution had taken him four minutes. Continuing his patrol, he waited for his relief to arrive. When they did, he said his goodbyes, and Tonya drove him to the airport. "Good luck, Michael. It was good working with you again," Tonya told him as he got out.

"Same to you." He walked into the terminal, tossing the bag of supplies into a trash can on the way to catch his flight.

That night, Henry was eating popcorn and watching the news when a computer-generated voice said his name. "Henry. Henry McKnight. You've been a bad boy." Henry looked around, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. It seemed to be everywhere, yet nowhere. "I warned you, Henry. I gave you thirty days to confess, and you defied the Monster Hunter. I'm not mad; I'm looking forward to seeing you soon." By now, Henry was in a panic, racing around his room and not finding anything. "I've got your torture ready. Have you ever heard of the Judas Cradle?"

Henry was starting to cry now. The disembodied voice continued. "I'll tie your legs together, and then I'll tie your arms to the ceiling. I have a pyramid-shaped seat for you to sit on; since you liked fucking your victims in the ass, guess where the point goes? You can't take your weight off it, and every move forces it deeper inside until it tears you apart. You'll suffer for DAYS, Henry, and I'll enjoy every scream you make. I'm coming for you. I'm coming soon."

The recording ended, and Henry completely lost it. "He's not going to get me. He's not going to get me." Retrieving his pistol from his bedside table, he put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Michael was relaxing in bed with Amber when Angel knocked on the door after midnight. "Michael, are you guys awake?"

"Come in." She opened the door to the smell of sex in the room. "You guys haven't come out in hours."

Michael rolled his eyes. "Everything I need now is in my bed. What's going on?"

"Henry McKnight. He committed suicide; they're reporting it on the news."

Michael took a moment to process it. "That's one less out there, I guess."

"I know. I almost wish the Monster Hunter would release a NEW list since the last one worked so well. Anyway, sorry I disturbed you, but since you just left that place, I thought you should know." Angel closed the door and left them to think.

Michael turned off the light and pulled Amber close, kissing her hair as she tucked her face on his shoulder. She was his life now, and he'd do anything to protect her.

Or not do anything.

The Monster Hunter was dead, but his legend lives on.