CHAPTER 18

A cop is like a shepherd.

Those were the exact words that the Sheriff had used. Now, this officer makes the same analogy. It could have been a coincidence, but Marcus didn’t believe in coincidences. They didn’t exist, as far as he was concerned. Everything happened for a reason. Everything was connected—even though, most of the time, that connection and the reasoning behind it was far beyond human comprehension.

He glanced around and took in every detail of the cop car. The seats weren’t like regular car seats. They were plastic, in order to allow the officer to easily clean up whatever surprise might have been left for him. At one time or another, puke, piss, and every other manner of bodily secretion had been found in the back seat of a squad car. Plus, a plastic seat lacked the crevices where a suspect could hide incriminating evidence.

A metal grill and a piece of Lexan plastic a quarter inch in thickness formed the barrier between the front and back seats. He checked the barrier’s frame for any possible flaws but found none—at least none that could be exploited. There were sections of the frame where the foam covering had worn down and cracked or was non-existent. Some of the screws showed through, but he neither had the time nor the tools to unscrew any of them.

It took him only a few seconds to realize his options and formulate a plan. Whether he liked it or not, he was in his element. Under different circumstances, he could have been an impeccable criminal.

He had a plan, as well as the determination and ability to carry it out, but that didn’t make him feel any better about what he was about to do. A plan? Could what he was about to do even be considered a plan? He felt like a football coach whose entire strategy consisted of the plan to score more points than the other team. It seemed to lack the subtle strategic nuances of which an actual plan would consist, but it was the only option that seemed feasible. If he would have thought about it much longer, he may have talked himself out of the idea. There was a real risk of getting himself killed if he carried out his plan, but there was an even greater possibility of getting killed if he waited.

Don’t think, react. Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

The officer had cuffed his hands behind his back but hadn’t strapped him down with the vehicle’s seatbelt, which made all the difference now. He pulled his hands under himself while bringing his legs up high enough to allow his cuffed hands to slip to the front of his body. All the while, he kept a sharp eye on the man in the front seat, to ensure that the cop wasn’t aware of the maneuver.

He took in one last determined breath to stiffen his resolve, and then he threw himself down in the seat and kicked his feet against the rear driver’s side window.

He knew that although a quarter inch of reinforced plastic composed the partition between the front and back seats, the side windows in many patrol cars were the same windows you would find in an average civilian vehicle and could be broken out. He continued kicking over the screams of the officer in the front seat, until the window shattered and the glass exploded onto the highway.

He leaned out of the car and smashed his cuffed fists against the driver’s window.

The officer rolled down the window, took out his gun, and screamed at Marcus to get back in the car. He fired a warning shot to emphasize his point.

This, combined with the strong winds cutting deep into his skin and the asphalt rushing by at high speed, made Marcus wonder what he was thinking when he decided to kick out a window and hang out of a moving car.

Another shot sailed off into the night. He lunged forward and grabbed hold of the officer’s wrist as a third shot traveled into the darkness. He threw his weight into a hard yank and pulled the officer partially out of the vehicle. The cop’s gun fell to the pavement.

It was as much of an opportunity as he could have hoped for, and he took advantage of it. He wrestled his left arm around the officer’s neck and squeezed. With his right fist, he pounded the man while trying to maintain enough balance to keep from falling out the window.

The vehicle swerved from one set of ditches to the other. He looked up and saw a slight jog in the road ahead. He knew that they wouldn’t make the curve.

He shoved the officer back into the car and then pulled himself inside. The officer’s foot must have pushed down the accelerator because he could feel the car gaining momentum.

He braced himself for impact.

The patrol car struck the ditch at high speed, smashing the right front wheel upward and compacting the front end as if it were made of aluminum foil. The car ramped the ditch and twisted in midair.

He was thrown around like a garment in a clothes dryer. Despite his earlier attempts to brace himself, he smashed into every hard surface. His head struck the rear passenger window, and a deep gash sliced into his forehead just above the right temple.

When the vehicle touched the earth again, it landed on its roof and skidded another fifty feet, tearing a large groove that resembled the path of a tornado.

As he lay bleeding, a looming sense of dread hovered within his mind like storm clouds rolling over a peaceful valley or an ominous fog blanketing a tranquil sea. To him, the darkness outside seemed to move with a purpose. He felt its weight pressing down against him. He thought for a moment that he was under attack from some dark and ancient entity that had stumbled upon them on its quest to rid the world of all light. Then, he realized that the growing darkness was only in his mind. Although he struggled to keep it from overtaking him, he lost his grip on consciousness and succumbed to the encroaching night.