The Relic Runner Origin Story Box Set Ernest Dempsey (top 10 books of all time txt) 📖

revolver. The danger of being gouged by a boar's tusks only heightened the thrill.

There had been a particularly dangerous hog on one of his hunts. The animal bore long tusks and weighed at least two hundred pounds. The hog charged at Nate, fully intending to defend its turf and rip the young man apart. Nate stood his ground, watching coolly with a pistol dangling in his hand by his right hip. He'd waited, staring into the eyes of the beast as it roared toward him, grunting with every breath.

At the last moment, Nate raised the weapon like a gunslinger from the Old West. He pulled the trigger and sent the round through the animal's skull. The boar's legs buckled under it and the creature skidded to a dead stop mere feet away from where Nate stood.

He stared into the lifeless, vapid eyes of the creature with eyes that mirrored them. He grinned, then emptied the revolver, pulling the trigger over and over until the beast's body was a mangled, bloody mess.

Nate recalled that hunt with satisfaction as he took the steak from the skillet and turned off the stove. He set the meat down on a white plate and let it rest while he bent down and took the potato he'd been baking for the last 45 minutes out of the oven.

He set the foil-wrapped tuber onto the plate next to his steak and walked over to the front room to look out the window. The forest beyond the cornfield still loitered in shadows, and he grinned with satisfaction at the plan he'd laid out.

He recalled reading fictional stories in school about strange islands where madmen hunted humans. Those hunters weren't madmen to him. They were pioneers forging a path to a forbidden and newfound ecstasy.

Nate had tried to satisfy that need, that deep-rooted desire, by joining the military. There, he thought, he could hunt other people and get paid to do it. While he'd had his share and more of confirmed kills, with every life he took he still felt something was missing.

He realized what it was when he recalled reading Lord of the Flies when he was in high school. Those young boys had taken on the characteristics of both the deer and the boar he so loved to hunt. They were innocent, yet untamed. They were clever, organized, and resourceful.

Those boys were the perfect quarry, Nate thought. And he'd felt that confirmation when he slaughtered the extremists in that room in Iraq. That day, the plan began formulating in the back of his mind. When he and his team stumbled onto the treasure in the mountains of Iraq, he knew that vision could become a reality. He could buy his own farm with more acreage than he ever dreamed—his own private hunting ground. And with the property next to a heavily visited park, he would have an unlimited supply of game.

He took in a deep breath and sighed with satisfaction, then returned to the kitchen, set down the plate on a table, and began slicing through the steak with the knife he'd sharpened so carefully earlier.

Tomorrow, he thought, the hunt begins.

Five

Brown’s Ferry

Dak rolled by the police department building in Browns Ferry and let out a sigh. Two squad cars sat off to the side of the tiny brick building. The structure looked like a glorified shed. There was one door on the front with a window on either side. Faux white columns braced the overhanging triangular roof, but the place looked anything but dignified or authoritative.

There was probably one or two holding tanks inside, but if any real crimes were committed, the prisoners were likely transferred as soon as possible to a more secure county facility. Dak doubted any major crimes plagued the sleepy little town, save for the ones he was investigating.

He stepped on the gas and accelerated down the road.

Going in and talking to the local cops would be a waste of time. Not because they were inept or corrupt—although that could be the case—but Dak made certain not to judge people he'd never met.

The real reason for circumventing the police was that they had processes, protocols, methods, all of which slowed things down during an investigation. Dak had no doubts the women and men in that building or out in their patrol cars were doing everything in their power to find the eight missing boys, but unfortunately, their power was limited.

Dak briefly considered going in there and telling them he believed he'd found the location of the boys and the man who'd taken them, but he knew how that interaction would go.

The cops would file a report, take down his information—the fake stuff Will had conjured—and maybe have a look into Collier's new farm at some point in the next month, if that. They would need a warrant to search the place and going on some stranger's wild theory would hardly suffice for even probable cause, much less a legitimate warrant.

Then there was the issue of them seeing his face. Keeping a low profile was paramount.

He slowed down as he entered the Main Street square of town. A variety of shops lined the sidewalks that wrapped around the square. From parking spots along the inner portion of the street, sidewalks angled in from each corner, stopping in the center of a grassy lawn where a statue stood. The figure looked like a pioneer, with a raccoon cap and a musket in one hand. Dak figured it was either the Brown the town was named after, or possibly—and more likely—a tribute to Daniel Boone, who was a legend in this part of the country.

Dak slowly cruised through the square, noting the people and businesses along the way. Barely a minute after entering the center of town, he was through and on the other side, heading toward a motel a quarter mile down the street.

When he saw the big yellow sign with black letters—complete with the neon "vacancy" sign below it—he slowed and turned on his blinker.  A