The Suppressor by Erik Carter (good books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

closet or perhaps a tiny, windowless office for some menial, low-level employee. He’d collapsed against the wall, sliding down to his ass, taking the pressure off his ankle.

The room was too damn bright. There was an exterior window opening across the hall, and a golden rectangle of light spilled onto the floor beside Walter. After cramming himself into the corner, he was still barely outside the glow.

And that’s where he’d sat, semi-immobilized, trying to control his breaths, frightening himself with tales of ghosts and goblins.

All of this was Constantino’s fault. Damn him. Had Walter not gotten involved with the guy, had Walter simply kept his perversions to himself, had he continued his time-tested techniques of working alone, grabbing his own targets from schools and playgrounds and shopping malls far from where he lived, then none of this would have happened.

But Walter had gotten greedy. He’d broken his own rules, opened his big mouth. And that had led him to Constantino and his promise of a never-ending supply of treats.

Stupid! How could he have been so stupid? He’d had a good thing going. But now some cold-looking monster of a man was hunting him through a construction site. And Walter was hobbled. And unarmed.

He leaned his ear closer to the doorway.

And heard something. A slight scratching sound.

A rat? Or debris moving in the slight breeze that twisted languidly through the tunnels and holes of the structure?

Walter’s mind flashed on the myth again. The Quiet Man. The Suppressor. The rational assurances he’d given himself a moment earlier vanished, and fear and superstition returned.

A few more of the scratching sounds. Closer. The cadence of footsteps.

Oh god. He was there. Just outside the room. Yes, he was, and—

A flurry of motion. Pressure on his shoulders. A wave of pain shuddered through his body from his ankle. A shift in his stomach, and he was upright. Another wave of pain as his back slapped against the wall.

The man was before him.

At about six-foot-three, he towered over Walter. He had sharp, attractive features. Dark hair. Dark clothes, too—jacket, button-up shirt, chinos. Eyes of death.

It was him. God, it was him.

How? How had the man gotten him off the floor? Walter wasn’t very tall, but he weighed nearly two hundred pounds. Yet the man had yanked him up like a sack of groceries. The strength coming out of the man’s fingers, pulsing into Walter’s shoulders, was palpable.

The man swung his hands away and patted Walter down with machine precision and speed, so fast that when it was over, it took a moment for Walter to realize what had happened.

Finding Walter weaponless, the man took a couple steps back, putting a few feet between them. He reached under his jacket and took out a pistol. Another flourish beneath the jacket, and he produced a silencer.

A suppressor…

The silencer joined the gun’s barrel with the same speed as everything else the man had done, and in a blink the man now held the suppressed, lengthened pistol at his side.

Walter started to cry. He tried speaking, but his lips only sputtered. Popping sounds came from the back of his throat.

Warmth. On his left thigh. Spreading. He’d pissed himself. Oh, Jesus, he’d pissed himself.

The man stared at him, into him. Face not even twitching. A long moment.

Then he said, “Talk.”

It was him.

The voice. When he’d said that one word, Talk, it perfectly matched the legendary descriptions. Deep, dark. Crackling and torn. Painful-sounding, even.

Demonic.

Walter tried to reply. No words, just the popping sounds again.

He swallowed. Cleared this throat. Tried again.

If he couldn’t force himself to speak, this monster was going to kill him.

“I … I can give you the man you’re looking for. All the guys you’ve killed, they … they’re all connected to Jimmy Constantino. Over in Spring Hill. 1813 Elledge Boulevard. It’s a storage facility. He owns the place. Pedos, man. You want it, Jimmy’ll get it. That’s all I know. I swear!”

He’d spilled it all. He’d ratted out Constantino. That should be enough to get him out of this situation.

The man didn’t react. No nod. No shimmer across the eyes that showed a processing of the information. For the longest time, he didn’t even blink. Just continued to stare at Walter.

With the gun hanging at his side.

Walter’s lips trembled as he eyed the gun. The urine on his thigh grew cold.

He looked the man in the eye.

“Dude, I’m telling you, that’s all I know!”

But what did he know, the killer man standing in front of him, looking at him so coldly?

Did the man know about Walter’s adventures? Did he know about the eight-year-old, the one who started it all when Walter still lived in North Carolina? Did he know about the girl Constantino had gotten him just two weeks ago, the little blonde whose parents never locked her window?

Things suddenly grew quieter. The soft sound of the highway in the distance. Water dripping somewhere in a nearby room.

Walter couldn’t take it. “I talked! You told me to talk, and I did!”

Finally, the blank expression on the man’s face broke. A slight, dark grin appeared at the corners of his mouth. His lips parted, as though he had something else to say.

The man was going to speak again? No, this wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d already said his word, his single word. Talk.

Yet he was about to say something else…

Walter inched away, cramming himself into the wall. “I talked!”

The man slowly raised his free hand, leaving the pistol dangling on the other side of his body.

“I talked, goddamnit! What do you want from me?”

The hand continued upward, to the man’s face. A finger extended over his lips.

And the man didn’t speak. What came out of his mouth was just a sound, not a word.

“Shhhhhh…” the man said.

He raised his gun.

And fired.

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