Free You Only Die Twice by Christopher Smith Page B

I’m here.   I followed your
tracks off the path.”
    “She’s
somewhere near you, then.”
    “Is that
your way of saying that you’d like me to find her and kill her?   Are you backing out on me now?   Really?   At this point in the game?   Has this become too much for you to
handle?”
    “That’s
not what I meant.”
    “Sure
sounded like it.”
    “Look,
this is a blip, Kenneth.   We’ll find
her.   She’s not that bright.   She’s a stupid whore.   And she doesn’t have Him on her side
like we do.”
    “Whatever.   I’m disappointed in you.   Mark your location, give me time and
I’ll track you down.   When you start
to hear my footfalls, call out softly to me.   Do not expose your location to her.   Just say my name quietly.   Eventually, I’ll find you.   The maps on our phones will assist in
that effort.”
    “You
used to say that technology is a sin.”
    “I used
to say a lot of things, Ted, but we evolve, don’t we?   Of course, we do.   We evolve.   And I certainly haven’t said that in
years because we changed our minds on technology, which He gave us.   Do you remember that?   Are we clear on that?   We grow with the times.   We use what we have at our hands to
bring down the damned and then we move forward to the next one.   If that means using technology built
into our phones, then we received that technology for a reason.   Got it?”
    “Fine.”
    “Mark
your location.”
    “If
you’d take the time to look at your maps, you’ll find that I already have.”
    “Don’t
take an edge with me, Ted.   I won’t
have it.”
    “You
won’t have it?   What the fuck does
that mean?   Here’s the deal,
boy.   Don’t you ever have an edge in
your voice when you talk to me.   Is
that clear?   I’m older than
you.   My soul is older than yours.   I’ve been at this longer than you.   I’ve been worshipping God longer than
you.   We have a relationship you two
will never have.   If the Lord Jesus
Christ God Almighty is on anyone’s side, it’s mine.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “That’s
your interpretation.”
    “No, it
isn’t.   It’s a fact.   I’m the Chosen One.   He told me so Himself.   I’m also not the one who fucked up.   I’m not the one who lost her.   That would be you, Ted.   Because of some damned moose that turned
you into a pussy, that would be you.   It’s all on you.   You lost
her.   You.   Not me.   And He knows it should she somehow
escape.”
    “She’s
not going to escape.”
    “And you
know that how?”
    “Because
she’s still in the woods.”
    “And you
know that how?”
    “Because
He told me so.”
    “No, He
hasn’t.   Don’t lie, Teddy.   When you lie to me, you lie to Him.”
    “I’m
telling you, she’s still in t he woods.   Nobody has lost―”
    The line
went dead.   Unbelieving, Ted
Carpenter stared blankly at the phone.   Kenneth Berkowitz had just severed their connection.   He actually dared to hang up on him.
    Furious,
he put the phone back into his pocket and swung around to listen for his footfalls.   They should be coming at any moment,
shouldn’t they?   After all, if God
had Berkowitz’s back, he should be hearing them right now because the goal was
to kill Cheryl Dunning and time was of the essence.   God knew that.   If He was watching this―and of course, He
was―then Kenneth should be at his side now.
    Only he
wasn’t.  
    There
was no sound of anyone rushing toward him.   No hero to save the day.   So,
Berkowitz was full of shit.   He hung
up on him out of arrogance, which Ted Carpenter considered a sin.   And what was this crap about him being
the Chosen One?
    He
wondered if it was better to go forward alone.   He’d certainly done God’s work on his
own before.   But until this moment,
he’d always respected Kenneth.   They
shared the same ideals.   They got
each other and worked well together.   Without him, Ted knew that he never would have made the sort of