The Cult Encounter

The Cult Encounter

“Freeze.” His voice was eerie and cold, unfeeling, wispy, like the wind that was
tossing his hair. Skylor, as he was known, stared into my eyes and aimed his .45
at my chest. I stood there on the castle’s ledge with my gun tracking Skylor as
he walked toward me. Even after years of the sea eating away at it, the old
fortress I was standing on was still in good shape, and it was still a long fall from
where I stood.

“Drop it.” The ruthless cult leader’s words seemed inhuman, like they were
spoken by a machine.

“Screw you. The moment I put this gun down, I’ll be Swiss cheese.”   These
probably were not very smart words, but I was not thinking clearly. I moved
slowly across the ledge, making his way toward a set of stairs much like the
ones Skylor had just ran up. “Besides...” I spoke slowly, stalking my thought. I
was trying to keep from saying something that would drive him crazy. “If you
shoot me, you’ll never know the combination.”

“The combination is unimportant. If I wanted the contents of that safe, I’d just
cut it open.” Skylor was following me closely, but not close enough to scare me
into running. I was keeping my wits about me. A member of the ATF who was
assigned to infiltrate the cult’s stronghold off the Californian coast. The job
requires that calm attitude. I succeeded in stealing the cult’s most prized
possession, a ring that supposedly belonged to the head cult leader. I locked it
in a small portable safe, but before I could dump the safe into the sea, fate
intervened. I was noticed and pursued through the castle. There I was.

“Don’t count on it, Sky. That’s a titanium-reinforced safe. Anything you use to
cut through it will destroy the ring.” Skylor bristled at the mention of the ring. It
was his job to guard it, and he had fallen asleep on watch. “So,” I continued, “I
guess you need me. So let’s say we disarm our weapons and talk about it like
the two reasonable doomsday cult members we are. That is if you aren’t...