Deadlock

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Ken Prager woke to blood at the back of his throat and the barrel of a shotgun pressing hard into his right eye. He opened his left: a burning wooden cross was embedded in the centre of a muddy clearing ringed by giant redwood trees.

Then, as firefly embers from the blazing cross were sucked heavenwards by a swirling wind, came the question he’d been dreading for the past six months. A question that, depending on his answer, might be the last words he ever heard. Worse still, the question came from the blonde-haired woman on the other end of the shotgun.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked him.

Prager cleared his throat to speak and she withdrew the gun just enough to allow him a glimpse of a lone figure flanking the burning cross. Arms folded, face obscured by a ski mask, the figure stood in silence, waiting for an answer.

‘You know who I am,’ Prager said. His voice sounded cracked and tentative to him — the voice of a liar.

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