Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (2 page)

“Right, right. Well
,
that’s not really what I wanted to discuss anyway. I was just musing. I am
writing my report for the home
world
;
they will be very curious about your species and we should have some record of it.”

The implication was unsettling
.
T
he
doc hadn’t talked about it, but there it was out in the open. They wanted a record of us before we became extinct. “Doc
,
get to the point
, or you’re going to be talking
while I’m sleeping
.
” I had no desire to humor this being. Sure
,
he was one of the few that had been something sort of decent, but when it really came down to it, it had only been for his personal gain. It’s great to know that greed
could
travel the star systems too.

“Yes, I just wanted to let you know that I bet everything that I had won on your previous bouts on this last fight. And at
twenty-six
to
one
odds
,
I came away with more drakkar than my offsprings
’
offspring could spend. I will be able to, as you humans call it,
‘
retire
’
.”

“Wow
,
D
oc
,
I can’t tell you how happy for you I am.”

“Why thank you, M
ike
. Coming from you
,
that is actually great news.”

“Whatever,
D
oc. But what does that do for me?”

“Do for you? Why nothing
,
hu-man. I came here only to let you know that you have bettered my life. Unfortunately for you
,
your time will be up in another week or so.”

I sat up so fast I was rewarded with a solid
thu
nking
of my head on the top of the chamber.

“I’m guessing by your reaction that you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Oh
,
I know what you mean
.
I just didn’t think that it would be that quick.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’m not betting any
money on
Drababan
,
either. He should be able to kill you in under ten seconds, but I’ve watched you far too many
times to believe you are as far an underdog
at which
the odds
-
makers have you. Which is actually at
two hundred fifty
to
one
.”

“Wow
,
that close?” From the silence through the box I
kn
e
w
the doctor was still trying to process my words. He probably
thought
I misunderstood what
he had
said.

“Well, okay
,” he muttered
. “I will let you sleep now. The healing medicines work much better when the patient sleeps. It has to do with the relaxation of the
endocrine
system. I heard the intercom system shut down and then the lights in the chamber dimmed as if in response to the
doctor
’
s words
.
H
ell
,
what did I
know
,
that
was probably exactly what happened. As much as I tried to fight sleep, I
need
ed to think about how I was going to get out of this situation
;
consciousness eluded me. My dreams were filled with despair
—
sorrow and an aching that went deep down into the recesses of my brain. Even if by some small miracle I survived th
e
ordeal
,
I would be a broken man, a shell of the person that I had the potential to become.
S
oon even
self
-pity
faded
away
.
I washed up on a beach of golden sand and the brilliant red of a sunset. It
had been
heaven
,
of that I was sure of upon waking many hours later. But why was I being shown that, was it in preparation for my soon to be earthly departure?
T
here was no way I rated a spot in nirvana
though
, I had done things fo
r which there was no absolution;
why was God tormenting me this way? Was he showing me what my loss of humanity had lost
me
in the afterworld? Had my brief pathetic stay in life cost me my afterlife?
Or w
as
he showing me there was still hope for my soul? I wept for hours upon waking, even as my glimpse of heaven began to fade from my waking.
There was still hope; I came away with that, if nothing else.

CHAP
T
ER TWO

Beth had traipsed through the
woods the majority of the night;
it was fear that drove her. Not fear of the woods
,
although that did unsettle her some. It was the fear of what was behind, glimpses of the
Sergeant
’
s bloated body haunted her every move. That
,
and
the man’s head she had so neatly dissolved
,
add to that
,
she missed Deborah. The girls had become fast friends in their mutual shared agony. Beth couldn’t take it anymore
;
she stumbled
toward
a fallen tree and slouched down
,
her ass making a solid thud as she wept into her hands. Hunger, pain and despair took over
.
Beth sobbed until she felt certain she had completely wrung out her soul, and then she cried some more.
Afterward
she slept, a soulless, dead sleep, no dream
s
permeated her mind for if they had they most assuredly would have been dark and oh so regrettably
un
forgettable. She awoke sometime after midnight, the sky black but not as dark as her soul
,
she figured, but what disturbed her was the silence or better yet the absence of sound. The woods were deathly
silent,
nothing stirred
.
But there was something out there, she couldn’t see it, she couldn’t smell it but
she knew
it was out there all the same.
‘
A deer maybe
?’
Even in her fantasy worl
d she knew th
at
wasn’t the case,
deer don’t make the woods go
quiet. Only hunters have that
e
ffect
and with that revelation
she was now wide awake and wide-
eyed. Fear didn’t so much creep as
it
leapt
into her heart
. She turned her head slowly from side to side trying in vain to catch some sort of sighting of whatever was in the
forest
with her.

Was it the
Sergeant
?
Was his purplish blue body trying to
find her and take her with him?
That was insane, wasn’t it? Wasn’t an alien invasion two years ago considered to be an insane thought? Beth hunkered down trying to make herself as small as possible.

Crack
.
Something off to her left had broken a fallen branch, her heart raced as she blindly reached out trying to grab onto
any
thing that could be used as some semblance of a weapon. Nothing happened for ages, for eternities, whatever it was had sensed its blunder and was trying to establish
if its quarry
had been alerted
.
If the quarry had been
Beth
,
she most assuredly had been warned, but prior warning in no way implied preparation.

“
Stupid, stupid
,
stupid,”
s
he
said softly as she pounded her head.
“
Why didn’t I take the gun?
”
That small error now took on a much greater magnitude. Something or someone was close and so far Beth had only been able to secure a handful of moss as a potential
bludgeon
. The crack had been close enough
,
but whatever was stumbling through the woods was h
eading in her general direction
, Beth pulled her legs in close and hugged them for all they were worth
.
S
he
considered running
though
she knew she would be running blind and there was still the possibility that the thing out there might pass her by, but with every agonizingly slow
second
her hope of just that diminished.

Closer
.

I
t
approached slowly as if unsure of its location, closer all the same. Beth held her breath, whatever it was, was only feet away, she could hear it breathing, if it was
a meat-
eating animal she had only a few minutes of precious life left
.

T
here
it was.
It muttered a
semi-silent curse. It wasn’t an animal in the traditional sense
,
but it was a
meat-eater
and it w
as looking for her. Was it the Ser
g
ean
t
—
was he really coming for her?

“Fuck,”
she heard again. It didn’t sound like the
S
er
g
eant
. Who was it? And why were they out here in the middle of nowhere looking for her? Was it one of the raiders? Had someone seen her handiwork? Or was it her handiwork himself coming to seek some sort of revenge
?
W
hen she was sure that he would literally fall over her feet
,
he moved on. She heard him walk through the woods and now that her senses were peaked he sounded like a bull in a china shop. Beth finally let her breath out, thankful for one of the few times in her life that she hadn’t taken a bath in the last couple of days. Her hammering chest slowly quieted as the footfalls from her pursuer grew
fainter
.

“
Oh
,
Deb
,
where are you?
” she wept.
“
M
ike
,
I need you!
”