He felt his breathing quicken as his hands gripped the ax. He didn’t really care either way. The point was this one would make for an interesting appetizer before he got into fully enjoying the girl. Nothing like the sudden terror, he decided, of a surprised victim to whet the appetite.
He could hear the fool stumbling around in the dark still shouting for someone.
Was he really that stupid or could he just not see the condition of the house belied the possibility of anyone who did live there having a phone?
He finally came across the idea that killing this one could, in reality, be considered a public service.
A final shout and then muttering. It seemed he was beginning to suspect the futility of his efforts. No doubt now trying to figure out if he should wait for morning or head out tonight. He smiled as he thought of how he was going to make that a non-issue for him.
In position finally, he adjusted his grip on the ax he’d grabbed on the way. He wanted the first blow to incapacitate but not kill. Dead men don’t do fear. Listening intently now, he held his breath so as not to interfere with the sounds his prey made as he blundered around in the dark, walking almost straight to him. Catching a glimpse of a shadow through a crack in the door, he saw him still stumbling forward.
Almost in position.
Ready,
he told himself.
Aim for the knees first, and then, go for the arms.
If he could get the shoulders, he would just be a target until he was dead. And if he screamed well enough, it might help bring the girl out of her stupor. The fear that alone would generate would be exquisite.
Hearing a thump and a curse, He realized his target was in range and still clueless. His lips drew back in a combination smile and snarl as he swung the ax low in a circular arc trying to take out his victim. Yelling at the top of his lungs, he figured to shock the man into freezing just long enough to incapacitate him. Then, he would be at his mercy. Such as it was.
There was only one problem. His swing had found no target. Thrown off balance by the force of the blow, he tumbled forward. Then the ax buried itself in the wall, stopping his forward motion suddenly, throwing him more off balance but offering him a base to help him regain some of it.
* * * *
Terry had heard his target’s intake of breath as the man prepared to launch his attack and been ready for it, stepping back just out of range at the last second. Still, he had been surprised not just by the speed but the savagery of the blow. Had he not read his intent and acted accordingly, Terry would be bleeding profusely from the knee or knees right now.
Instead, Terry was staring across his nine millimeter at his opponent’s face, twisted in an inscrutable rage.
Almost cheerfully, he said, “Hi. Just wanted to borrow your phone. I need to call the cops and have your ass thrown in jail.” Then, he smiled as evilly as he could, adding, “Unless you’d like to save everybody some trouble and try to pull that ax out of the wall so I have an excuse to blow your fuckin’ head off!”
The man’s face contorted even further.
Terry looked at the man critically. About six feet tall, solid looking even through the coveralls. In most circles, he would have been considered good looking if not downright handsome. Beauty was great for hiding even the most vicious evil.
The man’s eyes were another story. Thanks to Charlie, Terry could see them clearly even in the dark. They were dark blue, but they held an almost-maniacal gleam in them. A gleam that seemed to flare suddenly as he lunged for Terry.
Almost caught off guard, Terry had to sidestep him as he grabbed his arm, pulling him off to one side and shoving him to the floor.
He rolled to his knees nimbly and glared at Terry, trying to measure him for another attack. He was clearly not going gently.
Terry studied the man for a second, trying to gauge how much of the depravity was from his end of this equation. Regardless of how much of it was, he was still the hands and feet of the operation. Even Charlie couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do. He grimaced as he realized that part of that could be that he knew Charlie was there. In the same situation, who knew how it would play out? He trusted Charlie but even so…
“Get up!” Terry did his best to sound as menacing as possible. He wanted to keep the guy off balance. He reached back to grasp the Taser. It was time to get down to business.
The man looked at the gun flatly. He knew he couldn’t get to Terry fast enough not to catch a bullet, and given the sincerity of his statement about wanting to kill him, he doubted it would be a flesh wound. Still, from where he sat, he had nothing to lose. Whoever this cocksucker was, he seemed to be alone for the moment, but he didn’t think that would last. He knew he had to get out of there as soon as possible if he was going to get out at all.
All at once, he launched himself at Terry. He surprised himself with his speed, rising and reaching for him without collecting a bullet for his trouble.
Terry, though, was ready for him, drawing the Taser and firing in one motion. The electrodes dug into him, one in his left cheek and the other in his neck.
As soon as they hit, the current began to flow, causing the muscles in his neck and face to contract, contorting his face even farther. Paralyzed momentarily by the jolt, he stiffened in the air, landing flatly on the floor, trying to claw at his face to pull the barbed invaders out of his skin.
Terry stood almost impassively, watching as the man convulsed. Still holding the switch that kept the power flowing, he asked Charlie, “
Do you think that’s enough?
”
The question was almost rhetorical, but to his surprise, Charlie answered dourly,
“Use up the battery. This thing is vile!”
Terry said nothing. He knew, this close, Charlie could pick up on more of the Chrliti’s character. Apparently, there was no longer any question of who was really at fault here.
Both Terry and Charlie had briefly entertained the thought that the Chrliti was the prisoner, but once Charlie had pronounced his brethren as the source of the trouble, neither of them felt any reason to worry about the creature’s well being. The man was another matter. He was going to pay for what the creature had coerced him into doing. Terry still couldn’t garner too much sympathy for him. Even as strong and vicious as the creature might have been, it still could do no more than suggest. The final choice of action was his. Though he might never have acted on the impulses, they were, in the final tally, his impulses. And as the only corporeal member of this putrid pairing, all physical aspects were his doing, and a judge and jury would mete out the payment for them.
The other, though totally unknown by the families of the victims he had helped kill, would pay an equal or greater price but Terry and Charlie would do its issuance.
The Chrliti writhed in agony within the confines of the host’s neurological systems. Unlike Charlie, he could come and go as he pleased, at least until he also met one as powerful and different as Terry. For now, though, he was simply there, being tortured by the amperage of the Taser and tormented by the failure of his task. He was one of the dark Chrliti, given to passions that reflected a love of the baser elements of the human psyche. Hate, fear, anger, he had learned them all over the years, but this had been the first time he had found a human he could control enough and who had enough of the same predilections as himself for him to really explore them. In his own way, he cursed the fact that he was being forced out so soon.
At first, he had considered it a minor setback. Once his host had grabbed this interloper, he had planned to leap into his body. If it was powerful enough for him to control in the same manner, he would have used it to kill his former host, rescue the girl and explore the role of hero. Who knew if it was perhaps an even greater experience? He had already searched for an occupant during their brief struggle. Finding none, he assumed it would be a simple matter to complete the transfer. If he was too weak a field for the kind of interaction he wanted, he could jump ship as soon as they were back in civilization. Some time would pass, but he was sure he could find a new and suitable host for his purposes. And besides, even if that should fail, there was still the girl. He could experience her terror from within.
For a moment, he allowed that to wash over him even through the pain of the Taser. The thought of being able to feel her fear, to drink in the horror she felt, to luxuriate in her helplessness, sustained him even against the terrible burning fire coursing through him.
That disassociation, however, was his undoing. While he plotted and planned his next move, the current from the Taser traveled through his host’s body, forcing him out in front of a wave of electrons coming at a rate he could neither resist nor impede. Too late, he sensed the presence of the silver in the weapon itself. He took the briefest of moments to wonder why the human would have used it. A fine conductor, it was still inferior to several others, its only quality here was that it was impervious by his people. As if to confirm that, the creature rode the wave of electrons out of the body of his former host, down the returning wire and into the silver disc.
Though there was no physical display of it, the creature bounced off of the disc to lie ethereally at the feet of his attacker, stunned into a state of momentary disarray that left him no more than an errant spark from a shorted circuit.
Terry could see none of this. Even with Charlie as an aide, he still did not have the ability to see far enough into the spectrum to note the expulsion of the Chrliti.
Charlie was, however, able to detect it and notify Terry of it.
“It’s clear!”
he gave in the equivalent of a shout.
“Grab the host and drag him into the room! You must keep him from entering either of them!”
Without a word, Terry grabbed a handful of the man’s coveralls and dragged the man into the other room. The creature, still in its own version of shock, lolled on the floor, trying to recover from its stupor.
The man was heavy, but Terry was up to the challenge as he literally threw the limp form into the room in front of him. He didn’t even bother to close the door, knowing it offered no barrier to the creature if or when it made it this far.
There was no need for Charlie to lead him to the room. He moved unerringly to the sound of whimpering that he could hear coming from the room at the end of the hall. He knew the sight would not be pleasant, but even he wasn’t prepared for the scene he found.
A single bulb on a bare fixture hanging from the ceiling lighted the room. The naked bulb swinging back and forth made for shifting shadows that gave the room an even eerier appearance. The bed, a round iron-frame type, was directly below it. On it was the girl, Tina Mays. She was naked from the waist up, the remnants of a tank top still over her shoulders. The jeans shorts she wore were still soaked with urine and just beginning to add to the smells of the already-filthy room.
The girl was awake now. And aware, apparently, as she turned her head toward the door when it flew open, eyes wide with the resurgence of the terror she had suffered before. She had been chained to the bed at her legs and wrists and had tried desperately to tear herself free. She had only succeeded in tearing chunks of flesh off of her wrists and ankles, pouring blood out onto the mattress making a new, even darker stain on it.
What looked like an oily rag and a leather strap buckled behind her head gagged her. Her hair looked greasy despite the fact she had only been here for a short time. Terry attributed it to the grime on the bed and in the back of the man’s van.
When she saw Terry drag the inert body of her captor in behind him, she seemed to convey a sense of joy even through the bonds. New tears filled the tracks left by old ones as she cried this time from relief more than anything else, but still not knowing what was going on, she knew better than to think her ordeal was over that fast.
Terry tried to reassure her with a smile, taking off his jacket to cover her. He started going through pockets on the man’s coveralls for the keys. The girl watched as he cursed and pulled at the man but found no keys. It made no sense. He had to have a way to get the girl out of here once he was done.
Did he just plan to leave her body here to rot with the rest of the garbage?
Nothing surprised him about this guy, especially with the help he was getting from the Chrliti. It was really possible that he was going to leave her there, maybe even barely alive to let her die slowly from hunger, thirst, exposure or whatever. It was beyond anything he could even imagine, but he knew it was well within the realm of this monster. Or the one in the other room.
Finally giving up, Terry stood and pulled the man closer to the bed. The creature would be getting its legs back any second now and that meant he would be looking for a new host to occupy. It was up to him to make sure it didn’t find one.
* * * *
Benin had the driver pull over just behind what GPS indicated was the last curve before the flat bowl where the house that was their target was. Having driven the last few miles under blackout conditions to make sure they had approached undetected, they had stopped here and sent a couple of men forward to see if they could see anything. Protocol demanded they make every effort to perform the rescue without any loss of life, which meant making sure that they enjoyed the greatest possible numeric advantage. He had given orders for this to be recon only. No action unless fired upon. Do not engage. Great rules, if everybody went by them, like everything else.
He wanted to go by those rules now, but he knew the type this guy probably fit. Push him into a corner and God only knew what he might do. And with that girl for a hostage, it was entirely likely she’d be the last chip he had to play. If he were the type for a last stand, she would more than likely go from victim to casualty before it was over.
And if that idiot Bridger screwed up, now he had two hostages.