The Broken Ones (Book 2): The Broken Families

by David Jobe

  For the briefest of seconds, Mac’s head hurt and then the idea slammed home like a lightning bolt. What if the police had drones of their own? They could hover nearby and record the events. There were cameras out now that could take those 360 videos that people used for their virtual reality headsets. What if they equipped the drone with one of those? Then the scene is visible from all angles. It would be like those sci-fi movies where the crime scene techs could enter the crime itself. Mac’s fingers twitched at the idea. He had no doubt he could design one. “And I could equip it with a minor shield so it can’t be damaged.” He grinned from ear to ear. He might be resigned to a wheelchair all his life, but he could still make a difference. His father had some old tech back at the house that he could look over and maybe modify to fit his needs.

  “But what about propulsion? Those fan things are probably already on the way out.” He tapped the edge of the table, the cupcake forgotten. “If only we had something like antigravity drives. Naw, that’s too much Star T-“ Mac sat up too fast, his vision swimming from the pain. “Gravity!” He winced as he saw the little girl grimace and pull tighter to her bear. “Gravity.”

  He looked around the room trying to find something, anything, to test on. Across the room, he could see a stack of pillows resting atop what he assumed to be the dirty laundry hamper. Reaching out with his hand, he focused on the top pillow. His mind focused on the idea of the invisible force of gravity that hugged the pillow to the next pillow underneath it. “Slowly.” He kept his voice low, not wanting to wake the little girl, or to have anyone come to see what might be causing the commotion. “Lift.”

  The pillow rose a few millimeters and then exploded in a spray of cotton that covered the whole side of the room with little bits of white fluff.

  Mac stared with slacked jaw at the carnage, his mind racing back to all the times he had scooped Allison up and jumped off into the sky. So sure he had been of his own power that he had endangered both of them without knowing it. A shiver ran down his spine.

  He would have to start being a great deal more careful. And he would need to figure out a way to explain the pillow massacre to the nurses. He chuckled at that and then winced in pain. “I need paper and a pencil.” He looked at the little girl curled up at the foot of the bed. “I’ll ring for a nurse in a little bit.” He lay his head back down and closed his eyes.

  He couldn’t wait to get home and get to work on the plans he had.

  Life was looking up.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A Strange Bird

  “Six fifty-five.” Trip returned to the game before him, sliding a pawn forward one space.

  Chris sighed and shook his head. “Quiet as a tomb.” He had been making himself a general nuisance the whole day, and now had sat at a table with Trip playing Chess with a motley crew of pieces. Trip’s queen was a black checkers piece. He had asked Trip to give him an update every five minutes since he could either watch the hallways, or the clock, but he couldn’t do both. “This is maddening.” He moved his own pawn forward, setting it up for being taken. If Trip fell for it, he would leave his knight exposed.

  “You want me to stop?” He seemed to be considering the pieces. “You don’t know that it happens today.”

  Trip’s tone held a level of calmness that Chris found confusing. “How come you are so calm?”

  Trip looked up. “I’m not the one in danger. Unless in your dream I was locked away in another room. Is that likely?”

  Chris shook his head. “I don’t know, but my gut says that if you had died, there would have been evidence of it.”

  “Then this resides with you and Nurse Ray.” He took Chris’s offered pawn.

  “I guess. But my gut also tells me that whatever happens, it is happening tonight.” He moved his rook to claim the now unprotected knight. He gave Trip a smug look.

  Trip moved his queen over a space. “Check.” He returned Chris’s smug look.

  Chris laughed despite himself. “No fair. I’m distracted.”

  Trip shrugged. “I’m insane, but I am still winning.”

  Chris opened his mouth, but a commotion robbed him of whatever he had planned on saying.

  “I know you called them on me, Ray!” Ray and Randall came into view, Ray marching a few paces ahead of a fuming Randall. “They raided my locker! You made them invade my privacy!”

  Nurse Ray sighed but continued walking. “How am I responsible for what your actions bring about?”

  “You bitch. They are suspending me until a formal hearing can be called. The Director informed the police, who are, as we speak, tossing my flat.” He reached out to grab her arm, but she side stepped it.

  Chris caught a glimpse of steel under Randall’s t-shirt. Rising, Chris motioned for Trip to stay seated. He tried to make it look like he was another one of the looky-loos getting a front row seat for the theatrics.

  “Don’t you touch me.” Nurse Ray’s eyes narrowed, her jaw clenching.

  Randall raised his hands in surrender, stepping back. “Don’t think this is over.”

  Nurse Ray began to walk away again, toward the nurse’s desk. “It was over when you started peddling your poison in here. Couldn’t help yourself, eh, mate?”

  “Are you mocking me?” The tone in Randall’s voice took on an icy feel. He clenched his fist again and again. He began to follow Ray toward the nurse’s station.

  Chris made to follow, but Nurse Narvens blocked his path. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “I think he means to do her harm.” Chris tried peering over her shoulder as the two vanished around the corner. They were now only ten feet away from the closet where everything went down. He looked over his shoulder to see the clock clicking a few minutes from seven twenty.

  “Please return to your seat, or I will have to sedate you. You have been making a scene all day, and frankly, I am tired of it.” She crossed beefy arms over her robust chest. “Sit.”

  Chris could feel his heart racing. He lunged forward on his right foot, and as soon as Nurse Narvens went to block, he rolled to the side and swept around her, sprinting for the medicine closet. Somewhere behind him Nurse Narvens cursed and he could hear her squeaking shoes give pursuit. Chris ducked around the corner and found Randall easing the knife out from under his shirt. Nurse Ray’s had her back to him, thinking the argument was still a verbal one as she went to unlock the closet. He lunged forward but found a beefy arm wrap around his neck and a sharp pain hit his back.

  The stench of hot beef wafted over his shoulder, “Time to take a nap, little one.”

  Chris threw an elbow and winced as he felt it connect with something both hard and soft. With a scream of pain, Nurse Narvens released her death grip on him as he stumbled forward. Her scream mixed with Nurse Ray’s as Randall swung the blade and connected with her arm. Blood splattered the shelves just as Chris slammed hard into the doorframe. Whatever Nurse Narvens had hit him with, it worked fast. “Hay-ro, Tinkles.” His words came out slurred.

  Randall swiveled on his heels. “What the fuck you just call me, mate?”

  Chris’s mind spun. He had no idea what he planned to say next. He just found himself staring at Randall and his bobbing blue mohawk. He blinked and tried to push himself away from the door he found himself leaning on. “Sorry, what?”

  “I said,” Randall stepped forward, brandishing the bloody blade, “what did you fucking call me?”

  Still, Chris’s mind struggled, and he could feel it slipping further and faster into a cold dark place in the back of his mind. “I think the nurse might have overdosed me.”

  Randall tilted his head, like a bird hearing an odd noise but not understanding. “Do I look like I give a shit?”

  Chris’s vision swam. “You wanted me to tell you who dies, right?”

  Randall turned to regard him, keeping Ray in his side vision. “Sure, old man.”

  “It’s me.” Chris had to use the door frame to keep himself up. “I get stabbed in the eye by
a dirty bird.” He gave a dry chuckle that threatened to bring up whatever he had eaten today.

  Randall blinked. “What are you on about?” He waved the large butcher's knife at him.

  “You kill me, mate.” He mimicked the man’s accent, though he made a point to make it sound awful.

  “You’ve got no sense.” He stepped forward.

  Behind Randall, Ray shook her head, throwing her gaze at the blade as if to say that the man wasn’t playing.

  Chris had to chuckle. He knew the man wasn’t playing. Knew this was as serious as a knife in the eye, but at this point, it was literally do or die. “I am also saying you look like a parrot. A dirty parrot with a fake British accent. ” Chris smirked, pushing off from the door frame to stand in the middle of the hallway. Where the blood spots started for him in the dream.

  That settled it. Randall turned to come at Chris with the butcher knife. He raised his hand behind him and swept it down, aiming for Chris’s eye.

  Chris had already known that would be Randall’s target, as his dream corpse only had the one wound. He sidestepped the attack, grabbed Randall’s hand like they had taught him in the police academy, but instead of swinging the blade wide so it would end up behind the perp’s back, Chris used Randall’s momentum to drive the blade deep into the man’s stomach.

  Now, in the movies, that wouldn’t be enough to stop an enraged attacker. No, there would be a scuffle and Chris would have to use more pseudo kung fu moves to protect himself. But, in the real world, a knife to the stomach shut down a good many people, Randall included. He gave a low grunt, and the dropped to his knees.

  Chris staggered back, feeling the drugs threatening to take his own ability to stand. He stumbled back into the wall across the hall and slid down to sit on his backside. He looked at Nurse Ray and said, “quickly. Kiss me before I die.”

  Nurse Ray looked at him and just shook her head. “You are such a drama queen. I’ll see you when you wake up.”

  Chris chuckled. “Goodnight, sweet prince.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right.” And then unconsciousness took him.

  Chapter Thirty

  The Flood

  “Wake up, Fat Boy.”

  Mac had been dreaming about walking around his school with Allison on his arm, both of them dressed in their superhero outfits. The voice interrupted his dream by blaring through the school announcement system. Mac felt a shiver run down his spine as the dream dissolved and the reality of his situation returned to him. He knew that voice all too well. The voice of his would be killer, the sniper on the overpass. He eased open his eyes, hoping that the voice had been a figment of his dream.

  She stood in the doorway wearing a blood-splattered set of scrubs. In her right hand, she held a gray pistol that sported a long black silencer. Her hair had been tucked up under one of those blue caps that the surgeons wore while in the operation room. A white face mask hung down from one ear, the strap for the other dangling over what looked like a nametag. “Good.” She gave him a smile built on malice as she slid the door to his room closed. “I was afraid they would have you too drugged up to be awake for this.”

  “I’ve been off the drugs for awhile now.” He had no idea why he admitted that. Maybe somewhere in the back of his mind, he wanted to keep her talking, though he couldn’t fathom why. Here she stood, covered in blood, and past what should have been armed guards.

  “Bully for you.” The door gave an audible click as it closed. “You know who I am, right?”

  “The sniper from the overpass. Henchwomen, didn’t you say?” Mac noticed that the girl was gone from his bed. He would have written her off as a dream, had it not been for the children’s book lying overturned on the floor near the bathroom. “I guess this explains the pluralness.”

  “It does.” Her mouth curled into a cruel grin. “I’m here to finish what I started.” She stepped into the room so she could stand at the foot of the bed. Darkness shrouded the whole of the room, as all but the light above his head had been turned out. With the blinds to the window closed, the only lumination was no more powerful than a dying lightbulb.

  “So I figured, but why?” He eased his hand under the blanket, looking for the remote that had the button to call the nurse.

  “Sit still.” She gestured with the gun at his errant hand. “Because you killed me.”

  Mac frowned but drew both hands out from under the blanket. He thought about trying his power, but had a feeling if he did, just startling her would make her put a bullet between his eyes. Even now he could see down the barrel of the gun. “I didn’t kill you. You shot me and I fell. Remember?”

  “I remember. And then your little girlfriend shot me. So, I am going to kill you. Let her see how she failed to save you and then once I am done letting her suffer, I will end her.”

  “But why? How does any of this gain you anything?”

  She laughed. “Because I intend to establish that I am not some skirt to be trifled with. The person that hired me tried to skip on paying me. He’ll pay, and everyone who crossed me on that clusterfuck will pay. Then the next person looking to hire a henchwomen will know that they better be on the level with me.” Behind her, a pair of red eyes opened up. Followed by a second pair just under the first. They floated in the darkness above her right shoulder. “So, any clever last words before I send you to that buffet table in the lake of fire?”

  Mac found himself staring at the red eyes. Another pair opened, and then another. Two more sets opened together, bringing the count to twelve red glowing eyes. They held a design much like two triangles. “Why do you assume I am going to hell?” The whole room began to take on this claustrophobic heat.

  “Gluttony.” She gestured at his stomach. The gun erupted as she did.

  Pain lanced up from Mac’s stomach and he screamed. He looked down to see blood starting to spread from the circular wound in the sheet above his navel. Gut shot again. By the same woman. “Why?” He asked through clenched teeth.

  She gave a nervous laugh. “Not intentional, but oddly satisfying. Now for the coup de grace. That little bitch screaming is sure to bring someone.” She raised the gun eye level.

  Two black spikes erupted from her chest, one where her shoulder met her neck, the other just above the nametag on her breast. She screamed, the gun firing.

  The bullet splintered plaster an inch to the right of Mac’s face, covering part of his cheek with the plaster dust. Mac coughed but kept his eyes on the woman and the spikes.

  She struggled, but another spike pierced her chest, just right of her chest bone. Blood sprayed Mac’s face as the gun clattered to the floor with a loud rattle. She began to rise, her feet dangling inches above the floor as she kicked and squirmed.

  It was then that Mac realized that she was being lifted up by the hand that ended in those fearsome black claws. Over her shoulder a face slipped out of the shadow, it’s twelve red eyes unblinking. The face reminded Mac of the werewolf movies where the snout jutted out and was littered with jagged teeth adorning a snarling muzzle. Whatever the thing might be, it appeared to need to hunch over to be within the room.

  Henchwomen looked over her shoulder as the snarling muzzle came into view. For a moment she gave a high pitched scream, but it ended as she swallowed it. Instead, she turned to face Mac, her gaunt features resolved and set. “You think this is the end, fat boy? This is just the beginning. I am the fucking flood. No matter how many times you kill me, I will return until your step falters and I was over you like divine judgment.

  Mac opened his mouth, perhaps to give some witty retort, but he did not get the chance.

  The monster clamped down on the Henchwomen’s neck and began to thrash and gnaw. Blood flew, spraying the foot of the bed and the floor before it. With one last violent yank, the monster tore lose a chunk of her throat. Spitting it out onto the floor, it discarded the body with a casual flick of its thin yet massive hands. It stepped back, seeming to shrink as it slipped into the dark shadows from which
it emerged. Rough claws clicked on the ground as it moved, but the sound of them diminished as if the thing were slipping into a hidden door on the back of the wall. After a few seconds, only the darkness from which it had emerged remained.

  The stench of blood filled the air as Mac gagged on what he had just watched transpire. He fumbled for the remote, but it aggravated the wound in his stomach so much that he gave up and lay his head back on the pillow. Tears slipped down his cheeks.

  The door burst open, revealing a frazzled Nurse Millie holding a scalpel at the ready. The additional light served to reveal more of the carnage at the foot of the bed. Mac gagged again as Nurse Millie threw her free hand over her mouth and screamed into it.

  From the shadows where the monster had retreated, the little girl emerged covered in blood. She sobbed in great heaves as she said, “I did a bad thing, didn’t I?” Blood dripped from the edge of her ponytails and her body shuddered over and over.

  Nurse Millie dropped the knife and rushed the girl. She scooped her up in her arms and held her close. “Are you okay?” She hugged the girl tight.

  Mac thought to warn her that the girl might be more than she appeared, but the girl looked at him with wide and pain laced eyes. He kept his mouth shut. Whatever she was, she had saved his life. He tried to offer her a smile, but the pain made it weak at best. “I’ve been shot.”

  Through the door, Lanton stormed in gun at the ready.