The Dark Trail

by Will Mosley

  At the back of the house, Patrick stood below the kitchen window that was more than seven feet from the ground, flash-bang in hand, holding it out from his body, waiting on Cal's orders. One foot on the porch step, Cal stood with Pavel at his back. There seemed to be a conversation going on in the kitchen only a few feet away, then again, whoever was holding their friend and partner could've already made Heady a part of his collection. The sick bastard! Cal thought, his pulse trembled, his eyes steadied, staring into another realm, his finger tugged on the trigger. He raised five fingers so that Patrick could see them, then slowly dropped one at a time until his fist was closed. Patrick stepped back, slung the canister through the window and duck walked back to the porch. Like a white hot magnesium firecracker, the flash-bang exploded and was Cal's signal to proceed. His suppressed gunfire blew three holes into the lower half of the door, he kicked it and the glass shattered. Cal trained his rifle into the darkness and moved in.

  Light smoke drifted in front of him – the dining room, He thought, seeing the circular outline of a table as he moved in tight controlled steps – but billowed in the kitchen like clouds, and to his left, a shadow, as if an exorcised apparition launched itself into the wall and disappeared.

  A table, four chairs, a body. Cal surveyed the room in an instant, moving. He touched the body, turned to the left and found the hole in the wall the demon had disappeared into – a door leading into blackness – and trained his weapon into the void.

  “Hey!” He said to the body.

  “Down... basement...” The body said. And Cal, too, disappeared into the blackness, his feet drumming on the stairs in his descent.

  Pavel came next, searching for something to shoot until he saw Heather, beaten and wounded, her leg gutted, coated in fresh blood. He laid his weapon down and immediately raised her arms to shoulder her.

  “No. Basement.” She said. Patrick, his rifle forward, moving quickly, slowed when he reached Heather. He then glanced at the Pavel, then into the void, and back. Pavel pointed into the darkness and Patrick submerged without question.

  “Are you sure, Heady?”

  “I'm... fine.”

  “I will be back for you.” Pavel kissed her on her forehead, snatched his weapon and followed Patrick into the abyss.

  Heather listened to the situation below her as she was powerless to offer a much needed fourth hand to incapacitate Xoscha Mills. He was barely trying and had almost put her down as easily as a rabid bitch.

  Her men didn't speak, but moved, swiftly like specters of black fog – evaporating and congealing in that environment, hot on Xo's ass. She had seen it, once, and now imagined it, as she heard someone flip the wall switch with no illuminated return.

  “No light.” Pavel said in his familiar Russian bass.

  “Then, we'll fight in the shade.” Cal mused. Through agony, Heather forced a smile and, to her surprise, her raised cheeks met with cool moisture sliding down her face. Too damaged to wipe the tears away, she followed the most natural road out of her pain and closed her eyes to sleep.

  The three men stood back to back in the silent basement, weapons gleeful – exaggerated steadiness born from expectation – listening for sounds and anticipating a sliver of light to skirt from underneath a basement door to work by. They had no such luck and in the void, the room yielded no secrets.

  “Light.” Cal whispered, paused for a second, then took his hand held flashlight from his pocket and clicked it on.

  “What the hell is this?” Patrick whispered as the now swollen corpses sent the men frozen, impossible pleas.

  Pavel choked back vomit, but failed, and splattering thick liquid on concrete followed his heave. “It's done now. I'm better.” He wiped his mouth and recovered his weapon – not quite as much of his sanity.

  “Come out, friend.” Cal sang, his light saber slicing a twelve inch light ball into the blackness. The beam cast over seemingly thousands of mangled, contorted bodies in every direction. “What you have here is fucked up, amigo,” Cal called out, then baited, “You just come on out and we can fix that problem for you.”

  Silence.

  Mostly sightless, the darkness did reveal something, and its reek was worse than that of the discolored corpses. Pavel and Patrick's flashlights sprang to life and the combined light illuminated half of the basement with shafts of energy.

  Pavel slapped Cal's shoulder. “This is a trap. I can smell it.”

  “Quiet, Oz.” Patrick said.

  “We should take Heady and go, Calvin. We will not win here.”

  Together, the men swung the combined beam around the basement in an initial sweep. Afterward, after no strange man jumped from behind a water heater to scare them shitless, they made a circular pass with a methodical, more thorough second sweep. Pavel said, “He has an exit.”

  “There's no exit, Oz. Look at these walls.”

  The beams split and each man moved away from the others, but only by a few feet in his own direction with short steps. Each man skimmed the carnage with his light and his eyes, hoping that something would move and give away this phantom.

  “This is a trap.” Pavel grunted.

  “Oz, shut it!” Cal said.

  “Oz is right, Cal. There's an exit here.” Patrick said, stopped his forward progression and back tracked to the stairs. “If there is an exit, it's in the floor. Either he's long gone, or trapped.”

  “If anything,” Cal searched even more finely now, removing his flashlight from between his teeth, slowly crossing his barrel over the bodies. “I'd say he's definitely trapped, not us. We have the stairs at our backs. The advantage is ours.”

  Cal approached a mound of bodies, ten feet from the stairs, and poked a few of them with his barrel. “This is front page, boys. This dude is psycho.”

  “I have instincts, Calvin –,”

  “Then take that shit to the beauty salon, Pavel, alright? Tell the girls about it – not me.” Cal blurted, not moving his eyes from the stack. “Either take Heather and split, or shut that shit up and work!”

  Cal didn't hear Pavel's retreat towards the stairs, not that he expected to, but he did hear the clatter of Pavel's weapon coming to bear.

  “At least you know.” Pavel said.

  “And I'm a better man for it.” Cal, sardonically. “Keep looking.”

  Patrick continued to take tiny steps back towards the stairs, his HK at his side, his eyes searching the darkness between Pavel and Cal, until the back of his boot bumped against the bottom step. “We probably need to take this upstairs; check somewhere else in the house just in case he's slipped out.”

  “I concur.” Pavel said, running his light and his rifle along the cleared areas of the floor looking for creases or exit points.

  “He's here and we'll smoke'em out.” Cal said.

  The dead bodies, the blood, this situation put Patrick in an unfamiliar and panicked mood. So much so, that when his foot bumped against the stairs, he hadn't paid any attention to the dull thump of wood against the back of his foot – because there was none. He drew his foot forward and kicked it back into the stair. The stair didn't thump, however, but moved, and was now accompanied by faint nasal wheeze and breathing, so close that streams of hot air jostled his neck hair. For a moment, above the odor of the bodies, he smelled rancid fish.

  Chapter 30.

  The body at the door paused and lingered, anxiously anticipating anything.

  Tanner pressed his palms against his eyes and electric stars streamed against the vision constricting blackness, limiting his scope to a narrow focal sphere. No! Please, not now!

  The body suspected something and knew that what he had heard was indeed a knock, as opposed to a thrown rock or stick.

  “Get out there, Ben!” Greg yelled. “We've got to get this shit over now!”

  Come on! Tanner thought, digging his palms deeper, rubbing, thinking, Why does this happen? Why now? He dropped his hands from his eyes with the unsettling knowledge that in just seconds, an arm
ed man would step onto the porch, turn to his right, see him squatting – unconscious and slumped over – and there was nothing that could be done to prevent what would happen next. Greg Hart, after almost twenty years would exact 'justice' on the man that he thought killed his niece, probably even kill his family out of spite.

  In all actuality, Tanner had no clue whether Brandi had overdosed or was killed by his hand. That night was a blur and they were too high and drunk to care about consequences. Ken certainly couldn't be told that his long lost brother might be a fugitive simply because his memory – just before and long after a meeting with Kaiser Marchment – was skewed. He didn't want to tell Ken that the reason for even meeting Brandy was because of his roommate, Jacoben. It would seem too naïve and gullible to be swayed so easily, though it was true, and those lies had to be guarded. Yet, because of those lies, this was now happening and it all stemmed from his return to the old neighborhood.

  The shadow of the man approached the threshold. Across the street, a porch light flicked on, and as if on cue, the porch light of the house next door came on followed by the creak of a heavy door.

  Because of Tanner's lies, Greg Hart would get his revenge. Irreversible. In his mind, the word had subtle finality.

  The shadow's pistol crossed the threshold and inched out into the night, the man's nerves coiled, ready to strike at the next thing that moved and there was nothing Tanner could –,

  This is not irreversible. Tanner thought, not defiantly, but as a matter-of-fact. His mood lightened and the black cloud retreated from his vision as if his knowledge of immediacy – the 'now' and the 'extended now' was the cosmic cure. His face turned to the doorway and connected with Ben's eyes – with Ben's awareness and instant angst. Not irreversible at all. Tanner now realizing that he had remembered his old college friend Jacoben Faust, a deed that proved impossible only days before, and Kaiser Marchment, a man whose identity still eluded him, but whose name was branded to his memory. Any certainty was subject to manipulation because he already knew the outcome. Within a second, the man's pistol and body faced Tanner. Surprised, he nearly lost his composure, but settled himself, took aim at Tanner's face and pulled the trigger.

  Greg watched Ben clear the threshold, turn toward something to his right and heard the explosion that followed, startling the ladies. The mood of the living room, except for the father, immediately gloomed. That image, and the sound of gunfire brought a smile to Greg's face. Words were on the tip of his tongue, maybe a quip that would give Ben a chuckle just before they put bullets in the rest of the family. But conveyance of those words was halted by the sound of a second gun shot, then a third, a fourth. Ben erratically fired his weapon until he emptied the clip at whatever sat beside the door, then turned to Greg, panicked.

  With a look as if he'd mistakenly sliced off his hand, he dropped his gun and took running steps back through the doorway toward Greg – his eyes wide and slack mouth signaled that their plan now had a much bigger problem. And as his foot touched the living room carpet, a ubiquitous figure sprang from the night beyond the threshold and engulfed Ben in a blur of camouflage and blood. Greg Hart froze at the spectacle, unable to summon strength to his arms to lift his weapon and fire, to at least protect Ben from the beast. Though, the carnage had just begun, saving himself was of the utmost concern as the human creature bit and ripped hunks of Ben's facial flesh, spitting the bloody refuse into the floor, fingers, like moist, thin branches, bent easily and snapped. In the act of protecting himself from the fiend, those digits were bitten off. Joints were forced in opposing positions – all the while he was screaming – as Ben Cates quickly devolved into something post-human and unrecognizable.

  Captivated by the carnage, Greg had nearly forgotten that he held in his hands the means to end it. Ben and the fiend collapsed to the floor, blood curdling screams were muffled as Ben's face was shoved into the carpet. Greg raised his weapon, aimed at the blood thirsty beast on Ben Cate's back and fired twice. Both rounds were expertly placed on Ben's back, severing his spinal cord, paralyzing and killing him instantly, but not one round had touched the fiend. Instead, he rolled away from Ben's corpse and was upright instantly. Trying to take advantage of the time and effort it would take the blood bathed man to stand, Greg squeezed off a volley of rounds, swinging his gun arm side to side to at least connect one round with the man, who through his blood slathered face he barely recognized as Tanner Garay, but as if he were a specter, Tanner moved in a sensual saltation away from each of the mercurial rounds and had not allowed one bullet to touch him.

  Realizing that this approach was futile, Greg stopped firing and held the weapon on Tanner. Twelve feet apart, both men held their ground, watching the other.

  “Tanner!” Ken joyously said.

  Lee muttered, “I freaking knew it!”

  Both men knew the score. Tanner had somehow been able to know when Greg would shoot and where his shots would land. Whatever had helped him, some divine hand probably, wasn't telling him what was next. What Tanner did know is that Greg's weapon was not empty, and that last round did not have his name on it.

  “Tanner fucking Garay!” Greg bellowed, a slight quiver in his voice. “Dodging bullets, huh? Where'd you learn that shit?”

  “Do what you need to, Greg.” Tanner said, fusion hot energy wound his muscles into coils of elastic magma. “You're not leaving here alive.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. It is so.”

  “Then, why don't you come take me out? This gun,” Greg smiled and wavered the pistol from side to side. “It could be empty.”

  “It's not, Greg. Make your move.”

  “How do you –,”

  “I was counting. You've got a round left.”

  Greg nodded, took a magazine from his coat pocket and cupped it in his hand. “Damn, I underestimated you, Garay.” Greg said. Tanner saw, as if the immediate future had just played a two second clip only revealed to him, Greg's arm swing randomly to the couch. The quick reel frightened him, freezing his movement. “Regardless, you're gonna pay for Brandy either with your life,” In real time, Greg pointed his weapon at the couch, at Lainy, now sitting in Mary's lap. “or, with theirs! It's only fair.”

  Tanner had not moved and couldn't act fast enough when Greg turned his gun hand to the couch and the last chambered bullet detonated.

  Chapter 31.

  “Fish?” Patrick sniffed the air. “I smell rotten fish. Hey, do you guys smell –,”

  “Don't lift that knife.” A voice – not Pavel or Cal – whispered from behind and quaked Patrick to his marrow with bowel loosening fright. He gasped, turned, lifted his – tried lifting his rifle, but it wouldn't move, something held it in place and his hands flung up in front of him with nothing.

  “Shit!” Slipped from his mouth in overanxious panic. The figure, now in front of him veiled in the blackness seemed darker; his silhouette was faint, but visible – and loomed with a fiendish countenance. Patrick reached for his knife, popped the buttoned flap on his hip holding it in place and removed it.

  The sound drew Pavel and Cal's attention and they spun on their heels, directing their beams at Patrick just in time to see a pale hand slip out of the darkness, strange boney fingers covered in a tissue thin skin – blue veins protruding like hoses – clasped around Patrick's wrist, taking control of his arm, shoving the arm and blade up in an effortlessly smooth arc, through that thin bone, into his head between Patrick's eyes.

  Patrick collapsed in a limp heap. Cal and Pavel activated their rifles with rehearsed efficiency, flashlights vigilant between their lips as they watched the hand, in silky-quick motion, slip back into the black an instant before Cal's two round burst arrived. Light strobbed the basement as they searched for the figure who was just there, now gone. Pavel rushed to Patrick, whose head was slightly lifted from the ground due to the force of the knife exiting the back of his skull. His eyes peered statically at the ceiling which sent chills through Pavel: only moments ago, his
Desert Storm buddy had life in him. Now, he was nothing more than a familiar looking shell.

  Cal's light shone on Patrick for only a second, long enough to see Patrick's damage, and the Russian's seething resentment, then the light and his engagement went back to the stairs. “Whoa! Pat has seen better days.”

  “I told you –,”

  “Pavel, I don't want to hear that emotional shit, okay? Pick your damned weapon up!” Pavel lowered Patrick's head to the floor, took his gun from his leg and trained it on the stairs.

  “A trap, I said.”

  “You want a trophy? Let's just –,” Cal watched something pulsate behind the stairs. “He's back there! Over there, Pavel. Move, now!” Pavel stood to the right of the stairs and Cal to his left. “That's him.”

  “It is?”

  “Come out, pal,” Cal whispered. “Three seconds and we fire... two... one...”

  Pavel's rage depressed the trigger in one continuous stream, ripping a bag of children's clothing to floating shreds – a bag of clothes that the man was squatting behind only a second before.

  Cal didn't immediately fire, but was astonished at the specter's speed. As the man appeared beside the stair case being in the cast of both flashlights, Cal engaged. A image unlike any he had seen, the man moved his limbs and body in some sensual, feline dance, avoiding taking even one shot. Even Pavel's intermittent bursts were handled with the same ease.

  But it wasn't the man's speed that startled him, though he was fast with practiced gesticulation, it was the way in which he avoided being shot that bothered him. As Cal thought about firing his next round, as the connections in his brain sent emergency emails to his hands, as his trigger finger and mind passed the point of no return – the man moved, ready to avoid the oncoming bullet at the inception of Cal's thought-action sequence. Cal sent two staggered rounds his way. The man, already avoiding Pavel's bullets, improbably averted Cal's. The ammunition was wasted before it left the gun.