The Outkast

by Craig Thomas

  He had to move, if he had to reign.

  But he was growing weak.

  He began to slide away from the foot of the sink, slithering along the floor on his left side, doing it really quickly, yet covering very little space.

  Then, he remembered.

  The track.

  He remembered the bloody track. Another big traitor. The blood came from him, from his very body, his tissues, his cells. But the blood wouldn’t protect him. On the contrary, it would give him away to the enemies.

  Why did his life have to be full of traitors?

  He reached out to a doorknob, meaning to lever himself up. He grabbed it with both hands and ... oh, the pain. The pain that bit into his hands and hissed down along his arms straight to his armpits was beyond description. But he held on tenaciously, albeit trembling as he began to rise. He couldn’t afford to crawl or slither, or else the enemy would trace his movement and figure out his next move.

  He rose, voices behind him. Voices from outside.

  Running now. Fast. Too fast. But he didn’t want to slow down. It was good. If he could go that fast, perhaps there would be no single trail to give him away.

  Before long, he crashed in another dark room, stuffy with the scent of foodstuff. And it felt cozy. Perhaps he was in a pantry.

  There he lay low, waiting and listening until all sounds were muffled.

  He waited some more, touching the weapons attached to his sides. The weapons of destruction, of the final justice.

  The sounds. Now the sounds were all gone. Completely.

  He passed out.

  A woman’s scream brought him back later.

  ******

  Brian was just about to squeeze his trigger in the kitchen when he realized the shadow he saw in the gloom was a big vacuum cleaner.

  After a heated deliberation among the faculty members of his mind, he had somehow found the courage to switch on the light in the living room, pointing his gun around at every slightest tick. Then, he had traced the blood on the floor all the way to the kitchen doorsill, beyond which superficial shadows nestled.

  Although he hadn’t come in with a self-delusion that it was going to be a walk-over (in fact, he’d already concluded that his chances of surviving the battle were fifty-fifty at best), he didn’t realize it would be this challenging. Just how the hell would he know when it was right to shoot in the dark—and if he was shooting the right person? On the other side of the coin, how much risk would he expose himself to by lighting up the otherwise gloomy house?

  Not daring to flip on the switch in the kitchen yet, he quickly worked his penlight, letting the thin beam from it divulge the secrets of all the murky crannies as much as it could. Then, he flipped the light on.

  On the floor, as he had expected, there was a smear of blood. It covered a portion of the area at the foot of the sink, moved back towards the doorway, but then it discontinued.

  He stepped back out of the kitchen, heard a sound behind him, and wheeled around.

  It was Craig, already in the living room and training his own gun, too.

  From upstairs, the floor creaked.

  Brian gestured to Craig to find a safe vantage, stay put there, and watch while he went upstairs.

  Cautiously, Brian proceeded.

  There were two rooms upstairs, on the opposite sides of each other. The door of the first was left ajar, faint light oozing out through the opening. The second was closed. He tapped the first open, and quickly covered the view it afforded with his gun.

  No one in there.

  He stepped out, and just as he thought of how to handle the closed door of the next room, the floor creaked behind him.

  With his heart jamming against his chest, he wheeled around swiftly, his gun trained, his trigger-finger almost twitching.

  But no one was stalking him.

  Yet, the creaking sound issued again. Less pronounced this time.

  In the weak illumination produced by the light from the first room, Brian realized he was facing a closet. It nestled in the wall around the landing, and it was the location of the sound.

  He stole closer.

  Maybe the son-of-a-bitch was watching him from inside the closet through the cracks, readying his own gun, too.

  Brian gritted his teeth as he reached out to yank the door open.

  The scream was loud, and the force that pushed the door open was enormous. The wooden slab smashed Brian in the face before he even had a chance to calm Holly down.

  “Oh, shit,” he grunted, grabbing his nose and simultaneously trying not to fumble the gun in a wrong way.

  Holly pulled Robert along with her, intending to bolt past Brian.

  Brian detached his hand from his nose, caught her arm, spun her around, and quickly covered her mouth to stifle her scream.

  ******

  In his chamber, The Outcast came to at the sound of a woman’s short-lived scream. He blinked at the faint beam of light that seemed determined to make its presence known in spite of its inadequacy. It was coming from some other part of the house.

  Something had changed. He didn’t go to bed with any lights on. Someone must have broken into his home. A burglar.

  But what about the scream?

  The scream made him remember. He wasn’t actually in his chamber. He was rather on the battlefield. And that was the woman screaming. He had to kill her. And her son. And everyone else that didn’t belong to him. Then, he would begin to reign.

  He had groped around and grabbed the edge of a table to support himself up, and he was already making his ascent while the thoughts roamed around his head.

  He gritted his teeth, determined to ignore his pains.

  He listened. There were muffled voices coming from upstairs. Whispers from a man and a woman.

  He moved, standing by the side of the door now, watching a shadow that danced around the wall in the hall, and then on the floor, wandering back and forth, back and forth.

  The Outcast wrapped his shattered hand around one of his weapons, yanked it out of his robe. Ready to strike when the time was right.

  The shadow moved closer.

  The Outcast melded into the region immediately beyond the jamb, away from the rays of light, but still at a point where he could keep a good watch over the advancement of the shadow.

  In no time at all, the shadow grew larger until it became solid, transforming into a figure in a cop’s uniform.

  It bent down, examining something on the floor.

  The Outcast knew he shouldn’t scream. But he also knew his cancerous rage—and the sweet realization that one more enemy was about to be felled—would make him unable not to scream.

  So, he screamed as he leaped.

  ******

  When Craig Nelson had taken a vow to protect the inhabitants of Ogre’s Pond with integrity and altruism, he hadn’t understood the entire ramifications of the deal he had made.

  But now, with cold sweat seeping out of his scrotum and from beneath his armpits, and with none of those people available to offer something to cool him off in order to help him cope with his challenge, he thought he had made a very huge mistake. He should have considered taking a little longer time to weigh all the pros against the corresponding cons before finalizing his decision to join the Sheriff’s Department. Today was the harvest season—the appointed time to reap the fruit of his rashness.

  He watched Brian tip-toe upstairs.

  Then, he considered moving to a safe spot.

  Safe spot? he wondered. Where exactly could he assume safe in this house? Where was the monster? There was blood on the kitchen floor as well as in the living room, but where was the big demon from which the blood had flowed? And why did the trail of blood get terminated at some point? Had the dangerous creature fled through the back door or set up an in-house ambush for them?

  He moved to the kitchen, pointing his gun at every corner, as if Brian might have overlooked those spots, and thereby missed the killer when he had checked earlier
. He was just turning around to walk back to the door when Holly’s scream shattered the quiet.

  He jumped, but when he realized it was her, and that she had reacted to Brian’s presence rather than the intruder’s, he sighed.

  Out in the hallway now, with his heart beating fast, Craig walked back and forth. Right on the spot, he felt like calling out to Brian to get the woman and the kid so they could just get the hell out of the house.

  But then, he thought he saw the missing link on the floor. He moved closer and bent over to check. At that moment, gazing down at the tiny drop of blood, he smelled the danger nearby. Even before the crazy shriek that rushed out from the dark room located to his right, he had already started rising and turning—which was good, because the keen-bladed knife that would have been buried deep in the center of his back only sliced through his right shoulder.

  Craig fell on his back, crying out in pain and calling for Brian as he went down. He didn’t know if he could handle the situation and make it on his own. However, he knew he definitely wouldn’t make it if he let go of his gun, so he held on to it all the way down to the floor.

  As his bones jarred against the flooring, he took aim, shot, missed, and was surprised—then freshly afraid—at the creature’s agility to have evaded the bullet despite its initial bullet-wounds. How could it have had enough strength to do that?

  Or maybe it was his own fear getting the better of him. Whatever you do, Brian’s voice echoed in his head, Craig, in God’s beautiful name, don’t you let your fear get the better of you…

  So, he attempted to shut the door on his fear and concentrate instead. He took aim again, and began to pull the trigger even as he watched the pointed nose of the knife sail through the air like some miniature rocket. It flew at him too fast and sank too deep into his chest.

  In his dying moments, Craig believed he had shot the monster dead, because he heard an agonized cry.

  ******

  Friendly fire.

  The tune played over and over in Brian’s head as The Outcast approached him with a big knife in its hand.

  It’s got to be ... friendly fire.

  ******

  Brian rushed downstairs in response to Craig’s call for help. He was close to the landing, toting his gun and searching for The Outcast. Instead, he caught sight of Craig and the soaring knife very briefly before something hit him in his right breast. The thing had teeth, and it bit into his flesh voraciously.

  There had been a blast, so it must have been a bullet.

  He screamed and grew weak all of a sudden. He tumbled down the rest of the way and rolled far into the center of the living room.

  Lying on the floor in the pool of his blood, watching the big beast as it tottered towards him with its scintillating knife, Brian thought, Yeah, the end has come, and it’s because of the friendly fire from Craig’s gunshot, it’s got to be ... friendly fire.

  ******

  The Outcast didn’t lift Brian up from the floor, which was his favorite thing to do. He was burned-out. So burned-out he felt like he would pass out again. But he knew he would be all right, because his strength would come back to him. Come back even multiple-fold. He was doing a great job spilling the blood of the impure. The gods would reform and replenish him for his valor, when everything had been accomplished.

  He knelt beside Brian, who was howling helplessly.

  It was time to stab the foolish Sheriff to death. When The Outcast was done with him, he would go after the woman. And then the traitor.

  The Outcast lifted his knife up, but he couldn’t swing it down to kill. The pain. The ferocious pain had arrested him once again. He screamed.

  ******

  Standing at the foot of the staircase, ready to take Robert and run out into the dark, Holly watched in awe as Craig yanked the knife out of his chest. It was a heroic act, but it was also the single stroke of action that sealed his fate. Blood, which had hitherto been flowing out steadily, now gushed out like wine from a broken barrel.

  The sheriff’s deputy began to convulse.

  To Holly’s right, the evil creature who had called himself The Outcast was going down on his knees, no doubt enraptured by another atrocity he was about to commit. His back was turned to her.

  Although Holly had intended to run away, two things made her change her mind.

  First, she thought there was no guarantee the killer wouldn’t track them down, anyway, that it was just a matter of time before their deaths would come knocking, too.

  But the second thing—and the stronger of the two—was the feeling she had towards the fallen fighters.

  These were men who had sacrificed their lives for her and her son. They could have turned their backs on the mission to save her, capitalized on the fact that Ogre’s Pond was equipped with only six officers of the law—including the fatally wounded—and waited till they got help from outside, at which point the help would have been nothing but useless. But they had chosen to travel along a high road, and that same valiant journey would soon cost them their lives.

  Trembling with a toxic mixture of fear and rage, Holly grabbed the bloody knife from beside Craig and dashed across to where The Outcast was kneeling. Without thinking, she rammed the cold steel into the base of his neck, rammed it in really hard. And while the big devil was screaming with his hands dancing wildly in the air, Holly wrung the knife out of his flesh and rammed it back in, harder. She had never killed before in her entire life—had never thought she would need to. But right now, it felt good.

  Behind her, she heard Robert’s distant cry calling her.

  It’ll soon be okay, baby, she thought, preparing to go for the third round. Soon as I finish this business, it will be.

  All of a sudden, The Outcast turned around on his knees and grasped Holly’s biceps. His grip on her was unbelievably firm for a man who was supposed to be on the doorstep of death. It was like a repeat of Samson pulling down the pillars of the temple when he was thought to have become a complete goner. The Outcast pulled and jerked, intending to flip Holly over right in front of him.

  Holly fought back hard, digging her heels in to create sufficient resistance against the monster’s tug. But as much as she tried, she finally caved in, and her back was slammed on the floor, the big frame of the man atop her.

  Then, it was over. The Outcast’s body relaxed. He was dead.

  Underneath the huge body now, Holly felt a bloom of pain spread from the center of her stomach to both of her flanks, then move straight to her backbone.

  She struggled to roll the weight off her, but she couldn’t. The bulk of the man had knocked the wind out of her, she concluded. And in such a very short amount of time, she had grown really weak.

  She heard Robert’s voice.

  Her son had drawn closer, pulling The Outcast’s body out of the way, doing as much a rescue job as his tiny self could afford.

  For how long had she been stuck under the man? She had no way of telling.

  With her back resting against the wall now, she looked at Robert’s innocent little face. Her boy was crying, and she was trying to tell him not to cry, that the business was over now and they could have some chocolate and cookies and cheese. But for all she was worth, she couldn’t give voice to her thoughts.

  She was growing weaker by the minute.

  Reaching out to touch Robert’s face with one hand, she cradled the handle of the knife that had ruptured her stomach with the other. The same knife that had killed The Outcast was buried within her.

  Sacrifice.

  It had been written—even before she was conceived.

  She felt cold.

  The pain felt cruel.

  “It feels good,” she whispered strangely.

  Holly Smallwood collapsed on the floor beside her son, who cried all night long.

  ******

  She was pronounced dead in her house at 2:59 AM, on Thursday, August 20.

  Chapter 23

  Robert Smallwood visited Sheriff Brian
Stack in the hospital nine days after his mother died, which was the day following her burial. The reason for the delay was another long story that Robert would relive over and again during his adult life.

  The four sheriff’s deputies were buried on the third day, having brought their families together to bid them good-byes. So was Donnie Murphy.

  After Brian and Craig had pursued The Outcast down the woods on the night of the tragedy, Allan had abandoned Dwayne, flouting Sheriff Stack’s order to stay with his comrade. He had got more hysterical and run his car into a tree at full tilt. He was brought to the hospital shortly afterwards, where he raved about seeing a monster with a chimp’s head even as he bled in his bed. He died the following evening.

  ******

  Brian had asked to see the boy.

  “How’re you doing today, Sheriff?” Robert said as he sat on the chair close to Brian’s bed.

  Brian managed to stick one thumb up to gesture he was doing all right—even though he wasn’t. He couldn’t speak.

  When Robert had turned persistently inquisitive one day, Dr. Ben Lynch had told him that the inside of the Sheriff was terribly damaged, and it would take some time for the healing to be fully made. Until then, the Sheriff would have to manage his communications through signs and gestures.

  And the doctor was right. Brian recuperated really slowly, and he couldn’t utter his first word until about seven weeks thereafter. Even then, his voice never sounded the same.

  He died five months later.

  “Not from the damage inflicted by the bullet, but from a malignant tumor,” Dr. Lynch said, as if by sharing that snippet of news, the pang of death would be made more bearable.

  Robert would have a lot of scary dreams in the years to come—especially during his time at the orphanage—and it would proceed right into his career as an FBI special agent. Most of these nightmares would involve his stepfather, Charles Smallwood, who had adopted him as his son shortly before his death.