Sly turned his head toward me slightly, and glanced at me for a second from the corner of his eyes. I thought I saw an expression of sadness behind them, as if he felt sorry for what he was doing to me.
"Run," I said to Melissa, who only stared blankly at Sly, showing no emotion at all. "Get away from him."
She shook her head slightly, barely discernible, in response.
In front of me, Reed was displaying his friendliest smile. He had me right where he wanted me now, and there was nothing I could do against him.
Suddenly, when we had gotten within ten feet of Reed, Sly stopped, let go of my arm, and took three deliberate sidesteps to his left. The grin on Reed's face was replaced with an expression of confusion. Sly closed his eyes, wincing, and stood still, like a man expecting to receive a serious blow to the head. A second later, a gun shot rang out in the tiny room, and the top right half of Sly's head blew off with a splattering mixture of blood, bone and brain. He lurched forward, and dropped to the floor, as lifeless as the concrete beneath him.
Snapping out of my shock, I turned to see Melissa still pointing the gun at the spot where Sly had stood only seconds earlier. She began to shake and tears clouded her eyes. Her eyes shifted slightly to look at me, and she dropped the gun to the floor in front of her as she fell to her knees.
Reed moved for the gun from behind me, but I was already ahead of him and running for it myself. With a ten-foot lead, I knew I would get there first. Melissa winced as I dove toward her, as though she expected me to strike out at her, but I slid to a stop a foot in front of her, grabbed the pistol firmly in my right hand, and turned to point it at the head of an approaching Reed. He dove to his right the second I squeezed the trigger and the bullet missed him by a good foot, cutting a chip out of the concrete wall behind him. He slammed into the wall to my immediate right solidly, dropped to the floor, and immediately shot back up on his feet.
I spun, tumbling to my right, and jumped up to my knees. Spotting my target I took aim again.
"Wait!" Reed shouted, holding both hands palms forward in front of him. "Don't shoot."
I eased the pressure off the trigger, but keeping his forehead squarely in my sights. There was no way he would get to me now. Melissa moved over behind me and watched from over my shoulder. "Then don't move," I said. "One step in any direction and you lose half your brain a second later." I grinned. "You can't survive without it, and I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt." I nodded to where Sly lay sprawled on the floor in the middle of the room, a building puddle of blood oozing from his flayed skull.
Reed relaxed, realizing I wasn't going to blow him away that particular moment (my mind kept arguing inside me with my heart that maybe I had just made a critical error in judgment), and raised his hands slowly above his head. His warm, friendly smile broke out across his lower face, just what I suspected would happen. Above that phony grin the pupils in his eyes seemed to dance about, like those of a man searching deep into his thoughts for a way out a life-threatening predicament. I knew he would soon make his move, but it would most definitely be his last.
I climbed to my feet, and Melissa placed her reassuring hands on my waist. "I had to kill Sly," she whispered. "He made me promise right before they turned him. I--"
"I know," I replied, not taking my eyes from my target. I would have to kill Reed, I knew, and this time forever. But he still was my all time best friend, and I owed him a final goodbye. "You did the right thing. Sly would only have wanted it this way."
"What are you going to do with Reed?" Her voice quivered as she spoke. She, too, had major feelings at one time about the thing that now smiled unctuously before us.
"Come on, Stephen," Reed cajoled, before I could reply. "We can talk this situation out to a compromise, can't we? No reason for you to do anything hasty."
He stood a few feet to the left of the exit we needed to pass, and that thought bothered me more than I could understand why. After all, I was going to kill him. Wasn't I? "Move foreword away from that wall."
He nodded and walked five feet forward.
"Keep going till you're all the way to the other side of the room." I kept the gun trained on his right temple as he backed up to the middle of the room. He stopped there, dropping his hands deliberately to his sides, smiling more friendly than ever.
"Let's go," Melissa whispered in my ear.
"In a minute," I replied. I had to kill Reed first. He would only follow us with his army of lackeys, and we wouldn't stand a prayer in reaching the mirror back at Wickerman's. I had to. There wasn't a choice in the matter.
So why was I hesitating?
Reed shook his head at me, as if in disappointment. Then he nodded toward the gun in my hand.
And I felt it move. In my hand I now no longer held the .357 magnum, as a snake writhed between my fingers, hissing at me while displaying an ominous set of pointed fangs.
At the same moment I felt the snake, Melissa grabbed me more tightly around the waist. "It's not real," she blurted out, just as I was about to drop it to the floor in repulsion. "The gun is still there."
I glared down at the snake as it readied itself to bite into the flesh of my arm.
"What you're seeing is a trick," Melissa reassured from behind me. "Only an illusion. Think that it's a gun. Think hard!"
Closing my eyes for only a second, I forced the image of the pistol back onto the inside of my eyelids. When I opened them again, the snake was fading and rapidly being replaced by the gun. Without any hesitation I pointed it back at Reed's forehead.
"Easy," I said to him. But almost too easy . . .
Reed chuckled. "I'm a little better at this than you are," he said. "Sometimes what I create is not an illusion, but something oh so very real." He waved a hand in front of him, nonchalantly. "Fire, for instance."
I felt the heat prick at the nape of my neck before the fire even appeared. The doorway behind us, our only exit, was in flames. Ann's head, along with the beautiful long blonde hair of hers, blackened and shriveled before crumbling to the floor. The fire lapped outward, at us, and we were forced farther back into the room--and closer to Reed.
Melissa pulled me back. "It's not real!" she shouted above the roar of the conflagration. "We can go right through it!"
The heat burned my face. "But what if it is?" I shouted back, keeping an eye on Reed behind us.
She grabbed me by both arms and glared into my eyes. She repeated, calmly, "It's not real."
I looked back to the fire, and shook my head.
"Trust me."
As I looked down at her, she must have discerned the disbelief in my eyes.
She released her hold on me. "All right," she said. "Just watch me and I'll prove it to you." And, before I could reach out and grab her, she turned and ran without hesitation into the flames.
Her clothing caught on fire instantly, and she fell only a second later to the floor, right in the middle of the exit. Trying to crawl back out, she extended her arms toward me, pleading for me to help. Her hair crinkled and burned; the skin of her face blackened. Flames continued to consume her as she cried out in agony, her life draining from her body and soul.
"Melissa!" I tried to fight my way into the blaze, but the flames only grew in intensity. The inferno held me at bay. Behind me Reed only looked on, smiling, with his hands tucked casually in his pockets. "What are you doing?" I yelled at him. "That's Melissa you're burning. The woman you . . ."
His smile only widened as I chided him, as if I were arguing with an idiot that couldn’t understand him, and I realized at that moment that he wouldn't inflict pain so intense on the woman he was risking his very existence for.
"It's not there, is it, Reed?" I said to him. "She's really all right, isn't she?"
Reed took a step toward me. "I can't allow either of you to leave here," he replied. "My master forbids this." He shrugged. "Sorry."
Raising the gun, I said, "Stop right where you are, Reed. Or I'll blow your fucking brains all over
the concrete behind you."
Reed nodded politely, and held his ground.
Over my shoulder, Melissa's charred body still burned. Please, I thought, let it be an illusion. And without giving myself any time to think about it, I turned on my feet and leaped forward into the flames.
As I entered the blaze, a blast of heat knocked me to my knees. Letting the gun drop out of my hands, I covered my face with my arms; the wrap around my healing bones burst into flames. I should have forced the fire out of my mind before jumping into it. My clothes instantly began to burn, the same as Melissa's had only a handful of seconds earlier. Why had I acted so impulsively? I tried to roll back out, but I knew I would be dead before I could reach cool air.
At the same time, I felt a cool grip on my leg, and someone was pulling me through the fire to the other side. "Think!" Melissa's voice yelled at me over the roar of the flames. "Force it out of your mind!" Reversing directions, I crawled now toward the voice. With her assistance, Melissa cut my exit time in half. Soon my burning head emerged from the flames, and the remainder of my body hurried after. The pain that burned over my entirety made my ordeal on the cross seem like only a couple of hand scrapes. Squinting through my flaming eyelids, I saw Melissa standing nervously above me, staring back into the fire.
"He's coming," she said, reaching down and grabbing my right arm. "Get up. Let's get out of here."
I couldn't. My pain forced me into the fetal position; standing was only a dream.
She responded by pinching me hard on the forearm. "Look at me!" she demanded. "Damn it, look at me!"
I forced my eyes to open a crack.
"Do I look burned to you?"
No, she didn't. What I saw happen to her in the conflagration had only been an illusion, set up by our clever adversary. Instantly, my pain began to lesson; my charred skin began to lighten. I was all right after all.
"Stop, Reed," Melissa ordered matter-of-factly. She pointed the gun I had dropped (thankfully, she had the sense to pick it up before assisting me) straight out in front of her.
As I stood, the fire and my pain diminished rapidly into nothingness. Reed stood, hands still placidly in his pockets, only five feet away. His smile, however, had turned into a terse, straight line. The playing of games had concluded.
"Just leave us alone," Melissa said beside me. Her voice softened. "You're out of my life, Reed. And I can't let you back in. You died, and I got over you."
Reed clenched his right hand into a fist. "But--"
"You're not even Reed anymore," she interrupted, soothingly. "I don't know who or what you've become, but that much I do know." She stepped over to my side, pressing gently against me. "I love Stephen now. And there's nothing you can do to change that."
Reed started forward, but only for an instant.
Melissa tightened her grip on the pistol. "Don't make me use this on you," she said, rigidly--no room for misunderstanding.
Reed smiled, and his face was that of a loving, concerned friend. He stepped forward.
Melissa's index finger eased off the trigger, and her expression turned to confusion. Reed was getting to her.
"Melissa," he whispered, and reached for the gun. "I love you."
"No!" I took the pistol from her light grip, and, pulling back the hammer, I pointed the barrel at Reed's face.
Reed's smile faltered for a second, but soon reappeared, as warm and forgiving as ever. His eyes, on the other hand, showed a cool, devious cunning. But he stopped his forward progress, and I backed up a couple of steps, pulling Melissa with me.
"You know what I have to do?" I said to him.
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "We were best friends."
"Yes," I replied. "We were best friends, but that was a long time ago. Like Melissa says, you're not Reed anymore. You're--"
"I AM!" He raised his fist above his head. Anger and contempt took over his facial fallacies.
"No," I retorted. "You've become this." I gestured toward him with the gun. "No longer human. No longer Reed Price. Out of friendship alone, I should put you in your grave, and out of this existence. And when you add the murders you've done and the grief you've caused, what choice is left me?"
Reed inched forward slowly, but deliberately, toward us. The hatred in his eyes blazed.
Without another warning, I pointed the gun at his knee and squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out in the small, empty room, and a piece of Reed's pants, right above the right knee, blew away--taking a chuck of flesh and blood with it. His right leg buckled, but he forced himself, with a grimace of pain, to remain upright.
His expression was filled with agony and contempt. "You bastard!" All tones and hints of friendliness had vanished from his voice. "It'll take weeks for me to heal this."
Sounds of hurried footsteps echoed in the hallway of the dungeons, and soon the stairs were alive with ample reinforcements. Reed's four flunkies, dressed in their usual black robes, appeared at the doorway, but they skidded to a halt when they saw the gun I pointed into them. They looked nervously from Reed to me, as if waiting for instructions from one of us.
I spoke before Reed had the chance to give out any orders: "I know how to kill all of you--this time for good--so don't try anything."
Confused, they looked to their leader, and Reed opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by more movement on the stairs. A man covered from head to toe in a white robe pushed his way past the flunkies, carrying a little girl--no more than four years old--under his arm. Tears streamed out of her eyes, dripping off her cheeks and to the concrete below. No doubts infested my thoughts that she was still "alive" and not one of them. The white-robed man set her on her feet, and her greasy blond hair fell over her eyes. She made no attempt to brush it clear.
Not seeing me right away with the gun pointed at his boss's head, the white-robed man nodded to the girl at his feet. "Times running short. When do you want us to transfuse her blood into--"
"Don't just stand there, you fucking idiots!" Reed roared at them. "Storm him and take that bloody gun out of his hands."
"I have four bullets remaining," I said, calmly, in rebuttal. "Only one of you will reach me intact." They hesitated, but I knew I hadn't much time before they obeyed their leader.
Melissa broke abruptly from my side, and took a deliberate step forward. "Is this what you've become?" she demanded of Reed. "Murdering defenseless little children, just so you don't feel quite so stiff?" Her tone left no doubt that she was finished playing games with Reed. She hated him.
The four flunkies started for me, and I raised the gun to blow Reed away. But, just as I was about to squeeze the trigger, Reed raised a hand to stop them, and I hesitated--and gave him his last words.
"This is it, then?" he asked, with no emotion. "After all I've done to stay alive, my best friend and the woman I love are going to end it?"
I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. "I'd expect the same courtesy from you." I paused. "Good-bye, Reed."
Reed quickly waved his hand in front of him, and a solid brick wall appeared suddenly between him and me. Without hesitation, though, I pulled the trigger before he had the chance to move out of my line of fire. The brick illusion did nothing to impede the bullet’s progress, and I heard Reed gasp once from the other side and fall silent. The wall dissolved before my eyes, and Reed lay limp on the floor in front of me. The bullet had hit its mark--blood from his skull had even splattered his friend in the white robe. Another puddle formed on the concrete floor, this one oozing from Reed's head, inching ever so slowly away from him, and joined with Sly's.
The game had ended--or almost . . .
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
Retreat
With the pistol, and my three remaining shots, I gestured to the white-robed man, who still held onto the girl with both arms. "Let her go," I said, in a matter-of-fact tone, leaving no doubt about my intentions. "Or you're next to hit the pavement."
He looked down at Reed, as if waiting for so
me sort of suggestion from him, and, not receiving one, he raised both his hands above his head in surrender. Once free, the girl sprinted across the space between us and into Melissa's waiting arms.
Melissa scooped her up and held her tightly to her breast. "It's all right," she whispered, soothingly. "Everything is going to be all right now."
I hoped she was correct.
"I want Mamma," the little girl said, her sobs winding down now that she was being comforted.
"Listen," I said to my captive audience across the room. "I want you to free all the remaining mortals down here." I motioned as ominously as possible with the gun. Knowing I had but three bullets left, I was pushing my luck. "Or I start blasting holes in every head in front of me."
The man in the white robe wiped his mouth. "There aren't any," he said, swallowing heavily. "We used all but her at the ceremony." He nodded toward Melissa. "The little girl was left for Reed's girlfriend."
I looked to the little girl for conformation. "Is this true?"
She nodded, and shoved her face back into Melissa's breast. Her sobs started again. "Go home," she said, barely audible.
Melissa looked to me with pleading eyes. "Let's go."
I nodded, and turned to face the crowd in front of me. "Don't even think about following us," I said, using my sternest teacher's tone possible. "Or I'll blow holes the size of grape fruits through your brains."
Melissa let the girl to the ground, but still held on tightly to her hand for comfort and support. With her free hand, she reached up and pulled a burning candle from its holder. She nodded to me, and started walking into the tunnel; the little girl followed at her side.
I walked backwards as far into the tunnel as I could, with the group in the room in sight, staring mutely after me. When I turned around a curve, I reversed my feet and ran after Melissa. I picked up the little girl in my good arm, and we began to jog. After she hid her face in my sweat-drenched shirt, her sobbing soon stopped.
"What's your name?" I asked her, trying to keep her feeling secure.
The Revenant: A Horror in Dodsville Page 44