22
Brandon didn’t sleep. He couldn’t. After laying there for what seemed like hours, but was probably actually only minutes, he had to get up. Every thought he had kept going back to that of his friend. He couldn’t help himself. He knew that he couldn’t hurt him. He also knew that he couldn’t stay there thinking about him anymore than he already did, so he had to get up. He had to get his mind off everything. It wasn’t a choice, but he knew he had to do something.
He walked to the front door, went to the window at the front of the room, and looked outside. The night had come, which he already knew from the overly darkened room, and saw that the area looked overly dark. He couldn’t even bring himself to turn on the lights. Across the parking lot, near the road, he could see someone standing there coming into the lot from the road. He could see two people there in fact. He couldn’t see them, but he didn’t have to see them to know who they were.
Jimmy! He screamed. He couldn’t help himself. He felt like running out to meet his friend. He felt like flinging himself into his arms. He wanted nothing more than to reach his friend and hold him tight, but the more he thought about it, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even get his own body to move. Instantly, his mind flashed with a blackness that looked darker than the room around him, or the night outside the window. A voice, Michael’s low ebbing tone, came rolling into his thoughts.
Come to us, Brandon. Come to the woods and to the trees.
Brandon shook his head. He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. He had to tell Jimmy. He had to help him. He couldn’t betray him anymore than he already knew he did. Before he could think any further, he turned and headed to the door. He opened the door just as smoothly and quietly. His body did everything without so much as a thought of his own to do it. When he was clear of the door, he left the front of the building and crept along its side, away from the lot. He moved fast. He moved without them seeing him doing it.
He left the side of the building and headed straight to the trees.
Once at them, he slunk into the darkness without making a sound. When he was deep into the darkness of the trees, he never once looked back. He thought of nothing. He moved strongly. He moved calmly. He headed straight to them.
23
Gary watched Rachel’s car for what seemed like an eternity. After a while, and what seemed like too long, he hated it. He started growing impatient. He started to lose his control. He needed to find the freak. He needed to start the game that he hoped was coming. Sitting there, he suddenly felt like he was wasting time. Besides, if she was there, he knew that the freak had to be somewhere in the area as well. Knowing that, he also knew that he wasn’t that far away. He knew she was going to lead him to him, and that it was still just a matter of time before she did it. However, the feeling of time running out began to haunt his soul. He had to do something. He had to do it and soon.
He looked from her car and back to the road that ran along the side of this old rundown diner, looked across the road, and saw a man walking in the moonlight. It looked like the freak’s friend. He saw him heading down the road, running along the tree line away from him. Seeing him, he noticed that he looked confused. He looked rushed.
He must be rushing out to find his friend. He must be running out to meet with the freak. He looked back to Rachel’s car. She’s playing the decoy again. Goddamn it, I fell for it again. Seeing that, and feeling his rage flare again in his heart, he now knew what he had to do. He had to follow him. The game was on. He didn’t need to think any more about it.
He started the car, and pulled out of the parking lot of the store that was behind the diner, pulled out onto the main road, and slowly pushed the car behind the freak’s friend. He didn’t know where he was going, but liked that small fact even more. It felt like nothing but a wonder to him. It felt like nothing more than the feeling of the hunt starting again.
24
Kenny had to settle down after Jimmy and Sasha left. He felt tired. He felt winded. The excitement of the last few days started wearing him down. He had to get some rest. He had to get his mind back to a sense of clarity. He couldn’t stop from feeling tired. He didn’t even try to fight it. He couldn’t do it anyway.
He walked back into the living room and sat down on the sofa with a heavy breath. Once he felt semi comfortable, he took a deep breath. When a knock came from his front door, he barely even heard it. When he did, and even though he didn’t want to do it, he stood back up and made his way to the door with a sense of heaviness in his legs as he moved. He did everything without a second thought about it.
He opened the door, and when he saw the bright red flashing around the people behind it, he wished he prepared himself better for what he had to do next.
“Hello Kenny. It’s been a long time now hasn’t it?” Michael smiled. He stood on the front steps with Joshua just behind him and Melinda still waiting by the car just behind him.
Kenny looked at all of them. Their bright red halos sparkled in the moonlight. He knew who they were even before he heard his voice. “Michael? Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Yes it has been awhile now hasn’t it?” He smiled back. “How have you been?” His heart, however, did no such thing. It instantly began to thunder in his chest. He never felt happy in having to deal with Michael, nor his kind. He hated Nightwalkers. He hated them with a passion. They were brutal creatures after all.
Michael’s smile flared larger across his face. “I’ve been well.” He of course felt Kenny’s heart beating fast and strongly inside him. He loved the sound. No wanderer was ever calm when they were around him like this. “You’ve been well, I hope.”
Kenny read his mind with ease. “No complaints. So what brings you to my neck of the woods?” He looked from Michael and back to Joshua behind him, but it wasn’t the two of them that worried him the most. He left that for Melinda. He never trusted her. She had after all bested him once, and he would never let himself forget that she did it.
“We were looking for the wolf Kalima.” Michael looked back to Melinda and smiled to himself. What she did to Kenny, all those many years ago, he would always remember her for it. She was new to their world back then. The nightwalkers needed Kenny for something, something that he couldn’t remember now what it was, but like always, he didn’t want to help them. Melinda, being new, struck out with the rage she found in her newfound strength. The two of them fought, and she took the upper hand. She was stronger than most nightwalkers were. Why she was, it didn’t matter. The fact that they had to pull her off him, made all of that mute. That’s when he knew he had to have her with him. She became his protector. She became his muse. He admired her for what she did. Anytime one of them took on a wanderer and won, it always made him smile. He turned his eyes back to the old fool with that smile now plastered over his face.
Kenny grimaced. He swallowed. He had forgotten that Michael could read his thoughts. Why he would have forgotten that now rose heavily on his mind. Knowing that, he now knew that he had to clear his thoughts. He had to erase his mind. He had to regain his control. If he didn’t, he could give away too much to Michael without him even having to try to do it. “Kalima?” He looked back to him as his mind went blank. His thoughts became controlled. “I haven’t seen him for years.” He smiled.
It was Michael’s turn to grimace. He saw Kenny’s mind go blank. He swallowed his own mind away. “We know that he’s been here, old friend. I can smell him. I can smell he was here.” He took a deep breath. The smell of that God awful must was all around Kenny. He almost reeked of the stuff.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Michael.” The smell was unavoidable. Kenny couldn’t help it, so he never thought about trying to hide it. Besides, he didn’t expect for them to come and find him. If he knew about it, he would have tried to hide the smell. He had his ways. It would have been easy. “I entertain many of my friends here.” He smiled. “You’re mistaking them for him.”
Michael scoffed at that one. “Friends?
Why in the world would a wanderer like you suffer such friends? After all,” He looked deeply into Kenny’s face. He could no longer read his thoughts, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. He still knew that he was there. “Aren’t you the one that helped to create the times as they are now?”
Kenny bowed his head. “Perhaps I did, but not today.” He looked back up.
Michael laughed. It sounded like a hollow one at that. “Enough games, Kenny. I need to find him.” He turned serious. It now felt time to end this game. He knew he had been there. He saw it all. His gifts went beyond just reading another’s mind. He also saw situations. He saw decisions. He knew that Kalima had not only been there, but he also knew that Kenny helped him like he always did. He knew that Kenny couldn’t help himself for the guilt for doing what he did.
Kenny bowed his eyes again. “He’s no threat to you, or to your kind, Michael. He’s helpless to try to do it.”
“You’re trying to tell me that Kalima, the all-mighty Kalima, is not a threat. Have you forgotten the past Kenny? Have you forgotten what he did?”
“That is the past Michael. That was ages ago. He’s different from what he once was. He’s so much more different than the animal he once was.”
Michael looked back to Joshua and then forwards again to the old fool. “Besides, he’s been nothing but trouble to us. All of this, he has caused, and if we don’t stop him, everything will change, and not for the better. He’s dangerous Kenny. He’s a risk that cannot go on.” He took one-step forward. He was now just one single step below where Kenny was standing at the door.
The red flashing of his aura now looked almost overpowering to Kenny’s eyes. He even had to squint some because of it. “He is no danger to you. He hasn’t been for years now. He will not hunt a human again.” He had to force himself to blink. The brightness felt like looking at a searchlight surrounded by nothing but blackness.
All of this made Michael scoff. “Hunting humans are what we do, Kenny. It’s in his blood like all of us.”
Kenny shook his head. “Not since that night. He‘s changed for the better.”
Michael scoffed again. “He has killed many Kenny. Besides, that’s not what is bothering me about this. He set in motion something that has to be rectified. We have to find him and set this right.” Kenny turned back on his thoughts. He wanted Michael to see them. In his mind, he replayed what happened the night before with Jimmy and the wolf. He replayed the morning. He showed the tears. He showed the emotions. He showed it all.
The flush of images inside his mind, almost made Michael wince from the pain they caused him. There were so many of them, that he couldn’t focus on them long enough to see what they were. None of them made any sense to him anyway. They were nothing but a jumble. They were nothing but human. Seeing them, they only codified every thought he already had about everything that happened. “Stop it Kenny.” He brought his eyes down and squeezed them shut. He couldn’t stand them anymore and wanted him to do what he commanded him to do.
Kenny did oblige. He didn’t do it for Michael’s feelings of anguish, but more for him, himself. The emotions felt too overpowering, even for him.
With the images gone, Michael opened his eyes and lifted them back up to Kenny. “You above all others should want to preserve the times, Kenny. You should want to keep the truce that we have lived by for millenniums now. You above all others should want to keep things as they are, especially—to protect your friends.”
Kenny opened his eyes, and looked to all three of them at once. “I am protecting my friends Michael. If you knew what friendship was, you would probably understand me better if you did.”
Michael winced. He did so for all of a different reason for it. He wasn’t getting anything that he came there to get, and that idea hurt him more than anything else could have hurt him. He now felt like he was wasting time. For those like him, doing that was more of a crime than anything else was in itself. Long life has always showed him such things. “We will find him, Kenny. We will stop him from continuing this. We will do what we have to do to set all of this right.” He turned around and left the steps, and stepped back to the grass.
Joshua let him pass him, and Melinda watched him intently.
“I won’t let you hurt him Michael. I’ll fight you if I have to.” Kenny stepped fully outside. He stepped down one-step.
Michael turned back around and when he now stood beside both of his younger friends, and there, he shrugged some. “If you know what is good for you Kenny, you will stay out of this. You will adhere to the truce. You will keep your promise to us.”
Kenny now smiled. “I am. I always will.” His smile vanished. His voice grew hoarse. “But I won’t let you do this. I will not let you harm someone that has done nothing to you, or to your kind.”
“We have every right to stop one of our own Kenny. You know this.”
Kenny scoffed. He nodded. “You won’t be able to do anything to him anyway. He’s stronger than all of you combined. I won’t have to do anything.” He sighed. “He’s the original of his kind Michael. He’s the last of the original walkers. Even Devish couldn’t fight him then. He’s more powerful now, even more than what he was back in that age.”
This time, Michael scoffed. “He still has weaknesses Kenny.” He agreed with what Kenny said, but now, knowing Kenny’s gifts, he too let his mind and thoughts go blank. “We have our ways.” He smiled, but kept his eyes forward. He didn’t want Kenny to know what he already knew. He did fear what Kenny was. He did fear him, even with Melinda there, but he did know something more than what Kenny did. He wasn’t about to let him see it.
Kenny listened.
Michael turned after scoffing again, and made his way to the passenger’s side of their long black Cadillac. Melinda left the front of the car and went to the driver’s door. Joshua went to the passenger’s side back door, and all of three of them opened their respective doors and climbed inside the car together. They said nothing else. They simply started the car and headed back to town. Kalima would be there by now. They had to plan how to get to him. They had to meet up with their new friend, and had to find out when they could start the fight.
Kenny watched the red hues disappear. He heard car doors open and then close again. He heard the sound of a car’s engine turn over, and then heard as it drove away. With it all, he shrugged, fully and heartily. He felt more than happy they were finally gone. He didn’t want to fight them. He couldn’t even bring himself to want to try to do it. Now that they were gone, he could relax. He could, and did, take a deep and longing breath.
He closed the door to his home, and felt happy to do it. He needed to rest. He needed to regain his strength. He knew what he now had to do. He had to help his friend. He had to stop them from the pain that he felt was coming. He walked back into his living room and took an equally heavy seat back onto the sofa, and once comfortable again, he closed his eyes. He was about to let sleep overtake him, but a new loud thudding sound flared around his home. The sound seemed to be coming again from the front door. He had a new visitor. He didn’t want to, but he stood and went back across his living room and back to the front door.
He opened it, and found a familiar smell permeating all around in the nighttime breeze.
A wolf was there. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was.
25
He followed him, until the freak’s friend headed off into the cover of the trees. Seeing him, he knew he had to find a place to park his car, and would have to follow him out on foot. He immediately started to look for such a place. It didn’t seem like it was going to be hard to do, and it wasn’t. He found and old stone covered road up on the left, pulled down the road, and drove for several moments until he came to an old rundown building that looked like a barn on the right side of the dirt road. He pulled up to the side of the barn and there he parked. He turned off the engine. He stood out of the car, and looked around.
The area seemed quiet for the most part. Off in the dist
ance, he could have sworn that he heard a car coming towards him, so he turned to the sound, and found that it came down the road in front of him. Seeing headlights moving and getting brighter, he nodded. Someone’s coming.
Sure enough, a long black car came down the road, down a slight hill in it and stopped just at a small bend in the road up to his right.
Seeing it, he took a deep breath. Whoever they are, I can’t let them see me.
He ran into the trees. He stopped just around a very large old oak tree and there, he watched the car. Even from there, he could see three faint heads sitting inside it. Now, who in the hell are these idiots? He looked to his right and watched as the freak’s friend came out of the trees and instantly became flushed with the moonlight overhead. He watched him then walk to the side of the car, and watched him stop by the passenger’s side door. He watched on the other side of the car from him, and pulled himself back so he wouldn’t see him. Once he felt sure they wouldn’t, he held his breath. He stayed still, and listened to everything they said.
“He’s back.” The freak’s friend stated, almost sounding like he ran out of breath. He sounded more than just rushed, to Gary, he also sounded almost scared. He sounded like he had trouble in finding his own words.
Hearing him, he winced from the sound. He seems different. He wasn’t sure why he felt like that, but he did. He couldn’t place it. He just looked different from the last time he saw him, down in New York. Feeling the difference, it made him feel intrigued. He strained to listen to more of what he said.
“You’ve done well, my young friend. You will be rewarded.”
Someone inside the car stated. He sounded male. He, like the freak’s friend, also sounded odd. He sounded—almost cold.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Page 68