Drifters

by Santos, J. A.

  I lunged forward as Alex did the same our fast strides were nothing like before, now everything was calculated. Every step closer to one another was meant to be taken. As we drew closer my mind wonders to Max and Jeremy whereabouts’, what had happened to them as soon as that door closed some minutes ago?

  Alex threw a punch and I bent my knees and threw an uppercut hitting his right side of the dangling jaw and it flew to the far end wall sticking as a dart. I rolled as the punched finished going upwards and hit him with my elbow at the back of his neck, he stumbles forward almost hitting the floor but he put his and stopped the eventful fall. Grunts and gargling growls were heard coming from Alex as he could not speak any more, sometimes we do take for granted the small stuff but hearing Alex growls and grunts was something I will never miss.

  He turned and ran towards me extending both hands finger wide open like the feathers of a male peacock; he was trying to get my throat again. I side stepped as he stumbles forward almost falling again, desperation has kicked in; he was desperate he could not speak no more, only the grunts and growls coming from his throat, he turned once more and tried it one more time, I kicked his stomachs a soon as he was in range, this time he fell backwards on his ass. I bend down and broke one of his legs by stomping on it. I moved back, Alex tried hard to get up with the aid of the wall behind him, he looked like a drunken man trying to let go of the stupor of such alcoholic drive, but it brought him to the floor. I took some steps back ward as I saw in his eye that desperation I was talking about earlier this time so profound that him without the jaw he looked like one of those monster’s from an old Zombie movie.

  I grabbed one of his hands twisting it right and breaking it by the elbow and it went limb to his side. I walked slowly dragging his left foot, and now one hand forward. I smiled at him as his eyes went from despair to fear the strobes of light ended as I lunched forward growling and ending Alex’s life. This was going to be the end of it, for now. Next is Marino’s turn.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Outside, finally I felt satisfied both with ending Alex’s life and my ravenous side all but calmed. I looked left and right after opening the door from the mill, there was no light, still it was night. Max and Jeremy where nowhere to be seen, I looked down a little disappointed for them not waiting when I noticed some tire marks on the ground and as door creaked to a close I looked back at it. The door as it closed by itself making a thump sound on the frame then it creaked inwards again. The door swings inside and out again that’s when I noticed a note was written in blood, but who’s? ‘Marino y’ll not survive this’ said the note. That bastard had both of them, but where? The command center would be so stupid of him to take them, where could they be?

  I sat on the ground thinking of any place Marino could have them, flagstaff was and is a big place and I only had seen so little of it mostly the woods, the hotel, and the fertilizer plant not counting the old broken and abandoned mill since it was night and the view of it was so slim. Where? Where? Where? I kept asking myself. I got so frustrated I hit the wall of the mill with one back fist; the whole thing shook as if an earth quake had hit and the building started to rumbled hard and loud. I stood with the only thing I could do, I walked to the clearing in the woods. It took a lonely and withered soul to walk all those miles alone. The desperation of feeling alone again was tantalizing my core, as if having Max at my side calling me Miss Sara all this time was something I needed to hear to assure myself that all was going to end soon, although I had told him to stop it cause it was annoying, it was just something I wanted to hear again. I was lingering for his voice as any other old memory from my past with great longing. Have I fallen for him? They say in love and war everything is fair game. They also said that there is a thin line between love and hate. Did I hate him, Marino? Has he now turned in my heart as just another ruthless monster that I despised as so many others I have encountered as a drifter around this vast land? Was I now conflicted on my feelings? The brushes of the bushes did not wither my concentration as I walked back to the clearing in the forest my first rest area since all this started.

  The twigs and branches of the bushes scrapped me and some tore and tugged at my clothes as I walked to clearing. I remembered the carved tree and whoever put them there make me question the feelings they both possessed when they carved their letters. Those one thousand two hundred and fifteen steps from the carved tree to the clearing was something agonizing, the loneliness now really had taken a toll on me, but why?

  I walked only thinking of their whereabouts, Jeremy had taken a second importance to me now; still I was worried for him just not as much as I was for Max. Were they safe? Were they even aware they were taken?

  My strides felt like hard wooden boards hitting a still stone, again and again. I got to the clearing and looked to star ridden sky and let out a breath of desperation out.

  “Miss Sara?”

  I looked forward and saw Max seating next to the back pack almost embracing it as if a memory was gone and all he had was that piece of nylon and thread to hold to. I ran to him, I ran fast and threw my arms around him embracing him as my eyes started to water.

  “I am glad you are okay.” I said as now tears started from my eyes flowing like flooded rivers during a storm.

  “Miss Sara, you said scoot and I did, why would you think I was not okay?” he said as he embrace me harder and put his hands around me, like throwing a blanket of protection around and feeling deeper his embrace. Warm and feeling the beating inside.

  “I saw tracks I thought Marino had you and Jeremy.” I took his head in my hands and draw his lips to mines. I had not felt this for anyone. Marino used to be the love of my life, but Max was something more, someone more eventful, or was I deluding myself of this? I may be a monster for all accounts for all I had done and for this inside me, but still I don’t deserve to be alone in this world and that is how I felt, I don’t want to be alone no more. I want to be with him someone like me.

  I let my whole weight drop on him. He fell and he slumped back as our lips entangled on an endless maze. I tore his shirt as he tore mines with ease, could have been the lonely walk here or could be that I really felt love for Max, or could be that I wanted to feel human. I did not know. I just did what I wanted to do. There in the clearing, at the dawn of day, Max and I made love. And for the first time in my life I felt like a woman and not a monster.

  #

  The morning rose with the chirping of the birds and the calmness of ecstasy as we both ended exhausted and fragile. Max was panting for air between my arms. I laid my head in his chest, the up and down motion made me feel as if I was a piece of drift wood in the ocean the sound of drums coming from his chest thumbing in rapid beats sang in my ears.

  “Miss Sara that was exhilarating and the best thing since meeting you,” Max said with a big smile in his face and a small laughter.

  I slightly hit the top of his head raising my head a little from his chest, “Did I not tell you to call me Sara.” And I let my head reset to its first resting place and now my favorite place in this world. After all I have been through, Targus after me; Jeremy, my adopted father chasing around the U.S. and then some more, this was my favorite place, it was this clearing in the woods my head on Max’s chest hearing his beating heart and wondering when would I get one from my own. Even so, is this what my life had turned too? Luring the dead to my arms, but, Max was not dead he’s still alive, the loud drumming from his chest is a validation to his status in the living world, I’m the dead one. What am I now, a ruthless predatory new animal for the real monster in our world, or just another human wondering where life would end?

  Still at this moment in the clearing the embrace of dead and leaving creatures of the dark world we really live in, is all that I wanted. I wanted Max, safe and in my arms. I wanted Marino out and off my feelings for good, if I had to do what I needed to do, Marino the bringer of freedom and the harbinger of a death only known by him. I wondered, is this It? Is this
my only pleasure as a woman that I could ever get? My thoughts turned to a slurred sleep in my head. My eyes closed to the dawn and his last words. ‘this is the most wonderful thing since we met’ and he was right this morning had being the most memorable of my memories since I did not have to worry for his death and I would not have to destroy the moment with a bloody action. I love this and wished I could let it live forever, but I can’t, Marino has to be dealt with, but for now I want to lay on this tranquil clearing between Max’s arms, my head on his chest and the drumming of his heart. What a wondrous sound that pumped pump sound. I drifted to a sleep, and I slept as I have never done in more than twelve years. Not caring if this was my last, but I loved that he was my real first.

  Chapter Thirty

  I woke up faster than Max and as I was dressing, buttoning my shirt I looked over my shoulder to see him on the grassy floor and he was sound asleep. I remembered the other night while I was in handcuffs and he speaking strongly mad, like a crazy person with no actual idea, just rambling news to the air as he slapped me on the face and wondered what the hell was I thinking giving myself to him? Was I that desperately longing for another’s touch or now at my 33 I was still that lonely soul from the lab? Any way what’s done is done and I did not mind my feeling of guilt, of betraying Marino, it’s not like he and I could ever be together.

  The morning dew was on Max’s body making him shine as pieces of glitter were born on his body. I smiled looking at him on the grassy floor. Hearing a rustling on the bushes to my left I crouched and looked to see what or who was coming.

  The rustling kept going for several minutes until out popped a dear, brown and majestically looking. It stared at me with those big black eyes, they were shiny and it looked sad. In my mind that little fawn I had consumed several days earlier. I stood from where I was crouching and extended my had.

  “I sorry little fellow I had to.” I said as I heard Max grunting on the floor still asleep. “Listen fellow why don’t I make it up to you.” As his head starting moving rapidly up and down as if agreeing with me, but I knew that was not the case. All of a sudden the animal jumped away exactly from where he had come forward and I heard clapping at my back. I stood frozen and looked left where Max was still asleep. I turned to see Marino smiling his hands in front of him clinching every second or so exacting a sound like small thunders from his hands.

  “Well, well. Sara glad you had found someone to be with.” He said as he pointed up to a small camera in a tree branch. It had a small blue light pulsation in it and I don’t remember seeing it at night again I was too busy riding Max.

  “You bastard.” I growled at him not for the camera but for what he made me do to Alex.

  “Ah, ah, ah.” He said moving his had up and starting move is index finger from side to side waving it with a big no. At that moment a group of agents started appearing around us one by one, all holding what looks like Tasers ready to deploy to me electrical shocks and put me down.

  “What do you want?” I asked as Max started to wake up. He grunted someone as he arched his back to a sitting position and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Morning Miss…” he stopped as he saw the men around us. “What the?” he asked as he rapidly stood naked looking around landing his eyes at Marino and he growled harder and with malevolence in his sound. He wanted Marino dead same as I did.

  “Max wait.” He said as he took some step closer to us, “put some clothes on, we got a lot of ground to cover today.” He said as his smile never faded away.

  “What do you have in your mind?”

  “You will see, do not worry, now do as I say and put some fucking clothes on.” His smiled now but a faded memory on his face, gone and dead serious. Max grabbed his clothes from the ground putting his shirt on first when one of the men shoot Max and he went down twitching to the agonizing electrical shock being dealt by the Taser.

  “Marino, what the hell are you….” I felt the surge in my body as if it had just put my finger on a wall socket and the electrical surge went through my body making it spasm and twitched. I looked up hurting my body was barely able to move and I looked left again were Max was being dealt with three other shocks as he tried to get up and grab Marino by the throat or so I thought since I wanted to do the same. Another shock and my eyes shut to peaceful darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I woke to the sound of metallic thumping, like someone hitting bars on a cell, clink, clink, clink. Three taps on those metallic bars. I looked up from the floor, it was cold and dust was all over it and on my face and clothes. I stood with a headache as I moved my hands all over my clothes and dusted them out.

  “Good afternoon Sara, glad you are awake.” Marino said as he was standing on the other side of a cell, on the other side of the metallic bars. He was still tapping the bar when my eyes landed on him.

  “I will kill you, you know that?” he said and started laughing and moving his head backwards holding his stomach as if he was Santa Clause.

  “Not if I get you first.” I said

  “You won’t and can’t” he said finishing with his laughter getting closer to the bars and I rushed forward trying to grab him and pass his body through the bars of this cell and tare the rest of him away. He moved as fast as I could and I missed my hold on him as my body slammed to the bars. He laughed again as I put my hands to each side of the bar and pulled, I have done this before; pulling the metallic bars banding them enough to move between them and runaway. The memory of being apprehended by police so long ago rushed to my head. It really did not matter even remembering it, let’s just say someone saw me as I killed a man putting my hand inside his mouth and breaking his internal connection with the rest of his body.

  Marino started laughing again, “You think you can break titanium? Not even you are that strong.” He said as the bars did not budge. “This cell was made solely for you. You aren’t going anywhere my dear Sara.” He finished, turning around still laughter in his voice as I found myself caged like a wild animal and it made sense in a way. I have moved from many places, drifted around the whole country with countless adventures and countless experiences, so in a way I was a wild animal since I was not bound by any rules; unless I had to get some money for clothes or other human necessities.

  “Where’s Max?” I screamed as he ignores me and keeps moving away.

  I looked around to see there was nothing here, a barren cell eight by four, small with nothing but a small metal bed that looks like a morgues stainless steel slab where they put the bodies to dissect them and do their autopsies. I sat on it putting my hands on my knees as they moved up and down rapidly. I was worried Max could be in more danger than he thinks, as so could I. What was Marino’s plan? What did he want from me or us, besides our deaths? Where was Jeremy? I sat there as an eternity passes and my mind wonders all around the United states and all the things I have done, needed to do to make safe passage and not let others like Marino know I, no, we existed. People would actually be terrified of what we really are and the other creatures lurking the night I had met. Since I have no heartbeat I’m technically dead, yet I walk, talk, think and have feelings. Max is different he is alive with the magical sound on his chest which I crave so much, but he cannot die, so he is not human either. Alex was dead, finally his mind control was shut down for good and his body was no longer able to walk among the living.

  I know having killed so many around this country that it wouldn’t be a surprise if out there I was being investigated by police, F.B.I., C.I.A. or any other government agency, but I knew Targus, now destroyed and disbanded, no longer existing, always got a way in treating them to a false sense of control during some investigations. I would think Marino was protecting me, and I would fall in love with him even more. Now I know the real reason, he wanted to make me suffer, destroy me from the inside for what I did to his brother and his brothers fiancé those long years ago, but it was so damn long ago, the idea of vengeance had turned him bitter thr
ough the years and I really was looking forward to see what his plan now was.

  I heard a rumbling and the cell shook all over. I almost fell if it wasn’t for my hands that steadied me as I put them to the edge of the bed. I Looked all over but there was pitch blackness as the lights when off. I could not see anything only my memory serve in this blackness. The sound was that of the massive truck I had seen at the fertilizer plant when the fake Alex had Jeremy by the throat and all electrical devices were connected to it. This must be the portable lab, I thought to myself as the truck jerked and rumbled on top of a road that definitely had too many holes.

  I swayed and moved from side to side as the truck moves forward to a destination undisclosed; to God knows where Marino plan was going to unfold. I heard a click of a lock and did not know if it was unlocking or locking since no one ever came through a door or any other opening. I tried to look onto the deep blackness in front of me but there was nothing. I heard the rumbling harder now like if it accelerated and the movement was now more stable, no holes and no bumps, an asphalt road for sure. I thought to myself, highway?

  The trip kept on for several hours and nothing, no one came and in the silence over the rumbling of the trucks motor I put my head to the metallic bed and drifted to a deep sleep. I woke several hours later as the clock in my head said it was half day which for me was a surprise to find myself still on the trucks cage and the rumbling still going hard and steady. I could not, but feel strangely nervous, where he is taking us, I thought as the truck kept its momentum. I always thought us, where was Max? What had Marino done to him or was he somewhere else? The truck stopped with screeching tires and the rumbling ended to a silence. I tried to hear what was happening outside but could not hear a thing. The clicking of the lock was heard again this time light flooded inside as I saw what looked like a dentist’s chair but there was something strongly eerie on it. It had a light on top of it same as the dentists used to look deeper to your teeth through that magnifying glass in the middle of it. There were drills, and medical knives and a lot of blood. Two men came inside with yellow HazMat suit, same ones used by the CDC when there were viral infections uncontrolled in the air. They came close to the titanium cell but did not unlock it they just looked inside at me, there still in the bed and looking at them through the bars. I did not have to growl, nor hiss at them I was not even concerned in their conversation through the suit, the sound of their voices was hallow and it reverbed inside their suit changing the actual sound of them and sounding more robotic.