Seven Devils
Page 30
And then they’re out of the town almost as quickly as they had re-entered it.
There’s farm country to the right, open land with the small town drifting to the left and farther until gone. Ryan the Driver shifts gears again, the car speeding up enough that David’s head flings back involuntarily. David’s eyes glance at the side-view mirror and he notices another car in close pursuit. Though he can’t see the driver, he recognizes his rental car.
Ryan the Driver checks his mirror briefly, downshifts, and pulls the handbrake. There’s smoke on either side of the car and he twists the wheel, the front right quarter panel nosing into the rental car door as he passes to the right.
David catches Hue Sinto’s eyes in the driver’s seat as the man lifts a handgun, pointing it into the car—Ryan the Driver’s already released the handbrake, up-shifting, and the car lunges forward again, catching the side of Sinto’s car with an extra leap of speed and causing it to fishtail.
Hue Sinto drops the gun as he grips the wheel, losing control of the car as it twists and turns, finally spinning around and around and off the road, onto the grass, the back half hitting a fence with a sudden jolt, causing the car’s front end to hop into the air.
Ryan the Driver pulls over, reverses to the crash site, jumps from the car, and rushes to the driver’s seat of the wrecked car. He pulls a swinging and scraping Hue Sinto from the car and begins hitting him again and again, in the face and chest, punching and kicking him over and over again.
David’s still in shock when the police arrive to find him alone with the busted car and dead body of Hue Sinto.
THE END
And I arrive home Wednesday evening, just past dark, almost two weeks to the day since I left.
Pam Noel, Rough Ralph, Bethany Walker, and Sadie had already returned from London, returned to their lives, returned to work and school and kids and such. Chris and Lizzy were staying in London until Lizzy had to return to school. There was to be a large event on Friday night involving a lot of British talent, one where David had been asked to participate.
I wanted to be there but I had my own life to return to.
Before going to Pairadice, before eating at the buffet, before checking on Sadie and the massage school, before doing anything, I enter my nice, clean home. There’s a breath of stagnant air and I open windows. Upstairs, I unpack my carry-on and the first thing I notice is the red cylinder Steve had given me. Energy and enthusiasm had long since abandoned me; the suitcase isn’t fully unpacked before I collapse onto the bed, not asleep but not especially awake.
God I missed my bed.
As I begin to drift off, there’s a thunderous noise in the distance.
I stand and move to the window, opening the blinds.
In the short distance – only a thin tree-line obscuring full view – I can make out the shopping center with my school and my bar as they both blaze in a fit of vengeful fire. Sadie had been teaching there. Pam Noel had been bartending. I smack my face to make sure I’m awake and that the events outside the window aren’t a hallucination…
When a knock at my front door startles me.
Groggy and exhausted to the tips of my fingers, I run the dark hallways, turning on lights as I go. At the landing, I turn on the outside light and open the door. Standing away from my front landing is a ghost, an apparition walking toward me.
“I—you…” I start, with dawning realization.
It hadn’t been a knock at my front door but two knives thrown with enough force to stick outright in a direct line. At maybe ten feet from the door, he enters light. A tall, dark featured Japanese man stands just outside of the porch light. He has a blue-and-white checkered cloth draped across his body. His hair is up in a bun on top of his head and he keeps both hands together at his waist, each tucked into the other’s sleeve. There is a visible scar on his neck and he opens his mouth but, instead of words, a noise erupts like the horrifying sound of a pterodactyl’s screech. The arrow must have hit his vocal chords; this is the man that ordered the archers and the swords’ men outside Sensei Ki-Jo’s house so many years before.
I was never sure he had died there, thinking they may have taken the body of their leader to immortalize him; not once had I thought he got up and walked away but I knew there was a chance the arrow hadn’t severed any main arteries, had only hit and stuck in a hunk of meat.
Behind him, in the near distance, I can see the blazing fire as it reaches dozens of feet into the air, smoke thick and visible in the darkness – I know it’s my school, and the bar, and the buffet, all blazing as if made of matchsticks; this is only a brief glimpse as the dark-featured man advances into the house.
As I back up, the back door between David’s house and my own is kicked open and I hear several footsteps enter; the back door to Chris’ house crashes open as well, and more footsteps can be heard.
I bolt up the stairs and reach my room.
With haste, I push the dresser in front of the door and back up. I bend at the waist and reach under the bed for the tiny case with my handgun. Hitting the digits 5-5-5-5, the case unlocks and I remove the pistol.
Footsteps run full pace up the stairs.
The lights go out – the power shut off – and I’m in darkness.
My hand finds something cold and cylindrical on the bed…
Without much thought, I bring the end of the red cylinder to my lips. This is the back-up, the army waster that Steve gave me as what turned out to be his final farewell present.
The red hacker.
Violent.
Animalistic.
The vicious breath.
The effect is instantaneous with the deep inhale.
My lungs immediately burn as if I inhaled fire and ash.
Alone in the darkness of the bedroom, from out of my chest and lungs comes a blazing red that engulfs my body from head to toe. My clothes feel as though they hinder the effects and I strip naked, gripping the pistol in my right hand as the people outside the door pound harder and harder.
The dresser will only keep them out a short moment longer.
My heart beats so fast I can’t breathe. My body grows numb and the orange and blood red fire grows hotter, concentrated passion and fire and fury, higher, farther, climbing deeper – this time, it isn’t climbing in and down my throat but up and out as if unleashed, as if escaping before I have the chance to change my mind, seething down my legs as if I’ve jumped into a scolding hot, boiling tub. My skin burns down to the soles of my feet and the hair on my body lifts.
I howl at the burning as all of the blood rushes to the surface of my skin.
The pounding at the door stops with my primal howl, then restarts.
And just as the feeling of the vicious breath calms, there’s a brutal explosion the color of pure scarlet, and it mushrooms out and twirls up in the brilliant flames of a bonfire. My elbows tuck in against my sides and bend, my clenched fists on either side of my temples. Every muscle tenses as I lower my head, both eyes closed. The burn is wonderful, like the ability to fly and never fall or fail.
When I stand, the fire is still around me.
It hasn’t finished with me, only prepared me…
A pound, heel against the spine of the door, hinges cracking.
A pound, the door cracks again, louder, caving.
There’s another howl from my lips, this one an invitation.
And with one more heavy pound, the door opens.