A Final Taste of Blood

by Wayne C. Rogers

  Using the shushing sound to get Betty to sit down, Freeman attempted to get her to look up at him, but she was still glancing back in the direction of the streetlamp.

  “What is it, girl?” he said.

  The sound coming from her throat was filled with anxiety, and it began to bother him in a way he couldn’t explain. Betty was scared, and this was an emotion she never displayed. That was when he raised his head and saw the homeless man standing at the corner underneath the streetlight, staring boldly at them.

  The guy had crossed Eastern and then followed them.

  “What the fuck,” Freeman said.

  Betty’s whine grew louder.

  Though the guy in the old Army fatigues had done nothing that was threatening, Freeman still felt a strong sense of hostility emanating from him. He then unconsciously glanced around and saw they were the only ones on Reno. Otherwise, the street was deserted. That was when warning bells began to go off in his head. He knelt down beside Betty and removed the muzzle so she could defend herself if the situation arose, but left the leash hooked to her collar for control.

  Standing back up, Freeman continued to watch the stranger and waited to see what would happen. Then, the guy did something unexpected. He leaned his hidden face forward into the brightness of the street light. Even from where Freeman was standing, he could make out the hard facial features and the long, dirty brown hair.

  It was the red eyes, however, that startled him.

  “Shit,” he said, feeling goose bumps pop out on his arms.

  Freeman stared at the homeless man in stunned disbelief, not sure if he’d actually seen the red eyes, or simply imagined them. He didn’t have time to debate the issue because Betty started whimpering as the man took a step toward them. Freeman’s mouth went dry, and he felt himself unable to move for a very long moment.

  Jerking on the leash, Betty jarred him back to the reality of what was happening.

  Ben Freeman wasn’t a person who scared easily.

  He had spent two tours in Vietnam as a U.S. Army tunnel rat, two decades on the LAPD, and nearly ten years in the casino business as a Director of Security at the Blue Bayou Hotel & Casino. The things he’d experienced would have made most men soil their pants. The man on the corner, however, scared him in a way he couldn’t explain. He glanced down at Betty, and she looked up at him with a questioning expression in her soft brown eyes.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Turning around, Freeman began to run down the sidewalk, keeping hold of the leash so Betty would stay with him and not turn around to charge the stranger.

  The sound of the guy’s footsteps pounding on the cement behind them could be heard over the beating of Freeman’s heart, giving him the strength to run even faster. He’d never considered himself a hero; but, at the same time, he had never thought of himself as a coward, except for that one time in the Vietcong tunnels when he’d encountered the quai vat.

  As Freeman ran down Reno to Topaz Avenue, he could hear the man in the trench coat gaining on them and realized they’d never make it.

  He then had a brainstorm.

  It dawned on him that the cinderblock wall surrounding the condominium complex was much lower on the Reno side. He didn’t know why, but instead of being eight feet in height, the structure was closer to six.

  Freeman made a fast decision and then stopped dead in his tracks.

  Putting the muzzle into his back pocket, he moved swiftly to the wall, pulling Betty with him. She wanted to stay and fight the stranger, but Freeman knew it would be a mistake. Squatting down, he took a deep breath and picked up the animal. He raised her seventy-five-pound body to the top of the walk and pushed her over, watching as she disappeared from view. He then heard a loud yelp as she landed in the dirt on the other side.

  “I need to put that dog on a diet,” he said.

  Freeman wasted no time in grabbing the edge of the wall and lifting himself up to the top. As he started to swing his legs over, a leathery hand with long, claw-like fingers magically appeared from out of nowhere and grabbed his left ankle, causing him to lose his grip. He fell down the other side of the wall and banged his face into the blocks. Though Freeman didn’t realize it at the time, he’d just broken his nose and chipped two of his front teeth. He was barely conscious as he hung there upside down with blood running into his eyes and hair.

  Groaning in agony, Freeman could feel himself being lifted back up to face his destiny.

  He could hear the heavy breathing coming from above, but it wasn’t from exertion. No, the man, or creature, was excited at having caught him. Freeman attempted to open his eyes to get a better look at the attacker, but his vision was blurred by the blood. All he could see was a menacing shape, leaning over and staring down at him with a hungry expression on its face.

  What saved his life was Betty.

  He heard the growl coming from deep inside her throat and knew she was getting ready to do something. Betty suddenly hit the wall at a fast pace and sprang upward with the leash flying around in the air, using the strength from her hind legs. She latched onto the stranger’s exposed wrist with her mouth, grinding her teeth into the pale flesh.

  As Freeman continued to hang there, he could hear a bloodcurdling scream of torment coming from his assailant. The sound made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.

  It was the severe pain from Betty’s bite that proved to be the deciding factor, forcing the homeless man to finally let go. Freeman fell to the ground, landing on his head and shoulders. He let out a whoosh of air from the impact, rolling over onto his side, stunned from the short fall. Betty released the captured wrist and dropped to the ground beside him. She barked a couple of times at the creature, and then moved over to Freeman’s battered face and began to lick the blood away, sweeping her textured tongue gently over his eyelids and forehead. His senses returned, and he heard the sound of angry frustration coming from the other side of the wall.

  Climbing hesitantly to his feet, Freeman allowed Betty to guide him back to the condo where he pushed the buzzer and she barked loudly, until Sheila finally came to the rear gate. His wife took one look at his battered face and gasped in shock.

  “What happened?” she said, leading him across the back patio and into the kitchen. “Were you mugged, Ben?”

  “No, the creature from Nam is back, and it tried to kill me,” he said, wincing at the broken teeth. “Betty’s the only reason I’m still here.”

  Freeman’s wife helped him down the hallway and into the downstairs bathroom where she washed the blood away from his face as he sat on the top of the toilet. She wanted to call the police, but he wouldn’t let her.

  He knew the cops would never believe his story.

  Even Sheila had a difficult time accepting it.

  Freeman could see the disbelief in her eyes and by the way her shoulders stiffened. Sheila had never known her husband to lie during their nearly fifty together; yet, she found it hard to believe he’d been attacked by a creature dressed up like a Vietnam vet and that it had tracked him all the way from South East Asia. If Sheila didn’t believe him, what chance did he have with the cops? Sure, they’d be able to look at his face and see he’d been mugged, but then they’d roll their eyes when he described the assailant.

  Especially, the red eyes.

  Instead, he’d asked Sheila to drive him to the emergency room at Sunrise Hospital after he’d retrieved his holstered Colt 1911 pistol and his security badge from the upstairs bedroom. Freeman knew his insurance would cover most of the cost. He’d make up a story for the doctor about having been mugged while walking the dog, which was pretty close to the truth. The doctor could then reset his nose and give him a prescription for some pain medication.

  ******

  Sitting on a long padded table in the Emergency Room, Freeman tried not to pull away as Doctor Jerry Turner placed tape over the bandage covering his broken nose. When the doctor was finished, he handed the securit
y director a piece of paper.

  “The shot the nurse gave you should be kicking in,” Turner said. “Let your wife do the driving. I’m giving you a prescription for some percodan. It’ll help with the pain.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Freeman said.

  “I’d try to see a dentist about those chipped teeth as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll get that done tomorrow.”

  As the doctor left, Freeman got off the table and stepped over to his wife, giving her a gentle hug. They followed Turner out of the room and down a long hallway to where the Admission’s Desk was located. Checking in with the clerk at the desk, Freeman found out that his insurance was covering everything, which brought a painful smile to his face.

  A security officer eyed the couple as they turned and left the hospital. He’d seen them when the couple had come into the hospital and heard what they told the Admission’s Clerk. Taking out a cell phone, he made a quick call to an old friend.

  ******

  Lt. Frank Peterson and David Simpson were talking to the four uniformed police officers with flashlights when a cell phone started humming. The group of men had appeared from around the corner of the tunnel, surprising both Peterson and Simpson as they’d shined their lights into the men’s eyes.

  “It’s your phone,” Simpson said to the lieutenant.

  Peterson placed the pistol back into its holster, and then reached inside his jacket and withdrew the cell phone. He flipped open the case and placed it to his ear.

  “Yes?” he said.

  The lieutenant listened as someone spoke to him.

  “I’m in a storm drain somewhere underneath The Mirage,” he said into the phone. “What do you have, Dwayne?”

  Peterson listened for another minute and then said, “Give me an hour, and I’ll meet you at the hospital. This may be our lucky break.” Putting the phone back into his pocket and walking over to Simpson and the four policemen, Peterson tapped the LINQ’S Director of Security on the shoulder.

  “What’s up?” Simpson asked.

  “I have to get back to my car,” Peterson said. “Something’s happened on the east side of town.”

  “Follow me,” Simpson said.

  “What do you want us to do, Lieutenant?” the group leader asked.

  “Keep searching through the tunnels. You never know what you might find.”

  Turning around, Peterson hurried after Simpson as they retraced their steps back to the hotel.

  *****

  Ninety minutes later, Frank Peterson and Dwayne Matthews drove up in their respective vehicles behind the Freeman residence. Killing the engines and headlights, both men climbed out and walk past a white Toyota that was parked one space over from the patio door. While Matthews glanced cautiously around, Peterson rang the doorbell.

  Betty started barking from the other side of the kitchen door.

  “That sounds like one big-ass dog,” Peterson said. “I wonder why the animal didn’t scare the perpetrator away.”

  “Maybe the perpetrator was bigger.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “They’re not home, yet,” Matthews said. “The security office at the hospital told me the doctor had probably given Freeman a prescription for pain pills. I bet they’re at the drug store right now, getting it filled. You want to wait around?”

  “Why don’t you take off,” Peterson said. “I’m going to sit here in my car for a while and see if they show up.”

  Matthews shrugged his shoulder and then headed over to his car. Once he was inside, he rolled down the driver’s window.

  “Stay alert,” he said. “The killer might still be around.”

  “Call me if anything else happens,” Peterson said.

  Matthews rolled the window back up and shifted the car into reverse. Switching on the headlights, he backed down the narrow lane to the street that bisected the complex.

  Peterson watched the receding headlights, and then stepped over to his own vehicle. He got inside and drove it around the corner, not knowing this was where Freeman had been attacked a few hours earlier. Once he was parked, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes that he’d picked up from the Indian Reservation in North Las Vegas. He lit one up, and then eyed the patio door.

  *****

  A young teenage couple made their way across the street and into the tiny park in the center of the community, playfully bumping into each other. They’d dressed warmly for the evening and had Halloween makeup on their faces, looking like zombies from The Walking Dead. The kids were carrying plastic bags of candy to a bench in front of the fenced-in swimming pool. The closed recreation center was further down to the right of them. Taking a seat, they started laughing at something that was said. Then, they began to rummage through the bags, looking for the good stuff to eat.

  The Melvin/creature, who was lurking in the shadows between two units on the east side of the park, saw them and emerged from the safety of the darkness. The park lights briefly illuminated him as he began to head down the walkway to where the kids were sitting. He looked like a large, dangerous predator on a stroll for a victim.

  The two teenagers were laughing and eating candy as they talked softly to one another. Saying something short and sweet to her companion, the young girl noticed Melvin heading towards them. The sight of him and his bizarre appearance caused her to freeze in mid-sentence. Elbowing the boy next to her, the girl pointed at Melvin. They stared wide-eyed at the predator, sensing the danger that was coming off of him like pulsating waves. Standing up, they started walking back to the street and its bright lights.

  Melvin picked up speed and grabbed the boy from behind just as they were about to reach the safety of the street. The creature grabbed the back of the kid’s jacket and jerked him off of his feet. As this happened, the girl dropped her bag of candy and screamed bloody murder. She watched helplessly as her boyfriend attempted to defend himself against the vicious attacker, fighting for his life.

  ******

  As Peterson heard the scream coming from the park, he jumped out of the Taurus in a mad rush to find out what was happening. He didn’t see the black SUV turning down the lane as Freeman and his wife hurried home from the drugstore.

  Sheila automatically slammed on the breaks at the sound of the girl’s scream. Freeman let go of his prescription bag so it fell to the floor mat. He then drew the handgun from the holster on his side, and cocked the hammer back.

  “Call 911,” he said, opening the passenger’s door.

  “What are you going to do?” Sheila asked.

  “Find out what the hell is happening,” he said.

  Freeman shut the door to the SUV and watched as Sheila continued to their home. He began to hightail it down the sidewalk to where the community park was located, keeping the barrel of the pistol lowered.

  Reaching the park a few seconds later, Freeman heard a booming shot erupting from the other side of the condos. He stopped and stared into the darkness on the south side. Seeing a man dressed in a suit with a pistol in his hand, he shifted his attention to the left and saw the creature hovering over a lifeless body, staring at the older man with its red, demonic eyes, its face transformed into the most hideous thing Freeman had ever seen since Vietnam. There was a young girl a few yards away, pressed up against the fence that encircled the pool.

  Her face was clearly etched in agonizing fear.

  The ex-tunnel rat went immediately into combat mode and raised his weapon in a solid two-handed grip, aiming it at the homeless man. He fired the handgun and watched as what had to be a shape-shifter let go of the boy’s body and moved slightly to avoid being hit by the bullet. The homeless man glared at him with recognition in its angry eyes, and then took off running toward the rear of the recreation center.

  Lt. Peterson had stopped running and was now staring openly at Freeman from across the park, taking in the .45 caliber pistol. He seemed to instantly know who the man was and pointed to the rear of the center.

  “I’ll go behind the
building,” Peterson shouted, “and you take the front!”

  Freeman nodded and starting running to the front of the center. When he was twenty feet away, the homeless man darted out of the shrubbery to the side and hissed wickedly at the person it had tried to kill only a few hours before.

  Going down on one knee, Freeman aimed the weapon again and fired it until the magazine was empty. The creature swiftly dodged the speeding bullets, except for the last two. One nipped the arm of the trench coat, and the other struck him squarely in the shoulder.

  Preparing to charge Freeman now that the handgun appeared to be empty, the Melvin/creature glanced to the left of the man.