by John Corwin
The chain was long enough for him to reach the bathroom, his bedroom and most of the apartment. He could reach the keys with the help of the broom or flyswatter to pull them off the cabinets. At least this way if pure instinct took over, he might not have the state of mind to get the keys.
A phone rang. Lucas looked on his desk and saw a new cell phone, different from the last mysterious one.
"Fuck you," he said. He snatched it off the table, opened the front door, and was able to toss it into the woods even though the chain jerked him short.
After closing the door, he waited and watched, expecting his ears to pop and hairs on his neck to rise. Nothing happened. Several minutes later, he went to the fridge, grabbed his liquefied carrot mix, and drank it down. It was thick and goopy but easier than crunching through five pounds of carrots with his teeth.
Lucas looked at his calendar and sighed. He had two major website projects to finish for a client. With all the murder, mayhem, and general insanity, he'd accomplished nothing in the past few days. He needed to email his contact, tell her his cell phone was gone in case she tried to contact him. At some point, he'd need to venture out to the store and purchase another rather than wait for another to materialize from thin air.
Something occurred to him. Each time he'd gone crazy and killed someone, it had been because of a picture on a cell phone. He couldn't very well avoid looking at pictures, not if he planned to do any work on his computer. He had to hunt down the source of this issue. The young girl he'd chased might be the Rosetta stone to all his problems. Or she might be just like him, another superhuman predator prowling the streets.
Lucas moved the mouse on his computer to deactivate the screen saver. Instead of the usual desktop background, the picture of a young black man, probably in his early twenties, looked back. His hair was short and black, his nose thin and tapered, and his eyes brown. He wore a blue oxford hanging loose over khaki pants and a tie that was pulled partially loose.
The details sank in fast and deep even though Lucas closed the picture a second after opening it. He closed his eyes and saw the man in perfect detail. Dread ate at his stomach. It was too late now. He checked the chain on his waist to make sure there was no way to slip out of it. Soon, it would be the only thing keeping that man alive, provided a similar chain of events was about to occur.
Then again, he felt fine—
A young black man lay on the road at Lucas's feet. Stones covered his mouth and eyes. Well-manicured lawns and cookie-cutter houses lined the road. A dog yapped in the distance. Overhead, a streetlamp hummed.
"Where am I?" Lucas stumbled backward. His ribs and waist ached. The chain was gone. Deep bruises circled his waist where it had secured him. His hands felt raw.
Lucas looked at the body again. He dropped to his knees and tugged on the stones. They wouldn't budge no matter how hard he tried. The body twitched with each attempt. They seemed to be adhered to the bone. Tears burned in his eyes and ran down his face. Sobs shook his body. He was a slave. A murdering slave. There was only one solution to a creature like him.
Suicide.
Chapter 15
Tollee bit back tears as she watched Lucas tug on the stones. The man was in agony. She would be too if Martin made her kill Scions. She'd found the marks, chosen them, helped Martin prepare them. In truth, she was as guilty as Lucas. No, actually he was the innocent in all this. He'd suffered so much already. There was probably a special place in Martin's so-called afterlife for people like her.
"God damn you to hell, Martin," she said, not caring if he was listening in on her at that moment. This was it, her last one. Martin had forced the event in a quiet suburb just outside the city limits. The body would be safe to take before most people woke up. They'd never know about it.
Lucas pounded the asphalt as sobs tore into him. The asphalt cratered under his fists while skinning his knuckles raw. After what seemed an eternity, he stood and wiped his face. Tollee hoped he'd leave. Instead, he bent down and picked up the victim, Simion Moore, and hefted the body over his shoulder. He looked around. Got his bearings. Set out toward town.
Tollee slipped into the Blight and cursed. Yet again, Lucas was making things difficult. Maybe this time he wouldn't go crazy and slaughter a roomful of chum. In fact, he seemed to be in control of himself now. Sort of. She followed him as he plodded down the road, taking a back road with little traffic. When a car approached, he'd duck to the side of the road, look around, move on.
What did he have in mind? A proper burial? With the man flopping over his shoulder, the light from the stones created a glow against Lucas's back. He trudged on. Not once did he try to run. Why he was content to go so slow confused Tollee. Then she saw how tired he looked and the reason clicked into place. He couldn't summon his abilities at will. That explained a lot. At this rate, it'd take him the rest of the night to get home if that's where he was going.
Tollee tried to keep track of the time. If Lucas couldn't use his abilities, she could wait until the stones were finished and simply snatch the body from him. Relief flooded her. Things might work out this time. She phased back to Normal, feeling confident and quite a bit braver.
The fourth hour from the time of death had just started when Lucas stumbled and fell, dropping the body in the process. Simion Moore came to rest on his back, spread-eagled on a street near downtown. Dilapidated buildings crowded under broken street lamps. Miles of overhead wiring wound its way from pole to pole between buildings and along the street. Old cars lined a street pockmarked with potholes and scarred with cracks. Tollee guessed this place wouldn't look much worse for the wear from within the Blight.
Speaking of which, she took a peek at the body through the Blight to confirm the essence was still coming from the stones. The body's glow had dimmed noticeably over the last half hour, so it was almost done. She checked out the buildings and street. Aside from the dead vegetation and excess peeling paint, the area really didn't look much worse in the Blight. In fact, it almost looked better.
She switched back to Normal view and watched Lucas. He tried to rise, staggered, and dropped into a sitting position. He wouldn't be carrying the body again anytime soon. That should make the task of snatching it pretty easy. Martin could finally have his lab rat. After delivery, however, it would be time for a change. A major one.
Martin had told her nothing except bad things about the factions, neglecting to mention his past affiliation with the Transcendists and the fanatical belief in God he nurtured. Tollee was eighteen now. An adult. She couldn't remain ignorant of the real Scions just because Martin was like a father to her. It was time to choose her path and follow it. She phased into the Blight just in case he might be eavesdropping on her thoughts. It was stupid not to be careful.
The light from the stones had faded to dull orange like sparks from a dying camp fire. Not long after, the last ember rose and vanished. Time to collect. She waited for a moment more to see if the stones fell off of their own accord. They didn't, but it probably wasn't important.
Tollee pulled out her flask and took a long swig just in case. Lucas was trying to push himself into gear. He might figure out how to use his speed again and she didn't want to get caught with her pants down. She approached to within several yards when the stones lit up again. She stopped. Backed away. Rather than sparks rising from a campfire, the stones resembled black holes sucking the light from a star. A sickly yellowish light spun with black oily tendrils poured from the invisible seam in the air like a wisp of smoke hanging, then caught in a vortex of wind.
What was going on? She dialed Martin on her cell, forgetting that she was still in the Blight. The phone notified her there was no signal. She turned the camera to video mode and recorded the spectacle. Lucas remained oblivious but his face abruptly contorted. He started jerking his head in every direction, searching, perhaps sensing something was wrong. Tollee lost track of time, but her cell phone showed fifteen minutes had passed.
The light stopped. Lu
cas convulsed. His face reddened and his eyes bugged. The body jerked in one large spasm. Lucas dropped to all fours and puked a big pile of orange goo. Behind him, Simion Moore pushed himself up on all fours then stood, wobbling like a poorly controlled puppet. Lucas spun into a seated position, knees crooked and arms supporting him. He and Moore stared wide-eyed at each other for several seconds that ticked off like hours to Tollee.
Moore groaned. His mouth opened but no words came out, only mangled noises. From within the Blight, Tollee noticed his glow was almost as bright as Lucas's and definitely brighter than it had been before his death, but it was wrong. Instead of white, it had an amber tint to it flecked with dark oily streaks. Martin was wrong about the stones. They didn't kill the Scions at all. They corrupted them.
"Where?" Moore asked, the vowels croaking out like he had a terrible speech impediment.
Lucas stood, green-faced, clutching his stomach. He gagged again and backed away. Moore advanced, speaking in slurred tones. He shook his fists. Lucas took refuge behind an old nineteen-seventies Ford. Moore screamed at a pitch that nearly made Tollee wet her pants. She shivered and almost dropped the phone. Moore slammed his fists on the car. The roof caved. Windows cracked and shattered. Moore screamed again. Porch lights came on up and down the streets. Dogs started barking.
"Calm down," Lucas said. "I'm so sorry. Forgive me."
"Speak me?" Moore said back in a shout. "Speak see hear me?" The door of the car he'd been beating on popped open as the bent metal stressed the latch. Moore grabbed it, tore it from the hinges and launched it at Lucas.
Lucas ducked. The door skidded and sparked down the road. Slammed into another old car.
"I'm gonna call the cops you gangsters," an elderly black woman said from the porch closest to the car. "That's my son's new car."
Moore's head jerked in her direction. He flashed toward her. Lucas jumped in his way. Moore swatted him aside like a bug and Lucas slammed against the Ford's windshield. The woman screamed. Tollee snapped her cell phone shut and exited the Blight.
"Over here you idiot," she yelled.
Moore skidded to a stop, his feet raising a cloud of dust in the barren front yard. His eyes narrowed. Tollee's knees wobbled as she felt the sheer malevolence emanating from those eyes. Moore charged at her. She phased into the Blight and dodged aside.
"Catch me now, moron," she said as Moore stopped in the middle of the street, his eyes searching.
Lucas, she noticed, wasn't moving. His mouth was agape, arms wide. Shattered safety glass coated his chest. Dead, probably. Poor guy. Moore's aura flickered, the black taint spreading and narrowing as his head jerked spasmodically, looking at the surroundings. His eyes darkened to pitch and locked onto Tollee.
This couldn't be happening. Moore was an executor like Lucas. How could he possibly be looking into the Blight? Lucas groaned, stood up, and brushed the glass off his shirt. Moore ignored him. Lucas's body tensed. Moore's aura melted away like he'd just walked through a waterfall. He was in the Blight.
Tollee stuttered something. Wet warmth gathered in her crotch. Her body went on automatic and she slipped back into Normal right in front of Lucas. He cried out and backed away. Tollee hardly saw him. She focused her concentration on a streetlamp far down the road and the Blight hopped to it. She looked back. Moore had slipped back to Normal, but his eyes were pits of black against his aura. He saw her and ran, his legs churning. Tollee gathered her wits and locked onto another streetlamp as far as she could see. She hopped again, looked back, ran. Thunder clapped. Moore appeared at the first lamp. The lamppost screeched and bent. The lamp exploded. Moore's body flicked out at one area and appeared in the Blight several yards behind Tollee. A sonic boom ripped the air. She screamed.
He was Blight hopping too.
The chase from the previous night played back through her mind. For the second time she was in serious danger of dying. She phased back to Normal and dialed Martin on her cell. It beeped a battery warning at her. Martin answered. She took in a lungful of air and screamed for help. The battery died.
Moore appeared behind her, less than twenty yards away. His shoes had flown off at some point and his dress socks were flopping loose. She might have found it humorous if not for the murderous look in his maniacal eyes. Tollee managed a series of hops, trying every trick in the book from vertical hops to roofs and perpendicular ones. Moore never lost sight of her. This was impossible. An experienced seeker might manage this, but not some loon who'd never done this before.
Tollee was in the middle of downtown now. The buildings were too tall for her to see their roofs for vertical hops. She had one last trick left that had to work before her energy reserves gave out. She looked back at Moore then further back beyond him. A trash bin sat next to a street lamp. She focused on it. Saw a pink glob of gum affixed to the gray metal. Her mind took a snapshot. She hopped.
Moore was ahead of her by a good hundred yards now. She kept her forward momentum and veered right down a narrow street that took her out of the skyscrapers and toward some older condos and houses. Her legs wobbled. She took another look behind, ran a few more yards, and stopped behind a large oak tree. Her flask had two more draws of vodka left, which she consumed. Her energy level was at a deficit. She needed more liquor. A bum occupied a park bench on the sidewalk in front of a canary yellow house. She pulled the newspapers off him and found a half-empty bottle of bourbon.
The body odor nearly knocked her out. The fact that he was chum, however didn't seem to matter so much with her life riding the line. She gulped greedily. The bum stirred.
"My muse! You drinkin' my muse," he said, and grabbed at the nearly empty bottle.
Tollee pushed him away and finished the bottle. The bum stopped howling and started cursing at something else. Tollee spun. The bottle dropped from her fingers and clattered on the concrete. Moore stood only a hundred feet away. His lips curled back into a snarl. His pants were gone, modesty preserved by only a pair of striped boxers. One sock was missing but the other still flopped from one foot.
Lucas flicked into existence directly behind Moore. Grabbed the demonic man by the neck, and jerked him off his feet. Moore clawed and kicked. Lucas's biceps bulged. His face reddened. A crunch echoed down the street as Moore's neck broke. His arms and legs flopped loose. Lucas dropped the body and looked at Tollee.
"Help me," he said. "What's happened to me?"
"I wish I knew," Tollee said.
"How can you not know? For God's sake, tell me why I'm killing people."
Moore's body convulsed. His eyes fluttered open. Tollee screamed. The liquor burned like rocket fuel in her. She jetted away without thinking. Without caring about direction.
* * * * *
Lucas's stomach lurched. His gorge rose. He couldn't fight this creature again. The man's body flailed and his eyes rolled back in his head. Lucas ran for home.
On the way, he raided another grocery store and devoured carrots, replenishing his dwindling energy reserves. The girl was real. She'd spoken to him, but she looked so young and ignorant. Why had she been at both murder scenes? Lucas reconsidered the word "murder". It didn't apply here. He was doing something much worse to these people, turning them into superhuman lunatics. Just like him.
His abilities apparently operated on a deep instinctual level. After the man had flung him against the car, his body had finally reacted, albeit slowly. He had to learn how to control those abilities but that would take time. If all his victims had turned into these creatures, how many other people would die by their hands while he learned how to fight them?
Too many.
Chapter 16
Alexia stared at the Atlanta newspaper's headline: Four Homeless Brutally Slain. According to a surviving eye witness, a crazed black man wearing only boxer shorts, a ripped shirt, and one sock had killed and mutilated a homeless man near downtown Atlanta then ripped into three more who were sleeping under a bus shelter across the street. The survivor claimed the murderer had
picked up his victims and slammed them around like rag dolls while screaming nonsensical phrases like, "Open you. Feel you."
That meant another ritual killing with those accursed stones had taken place and another walking dead was out there. She'd hardly slept all night, her mind wandering the possibilities. The man who'd saved her was the missing link. He seemed to be the only one who could stop these creatures.
She called Grady Memorial Hospital to check on Jackson but he still hadn't regained consciousness. After talking to the police dispatcher, he patched her through to Detective Evans. She asked him if he'd made any progress.
"We're bone dry here," he said. "I got Jackson's notes on my computer but haven't had a chance to look 'em over."
"Can you email them to me?"
"Yeah. Let me know if you find something."
"I will."
"I fuckin' mean it. Excuse my tone, but Jackson was my mentor. I want the son of a bitch what did this to him."
"You and me both, Detective."
She received the files in an hour and pored over them. Most were in terse, short descriptions. One elicited a grim laugh from her. Jackson had described her theory about the butcher shop break-in link as "too weak to pull a greasy string out of a goat's ass." He added that he'd instructed any similar robberies to be noted and forwarded to his email. The feeling of pin pricks worked down her neck. The tingle, the extra sense, whatever her mental aberration was had just told her something.
Check it out.
She called Evans again. He had someone forward her any emails with grocery stores mentioned in them. Sixteen in all. Twelve bore no similarities to the butcher shop break-in, but the other four revved her tingle into high gear. Two stores reported that mass quantities of produce had been consumed on site and the other two said all their carrots had been stolen. Alexia couldn't help but laugh at the bizarre nature of the robberies. The cops' comments in the emails were almost as funny.