Doc shifted Lucy around on his shoulder, trying to make himself more comfortable as Officer Friendly continued to point the shotgun at him. He had to end this quick. What should have been a simply snatch and grab had turned out to be more than he had bargained for and he wasn’t sure if he had the power left to dispose of any of these people in the fashion to which he’d gotten used to. But he wasn’t worried. After all, he was still Doc Holliday, powers or not. He still had the skills required to take out one little law man. Besides, you’d have to be a sand blasted idiot to fire off a shotgun at someone holding the person you were trying to protect. Shotguns were just not made for precision shooting.
So, instead of doing what the nice officer had asked, and put the lady down, Doc kept her right where she was at, and drew one of his pistols. He smiled as he pointed it at Officer Friendly.
“Come on, Carl,” he said, thumbing back the hammer. “You and I both know that you ain’t gonna shoot me with that scatter gun. Not when I got this pretty lady here on my shoulder.”
“No?” Carl said.
“No.”
“You’re fairly certain of that, are you?”
“I am,” Doc said as he thought, the nerve of this boy . “Now be a good boy, and put your gun down. And then, while you’re at it and just to keep things orderly and ironic, you can go and thrown your own dern hands in the air.”
But the boy didn’t drop the gun, and he most certainly did not throw his dern hands in the air. No, instead, Officer Carl Friendly did the one thing that Doc did not expect. The boy threw the shotgun into Doc’s face and ran for it.
Doc was, of course, somewhat surprised to have a large metal object hurled into his face, and so he did what most would do. His face scrunched up and his eyelids fluttered in that way that they do when you expect something big, heavy, and painful to slam into your face, something you just know is going to hurt like the almighty dickens. While this was happening, he also brought his hands up to cover his face. Not to hide the look his face was making, which would be quite embarrassing if anyone saw it, but more to protect his delicate facial features from the shotgun that was about to smash into them. This then caused two things to happen.
One, his right hand – the one holding the pistol – clenched for a moment as it rose to cover his face. And, as he had a finger on the trigger, the pistol fired. Which in turned caused him to jump slightly, relax his hold on the gun, and drop it.
Two, his left hand – the one that held Lucy – discontinued its task and rose to cover his face. So, as the gun went off in his right hand, and he jumped slightly, Lucy slid off of his left shoulder and fell onto the floor.
The sound – combined with the sudden flight to the floor – caused Lucy to scream, which in turn caused him some minor irritation, but not as much as the shotgun to the face.
All in all, only a few seconds went by from the time the shotgun left Carl’s hand to the time it hit the floor, but when Doc pulled his hands from his face, Carl was gone. Not completely however. He spied the back of one of Carl’s feet as it disappeared through the giant hole in the wall that used to be the front door.
So he crouched, grabbed the fallen pistol in his right hand, and one of Lucy’s ankles with the left. Then he stood and walked calmly out of the hole and into the front yard, dragging Lucy behind him.
Outside he was met by a crowd of people. It was like the whole dern town had turned out for the show. But it wasn’t just the townsfolk. The State Police had arrived. They had already taped off the whole area and were now keeping people back, shouting “Nothing to see here”, and generally going through the motions. Doc could see that they didn’t have any real idea just what was going on here, but they were doing what they could.
Well, he would just have to show them all what was really going on.
He lifted his six shooter, thumbed back the hammer, and shot Carl Friendly in the right leg as the boy ran toward the State Police and their tape barrier. Carl had barely made it to the halfway point when he went down with a shout of pain.
It took a moment for the people and the Staties to react. About as long as it took for the sound of the gunshot to dissipate. By then, Doc had dragged a struggling Lucy across the lawn to the prone form of Carl Friendly. There he let go of her ankle, pulled his other pistol, pointed them both in the air, and faced the State Police.
The State Police, by that time, fired up about four spotlights and aimed them in his direction. He supposed they were there to disorientate and blind him, which they did, but he knew that behind the lights were people, and that’s really all he needed to know.
“Don’t move!” an amplified voice sounded from behind the lights.
He laughed. These people had no idea who they were dealing with. Sure, he had used all of his power, but he still had one card up his sleeve.
Doc Holliday couldn’t die.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He could be shot, he could feel pain, and his body could die. His soul, on the other hand, would just be sent back to Hell. From there the Boss would just place his soul into a different body and send him on back up. He didn’t like it. He found the whole process agonizingly painful. But he’d go through it to get out of a tough spot if he needed to.
The goal however, was to try as he might to get himself, and the girl, out of here. But he liked having options. Besides, if it really came down to it, he could always call on the Boss to come up and give him a power up. It meant owing the Boss more souls, but Doc was up to the task.
“Drop the weapons!” the amplified voice returned. “Drop the weapons now or we will open fire!”
“Me first,” Doc said, and began squeezing off shot after shot, into the lights, laughing as he heard the bullets make contact with flesh.
CHAPTER THIRTY
TIM – THE BEAST – AWOKE amidst smoke and ruin. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind, trying to recall what had happened. But it was cloudy. Elusive. One moment they had been watching Doc through the security monitor. The next they were falling. That’s when the world went black.
All in all, Tim had begun to get rather tired of passing out. He figured that he might want to see a doctor at some point, once this was all over. Passing out as many times as he had in the last few hours couldn’t be good for one’s physical health or mental wellbeing.
But he would worry about that later. There were more pressing things at hand.
Tim stood and brushed himself off. He found it difficult to stay on his feet, which had nothing to do with the multiple black outs. No, he couldn’t manage to stay balanced because the floor was pitched at a near fifteen degree angle.
He looked around. He saw a giant lump of brown fur that he guessed to be the three bears, but he didn’t see Lucy anywhere.
“Lucy?” he called out, the dust in the air making him cough.
No answer.
He noticed a large hole in the wall that hadn’t been there before the world dropped out from under them. The steel around the hole looked as if it had been melted through. But what could do that?
“Lucy?” he called again, stumbling around the room. “Where are you, baby?”
The Griswolds began to stir. Burt was the first to his feet, but the other two were quick to follow.
“Lucy!” Tim yelled. Panic had begun to set it.
“What happened, Burt?” Beatrice said as she and Danny clung to her husband.
“We’re on the ground floor,” Burt said, looking through the hole. “Something brought the entire panic room down.”
“What could do that?” Beatrice asked.
Doc , he thought. It didn’t make any sense, but it had to be Doc.
&nbs
p; Lucy was scared stiff of the man, and he’d never known her to be scared of anything, or anyone. But that man put a fear in her that he had never seen. Doc did this. He didn’t know how, but he was certain of the who and the why.
That’s what Lucy has been running from all this time. Not Tim. Doc. And Doc had found her. Found her, and took her. And Tim had to get her back.
“Burt?” Beatrice said, looking scared. “What could bring this entire room down through the floor?
“Not what,” Tim said, checking his revolver. “Who.”
“What?” Burt asked.
“Not what, Daddy. Who.” Danny said.
“This man that Lucy was so afraid of,” Tim said, ignoring the boy. “Doc. He did this.”
“What makes you think that?” Beatrice asked.
“He’s taken Lucy,” Tim said.
“Now, you don’t know that,” Burt said.
Tim stepped through the hole in the panic room wall. “Well, she sure isn’t here. And I don’t think she’d leave.” He looked around. “Yeah, he took her.”
“Tim, don’t be rash.” Beatrice said as the Griswolds followed him out of the panic room.
“I agree with Bea,” Burt said. “Anyone capable of pulling that room through two floors and then melting a hole through a foot of steel isn’t someone to trifle with."
“Neither am I,” Tim said, turning to look at Burt. “There’s a reason I’m called ‘The Beast’. It’s time Doc found out why that is.”
Just then, from outside, there came a gunshot, followed by a woman screaming.
“Lucy!” Tim shouted, running toward the sound.
The Griswolds followed him as he ran through the house. It wasn’t far to the front door and so it wasn’t long before he found himself outside.
A crowd had gathered, drawn by the rumor of dirty work afoot. The State Police were on the scene. Crime tape was thrown up in a perimeter around the front lawn of the house. There were people on the other side of the tape, lots of people.
Suddenly he was blinded as the State Police flipped on no less than four spotlights, flooding the front of the house with a white fire that pinned Tim where he was.
“Don’t move!” sounded an amplified voice.
For a moment, Tim thought the voice was directed at him, until he noticed Doc just a few dozen yards away. And at the ground at Doc’s feet, lay two figures. A man, and Lucy.
The man lay sprawled and unmoving. Lucy lay curled up and crying. Doc just stood, defiant and laughing, his guns raised in apparent triumph and glee.
“Drop the weapons!” the amplified voice returned. “Drop the weapons now or we will open fire!”
But it was Doc who opened fire. Tim couldn’t see where Doc aimed as he fired into the light, but he knew the sound of bullets hitting bodies when he heard it. Then Lucy was on her feet and wrestling with Doc. He was about to rush to her side when Doc pushed her from him and slammed her across the face with the barrel of one of his revolvers.
He would never forget the sound that the steel made as it connected with her face, her mouth, her teeth. He would never forget the way she dropped, just dropped, like a marionette that had had its strings cut. He would never forget the way she lay there. Unmoving. Inert. Silent. He would never forget the fury that rose within him.
“You son of a b-!” the rest of the word had been drowned out by the popping of bone as Tim began to grow. To change. To transform.
Where Tim once stood, now stood the Beast in all his glory. At seven feet tall he was nothing more than fur, muscle, teeth, and claws.
Doc turned in time to witness Tim’s transformation. Doc only smiled as the Beast pointed at him.
“Now you will know why I am called the Beast!” the thing that was once Tim roared.
The Beast drew his sword and charged.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DOC HOLLIDAY HAD FACED creatures such as the Beast many times since his resurrection. He wasn’t worried. He’d found more often than not that their bark was worse than their bite, especially after you put a .45 caliber slug into their head. So he took aim as the Beast, roaring and slavering – all claws, teeth, and fur – came at him.
Doc fired and the Beast slid out of the way, the bullet sailing harmlessly past as the Beast kept coming. Doc fired a second time, but again the Beast stepped out of the path of the bullet.
Doc managed to get off one more shot before the Beast was on him. This shot too missed and suddenly the Beast was there, swinging the sword.
Doc Holliday had not been idle in the hundred or so years since his resurrection. Sure, he’d been given access to the darkest of magic and his power was great, but Doc had always been a practical man. Using the inexhaustible wealth at his command, Doc had spent much of his time first learning – then mastering – a veritable smorgasbord of martial arts. So as the Beast’s sword arched toward his head, Doc dropped both pistols, reached out, took hold of the Beast’s wrist, and stepped to the side, spinning and using the Beast’s momentum to flip the creature over his shoulder and drive it into the ground.
Doc laughed.
That’s when Lucy leaped on him. She bled copiously from the wound on her face where he had struck her with the barrel of his gun. Her blood flew at him in large droplets as she hit and kicked and bit at him, screaming and spitting as if she channeled the very animal rage that had come from the Beast. Doc continued to laugh. He pushed her off of him with ease. And as she lay there on the ground, looking up at him in defiance, blood and tears staining her face, he drove a boot heel into the bridge of her nose. She crumpled.
Suddenly he was knocked off of his feet from behind. He landed on his chest, the wind rushing from his lungs with the impact. He flipped over and looked up into the barrel of a fancy new service pistol held by Carl Friendly.
“Hiya, Doc,” Carl said. “Should we try this again?”
But then the Beast was on them, throwing Carl to the side like a child’s toy and picking Doc up over its head as if he were made of polystyrene. Before Doc could think clearly, he was soaring through the air, stopping short when he slammed into the side of the house.
Doc was hurt. He was bleeding and broken, and frankly, he’d had enough. As the Beast tore its way to him, running on all fours, grass and dirt flying from its hands and feet, Doc spoke a name. A name that cannot be repeated here, for it is a name of great power and great evil.
At the sound of the name, everything around them ceased to move. Time itself seemed to pause as silence pushed its way in around them. The stillness lasted for only a heartbeat and then the ground between them erupted, knocking them off of their feet. A column of fire, as wide as the Washington Monument shot out of the ground and into the air, high enough to penetrate the clouds and push them aside.
Doc stepped back, holding a hand up to his face to shield it from the heat. The Boss sure liked to make an entrance.
Creatures erupted from the flames. They were all wings and scales, teeth and claws. They flew about around them, screeching and shrieking, sounding like the shouts of pain that come following the most brutal of torture.
The fire died and in its place stood a being of shadow and flames. A creature of darkness and decay. Of lies, deceit, and pure evil. Doc just had to smile. The Boss had arrived.
But at that very instant, as Doc smiled and began to feel triumph, a small girl appeared before the Boss. She was about five or six years old and her chin length brown hair sported six small pigtails around her head. Doc gaped. It shouldn’t be. She shouldn’t be here. All was lost.
“You,” the Boss said.
“Me,” the girl said.
Neither
of them moved. They only stood, looking each other over. The Boss with a smile of contempt on his face, the girl a smile of confidence.
“It was foolish of you to come, Morning Star,” the girl said.
“We shall see who the fool is,” the Boss replied. “This does not concern you. Leave now and I will not hurt any of these pets you seem to care so much for.”
“You always were impetuous,” the girl smiled, “but now you’re in my house.”
She raised her hand and it all came to an end.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
BEATRICE BEAR HAD ALWAYS felt that she truly understood fear. She’d felt its icy fingers many times in her life.
When she had married Burt and they had little money, Beatrice feared for their future. When she became pregnant, she feared for the baby inside her. When Danny was diagnosed with autism, she feared for her son and what might be waiting for him when she was gone. Beatrice and fear were old friends.
But until today, the fear that Beatrice had known was fear of the unknown. Fear over an outcome she could not predict. It was a fear she couldn’t run and hide from, so she had faced that fear head on.
Today she had learned a different kind of fear. Fear of violence. Fear of pain. Fear of death.
The three bears had been following Tim on his mad dash through the house. When they had reached the front door, or what was left of it, they found chaos on the lawn.
The man in black was there, firing off his guns into a crowd of people. Officer Carl Friendly was there too, and so was Lucy.
Beatrice was afraid for her family. But she was afraid for her new friends too. This man in black, this Doc, looked crazed. Insane. Beatrice wanted to put as much distance between her family and that man as she could.
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