Hunters: A Trilogy

by Paul A. Rice

  Tori looked down at them, she was nearly the same height as Ken, and several inches taller than Jane, but now, standing on the slope above them, she seemed even taller than normal. Glancing at the object in her hand, she said, ‘It’s the other half to the one in your possession, they are the only two in creation, and Michael has had this one for a long time. We are not really sure what their true meaning is, not yet. I know you have both experienced its power. When my grandfather gave it to you, it was as much a test as it was a gift.’ She looked down at the small medal with a gentle smile caressing her lips.

  ‘Why did Jeremiah think it was buried here, why would he think that?’ Jane asked, looking at the object and then back to Tori.

  Ken couldn’t tear his eyes from the small metal object. He felt like it was calling him, his mind became filled with an overwhelming desire to reach out and grab it. It enticed him, pulled him. He stood in silence, listening to the madness.

  Tori, in reply to Jane’s last question, said, ‘Because my great grandfather, George, made him think it was here. He gave him a dream and it drove Jeremiah mad, literally. The difference between this item and the one in your bag back at the farm, would be as much an opposite as black is to white. Your medal is filled with goodness, only the truly good can hold it. That is what I meant about a ‘test’…’ She stopped for a moment, as if to contemplate her words, and then continued, saying: ‘Should you have turned out not to be the good people that my grandfather thought you were, then the powers of the good Ship would have unveiled your lies immediately!’

  Maggie walked up the slope to be with them. Joining in the conversation, she finished off where her granddaughter had started. ‘An evil person cannot hold the Ship you possess; simply touching it would burn their minds. However, this one…’ she said, looking at the object in Tori’s hand, ‘…is exactly the opposite – a good person would never remain good once they had touched it, this little Ship would sear them and immediately fill their soul with blackness!’

  Ken hurriedly shoved both his hands firmly into the pockets of his jeans and watched as Jane looked pointedly at the easy way in which Tori handled the piece of metal.

  Maggie laughed, saying: ‘No, no, my dear! Tori is not evil by any means, and nor was Michael, but they both have the ability to touch either one of the Ships – the evil twin merely seems to surrender itself to their magic. They are the only ones amongst us to have this ability!’ She smiled and turned to stare proudly at her granddaughter.

  ‘But,’ Tori said, ‘should someone evil take ownership of this,’ she raised the Ship and held it up for them to gaze at. ‘Then imagine what it would be able to do for them – look how you felt when you touched its beautiful other half. Can you imagine what the other side of the coin would be like?’ Pausing for a while, she looked across their heads at the lake shimmering behind them.

  Refocusing, she told them: ‘George laid the seeds of this device deep inside the remains of Jeremiah’s sizzled mind where the Demon would find it, he gave him a dream, but deliberately made it ambiguous – he disguised the truth just enough to confuse them. Red’s father and the Demon knew we had this, but they weren’t sure where. They saw us together, all of us, many times under this beautiful tree they saw us, and they put two and two together. Unfortunately for them, their calculator was as fried as Jeremiah’s brain!’ Tori smiled innocently at them. ‘So, now you know what he was digging for,’ she said. ‘It had consumed him totally, and together with his cancerous hatred, Red’s father became an ideal host for the Dragon. Unluckily for them, the single-mindedness of their obsession was to be their final undoing!’

  She stopped talking and walked past them, looking around as she went. Finally, she stood still, then crouched down and looked around the mound once more. Nodding to herself, Tori rose to her feet. ‘This is the spot,’ she said. ‘Here is where we shall say goodbye to Michael.’ She jogged down the incline, shouting for them, ‘Come on, it’s time to say goodbye! Grandma, you stay there, we can manage!’

  Maggie nodded and stood gracefully with her back against the tree. She watched as the other two went down to help with Mike. Within minutes, they had laid his blue sarcophagus on the spot that Tori had decided should be his final resting place on this earth. She referred to it as his ‘Departure Spot’. They stood and looked down at Mike and listened as Maggie asked if anybody wanted to say anything.

  Ken did.

  Maggie nodded her approval, so he walked over to Mike’s blue shroud and knelt next to his dead friend. ‘Yeah, well… I guess that we’ll see you later then, Mikey,’ he said, voice cracking with emotion. ‘You make sure that you have a good time wherever it is that you are. I hope you’ll remember us when we do meet again – we had some pretty fine times, didn’t we, mate?’ Ken paused to compose himself. Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘Take it easy, brother. I’ll see you around sometime, when the time comes, I guess… See you later, Mike.’ He stood up and they saw that his eyes were filled with tears.

  Jane stepped forward and placed a small flower on the blue shroud. She had picked it from the plant growing at the bottom of the mound. She, too, knelt by Mike’s side. ‘Like Ken says,’ she said, ‘we’ll see you later, sweetheart. We had fun, huh? Maybe you’ll find a woman in the next place, you know, one that you can keep?’ Jane sobbed as she whispered: ‘Bye Mikey, goodbye, love!’ She turned away and rested her head on Ken’s shoulder with the tears streaming down her face.

  Tori and Maggie walked forward together. The younger of the two women knelt across and placed the metal Ship on top of Mike’s shroud. Its dull, metallic hue rested there in stark contrast to the bright blue of the material and the creamy white and yellow of Jane’s flower, which stood out like a beacon.

  Then, as if rehearsed, in unison they both said: ‘Michael, we love you. Thank you for your Gift to us, and to all the worlds in which we move. Take this Ship and travel safely within the light of all that she stands for. Go and seek out the Dark One. Goodbye Michael.’ Both women lowered their heads and stood holding hands for a while. After a few seconds they turned, eyes softening with a smile.

  ‘It’s done, he is free once more! Come on, let’s go to the house,’ Maggie said, slipping her hand in Jane’s. Tori did likewise with Ken and together the foursome made their way down the hill.

  When they reached the truck, Ken stopped them and said, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I have to ask: we aren’t just gonna leave him like that, are we? There are wolves and things up here and… well, you know?’

  Maggie apologised profusely. ‘I’m so sorry Kenneth,’ she said. ‘It is simply that we are so used to having you around, I think of you as family – there are times when I tend to forget that this is as new to you as will tomorrow’s dawn be to all of us!’ She reached over and touched his hand gently.

  Tori laughed, saying: ‘Maggie is right, we are so used to you being here with us that we take things for granted – Michael will be fine underneath the tree, there is not a creature on this planet that would be able to get through his shroud. He will make his own way from this place, from the beasts and from the Hyenas of this place!’ She pointed towards the tree, saying: ‘Tonight you will see his departure. People for miles around will see him leave!’ She laughed. ‘Just you wait and see!’ Her voice was filled with happiness.

  And so, after one final, wistful glance up the hill, they turned away and climbed into the truck, Tori hopping up into the back as usual. The sight of the glittering blue coffin fetched a lump to Ken’s throat and he had to look away. Engaging first gear, he drove them home. Drove them home in silence, drove them home without Mike.

  34

  23:55 – Exactly

  Tori had been right about Mike’s spectacular exodus. At five minutes to midnight, exactly, he made his grand farewell. Earlier, after returning from the apple tree, Jane and Ken had spent the rest of the day aimlessly tidying up the house, trying to get things straight. Strangely, both Maggie and Tori had almost immediately gone for a
nap. On arrival back at the farm, both of them had seemed to wilt. Jane had shooed them off to bed, without resistance they made their way into Mike’s room and closed the door. When she had peeked around the door several hours later, Jane found them both to be sound asleep. Maggie holding Tori in her arms like a mother would her young child, one who perhaps had a touch of the fever. Jane closed the door softly and went back to trying to occupy her mind. Ken didn’t seem to be in the mood for talk and she left him to it. It was comforting to hear the manly noises as he put right the damage outside.

  Later, they gathered on the porch and sat whilst Jane made them a fresh pot of coffee. Maggie and Tori looked much better; the long rest seemed to have recharged their previously-deadened batteries. Ken had done a fine job with the house and things were almost as they were before. Jane noticed that he had missed the spatter of blood, which Red had screamed onto the underside of the roof. It lay above them, like garish graffiti. She didn’t mention it to Ken as her husband was starting to appear somewhat shattered. Instead, she stood, went back into the house and then returned armed with two ice-cold bottles of beer.

  He took them from her, saying: ‘Thanks, babe, I’ve just about had all the coffee I can handle, to be honest. I’ll get that mess tomorrow…’ He raised his eyes towards the offending ceiling above them, winking as he did so.

  Jane laughed. ‘You’re such a clever bugger, at times, aren’t you, Ken?’ she said. He winked at her again and then chugged long and hard on his first beer. Jane figured tonight was to be one of those occasions when her husband decided to make the most of the warm weather and some cold beers.

  Whilst they sat and chatted, Tori filled in a few of the gaps for them.

  ***

  She had hitched a lift with Kristi, old Mr Lumpton’s youngest daughter, from the farm about three miles down the highway. Within minutes of Tori leaving the outskirts of town, Kristi had pulled over in her silver Honda. The two girls had laughed all the way. Kristi was a bundle of fun and she had driven Tori right to the door of the farmhouse. They’d said their goodbyes and Tori had run into the house in search of the others. In her haste, she had missed the blue Chevy that lay hidden behind the barn. ‘I should have known,’ she said, with remorse. ‘That’s where we hid all the cars when we had the party – I should have looked!’

  The house was empty and, after shouting for everyone several times, Tori had figured she knew where they all were. So, deciding to join them immediately, she had headed for the steps. As she turned back to the house, to make sure the fly screen was properly closed behind her, Tori had heard a loud creak from the top step… it always made that noise when it took the weight of someone big… and she turned with a smile on her face, fully expecting to see Red.

  Instead, the young woman found herself face-to-face with the Demon. It had been a while, but even through the huge, red face of Jeremiah, the young woman had immediately recognised the Dark One. She said, angrily: ‘It shocked me! I knew the time for confrontation was near, but I wasn’t ready for him, I just stood there and watched him. I was so scared – I knew I was done for!’

  Jeremiah had clambered up the stairs and stared at her for a while. Tilting his head to one side the beast had looked her up and down, giggled and licked his lips. Although she had never heard Jeremiah talk, Tori knew that no earthly being would ever sound like that. ‘His voice rustled like dead leaves,’ she said. ‘It sounded like a bag of rusty nails being shaken – it was awful because I could definitely hear Red’s voice inside him!’ She struggled to find the words to adequately describe the obscene rasping sound, which the man’s voice had made. ‘I just can’t explain how horrible he was!’ she said, looking apologetically at them.

  Jane knew exactly what Tori meant, she remembered only too well from her own dream… ‘Aww, c’mon, Lady Jane, where’s your sense o’ huumorrrr?’ She shuddered as the awful sound echoed in her memory. Yes, Jane remembered all right. Smiling at Tori, she told her not to worry as they were all able to imagine the noise, easily.

  Tori said that Jeremiah laughed at her, and had then said something about: ‘Me being fresh out of friends’ and about how he had something that would keep me ‘real good company!’’ She blinked, eyelids fluttering several times. ‘Then he attacked me, he just leapt on me like an animal, he was so big, so heavy, I just can’t tell you!’ The memory made her eyes widen with shock as she relived the scene with them. ‘He put one hand around my throat and lifted me clean off the floor – I knew then that I was dead, for sure I was dead! I kicked him in the balls, but it was like kicking the wall and only made him laugh even more, the filthy bastard!’ She had tears in her eyes now, tears of anger.

  She paused, as if to clear her mind, before continuing. ‘And then Michael turned up,’ she said, with a huge smile. ‘My knight in blue jeans had arrived. Riding a black-and-red Harley, too – Mike always was a cool customer!’ Her emotion turned to one of joy as she remembered her brother. ‘Then there was a fight, I never knew Michael was like that! He smashed that thing to the four walls of this place!’ She waved her hand in an indication of the general area. ‘It was the most fearful thing I have ever seen, Jeremiah was so incredibly strong, he threw Mike around like a rag-doll! I was so scared, but Mike just laughed and kept on coming back at him, he was like a terrier and I think he scared it, I don’t think the Demon expected that!’ She looked at them and they saw the pride she felt for her dead brother.

  Then Tori told them what had happened when her other ‘Love’ had duly arrived, it was how Tori referred to Red, and was the first time she had bared her true feelings for the young man. Jane had been half-wondering if Tori’s relationship with Red had merely been part of the act…collateral damage, so to speak…but, by the sound of things, she was thankfully wrong.

  Tori said Red had flown up the steps and lifted her onto his shoulders – she had been trapped, crouching in the corner with disbelieving eyes, watching the insane melee of battling men before her. Red had carried her to the truck and told her to stay put, before bounding back up the steps to join the fight.

  Tori said that he, Red, had grasped his father around the neck from behind and then slung him sideways. Jeremiah had crashed into the wall beneath the kitchen window, his huge bulk causing such a shock to the wooden wall that the glass in the window had shattered. The man had instantly bounded to his feet and, ignoring Red, launched himself towards Mike again. As he rushed past, intent only upon Mike, Red had barged into his father, sending the cursing man staggering once more. This time, Jeremiah didn’t ignore Red, turning around he snarled at his son and then punched him. It was an almighty blow, one that Red only half-managed to avoid – as he ducked, Jeremiah’s fist smashed into the top of his head, Red collapsed where he had been standing, the ring on his father’s finger having cut his head to the bone.

  ‘There was blood everywhere!’ Tori said, looking around as if in an attempt to see the terrible reminder of their ferocious battle. With her voice lowered, she told of how, when Mike had seen the felling of Red, her brother had turned to Jeremiah and swung a blow of his own, his extended knuckles had expertly lanced into the Dragon’s throat.

  With the brittle sound of snapping cartilages, Mike’s blow had stopped the man in his tracks. Jeremiah fell to his knees on the wooden floor with his face turning, as she put it: ‘…an almighty purple’. Tori told them that she had thought it would be the end to it, nobody would possibly be able to come back from such a crippling blow as the one Mike had delivered to the Beast – nobody except the Beast himself, it seems.

  She said that Mike had grabbed Red, and with a jerk of the arms, hefted the young man to his feet. But, as he looked into Red’s eyes, Mike had failed to see the man behind him stagger to his own feet, whilst reaching unsteadily down to the outside of his left boot.

  Tori said that Red had screamed at Mike to move, and then pushed him to one side. As his father lunged at Mike, Red had grasped Jeremiah’s arm and swung him violently, the action sent
the huge man staggering past them. Jeremiah’s rushing bulk made the movement even more effective; he crashed shoulder first into the solid oak banister. They had all heard the loud cracking sounds. One came from the shattering wood, whilst the other, more sickening noise, came from the snapping of bones in the Demon’s upper arm as he crashed through the barricade and fell onto his dangling, broken limb. Tori said the sound of bone scraping upon bone, sickening crepitus, was horrifying.

  Jeremiah had uttered a long, horrible scream. Then they had all seen the long knife. It twinkled in the sun, sharp blade pointing first at Mike and then at Red, Jeremiah seemingly unable to make up his mind as to who he should attack first. Then, like a giant, injured baboon, Jeremiah had leapt up the stairs.

  Tori blinked, saying: ‘I can’t really think about what happened next, it was so quick…’ She stopped again, and sat there in silence for a while, trying to remember. They watched as she stared at them, her own mind rolling back the hours. Then she said, ‘Mike stood up to him, I can remember seeing the knife flashing in the sun, Jeremiah’s arm was like a piston… I saw it going into Michael and he screamed!’

  She looked away, and they saw her struggling for control. After composing herself slightly, the girl continued. ‘I saw Red, he leapt onto the bastard and the three of them went down in a heap. Mike was on the bottom and I heard him yelling at me to run, he was screaming: “Get Ken, Get Ken!” I tried to get up the stairs to see if I could help, but Red turned and told me to run, his mouth sprayed blood all over me …’ Tori shuddered once more.

  She shook her head and said, ‘I heard Mike scream again and…and then I did run!’ She breathed deeply. ‘The stupid thing is…’ she said, bowing her head in acknowledgement of the wicked irony. ‘…is that I was sitting just inches from your gun, it was right there in the door of the truck, I could have saved him, I could have… I didn’t think – I never knew this was going to happen, I wasn’t ready!’ She moaned, just the once, and then stood up.