“Kenny? Is that you?” He stopped. The shadow stopped too.
“No. I am not Kenny my friend. Kenny has already moved on from this place. He has already gone home.” The voice sounded so calm that he almost sounded like nothing more than just a whisper. He sounded like a whisper in the wind.
Jimmy took a deep breath. “Then who are you? What are you doing here? Why am I here?”
The shadow laughed some, a gentle calming sound. “You are here because you are like me Jimmy Walls. I am here because I am like you.”
“What does that mean?” Jimmy took a step to his right.
The shadow moved one single step to the left. “It means exactly what I said.”
Jimmy blinked. “Why won’t you let me see you?”
Again the shadow laughed. Again, it sounded so subtle that it sounded like the wind. “You can’t see me Jimmy because I am you.”
Hearing that, it made him gasp some. “You’re me?” He felt like laughing, but held his breath instead. It didn’t seem like an appropriate thing to do, all considering.
“I am now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will my friend…my brother.”
He thought about that one, but suddenly, he felt a tug on his back. Even though he was wearing a t-shirt, the tug wasn’t on the shirt, but on his very back itself. Something was tugging him. “You’re Kalima aren’t you?” The tug started as a tingling sensation began to grow stronger. It became even more pronounced with every word he thought. As for what he asked, it made total sense. He didn’t know why it did, but it just did.
“What am I feeling? What is pulling me?” He could almost feel his feet begin to move. He could feel the tugging become as strong as an all-out pull. “Wait.” He didn’t want it to continue. It’s pulling me away. It’s pulling me back. He knew what it meant. “I have questions to ask you. I need answers. What did you mean that you are like me and that I’m like you?” He began to feel his feet dragging back on the ground. A tree went by him on his right as he started sliding back into the trees. He watched helplessly as the campfire disappeared from his eyes.
“Wait. Please wait.” The trees now whizzed by his arms. He tried to grab them but couldn’t. He just kept going. He just kept being pulled back. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t fight it. He couldn’t do anything at all to stop himself from leaving this place and heading back to the world.
45
He opened his eyes, looking up to Sasha’s face. He could see tears in both of her eyes. He could see her cheeks soaked with them. He turned his head ever so slowly and saw Brandon on his right. Robert was behind him.
“I’m like him.” He blinked some. His chest hurt. It seemed hard to breathe right. “I’m like Kalima. Kalima’s like me.”
“Jimmy what in the hell are you talking about dude?” Brandon wiped both eyes with the back of his left hand.
“It makes sense.” Jimmy looked to Robert, who had questions written all over his face. “I must be one too. I’m a wanderer too.” His head hurt some, so he laid it back to the ground beneath him. Nothing of what happened to him with the swords and the fighting for his life was anywhere on his mind. All he could see was the trees. All he could hear was the shadow talking to him with his calm smooth voice.
Robert gasped some after listening to him. His mind flew with questions. It pondered everything that happened too. If Jimmy was right, if he knew something that he didn’t, everything seemed to make sense. He just didn’t know what it meant, but he now knew that he had to find out.
Sasha had no idea what he was talking about so she looked down at his wound. It stopped bleeding. That meant that it was already starting to heal.
Brandon sat there dumbfounded. What he did know was what he heard. He could hear footsteps in the building behind him. They sounded like they were running, and getting closer too. “We have people coming.” He looked to Robert.
He heard them too. “We have to get him out of here. We need him strong. We can’t let them find him like this.”
Sasha looked up. “Where are we going to take him?”
Robert shrugged.
“What are we going to do about Rachel?” Sasha looked back down.
Brandon stood up. “We can take him to my place here in town. It’s all we got.”
Robert also stood up. “Brandon you take him. Let’s get moving.”
Brandon nodded, bent down and put one arm under Jimmy’s neck and the right arm under his legs at the knees. He lifted him with ease.
Sasha now stood up too. “We can’t leave Rachel.” She felt adamant. She felt wrong doing it.
“I can’t see her. I don’t know where they took her, but we will find her again. I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back.” He reached and took her shoulder with his left hand and squeezed her tightly. It hurt like hell doing it too.
She pouted some, but knew they didn’t have the choice. Without Jimmy’s strength, they couldn’t fight them on their own, especially being that they now had silver swords. They already bested him once. After thinking that, she nodded.
They ran back to the alleyway with Brandon leading the way. He kept his run simple so everyone else could keep up with him. It took maybe half an hour to find their way out of the area. They continued until they reached his old apartment back in town.
46
“Where are you taking me?” Rachel knew she had to be in some type of a van. When they put her inside something and she heard a door slide shut, it felt reasonable to think that’s where she was. She sat down on something soft. Luckily, they removed her gag once she was seated. They kept on the hood though. She couldn’t see a thing. They even bound her hands behind her with something that felt like plastic. With all considering, what she asked them seemed like such a simple thing.
No one answered her. She really didn’t expect them to.
After a few moments, how long she didn’t know that either, the van finally stopped. She had to brace herself when it did. She even heard the engine shut off. After a few seconds more, to her it felt more like hours but she knew it wasn’t, she heard the sliding sound again and felt a cool breeze caress her arms. She knew the door had to open. The next thing she felt was two sets of arms then grab each arm and pull her out towards the air. She now found herself standing.
The sets of hands pulled her and they walked her to what felt like steps. They helped her walk up them, there were only maybe three, and then they nudged her to stop. She didn’t fight them the entire time. She decided in the van that if she was going to survive this, she shouldn’t. She knew Jimmy would come after her. He wouldn’t give up. She just had to give him time to do it.
Thankfully, her hood then came off with a flash just after she stopped.
She now found herself standing in some kind of living room. A long black sofa sat across from her, along the right wall. The little light on in the room came from a set of lamps at each end of the sofa. The man holding what looked like her hood turned and left her from behind her. She suddenly felt the bindings around her wrists then disappear. Feeling them gone, she finally found herself able to breathe some. It made her relax some too.
“Good evening Rachel.” A voice came from just ahead of her.
Just to the left of the sofa, she watched the man called Vincent step into the doorway there and stop. He smiled to her with a casual smile. “You son of a bitch.” She scoffed. She had nothing else left to say.
“What language?” He continued smiling. He left the doorway and stepped into the room. He walked to the side of the sofa and stopped in front of the left lamp. “If you would my dear?” He motioned with his left arm towards the sofa.
She had no intention of going along with what he wanted her to do. “You can go to hell.” She stood firm.
“There’s no reason to be impolite my dear. Please, sit?”
Again, she held firmly where she stood.
“Would you please?” He looked to the man behind her.
&n
bsp; The man nodded.
The hands returned to her arms.
They led her to the sofa from behind, and before she knew it, she was standing right in front of it.
Giving her no other choice, she sat down. She folded her hands in front of her on her lap and at least tried to get somewhat comfortable. Again, she just had to wait. At any moment, she felt sure that Jimmy would come crashing through the door. He would come inside, strong and powerful, and kill all of them. Again, she just had to give him time to do it.
“That’s better.” The smile held firm on Vincent’s face as he watched her sit.
She kept her eyes forward and didn’t look at him once.
“My master, if you would please?” He stepped away from the doorway, and let him come into the room. He felt beyond pleased. He felt completely satisfied with everything they did.
The smell came into the room first and came right to her face. It smelled rotted. It smelled almost like death. It even had a hint of sweetness around it. It came from her right. She kept her eyes firmly staring straight ahead. She saw a shadow cross in front of her, also coming from the same direction as the smell. It all told her that she didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to see what obviously moved into the room with her.
He walked in front of her and stopped directly within a foot from her feet.
She looked down, and noticed something that looked like large, doglike paws. She could see large black nails coming out at their toes. At first, they looked like Jimmy’s paws when he was the wolf, but it was only at first, because these looked rotted and torn. They also lacked hair. They lacked even a remotely healthy look to them. The smell, that awful stench was now standing right in front of her. It made her keep her eyes down. She tried to hold her breath. It took everything she had to keep herself from gagging from that God-awful stench.
“Hello my sweet precious woman.” A warm sound, almost gurgling at that, came with the words. They seemed to surround them. The sound of a rasping wind came in just behind them. “It’s so wonderful to see you again, my dear, dear Rana.” The smell of decay intensified with the breathing mixed in with the words.
Although she truly didn’t want to, she looked up. It seemed her eyes and her head went on their own. She seemed helpless to stop them if she truly wanted to.
First, up from the paws, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. All she saw was what looked like the bottom of a robe of some type. It looked neat and even a little fashionable. Continuing up the robe, the neatness stopped just above the waist. Everything above it turned hideous. It turned grotesque. It turned downright bad. She saw what looked like torn and blackened flesh, matted and dark. A hint of a gray and a pinkish red color mixed in with it. At the stomach, she could even see something that looked like intestines showing through the skin. She could see a reddish hue of muscles just over some of the intestines. Up further, a hint of the ribs was also showing. And then, she could see the sternum. What little skin there was, still looked like it was there, but only rotted. She gasped when she came to the chest. She could see the muscles twitching through and around the white color of what looked like ribs. Then she saw the neck, and then a chin and face. She really gasped when she saw the face. She couldn’t help herself. This was the most hideous thing she had ever seen in her life.
The face looked abnormal. He didn’t have a nose. Deep long fangs protruded from the teeth. He had no lips. His jaws were somewhat elongated making it look more like a dog’s mouth than a human’s. His eyes shined with a bright, ruby shining red. The ridge over his eyes looked almost flat, what looked more like a bat than a round looking face of a human. She gasped again, seeing this decayed looking half bat half wolf looking man.
He smiled just by seeing the look on her face. “I’m truly very sorry for my appearance my sweet Rana.” His breaths sounded like winces. He sounded as raspy as a cricket rubbing its legs together on warm summer evening. “But the decay of a few thousand years does wonders to the body.” He laughed some.
To her, it sounded like air rushing out from a leak in a balloon.
“You should have seen me when I woke up.”
She tried to remain calm. She tried to focus her thoughts. How she managed to do it, she would never truly know. Seeing him, seeing how he looked, she truly felt rather sorry for him. He looked absolutely pitiful to be alive. “You’re Devish, aren’t you?”
He nodded. He took a deep breath. It sounded like nails scraping over a chalkboard’s surface. “But now that you’re here, I can get back to looking so much better than I do now.” He smiled.
She saw every tooth, pointed and jagged in his mouth. “Why do you call me Rana?”
His smile widened.
She could tell that he did by watching the muscles at the side of mouth turn up towards his ears.
“Because that it your true name my dear. It’s the name of your true self.”
She wanted to take a strong deep breath, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. If she did, the smell would gain in its power. Her stomach wouldn’t handle such a thing happening to it. “What do you want with me?” she had to ask again.
He bowed his head. “You have a gift Rana. You have a very powerful gift.” The crispiness of his breathing flared throughout the room as he caught his breaths. It sounded more like someone crinkling a piece of paper in their hands. “All you need is to remember it again my friend.”
Hearing that, she shook her head. “I don’t want to remember.” Tears formed in both eyes. “If that means helping you, I never do.”
He laughed again. “I know you don’t believe this now.” He turned and stepped away from her.
She noticed that he moved with a steady limping motion, twisting from his right to left, with a slight drag in the legs. In fact, he looked like he was dragging his right leg and unable to move it. He was, in all honesty, a huge and massive mess.
“But you will my dear. You will when you’ve been reeducated again.” He turned back around. His body almost seemed to groan as he turned.
She was going to say something, but before she opened her mouth, another man stepped into the living room from the right. She wasn’t sure but it might be the same man that removed her hood. Whether or not, she completely forgot what she was going to say when he did.
He walked to Devish. She watched him whisper something in his ear. Devish looked so tall; he had to bend down some to get close enough to the man to hear him. Finished, the man turned and left again the same way he came in.
Now, he felt complete, although still somewhat surprised.
Rachel saw his face light up. Scarred, decayed and a mess, she still saw it.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, my dear.” He dragged his right leg back towards her again. He stopped just in front of her. “But the black wolf is dead.”
Hearing that, the tears she fought so hard to keep contained rolled down her face. “That’s impossible.” She still tried to fight them back. “He can’t die. He’s stronger than that. He’s strong than you.” She shook her head as she spoke. Instantly, her breathing became short. Her mind did the same thing, as she felt herself begin to bust into several different pieces inside her mind. For whatever reason, and she didn’t know why it was, she did believe him though. With it, she hated the thought. She feared everything about it, but God help her, she did know it. She looked back to the door again, and this time, again, for whatever reason she had inside her, she didn’t expect to see him. Right then, right at that very moment, she knew he was gone. With this, she felt all hope vanish completely. She felt all of her fears answered immediately. She did break down. She did fall apart. The tears erupted as her head crashed into her hands.
Devish bowed his head to her. “I will give you time my dear to grieve.” He turned and left her. He walked back to Vincent. “Find the body if you would my friend. Somehow, I would feel better to see him. I apparently have more faith in him than her.”
Vincent nodded. “My master.” He left.
Devish did as well.
Rachel lost all control as she cried, alone, in shock, in deep pain on the sofa as she did. Her only thoughts were of his face. She saw his smile. She saw his deep brown eyes. She felt for everything she lost and would never see again.
47
“This was your place?” Sasha looked around this one bedroom apartment and cringed some with seeing it. There were clothes all over the floor. There was a pile of dishes in the sink—in both sinks at that. She could even see food dried and smelling rather bad still on some of the plates. The small kitchen table, which sat near the front door, was covered with all different things that looked more like trash than anything else would. She could see by the lack of things actually in the trashcan near the stove, that there was more garbage on the table then in the can. Seeing everything, the place was a disaster—if not more than that.
He smiled coming out from the back bedroom where Robert and he took Jimmy to lie down. He left them both in there, and came back out into the living room and joined Sasha in between the kitchen and the back of the sofa. “Sure is.” He nodded putting his hands on his hips.
“This place is a dump.” She felt rather dirty, just standing in it, surrounded by everything.
He couldn’t believe that she said such a thing. He understood the mess. He hadn’t been there for at least a month or so. “What?” He looked at her with true hurt in his eyes. “It’s not like I’ve lived here for a while. I know it could use a good cleaning.” He looked around them. He obvious could see some of the mess.
“Brandon? This is the way you left it.” She looked around again, saw the look on his face, and wanted to laugh. He looked just too cute to her when he felt embarrassed. She loved the look.
He said nothing. He just didn’t understand what she was talking about. His place always looked like this. As far as he was concerned, this was normal.
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A Werewolf's Saga Books 4, 5, & 6 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 2) Page 20