“So much for settling into my career,” Asher grumbled, simultaneously taking out his cell phone while removing Greaves’ card from his back pocket. He looked at the card and dialed the number, placing the phone to his ear.
“Hello, can you get me Michael Greaves?
Chapter III
Dreams of Endless Suffering
Darkness lay over the suburban neighborhood, the moon and stars concealed under a thick layer of stratus clouds. The street lamps set regularly placed, but sparse, no more than a single light per block, each glowing a dull orange against the night. The area encompassed a plethora of houses, but these remained undetectable. The only visible sights lay under the lamps, naught but the sidewalks and the occasional nocturnal animal. The night was warm, nearly hot, the waning summer days giving rise to a dry heat uncharacteristic of southwestern Missouri. All was tranquil and quiet, inviting nothing but sleep and lucid dreams.
The tires of an approaching vehicle struck the uneven ruts in the road. An ambulance lumbered around the corner and down the street, visible only in the lamplight, the electric orange clashing with the swoosh marks painted down its sides. The vehicle slowed after making the turn, as though those inside searched for something. It continued along the road, slowing to a stop as its lights illuminated a house near the center of the block. The house was clean and well-kept but ordinary, constructed of stone and wood painted robin’s egg blue. The headlights revealed the long, wooden ramp that extended from the front door and then went out.
The ambulance pulled up next to the curb. Only its red taillights revealed its position. The vehicle sat there for a moment before both front doors swung open. Two dark figures sprang forth like phantoms, their faces obscured by black hoods and ski masks. Their only distinguishable features were the night-vision goggles they wore. The green light from the lenses glowed through the dark.
Upon exiting the vehicle, the driver patted his torso as if he had misplaced something. He climbed back into the ambulance and then re-emerged with the desired rifle strung across his back.
The second figure, a woman, tapped her foot in impatience as she waited by the passenger side door. Now fully equipped, both figures slammed their doors shut and proceeded toward the back of the vehicle.
The male figure with the rifle struck the back doors with an open palm, stepping back as two men in EMT uniforms climbed out. Their only noticeable feature was the difference in their heights, one tall and the other short.
“I gather you gentlemen know the drill,” said the man with the rifle to the EMTs, his voice boyish and youthful.
“Pfft!” the short EMT sneered. ”Been pulling jobs since before you were born. I think we got this, kid.”
“Anyway,” continued the man with the gun, undeterred. “This outing is a little different from the others. We need you guys to stand out here and make sure no one sees us. Call us on your radio if you see anything.” He raised his shirt just enough to reveal the radio shoved in his waistband.
“Got yuh,” said the EMT, looking toward his taller partner, who nodded in agreement.
The dark figures turned away from the EMTs, leaving them with the ambulance. They started toward the window on the right side of the house.
“I still don’t fully grasp the reason why they picked the occupant of this particular house as the target,” said the hooded woman as she joined her partner. “I don’t understand why we’re taking people from houses now. We seemed to be doing just fine with hospitals.”
“I suppose this specimen is important, though who knows why,” said the man. “If he wanted us to know the reason, I’m sure he would have told us. It doesn’t change a thing.”
Both crouched beside the window, hiding against the house. The man removed the rifle from his back and propped it up against the wall.
“Well, it doesn’t change a thing except for the fact that we now break into houses, risking discovery.”
The man ignored her, frowning after taking a look at the window.
“So… you got a screwdriver?” he asked. “I guess I left mine in the ambulance.”
The woman sighed, pulling the tool from her front pants pocket and handing it to him.
“That’ll work,” he said, taking the screwdriver in hand.
“Whatever. Just shut up and get that window open.”
The man drove the screwdriver under the screen, removing it with silent ease and leaning it against the house before starting on the window itself. He slid his tool into the crack under the window, prying it open carefully to avoid any unnecessary noise.
“Go ahead and grab the rifle,” he whispered to his accomplice as he worked. ”Keep it ready. We’re not going to have much time once I have the window open.”
* * *
Cyrus opened his eyes, finding himself back in his motorized wheelchair. He sat in the corner of an expansive room while a sense of both familiarity and dread rushed up from his stomach.
He was back in the hospital room where his brother Talon had died. Only the dull red evening light lit the room, flooding in from under the curtain of the elongated window at his back. The room looked just as he remembered it: the walls bare, a recliner, and a poor attempt at a sofa serving as the only furniture, a large sink on the wall opposite him. In the middle of the room sat a hospital bed not unlike his own with a fully blanket-wrapped, human-shaped lump laying upon it. Though he would have liked to avoid looking at it all together, Cyrus could only stare at the lump, amplifying his dread.
The light in the room intensified, taking on a blood-red hue and casting an eerie, sinister aura over the place. Empty as the room was, it felt as though some ungodly, vile entity might be skulking about nearby.
The red light engulfed the bed, giving the human-shaped lump an even more ominous quality. The white sheets appeared drenched in blood.
Cyrus felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. His gaze shot toward the closed door directly in front of him. The impulse to flee override all other thoughts. He pushed down on his chair’s joystick.
The chair’s brakes disengaged, and the sound echoed throughout the silent room.
Cyrus rolled forward, his movements with the joystick ignored by the chair’s internal mechanisms. He crept ever so slowly toward the red-lit hospital bed, fighting the movement by frantically pushing back on the joystick with all the strength he could manage. His dread grew into a panic; his heart pounded, and he could not reverse his forward motion. The chair came to a stop when his shin touched the side of the bed, his brakes coming back on with a second loud click, the red light upon the bed growing even more intense.
The motor under the bed suddenly came to life, droning on and on as it raised the lump upward toward Cyrus. The white sheet slowly fell away from its face.
Cyrus’s eyes widened, his panic sliding back to pure nausea when he gazed upon the lump’s uncovered visage.
It was Talon. Or, at least Cyrus thought it was Talon.
Blood no longer flowed through his brother’s veins. His skin was ash-white and chalky, having the pallor of the grave. His features were more angular than Cyrus remembered, his spiky hair, once brown, now black. In addition to the blood-red light glaring down upon him, the changes gave Talon an overall look of malevolence. His eyes remained closed, making it impossible to determine if he was deceased or merely unconscious.
Talon’s eyes suddenly opened. His chest heaved up and down with each desperate, labored breath. He remained utterly oblivious to Cyrus’s presence, and his blue eyes focused only on the wall in front of him. The fear Cyrus felt subsided, replaced by pain, his grievous emotional wound reopened. Talon had done the same on his deathbed, irreversibly doomed, yet his body instinctively fought on. Cyrus could only watch, unable to save his best friend as he died once more.
Talon’s breathing grew more labored, gradually becoming deeper but less frequent. It wouldn’t be long now. Cyrus squinted and leaned forward for a better look, frowning when he found the strange change
in Talon’s eyes. The blue of his irises had mysteriously changed to a kind of brilliant grey, a color that cut through the red light. His eyes were the shade of death.
“Just let go, Talon,” Cyrus whispered.
He couldn’t take anymore, long since tired by his brother’s struggle. Talon’s breathing slackened to the point that each strained breath felt as though it were eternities from the next.
“You’re not going to make it!” Cyrus suddenly shrieked, surprised by the shrillness of his voice. “Just let go! You’re not going to make it!”
Talon’s breathing ceased as though on cue.
His body remained rigid where he sat upon his bed, his grey, dead eyes locked on the wall in front of him. Just as Cyrus grew certain he might remain stuck between life and death forever, Talon’s body finally let him go. His eyes slowly closed, and his body slumped down on the bed. He took two more slow, separated breaths before finally going completely limp.
The bed’s motor started up again, the upper portion slowly descending. Cyrus slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes, finally able to let himself relax. He might have sobbed had he not reached a point beyond sadness and grief. Cyrus had watched Talon die in his dreams ten times over. He preferred to relive it as little as possible if he could help it.
The bed’s motor continued to drone on, coming to a stop with a loud clunk. Cyrus remained stationary, waiting for his dream’s completion.
He barely heard Talon let out a final soft puff of air as though he were trying to let out a feeble cough. Talon lay lifeless on his bed at last, his mouth hanging open as a testament to his body’s desperation for air.
Cyrus opened his eyes, taking a final look at his brother, anticipating the conclusion of his dream.
The motor underneath the hospital bed hummed again.
Cyrus looked over at his deceased brother, the corpse slowly ascending upward toward him. Talon’s body now resembled an unreal wax figure, his skin taking on a texture like porcelain. He was not a large man. His small frame and lack of girth made him look pitiful. Cyrus felt a strange prickling on the back of his neck as his fear crept back over him. Something felt wrong. He squinted, taking a closer look at his brother’s body.
Talon’s appearance morphed right before his eyes.
His features became more angular and sharply defined. His mouth lay wide open as his lips receded to reveal his teeth. His canines were now strangely sharp and pointed.
Cyrus leaned closer for a better look at his brother’s new dental features, confused by this new development. This had never happened in his dream.
He knew he needed to back away, but his unrelenting curiosity made it impossible to do so. As he looked down into his brother’s mouth, Talon’s eyes suddenly opened.
Cyrus’s upper body surged backward as he jumped in his seat. His heart beat rapidly, and his eyes remained fixed on Talon, enraptured by his ongoing transformation.
Talon continued to ascend, the motor pushing him closer to Cyrus. His eyes glowed a blood red so radiant it pierced the red light filling the room. He had changed so much that Cyrus no longer recognized him.
His appearance was now like that of an unholy, fiendish monster. Everything human about him had vanished. Cyrus felt his fear brew up inside him, and the impulse to flee returned. He no longer wanted to be in the same room with this terror that was once his brother. He tried to put his chair into reverse, able to move the joystick, yet his tires remained immobile.
The metal frame snapped into place, making Cyrus flinch.
The monster jumped at him, grasping for Cyrus’s face with wretched talons.
* * *
Cyrus awoke in a pool of sweat, his heart racing wildly. He removed the blanket from his face and felt the cool, eerie breeze glide across his neck. He searched frantically for his bed’s remote, finally finding it by his side, just within his reach. Cyrus pressed the up button on the remote, scanning the still darkened room as he ascended.
It was childish to suspect there might be some kind of monster in his room, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Cyrus dreamed of his brother often, usually finding the experiences oddly comforting, bittersweet though they were. They gave him another opportunity to see Talon again. This was the first time he had imagined him as a monster.
Cyrus’s rapid breathing and accelerated heart rate subsided as he surveyed his room, his eyes passing from his wheelchair to one of the tables before finally resting on the single window to his right. He frowned, believing he heard a noise coming from the window. Scrutinizing it through the curtain for several seconds before shrugging it off, he attributed the sound to a stray cat. Content with his inspection, Cyrus pressed down on the remote.
Thud!
Cyrus jumped, his eyes darting back to the window as the frame slid open.
He frowned, squinting to see through the thick, blackout curtain, confused by what he heard. A single, black-gloved hand appeared, grasping the curtain's edge and pulling it to one side. A pair of phantom-like figures peered up at him through the window, their eyes glowing bright green in the dark.
“What the heck!” Cyrus yelled, barely believing what he saw. He was incapable of defending himself in his present state atop the bed. “Stay out of my house! Intruders! Hey Mom! Intruders!”
One of the alien things produced a long, narrow cylindrical object, handing it off to its accomplice, who laid it down flat on the window ledge.
The creature pulled out a bolt at the end of the object, shoving a feathered dart into the slot.
“They got a gun!” Cyrus screamed, the revelation sending him into a panic. “Mom! Get in here! They’ve got a freakin’ gun!”
Rapid footsteps struck the hardwood floor, echoing throughout the house as Cyrus’s mother came rushing down the hall.
The dart struck just as she pushed through the door. Cyrus’s mother stopped to grasp her shoulder, dumbfounded and still affected by sleep. She stumbled through the doorway, taking a few beleaguered steps before slowly collapsing onto the floor.
The intruder pulled the gun from the window ledge and reloaded.
“What have you done?” Cyrus yelled hoarsely, his feeling of nausea returning yet again. The intruders only ignored him, the foremost placing the gun back on the window ledge to take aim once more.
The second dart struck Cyrus in the neck, dealing him a sharp pain as a prickling sensation ran through his veins.
“What have you done?” He screamed, horrified by the red-feathered needle in his neck. “You’ll pay for...” He slurred his last few words, unable to finish.
A feeling of lightheaded weakness came upon Cyrus, confirming his pending unconsciousness. He could only watch as one of the intruders stepped around the other and climbed up through the window. The dark figure slowly approached Cyrus’s bed, the glowing green eyes glared over at him, the way it moved confirming that it was indeed human.
Cyrus frowned, realizing the intruders wore night-vision goggles. The figure placed a gloved hand over his mouth and gently placed the fingers of its other hand against the side of his neck as it checked his pulse.
“It’s OK, just relax,” the mysterious figure whispered to him in a soothing female voice. “We’re not here to harm you, Cyrus.”
She wore a flowery scent that, while not unpleasant, was overpowering. It wafted into Cyrus’s nose. He could do nothing but look up at her through hostile eyes, disturbed that she knew his name.
The woman’s accomplice climbed through the window as she spoke, weapon secured against his back as he approached Cyrus’s unconscious mother. He gathered her up from the floor with little effort. The black-clad man carried her through the open doorway, the green of his goggles casting a soft glow down the dark hallway.
“Your mother will be fine,” the woman reassured Cyrus. “My associate is just returning her to her bed. When she wakes, she won’t remember anything.”
Cyrus heard the door down the hall creak open as the woman’s accomplice car
ried his mother back to her room.
“Now listen,” the woman continued. “The drug we hit you with is going to render you unconscious in a few minutes. When you wake up, you still won’t be able to talk or open your eyes, so don’t panic. That’s supposed to happen. When your mom comes back in here tomorrow, she will believe you’re having a health emergency and call an ambulance. We plan to be on that ambulance, and we’ll be back to pick you up. We have something extraordinary planned for you.”
The woman removed her hand from Cyrus’s neck, and her accomplice re-entered the room to stand beside her.
Cyrus tried to protest once more but found himself incapable of mouthing the words. The woman’s message was not reassuring, no matter how sweetly she gave it. Their actions suggested only malice. Cyrus was sure whatever they had planned was not something he would willingly endure.
“We had better get out of here before someone sees something suspicious,” the woman’s accomplice said with a slightly high, male voice.
“We’ll be back for you soon.” The woman stroked Cyrus’s cheek with the back of her hand. “Don’t fight it. Just let the drug take effect and go to sleep. I promise that everything will be fine.”
She pulled the remote from his hand, and the motor hummed as the bed reclined all the way down. The woman placed the remote at Cyrus’s side and turned away toward the window, with her accomplice following behind.
Cyrus felt his heart and lungs slow. His terror dissipated into a passive dread, and he grew wearier with each passing second. He watched the intruders crawl back through the window, and his heavy eyelids slid shut as he lost consciousness.
* * *
Cyrus felt the warm tingle of the sunlight on his face but was unable to open his eyes. His rigid body suggested either sleep or death. Time passed slowly, and he couldn’t determine how long any one event lasted.
Cyrus felt a need to call for his mother, though he was so lethargic he wasn’t overly concerned about it. His inability to move made it impossible anyway. He could only hear, feel, and think as the world continued along without him at a snail’s pace.
Fall Prey: The Hunt Page 5