by Kelvin Teo
That was the good thing about the bow and arrows. They were silent and if he shot well, they’d never know where he was. At least, until the next arrow came out of the dark.
He just sat and watched. He felt his watch vibrate on his wrist and looked down. It was just after one in the morning and he still had about five hours of darkness left. He didn’t intend to need more than another hour to finish up.
"What the hell do you mean you’re leavin’?"
Clark looked back at the group and could see Bill and one of the other guys were getting ready to retreat from this battle.
"I mean just that," said Bill. "I didn’t sign up for this bullshit!"
The two started walking away and Ricky lifted his rifle and pointed it at the back of Bill’s head. When Bill heard him lock a round in place, he stopped and turned around.
"Oh, so you’re gonna kill me now?"
Ricky looked at him and said, "You partook in our rituals for five years now, enjoying the pleasures of all those young whores and now, you’re going to run like a scared dog? These assholes killed my mama, they killed your brother and his two boys, they’ve probably killed your boy because he isn’t around. I doubt he walked out of here."
"Look, Ricky, we’re outgunned here," said Bill. "When we get back to our place, we’ll call the sheriff’s deputies and get them out here.
"Let him go, Ricky," said Zeke. "If they want to run, let them run."
When Bill and the other guy turned and headed toward their truck, the other three were watching them go and they all had their backs to Clark. He used that opportunity to move further to the west. Within ten seconds, he was completely past the glow of the fire light and could move in the darkness again.
He wanted to get far enough down the road to have his say in whether these two could leave. He heard the truck start up in the background and he began moving down the hill and found a spot behind a fairly thick pine tree.
He could hear the truck pulling out of the gravel parking lot and he pulled an arrow from the quiver and nocked it. Taking a couple of seconds to calm his breathing and study the road, he saw a plan form in his mind. The truck would come over a small rise just past the garage and then dip back down. That’s where he was going to attack.
He could see the glow of the headlights on the other side of the rise and he pulled the bow string back and raised it, locking his gaze through the square sight. The lights came into view and he followed the cab of the truck as it got closer. He could see the driver’s window was down, which made him smile. Nothing was going to deflect the arrow.
When the truck was about twenty yards away, he let the bow string slip from his fingers and the arrow flew silently through the air, passing through the open window and driving Bill’s head back, pinning it to the head rest on the back of his seat.
The suddenness of the attack caused Bill’s body to go rigid as he died instantly, causing his right foot to slam down on the gas pedal and the truck to lurch forward. Clark heard the other guy scream as the truck raced forward and off the road, slamming into a tree.
Clark raced out of the woods and across the road, coming up behind the truck. As he went around to the passenger side, the guy had stumbled out of the truck and was trying to get his bearings. He was so dazed he never saw the knife coming up from under his chin and driving into his brain.
Clark yanked the knife out and as his victim fell to the ground, he knelt down and quickly wiped the blade on the back of the guy’s shirt. Then, slipping it back into its sheath, he turned and headed as fast as he could toward the back of the garage.
He headed along the backside of the building, going to where he had stashed the other rifle. As he rounded the corner of the garage, he heard the others running along the road and coming to the truck.
"Son of a bitch!" yelled Ricky.
"Where the fuck are they?" yelled Zeke as he looked around.
Clark pulled the rifle out from the sawhorse and checked the chamber for a round. Then, crouching down, he knelt and peered around the corner of the building.
Zeke and Ricky were swinging their rifles back and forth, scanning the hillside. The third guy was checking on the man who had been riding shotgun in the truck.
"Guys, I don’t think Willie was shot. It looks like he was stabbed in the head with a knife."
"You mean one of them assholes was right here?" asked Ricky.
"It looks that way."
Clark looked along the sight of the rifle and tried to decide who should die next. Zeke was on the other side of the truck, checking on Bill and Ricky was partially hidden by a tree.
Guess you’re the unlucky one.
Clark squeezed the trigger and in less than the blink of an eye, the third guy’s knees just folded like a wet rag as he slumped to the ground.
The impact was so sudden, Ricky dropped face down in the dirt, not knowing which way to look. Zeke was looking around the cab of the truck and trying to see if he could find the one who fired the shot.
Clark aimed carefully and pulled the trigger, but the gods were smiling on Zeke at that moment. The bullet hit the edge of the cab and ricocheted off into the woods.
Shit! That’s not good.
Clark knew it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out where the shot had come from and Zeke would come up shooting.
He looked behind himself and then grabbed the bow and rifle and jumped over the short wall, landing right on the blood stain from the guy Danny had killed the day before.
"He’s over there! Around the corner of the garage!" yelled Zeke. "You stay here and cover that corner. I’m going around the other way!"
You guys need to learn not to broadcast your battle plans.
Clark turned and ran as fast as he could along the walkway and then slammed through the door of the room he and the others had shared. He pushed the door closed and crept to the window.
Peeking through a gap in the curtains, he watched as Zeke came creeping around the far corner of the garage, using Danny’s van as cover. As he watched him moving along the side of the van, he saw him stop and look in one of the windows.
Oh yeah, I left you a little present.
Zeke pulled the door of the van open and just shook his head and said, "Fuck!"
21
Clark turned and looked at the bathroom. He knew he didn’t want to get trapped inside this room. Hefting the rifle in his hand, he decided he didn’t want to carry two weapons into the woods. He took the rifle and slid it under one of the beds. Then he took the bow and moved through the bathroom, to the window in the back. Remembering what Danny and the girls had told him about it, he hoped they were right and he could slip out the back.
He eased the window open and looked out. Looking to the west along the backside of the motel, he couldn’t see any movement at all. He knew Zeke was out front, but he was worried that Ricky might have decided to come around back, but it looked like he hadn’t thought of that.
He could hear Zeke moving slowly through the parking lot, probably moving toward the other side of the garage, hoping to trap his prey between him and his brother.
Clark began easing himself up and out the window, hoping to do so as quietly as he could. He didn’t mind the brothers finding out he had gone out the back window, but wanted to be quite a ways up the hill before they figured it out.
As he was going through the window, he looked down into the gap between the dirt and the back wall of the motel. Something caught his eye and he reached down into the dark and took hold of something. Lifting it out, he found out how they were able to kidnap Ali right out of the bathroom without anyone knowing about it.
He stared down at the hypodermic needle in his hand and then he looked down into the gap again. He saw what look like dozens of needles down there.
Clark began to feel sick to his stomach as he realized just how many girls had been taken from this motel room and sacrificed to Lucifer. And how many were tortured and abused by the men from around the area.
&
nbsp; He dropped the needle back down in the gap and looked to the west and couldn’t see signs of anyone coming around the building.
Jumping to his feet, he took off up the hill, heading into the trees and the darkness. The flames from the office portion of the motel were beginning to die down and if the rest of the motel didn’t catch, they would probably go out within ten or fifteen minutes.
The night had become cloudy, so there wasn’t much chance of moon light giving his position away.
Within ten minutes, he found himself moving into the meadow where this had all started. The altar stood near the center of the clearing and he could just make out the ring of stones around it.
He was in uncharted territory now. There was no battle plan, no inkling of an idea of how to proceed. Everything was going to depend on the brothers figuring out where he had gone and deciding to chase after him. If they didn’t come up the hill, he’d have to go back down there and he didn’t really want to do that.
As he was passing the altar, a shot rang out and the bullet hit the concrete block right next to him. He could feel fragments of stone pelt his face and hands and he dove down behind the block.
"Stop right there, asshole!" he heard Ricky yell.
He pulled the pistol from his waistband and reached up and fired one shot toward the direction he thought Ricky was shooting from. He heard Ricky dive down to the ground and take cover.
"He’s up near the altar, Zeke! Go around and cut him off!"
Clark didn’t know where Zeke was, but he didn’t want to wait until the two of them could come at him from different directions. He fired another couple of shots and then ran toward the tree line, keeping as low as he could.
Just as he reached the trees, someone opened up with an AR-15 on full auto and the bullets buzzed around him like angry bees. In an instant of inspiration, he yelled out in pain, as if he had been hit with one of the bullets.
"I think I got him!" yelled Zeke. "You go around on the path and come down on him from above!"
Clark could hear Ricky start running up the path to his left and he thought he could hear Zeke coming straight across the meadow toward the tree line. Now his battle plan was to avoid being caught between the two of them.
He came to the path and looked to the west. Ricky hadn’t reached the curve yet, but he could hear Zeke coming into the trees about fifty yards behind him.
He turned and headed straight to the east on the path as fast as he could move. He knew he wouldn’t have more than twenty seconds before Zeke would reach the path and probably even less for Ricky to spot him.
He saw a clump of bushes about twenty yards ahead and he dived in behind them. As he rolled and looked back down the path, he saw Ricky come around the curve, coming right at him. A few seconds later Zeke charged onto the path, almost causing his brother to shoot him.
"Where is he?" yelled Ricky.
"He was right, fucking in front of me! He can’t have gotten too far!"
Ricky looked up the hill and Clark hoped he would think his prey went further up the hill.
"He had to have gone this way," said Zeke, pointing right down the path. Right at Clark.
Crabbing to his left, Clark moved off the path and back into the trees. He was thanking every god he could think of for the cloud cover and the lack of moon light. It was almost pitch black out there in the woods, but still just light enough for him to make out the shapes of the two moving slowly along the path.
As he crouched behind a tree, he reached to his waistband to pull out the pistol and grabbed a whole lot of nothing. His waistband was completely void of anything resembling a pistol.
SHIT! Where did I lose it?
He knew the only place he could have lost was behind the bush he had just left and there was no going back there to get it.
He pulled an arrow from the quiver and nocked it, keeping his eyes on the path. He started to see some faint movement in the dark and he began to stretch the bow string.
Bringing the bow up, he did his best to sight along the arrow. With how dark it was, the square sight was useless and all he could see were shapes moving on the path. Usually, he would have gone for the headshot, but without any light, it was difficult to judge distance.
When in doubt, go for center mass.
He eased his breathing, but was quite sure his heart beat was going to give him away. When the shapes were less than twenty yards away, he released the arrow and waited.
It seemed like an eternity. In reality, it was less than a heart beat when the arrow hit.
Ricky fell and started screaming he been hit. Zeke turned and sprayed the woods with bullets, all of them going wide of their mark.
"You son of a bitch! I’m gonna kill you!"
Keep trying, asshole. You’ve been missing all night.
He could barely make out Zeke dropping to his knees next to Ricky and checking to see how bad off his brother was. When he did that, Clark made another move, this time back down the hill, coming out at the eastern edge of the meadow. Being out of the trees, he hoofed it across the open ground and back to the altar.
Taking cover behind the block of concrete, he waited to see if Zeke was going to follow him. He could hear Ricky crying in pain up on the path and Zeke telling him he was going to find that son of a bitch and put a bullet between his eyes.
"You just hold on, brother. I’ll be right back for you."
"Don’t leave me, Zeke!"
"I have to. I have to end this right now."
Ricky pleaded with him not to go, but it was obvious Zeke was more interested in tracking Clark down than he was in looking after his wounded brother.
Rage can cloud the mind in wondrous ways.
Clark kept his eyes on the spot where Zeke would come down into the meadow, while pulling one of his three remaining arrows from the quiver. Realizing these were the last of his "bullets" he knew he needed to shoot straight and true. Any miss could increase his chances for failure and failure in this case, might mean death to himself.
He nocked the arrow and held the bow lightly with his left hand. Now was not the time to increase tension into his hands.
He kept his eyes locked on the spot where he expected to see Zeke and that was his downfall.
A shot rang out and he felt the bullet slam into his shoulder from the side. It knocked him off the platform the altar was sitting on and onto his back. The bow and arrow skittered away across the ground.
He felt a wave of nausea wash over him as the pain began to register in his brain. He had been injured a few times on the football field, but that didn’t have anything on a bullet wound when it came to pain.
He rolled onto his side, clutching at his shoulder with his free hand. He could feel the blood seeping through his fingers, but could tell the bullet hadn’t hit any bone. It was a clean through and through wound and wasn’t going to be life threatening.
Zeke walking up to him with his pistol pointed right at his head was another story. As life threatening tales go, this one had only one ending and it wasn’t a happily ever after.
"You have been a real pain in my ass for the past couple of days," sneered Zeke.
"Glad I could help," winced Clark through the pain.
"Oh, you think this is funny."
"I think it’s fucking hilarious. You kept thinking the four of us were here raining Hell down on you, when it was only me. The other three are already back home, most likely telling the cops what happened up here."
"You killed my mama!"
"Yes, I did. How did that feel? Seeing your fat mama fall with an arrow stuck in her face?"
Zeke was breathing hard, trying to contain his rage. He kicked Clark in the chest, rolling him onto his back. Then he kicked at the shoulder that had a bunch of blood dripping from it. He was quite satisfied when he heard Clark scream in pain.
Then he dropped down with a knee in Clark’s chest, driving the wind from his lungs. He brought the pistol down and pointed it right between Clark’s eyes.
Clark reached for his boot collar and Zeke saw it and grabbed his hand. Seeing the knife stuck in the boot, he pulled it out and held it up.
"You going for this pig sticker?"
He held it up and looked at it.
"Nice blade," he said. "I was going to shoot you between the eyes, but I think I’ll just cut your fucking heart out. I promise, it’s going to hurt a lot."
He slipped the gun back into his holster and waved the knife around in front of Clark’s face.
"Any last words, asshole?"
"Yeah, you never did answer my friend’s question."
"Which was?"
"Which one of the thousands of sleazy men your whore mama fucked was your papa. Probably not the same one as Ricky. Probably a whole new batch of scum for him"
Clark could see the rage build up in Zeke’s eyes and knew his life was about to end. But, he was going out knowing he’d have the last laugh at the man’s expense.
Zeke straightened up and raised the knife high over his head. And then stopped.
A growl broke his concentration on the task at hand and he couldn’t figure out how Clark had made such a sound.
He heard it again. The low, guttural growl that sounded like it came straight from the depths of Hell. And also just to the right of him.
He slowly turned his head and came face-to-face with the biggest wolf he had ever seen in his life. Its golden eyes were staring straight into his and they did not look friendly.
Zeke reached for his pistol, but Clark grabbed his hand to keep him from getting to it. Zeke slashed at his hand with the knife, cutting deep into the skin, causing Clark to yell in pain and release his wrist.
Before he could grab the gun, the wolf lunged and locked its jaws on his arm and dragged him off Clark. The knife fell harmlessly to the ground, as Zeke screamed in pain. The wolf had a prize and he wasn’t going to let go.
Clark rolled up onto his knees and saw Zeke trying to reach for the gun with his free hand. He dove over to him and yanked the pistol out of the holster and then backed off.