Joe’s driveway was long and narrow, and the forest crowded close on both sides. If by some miracle he were able to get himself turned around in time, there wouldn’t be nearly enough room for his van to pass around the SUV.
And even if there were, they could easily chase me down, force me off the road with that big tank they’re driving.
Malcolm glanced towards Joe’s house, thought about trying to make a stand in there, but then dismissed the idea. There were too many ways for someone to break in. He wouldn’t have a hope in hell of defending the place.
Then he remembered that there was another enclosed space nearby, much more defensible…
He shifted his gaze over to the trail that led through the woods back to Joe’s bunker.
Of course, he’d never make it all the way out there on foot, but maybe if he drove his van over to the edge of the woods…
It was a long shot, but he might as well try.
The decision made, he immediately hit the gas, and yanked the wheel.
The engine revved, the tires kicked up dirt, and then he was moving, the van bouncing over the rough terrain of Joe’s yard.
When he got close to the trail, Malcolm braked and swerved hard, trying to generate a spin-out, hoping he could make the van line up so that it blocked the path, but unfortunately he lacked any real training in fancy stunt driving, and his van wasn’t made for acrobatic feats.
Instead of spinning, it just stopped, and not in a good position.
Damn!
He had to risk several precious seconds shifting into reverse and repositioning the van so that it would provide at least a little cover while he made his dash for the bunker.
He spared a quick glance back over his shoulder, saw the SUV kick up dust as the driver braked hard, settling into the same spot his van had just vacated. The doors were already swinging open.
Malcolm kicked his own door wide and scrambled out, started running through the woods with his head down, moving as fast as his long legs would carry him.
Before he’d taken three steps, the men started firing their weapons, filling the air with sharp little pops and the clank of metal on metal as hot lead from fully automatic guns thudded into his van.
He figured there was no way he would make it. He’d obviously cut it too close this time. Any second now, a bullet was going to find him, bring him down.
And then suddenly he came upon the entrance to the bunker.
Feeling incredibly fortunate to still be breathing, he rushed down the first few steps, turned and slammed the hatch shut behind him.
He examined the inner handle, hoping to find a dial or a lever that he could use to lock himself in, but what he found instead was another keyhole, which struck him as an incredibly annoying design decision.
Bloody hell!
He hurried on down the steps, drawing his gun, glad that he’d taken the trouble to reload earlier. Clearly he was going to need it. And soon.
He entertained the brief hope that the men might not know precisely where the entrance to the bunker was, that there might be a bit of a delay before they found him, but that hope was shattered about five seconds later when he heard them open the hatch.
He scrambled over to the front corner of one of the long laboratory tables, and knelt down to take cover. He was at a slight angle to the door, situated so that someone coming down the steps wouldn’t be likely to spot him at first glance.
There was a long pause—presumably the men at the top were discussing strategy. Then all at once, he heard them coming down, rushing.
They were going to blitz him, try to overwhelm him with sheer numbers and aggression.
Thackery almost fired when he saw the first man’s torso, but then he noticed a Kevlar vest and decided to wait another instant, go for a head shot instead.
It would’ve been a risky choice for an average shooter, but marksmanship was a talent that ran in Malcolm’s family, and his own abilities had been reinforced through years of practice at the shooting range with his father as a youth. He didn’t miss very often, and a head-shot from 20 feet wasn’t too difficult for him; a fact he proved moments later when the man descended to floor level and his head came fully into view. Malcolm caught the briefest glimpse of the man’s face—balding, middle-aged, handlebar mustache—then pulled the trigger, splashing the walls of the stairway with red goo.
Handlebar-Mustache fell to the side, revealing the legs of the man behind him.
Malcolm adjusted his aim slightly and fired again, putting a bullet into that man’s knee; he crumpled, screaming, started rapidly dragging himself back up, away from the door.
A ruckus broke out further up the stairwell as the men above panicked. Malcolm heard cursing, recriminations, and confusion. Then their was another furious pattering of feet on concrete as they fled back to the entrance.
And that was the end of the brave charge.
Not surprising really, thought Malcolm as he tried to slow down his racing heart. They were probably just soldier-of-fortune types with no real stake in any of this. There was no reason why they should be expected to maintain their blitz in the face of a calm deliberate shooter with a tactical advantage.
The group had left their wounded comrade stranded on the stairwell, and he continued screaming for almost a whole minute. Then Thackery heard thumps and sounds of protest as a couple of the others came back down to drag the man—painfully—out of harm’s way.
After that, there was a lot of murmuring, probably coming from the area just outside the entrance.
He couldn’t make out the words, but there were quite a few voices… Five at least, not counting the moans of the one with the wounded knee.
Too many.
He’d bought himself some time, but he wasn’t going to shoot his way out of this.
Malcolm glanced over at Handlebar-Mustache where he lay at the foot of the stairs. His weapon had fallen out of his hands when he died, and it rested on the concrete floor beside him, right next to the slowly spreading pool of blood coming out of his ruined head. It was a Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine gun, a top-of-the-line firearm used by high-tech commando groups, police swat teams, and anybody who needed a really slick piece of gear for killing people at semi-close range.
Expensive guns, Kevlar vests…
This was a well equipped crew. If the ones above didn’t already have tear gas and grenades, it would be a miracle, and even in a best case scenario, it was still only a matter of time before they came up with a workable plan.
One way or another they would get him. That much was certain.
Which meant there was only one thing left to do…
He settled all the way down onto his rear end so he could lean back against the table leg for stability, placing his pistol on the ground beside him.
Then, for the second time in three hours, he removed the lead-lined box from the breast pocket of his coat, took off his dampening ring, and closed it up inside.
He felt the demon spores in his blood start waking up immediately.
His body was still primed for demonic influence from his activities earlier in the day, so the suffering was much less than usual, but the sensation was still far from pleasant.
He gritted his teeth, tried not to make any pain sounds, and reached into the interior coat pocket where he kept his wad of evil black mana.
Even touching the stuff made him wince. He could feel the hatred, fear, and sorrow coming off it, passing through his skin, invading him, but he forced himself to grip it and draw it from his pocket. Then he held it, waiting for the demon spores to finish punishing him so he could concentrate.
While he waited, a deep growly voice sounded from the top of the stairwell: “Hey you, down there… Mind answering a little question for me?”
Malcolm would’ve preferred to ignore the man, but it seemed that talking might stall things a little, and more time was better than less.
“Ask away,” he replied, trying to hide the pain in his voice.<
br />
“It’s nothing much, just a small question… What kind of firearm you carryin’?”
“A bazooka.”
“No, really… See, I made a bet with a couple of the boys… I’m usually real good at telling the difference between guns, just from listening to the sound, and I wanna see if I’ve got you pegged. You’re using a big revolver, right? Old school police-special maybe?”
Malcolm was genuinely impressed. “That’s exactly right.”
“Hah! Hot-damn! I can always tell.”
“Quite a talent.”
“Yep, nobody ever believes me when I tell em I can do it. Mostly it’s just a parlor trick, but sometimes it comes in handy… Anyway, that was some decent shooting there. Big old revolver like that’s a hell of a weapon in the hands of a man who knows what he’s doing. Most of the younger guys don’t appreciate em, but I’ve always been a fan. A gun like that’s damn near 100% reliable, good accuracy, plenty of stopping power. You fucked up Gilbert’s knee real bad.”
“I suppose he should’ve kept his knee out of my line of fire.”
“Yeah. I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing right about now. No question, you caught us with our pants down. But it don’t really matter, cause we’re all armed with fully automatic weapons, and now we know what you’re packing, so no more surprises. Know what that means?”
“It means you have a basic grasp of the situation.”
“No. It means you’re fucked, smart-ass.”
Malcolm said nothing.
“You wanna live, you limey shitter?”
“Let me think it over for a bit.”
“Truth is, I’d really love to kill you, but my bosses want me to bring you in alive if I can. They’re paying us double to keep you breathing. We all love money a hell of a lot more than we love each other, so if you come out peaceful, we won’t shoot, no matter how much we’d like to.”
“That’s a very reasonable offer,” said Malcolm. “Who are your bosses?”
“Come on up here, I’ll tell you.”
“Perhaps I will if you’ll give me a moment,” said Thackery, but he wasn’t really interested in what the man was saying anymore. His pain was mostly gone now, and he had already begun gazing deeply into the black mana, letting his mind reach inside.
It actually hurt his eyes to see the stuff, and he had to use all his willpower to keep from looking away.
What he really wanted most of all at this moment, naturally, was a clear path out of this place. That was all. He didn’t care how it happened, but he needed it to happen soon.
Yes… I just need enough room to get out of here alive, back to my van…
He sharpened that thought, shaped it, and then pushed it into the mana.
It was dangerous to rely on such open-ended instructions when empowering volatile and negative life energies, but this was a situation where a catastrophic outcome was almost desirable; as long as the catastrophe was aimed at the men above rather than at Malcolm.
The mana practically leapt in his hand in its eagerness to fulfill his wishes. Immediately it started to emit a black cloud of foul smelling vapor. The cloud formed into a shape that looked vaguely like a living thing. There were limbs attached to it, a whole tangle of them, and there were darker areas that reminded him of the empty eye-sockets in a skull.
The cloud kept growing larger and larger, until it was about ten feet across in every direction. Meanwhile the mana-ball shrank in his hand, until finally there was only a tiny portion remaining, about the size of a pebble.
It was more than he’d ever used before on any single task.
Would it be enough?
Hard to be sure, but he expected carnage. His previous experiences with dark mana had amazed and horrified him in equal measure, but he’d only used it a handful of times. The dangers it posed were too great to risk using it in any but the direst of situations.
He put the tiny remainder in his pocket as the cloud started spreading itself out, becoming less visible and less distinct. Then it floated away from him.
He watched, feeling a mix of dread and fascination, as it passed through the doorway and started up the stairs.
He waited.
The first sign that the mana had begun doing its business was a massive explosion, followed by desperate howls of pain.
A few moments later came a burst of gunfire, and more screaming that drifted quickly off into silence.
After that, there was nothing for several minutes.
He wondered briefly if it might be over, but then there was another burst of activity that seemed to be coming from further away: horrible gagging, cries for help, and several more bursts of automatic gunfire.
Thackery sat patiently, waiting until two full minutes of silence had passed, then he rose and started up the stairs, gun held out in front of him, ready to deal with whatever he might encounter.
He found the first man right outside the entrance, lying on his back. His face and hands were hamburger. What was left of his gun lay beside him on the ground, burnt and twisted.
Bullets must’ve exploded inside the clip.
Two more men were sprawled a few feet away. It looked as if they had shot one another, or else their guns had fired without their help.
Malcolm walked on, back in the direction of his van.
He didn’t spot the next body till he was right underneath it.
The man was hanging from a tree about 20 feet up, a vine wrapped around his neck.
Malcolm tried to fathom how such a thing could have happened. The mana was powerful, but certainly not strong enough to hang a man high up in a tree against his will by brute force—it would’ve taken a whole truckload to do something that spectacular.
Maybe it had tricked him into climbing the tree, and then engineered a freak accident.
It was puzzling and disturbing.
Malcolm found the last man lying about a dozen feet off the trail to the left. He had fallen and impaled himself on the point of a broken branch sticking out of a dead tree.
The back of the man’s knee was red with blood. The one I wounded on the stairs… Amazing that he made it this far. To endure that much pain… Must’ve been terrified.
Thackery did a quick count in his head.
Five dead—about the number of men he’d expected to find based on the sound of their voices earlier.
Of course, there might be another one, but if so, he had obviously fled—or died trying to flee.
Still, on the off chance that one might’ve escaped unscathed, it wouldn’t do to hang around and wait to get picked off from the trees.
As he walked back to his van, he wondered briefly if the dark mana cloud had burnt itself out, or if it was still floating out in the woods somewhere, waiting for another target to come along.
Eventually it would dissipate on its own, but it might be dangerous for a good while longer.
Perhaps the next group that showed up here would get a surprise too.
Somehow the thought just made him feel worse. He’d done his fair share of killing over the years—it was frequently part of his job—but it wasn’t something he felt the least bit comfortable with.
What will be, will be, I suppose.
With one final glance at the surrounding woods, Malcolm climbed into his van, which now had two shattered windows and was riddled with bullet holes. The engine was still idling—he hadn’t bothered to turn it off when he fled into the woods.
He shifted into reverse, got himself facing in the right direction, and accelerated out of the driveway.
It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when he was well clear of Joe’s house, that he started to tremble all over, suddenly overwhelmed by the realization of how close he had come to death.
It was an unpleasant feeling, and not a state of mind that was conducive to effective performance of his job, so he did the only thing he could do to genuinely distract himself—he aimed his thoughts in a totally different direction, towards the next big prob
lem: how to arrange for a very quick trip to Virginia when the nearest major airport was hundreds of miles away.
Chapter 3 - Mixed Messages
Simone sat on the couch, sipping at a cup full of coke mixed heavily with vodka, staring at the TV set.
The local evening news was airing. The volume was muted but she could tell what was going on just from watching. The newscasters would smile, flashing all of their shiny white teeth while delivering the pointless feel-good stories. Then their faces would suddenly go grim when they started talking about a traffic accident, or an assault, or a murder.
Fake grim.
Simone noticed all this in passing without really paying attention. It wasn’t real. It didn’t matter to her anymore.
None of it mattered.
Not one fucking thing mattered.
…nothing matters because there’s nothing I can do… Maybe I just killed a guy, or maybe I’m nuts… Which would be worse? Everything’s worse, everything’s just fucking terrible… All things have gone sideways, every fucking thing has gone right off the deep end and my whole life is over, never gonna be the same again, never gonna be able to make the crazy go away because everything I’m seeing and everything I know might be a lie, might be just happening in my head, and momma doesn’t know I was a whore when I lived in Richmond and that don’t even matter anymore cause now I got a bigger secret than that, way fucking bigger, and I can never tell her, never tell anybody, cause I made him burn up, cooked his fucking guts, and now I’m gonna have to hide it forever and what is happening to me? What am I becoming-
Myra cleared her throat.
The gigantic woman sat on the other side of the room in the big red easy chair. She was eating fish sticks that she’d just heated up in the oven, dipping them in green ketchup.
I bought the green ketchup because I thought it would be fun. SO MUCH FUN!
“Are you listening to me?” asked Myra.
“No,” said Simone.
“Well, you need to start.”
“What’re we gonna do about Chance?”
“Chance?”
“The dead guy. We can’t just leave him out there in the truck.”
The DARK Trilogy: Titan's Song Chronicles Volume 1 (Books 1 - 3) Page 12