by Caleb Meeks
A whisper rang out through the silence. I froze in my place. I couldn’t tell if it was in my head, or if it was actually there with me. After staying silent for a few seconds, I decided to take another step. Another whisper, this time slightly louder, bounced around the forest. This time I was sure it was real. Every second it got progressively louder, and I knew I needed to get out of sight. From what I could tell, it was on the trail ahead of me. A large tree stood beside the pathway, and looked semi-easily climbable. With a little vigor, I was able to scale the thick tree, and climbed to a place where I was out of sight. The voices were now just around the corner, and I could hear them distinctly. There were two men, talking back and forth. They walked out of the clearing where I could finally see them. It looked to be two guards, clad in all black, holding assault rifles across their chests. They continued down the trail, completely unaware of my presence. I thought they would continue down the path, but they stopped just beneath the tree I was perched in. I reached back and wrapped my fingers around the grip of the pistol. He had it custom made, so it fit perfectly in my hand. I set the sight right on them, filled with the burning urge to pull the trigger and just end both of them. That’s when their conversation translated into words instead of just rage inducing noise.
“I don’t know, man. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’ve got a girl back home and we just had a kid. We didn’t make the greatest choices along the way, so money wasn’t something we had a lot of. Apparently, someone heard about what I used to do and thought I would be a good fit for this job.” One guard said. I listened, my gun still ready at his head.
“Does she know what you’re doing?” The other guard asked.
“No, of course not. I couldn’t tell her I was going to be a guard for a crime boss. I just told her it was some work that required travel. Given the circumstances, we didn’t really have a choice. Now that I’m in it, I wish I had figured out something different. He threatened us all with ruining our lives if we tried to leave or ever said anything about it.” That sounds just like Abaddon. He doesn’t just kill people, he leaves them alive, but makes their life as miserable as he can. He likes to watch people suffer.
“I know what you mean.” The other guard started. “I came here to try and not be such a disappointment to my parents. I guess you could say I haven’t always made the right choices either, but I was trying to get my feet on the ground. They were so happy when I said I got a job. Yeah, they were a little confused when I said I needed to travel for it, but all I remember were their happy faces when I said I was getting my life back together. Now I’m here, and I don’t know how I could tell them what I’m doing. I wasn’t smart enough to figure out what the job was before I got involved, and now I’m stuck.”
“All I can do is think about my boy’s face, and how he looks at me like I’m the hero of the story. There’s so much he doesn’t know, and I don’t know what’s going to happen when…if I get to go back to them. And from what I’ve heard, most of this guy’s army is like us. Broken pasts, easy targets.” The other guard said, his voice dripping in hopelessness.
My finger quaked over the trigger. All I wanted to do was pull it. These were men who took my best friend from me and worked for the man who had tried to take everything from me. Everything inside me was begging me to pull the trigger, but all I wanted to do was get them out of this situation. The picture of Anton’s family kept reverberating in my mind. “Thank you for giving me this.” The words burned into my brain. Slowly, with my brain revolting against me, my finger shakily fell from the trigger, and my arm lowered. Every ounce of rage within me urged me to pick the gun back up and put bullets into these men, but I couldn’t. These men weren’t the one’s I hated. They were just innocent bystanders who Abaddon was able to trick into enslavement. Evil has a way of doing that, and he’s a professional. He’s an expert on using people’s pasts to control them. He’s an expert liar and knows just how to convince people into believing he has the answer, and then, stabbing them in the back as soon as he has them. But again, evil has a way of doing that.
The two men continued down the path, and soon I couldn’t even hear their voices. That’s when I decided to get out of the tree. My legs were shaky from the punching bag of emotions I had just been hit with, but I pushed past it and continued down the path. It wasn’t long before I caught a glimpse of the rundown facility. It was in the distance, but I could clearly see it. Practically the epicenter of evil in the backyard of this idyllic, little town. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see any other guards, but I highly doubted that there were just two in the entire area.
I made my way closer to the complex. I tried my best to be as quiet as possible, but eventually I came to the realization that he knew I was there. There isn’t much you can do to evade the gaze of something like him. After getting closer, I saw a vehicle parked right outside the front, and immediately remembered it as the one Dominic was loaded into. It was undoubtedly left there intentionally.
I set my hand on the front of it. It was still noticeably warm. I stood and stared at the building in front of me. It housed both the greatest evil and greatest good to ever come into my life. After a deep breath, I pulled the gun from my back again and moved towards the crumbled hole in the front. There was probably a door once, but it had long been gone.
Stepping into the building, I could immediately feel the dark presence. Abaddon was here. I looked down at the floor and saw a trail of blood at my feet. The drops of blood led right to a door in front of me. It was obvious this room had been kept functional for a reason. Dominic was in there. I could feel the darkness pulling at my mind, but I shoved it away. Unconsciously, I started taking steps toward the door.
I stepped up to it and pressed my ear against the door, but I couldn’t hear anything. I gripped the handle with the hand not holding the gun and twisted. Once the door opened, I saw Dominic’s body lying on the ground, dripping blood all around him.
Chapter Twenty.
My heart stopped beating. They say that in near-death experiences, you see your life flash before your eyes. My life wasn’t in danger, but somehow, his life flashed before my eyes. The day we met. The first time I saved his life. The first time he saved mine. The rare times his sense of humor broke through my calloused shell, and I laughed. Knowing that no matter what I did, he was always there. It all rushed through my mind in a matter of seconds.
I couldn’t tell what had happened to him. His body was broken, and he was bleeding from more wounds than I could count. It was worse than I could have ever imagined. The steps I took toward him felt like slow motion. My knees hit the ground next to him. I grabbed his face, trying to get him to look at me. His eyes slit open, almost lifelessly.
Tears started unconsciously running down my face. “Dom? Look at me.” He barely responded. “Look at me!” I said, unsure of what to do. His eyes woke up, but not with the life I knew him to have. His hand started to move, but I ignored it. “It’s going to be ok. You’re going to be ok. I’m going to get you out of here.” I slipped my arm underneath his back, trying to lift him up.
“Stop…” He whispered under his breath. It was barely audible, but I clung to it.
“No, come on, we’ve got to go. I have to get you out of here.” I said, my whole body shaking. Something in the back of my mind told me that there was nothing I could do, though. I tried to ignore it, but it was louder than I could ignore.
“Judas, stop.” He managed to push out. I couldn’t breathe.
“What do you want to me to do, Dom? What can I do?” I sputtered out, my whole body quaking from the fear. His hand slowly and shakily rose to mine. I took his hand, and he set something in it. I didn’t let go of his hand.
“Judas…” I leaned down so I could hear him better. “It’s ok, He’s got me.” I leaned up and looked in his eyes. They were completely lifeless. He was gone. His breathing had stopped. Still, I grabbed his shoulders and tried to shake him back.
“Dominic!
Come back to me, bud. Don’t leave me here alone. I can’t do this without you. You need…” I paused, starting to realize he was gone. “You need to come back.” I dropped his shoulders, and his body laid out flat on the ground. My eyes felt like they were on fire. Every single part of my body ached. It felt like something had just been ripped from me. Something that was a part of me. I looked into his eyes and could feel his life gone. I closed his eyes and fell back on the ground. He was gone. How could he be gone? He was all I had left here, how could he be gone?
I remembered the object he had set in my hand. Inside my palm was the cross I had given him as they took him. It was covered in his blood. Most of my body was covered in his blood, too. I took the still bloody cross and put it around my neck. It was the last piece of him I had.
I don’t know how long I sat there. His body was right in front of me. I just couldn’t bring myself to leave him. I knew it wasn’t him anymore, but it was impossible to leave his side. My face was red and tender. I didn’t even know if I was still crying. I couldn’t feel anything. When I watched his life die out, it was like a part of me went with him. Or like the part of him that was in me slipped away too. That wasn’t true, though. Even if he was gone, I still had him, at least a part of him, with me.
Somehow, I managed to stand up. It wasn’t a conscious action, but somehow, I managed to get to my feet. I couldn’t feel my legs, but I started towards the door. I didn’t want to leave, but it felt like the survival part of my body had taken over. I knew I needed to leave, but I would never have left if it was up to me. I stopped myself at the doorway. Again, unconsciously, my head turned over my shoulder. His body filled my mind again. I took a deep breath and looked back towards the door I had come in. Complete darkness had overtaken the area. The only thing that kept me seeing was the faint moonlight just overhead. I shakily started taking steps towards the door. An intense darkness filled the facility, which edged on my steps.
“You look good, Judas.” My heart sank deeper. The voice sent chills down my spine. Not the kind you get when it’s cold outside, but the kind you get when you hear the voice of a dead man speaking from behind you. I slowly turned around. No matter how hard I tried to will the figure away, it wouldn’t leave. Standing next to door that lead to Dominic’s body, a shadowy figure stood at the base of a staircase.
“Abaddon.”
“In the flesh.” His voice had an eerie way of crawling underneath your skin. I couldn’t even respond. My chin quivered with a mixture of exhaustion, fear, and boiling rage. Something inside tried to convince me that I should just give in and give up. I wanted to listen. I wanted to just give up and let him kill me. It didn’t feel worth it to keep up the fight. That’s when Dominic’s fighter instinct reverberated in my mind, and I pulled myself back into the moment. “Not even a hello? You used to see me and give me a hug, guess things have changed.”
“You just killed my best friend, my only friend.” I wanted to say a million things. I wanted to tell him to go back to hell, to just kill me and get it over with, but it was all I could get out.
“Well, yes. He took a beating, though. Looked like he’d spent some time with you. I was beginning to wonder if he was actually going to give in and die. You see, there were plenty of times where I could have just killed you. I’ve had my eye on you for a while, but it just never felt like the right time. When I realized how close you two were, though, I knew just what I needed to do. Because, even as strong as you are Judas, you had one weakness, and I knew if I could get my hands on it, then I could get my hands on you. Seems like it worked.”
“Why didn’t you just take me out earlier when you knew you could?” He had started taking steps forward but was still shrouded in the dark.
He laughed at my question. His laugh sent those same chills across my whole body. “I wanted you to feel like you had an advantage over me. Maybe even like you could win.” He stepped into the light, and I could finally see his face. It was just like I remembered from every single nightmare I’ve ever had, almost down to the last detail. He was wearing a completely black suit. He continued taking steps toward me, and eventually started circling me. He spoke right into my ear, “I wanted you to hurt.”
“You didn’t have to kill him. You could have just killed me. He didn’t need to be part of this.”
“He became part of this the second he signed himself onto your side. You knew something would happen to him, but you craved that feeling of companionship so much that you kept him around. He’s dead because of you, Judas.” He always had a way with words. He takes the truth and gets you to rationalize it in your head to the point that you believe it. A superpower, if you will. I could feel more tears welling up in my eyes but pushed the emotions as far away as possible. “Besides, I wanted to kill him. It was fun. I knew it would hang over your head, and seeing you hurt this way is too good to pass up.”
“Alright,” I turned around to face him, since he had made his way around to my back, “well now you’ve watched me hurt. You can kill me now.”
He reached out and wrapped his hand around my throat. “I suppose I can, can’t I?” He gripped my throat as tight as he could. Instead of trying to pry his hand off my throat, I sent my fist into his chest as hard as I was able in the current position. His grip on my throat lessened, and I was able to get his hand off. My chest shot knocked the air out of him, but it was only a brief reprieve. He quickly rebutted by crouching down and wrapped his arms around my waist. From there, he pushed my body towards the stairs, and ran me into them. The back of my head collided with a step. My vision got blurry for a moment, but I pulled myself out of it. He was still on top of me, though, and I could feel the tight grip his legs had around me. He pulled his hand back, in preparation to send his fist into my face, but I moved my head just as it was about to connect, and his hand cracked into the hard step beneath me. He was shocked for a moment, and I could feel his grip and footing loosen. I propelled myself forward and landed on top of him at the base of the stairs.
Rolling around on the ground was not the best position to be in, so instead of trying to land a few hits while I was on top of him, I jumped up off him and made some distance between us. My gun had slipped off me when he rammed me into the stairs. Fortunately, he was very physical, and didn’t often bring guns to fights. My head was still foggy from the collision with the stairs, but I couldn’t risk letting it take me over.
He quickly stepped up from the ground. When he turned around, he wore a sick smile. “You’ve gotten better, normally we’d already be done.” He jumped at me from where he was, making quick time across the distance, but I landed a solid kick to the side of his head. He fell to the side and dropped to one knee. “Okay, now you’re just getting irritating.”
That was my cue to put more space between the two of us. I ran past him and up the stairs behind us. I could hear him following me. The reality was that there wasn’t a place I could go where he couldn’t find me. This was his facility, after all. I had no idea where I was going, but I didn’t stop moving. He was just behind me the whole time, and I realized it was unlikely that I’d be able to put space between us.
I reached a room with a window. The moon was just outside, and I could see the window’s broken glass scattered across the floor. I paused for a second too long, and he collided with my back. I smacked against the ground face first. It jarred me again, this time taking longer to pull myself back to reality. I managed to roll over, so he was sitting on my stomach. Just as I turned, he took a piece of glass and slit a chunk out of my cheek. It was likely aimed for my throat. I could immediately feel the blood start to ooze from the cut. I reached out and grabbed a piece of glass. It cut into my hand, but I ignored the pain. I plunged it into his thigh. He screamed in pain, and I was able to knock him off of me. I rolled to the side and got to my feet. He was still on his knees when I got to my feet, so I took the opportunity and sent my foot flying into his face. He let out a grunt and hit the ground. Before I could do anything e
lse, though, he jumped to his feet, ready to keep going. Blood was dripping from his nose and mouth, but he didn’t seem to care. I could feel my own blood running down my neck. He sent a fist at my face, but I deflected it with my arm. In deflecting it with my arm, though, I left myself open, and he sent his other fist into my sternum. I could feel the pre-existing injury damage even further. I struggled to catch my breath as I stumbled back from him, which elicited a cruel grin across his face. He took a few steps forward and sent his fist into my face. It was a solid hit, and I could feel the snapping inside my face. My nose immediately started dripping blood. I was dazed, and I couldn’t control my own body. The repeated trauma had sent my brain into overload, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I grabbed the wall to try and steady myself, but the blood oozing from it made it hard to grab hold of anything. The only thing I was completely aware of was that sickening smile he wore across his face, and that it was getting increasingly closer to me. I shook myself awake, but just as I did, I felt a piece of glass stab into my stomach.
I looked down at my stomach, and I saw Abaddon’s hand wrapped around a piece of glass that was protruding from my stomach. While it should have hurt, I couldn’t feel anything. I was aware of the injury, and it felt uncomfortable, but I couldn’t feel the pain. Whether it was adrenaline or something else, I decided not to let it take too much of my attention. I quickly grabbed his hand and pulled it out. I immediately felt the blood start to run out. He looked shocked at my complete ignorance of the wound.