Dark Creations: The Hunted (Part 4) (18 page)

Standing in a similarly designed room with spatters of blood against white tiled walls and floors, the air thick with the coppery scent of blood, he was transported back to Fallujah.  He legs, leaden with angst, moved unwillingly as he forced them to take several steps, deeper into the dreadful den.  With each step, the scenery became more and more sickening.  When he reached the rear of the room, his feet refused to comply and take another step, carnage halted his progress.  He froze before garnet pools that had been smeared and left long crimson trails in their wake.  He felt certain the bloodied trails that led in single direction would lead him to someone with information.  He could hear his own blood roaring in his ears, pounding in his temples as he fleetingly entertained the frightening possibility that his wife and unborn child had been responsible for any one of the marks.  This possibility shook him from his anxiety-induced inertia.  Abruptly, the room stopped spinning.  His thought became focused.  He quickly forced the terrifying thought from his mind, determined to extract information from whoever was responsible for the carnage before him by whatever means he deemed fitting at that moment.  He followed the trail.

The bloody trajectory led to what appeared to be a closet in the windowless killing room.  He reached for the handle and took a deep breath, bracing for what lay beyond, and turned it.  Instead of a closet filled with corpses, however, he was met with a glass storm door, and beyond it, daylight.  Bright and brilliant, the sunlight was blinding initially.  He squinted and his eyes watered as they adjusted from darkness to light.  As they did, he noticed an older-model Chevy Suburban idling in a car port.  He had neither seen nor heard the vehicle when he had streaked across the lawn earlier.  Now however, it appeared, like an ancient chariot of a phantom undertaker, seemingly from thin air and devoid of a driver.  He took a step toward the glass door, was about to open it, when a flash in his reflection demanded his attention.  The blade held the light briefly, mirrored it as a burst of light just long enough for Jack to recognize what it was.  He immediately dropped his gun and spun, catching the knife-wielding man’s wrist before the blade was plunged into his neck.  Jack had several inches on the man and at least fifty pounds of muscle, yet as hard as he fought the knife back, the closer it drew.  He had not been overpowered in hand to hand combat in as long as his memory could search.  Now though, he found himself in such an unfamiliar predicament.  He pressed back with every ounce of his strength.  His thick, ropey muscles bulged and tensed.  All the while, his eyes remained fixed on the man intent upon thrusting the blade into his throat.  The man’s eyes were wild with rage.  He saw the eyes of a madman, saw the wrath within them.  He was not intimidated psychologically.  He was fighting for his life, for Dawn’s life.  His arms began to tremble from strain, threatened to buckle.  He simply could not hold the man any longer.  Though the man looked average except for his crazed expression, he possessed abnormal strength.  Jack felt the tip of the blade begin to push against the front of his throat, felt the sting of flesh being pierced.  He knew the knife would be buried to its hilt in seconds and needed to act immediately if he were ever to survive, and save his pregnant wife.  In a final effort Jack refocused his strength from his arms to his leg and drove his knee into the man’s groin.  The man cried out and relaxed the pressure in his arms long enough for Jack to gain control of the blades position.  He flipped it, turning the direction of its tip toward the man rather than away from him and drove it into the man’s chest.  With the knife buried deep in his chest, the man was stunned.  Jack turned the blade to insure death and the man collapsed to the floor.  As the man lay dying, Jack pulled his cell phone from his pocket with trembling hands.  He needed to warn Gabriel that they were all in danger.  When Gabriel did not answer, he swore and raced out the door across the lawn and into the woods.  He needed to get to his car.  He needed to find Gabriel and the others.

Jarrod Richards stood and stared down at a bloody scene.  Two fellow members, both police officers, had been killed; one had a massive hole blasted in his chest and the other had had his head veritably blown off of his body.  He had no idea why the two men were together.  Meetings were rare, and social interaction was forbidden altogether for members.  Their secret rendezvous was puzzling, why and how they had broken protocol, inexplicable.  Nevertheless, the image before him was gruesome, appalling, yet he could not look away.  He remained, transfixed by the atrocious sight, with his brow furrowed and lips pursed in consternation.  His upset and confusion was not caused by a loss of life, though he had worked alongside both men on a daily basis.  Their deaths were meaningless to him.  But they did complicate matters.   And they implicated him. 

Both men had been murdered.  The strong possibility existed that the officers had been selected because they were creations of Terzini’s.  They may have been hunted.  His first impulse had been to contact his maker, Dr. Terzini, and alert him to what had happened.  In fact, protocol dictated that he communicate with Terzini
immediately
in such circumstances.  But he found himself resisting his fundamental need to follow protocol.  Calling his maker and informing him of the death of fellow members implied that he was not performing his job properly, that he had lost control, or worse, had failed.  And failure was not tolerated among members.  Those who failed were destroyed.  He had assisted his maker in corralling members who had been deemed as flawed.  He did want to suffer the same fate as them.  He would delay calling Terzini until the situation had been handled, when he had the person or persons responsible in his custody.   Confident that his newly formulated plan was the right course of action, he realized he’d been creasing his brow for far too long, that he’d be risking wrinkling prematurely by doing so.  He relaxed his features immediately and remembered the laptop computer that both officers had in their possession.   Each member had been issued a notebook computer upon completion of their educational downloads and training sessions.  Prior to their release into society, they were given it.  Within its numerous files was one of particular importance, a file with a roster of the entire membership. 

The list, which included names and addresses, would continually evolve as new members joined the public and assumed their ranks.  Though he doubted the list would hold any meaning to the average human, he still did not want it circulating among the general populace.  The average human, if he were even intelligent enough to locate the file, would assume it was some type of directory, an online address book of sorts.  A smarter human, despite seeming a contradictory term, might investigate further.  Either way, searches would prove futile.  Each member was assimilated into society seamlessly.  But he did not want an unnecessary risk to threaten his maker’s momentous endeavor.  With that in mind, his eyes scanned the room, searching for the computer.   He did not see it, but saw a black cord plugged into the wall.  A laptop computer charger cord taunted him from the top of the desk, its adapter rested, unattached to its outlet, on the smooth, wooden surface.  Jarrod felt his pulse quicken, unease getting the best of him.  He began rummaging through desks and drawers.  With each location that proved fruitless, he grew more and more alarmed.  Whoever was responsible for the murders had evidently stolen the laptop as well, and would have in his possession a complete catalogue of every name and address in the membership.  He began to silently chastise himself for having lists uploaded on to computers as opposed to isolating each member and having them commit the list to memory.  By insisting they memorize the information, he would never have had to search for a missing laptop.  In searching for the missing list, Jarrod realized he had made a mistake, his first mistake, an occurrence he never dreamed possible.  He stopped moving briefly, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone.  He called the next name on the list, a man named Colin Jervis who lived alone about fifteen minutes away.   He waited patiently as the phone rang over a dozen times.  He became increasingly troubled by the fact that Colin was not answering.  No matter what Colin was doing, he was to answer his cellphone when Jarrod’s name or phone number appeared.  Conditioned response techniques had been employed to ensure prompt responses on the part of all members to Jarrod’s call.  But Colin did not answer.  He could only gather that an unanticipated event was underway, a dreadful, unanticipated event.   He returned his phone to his front pocket and turned from the bedroom bureau drawer he had rifled through and began walking toward the front door until a ringing from his pocket halted him.  He quickly reached for his phone and saw that it was Carol and Jeff Logan, the only two members among them who had been coupled before release.  They lived together just a few blocks from where he was.

“Hello, Richards here,” he answered.

“Sir, this is Jeff Logan.  We have caught Gabriel James and Melissa Martin.  They’re locked in our cellar.”

“I’ll be right over,” Jarrod replied.

“That would be wise,” Jeff said then faltered.  “There is only one problem.  They did not arrive in a car.  They were dropped here by someone else.  They are not alone.”

Jarrod considered Jeff’s statement for several seconds before he responded, “Just leave them where they are until I look into who their accomplices are first, okay?”

“Gladly sir.  We’ll keep them locked up,” Jeff declared proudly.

Jarrod raced to his car and took off toward the next address.  Colin’s house was several miles farther than the address listed after him.  He suspected that whoever was working with Gabriel and Melissa would likely turn up at the closer location.  He would wait for their arrival, if they weren’t there already.  With all of the culprits assembled, he would feel confident about calling Terzini, and avoiding destruction.  He turned on to Fulton Street and noticed an unfamiliar car parked at the curb.  The member at the closer address, Karl, like all others, did not have any unauthorized visitors, to do so would have been forbidden and would demand immediate attention.  Suspicion arose within him.  He looped around the block and parked several houses away, under the concealment of a large willow tree.  His tan sedan was absorbed by long, slender limbs and tendrils teeming with leaves that camouflaged his car completely.  He climbed out cautiously, careful to not disrupt the blanket of branches, and watchful of passersby.  Little traffic passed on the residential road in the quiet suburban neighborhood.  He did not worry that he’d be seen.  And if he were, he doubted anyone would question a well-known and respected member of the police department. 

As he began walking toward the house, movement around the unfamiliar car startled him.  He froze momentarily as two people moved, stealthily, to the front door of Karl’s house.  Neither noticed him or looked his way, though they did glance in all directions before stealing up the walkway.  They knocked, nervously glimpsing all around, waiting for an answer.  When no one did, they acted in a manner that surprised him.  Jarrod watched as they boldly utilized a small instrument to tamper with the locking mechanism on the main entrance and let themselves in.  He was shocked by their audacity, that lowly humans like them had had the effrontery to corrupt the security apparatus of a member’s residence and simply walk in uninvited.  They were not new members.  One was a diminutive male of Asian dissent, a pathetic height-deprived waste of flesh undeserving of sharing the same air he and Terzini’s other handiwork’s breathed.  The other, a female, was a far more formidable specimen. Tall and statuesque with glossy black hair that fell like liquid onyx around her shoulders and luminous skin the color of a caramel candy, the girl made his breath catch in his chest.  She was a magnificent looking human, lovely even, and much more beautiful than the lunch cart girl with the lopsided breasts.  Of course, he had no way of knowing for sure that her beauty merited his company.  But each of her features visible from his vantage point suggested he inspect her further.  Her assets did not droop or sag, rather, they appeared firm and supple, proportionate and facing the direction they ought to face.  Her body implied youth courtesy of skin-tight clothing, and all but guaranteed flawless physical construct.  But he had been duped before.  The lunch cart girl had deceived him with undergarments that shaped and slimmed her otherwise sloppy figure.   He wanted this new girl, the one brazen enough to barge into Karl’s house.  Before he bothered getting to know her however, he would strip her of her clothes and inspect her body for deformities.  He did not want to be tricked again.  He deserved better than trickery.  He deserved the best physical specimen available.  He deserved someone as attractive as him. But before he conducted preliminary inspections, he needed to capture her.  He waited and watched as both she and the grotesque little man went inside before he followed.  Quickly and quietly, he slithered in with reptilian slyness and stalked them.  He waited and watched patiently for the precise moment to strike.  He thought about shooting the man, but if they were armed, she might be killed before he had the chance to enjoy her
and
obtain information.  Killing him was not an option.  Instead, he spied, poised, until the Asian man rounded a corner that led to a hallway then struck.  He slid up behind her and coiled his arms around her, one hand placed firmly over her mouth, and slipped out with her unseen. 

***

Yoshi took a deep breath before he opened the door to the house he was to inspect.  He had used his recently purchased electric lock pick gun to unlock it.  For fifty-five dollars, he was able to purchase the device on the Internet.  The gun, which came with several pick-shaped pieces of metal and a tension wrench, resembled a bulbous, plastic water gun, was light, and fit comfortably in his hand.  From its muzzle, any of a variety two-pronged picks could be affixed.  The difference in each pick was the shape of its head.  The use for each head was contingent on the lock.  The picks were designed to fit easily in most, if not all, pin tumbler locks, the most popular type of lock produced by manufacturers for home security.  He had been skeptical when the tool had first arrived.  Its overall presentation had felt flimsy at best.  When he had used it and had experimented on Alexandra and Melissa’s front doors, however, he had been impressed.  The gun proved no less impressive seconds earlier than it had months ago.