Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (15 page)

Suddenly Jonathan’s mind was white with pain. It felt as though both of his eardrums had ripped in half. He couldn’t focus, he felt his grip on consciousness slipping, and he had trouble discerning what was up or down.

Not weak
,
said the intrusive voice in his head. He hardly registered the creature’s repulsive growling that accompanied the mental invasion.
You embarrass your kind. No fight in you, No Fight.

He couldn’t argue with the words intruding into his mind. He couldn’t ignore them either as they seemed the only tangible thing. The rest of his senses floated about in a manner that left them useless. He fought to regain his wits, but panic was setting in with the realization that he was defenseless.

One of the beast’s knuckles came to rest lightly between Jonathan’s eyes. The pressure was frightening at first, as though it forecasted another barrage of blows that he’d never recover from. Instead the pressure remained light but steady, and seemed to help his eyes orient. His vision stopped spinning so drastically. The white eyes of the monster waited for Jonathan’s to meet them.

Sickens the Fever waits for you to see death, No Fight
, said the beast.

Whatever the hell that means,
Jonathan thought. His eyes finally let him look back into the monster’s patient stare, but he couldn’t hold the gaze of those white slits. Staring it down was terrifying.

The beast pulled his knuckle away and shook him.

No Fight, degrades Sickens the Fever with his cowardice.

Jonathan hoped that his mind would clear enough for him to defend himself. If the creature was talking, maybe he could buy the precious seconds he needed.

“I’ve, I haven’t, I’ve never fought, I don’t know, don’t know how,” he said.

The creature’s face started to shift into better focus. It looked confused. He thought it was confusion at least, as he couldn’t read its facial expressions despite being able to understand its guttural growls. Perhaps what the beast understood of Jonathan’s speech was just as poorly translated. It seemed to be hesitant, like what Jonathan said was unexpected.

No Fight, not fragile?
It asked.
Must
b
ring combat to Sickens the Fever.

The way the beast was talking, it seemed to refer to itself as Sickens the Fever and identified Jonathan as No Fight. As Jonathan grasped this he felt a small hope. His mind must be clearing. Every second counted, he just needed to keep it from attacking a bit longer.

“Sorry, Sickens the Fever,” Jonathan said. “No Fight doesn’t have what it takes.”

The creature grew furious. It roared into his face as it held him pinned to the pillar wall. The heat of its breath blew past him, the lingering smell of blood on its breath, humid and sickening against his face. The sight of those metallic teeth brought images of flesh being torn from his body. Sickens the Fever’s eyes ran down Jonathan’s neck, stopping at his chest. The zipper of his jacket had come loose at the top, and the orange glow was exposed. At the sight of that light, its anger changed, and it seemed pleased. Whatever it had realized Jonathan couldn’t fathom, but it placed its free hand onto his throat.

His head finally cleared enough that he could struggle. As his senses became reliable he saw that the creature’s neck was swelling, like all the muscles holding up its head were flexing. It craned its head around as the process occurred, like a man trying to pop the vertebrae of his neck.

Jonathan felt its grip start to tighten. He brought his hands up to try and pry the creature’s fingers from him. He could feel the claws against his neck. They hadn’t yet broken through his skin, but it was slowly increasing the pressure.

Why? Why is it drawing this out?

The monster’s neck started to change colors, the black and red skin becoming darker. The darkness grew in pulses, as though some organ inside the creature was pumping a tar like fluid into its neck, like a heart pumped blood through a man. Once the color filled the contours of its neck, it refocused its gaze on him. The white orbs had changed. The veins throughout the eyes stood out, webbed, black, and fierce.

His gaze locked with those eyes, and the blackness filled them, replacing the monster’s once white gaze with a shiny black. He might not have been able to read its facial tics, but in that moment those eyes hid nothing from Jonathan, and he knew what it meant.

It moved quickly. Jonathan released his grip on the creature’s hands and brought his hands up to protect himself from its jaws. He was a second faster than it, having realized what was coming before it sprang its teeth on him. It wanted his throat. His left hand caught the creature’s lower jaw, the right landed over the creature’s right eye. Its head struggled against him, moving in for the kill. It was stronger. He was losing the struggle an inch at a time, powerless to do more than watch as its jaw slowly pushed toward his neck. Its hands were tightening so much that he was losing the ability to breathe. His mind flashed back to the hallway with the blond stranger, the horror of the syringe moving towards him, the lights going out. Not knowing if he would wake again.

“No.” Jonathan strained the word out, his own voice sounding so desperate, half grunting half wheezing.

He couldn’t stand dying like this. Struggling with all his might and yet still losing to an enemy’s indomitable strength. The hand over the creature’s eye was losing its precarious grip. He felt it slipping, if he lost hold this would be over before he even realized he’d let go.

Where there is a will, there is not necessarily a way, not when deadlines are involved,
he thought.

It was something his grandfather had said on his death bed. He hadn’t thought of it in years, he’d been so young when he’d heard him say it. Perhaps Jonathan should just give up now. After all, only seconds remained, and he had shown up unprepared. It was clear now that he wasn’t catching any breaks.

His thoughts, reduced to desperation and panic, seemed to clear. He felt the thing rising up inside of him again, that fury that had crashed into the monster in the first place. It seemed all for not, he couldn’t change this, no matter how much rage he found inside. He felt himself submitting, but the anger inside refused, only growing stronger at Jonathan’s acceptance of his fate.

There isn’t a way,
Jonathan thought, closing his eyes as his hand slipped.

The creature’s face lurched forward a few inches then stopped abruptly, like a dog that had reached the end of its leash. Jonathan, sensing the change, opened his eyes and met its glare. In the quiet of his focused rage, he realized it looked alarmed, in pain even.

Why?

Jonathan looked away from the creature’s stare and understood. His hand had slipped off the creature eye, thus surrendering those costly inches, but was now holding tight to the thing’s right ear. The beast’s grip started to tighten quickly now. He could feel its claw breaking his skin. It was panicking. Jonathan returned to the monster’s gaze and locked in its eyes once again.

Can you read my mind, Sickens the Fever?

With the strength he had left, he pulled to the right. The creature wavered, its forward thrust lost out to the agony, moving its head away to reduce the pressure Jonathan was putting on the fragile appendage. As it snarled out in frustrated pain, Jonathan felt the skin stretching, the leathery tissue of the ear separating from the monster’s skull. With a final violent jerk, he ripped the flesh from its head.

He fell to the pavement as the monster released him. It reeled back, reaching to cover the hole where its ear had been severed. Jonathan inhaled deeply, finally getting a full breath of air without having to fight for it. He coughed and gasped, trying to recover. The beast stumbled back. It thundered into an uncontrolled rage, one hand holding the right side of its skull, the other beating its fist into the pavement in the throes of a pain-induced tantrum.

Jonathan looked at the leathery flap in his right hand covered with the tar like blood now pouring out of the creature’s body. The black fluid was flung about as the monster lost control of itself. He tossed the severed skin away in disgust, bringing his attention to the monster.

Keep bleeding,
he thought.

His rage erupted in its success, growing eager to capitalize on the moment, to inflict more pain. Rolling to where he had held the steel bar he quickly got the weapon back in hand and charged the beast. Swinging like a baseball bat he caught the monster viciously in the blackened skin of its throat and sent it rolling between two pillars of the freeway underpass.

He could see immediately the blow had staggered it. It was in immense pain, spitting up the black fluid that now poured out of its severed ear canal. Jonathan rushed in wildly.

Desperate to recover, but seeing the danger coming, the creature’s wits surfaced. It ignored its agony and swung out with the free hand. Jonathan’s unskilled attack was deflected and before he knew it the creature had its hands around the front of his coat again. It pulled him off his feet and roared into his face, the black blood splattering against his skin unnervingly. Wavering from the pain Jonathan had managed to inflict, it spun quickly, throwing him as hard as it could to the west of them before falling back to its knees.

Jonathan was helpless in his flight out from underneath the freeway. Dizzyingly, he spun through the air, not knowing where he would land. He finally hit the pavement at an angle that kept him from belly flopping onto the street. Instead, there was a hard thud followed by an agonizing journey across the asphalt. Like a stone skipping across water, he absorbed painful blows every time he connected with the ground, powerless to stop his momentum.

Finally, a stack of wooden shipping pallets stored near the dock blocked his path. When he hit, the wood imploded around him. He was covered in the collapsing rubble.

He didn’t move for a moment; he wasn’t sure how long. Everything hurt. He felt old, tired. Nothing was broken from what he could tell, but his bones and joints begged him to stop moving. He didn’t know where the part of him with the strength to stand had gone. Death had come so close tonight.

“Just get your feet on the floor,” he said.

Painfully, he got to his hands and knees, slowly pushing out of the pallets. He was still dizzy from the tumble. He stood, then leaned against a crate for support. For a moment he didn’t realize where he was, he was just breathing and becoming aware of new pains he’d never before conceived of.

This whole month has just been shit,
he thought, almost wanting to smile at his flippancy.

The night almost seemed pleasant here. It was quiet, calm even. Everything was far away; no monster, no gunfire. All he heard was the distant sound of the helicopter, the waves lapping against the seawall feet from where he stood. He looked down at his right hand and realized the glove was still covered in the beast’s black blood. He took it off, throwing it to the ground in disgust much like he had the ear. The stuff smelled terrible, toxic.

Just for a moment, he closed his eyes.

Alarm kicked in as he felt Sickens the Fever move in his mind. It was a subtle change in location, but it reminded him immediately there wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, rest yet. He didn’t have long before it would come for him. It had thrown him away to buy itself this time. He sensed it was about 300 feet from him, a small distance to cover for the beast.

He realized then that he was exactly where he’d been trying to lure the beast all night, and he pushed himself off the crates.