Dark Creations: The Hunted (Part 4) (19 page)

The standard cylinder lock on the door he’d just opened contained within it spring-loaded pins that responded to the unique mold of the key designed for it, thus preventing the lock from being opened without the correct key.  At least that had been its intended function.  His lock pick gun had disabled it in a matter of seconds.  He had simply selected the pick that appeared suitable for the lock design, inserted it into his gun, then inserted the long metal piece into the lock and depressed a button situated where a trigger would be.  Once the button had been pushed, the pick had begun to vibrate.   He had turned the gun as the pick vibrated which, in turn, had pushed the spring-loaded pins up and released the locking mechanism.

With his hand on the doorknob, he turned and glimpsed over his shoulder at Alexandra.  The sun had begun its slow descent and was behind her like a crown of pure radiance.  But she did not need a halo of light. She was a goddess in her own right.  Each time he had looked at her since the day he’d met her, his heart had raced.  The moment before they entered the address they’d undertaken felt no different.  The adrenaline rush he had been experiencing from tracking possible victims of his best friend’s maker, breaking in to a stranger’s house and standing beside Alexandra, had been taxing on his heart as no form of exercise ever could be.  Surprisingly, the most demanding of the three had been his proximity to her.  He was hopelessly in love with her.

The problem with loving Alexandra, however, was that she was out of his league.  He knew he would never be with her the way he wanted to be with her, that his feelings would never be reciprocated.  She was flirtatious and good-natured with him, but he knew that to her, her actions were meaningless.  She was aware of her beauty and its effect on people, but did not abuse the power it wielded.  She was confident, but not the point of conceit.  While he remained sure of his combat capabilities, affairs of the heart remained foreign to him.  He was left to simply dream that she would one day feel for him as he felt for her as he crossed the threshold of a house that did not belong to him.

He loathed putting the girl he loved in danger therefore having her at his side provided him with immense happiness and immeasurable worry at the same time.  But he knew he could not tell her otherwise, no one could.  She never did things she did not want to do, and she did not listen to anyone.  She was headstrong and independent, the two qualities he admired most about her.  He had stayed in America to help Gabriel, the best friend he’d ever had, so that he and Melissa would be safe.  But Alexandra’s unique characteristics bound him and persisted as the reason he would never return to his homeland, unless he knew for sure that no chance whatsoever existed for them as a couple.  Only her outright rejection of him would result in him returning home.  The notion of broaching the topic of his feelings for her filled him with terror and dread.  As much as he longed to hear a declaration of love from her, he remained convinced that his feelings would likely be unrequited.  He feared her rejection more than he feared encountering one of Terzini’s creations beyond the doorway.  He doubted he could handle being emphatically rebuffed by her, so he never dared discuss
his
feelings for her or the possibility of
her
feelings for him.  He would risk his life for his friend, for her, but he could not risk his heart.  He would rather exist in limbo, never knowing what could or could not exist between them rather than offering his heart up for sacrifice.  Fear prevented him.  His fears were distracted by a gentle nudge at his arm by Alexandra.  He nodded to her and they both entered.

Yoshi went first, moving carefully into the foyer and allowing his eyes to sweep the room.  No one appeared to be home.  He froze, and Alexandra followed suit.  With both of them still, he listened intently for the sound of movement.  Except for the hum and whir of electric appliances and the rhythmic ticking of a large grandfather clock in the living room, the house was silent.  He stepped across the tiled foyer as softly as his rubber-soled boots allowed and on to the thick plush carpeting of the living room.  Furniture was neatly arranged against the walls except for a coffee table that sat before the sofa and made traversing the room easy for them.  The dining room was just off the living room and was decorated sparsely as well.  A simple table with four chairs and an empty corner curio cabinet were the only fittings they had to avoid colliding into.  From the dining room, a narrow kitchen could be accessed.  The countertops were bare.  Neither a microwave nor toaster oven sat atop them.  He passed through hurriedly, but noted the austerity of a room that was generally the hub of a household.  On the opposite side of the kitchen, was a hallway.  The floor plan appeared to be circular, that if he were to continue down the hallway, he would eventually end where he began, at the front door. 

As he walked down the hallway, he noticed that each door was closed.  He opened the first and found an empty bathroom with just a toilet, sink and wastebasket.  The next door was a bedroom.  But the bedroom was devoid of furniture.  Blinds covered the windows and the hardwood floors were gleaming as if cleaned and refinished recently.  The closet doors stood open and revealed more empty space.  The bareness of the house gave Yoshi a strange feeling he could not place.  It appeared as though the meager furniture present had been strategically placed to give the illusion of someone living there.  His feeling was reinforced further when they opened the next door and found a twin-sized bed decorated with a standard pillow and green blanket.  There were no night tables, lamps, chests or bureaus, just a bed.  He padded across the room quickly and stopped in front of a closet with sliding doors. 

He looked to Alexandra and raised both eyebrows to gauge her readiness.  When she nodded to affirm her inclination, he slid a door to the side.  He had half expected to see clothes, shoes, boxes,
any
personal effects
that implied inhabitance, but saw another empty area.  Alexandra screwed up her face and as if to ask the question that burned in his mind: What the hell was going on?  They sought the answer from each other wordlessly.  He came up empty and waved her out of the room.  As they approached another room, he noticed that the door did not resemble the others he had opened along the hallway.  The entryway was wider and looked freshly painted.  The white coating was brighter and made the rest of the hallway appear dingy by comparison.  He reached for the knob and found it locked.  None of the others had been locked.  He realized then that the person on the list had a secret beyond the door.  He touched the freshly painted surface.  It felt cool to the touch.  Wood did not feel cool.  It maintained the temperature of the house and possessed a degree of pliability.  The door before him was rigid.  He lightly rapped his knuckles against it and realized the door was not made of any kind of wood he’d ever felt.  In fact, he believed it was made of metal, painted to uphold the uniformity of the others.  He turned his head, leaned forward and pressed his ear against it.  He listened.  Once he was able to tune out the sound of his breathing, he thought he detected the sound of someone crying out.  He called to Alexandra.

“Alex, come and listen to this,” he whispered.  She did not respond so he spun around and saw that she was not behind him as she’d been all along.  “Alex!” he called then backtracked down the hallway, passed the rooms they’d already checked.  He hoped that perhaps something had caught her attention earlier and that she went to investigate it.  But each room was empty.  He began to panic, could hear the blood rushing in his ears as he frantically scanned the kitchen, dining room and living room.  All were empty, with no sign of Alexandra.  He raced to the front door, looked out into the fading daylight from one direction to the next.  He did not see her.  He called to her again, but did not receive a response.  Every cell in his body began to tremble and terror infiltrated his every thought.  A rustling just down the road caught his attention in his peripheral vision.  Limbs of a tree that dangled and draped over its trunk began to stir when no breeze blew.  He took two tentative steps toward it and saw that four legs moved beneath the tree.  Two walked while the other two dragged.  Someone was dragging another person.  In his core, he knew the person being dragged was Alexandra.

He exploded from where he stood, charging at full speed down the sidewalk toward the tree.  The world rushed at him blurred by tears and he saw a swath of raven hair spill beyond the fronds and heard a sound, the sound of a trunk slamming shut.  He pushed his legs to their limit and ran faster, harder.  His boots slapped against the concrete and he arrived at the tree in time to see a tan sedan pull out from beneath it.  He heard himself call out for it to stop, but the car sped away. 

Panic overcame him.  His body began to tremble violently.  He had been charged with protecting Alexandra, a responsibility he’d eagerly accepted.  But he had failed her.  And now he feared he would never see her alive again.

Gabriel hammered his fists against the door before him.  Though he knew his efforts were pointless, he refused to accept imprisonment quietly.  He swung, madly pounding the unnaturally solid surface, until he struggled for breath.  Each gulp of air that he took was fetid, ripe with the stench of decaying flesh. The odor was potent.  He knew that death was close at hand.

“Gabriel, stop!” Melissa cried out.  “There’s no point!” 

He turned to face her and immediately regretted wasting time with the door.  Angry red welts had formed on her arms as well as her cheek.  She clutched her body tightly, hugging her arms around her waist with determination.  But the shudders that racked her body betrayed her, made her grip appear more like an effort to still her body.  She looked as if she’d been beaten, and frightened.

“Melissa! What have they done to you?”

“I smelled this,” she said and spread her arm behind her gesturing to the bottom of the steps.  She trembled violently.

At the bottom of the staircase, he saw three bodies, bloated, bruised and discolored, staring sightlessly into the void.  He wondered how he had missed such a grisly sight when he had been thrust onto the landing.  Three human beings–two female, one male–were dead in the cellar with them.  Their bodies had begun decomposing but still bore the appearance of having been battered.  He wondered whether they had been beaten to death in a moment of violent delight by Jeff and Carol, held first as prisoners only to be slaughtered and left to rot.  Melissa had surely entertained the same worry.  He did not dare share his concerns and he did not speak.  He did not trust that his voice would hold.  A shiver slithered down the length of his spine as he wondered if he were looking at their future, at their fate.  Fear filled him.  He did not want to imagine Melissa among them.  Another tremor passed through him as he allowed his gaze to settle upon the macabre display below.  Only this time, it was one not born of fear, but of rage, pure, unadulterated rage.  His breathing became short and shallow. The sound of her voice returned him to their conversation, and calmed his breathing.

“And I followed the scent,” she continued.  “It got stronger and stronger the closer I got to the end of the hallway, to this door.  I thought it might be an animal or something, you know, maybe a squirrel got trapped in the attic and died, no big deal or anything.  Then Carol was on me.  She had a shovel or something and she hit me with it, hard, and I was falling.”

Melissa’s voice faltered and trailed off.  He felt his heart clench and ache in his chest as emotion she sought to conceal from him overwhelmed her. 

“She hit you with a shovel?” he asked and fought to calm the fury that arose once again.

She nodded and took a moment to clear her throat and steady her voice before she spoke again.  “And I fell down the steps.  I landed next to them,” she said and pointed to the dead bodies and the bottom of the steps.  She did not turn to look at them.  She gestured instead, eyes fixed on him, as if seeing them another time would be more than she could bear.

Standing with her slender arms wrapped around her body, quivering, refusing to look at the horrid scene below, she looked delicate, fragile.  She had been through far too much for her eighteen years.  The strength of her character, coupled with her poise and all that she’d forgiven him for and endured because of him, made him forget, at times, that she was only eighteen.  Yet when he saw her as she was, he was instantly reminded.  He loathed himself for subjecting her to death, to monsters, to him.  His origins were the reason for her suffering.  He and he alone, had brought this all upon her. 

“Melissa, I am
so
sorry,” he started but an apology seemed woefully inadequate given the circumstances. 

“Don’t be.
You
didn’t hit me with a shovel and knock me down the stairs,” she said flatly then attempted a smile.

In that instant she tried to smile in the face of their nightmarish circumstances, her strength was exemplified, her spirit personified.  He did not know from what reserve she drew her strength and spirit, but wished he had access to it as well.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” he winced. “All of this, once again, is my fault.  We are trapped with a bunch of corpses in a sound-proof basement while a couple of creations are upstairs deciding what to do with us.”

“Creations?”

“Yes.  They recognized both of us from the start, played along to keep us here.”

Melissa’s shoulders slumped
noticeably.  She had clearly hoped Jeff and Carol were killers, human killers, without any sort of augmentation.  Her hope had rested in the fact that he would be faster and stronger than the average human, that he would be able to save them.  But they were not human killers.  They were killer creations of Dr. Terzini’s who undoubtedly possessed orders to detain then destroy Gabriel and Melissa.  The realization of what they were up against visibly sapped her of any confidence she may have had in their escape.  He saw the glimmer of hope fade from her.