Dark Creations: The Hunted (Part 4) (23 page)

“You’re insane,” she whispered.

He laughed at her effort.  “Insane?” he asked
dismissively.   “Well, I guess I can understand how your underdeveloped mind
would
think that.  Lesser species such as you do not have the capacity to comprehend what the world will be like after the eradication of humanity has occurred, how glorious it will be, once all of the foulness is gone.”

She did not respond or react to what he had said.  But she did not look away either.  He did not like the way she stared at him.  He felt she was disrespecting him silently.  Unable to endure her glower a moment longer, he seized a handful of her hair again and dragged her into his house.  She did not resist as he towed her across the foyer and down a hallway to a room at the far end of the house, his bedroom.  He threw her down on to his bed and she tried to twist and turn from him as he began handcuffing her wrists to the headboard.  She kicked and thrashed and landed several kicks against his body, but he refused to be baited into further aggression.  She would not have the satisfaction of ruining herself for him and thereby denying him
gratification.  He would detain her, carefully, as peacefully as possible.

“What, what are you doing?” she stammered in panic. 

“Just be still,” he directed.  “If you cooperate, I will not tie your legs as well.”

His threat had served its intended purpose, and she stopped squirming immediately.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, terror lacing her every word.

“Well, you are an attractive girl.  You look as though you could be part of the new race.  And I imagine you might be able to bring me pleasure.  We of the new race are not without needs.”

Pure fear touched her features, softened them.  Her beauty deepened, became vulnerable to his force.  He felt a thrill of delight slink down the length of his body and realized that her fear excited him.

“You’re going to rape me?”

He could not believe what he had heard, that she had assumed he would force himself upon her sexually.  Her accusation was appalling.

“Are you insane?  I’m allowing you the
chance
to be with me.  You should be grateful.  There is no way that offering a human the opportunity to have intercourse with a creature as attractive as me could ever be considered rape.  Charity would be a word more befitting its description.”

“Please don’t do this,” she begged and began to cry.

He could not bear to hear her cry.  Vulnerability was stimulating.  A look of submission, of yielding to his power enlivened him.  But crying had an opposite effect.  Her tear-filled sobs were wretched, a show of weakness.  And weakness revolted him.  He decided he would excuse himself and return when she had regained a modicum of composure. 

“I have to check on a few things before we begin, but don’t worry, I’ll back soon,” he said and slammed the door behind him.

He did, in fact, have a situation that required his attention.  He needed to contact Jeff and Carl Logan and make sure that Gabriel and Melissa were still in their custody.  He would also make a few phone calls to other members in the vicinity of the Jeff and Carol’s house and see whether Gabriel’s Asian friend had caused any disturbances after the disappearance of his statuesque partner.  After he had obtained the necessary information, he would return to the woman in his bedroom and reveal to her just how glorious he truly was.

Melissa’s head still smarted and her body ached all over after being hit with a shovel then tumbling down the stairs of Jeff and Carol’s cellar.  Sitting hunched, and crammed in to the front of Jack’s rusty pickup truck, did little to alleviate her aches and pains.  And with each bump that his without doubt equally rusty shocks did not absorb, her body shook and made her feel as though her bones were rattling against one another.  She guessed that most of her bones were intact and not, in fact, knocking around inside her.  More likely, it was her position sandwiched between Gabriel and Jack that caused such a high level of discomfort.   Every lump and hole in the road shook the cab of the truck violently and sent elbows to and fro.  Though Gabriel tried to keep his arms in front of him, he reflexively released the tension that held them in place in response to dips and rises.  Jack made no such effort.  Rather, he kept his left hand on the steering wheel while the other loosely held the gear shift that jutted out from the steering column.  His elbow rose and fell with the road and simply jiggled in rhythm with the trucks rough idle when they stopped or drove on smoother patches of road.  As a result, his arm was in constant contact with her swollen body, colliding into her shoulder, arm and ribs.

Of course, Jack had no way of knowing of her injuries, of their extent.  He hadn’t asked any questions about her detainment and she hadn’t offered any information about it.  Furthermore, being banged around in a rusted box placed on four tires was the least of her concerns.  She had seen gruesome sights, and been confronted by dangerous beings.  She knew that more horrific situations awaited them, and that there was no way to possibly prepare for what lay ahead.  Their current plan of action was to visit the Santa Ynez Police Department and try to identify the officer who had taken Alexandra.

But before they arrived at the station, one question that continued to burn in her mind and begged to be asked.  Her question had nagged her since their initial run-in with the first set of creations, but seemed silly, or absurd.  But she needed some kind of explanation.  She turned to Gabriel inasmuch as her confined allotment of space allowed.

“Gabriel, why are these creations homicidal maniacs?” she asked and heard how ridiculous her question sounded aloud.  “I mean, Eugene was designed to be a killer, but these other ones, they’re supposed to be normal like everyone else, right?  But they’re not.  They’re killers.”

“I wish I could answer that for you.  I wish I could answer that for everyone, with certainty, but I’m not really sure.  My guess is pretty obvious, that something went wrong, terribly wrong, in their configuration and since Terzini replicated it, it spread.”

She understood what he was saying, sort of, but wanted more.

“I get the general overview of all of this.  Clearly, they are not, I don’t know,
performing
as he expected them to.  I just want to know why.”

“The only thing that comes to my mind is that because one of his creations developed feeling for a human being once before, he attempted to instill some kind of aversion toward humankind in this new group.  And now, it’s backfiring in a major way.”

Melissa did not need further explanation.  She understood what he was getting at.  The others might not have, or perhaps Yoshi did but did not want to let on in front Jack, but she fully grasped what Gabriel had alluded to.  Gabriel experiencing emotion had rendered him a failure over a year ago in his maker’s eyes.  The fact that he’d fallen in love with a human being, with her, had been contemptible to Terzini; contemptible and in need of eradication.  Suddenly, the new creations’ penchant for murder made sense, if such a phenomenon were at all possible.  She sat silently for the rest of the drive.

After driving for less than ten minutes, Jack’s truck rumbled to a stop in front of a squat, stucco-faced building.  Were it not for a market street sign with a changeable magnetic message board erected in front of it, it could have easily been mistaken for a restaurant or inn.  

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jack complained.  “What the hell are we doing here guys, really?  And how exactly do you plan on finding the cop who took your friend?  Do you even know if he is part of this precinct?”

His questions were spot-on.  She had no answer for any of them, but they were good questions nevertheless.  The fact of the matter was that none of them had any answers, yet answers were all they sought; answers and loved ones. 

“It has to be one of the names on the list we found,” Gabriel offered.  “And because everything that has gone down so far has been in Santa Ynez, and police officers took your wife, this police department is as good a place as any to start.”

“Fine.  So what’s your plan?” Jack asked.

“I don’t really have one,” Gabriel began.

“No plan?  That’s great!  Are you kidding me?” Jack fired back.

Melissa’s mind worked as they bickered back and forth.  The last thing they needed to do was turn on one another.  Each of them stood to lose someone they loved.  All of them had a common enemy.  A strategy could not be arrived on while arguing about their lack of planning.

And then it hit her. 

“I’ve got this,” she interrupted their dispute and declared.

“Huh?” Jack said.

“What?” Gabriel asked.

Yoshi did not say a word, but arched an eyebrow at her suspiciously.

“You heard me.  I’ve got this.  I’m going in,” she repeated.

“You’re not going in there alone, Melissa,” Gabriel pleaded.  “I won’t risk losing you again.”

He looked at her.  His eyes were resolute and his jaw was set.  She knew how much she was upsetting him, but saw no other way.  “Please,” he begged.

“It’s a police department.  I’ll be safe,” she said but wasn’t so sure.

He trained his sapphire eyes on her.  “You can’t be serious.”

She half-smiled and raised her brows at him.  “They can’t all be Terzini’s people in there.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Jack chimed in.

“Thanks a lot,” she replied to just him.  Then to everyone she said, “Have any of you come up with anything?  No.  You haven’t.  So I’m going in.  If I’m not out in five minutes, come in and get me.”

Gabriel reached out and placed his hand on her leg carefully.  “Melissa,
please
.  We can come up with something.  Just give us a few more minutes.”

“With every minute that passes, God-only-know-what is happening to Alexandra and Dawn.  I’ll be in and out faster than you can come up with a plan half as good as the one I’ve got.”

She kissed Gabriel quickly on his cheek then turned to Jack and signaled for him to move.  He obeyed her order and climbed out with her behind him. 

“Good luck,” Jack said quietly but sincerely and held her gaze for a fraction of a moment. 

He conveyed more to her with his brief eye contact than he had since they’d met.  In the fleeting seconds that he looked directly into her eyes, he conveyed fear and hope, trust and worry, respect, and admiration.  The unmistakable spark of admiration that had flickered in his eyes had surprised her.  She wondered what on Earth it had been for.  Did he admire her bravery?  She certainly did not feel brave.  She deemed herself completely undeserving of admiration for that.  After all, she was terrified.  So terrified, in fact, that she worried her legs wobbled plainly and so fiercely that they would not carry her down the short walkway that led to a glass door to enter the police station.  No, bravery was not at all what she was feeling and likely not what had touched his features.  She quickly dismissed any further consideration, certain that she’d been mistaken and walked on unsteady legs to the front of the building.  With each step she took, she questioned her plan more and more.  She took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.

Three short buzzes alerted a woman seated behind a tall counter of her arrival.   From her vantage point, all she could see of the woman was that she had frosted blonde hair that looked overly yellow under unforgiving fluorescent light fixtures.  Nevertheless, if the woman raised her head from her computer monitor and presented with startlingly good looks, Melissa had promised herself she would bolt out of the same door she’d entered without hesitation.  

She waited, barely breathing, and watched as the woman slowly finished up whatever project she was enthralled by on her computer.  She looked up from her workstation and Melissa felt a sudden jolt pass through her.  She startled briefly, and watched as two bright blue eyes scrutinized her presence.  Copious amounts of equally bright-blue eye shadow and mascara adorned her lids and she looked over leopard print eyeglass rims while inspecting Melissa.  Her glasses were perched on a bulbous nose between two plump cheeks with a generous amount of orange blush applied to each.  Her look was topped off with bright pink lipstick that had been smeared haphazardly across her lips.  The color had escaped the natural outlining of her lips and had bled into the creases around her mouth.  She felt certain that facial creases, along with the woman’s overall appearance, would be considered imperfect by Terzini and therefore
not
his handiwork.  A wave of relief washed over Melissa and she knew that fleeing would not be necessary, yet.  She smiled and waved innocently and the woman behind the counter stood and began waddling toward her.  Dressed in a stiff, crisp, uniform she noticed how the officer’s body strained against the fabric of her navy-blue attire, how the buttons of her top struggled to hold both sides of material together to cover her enormous bosom.  Her upper arms wiggled as she lumbered forward.

“Can I help you with something Miss?” she asked slightly out of breath from taking roughly a dozen steps.

Melissa, confident that she was no creation of Tezini’s answered, “Hi there.  So sorry to bother you, but I have a question.  Gosh, I hope you don’t think I’m crazy,” she stalled and tried to appear flustered.

“Go on,  I haven’t got all day,” the portly police officer replied impatiently and rolled her hand forward in a circular motion that signaled for Melissa to get on with her story.

“Well, you see, I was pulled over the other day and the police officer was so nice.  Gosh, he didn’t even give me a ticket for my broken taillight,” she rambled.  “Anyway, I promised I would get it fixed right away and wanted to know if it was possible for me to speak with him.”

The woman raised both eyebrows at her in exasperation.  “Okay, do you have his name?  That would help.”

“Well, actually, I don’t remember his name.  I mean, I’m sure he mentioned it, but I was so nervous, you know?’

“Look Miss, there are a number of officers who work on the Santa Ynez Police Force.  Without a name, there’s not much I can do for you.”

“What about a description, would that help?” Melissa asked and remembered Yoshi’s sketchy recollection of the officer who had taken Alexandra.

“You can try,” the woman said not trying to mask her annoyance.

“Okay, he was tall with dark hair,
very
fit,” Melissa blushed and was thankful for the involuntary reaction.  It gave her story credibility, gave the impression that she was little more than a love-struck teenager.

The woman instantly realized who she was describing and what she thought was going on.  Her demeanor softened and she smiled.  Melissa could not help but think that the woman’s appearance more closely resembled a clown than a police officer.  Her smile revealed that a smattering of lipstick had touched her two front teeth and Melissa felt the color on her cheeks deepen and burn, guilt the unquestionable culprit for the clown analogy her mind had formed.

“Ah yes, Officer Richards,” the woman said ruefully. “You must be looking for Officer Jarrod Richards.”

“Yes!  Richards!  That was his name!  Of course!  I was so nervous.  I remembered hearing it, but, you know how it is,” Melissa fumbled.

“Oh but I do,” the woman replied.  “I get nervous every shift I work with him,” she said conspiratorially and winked an azure bedecked eye at her.  “Sorry though.  He’s off for the day and evening.  He won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon.  But you can leave your information and I’ll tell him you came by and got your taillight fixed.”

Melissa flashed a shy, embarrassed smile and lowered her eyes as if she were monumentally disappointed.  “No.  That won’t be necessary.  But thank you.”

The woman looked at her.  Sadness and sympathy tinged her otherwise colorful face.  Melissa lowered her eyes then scurried out self-consciously.  She moved quickly down the walkway to Jack’s truck.  Jack jumped out of the driver’s side immediately and she slid in beside Gabriel.  Everyone paused for a moment, waiting for her to speak.

“I have a name,” she said.

Sighs of relief erupted from the cab. 

“If you had been gone a second longer,” Gabriel began.

“Yeah,” Yoshi finally spoke.  “We were ready to storm the place.  We don’t want to lose someone else.”

“Let me see the list,” she said.

Gabriel produced it for her and she scanned it quickly.  As she did so, Jarrod Richards’s name did not appear right away.  It wasn’t until she’d reached the end of the list that she happened upon it.  Separated from the rest of the names and with a notation beside it, Richards’s name appeared to carry significance.  The symbol next to his name looked like a capital letter H with two lines connecting thick parallel pillars.  The image was silver and looked like it had reflective properties, though it was hard to say for sure.  Melissa had never seen such a mark. 

“What do you suppose that means?” she asked everyone and passed the page. 

Before anyone offered and answer, recognition registered on Jack’s face, recognition and resentment.

“What is it Jack?” Melissa asked.

“I know this symbol,” he said through his teeth.  “It’s an emblem for a lieutenant, a
military
emblem.”

“So he’s in charge?” she whispered.

“Judging from that notation, yes, this Jarrod Richards guy holds some kind of rank over the others.  They most likely answer to him.”

As they spoke, Gabriel began entering Richards’s address in to the navigations system.  According to the estimated arrival time displayed on the screen, they would be at his home in approximately fifteen minutes.  Jack muttered an explicative and stomped down on the gas pedal.  The engine of the pickup truck grumbled and protested, making plain its objections with a series of sputters and near-stalls, before it reluctantly complied with Jack’s demand for speed and lurched forward.  They were jerked and jarred as it sprung to life with the vigor of an arthritic-jointed elephant attempting its very first sprint.

Melissa looked across Gabriel, who clutched her hand between his, to Yoshi.  Everything about his posture announced his misery.  Aware of her looking at him, he turned to face her. 

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

“No,” he replied without hesitation or embarrassment.  “This,
all
of this, is my fault.  I should have protected her, prevented this from happening.  And now she is gone.”

“This is
not
your fault Yoshi,” she attempted.  “None of it.”

“I can’t live if anything has happened,” he stopped speaking.  Emotion cracked his voice then silenced him.  After several seconds, he had composed himself and said, “I love her.”

“I know,” Melissa replied.  Perhaps he had thought his feeling for Alexandra had been concealed from the rest of the world, but they had been obvious from the start.  “And you’re going to tell her that yourself when you see her, okay.”

“All I care about is getting her back.  Everything else can wait.  I just need her to be all right, to be safe.”

“She will be,” she promised.  “She has to be.  She’s our Alex.”

Gabriel squeezed her hand several times.  She returned the squeeze and looked at him.  He nodded to Jack and she glanced at him.  His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that all of his knuckles were white.  Although his action was not particularly surprising to her, something else startled her, made her breath catch in her chest.  As she allowed her eyes to travel from his whitened knuckles up his arms and shoulders to his face, the single tear that streaked his dirtied cheek served as a painful reminder that he had a wife and unborn son at stake.  He did not lament about it or verbalize his worries, but they were there.  She wanted to reach out to him, place an understanding hand on his shoulder, but doubted it would do any good.  He, like Yoshi, needed to find the woman he loved, safe and unharmed.

Jarrod had to refrain from crushing his cellular phone in his hand.  Jeff and Carol were not answering either telephone number listed in their contact information.  Ignoring his call would be a direct violation of protocol.  He did not believe Jeff and Carol would do so.   He did not believe they were ignoring him voluntarily.  The code of behavior imposed upon every member was a result of inexorable conditioned fear response techniques and an ingrained facet of their development.  The process had been grueling and remained fresh in his memory, a cautionary beacon against ever daring to defy his maker.  Like him, all members had been trained immediately following release from their development tanks in a series of intensive, highly punitive sessions designed to instill of fear Terzini first and foremost.  But unlike him, they had endured additional steps in their process to fear not only Terzini, but Jarrod by proxy.  If Jeff and Carol were freely rebuffing him, they were not doing so without consequence.  Willingly disobeying procedure would first begin with a reaction similar to an anxiety attack–shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness and a rapid pulse rate–and progress quickly into symptoms that mimicked a heart attack.  From there, a member’s condition would deteriorate, and pain would be perceived by every nerve ending in their body.  Few had attempted small acts of disobedience and never made it past the initial waves of panic.  If terror precipitated by the symptoms did not act as sufficient deterrents to disobedience, extreme pain would.   Disregarding Jarrod’s instructions or calls would be the same as disregarding their maker. And such actions were a physical impossibility.  Something far worse was responsible for their unresponsiveness.  Something had happened.  And he needed to find out what it was.

He placed his cell phone back in to his front pants pocket and paced for several seconds.  Annoyance bristled within him.  He’d had plans for the evening, plans that included a raven-haired goddess handcuffed to his bed, not hunting down fellow members.  He had only been as thrilled as he was to share his bed with a human on one other occasion.  Of course, that scenario had ended badly for him.  He had not been pleasured as he’d hoped during his previous experience.  The woman he’d selected had tricked him, concealed her horribly flawed body from him in an effort to spend a single, magical night with him.  Her ruse had been revealed, however, and just in time.  She had paid a stiff penalty for attempting to deceive him.  He was confident the woman shackled to his bed attempted no such ruse.  In fact, she had not taken any artificial beautification measures whatsoever.  She did not wear makeup as far as he could tell.  Neither her sweat nor her tears had produced the unsightly rivulets of black and brown he had seen on other women.  And she did not appear to wear corrective undergarments either.  As he handcuffed her to his bed, he was sure to brush the back of his hand along her silhouette and check for shape wear of any kind.  None had been detected and he felt certain that she was not advertising her body falsely as most other human women did.  Now, though, he would be denied an opportunity to enjoy her.  And he couldn’t simply leave her in his house.  If Gabriel had somehow managed to escape and evade his death sentence, and managed to figure out who he was and where he lived, he would come for her.  He would come to Jarrod’s house.