Authors: Lucas T. Harmond
An ultimate calm washed over him. He let go of everything.
“Next left,” he said matter-of-factly.
“
What
???” screamed Rufus, over top of the music that was still playing.
Just as calmly as before the words left Josh’s mind without conscious recognition. “Turn left at the next junction.”
Rufus made a wild turn and was still pulling to the left as Carthy seized the steering wheel and forced the speeding vehicle to straighten out.
“What’s happening to me? I feel sick!” Rufus bleated as Carthy returned control to him.
“They’re attacking your mind. Just keep driving. Josh?”
“Slow down.”
As the speed needle rapidly fell away Josh took in their surroundings. There was the tall spiked fence of a school on one side and a row of terrace houses on the other. Up ahead he could see some kind of factory complex. This, he knew, was where they were heading.
“Pull over here.”
The car rolled to a halt at the entrance of a long brick alley. All three of them stared suspiciously into the dark.
“What is this place?” asked Rufus.
“Does it matter?” replied Carthy, before continuing with, “Okay, you two head down this way, I’m going to drive round the back.”
“What?”
“Exactly what I said.”
Rufus and Josh looked at each other uncertainly. Both knew Carthy wasn’t making a suggestion.
Despite his own will, Josh opened his door and stepped out into the night. There was a click as Rufus opened his door and began to follow.
“Here.”
Rufus paused and looked back over his shoulder at Carthy. The small black revolver was being held out to him handle first. He looked at the weapon and then at Carthy silently questioning.
Carthy shook the pistol. “Take it!”
Josh watched his friend take the gun and then he joined him outside of the car. Carthy slipped across into the driver’s seat, gave them a nod and then sent the car screaming backward.
Josh and Rufus stood staring at each other in silence with just the echo of Carthy’s will hanging in the air. Slowly they both looked into the mouth of the alley and then again at each other.
“What the fuck does he expect us to do?”
Josh shrugged with a lot more casualness than he actually felt. “Go down there, I guess.”
Rufus looked down at the gun he held in his hand and got a feel for its weight. He struggled with a mechanism for a few seconds then span out the cylinder and checked it was loaded. Josh listened to the cold ratchet turn as Rufus rolled his hand over the metal and then snapped the cylinder back in place.
Josh nodded at the gun. “You know what you’re doing?”
Rufus managed a slight smile. “Hey, I’ve seen Death Wish.”
Josh nodded again. “Well then Bronson, you best lead the way.”
“Yeah great,” Rufus mumbled and started his reluctant trudge into the gloom.
He looked back at his friend. “Man, could you tell me why we’re even here? I mean what the fuck does any of this shit really have to do with us?”
Josh wished he could answer him but in truth his own doubts were fast multiplying. “I think we should maybe keep our voices down,” he said instead.
Rufus was frowning as he turned back and raised the pistol in front of him like a shield. When he next spoke it was in a whisper. “i can’t see a fucking thing.”
“We’re being watched,” Josh replied in hushed tone.
“What!?” Rufus snapped round.
“Just keep moving man.”
There was a deep sense of dread creeping through out of Josh. It grew with each step. Something was waiting, waiting unseen in the dark.
As Rufus reached the end of the alley, he slowed, pressed himself against the bricks and cautiously peered around the edge. Above them there was the blinding glare of a lit up security light, rusted fire escapes and brick smashed windows. There was a concrete ramp sloping up towards a large steel shutter door.
The route continued at a 90 degree turn to the left and there parked with its lights still lit was the van they had followed.
“Oh shit!” Rufus said. He looked back at Josh. “Well what now?” he whispered.
Again Josh just shrugged.
God he wished he knew
.
Josh looked at the van and shivered internally. Tall buildings rose on either side and there was very little room between it and the walls. Both doors were open and pressed up against the sides of the alley.
Josh quickly looked around, expecting to see some figure lunging out of the gloom. He again checked the small area for any kind of hiding place. There were only bare walls and the closed shutter. From the way the doors were open it seemed reasonable to assume that whoever was driving the van was either still inside or had doubled back on themselves,
but then
...
Rufus nodded at Josh and began to move towards the van, gun outstretched in shaking hands.
Josh followed cautiously, all too aware that they were neither alone or unnoticed. He kept his eyes locked on the passenger side of the van so that no one would rush out and attack them.
They reached the back of the van and Rufus began to ease past, then looked back at Josh when he saw that he wasn’t following.
Josh made a nodding gesture to the other side of the vehicle and then silently urged him on. Rufus mouthed some kind of curse at him.
Above and behind them, Nickoloi watched from the fire escape he had climbed to. In his hands he held a Magic Eight Ball which he had taken to carrying about with him. He gently shook it now and was disappointed that he already knew its answer before it revealed itself. The gods of chaos and chance had willed that he would not attack. Malok was on his own. Fuck him.
Rufus swung ’round to bare his gun into the driver’s seat. Josh saw him jump and jumped with him.
“Don’t fucking move!!!” Rufus shouted in a panicked reaction. There was only silence.
Behind them Nickoloi silently lowered himself from the raised platform. In his mouth he held the eight inch blade he had become so found of.
“What’s it doing?” Josh asked.
Rufus spoke without looking at him, rooted to the spot in terror. “Just sitting there, staring at me.”
“How many?”
“Just the one—no, don’t fucking move man!”
Josh turned in terror and thought he saw something shifting down the alley they had just entered from. An uneasy sensation swept through him and he tried to keep control. Rufus was shouting in fear.
“Just stay where you are, don’t move! Don’t fucking move!” He cocked the pistol and his arms began to shake more violently. “I mean it man!!!”
Slowly—as if he was fighting it all the way—Rufus began to raise his arm, slowly turning the pistol’s business end towards his skull. He began to scream. “Josh, I can’t stop it!!”
Even as the muzzle slammed into the side of his temple Josh was moving forward. He wasn’t thinking clearly but somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought just to reach for the gun. He never got the chance.
Rufus snapped round like a rag doll, pistol outstretched.
Josh skidded to a halt and on instinct alone slammed himself back against the van’s side. The gun flared and sound exploded off brick, deafening him.
Rufus’ eyes had become blank but he didn’t have time to consider that now. Instead Josh began running. Everything had become amplified by adrenaline and time had slowed, each heart beat an hour between. Josh could almost hear the gun’s cylinder turning, felt the hammer moving to strike, heard the gun shot, closed his eyes and waited for the metal worm to bury into his back. It never did and he hurled himself around the back of the van.
To his horror he heard the engine roar into life and a cloud of black smoke belched from the exhaust.
Malok ground the vehicle into reverse and even as the van began to hurtle backwards, Josh was rolling around to the opposite side.
For a second he paused, just watching the van tear backwards, some blinding white flash in his mind, some half-formed memory from so long back and then he was again facing his friend.
“Oh shit!”
Rufus again raised the gun.
The van tore up the concrete slope and smashed into the steel shutter, denting it and parking a good metre into the building.
Rufus’ eyes softened and for a second he seemed bewildered, pale and shaking his head. Then that ice swept back over him and the gun slowly moved to aim at his friend’s head.
Josh looked back at the van. Inside Malok had recovered and his bald head was staring at him intensely. Slowly he smiled.
Josh turned back to Rufus. “Rufus please...”
Rufus smiled an alien smile and in a voice which wasn’t his. “Die, meat puppet!!!”
Headlights washed over Josh and in that instant Rufus’ car tore past in between them both, barely missing either of them. Carthy pushed the break peddle through the floor and the car screeched to a halt a few metres in front of where Malok had crashed the van.
In seconds he had flung open the door and was taking in the situation. Rufus turned the weapon on Carthy.
Carthy ran back to him. “
Give me the gun!
” He took it without conflict and span to aim at the van.
For a second he hesitated, took a step back and Josh nearly doubled over in the immense current of sick psychic energy that was rushing out of Malok. Then he felt the tides change and some kind of cry was exploding out of Carthy’s mind, his very will pushing out into the world screaming.
He raised the gun like an extension of his own hate and fired. The bullet left a spider web in the window screen and smacked Malok in the frontal lobe.
Josh felt the white noise that had been inside his head fade away and Rufus collapsed to his knees.
Carthy never stopped. He ran to the van and flung open the driver’s door. Inside Malok was slumped over, half-dead in the seat, blood streaming over his eyes. For one second he looked up at Carthy, stunned and then Carthy emptied the gun into his face, screaming, “Just fucking die!!!”
Recovering slightly, Josh moved over to Rufus. “
Man, are you ok
?”
Rufus didn’t look up. “Jesus, I’m sorry, I’m so...”
Carthy’s growled curse distracted them both. “SHIT!”
“
What
?”
Carthy didn’t reply to Josh, instead he spoke to himself. “
Where the fuck are you going
??” He snapped round at Josh and there was a look in his eyes that terrified him.
Josh stood fully up, instinctively took a step back. “Wha—” He never finished as Malok’s presence rushed up on him, choking his mind and desperately trying to move into his flesh before his presence faded from the world.
Josh made a stunned choking sound and fell back against the wall. He could feel the creature trying to claw its way into his body. Its totally inhuman will almost suffocated him. He felt as if his self, his essence was being raped, engulfed and them somehow he was pushing back against it, forcing the entity back into the cold night. Pushing it inch by inch out of him; and then he felt some part of Carthy there with him, pushing alongside him, and Malok fell away.
Josh slid down the wall, feeling nauseated to his very core,with no strength left in his body.
Carthy’s enraged voice sounded distant. “Where are you, fucker? Shit it’s gone!”
Josh looked up, Rufus seemed to be coming ’round and then he looked over at Carthy.
Carthy seemed oblivious to them both. He was storming about, the gun still tightly grasped in his fist and the look of a pariah burning out from behind his glasses.
“Shit!” he hissed presently, shook his head and moved to the van.
Josh watched him with terrified curiosity. He saw Carthy obliviously reach in past the bloody mess that sat dead in its seat and tore off the hand break. Awkwardly the van began to roll forward, the broken up shutter scraping along its roof and noisily falling behind it as it passed. The van gained some momentum and then collided with Rufus’ car, denting the bumper further and smashing out the other light. The two vehicles shuddered to a violent stand still.
Uncertainly, Josh rose to his feet and in turn helped Rufus up. Carthy had moved behind the van.
Josh made his way towards him, trying not to look at what sat inside the van. Rufus was less wise.
“Jesus...” he whispered and again nearly puked. He looked uncertainly at Carthy.
Man, what sort of cop was he
?
Carthy had opened the back doors of the van. Inside of the dark interior was a collection of what looked like bird cages. All were empty. A double-barrel shotgun lay on the floor.
Carthy nodded as if it confirmed what he had already known. He turned to Josh, seeming to notice him for the first time in some minutes. He regarded him with a scrutiny he couldn’t understand.
“Where’d the other one go?”
“What other one?”
Carthy nodded in that same self certified way. “Great,” he said to himself and grabbed the shotgun, poppin’ the breach and checking it was loaded.
Josh flinched, uncertain of his intention.
Rufus stood shakily behind them. Although he knew what had just happened his mind couldn’t yet fully accept it. The events of the past few minutes seemed too distant to really be real.
“I really think we should get the hell out of here,” he said quietly.
Carthy gave him a hard look and then whatever he was thinking seemed to drop away; he threw him the shotgun. Rufus caught it shakily.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Rufus made towards his car.
“If I was you I’d leave that here.”
“
What
?”
“Claim it was stolen,” Carthy told him. “Do you really want to be associated with any of the events it’s been involved with tonight?”
Slowly Rufus shook his head. “But...”
Carthy raised his hand to silence him. He casually strolled up to the car and then with sudden fury sent his fist smashing through the window.
“
Hey, what the fuck are you doing
?” Rufus shouted.
Carthy looked back at him. “It’s gotta’ be done. This car’s too hot to use now. This is the only way.”
Josh stood silently. He wasn’t entirely sure that this move would achieve anything. Surely, the police would still want to talk to Rufus anyway.