by Greg Ballan
Both creatures spotted a form walking toward them, into the darkness. It was Human, but it was also Esper. The hybrid had appeared. They sensed no fear from the hybrid. In fact, they sensed no emotion from it at all. He walked closer to the circle of children then stopped, never taking his eyes off them. The hybrid's apish eyes were burning with a deep intensity. They did not fluctuate nor blink, they simply moved back and forth, studying the two creatures, waiting.
* * *
Erik swore to himself when he saw the darkness; he had run right into the creatures' feeding frenzy. He had no chance against both creatures, but somehow, he wasn't afraid. Something inside him welcomed the opportunity for another chance at combat despite the poor odds of survival. Both creatures noticed him and quickly turned to face him. Erik ceased his approach, hoping his presence would pull the creatures toward him and away from the children.
"C'mon," he projected, using his telepathy, toward the seven-foot monstrosity. "We have unfinished business, you and I."
He realized that though they could hear his thoughts, they would not understand his language. Erik adopted a simpler strategy. He calmly pointed his right index finger toward both creatures, and gestured for them to approach him. He shot them a look of absolute disdain and contempt, which required no translation and would be easily deciphered in any language.
Erik willed his body stronger, and gasped as increased strength flowed throughout his system. His mind roared at the approaching combat, warning him of the danger. But there was something else, some unknown part of him that urged him on, that seemed to welcome this no-win combat situation.
* * *
The felinoid paused, remembering the painful injuries it incurred from the hybrid at their earlier encounter. It glanced over at its companion who was already moving toward its adversary, forgetting the children that were its prey. It rushed forward in blind fury, wanting to tear its enemy to pieces, its genetic programming screamed for it to kill.
The creature's attack was met with a heavy kick to its face and a strike to the midsection. It stepped back and whipped its tail around with blinding speed. The tail struck the hybrid, but as in their previous encounter, the enhanced being rolled with the force of the blow and came up unscathed. It attacked again, unleashing a frenzied rain of blows and strikes of razor-sharp claws and whip-like cracks of its tail. Nothing connected. The Human-Esper warrior stayed outside of its reach. He had learned from their encounters and adapted.
The black-armored creature grew furious. It was stronger now, it had fed, but it still could not overcome the hybrid's speed and agility. It suddenly realized how it could defeat its foe, and realization spurred it to action.
It turned back to the group of children, wading into them. It picked up another child and approached the large felinoid. The hybrid attacked, running toward it and leaping high into the air. His feet impacted with the armored creature, causing the creature to lose its footing and stumble forward. It dropped the child, and headed back toward the group of children. The creature turned, and was attacked again by the hybrid. As it attacked, the felinoid scooped up the other child its partner had dropped.
The hybrid now stood between the monster and the children, exactly where the creature wanted him. He could no longer use his agility. He would be forced to fight and protect the children simultaneously. The hybrid's greatest weapon was now taken away. The creature walked slowly toward him and the children, waiting for the hybrid to attack. The attack came with swift precision, kicks and punches, dozens of types of strikes against its armored hide. The creature had the advantage in close quarters. Its freshly enhanced strength was more than enough to absorb the impacts of blows from the hybrid.
It swung its arm and hit the hybrid hard across the face. The blow cracked like thunder, its second blow was blocked, as was its third, but it managed to whip its serpent-like tail and catch the hybrid off-guard. Its tail slammed into his soft flesh, tossing the hybrid five feet into the air. As it expected, the hybrid came back attacking again.
The hybrid landed a solid sidekick into its leg, actually causing a slight crack in the creature's black exo-skeleton. The creature responded by slamming its fist into the hybrid's face. It heard a crack, and felt something warm upon its icy shell. Blood. Blood was pouring from the hybrid. He was hurt. The blood caused the creature to attack furiously. Several of his blows connected with ear-shattering thumps, while the creature sustained minor cracks in its facial plate from kicks and punches as the hybrid retaliated.
The human warrior still stood between the creature and its prey, but he was panting now, having difficulty breathing. Each breath the hybrid took was labored. The creature sensed this and walked toward the children again.
The hybrid still stood directly in its path, deliberately blocking its progress. This time, the creature did not wait to be attacked. It charged its foe, quickly closing the distance. The hybrid tried to react, but he was weakening, his reaction time was too slow. The impact sent the humanoid flying backward several feet, landing on his back.
The creature picked up another screaming child and turned toward its ally. After several steps, it felt a sharp stab of pain as something shattered the armored shell on its shoulder. It fell forward, face-first, into the playground sand. The child squirmed free and ran away screaming. As it got up, the creature was again slammed in the face by another powerful concussion. Its own blood was flowing freely down its face as the force of this powerful blow threw it back.
The hybrid held a large round object in both hands. The object was now covered with bright blue blood – its blood. The creature hissed savagely, and went over to a large wooden structure. It tore at the structure until a fair sized piece came off in its hands. It turned to face the hybrid, and was stunned as the round object his opponent had been holding collided with the front of its face.
The creature tossed the bundle it had torn from the object, not at the hybrid, but at the prey. The hybrid intervened, absorbing the impact himself by shattering the object with a massive blow from his arm, saving the small creatures. The impact, however, damaged the hybrid further. The arm it used to destroy the debris now dangled uselessly at an awkward angle from his body.
He was stumbling, shouting at the prey-things. At his voice, they began to scatter. The creature grabbed one more before they could all get away and tossed it toward the felinoid. It watched happily as the small thing was absorbed. Something had fallen from the little creature's neck, some kind of metallic chain. The creature paid no further attention to it, but instead focused on its victim. As it had hoped, the hybrid was unable to fight further. It rained blow after blow upon its victim, screeching with delight as it heard the sound of a bone breaking or the spillage of fresh blood.
The hybrid tried to fight back, actually landing two solid blows with his good arm. The hybrid was screaming something, shouting at the top of his lungs. He tried to approach the felinoid, but the cat backed away. The black-armored creature pummeled him again and again, but still the humanoid warrior crawled toward the felinoid, ignoring the dreadful beatings. The black-armored creature stopped, it looked toward the felinoid ally. It gestured to its companion, whose pouch was swollen with four stolen children.
The cat creature approached, and with one casual swipe of its huge paw, sent the sprawled hybrid crashing into a wall twenty feet from where he was kneeling. The hybrid did not get up. He no longer moved. Both creatures turned back into the darkness, disappearing.
* * *
Sunlight gradually filtered back into the schoolyard. Teachers and police made their way into the playground area. It was a scene of carnage.
The broken body of a schoolteacher lay sprawled on the ground, her head turned in an unnatural manner. Red blood and bluish fluid stained the sand everywhere. A play fort was ruined, scattered across the grounds. In the corner, slumped against the side of the school building, his body cut, bruised, broken, and bleeding, lay Erik Knight.
Police and panic-strick
en teachers swarmed out into the playground area. The scene that greeted them was straight out of a horror movie. Teachers did their best to keep the other students who had escaped the creatures' wrath away from the area. The police carefully checked the area, and the fallen teacher for vital signs.
"She's dead," the officer whispered as he nervously caressed the grip on his service revolver.
They both made their way to where Erik Knight lay, gasping in horror as they saw his lacerated body lying in an ever-growing pool of his own blood.
"Damn!" one of the officers swore as he checked the fallen man for a pulse. "He's been through a meat grinder."
"He's been beaten to a pulp," one of the surviving teachers whispered. "He tried to save the children, his daughter."
One of the other officers picked up something from the sand. "Dog tags – Erik Knight's dog tags."
"He's still alive, barely," the officer who stood over his lifeless body remarked. "We need an ambulance and we need it now," he instructed the teacher.
"Whatever it was, Knight got a good piece of it before he fell," one of the officers remarked. "There's blue shit all over the place, and I found a large rock that has to be at least fifty pounds, covered with the stuff."
"I want statements from both teachers. Tape off this entire area. Nobody comes in without official authorization," the officer instructed as he knelt down at Erik's side. "Hang on, Knight, help is coming. Don't you die out here, you ornery son of a bitch, don't you die on us."
Chapter 11
Friday evening, 7:55 p.m.
He was in a hospital bed, several tubes and machines violating his body. A machine assisted his breathing. One of his lungs had collapsed, punctured by several broken ribs. His right arm was in a full-length cast, broken in three places. His skull was wrapped in an attempt to set his severely broken jaw. He had broken six fingers and crushed three knuckles in his fight. The doctors had sewn over two hundred stitches into various cuts and lacerations upon his tattered body and removed almost a pint of blood from his lung that hadn't collapsed, but was still partially skewered when one of his ribs cut through the delicate life-giving tissue. Mercifully, the doctors had pumped him full of sedatives. The pain from so many injuries inflicted would be more than a human nervous system could tolerate.
Several people sat in a waiting room outside the intensive care wing of Massachusetts General Hospital. One woman, in particular, seemed excessively agitated. She paced back and forth, her leather pants making a harsh scraping sound as her legs abraded the fabric. Her hair had a slight tint of purple and she wore dark eyeliner and lipstick. A man sat on an uncomfortable seat, watching her pace. He was older, with iron gray hair. He still had on a cooking apron and a grease-stained T-shirt, not even allowing himself time to change when he had heard that his friend had fallen. The third was a young woman, who sat slightly apart from the others. She, too, was concerned, but for more reasons than those who were with her at this point.
Another woman appeared, walking swiftly down the crowded corridor toward the waiting room. She was adorned in an expensive Italian leather overcoat and expensive shoes. She radiated wealth and importance with every step. Her face, however, radiated fear and concern as she made her way to join the others in their waiting vigil. She walked into the room and Jeff immediately stood.
"Mrs. Pendelton, is there any word about your daughter?"
"No," she whispered, "the police are still searching, but it's dark, and they really have no leads. Those things, those godforsaken creatures just vanished. How is he?" she asked suddenly, deliberately changing the subject. She had cried too many tears today, and didn't want another breakdown here.
"We're still waiting for a report," Shanda answered as tears ran down her face. "He was beaten pretty badly."
Margaret Pendelton sat down with Shanda and took her hand gently. "Listen to me," she began gently, "I've known our boy in there for too many years. He's a fighter. He has the uncanny ability to always bounce back. He'll bounce back from this too, you'll see."
"I hope you're right," Shanda answered. "If only they'd tell us something, anything."
"Excuse me," a voice interrupted. "Are you relatives of Mr. Knight?"
"Yes," Margaret answered, her tone becoming suddenly powerful, the voice of an influential woman of high society.
The doctor sat down on a nearby couch, thumbing through several medical charts.
"Mr. Knight is in extreme critical care at this time," he began. "His condition is terminal. I'm so sorry, but there's nothing more we can do for him. Both of his lungs have been punctured, one completely collapsed. We've put in almost three hundred sutures to sew him back together. His right arm is shattered, along with several fingers. His left leg has two fractures that should be set, along with a severely broken jaw. His nasal passages are destroyed and his nose shattered. A fragment of nose cartilage has been lodged into his cerebral cavity. We don't know the extent of the brain damage, if any."
The physician paused as there were several gasps of shock and astonishment. "The most serious matter of all is that his heart has been damaged. It can't sustain a normal beat without machine assistance. We believe two of the primary valves or chambers have ruptured from repeated heavy concussions. In his present condition, he wouldn't survive any intensive surgery, and there is no donor heart available."
"What exactly are you saying?" Margaret pushed.
"I'm saying there's nothing further we can do. Mr. Knight will, in all probability, expire before this evening is over. All we can do is keep him comfortable and pain-free during this time until his heart finally shuts down. Mr. Knight has a standing DNR on his medical files. We can't place him on further life support, and without life support, he will die. Even with life support, his chances of recovery are non-existent. There's just too much damage to his body. One problem alone is serious, he has three major life-threatening conditions, plus several serious non-life-threatening conditions. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't put him under the knife without killing him. His heart couldn't take the strain of the anesthesia. Technically speaking, we've violated the DNR order by doing what we've done. We didn't see the request until after most of the emergency room surgery was already performed," the doctor replied sadly. "Again, I'm sincerely sorry. I wish we could do more, but we can't. In all my thirty years in trauma, I've never seen such carnage done to a body before."
Shanda began to weep, a silent heart-wrenching cry of despair. Margaret's face turned pale as she shook her head in disbelief. Jeff simply placed his head down into his hands and sobbed. Alissa picked up a large duffel bag she had been carrying and quietly departed the waiting room.
* * *
Massachusetts General Hospital, Critical Care Unit, Room 7-B1
The three entered the room quietly. It was dark, almost pitch black. They heard the whir and buzzing of medical equipment and focused their attention on the body lying in the hospital bed, illuminated only from the faint glow of several pieces of machinery. They all slowly walked over to the bed and stared at the lifeless form. Shanda turned on a tiny lamp and was shocked to see the condition of her lover. She barely recognized his battered face. His cheeks were black and blue, and there were large dark rings under his eyes.
"Oh, Erik," she whispered, "what did they do to you?" Tears rolled down her face. "We were supposed to be together, my love. I really wanted to have a life with you. We were finally together, for such a short time. The doctors say you're going to die. They say you're not going to make it through the night. I don't want to believe them, but look at you, hooked up to machines to do your breathing, keeping your heart beating. Oh God! Don't leave me, not now, not after we've finally found each other." She broke down into tears.
"Erik," Jeff whispered as he grasped a battered hand. "I don't know what to say. You've been a blessing in my life. I know you think that I was helping you with the office and living space, but you gave back more than you'll ever know with your friendship and hard work. There
was never any task you wouldn't tackle readily, with a smile. Everybody at the restaurant, everyone who cares about you, your family, is praying for you, young man. We're all praying for a miracle, so you hang tough," he whispered as tears ran down his face. "We don't want you to give up. Don't believe them, you can live," Jeff whispered as he faded back into the shadows.
"Oh God, Erik, where do I begin?" Margaret whispered. "I've been such a bitch to you these past years, and you just took it all in stride. I kept you from your daughter, chastised you at every turn." She sighed heavily. "And through it all you endured, never letting the bitterness show, even when Richard tore your life apart. Now, our daughter is gone. You sacrificed your life to try and save her. Erik, you shame me, I'm so sorry. I wish I could go back and do things all over again, take back all the hurt, tell you what a good father you've been to Brianna, let you spend more time with her and actually tell you what a good man you really are. I guess we just wanted different things."
Margaret paused and let out a heavy sigh. "I was angry. I wanted you to be something you weren't. But it seems that we always say these things too late. I'm saying all this now and you can't even hear me." She gently stroked the stray locks of hair that hung in his battered face. Margaret leaned over and gently kissed his bandaged head. She turned away and faced Shanda. "I'm so sorry, you two deserved some happiness. Stay with him, I'm sure that's what he would have wanted." Margaret Pendelton, the ex-Margaret Knight, said a final goodbye and silently walked away, regretfully closing a chapter in her life.
Jeff came over to Shanda and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "She's right. He'd want to spend his last moments with you. I'll sit here for a while if you'd like."
