Beginnings

by J. S. Frankel

  “We’re here,” Hand said and nodded in the direction of a massive wrought iron gate.

  After getting out, Sandstorm slithered quickly away. He had another mission to complete. Ooze got out of the van and searched for a manhole. Finding one, he once more opened up the valve to his suit and his essence went down the hole. Hand watched them go with a stoned look on his face then spoke up, triumph in his voice, “The gate uses a retinal eye scanner. You won’t be able to get in.”

  “Not unless we take your eye first,” Paul said.

  Hand started to quiver and his face turned white. “You’re not going to do that.”

  If it came to matching their evil, so be it, Paul thought. “I might,” he said, “but I just got a better idea. We’re going to walk up to the gate and you’re going to let us in. After that, you can go.”

  Disbelief crossed the henchman’s face. “Just like that—I can go?”

  “Yeah, just like that.”

  Hand told him all he knew. Second floor down, last door on the right, he’d find the engine room. The turbines were there, so were the captives. “How many men?” Paul asked.

  “At least ten,” replied Hand, his words coming out slowly and indistinctly. “Did you have to hit me so hard before?”

  Maybe he was going into shock or maybe he was faking. Paul figured it had to be the latter and pistol-whipped him again, this time across the cheek, which elicited another scream of pain. “Keep talking. Do they have guns?”

  The answer was a frantic “yes”, so it was time to improvise a little more. He got out and pulled out the henchman with him, and they marched over to the scanner. Paul reached over to open a lid and a mini-camera popped out. Hand leaned into the camera and a second later, the gate swung open.

  “Move,” Paul said, and with the gun in the small of his prisoner’s back, he marched the man over to the front door.

  Two other men opened up and immediately stuck their hands in the air when they saw the pistol pointed at them.

  “Get down on the ground,” Paul ordered.

  They did, and he used the remainder of the rope to tie them up. Stuffing their ties in their mouths, he whacked them hard enough across their temples to knock them out. After checking on their breathing—yep, still alive—he ran down to the second level.

  Just as Hand had said, the engine room was located at the end of the hallway. It was enormous, holding three large electrical turbines. The walls were solid brick, easily a century old. Places like this had been built to last.

  The turbines had also been built to last, although these looked totally refurbished. Three large square boxes the side of restaurant freezers sat beside the turbines with cables connecting them—the power sources.

  Paul’s thoughts of power changed to rage when he saw Angela and CF chained to the turbines. Blue electricity danced over their bodies, making them writhe in torment. The noise was incredible, a high, ear-shattering whine.

  Creeping forward, he got his bearings. Five other men in black suits, including Mr. Finger, lounged against a far wall, smoking and drinking coffee. Two others stood at one of the far turbines, taking readings. Simpson stood in front of the captives scarfing down a candy bar and watching with a smile on his face.

  As he saw Paul, the smile faded. “I really have to hand it to you, son. You found us out. Good for you.”

  Paul pointed the gun at him. “Tell your men not to shoot, no matter what.”

  A smirk flitted across Simpson’s face, but after a moment’s hesitation, he lifted his hand and gave the order. “Okay, what’s next?” he asked.

  Indicating the turbines with a wave, Paul ordered, “Turn off the power.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  Squeezing the trigger was a no-brainer. A bullet came from the gun and it missed Simpson’s leg by an inch. “Next time it’s your knee,” Paul warned, sick it had come to this, but determined to finish things. “Do it.”

  After a second’s hesitation, Simpson moved over to the control panel then shut down the power. The turbines gradually ground to a stop. “If you’re wondering how we got all the power, take a look at our mini-nuclear generators,” he said. “Perfectly safe, I assure you.”

  Right now it didn’t matter where the power came from. It was all about Angela and her safety. Her head lolled, but her chest was moving. As for CF, he seemed to be rotting away at an incredible speed as bits of pieces of skin were raining from his face and hands, but he picked his head up long enough to ask, “Do you have any food?”

  “You probably have some more candy in your pocket, fat guy,” said Paul. “Take it out.”

  An insolent smirk formed on the fat man’s face. “Make me.”

  This time a single bullet went into Simpson’s right knee and the fat man went down howling. “All right, all right,” he screamed. “I’ve got something!”

  With a trembling hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out two chocolate bars. Paul snatched them from his hands, tore off the wrappers and fed them to the large zombie. CF chomped and chewed and his skin began to knit, but very slowly. He was in the last stages of decay. However, he still had enough power to snap the chains. “I feel better,” he rumbled.

  “Can you get Angela out of there?” Paul asked.

  CF lumbered over and tore the chains away from the turbines. Angela sank to the floor and opened her eyes. She smiled when she saw Paul. “Hey,” she said. “You made it.”

  “I wouldn’t go anywhere else…” he started to say, but stopped when a shot rang out. He looked at the right side of his chest. It was leaking blood. “How’d that happen?” he muttered, and dropped to the ground, the gun falling out of his suddenly nerveless hand.

  Simpson leveraged himself up by holding onto the console. In his free hand, he held a pistol. “That makes us even, you little twerp,” he said, sweat pouring down his fleshy jowls. “I can’t kill your friends, but I can kill you.”

  He fired again, and Paul screamed as the bullet entered his left leg. Immediately, blood spewed out, staining the floor. Angela went over to help him, but Simpson and his men started toward her, Taser weapons at the ready.

  “Don’t make a move, girl,” he said. “You too, big man,” he said to CF who now had a wary look in his eyes. “You both know what these weapons are. And I’ve got a gun pointed at the bleeding punk on the floor, so if you’re smart, you’ll stay back.”

  “He’ll die,” Angela pleaded.

  “Ask me if I care,” Simpson responded.

  Paul laid quietly watching, breathing slowly in an effort to control the pain.

  Mr. Finger came forward to support his boss by putting his arm around the fat man’s waist. Simpson looked at the trio. “So what do we do now?” he asked. “I can’t let any of you go. Too many witnesses, you know.”

  He reached into this pocket and took out a cell phone. “Everyone, get down here on the double,” he yelled. “Get your weapons hot!”

  A minute later, ten more men poured into the room, Tasers at the ready. Among them was Mr. Hand. Somehow, he and the others had managed to work their way out of their bonds. An evil grin shone through his bloody face. As Paul looked at him through rapidly dimming eyes, the thought of payback reverberated through his mind. He knew who was going to be on the receiving end.

  “Are you ready, punk?” Hand asked with sadism coating every word.

  Steeling himself for the inevitable punishment, Paul waited for the first blow. “Go ahead and do it,” he said.

  Hand worked quickly and efficiently, and as the seconds ticked by, Paul heard his ribs snap, his right wrist break, felt tendons being wrenched and his heart thundered in his ears. Taking in a breath…he almost choked and had to breathe shallowly.

  A cough erupted from his chest and blood jetted into the air. It was getting harder and harder to take in enough oxygen. Shallow breathing didn’t cut it, but if he inhaled more deeply then he’d choke on the blood…

  “Stop it!” Angela screamed. “You’v
e got us. What more do you want?”

  “His death,” Simpson replied in the coldest voice imaginable and kept his weapons ready to repel any attempts at aid. “I want his death then yours. Keep working, Hand. Keep…”

  His voice trailed off when a cloud of dust smashed through the windows. “Sandstorm,” Paul whispered.

  He watched in awe as the stinging bits of sand swirled around the henchmen and blinded them. They fired wildly into the air, but they couldn’t hit sand. It abruptly withdrew, but not before making a sign like that of an upraised middle finger and forming the words no fear.

  Another sound came, that of rushing water. One of the brick walls began to crumble, then it collapsed as a wall of water entered and surrounded the henchmen. Numerous liquid hands plucked the Tasers and pistols from their grasp and tossed them far away. The men shifted their position and looked to Simpson for support. He hung onto Finger, a sudden bath of fear-sweat covering his face.

  “Guess who’s been practicing?” Ooze’s voice sounded from inside the mass of swirling liquid. “Should I drown them?” he asked.

  Paul stared at the zombie who had a look of something totally unholy beginning to form in his eyes. “Go back to the house and take Sandstorm with you,” he croaked. “We’ll meet you there.” He didn’t know how long he’d last, but there was one more job that had to be done. “CF, I need…a favor.”

  The zombie gazed at him. “What is it?”

  By now, Simpson was trembling like a paper house in the middle of an earthquake and he swung his head back and forth between Paul and the zombie. “He…he shouldn’t even be able to think.”

  “Sugar,” Paul told him while forcing out a grin. It hurt to move his face, but this was worth it. “The brain…it runs on sugar.” He winked at CF. “Hey, clean up, will you?”

  A tiny smile, one of rotting teeth and blackened tongue, emerged from the zombie. The smile spoke of wreaking havoc on an almost apocalyptic scale. CF proceeded to smash and crush every human being in the room, save Simpson, into the same kind of small packages he’d made on the river bank.

  The horror was so great that Paul wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t shut out the screams of terror, nor could he shut out the smell of blood, heavy and thick as it painted the air.

  Finally, only Simpson remained, sitting on his blobby butt. He looked up in terror as CF hauled him off the floor. “Clean him, too?” he asked.

  “No,” Angela said as she made her way over. “He’s mine.”

  She plucked the fat man from CF’s grasp and pulled his ugly, terrified face to an inch away from hers. “I once swore I’d always protect people, that I’d never kill anyone who didn’t deserve it. You wanted to kill me for not being human. You’re way less than that.”

  Her fangs came out and they sank into the folds of his neck. He let out a frightened scream, but it soon burbled away to nothing as she tore his throat out. Spitting out a lump of flesh, she let his corpse drop to the ground. “He was O-negative,” she said with distaste. “Not my type.”

  Running over to Paul, she put her hand on his wounds, trying to staunch the flow of blood. “It’s done,” she said.

  Blood stained the floor and the air was thick with the smell of smashed flesh and organs. Shallow breaths didn’t cut it anymore. Paul’s vision began to blur from a lack of oxygen. You have to focus.

  Abruptly, CF groaned and sank to his knees. Then he fell flat on his face. He didn’t move, and seconds later his body dissolved into a kind of synthetic yet organic mess. He was gone.

  Paul wanted to wipe the tears that had suddenly sprung from his eyes, but he had no strength. “Oh, man, he saved us. They all did…”

  His voice cut out and his eyesight began to fail as well. Through dimmed eyes, he saw Angela go over to the remains of CF and stoop down. She then straightened up and returned to his side.

  “Time to go,” she said.

  He felt powerful hands lift him up. Then they were airborne, and she flew swiftly upon the winds. Part of him knew he was flying alongside her, while the other part concentrated on the cold air, the whiteness of the landscape below him and his breathing.

  His girlfriend whispered into his ear, “Paul, stay with me.” Her voice took on a pleading quality. “Please…stay with me.”

  “Want to,” he managed to utter. “Want to, but…”

  Blackness, like dark water, swirled around him. Is this what it’s like to die, he wondered. They always said that the last thing to go was the hearing. Angela’s words kept repeating themselves in his mind. Paul, stay with me… Stay with me…

  Epilogue

  Life on the Other Side

  Paul wondered how long it would take to die. Strange how that thought went through his mind during their departure from Yonkers back to Angelica. In spite of the below zero temperature, he felt no pain. The frigid night air caressed him and he welcomed its embrace. Blurry though his eyesight was, he made out the familiar sight of the Genesee River then the houses that comprised the town.

  His flight path took an abrupt downturn and the impact of Angela’s boots on the hard ground sent a vibration through him. A smell, the after-stench of scorched wood, drifted into his nostrils. They’d arrived, and his vision cleared a little more as he saw numerous yellow strips lacing every wall of his temporary yet oh-so-beloved home. Do not enter, the message said.

  Angela carried him in a different direction and he heard a door swing up. A second later, he heard her call for help.

  Help—yeah, I’m gonna need it. The cold air had temporarily subdued the pain, but now as his mind woke up, agony stabbed at his body like a series of knives. Part of him wanted to see what would happen while the other part simply wanted to sink into the well of unconsciousness and enter the realm known as death. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay…you can leave me.”

  Abruptly his voice failed. The experts always said that hearing was the last sense to go. It seemed as though they had been rights, as he could no longer see or feel his body. However, through it all, he clearly heard the sound of what seemed like a door being torn off its hinges, followed by people speaking. “Get the chamber ready.”

  “You don’t know what it could do to him.”

  “He’ll die in seconds if we don’t do something!”

  The last voice he heard had been Angela’s. He felt her strong yet gentle hands pull him over to some place, heard the sound of ripping cloth and felt the jab of needles in his arms, legs and back. His legs hit…glass. Where was he?

  Before he could get a word out, a surge of energy hit him between the eyes. It filled his entire being, and his mind traveled outside his body to witness a miracle of science combined with a revolutionary process unknown to the outside world.

  A gasp escaped his lips as bones began to crack—his. They cracked and reformed, lengthened and somehow grew thicker. While doing his disembodied mind-dance, he swam back to his body and swore he felt the muscle fibers in his body begin to swell, a pop-popping sound that he knew was impossible, yet he thought real.

  A second later, he heard screaming—and realized he was the one doing the screaming. Then he saw blackness and nothing more…

  * * * *

  “Hey, are you feeling better?”

  Paul blinked and opened his eyes. He found himself lying on a makeshift cot of boxes covered by a blanket. It was dim and he recognized the garage, the garage of their house. Focusing his vision, Angela stood in front of him, Ooze at her side. Both of them wore expectant looks on their faces. Silence hung in the air until the bag of water snuffled out a laugh.

  “Well, he made it,” Ooze cracked, and trundled over to a table to retrieve a pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt. He tossed them in Paul’s direction and they landed on his stomach. “Put those on. You’re bare-ass naked.”

  Peeking under the sheet, Paul saw that he was, indeed, naked, but something else caught his attention. His hands were covered in a light coating of fur, dark brown fur, and it co
vered his whole body all the way down to his feet. “What’s…what’s going on here?”

  In a rapid movement, he snatched the pants, twisted over on his side and struggled into them. The shirt came next and it fit tightly over his upper body. Job complete, he got up feeling no pain and barely felt the cold. Barefoot, he should have felt chilled, but wonder of wonders, no. Walking over to gaze in wonder at the chamber, it was black. Swinging around, he asked, “What happened?”

  Angela walked over and held out a small pocket mirror. “See for yourself.”

  Taking it, he examined his face. With higher, sharper cheekbones, it had the same light coating of fur, but his nose had become smaller, his eyes had changed from their usual brown to yellow, and his mouth…he had long canines, similar to Angela’s, but much sharper looking. Frightened, his first instinct was to retract them, and he was even more surprised when they did. “Oh man, I’m…”

  His hand fell to his side, and he dropped the mirror. It bounced on the ground, but didn’t break. Ooze stooped over to pick it up. “Well, at least you won’t have seven years of bad luck,” he said.

  There was a time for humor and a time not to have it. Paul decided this fell into the not category. “What did you do to me?”

  “It was the only way to save your life,” said Angela as she laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “You were shot, remember?”

  Instantly, the memory flooded back. The crack the gun had made when it went off, the impact he’d felt from the bullets slamming into and through his flesh and the accompanying agony…

  “I was bleeding—” he began.

  “And you were dying,” Ooze chimed in and pointed to the chamber. “When those guys from Rallan came, they torched the place, but I put the fire out, remember?”

  Paul nodded. “Yeah, I remember. So—”

  “So, I told you Bolson had a spare chamber in his garage. Those bozos from Rallan completely forgot about this place and didn’t know there was an extra chamber here,” continued Ooze. “They took the computer, but they didn’t take the chemicals, and I had Bolson’s file, along with his knowledge.”