by Sourav Deka
“No, it’s okay. I will go on,” I tried to stay still but it was hard.
We moved ahead and faced some more animals and monsters. We were lucky that we didn’t run out of bullets but Aaron was hurt in his arm, and most of our guys were dead. Only three of them, Aaron and I survived. My back was badly hurt. I wasn’t able to stand straight.
“Trained professionals, huh?” I wiped the sweat from my forehead. “Most of them are dead.”
“I told you we could die,” Aaron said.
“But we survived, we made it till here,” I took a deep breath. “Let’s finish this.”
Finally we reached a door at the end. It was made of iron. There was a wheel attached to it and a pot in front of the door. One of Tanner’s guys stepped forward and handed me a knife. “Your blood is needed to open the door,” he said.
I cut my hand a little and poured some of my blood in the pot. Aaron moved the wheel and the door opened. It was a tiny red room with a small table in the middle and a note on it. We stepped inside and I picked the note. It said, “You failed.”
“You failed? What does it mean?” I said.
Aaron pressed his lips. “It means we failed, it’s a dead end.”
I took the note in my pocket. “But it should mean something. Let’s take this note to Tanner and see what he says.”
“Yeah, maybe it’s a clue and Tanner knows something about it,” Aaron said.
“We need to leave before those monsters gain consciousness again,” One of the guys said. “We can’t fight them again.”
We went outside with the rest of Tanner's men. Andrea was waiting for us outside. She saw the blood on our clothes and came running towards us. “Oh my god! Are you okay?” she asked, eyeing at the bloodstains on my shirt.
“We survived,” I said.
“Did you find what Tanner was looking for?”
“We found a note. Let’s see what Tanner says about it.”
She nodded. “You go, mom sent some money. I need to go to the bank,” she smiled. “Thank god! You came out alive. I was worried.”
I smiled back. “We barely survived. I even broke my back.”
“You should go to the hospital then.”
“I will. After this.”
“Okay, I will meet you after I get the money.”
I nodded.
Andrea left alone. We got in the car along with the three guys who survived and left the forest.
*****************
We reached Tanner’s mansion. He was eagerly waiting for us. Was it the note he wanted? What is he going to do with the note? What’s he going to do with a note which only said you failed? Is it some secret code? Questions were roaming in my mind.
We entered the living room and I walked up to Tanner. He was sitting on his couch with legs crossed. I took out the note from my pocket and gave it to him.
“Oh no, no, no damn it!” Tanner’s face turned red and he stood up.
“What happened? Does it mean something went wrong?” I asked.
“It means nothing!” he yelled. “It’s a dead end! Your dad led us to nothing. It was just a distraction,” he kicked the table beside him. “I wasted so many years to discover this.”
“It may be a code, I guess,” Aaron said.
“No, it’s not,” he threw the note. “That old bastard wasted a lot of my time. I should have known,” he clenched his fists.
“Hey, watch your language,” Aaron pointed his finger at Tanner.
“Or what? Huh?” Tanner pushed Aaron with his hand.
I came between them and tried to stop them. “Stop!” I pushed both of them back.
I stared at Tanner. “We did what you asked us to do. Now tell us, what do you know about our parents?”
“I killed your father,” he said in a heavy voice.
My forehead creased. “What?”
“I was following his works. Your old man distracted me and wasted many of my years.”
“You son of a bitch,” Aaron’s blood boiled. “You used us and this is your reward. I will kill you,” he punched Tanner on his face.
Tanner’s face reddened and he punched back Aaron. It was so hard that Aaron fell on the floor. “I will cut your throat, like I did with your father.”
My body locked up in rage. I grabbed his collar. “Why?” I yelled.
“Because he didn’t tell me how he broke the codes.”
I squinted my eyes. “Codes?”
“The codes in the secret diary, he broke some of them. I even offered him money,” he chuckled. “Much more money, you know. But he didn’t say a single thing about the codes. So I killed him.”
I kicked Tanner in the stomach. “You are dead,” my jaw tightened.
My blood boiled in anger, I wanted to slit Tanner’s throat but his bodyguards came to grab us. There were a lot of them. We couldn’t take out all of them so I signaled Aaron to run. We both ran in the opposite directions before they could grab us. One of the bodyguards shot me in my arm, it started to bleed but I didn’t stop running. They shot at Aaron too but missed. All the guards divided in two directions to catch us. But despite our efforts they caught us after a couple of minutes and locked us in the same dark room we were brought before. The room smelled like dead rats and battery acid. We were tied up with wooden chairs. My arm was bleeding, blood kept spitting on the floor. I wanted to scream, but I tried to hold myself. I needed help, the pain was becoming unbearable every minute.
After a while Tanner entered the room and switched on the hanging bulb in the middle.
“Tried to run away, huh?” Tanner half smiled. “You are not getting out of here that easily.”
“You used us,” I said.
“Yeah I did. But you are lucky,” he shrugged. “I changed my mind. I will keep you alive for now.”
“Wow! Thank you. May I know why?” I said sarcastically.
“You know, your dad is good at hiding things. There may be various things that your dad had locked up when he broke some codes in the diary,” he crossed his arms. “So I guess you two will be the key to open such locks, you are his sons,” he smirked. “Your blood is important.”
“We are not helping you anymore,” Aaron said, raising his voice.
“Umm… you don’t have a choice,” Tanner signaled one of his guards to take out the bullet in my arm. One of them came to me with a knife, pushed it inside my arm and took the bullet out. I screamed hard, it hurt like hell. It was so painful, that my scream echoed in the room, I felt like I was going to pass out but I didn’t. Aaron kept on yelling at the guards and Tanner, while the pain shut me down for a while. He was angry and wanted to kill Tanner like me, but we couldn’t do anything. We were helpless tied up in our chairs. They bandaged my arm and left us alone in that dark room.
“He killed dad!” rage bottled up inside Aaron. “I will kill him as soon as I get rid of this damn chair,” he said.
“We will, but first we need to escape from this?” I said, trying to break the ropes. “Oh these ropes are very strong.”
“We need to distract them.”
“How?”
“That’s what I am trying to think.”
“Distractions!” my eyes widened.
“What?”
“We were distracted like everyone.”
Aaron’s forehead creased. “What are you saying?”
“I get it now.”
“Get what?”
“Nibshaw bell invented the seeds in 1345. So he created the secret diary in that time. If he wrote the name of Ludachris Kent in the diary, then he might have known him.”
“Yeah, so?”
“But we are told that Ludachris was born in the early 1700s. So how is that possible? That was not the Ludachris we are looking for. Everyone thought that he was the one who is mentioned in the diary.”
“So the real Ludachris is from the 1300s, not 1700s,” Aaron bit his lower lip. “The same name and place confused us and everyone. Damn!” he tightened his cheeks. “
We were so stupid, how could we miss that?”
“Exactly, that’s why everyone is looking in the wrong direction, even Tanner too.”
“Tanner, don’t know about this. So let’s keep it that way.”
I nodded. “Yeah, we have to focus on getting out of here.”
“Andrea will come I guess,” Aaron gulped. “As Tanner won’t let her meet us, she will suspect something happened to us. She will know we are in trouble.”
I shook my head lightly. “We can’t rely on that. What If she doesn’t come for our rescue? What if Tanner kills her?” I shrugged. “He is a maniac. We have to get out of here before she comes.”
“But what can we do now? We are tied up. She is our only hope. She will bring the cops.”
“No, we need to distract the guards. Call them. I will act like my arm is hurting.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“Yeah, I will act to faint. When they come closer, I will try to take their gun if possible, or else I will push them towards you so that you can get the chance.”
“We are tied up, Ross. We can’t take their guns. They will kill us.”
“No, we can take them. Crush them with your chair. Hit them as hard as you can.”
“Hit them? We are tied up.”
“Hit them along with the chair. Use your head or legs. We have to try, Aaron. If we don’t escape, we are going to die here anyway.”
He was scared and didn’t believe that this would work, but still he agreed to do it. I had doubts about this too, but we had to try something. If we stay there, things would get worse. We would be prisoners of Tanner for life and Andrea may end up being killed. We had to try it, even if the plan sounded silly.
I called the guards and pretended that I am in severe pain. Two of them came inside.
“Please, help my brother. He is in pain,” Aaron said. “Pull out the bandage. It may make him feel better.”
“Bandages are to stop the bleeding, you idiot! We can’t pull that out,” one of the guards said.
“Okay, at least open the bandage and put it right, maybe the bandage shifted.”
One of the guards tried to open it. When he came closer I smashed my head into his chest and kicked him towards Aaron with every ounce of energy I had. The guard fell on Aaron. As soon as he fell on him, Aaron bit his ear. He screamed in pain and fell down holding his ear covered with blood. The other guard came to handle the situation. I kicked him in the nose and pushed him towards Aaron. The guard fell so hard on Aaron that Aaron’s chair broke. He managed to grab the guard and took out his gun. The guards outside heard the noise and came running to the room with Tanner.
“Drop your guns, or else your friend will be dead,” Aaron threatened holding the guard with his arm and pointing the gun at his head.
“You are bluffing,” Tanner said.
Aaron shot one of the guards in the leg. The guard screamed and fell down. “Tell me, am I bluffing now?” Aaron shouted.
Everyone dropped their weapons.
“Drop the gun, kid. You won’t survive even if you manage to get out of the mansion,” Tanner said.
“We will take our chances,” Aaron and I said together.
“Open my brother from those ropes,” Aaron said.
“No,” Tanner shook his head lightly. “Go ahead, kill him. One less bodyguard won’t bother me.”
“Really?” Aaron scoffed. “Can you run from my gun? You can take us down, but I will take you down with us. Only one bullet, and I will blow your head off,” he clenched his jaw. “Trust me I want to.”
Tanner frowned and signaled his guards to free me. One of the guards stepped forward and freed me. I stood up and collected all the guns from the guards. We moved towards the door holding the hurt bodyguard.
“Give me your car keys,” I said.
Tanner gave his car keys and tried to manipulate us with his intimidating words. We ignored him and got in Tanner’s car with the bodyguard. I started the engine and drove away, keeping the door open. When we picked up the speed, I threw the guard from the car and closed the door. The guards started shooting at us, but we escaped.
I already lost my cell phone so I stopped the car near a telephone booth and called Andrea. Luckily, I remembered the number.
“Hello, Andrea we are in trouble,” I said.
“What?? What happened?” she asked.
“I will explain later. Meet us at the hotel, we are coming there.”
“Okay,” she hung up.
***************************
It was a cold evening with the sun hidden behind the clouds. It was going to be dark soon. We reached the hotel. Andrea was waiting outside in her green top and jeans. We parked our car outside the hotel and stepped outside. We told her everything that happened.
“Tanner? You shouldn’t have listened to him, he played you,” Andrea said.
I nodded. “Yeah, he did.”
“I wanted to kill him for what he did to dad,” Aaron said, clenching his fists. “But if I would have killed him, we would have lost our leverage. We wouldn’t have escaped.”
“Yeah, the guards would have killed us if you killed Tanner,” I put my hand on his shoulder. “We would get him later, Aaron. We will get our revenge. He is not getting away with it.”
We also told Andrea about our misunderstanding, that we were following the wrong Ludachris Kent.
“So help us to find the real Ludachris from the mid-1300s,” I said.
She nodded. “I have to ask mom.”
“Make some arrangement for us. Tanner’s people will be looking for us everywhere in the city.”
“Okay, I will talk to mom and see what I can do,” she took out her cell phone. “Until then, there is a small hotel thirteen miles away from here. We can stay there but we have to give fake names.”
“Wouldn’t they ask for any identification?” Aaron asked.
“Don’t worry it’s a small hotel. I will convince them by giving some money.”
She took us to the hotel. It was a small one then the previous one near an isolated area. Andrea spoke with the manager and gave him some extra cash so that he can allow us to stay there without asking for any identification documents. We rested as the whole day was a torture. My arm was still sore, my back was still aching. It would take weeks to recover. We needed some sleep but we couldn’t. Tanner’s creepy face was flashing in front of my eyes. He confessed that he killed dad, it was haunting us. I didn’t expect that dad died like that. When Gloria mentioned that dad died, I didn’t believe her completely. I had hope. But now that hope was gone, my father was murdered by that maniac. He was really dead. I wasn’t going to let this go. I will find Tanner and make him suffer for what he has done.
We were lying on our beds, staring at the ceiling thinking about everything that happened today.
“Ross, I should have killed that bastard today when I got the gun,” Aaron said.
“You know you can’t do that. It was not the right time. We will focus on getting him later. He won’t get away with this. We will make him suffer,” I grabbed my pillow. “Try to get some sleep. We need to recover, today was a torture.”
“I am trying,” Aaron said in a depressed voice. “But it’s not leaving my head,”
“I understand,” I said softly. “But still try. We need to be strong, Aaron. Next time it will be Tanner’s throat that we will cut and watch the fear in his filthy eyes.”
We had a disturbed night. We hardly slept. The next day Andrea brought a doctor to treat my back and arm. He gave me some pills and I felt a bit better. We stayed in the hotel for weeks while Gloria searched to find the real Ludachris.
One morning Andrea entered our room with a paper in her hand. She sat beside me and handed me the paper. “Here is the list of Kent families in Atlanta,” she said.
I glanced at the paper. “Your mom found out?” I said.
“Yeah, she knows a lot of people.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Seventeen
families! Oh my god!” I scratched my head. “Where to start?”
Aaron chuckled. “What did you expect, Ross? We have to start with someone.”
We finished our breakfast, dressed up and went for a family that I randomly selected. Seven of the families said they didn’t know about any Ludachris in their family, but the eighth one surprised us. The eighth family had seven members, two brothers and their wives with their child and a divorced sister. The elder brother gave me an address when we mentioned about Ludachris Kent.
“My father said it is our tradition that we should give this address to those people who mention Ludachris Kent. It was going through generation after generation,” the elder brother said. “People come and take the address. Father said he is our ancestor and he knew some witchcraft,” he pressed his lips together. “Other than that no one knows his story, but it is our duty to continue this tradition. My father was doing this before. He died last year, so now it’s my responsibility.”
“Thank you. I guess we came to the right place,” I shook hands with him.
I now knew we were on the right track. We came out of their house and went to a restaurant. There were a few people there, we sat together at a table and ordered some food.
“There is no doubt that we visited the right place, but witchcraft?” Aaron chuckled. “Ludachris knew witchcraft? What the hell was that supposed to mean?”
“Witchcraft involves magic, you fool,” Andrea said.
“I know, but Nibshaw was a scientist. There was no magic. How can this be related with magic?”
Andrea shrugged.
“Maybe when he invented the seeds, he took help of magic,” I said.
“It is getting more complicated and scary. We fought monsters in the cave, and now witchcraft,” Aaron scoffed. “Wow! I can’t even believe that witchcraft exists.”
“We will find out. We need to go to this address,” I looked at Andrea. “You know this place?”
I handed over the address to her. She looked at it for a few seconds.
“It’s someone’s home address. We should go,” she said.
We didn’t waste any more time. We had our lunch and went to the address. There was a big old house in the middle of farm fields. I knocked on the door, no one responded. I knocked it several times for a few minutes, and then pushed it. It opened as it wasn’t locked from inside. We stepped inside to look, it was all vacant. The room smelled like dead cockroaches. There were spiders and rats all over the place and most of the things there like tables or beds were broken. No one has lived in that house for years, everything had spider webs and dust. We searched the rooms to see if we could find anything weird.
