Twins of Prey II: Homecoming

by W. C. Hoffman

  “What the fuck?” Gabriel exclaimed wiggling back and forth in a struggle trying to loosen the ropes that secured him to the cross. Hawkins walked up to the front of the cross and looked up at Gabriel.

  “Now, tell me Gabriel, is that your real name?” Hawkins asked.

  “Man, fuck you, old man. Fuck you and these little freaks that do your dirty work,” Gabriel said as he spit a large amount of phlegm to the ground missing Hawkins but landing near his feet.

  Hawkins remained calm and reached down into his bag grabbing a small flexible piece of thin wire with wooden handles on each side. The twins stood there silent, watching, not knowing what Hawkins had in store for the angel.

  “Gabriel, I am going to be one-hundred-percent honest with you. I am going to torture you, unless you provide me with the information which I desire. Furthermore, if you spit at me or the boys again, I will take your tongue off and hold you head back so you drown on your own blood. Now do we have an understanding?” Hawkins demeanor showed it was clearly not a bluff, but Gabriel remained indignant.

  “Fuck, you, Old, Man,” Gabriel said slowly and elaborately as if he was giving directions to a tourist who did not speak English.

  “Wrong answer,” Hawkins replied.

  Old Man Hawkins set the wire at Gabriel’s feet and began unlacing and removing the angel’s right boot. Gabriel kicked and yelled but his struggle was in vain as he was not accomplishing anything but slowing down the inevitable. Hawkins then retrieved the wood-handled wire. Making two loops of wire he held the shape and wrapped it around Gabriel’s middle toe. Nudging it up against the end of the foot the loose wire hung there staying in place thanks to the wooden dowels.

  Hawkins’s then methodically looked up from his kneeled position and asked “Gabriel, huh, how fitting your name is at this very moment. You see we both know that Gabriel was the voice of God. Now this is your chance to be the voice of Niko. This is your big moment, Gabriel, why did you come after Sheriff Henderson tonight?”

  Gabriel rolled his eyes and said, “To play board games, we figured the bitch was lonely so...”

  The angel was unable to finish his sentence as midway through it Hawkins’ grip on the wooden wire ends tightened as he jerked them in opposite directions. The wire loop tightened, shrank and dug into both the flesh and bone of the middle toe. Hawkins continued to apply the pressure as Gabriel screamed in agony. Tightening his grip Hawkins thrust his arms apart once more and watched as the wires completed their pass through removing the toe from the foot with such force that it shot into the air and sailed over Hawkins’ shoulder. With blood splatter across his chest and face, Hawkins stood up grabbed Gabriel’s cheeks looking him in the eye and said,

  “I would appreciate the truth from now on, and when you have no toes or fingers left, I will only have one more option to wrap this wire around.”

  Gabriel did not speak, either due to shock or pure fear, but the message was clear.

  “He means your dick by the way,” Tomek said laughing along with Drake. His comment was only met with a glare from Hawkins that all but told Tomek that his brand of humor was not appreciated at the moment.

  “Now, once again what are you and your little band of demons doing here tonight?” Hawkins asked.

  “We are not demons, we are angels,” Gabriel said defiantly.

  “Wrong answer,” Hawkins said as he began to wrap the wires around the right thumb of Gabriel. Pulling the wire tight it began to cut into the flesh just as it had on the previous toe.

  “Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Gabriel pleaded.

  Hawkins obliged his request, “Yes?”

  “Niko sent us to kill her,” Gabriel stated as Hawkins loosened his grip on the wires.

  “Why?” Tomek asked next.

  “She been costing him a lot of money, doing all these traffic stops and shit. What she did to Tower was just bullshit. The bitch shoots him then hangs his ass in a tree? Come on,” Gabriel explained.

  Of course the twins did not specifically know anyone by the name of Tower, but they looked at each other and grinned full well knowing that it was not their sister that placed the traffic stop thug in the tree. However they were happy enough to let her take the blame.

  “So you were just going to roll up in here, kill a sheriff and then what?” Hawkins asked.

  “I don’t know, I swear to God. Father Niko and the mayor make all the plans we just do what they say.” Gabriel had gone back to pleading.

  “So you just blindly follow orders huh?” Drake said rolling his eyes.

  “Yes, I am just a soldier. A soldier of God. God speaks to Niko directly and his will be done,” Gabriel’s mantra had changed again as if some type of spirit and entered him and rejuvenated his will to live.

  “Just a soldier huh, my father killed a lot of Germans who were just following orders and you are just as bad as they were in my book,” Hawkins said comparing the angel to a Nazi.

  “Listen, old man, I don’t know what they had planned. All I can tell you is that we were to kill the bitch and head back to Lucky Trail.” Gabriel was once again pleading, but Hawkins knew there was more to the story.

  “Who was next?” Hawkins asked.

  “What do you mean?” Gabriel said.

  “Who was next on your list, you rotten flea bag!” Hawkins yelled as he slammed his knife blade deep into the thigh of the angel causing Gabriel to scream and kick in agony. Hawkins kept the blade inside the body applying pressure allowing the blade to slice deeper and deeper into the wound channel.

  “You were, you were next, ahhhhhh!” Gabriel screamed but kept yelling through the pain. “With her dead and you gone they could get a town council and sheriff who would be under their control.”

  “Thanks, but I already knew that,” Hawkins said removing the knife from Gabriel’s leg and wiping it clean from the blood while picking up his backpack. He motioned over to the twins and said “Let’s go.”

  “Lets go? Lets go?” Tomek asked.

  “Are we just going to leave him there, ill finish him off,” Drake said.

  “You will do no such thing, are you both blind?” Hawkins asked.

  The twins both remained silent for this was a side of Hawkins they had yet to see and were unsure on exactly what was happening.

  “Blind?” Tome broke the tension asking.

  “Look, listen, feel,” Hawkins explained. “We have been followed since picking up the track.

  “Followed?” Drake replied as Sypris growled.

  “Yes, followed. The three wolves which you have not noticed have been on our track as we were on his. First of all, they smell blood and secondly they smell Sypris,” Hawkins said as he scooped up the small tracking dog and placed her in his backpack, a place where she was happy to tag along from.

  “Bullshit old man,” Tomek laughed. “We would know if there was a pack of wolves on our ass.”

  “Let’s go,” Hawkins said as he began walking out of the cemetery and back towards Henderson House.

  “What about him?” Drake asked.

  “Yeah what about me?” Gabriel chimed in still bleeding heavily from his open leg wound.

  “He is done, I opened the femoral artery. If God is on his side he will bleed out before the beasts find him. If not well then maybe just maybe he didn’t pray hard enough,” Hawkins said smiling as he was amused with the level of snark he had just verbally dropped on the twins.

  The three of them continued down the trail back to the house. Gabriel’s cries for help could be heard almost the whole way back to the house. As they passed the back side of the property, all three of them noticed the cries had stopped. Unsure if it was because they were too far away for the noise to travel or if the angel had finally bled out. Either outcome was fine by them but their question was quickly answered and it was not Gabriel’s voice that they heard coming from afar.

  The howling cry of multiple wolves sent chills down their spines. Both Tomek and Drake looked at Hawkins with a new found
respect.

  Turning to them, Hawkins just smiled and said,

  “Your Uncle knew men, I know dogs.”

  21 empty

  Outside of Henderson House near the stone well, Hawkins, Drake, and Tomek stood there in disbelief looking at the cut open cellar door. Henderson and her savior were nowhere in sight as the twins and Hawkins slowly walked down the cellar steps checking the area.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Tomek said as he picked up his unstrung bow and its string still lying there on the floor bundled up with the other pieces of the rope.

  “Yeah I know,” Drake agreed “She got away, again.”

  “I was actually talking about my bow string but yeah that too,” Tomek said agreeing with his brother.

  “This wood was cut from the outside,” Hawkins added.

  “By what?” Tomek asked.

  “A reciprocating saw, much like the one that I sold to the angels earlier today,” Hawkins answered.

  “So she didn’t escape, she was saved,” Drake said.

  “Yes,” Hawkins agreed.

  “By who?” Tomek asked.

  “Either by someone who wants her alive or someone who wants to make sure she is dead,” Hawkins said as he turned back around walking up the stairs that exited the cellar.

  The twins looked as each other, shrugged their shoulders and followed their new mentor up and out of the bowels of Henderson House. Hawkins had grown silent as they walked back to his old beat up pickup truck. The store’s success allowed him to buy a new one, but he enjoyed the character of the older Chevy Silverado that adorned the name and logo of The Hawk’s Nest General Store upon its doors and bed sidewalls.

  The boys each felt indifferent in regards to the thought of their sister being either saved or dead. On one hand her being dead would greatly simplify their lives. Both of them were clearheaded enough about the situation to see that as an overall plus. No longer having to worry about killing her, themselves anyway or even the possibility of her coming after them again was definitely a good thing.

  However...

  Some part of both of them longed for a reunion. A peaceful one at that. They had talked about it only a few times, but during those chats, the realization came about that if, and it was a big if, but if they all could live together in peace, that would be an acceptable solution. After all, Annette was the only family they had. Hawkins was good to them, but the sheriff was bound to them by blood. And with her new found disappearance, they found themselves torn between the two possible futures.

  “Now what?” Tomek asked looking back and forth between Drake and Hawkins.

  Drake, had built himself up for this ultimate meeting between him and Annette was at a loss for words and just shrugged his shoulders.

  Hawkins then spoke up, “Let’s assume that he was telling the truth back there on the cross. That means we need to pay Mr. Mayor a little visit.”

  “What makes you think he wasn’t lying?” Tomek asked.

  “People tend to tell the truth when they have a knife in their leg,” Hawkins responded.

  “Why the mayor? Shouldn’t we be going after the priest who sent the angels to kill her?” Drake asked offering insight to his current feelings in regards to his sister.

  “Negative, we go for the mayor,” Hawkins answered confidently.

  “Why not take out the leader, you know, cut the head off of the snake?” Tomek joined his brother in the questioning of the old man.

  “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” Hawkins responded as he hopped into the front cab of his truck waiting for the boys to follow suit. And they did as they were both quite familiar with the old Polish proverb that Hawkins had just laid upon them. It was something Uncle would often say when it came to things that did not directly involve their survival.

  “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” Hawkins again retorted as the old truck bumped down the dirt road heading back towards town. They both smiled upon hearing it again. There was something comforting in these moments. While it certainly had nothing to do with a circus it was the reminiscing of Uncle that held their hearts together. Sometimes the moments seemed so real, as if there was no Hawkins and it really was Uncle sitting there next to them in that truck.

  Cruising down the dirt backroads headed into town the three of them sat silently. There was no grand plotting scheme or tactical plans being made. The twins just watched the pine trees pass one by one through the headlights as they neared the township limits. Coming into town, Hawkins seemed to be driving on auto pilot and did not hear Drake screaming as he tried to pull Hawkins out of his day dream,

  “Watch out for that pot hole!” Drake had yelled three times warning Old Man Hawkins of the table-sized crater in the Michigan road that was typical for this time of the year.

  Not hearing the warning meant the truck slammed into the hole at full speed jolting the vehicle into the air sending the unbuckled boys into the roof of the cab. Hawkins stopped the truck, looked over at the boys in a state of confusion and asked,

  “What about a taco?”

  “Pot hole, I said pot hole, Old Man,” Drake explained as they all had a good laugh at the misunderstanding. A laugh that they had not had in quite a while. A laugh that instantly bonded them as they prepared to enter more darkness. The darkness of killing.

  As they continued into town, the glow from the fire illuminated the dark skyline.

  “What the hell?” Tomek said as he looked down the street and clearly saw a building fully engulfed in flames amongst the flashing lights of the fire departments volunteer trucks. The building cracked and popped and they could feel the heat escaping the raging inferno as the crews helplessly sprayed water upon it.

  “Leave the truck here, let’s take the woods to Landings Way and then cross the bridge. If we follow the old wood path all those hippies use to jog on until the end we will reach the peninsula. The mayor lives at the end of it, last house.” Hawkins said.

  Not wanting to get out, Drake hesitated and asked “Is that?”

  “Yeah it is, they burnt down my store. Our home, its gone. But as of now they think I am dead and if we keep it that way we have the element of surprise,” Hawkins said knowing there was no saving the house or the store at this point. The only keepsake he would have wanted was the picture framed in elk antler of him and Uncle together. The picture he never talked about, was the one that meant the most to him.

  Hawkins also knew that with a fire that big in the downtown area the mayor would of course be on scene. And if that fire was truly an arson meant to kill him and the twins, waiting for the mayor in his own home just seemed to be the perfect retaliation.

  22 poker

  Hours had passed and it seemed as if the sun would soon be cresting the eastern ridge of the pine thicket over Pine Run welcoming a new day. While Tomek and his twin brother Drake sat, patiently waiting along the wood line to the rear of the house, Hawkins waited on the mayor’s front porch. Hawkins had decided to hide, or jump out, or even break into the mayor’s home for an ambush. Just as much as he wanted to watch the mayor take his last breath he needed to know what the mayor knew. While a knife to the leg may have worked on an angel hanging from a cross, as a politician the mayor would not be so easy to withdraw the truth from.

  The headlights crested the slight hill that led up to the end of the peninsula that culminated at the mayoral home. Stepping out of his vehicle, the portly man lumbered up to the white picket fence gate that enclosed his picturesque front yard. All that was missing from this perfect picture of Americana was the wife, two kids and a dog. Walking to the front steps where Hawkins remained sitting motionless the mayor turned the corner around his cedar-style hedges and jumped backwards upon seeing the man he thought to be dead sitting their upon his own property.

  “Hawkins, you, you’re, alive!” The mayor gasped.

  “Surprised?” Hawkins asked.

  “Yes, and relieved of course,” The mayor’s lying had begun two sentences into their conversati
on.

  “The fire department said you didn’t make it out, that there was no way anyone could have survived,” the mayor explained.

  “Lucky me then I guess,” Hawkins commented.

  “I was devastated when they called me. I just kept telling myself and praying that you would be okay. But when neither you nor Sypris came out, well, we feared the worst,” the mayor said.

  “Yeah, I went down state for the night. Had to visit my brother’s family.” Hawkins began sharing in the telling of lies. Even though the twins considered themselves and Uncle family.

  “I came back to find my home was gone and well, I need a place to stay,” Hawkins said knowing the mayor was a widower with no kids and had plenty of extra space. He figured the easiest way into the house was just flat out asking.

  “Uh, here, you want to stay here um,” The mayor said showing off the same discomfort that he did the day of the funeral.

  “Yeah, if that’s not too much to ask. Just for tonight you know. Until we get things sorted out. I have been on the road all day and now this, this tragedy. I just need a place to sleep, a place among those whom I trust.” Hawkins thought he may have just laid it on a little too thick, but the mayor invited him in none the less.

  Stepping into the mayor’s home, Hawkins fought the urge to slice the fat man’s throat as soon as the door closed knowing that he needed to wait. The house was well kept for being that of a single guy. A compliment that Hawkins figured was better given to the maid rather than the mayor himself.

  “It has been a while, let’s go out back on the deck. You have had a hell of a day and I bet you could use a drink,” the mayor suggested.

  Not wanting to admit to himself that a drink sounded like a fine idea, Hawkins nodded in agreement and followed the mayor as he waddled his way out back. The wooden deck overlooked a quaint backyard with a small storage shed and a neatly stacked pile of cut and spilt cord wood. Another chore that Hawkins was sure the mayor hired out to be done as the mayor had never purchased the tools necessary to complete such a task from him at The Hawk’s Nest. There was nothing ornate or special about the house or the yard other than the wood pile. The only thing making the wood pile remarkable was that Tomek and Drake hid behind it. Leering over the edge watching the entire situation unfold from less that fifteen yards away.