Dark Creations Boxed Set (Books 1-3)

by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

  Chapter 22

  Gabriel, Yoshi and Alexandra turned on to Blackstone Drive. Direct sunlight blinded them as they rounded the corner and the Jeep Cherokee managed the steep incline with ease. The street was lit by afternoon light, lemon-hued, pale and dazzling. The nighttime rainfall enriched the lushness of the surrounding greenery and deepened their color to a rich shade of emerald. The landscape was a vibrant palette illuminated by pastel sunlight.

  Gabriel squinted against the glare then remembered his disguise that included dark sunglasses that rested on the back seat next to Yoshi. He regretted not wearing both, but not as much as regretted leaving Harbingers Falls five months ago. He felt the same sensation of nervousness in his stomach as he had the previous night, but his current feeling was a result of uneasiness rather than anticipation. With his insides quavering, he turned in to Melissa’s driveway and immediately noticed an older model Camry parked in it.

  “See, what did I tell you? That’s the same car that was here last night, Eric’s car I presume,” Gabriel told Yoshi and Alexandra.

  “Uh, no jerkwad, that’s Melissa’s car,” she said gesturing to a late model Toyota. “Her dad let her get her license and use some of her savings to buy that thing.”

  “Oh, she didn’t tell me,” Gabriel said quietly.

  “Well maybe if you would have called her more often, you would have known,” Alexandra accused.

  Gabriel was stunned by her words. And hurt. He did not have a biting comeback, didn’t need one. Alexandra was right. She was right to be mad with him just as Melissa was right to move on. He chose to disappear to one of the remotest places on Earth. The fault rested with him, for everything. He blamed himself for every moment of Melissa’s life that he’d missed, every significant event. She had needed him, but he had been gone.

  Downcast, he reluctantly got out of the car and moved to the front door. Alexandra and Yoshi followed. Alexandra pushed in front of him and Yoshi and rang the doorbell. They waited several seconds. No one answered. All was quiet at the Martin residence.

  Alexandra rapped her knuckles against the door, and still, no one answered.

  “I don’t get it. Her car is here,” Alex said with concern.

  “That’s because she’s not here and is probably out with Eric,” Gabriel said miserably.

  Alexandra spun on her heels to face him. Her deep-brown eyes darkened dangerously to a smoldering onyx. She wore her anger plainly.

  “She is not out with Eric!” Alexandra pronounced each word slowly and loudly. “You are starting to really piss me off, Gabriel! I made it clear to you back at the school that all she’s done is cry about you since you left. She’s only gone out, like, one time. She was so miserable, I was actually starting to get worried about her, and you have the balls to start this shit about Eric again!” she fumed.

  “Alex, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to upset you, and I believe you when you say she had a hard time after I left, but is it possible she didn’t tell you about Eric because of what happened, because maybe she thought you’d freak out about it?”

  “Not possible,” Alexandra said confidently then added, “Forget about the Eric shit for a second if that’s possible. I’m starting to get worried. Maybe something’s wrong.”

  “If something happened, her father would have called you, right?”

  “Yeah, if he was home but he’s away this weekend. In fact, she said she was probably going to stay with me. She didn’t want to be alone when he was gone. But she never called me. I just assumed she changed her mind or that her dad decided not to go. He’s clearly not here, and she’s not answering the door, or her phone. I’m really worried now.”

  Yoshi, who had been silently observing Gabriel’s interaction with Alexandra, turned from them and began inspecting the exterior of the house. He stood on his tippy toes and peered into the windows of the garage.

  “Alexandra’s right,” Yoshi said. “There’s no car in the garage, so her dad’s not here.”

  “I’ll go look around back and see if there are any broken windows,” Alexandra added, worry lacing her words. “Or if anyone’s inside. For all we know, Melissa’s asleep on the couch.”

  “I hope she’s alone,” Gabriel muttered to himself.

  Alexandra overheard his comment and shot him a withering glance.

  “What?” he asked.

  “So you think she’s doing it with Eric on the couch or something?” she said through her teeth.

  “I didn’t mean, I wasn’t trying to imply,” he stammered. “I wasn’t saying that I think she and Eric are sleeping together on the couch, Alex. Get your mind out of the gutter!”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “I meant I hope Melissa is alone, that’s all. If she’s sick, I hope he is not with her.”

  Alexandra stared hard at Gabriel. He wondered if she were contemplating an attack of some sort until she turned from him suddenly and began walking around the house. She paused in the driveway and pointed up above it.

  “Look! Do you see that?” Alexandra asked both he and Yoshi.

  “The window,” Yoshi replied. “It’s wide open. The screen is up, too.”

  Gabriel looked up to the window and saw that her curtain billowed in the slight breeze, that the screen was lifted as was the pane. He felt his mind unravel like a spool of thread only the reel had disappeared, rolled off into the void, his only lead a seemingly unlimited length of ribbon he intuited he must follow.

  He rushed to the oak that stood beside her house and scaled it with speed he never knew he possessed. He did not know what he rushed toward, just knew that time was somehow constrained, like an enormous hourglass had been overturned and each grain of sand that fell profoundly impacted Melissa’s fate.

  Once on the roof of the garage, he quickly scrambled up the shingles and dove headlong into her opened window.

  “Gabriel, is she in there?” Alexandra shouted from the ground below.

  Gabriel did not respond right away. He looked around her room, processing every detail of its condition. The room was in shambles. Melissa had never been the neatest of people but the room was messy by her standards. The chair by her desk that sat just under the window had been knocked over. Her purse sat atop her dresser and her cell phone beeped from beneath a sweater.

  Gabriel crossed her room, ran down the hallway and descended the staircase.

  “Melissa!” he shouted as he quickly scanned each room.

  He did not search the basement. Instead, he opened the front door. Alexandra burst through, her eyeliner-rimmed eyes brimming with tears.

  “Why didn’t you answer me?” she screamed. “Didn’t you hear me call you? She’s not there is she? But something happened. I can see it on your face.”

  Alexandra’s voice was shrill, bordering on hysterical.

  “Calm down, Alex. Let me check downstairs then we’ll be certain she’s not here, okay?”

  “I’m coming with you,” she said tearfully.

  “Fine, we’ll go together.”

  Gabriel stepped from the foyer into the main hallway followed by Yoshi and Alexandra and opened a door along the wall. Beyond the entryway was a painted, wooden flight of steps leading to the basement.

  Once the door was opened, he was immediately greeted with silence. The silence unsettled him, profoundly. He remembered the last time he entered the Martin household and was met with preternatural stillness. Death had not claimed a loved one then, he hoped it did not claim one now. He would not survive Melissa’s demise. And in the darkest recesses of his core, he felt Melissa was in danger.

  With Melissa’s imperiled image in his mind, he stepped cautiously from each tread to the next and held fast to the guardrails on either side of the partially finished staircase. He stepped off the last rung of the staircase and on to the black linoleum flooring. He found the light switch and turned on the overhead fixtures then quickly surveyed
the room. The furnishing remained the same. A weight bench and an array of free-weight plates and bars, a Bowflex exercise machine, a treadmill, an elliptical trainer and a power cage were exactly as they when last he saw them.

  The open floor plan afforded him an unobstructed view of the entire room. Melissa was not there.

  “This is bizarre, Gabriel,” Alexandra said in a composed voice. “Where the hell could she be?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel replied.

  “I know you think I’m overreacting about this, that she’s just off with that douche, Eric. But I really feel something is wrong here.”

  “So do I,” Gabriel admitted.

  “Let’s go back upstairs to Melissa’s room and see if there’s anything to suggest her whereabouts,” Yoshi offered.

  “Good idea, Yoshi. Come on Alex,” Gabriel said and gestured for both she and Yoshi to go ahead of him up the staircase.

  At the top of the basement steps, he closed the door behind him and paused to listen. The house was still except for the hum and whir of major appliances in the kitchen.

  Alexandra and Yoshi moved quickly up the main staircase in the house toward Melissa’s room. Gabriel scanned Christopher Martin’s room. Nothing appeared to be disturbed. The spare bedroom remained untouched as well. Just Melissa’s room was in a state of disarray.

  “What the fuck?” Alexandra exclaimed as she entered Melissa’s bedroom. She covered her mouth with both hands and a pained expression overtook her aspect.

  “It looks like there was a struggle,” Yoshi observed then moved to the overturned chair. “See here, where the chair is turned over is right below the open window.”

  Gabriel noticed the chair as soon as he climbed through the window. He narrowly avoided injury because of its positioning. Hearing Yoshi formally catalog each suspicious characteristic of the room justified his growing concern, exacerbated it.

  “And her phone!” Alexandra cried. “It’s right here.”

  Alexandra bent down and picked up her friend’s cellular phone. She touched the screen causing it to illuminate instantly. Her fingertips moved quickly as she tapped at the monitor before reporting her findings.

  “Eleven missed calls. They are divided pretty evenly between my cell number, her dad’s and Daniella’s,” she said then added, “And there are no numbers on here that I don’t recognize so your stupid Eric theory is just that, stupid.”

  “Is this her purse?” Yoshi asked as he lifted a black, rectangular handbag.

  “It is!” Alexandra confirmed. “Something terrible has happened. Melissa would never leave without her cell phone and purse.”

  “It’s Kevin,” Gabriel heard himself say. He had been thinking it all along but was loath to speak the words aloud for fear that verbalization might somehow validate his suspicions. He knew his thought process had been irrational, foolish even, but an indescribable presentiment warned him that Kevin and his friends were somehow connected to all that had happened.

  “You really think so?” Alexandra asked.

  “That’s the guy you read about at the Internet café, right?” Yoshi questioned.

  “Yes and yes. He is the guy I read about,” he said to Yoshi then looked to Alexandra and said, “I think they’re involved, directly or indirectly.”

  “What do we do next? Call the police?”

  “We can’t do that,” Gabriel cautioned. “All we have here is an open window and a cell phone. And also, I’m not supposed to be here, remember?”

  “Right,” she replied. “So what’s our next move?”

  Gabriel thought for a moment and suddenly the answer became clear.

  “Let’s go to my house,” Gabriel said.

  “Your house?” Yoshi and Alexandra said in unison.

  “You know, the house I lived in when I was in Harbingers Falls with Terzini. Think about it, it would be the perfect place to take her. It’s abandoned, secluded and no one but me would think to go there and look for her. And they think I’m gone.”

  “Huh, interesting,” Yoshi mumbled as he stroked his chin pensively.

  “Let’s not waste time standing around,” Alexandra stated as she exited Melissa’s bedroom, strode to the steps and out the front door.

  Gabriel and Yoshi followed. They all climbed into Gabriel’s rented Jeep and traveled to the house he’d lived in with Dr. Franklin Terzini just five months earlier.

  The drive took less than ten minutes. The Jeep mastered the narrow, winding roads of Harbingers Falls as if it perceived the intended route, hugging each sharp turn and adjusting to varying road conditions expertly. When finally he reached the private road that doubled as his driveway during his earliest days, a familiar knot twisted in his stomach. He turned down the long, gravel-filled path and his former residence came into view. The house, constructed with cream-colored brick and trimmed in forest green, was a Victorian Gothic-style structure. It had been constructed from materials of different colors and textures and displayed ornate carvings in a foliated pattern. Pointed arch windows and doors highlighted potential entryways for curious teenagers looking for a deserted place to hang out and party. An expansive deck wrapped around from the front of the house to the rear and was filled with leaves and debris. Even in a state of abandonment, the overall appearance of the house was stately, impressive.

  “Holy shit!” Alexandra gaped. “You live here, or used to live here?”

  “Um, yeah,” Gabriel replied self-consciously.

  Gabriel drove them to the end of the long driveway and parked outside the three-car garage port.

  “This place is amazing,” Alexandra commented again.

  “It is pretty impressive,” Yoshi chimed in and thumped Gabriel on the back. Yoshi was the only one among them who knew the details of Gabriel’s origins and of his stay in Harbingers Falls. He also knew of what lay beneath the grounds of the grand Victorian.

  “Thanks, I guess,” Gabriel said awkwardly.

  After exiting the car, they climbed the steps of the porch and Gabriel produced a key. Though the house had not changed much on the outside save for a broken window, the inside had undergone tremendous change. Books had been toppled from built-in, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the exquisite furniture had been defaced with cigarette burns and food stains, beer cans littered the once-pristine hardwood flooring and a suspicious odor he could not place lingered in the air.

  “This place smells like pot,” Alexandra announced.

  “Pot, as in marijuana?”

  “That would be it, smarty pants,” she replied.

  He watched as Alexandra walked around inspecting his former home. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone here, now,” she observed. “But I’m guessing there are, like, a million places she could be in this place.”

  “Yeah, and there weren’t any cars on the property or surrounding area,” Yoshi offered. “I don’t think she’s here, man.”

  “Well, let’s look here in the house first. Then we can look elsewhere,” Gabriel said ambiguously. “Obviously, this place has been someone’s hangout. And Kevin, Chris, John and Eric were the only people other than Melissa that knew where I lived.”

  “I’ll look upstairs,” Alexandra said as she moved to the staircase.

  “I’ll look in the downstairs,” Yoshi said. “Gabriel, why don’t you start on this floor?”

  Each began their respective search. Gabriel unearthed nothing of interest. He found ashtray and empty cigarette boxes, more beer cans and bottles and an abundance of trash that ranged from gum wrappers to empty potato chip bags. Nothing stood out as evidence that Melissa had been there.

  Suddenly, a loud shriek sliced through the stillness of the abandoned house.

  “Oh my God!” Alexandra screamed from upstairs. She repeated the phrase continually in the same terrified pitch until Gabriel flew up the staircase and down a long corridor to his former room. Yoshi arrived seconds after he did. They flanked a trembling
Alexandra and looked in the direction she pointed.

  Before them, in what once existed as Gabriel’s closet, was Eric Sala. His body slumped lifelessly against the far wall. Bruises covered the ashen skin of his face, neck and arms mottling him with discolorations of varying shades and sizes. His eyes stared straight ahead in a perpetual expression of vacancy. But his mouth betrayed the vacuous, drawn appearance of his eyes for it remained open, as if screaming silently in horror.

  Alexandra finally stopped screaming, shock seemed to have settled upon her. Her skin had paled unhealthily and in a trembling voice she said, “I can’t believe what I’m looking at. I mean, he’s–he’s dead.”

  “He looks like he was beaten to death,” Yoshi added softly, unable to look away from the horrendous display before him.

  But Gabriel hardly heard them over the thundering in his ears. His mind raced as terrifying, unthinkable scenarios played out. He began to panic.

  He sprinted out of the room and inspected the remaining three on the floor, entering and searching closet spaces and corners.

  “Gabriel, you okay?” Yoshi asked. “I know he wasn’t your friend or anything but that was gruesome.”

  Sweat dappled his forehead as he feverishly tore off dusty bedding from beds and stooped to look under them.

  “Don’t’ you get it, Yoshi?” he began. “If something happened to her, to Melissa, I saw her and could have stopped it.”

  Yoshi looked at him solemnly.

  “We both saw her and how could we have predicted or stopped something like that.”

  Alexandra’s voice distracted them again from hallway.

  “Guys!” she called. “Guys, we have to go, now! It’s them! They’re here!”

  She stood looking out a large window in the center of the corridor and pointed with a shaky hand to the long, gravel-filled driveway beyond its pane. A sleek black Infiniti Sports Coupe sped brazenly down the pathway and raced toward the house.

  “We’ve got to leave Gabriel, now! They’ll kill us! They’ll kill us, too!” Alexandra shrieked.

  Pure, unadulterated rage began to course through Gabriel’s veins. It throbbed and hummed through him like an electrical current, connecting and awakening every cell in his body. His senses felt heighten, charged beyond their extraordinary capacity. Every part of him hissed and crackled like high-voltage live wiring, exposed, dangerous.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” he growled.

  He descended the staircase, took two at a time, until he reached the landing. He positioned himself before the front door. He fortified his stance, and waited.

  Kevin Anderson opened the unlocked front door. John and Chris trailed behind him. As he stepped through the threshold, a look of shock flashed across his features. His face revealed that he did not expect to see Gabriel waiting, readied, on the other side of the door. Gabriel watched as he instantly regained his composure and smiled sardonically at him.

  Gabriel felt his temper flare. Yoshi joined him and stood at his side.

  “Where is she?” Gabriel demanded.

  “Don’t know, but now that you’re back, she’s dead,” Kevin said confidently.

  Gabriel struggled to control the rage that surged inside him and refrained from fighting Kevin in that moment; to do so would have been reckless. He needed information; he needed to know where Melissa was.

  “You know where she is, Kevin,” Gabriel accused. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to beat it out of you?”

  “Oh no, you’re scaring me, Gabriel,” Kevin mocked. “Ha! You’re a joke. And you don’t even realize that once you’re dead–and you will be dead very soon–we’re going to kill her, too!”

  “Like hell you are!” Gabriel exploded.

  “Temper, temper Gabriel!” Kevin warned. “We’re different than we used to be. We have the same modifications you have, and there are three of us and just one-and-a-half of you.” He gestured to Yoshi and laughed. “We’re stronger and faster than you. You’re the one at the disadvantage now.”

  Kevin began to laugh, a strange, staccato laugh. Everything about him, his posture, his facial expressions, his attitude and mannerisms, was different. Gabriel had had several run-ins with him in the past; he’d never behaved as he did now. He had possessed a swagger in the past, but never the courage or means to back it up.

  Gabriel moved boldly toward Kevin, disregarding the considerably height discrepancy.

  “Stop running your mouth and show me,” Gabriel challenged.

  Without hesitation, Kevin charged at him, moving faster than Gabriel remembered, faster than was human. Midstride, Kevin extended his formidable arm and swung his fist at him. His athletic rapidity and reflexes was far quicker than Gabriel remembered, more coordinated. Yet Kevin maintained his aimless, emotional style. He remained careless, sloppy. And though Kevin’s disordered attack was swift, Gabriel perceived it as if it were happening in slow motion, how Kevin sprung forward punching with his right fist while his left knee lunged ahead, vulnerable, exposed.

  Gabriel immediately capitalized on Kevin’s weakness, his careless approach, and turned on the ball of his foot while the other launched out and drove directly into Kevin’s kneecap. A sickly snapping sound reverberated through the abandoned Victorian followed by a howl of pain as Kevin began falling to the floor. But before his body ever touched the once gleaming hardwoods, Gabriel hurled a roundhouse kick. His airborne foot connected with Kevin’s face just as his splintered leg met with the floor below him. His body jerked backward on impact and his large frame was thrust against the interior wall of the vestibule. As he slammed into the wall, he knocked a massive oil painting from its supports. It crashed down atop his head just as he collapsed to the floor. He did not move or stir as consciousness seeped from him.

  “I guess some things never change,” he muttered as he regarded Kevin’s still form huddled against the wall.

  Gabriel assessed that despite modifications evidenced by Kevin’s improved strength and speed, his abilities still remained superior in every sense. His training in Motuo County served to further enhance his genetic aptitude, to refine his talents. Hours spent training with Yoshi and his father in the ancient martial art of Kalarippayattu sharpened his awareness of his surroundings and opponents, reinforced his reaction time and reflexes, improved his flexibility and offered him a stratospheric level of combat proficiency.

  The sound of footsteps behind him caused Gabriel to turn and glance up. As he did, he saw that Chris and John had descended upon Yoshi. He quickly moved to assist his friend.

  John challenged Yoshi and clearly operated on the assumption that his enhanced might would be sufficient to best his diminutive adversary. Gabriel noticed from the corner of his eye how he swung with tremendous force but wildly, making plain that he possessed strength but lacked strategy. Yoshi, on the other hand, bobbed and weaved as if he anticipated John’s every move avoiding blow after blow with speed and dexterity. Yoshi handled the genetically augmented athlete who outweighed him by roughly one hundred pounds and stood nearly a foot taller adroitly, expertly. John did not show signs of physical exhaustion but Yoshi appeared tired by toying with his opponent. He quickly switched from avoiding blows to deflecting them, and answering them. Within seconds, Yoshi demonstrated the power of his extensive training and landed direct shot after direct shot in succession until John, bested, fell to the floor a huddled heap of defeat.

  Chris, seeing his friend go down, circled Gabriel tentatively, as if formulating a plan of some sort. Whatever plan he may or may not have intended to execute was swiftly upended when Gabriel surprised him and attacked first, striking him in the torso. Chris doubled over immediately and clutched his midsection. As he hunched forward, Gabriel placed the entirety of his might behind his fist and punched him in the face. The blow knocked him from his knees to the floor. His body flopped sideways then fell still.

  Gabriel and Yoshi, saturate
d with adrenaline, were prepared to topple anyone who attempted to stand. Neither spoke but both remained intensely focused breathing in short, quick breaths. But a strange squeal diverted their readied concentration. The sound bordered on delight and repulsion and came from the landing at the bottom of the staircase.

  Alexandra stood perfectly still with her hands covering her mouth, her eyes round. Gabriel could not tell whether she was happy or horrified.

  “Alex,” Gabriel said softly. “Are you okay?”

  She did not respond but went silent instead. Fearing shock, Gabriel rushed to her with Yoshi steps behind him. When he was just an arm’s length from her, he moved cautiously toward her, unsure if her eyes even focused on him.

  Without warning, she became extremely animated.

  “Holy shit!” she exclaimed exuberantly. “That was fucking awesome! Melissa said you could fight, but I never dreamed you could do that! And Yoshi, you’re an ass-kicking machine!” Her words escaped her lips rapidly. She fired each in such quick progression, Gabriel had trouble keeping up.

  Gabriel’s attention was dissuaded from Alexandra’s rambling to movement from Chris. He moaned audibly and waved his arm feebly. Gabriel looked to Alexandra who did not appear to be suffering from shock and with a nod, left her in Yoshi’s charge.

  He stepped from the landing and crossed the foyer to the far corner of the passage and collared Chris by the front of his shirt.

  “Where is she?” he demanded and drew his fist back and angled it to strike. “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know, really. We didn’t do anything to her,” Chris said in an even voice then mumbled, “Yet.”

  Ire rose within Gabriel, the likes of which he’d never felt before. His fisted hand trembled with fury as he discharged it with the force of a spring-loaded bullet, blasting it against Chris’s nose. Blood gushed from it immediately and bone rendered under the tremendous impact of his punch. Gabriel released Chris’s shirt and allowed him to fall back to the floor writhing and whimpering in pain.

  He returned to where Alexandra and Yoshi stood and caught the tail-end of their conversation.

  “Where did you guys learn to fight like that?” he heard her ask as he approached.

  “I taught him everything he knows,” Yoshi bragged.

  “Wow, that was amazing. You kick ass for a little guy,” she gushed.

  Yoshi face reddened to a bright shade of scarlet as he beamed at Alexandra’s compliment.

  “Ahem,” Gabriel interrupted.

  “Did you find out where she is?” Yoshi asked.

  “No. He said he didn’t know where she is. And I believe him.”

  “Where the hell could she be?” Alexandra asked in a panicked voice.

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel answered. “I think we should go back to her house. We had to have missed something.”

  “What about them?” Yoshi asked and gestured over his shoulder with his thumb to Kevin, John and Chris.

  “I don’t know what to do about them, but I doubt they’ll be going anywhere for a while,” Gabriel replied.

  Gabriel, Alexandra and Yoshi stepped around the hunched and cowered masses that were strewn about the entrance hall and out into the warm afternoon. They climbed into the Cherokee and headed back to Melissa’s house.