The man, his name probably Benji—he doesn’t look like a Benji—, refocused his eyes and met his. “I’m sorry, but it looks like we’re going on a field-trip. Mind getting your shoes and whatever else you need? Our ride will be downstairs in three min—.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you until I know what the fuck is going on!” he interrupted, sitting on the edge of his bed and pulling his socks on, his retrieved sneakers at his side. “I don’t need a medical degree to know that what just happened is scientifically impossible. The only explanation I can think of is an unauthorized experiment on my wife, one that caused her body to mimic death. She escaped from wherever you had her and came home. You look and sound like a lawyer, you should be prepared to hear from mine. Now, get out of my way, I’m going to look for my wife,” he stated, fully dressed, his hand sliding his wallet into his back pocket and his mind on what kind of implement he could turn into a weapon on his way out the door; nothing that could compete with an AR-15, but he was going to try regardless. His wife needed him.
“Mr. Crawford, your wife is dead, her soul departed into the afterlife. That thing you just saw, that wasn’t Amanda Crawford, it just thinks it is,” the man stated, putting a hand up in a staying motion.
“It?”
“Like I said, I will answer all your questions as we make our way downstairs to where my comrades are waiting. You want to find out what’s going on? You’re not going to figure that out on your own. By all means, run out of here and into the streets looking for the ghost of your dead wife. If my associates couldn’t find her, you sure as hell won’t. By the time you get back we’ll be gone and the answers with me,” the man finished, turned, and walked towards the front door.
It sounded like an ultimatum.
As much as he wanted to resist, to tell the guy to go fuck himself, what choice did he have? Running around in the dark calling out his dead wife’s name?
Call the cops?
Hello, my dead wife was just in our bedroom and armed strangers showed up to capture and take her back to their secret base for an unauthorized science experiment.
He could imagine the white paddy wagon pulling up and the straight-jacket they’d be putting him in. His delusion would be considered a hallucination brought on by grief; even he wouldn’t believe the story had someone else told it.
Begrudgingly, he snatched his keys from the hook next to the door and walked after the departing suit heading down the stairs.
Chapter 2
I
Standing in the parking lot of his apartment complex, his eyes cast about looking for any signs of his wife, though he knew it was a fruitless exercise. The woman from his bedroom was walking along the sidewalk in their direction, her weapons secured and out of sight; she wouldn’t do that if she thought her target was nearby.
Target, as in my wife. What episode of the Twilight Zone have I woken up in?
“Bitch got away,” the woman stated, coming to halt three feet to his left.
“That bitch, as you put it, is my wife,” he growled, not liking the look she was giving him. If he had to go with his first impression, she was a real cold-hearted bitch.
She pulled her helmet off and held it in the crook of her arm, her right hand sliding up to brush out her clumped up short-brown hair. “I told you Gilipollas, that puta is not your wife anymore. Could your wife jump out a three-story window, land on her feet, and outrun two heavily-armed men, one of which used to be a basketball player? Not from what I’ve seen on your social media accounts.”
“Then you gave her some kind of performance enhancer!” he stammered, trying to come up with some logical rebuttal to her statement. “And I’m not an idiot, quit calling me that!”
She raised an eyebrow in a mocking manner, “you’ve been watching too many super-hero movies. She’s not Captain America, far from it.”
Social media?
“How long have you been spying on us?” he asked, his brow drawing together. His wife had died of heart failure, her body discovered hours later in a parking lot by an unsuspecting mall worker. Had it been something else, had she been murdered? The coroner’s report said it was a natural death, but now he began to wonder. He was a graphic artist, not a police detective, but if there was something hinky about his wife’s death, they would have told him about it, right?
She rolled her eyes and turned at the sound of an approaching vehicle. A black Humvee was coming through the gated entrance to the parking lot. How they got in without a passcode he didn’t know, but it wasn’t relevant. A dark-skinned man in similar armor was in the driver seat, and he spied what looked like a white face peering out from the back. Presumably this was the Hoops and Ezio he heard her talking to.
“Looks like the teams all here,” he sneered, then turned on the older guy in the suit. “You promised me answers if I came with you, so far all I’ve gotten are insults. I want to know what’s going on, right now.”
“We save his ass and he thinks we owe him something? What crap have you been spoutin’ Abuelo?” the woman snarked with a shake of her head.
“Mr. Crawford,” the older man began, a comforting smile on his face, “I know what I promised, but judging by the sirens I hear off in the distance and by the look on my comrade’s face,” he said, nodding towards the driver of the Humvee who had a finger in his ear and was starting to look concerned, “I’m guessing we don’t have time for chit-chatting at this exact moment. If you will accompany my associates, they will escort you back to our base of operations, and there, I promise, you will be brought up to speed.”
“Not riding with us?” the woman asked, the sliding door on the Humvee’s passenger side pulling back as it came to a stop before them, a grinning man in white and red armor and a black thin cloak waving his hand as if to say hello.
Benji shook his head, casting a look south in the direction of the approaching sirens. “No, I’ll call for a pick up. Someone needs to stay behind and assuage the authorities, try not to complicate Mr. Crawford’s life any more than it already has been. You could have saved me some time and not fired that shotgun of yours; in and out like we planned.”
She jerked her head in a quick upward slant, then smacked her lips. “This guero here was being straddled by the bitch, her teeth inches from his neck. What you want me to do, let her eat first before trying to stop her?”
“What is it with you and derogatory comments?” he asked, oblivious to anything else she said. It was a reflex action, took very little thought, but that didn’t mean he didn’t comprehend all that she had been talking about. He remembered very clearly what he felt when lying there, his wife holding him down, that feeling of submission overcoming his defensive instincts and the taste of death upon his lips. Still, he wasn’t going to just admit that, admit that she saved him, not until he knew that this wasn’t a situation of their own making first.
“Okay, enough of this shit. You want to hang out and wait for the cops? We’ll catch you back at base. You, however, need to get your ass in the back of this Humvee so we can get the fuck out of here,” she ordered, grabbing him by the shirt and yanking him forward like he was a ragdoll. He wasn’t heavy, but he wasn’t skinny either, so it took him by surprise with how little effort it took for her to shove him around. Maybe she was on whatever they’d given his wife as well?
“Why don’t I hang out and wait for them too? What makes you think I’m going with you?” he declared, trying to take a step back.
She intensified her grip and pulled him forward so that they were face to face, her fierce brown eyes penetrating his soul and making it quiver with fear. “You want to stay? Stay. She’ll be back as soon as we clear out, probably waiting just outside of range of our tech for just that reason. Personally? I can give a shit what happens to you. You’re just another privileged white boy who thinks the world owes him; there’s plenty of you out there to spare. But if I do that, see, I’ll have to come back and kill you as well, and I figure, why not just save your ass an
d use you to lure her out?”
“I’m bait,” he said, trying to process everything else but able to focus on that much at least.
“Exactly,” she grinned, letting go of his shirt and slapping both shoulders with her hands. “Now hop inside so we can leave, or I’ll go fishing here and you can take your chances that you’ll survive the night.” She then opened the passenger door of the Humvee, gave a nod and grin at the driver and slammed the door shut.
“Naomi’s a little abrasive, but she means well,” Benji told him in a softer voice. “Go with them, you’ll never be safer with them by your side. I’ll catch up when I can and if you still have questions when I do, I’m all yours until you are satisfied.”
There sounded like there was a bit of innuendo in there, but he tried to ignore it, his eyes on the genuine smile on the man’s face and the compassion in his eyes. He didn’t know why, but he trusted the man, even if he was friends with a raging lunatic. “Okay, but if I’m not satisfied with what I hear, I walk.”
“Deal,” Benji agreed, holding out his hand.
He took it gingerly, unsure of himself, then felt the older man’s hand land on his shoulder as he was led to the awaiting Humvee. Reluctantly, he climbed inside and took the open seat on his left, trying not to look at the grinning man beside him. The door shut, locking him in with these lunatics, and seconds later the Humvee accelerated forward and began its journey to the parking lot’s rear gates.
“How did you guys miss her? You knew there was only one way out of there if she couldn’t go through me,” Naomi inquired, her shotgun in hand as she secured it between her seat and the middle console, readily accessible should she need it.
Do I want to know where she keeps that AR-15 secured?
No, he didn’t.
“Hey, she was fast,” the man next to him blurted out. “A bit more than usual. If you wanted to make it easier on us, you should have tranqed her. My condolences, by the way,” the man said to him, his voice laden with an accent he couldn’t quite put a finger on. “Not every day your wife tries to eat you for lunch.”
“I’m sorry, I got wrapped up in saving this guero’s ass, thought my hombres would man up and cover my ass. My bad,” she snarked back, making their driver snicker in response. “What you think is so funny? You like getting your ass handed to you by a little white girl?”
The man didn’t turn his attention from the road, he simply laughed again and shook his head, “no, it’s that you were so eager to blame us when you’re the one that let her get away. You weren’t relying on us to bag her, you just wanted to pop off that shotgun of yours. You like to make an entrance, make sure everyone in the complex knew you were there, and counted on us to do the job and pick up your slack when you fucked up.”
“I’ll show you an entrance,” she growled.
“Seen it, been there, got the T-Shirt,” the driver shot back, getting a slap in the armored shoulder for the trouble.
“I haven’t yet!” Ezio proclaimed, eagerly waving his hand as if trying to get her attention.
She turned her eyes briefly in their direction, first at him, then at the man at his side. With a disgusted grunt she turned away, the seat blocking her completely from view.
“You people are crazy,” he muttered in disbelief, finally convinced this wasn’t a dream. No way he could come up with this shit on his own, artist or not.
Naomi’s laughter erupted from the front seat and her face reappeared as she grinned back at him. “You don’t know the half of it Gringo. Ezio, show him.”
The man on his left turned to face him and for the first time, he took a second to look the man over. He was in his early thirties with dark black hair, a goatee and moustache. He had long sideburns that looked reminiscent of Elvis Presley and was apparently an Assassin’s Creed fan, judging by the elaborate red and white patterned chest plate, ordinately larger than needed belt, vambraces, gloves and shoulder pads. He even had a black hood, which was down, his long hair pooled up inside. The man had a squarish jaw and mocha colored skin, his blue eyes looking delighted as a gloved finger reached up and pulled back his lower lip.
His breath caught, and he felt revulsion flood him to the core.
The man had a mouth full of fangs like a fucking T-Rex, and with a sickening realization he understood that the man hadn’t been smiling the entire time he’d been sitting there, it was the two larger fangs on the bottom that had been pushing his cheeks to make it look that way. His ass was moving, his hand on the back of the front seat as his back slammed into the door, his only thought that he had to get as far away as possible. “What the fuck?”
Laughter again from the front seat. “You’re not in OZ anymore, Dorothy,” Naomi’s voice snickered. “Best be nice or Toto here will take a bite out of your ass.”
“I resent that, you know?” Ezio said, hand dropping away as he leaned forward to be heard over the driver’s laughter. “In no universe could I ever be confused with a mangy terrier.”
“I don’t know, you smell about the same,” she shot back with another cackle immediately after.
“Fuck you, Naomi,” Ezio said, giving her the bird.
“In your dreams, Perro. In your dreams,” she returned, the laughter dying off. “Seriously man, he’s not going to bite you. If we wanted you dead, we’d have let that vamp wife of yours sink her teeth into you.”
Vamp?
“There’s no such thing as vampires,” he replied automatically, his ass still trying to find a way to squeeze through the door and out of this freakshow he’d been shoved into.
“Neither are werewolves, but it’s kind of hard to keep saying that when one is constantly trying to get into your pants, no matter how many times you whack his nose with a newspaper,” she replied in a half-humorous tone.
Ezio made a clicking sound and waved his hand dismissively. “You can forget that shit. Toto my ass. I’m done with you.”
“Aww, did I hurt the puppy’s feelings?” she teased, turning to glance at them once more. “I give it an hour, maybe two, then you’ll be back to trying to hump my leg again.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Ezio remarked, turning away to look out the other window, ignoring the playful stare from his compatriot. “You can sit down. I really don’t bite.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for that?” he asked, slowly retaking his seat, but keeping his body turned so he could react the instant the man moved his way. “I don’t know any of you. For all I know, I’m still in my apartment fast asleep and this is just some jacked up nightmare I’ll snap out of in any second.”
The Humvee jerked to a stop and he banged his head on the holder for the seatbelt, causing him to cry out in surprise.
“Worked better than a pinch,” Ezio told him with a grin. “You’re not dreaming. We’re here.”
“We’re where?” he asked, stunned, trying not to look into the man’s eyes but finding it a near impossible feat to accomplish.
“The carnival,” Naomi snarked as she opened her door and jumped out.
Ezio rolled his eyes and bent over to open the door on the other side.
“Look. All you need to know is that we’re the good guys. What we do is save lives for a living. Tonight, it just happened to be yours. Now, I know it’s a lot to take in, but give it some time, you’re not as crazy as you think you are,” the driver told him, giving him a calm look, his bright green eyes soothing to look at. “I need a drink. Come on, I think I’ve got a bottle of aged bourbon in the cellar. We can drink to another successful mission.”
“Successful?” Ezio questioned as the door opposite slid open and he began to shift his way out. “How the fuck do you call that successful?”
“We’re alive, aren’t we?” the man returned. “Anytime we all go out and come back with no casualties, ours or civvies, is a successful mission. Now get your ass out of my Hummer before your fleas get all over the seats. Takes forever to get the fuckers out.”
“Yeah, you c
an eat me too,” Ezio sneered, punching the headrest on the front seat and hopping out.
“Sorry, not my kind of diet,” the black man grinned, then turned and opened his door as well.
What the fuck had he gotten himself into, and how the hell did he get the fuck out?
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Timothy Ray was born in Tucson, AZ, where he resides with his wife and three children.
He graduated from Desert View High School and was part of the Writer's Club for three years. He attended the Art Center Design College to work on a Bachelor’s degree in Animation.
The Rotting Souls Series (Book 5): Charon's Vengeance Page 22
