Drifters

by Santos, J. A.

  “Nothing Sara I swear.” He said with his worried face.

  “Why so worried about?”

  “I..I..I….” the stumbling of the words gave me a warning and I turned around grabbing the knob of the door and twisting it right. The door opened with a slow creaking sound, like those from horror movies where the heroin is about to find the corpse of her boyfriend impaled into the wall, in his chest a spear or a machete, you know those stories of a murderer inside the old house. I remember the time where one was fallowing me and how he tried to do exactly that, I suffer a little he was smart and really perverse, but I manage to take him down, but that is definitely another story I will tell someday.

  I walked in. Inside the middle was a chair in it Alex head down looking at nothing but black floors. I slowly walked to him.

  “Alex? Are you okay?”

  “You, what are you doing here?”

  “We came for you buddy.” Said Max as he past me and kneeled in front of him putting one hand to his left shoulder.

  “You smell like her.” Alex said and growled at him like and angry dog.

  “Alex please, she is trying to help, it is not as you say she is.”

  “But she is, you just wait and see,” said Alex.

  “Listen Alex, you have been dosed two time now with a suppressant Marino is using make you go berserk, you have to listen to us.” Jeremy said taking a step back as Alex smiled as if knowing what he had inside him all this time.

  “Ah, Marino’s a fool, a bastard for throwing me in here, yet he wasn’t a fool after all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He said you would come and so I waited. And here you are the white demon with hair as fire coming to save the innocent man.” He said mockingly and I got infuriated.

  “You don’t want our help fine; wait till Marino is done with you so you can see for yourself who the real monster is.” I said as the words I told Jeremy still lingered in my mind yet I turned around my hair swiftly turning with me and landing on my shoulders.

  “The fire, that gorgeous creature, I want to see her again?” he said.

  I turned around again looking him with my downed brow, my tight lips and the anger so vicious that I wanted to kill him. “What?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “What Canyon Diablo? I do, I do really well.”

  “That is the Sara Garber I want to see again, and I will, whatever it takes.”

  “Even using Marion?” I said as I understood now Marino was not using Alex, Alex was using Marino for his plan on revenge.

  “Maybe, maybe we both got the same idea on dealing with you and your kind.”

  “You mean our kind.”

  “No, I mean you’re kind.” he said

  I looked at him as I tilted my head right not knowing what he meant by it, then he broke his chains like nothing was ever holding him he stood and Max fell backwards on his ass. AS he squirmed backwards I thought to see the same blackness around his eyes but I wasn’t sure since the room was dark, damp and only a faint glow of what was left of the moon shown threw a hole in the upper left side of the room, giving Alex a hellish glow on his face.

  “Listen, you Sara Garber, bringer of death and bringer of the disease, you are one of a kind, we are just product of the ingenuity of others and so are they going to pay, but it has to be you first. I saw that demon once, the one you really are and now I want to see her again.” He finished lunching forward growling and hissing with his arm extended. His hands cover my face as he threw me across the room with one single motion. I flew to the back of the room back first high on the wall and fell face flat as Alex walked towards Jeremy. I coughed and spat a little blood on the floor as I stagger to get up. My eyes were a little fuzzy at first, but they cleared fast to see that now Alex had Jeremy by the neck same way he did at the fertilizer plant.

  “Alex, don’t!” I screamed at him as he moved his head left to watch me try a stand up.

  “What can you do, you can’t even stand straight.” He said smiling with a little laughter at the end.

  “You have been dose with two of Marino’s cocktail you are not you.” Jeremy managed to say with a hoarse voice.

  “Two. You think two is what Marino had given me?”

  “Alex, stop this, you are way over your head here.” Max screamed as he stood up and ran towards his friend with his fist raised.

  “And what will you do?” he said as Max suddenly stopped. His body had left communication with his brain as now Alex was in control. The blackness of Max’s eyes returned in one simple and fast draw. I stood there still trying to take control of my wobbly legs. He was strong that is for sure, but he got me off guard. I have learned to fight in and old ring in Nevada, my teacher and old boxing champion, now retired and fragile. I pity him and hold the hunger for as long as I could, but then someone murdered him and I went after the murderer. When I found him I let the hunger control me for the second time in my life, first time was when a woman murdered Med and after I had to do to Kevin what needed to be done.

  I was sent to a corner inside my head as another I took control. I do not recalled what it did to the victims all I knew is that when I came through, the murderers weren’t there all there was or what was left of them were blobs of flesh and dead skin, bones protruding from it sides as if they were legs and arms only did I noticed the open torso of what used to be a man.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Two suppressant shot that we know of, that would hold out hunger and our strength, or so that was the idea, that thing has now turned in to a weapon Marino was using against me. I could not let this go through Alex has and will be put down like the animal he is. I felt sorry for the actions I had to take on my own kind, barely knowing this fact. Alex is a threat and my actions have to deal him like such. I feel the regain of my body strength and I stood tall, forehead held high as a queen. The words that next came out of my mouth were some I would never utter to a defenseless man not to anyone that was innocent same words I used so long ago.

  “You may be able to do what you do and feel no remorse or even not care. But I am here now to show you how wrong your deeds have been.”

  And I lunged forward my wings flapping my hair overlapping my face distracting me from the sight in front of me, yet I had my aim straight to him, straight at Alex’s throat. He let go of Jeremy moving fast backwards, I thought at that moment the Alex had snapped Jeremy’s neck, but as I passed his body I saw Jeremy moving his hand up to his throat and moving his head in relief. I kept moving forward, aim the same.

  “Good I see you are serious now.”

  “You are dead.” I screamed in between growls as if a bear wanted to speak and the gargling of the words made them distorted and unfinished. I tried grabbing him by his collar as my grippe flawed and he moved away again. Alex was swift and precise in his movements, but I was on step closer. He would be dead in my next move, I thought then I stopped as the strobes of lights started flickering around us.

  “Ah, Marino showed up.” Alex said as he raised his hands straight in the air. “Marino you fuck, one more, only one more to take this woman out of our lives!” he screamed at the strobe lights in the air.

  “Deal with her now, then as promised.” The voice came from a place I did not see. It was all over as if he had implanted speakers all around and the message was being portrayed all around as an emergency broadcast call over the news on TV, interrupting your favorite show for actually nothing important. Alex was going to die today. He, one of my kind readying to deal me a death blow, I would not let him win and Marino was next, the love of my life, the man I had adored in my captivity was now just another monster from the human world capable of an evil more wretched than I could ever do or muster in my condition with the hunger.

  “Marino you’re dead, hear me, I will kill you!”

  “Sara,” the sound reverbed in my consciousness and made me remember all the times in that lonely room at fifteen, “I know this may be hard,” hi
s voices distorted for the vibrations of the sound bouncing from the rotten walls, “The past is the past, after what; twelve years you still think I hold a grudge? I don’t, but some things have to be dealt after all.”

  “Then why do this, why get Alex to do something you will not do to my face?”

  “For the same reason you are still alive.”

  “And that is?”

  “I still love that innocent fifteen year old I met so long ago, it is not till I let Alex and Max out some months back that I learned, and I really learned what you really are. Without Alex I would never device such an extreme death for you. I always had your death on the lab close to my heart; although it hurts I know now this is how it is meant to be.”

  “What are you talking…?” Alex moved forward side stepping left as soon as he got near grabbing me by the neck and lifting me from the ground while Marino continue talking from the speakers.

  “Sara when I met you it was love at first sight, yet you had to destroy it by killing my brother and Caroline, which I don’t understand why she did what she did. Did You know she was my brothers Fiancé.”

  “I know.” I said with a raspy voice as Alex hand around my throat had me about three feet of the ground.

  “And now after years running after you, I told Jeremy that I was done with you, let you be you, you were and are unique, always have been. Yet the experiment saw fruit and now you, the monster you are, will die.”

  After the last word was spoken Alex brought me down to face him; eyes black with small veins coming out or maybe in. He growls and with his hand on my neck he squeezed and I gasped for air. I am not like Max my neck breaks, I am dead, I kicked furiously at him until I got a lucky hit that sent him to the wall and I knelt on the floor gasping for air.

  “No more.” I said as I raised my fist and went straight to the same target his neck. I missed and my punch made a hole in the wall where he was staggering to his feet, the wood splintered as the hit went through with great force I could feel the hunger taking over, my sight blackening and the hold I had on my body fading. I could not let it happen Max and Jeremy, both here; I could not let the hunger take control not now.

  I ran towards Jeremy and looking at Alex regains his posture I asked Jeremy about an old saying he would say at night in the lab right when lights were out.

  “What was that you told me once about fighting for what you believe in?”

  “Never surrender always feed your hunger to thrive; it will drive you closer to your goal, but why?” Jeremy said

  “Get out now, take Max with you once I am done here we are going after Marino.” I said as I look back at Alex standing at six feet five inches like a human skyscraper strong and unrevealing to my strength, so the hunger it is. Alex ran to me same as before and I dodged his palm to meet his fist on the face, My head jerked sideways to my left and I staggered back.

  “Jeremy, get the fuck out know.” The last words that came out of my mouth as soon as that familiar darkness came to me. That mindless monster came out as a demon hunting for souls at night. ‘The naïve shall die’ a weird voice was heard inside my head. I felt my body rise from the floor as if strings were attached to my limbs. Every move was made by a more powerful entity that was not me, the hunger or the will to survive. Everything turned to glimpses of pictures from then on. I saw Alex face enraged throwing a punch and Max and Jeremy closing the door behind them as I dodge that same fist Alex threw and grabbed it midair. I felt my knees bend down and my hand tighten as I rose from the ethereal hell and with my own strength hit Alex on the jaw and he stumbled back.

  I felt the jerking of my head backwards and a punch in my left breast, but no pain. I felt the bite, that thing that always let us turned others, but the effects on us were always rare, as if it would be faster for him now or would it actually affect him at all.

  Alex threw another punch my body moved as a dancer to his every move. I felt like if I was on an auditorium dancing to the music of his fists and kicks. Then all of a sudden I could not remember no more, no more still photos, no more glimpses of the strobes of light around us and definitely not Alex faces contorted on a madden state.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I came to on the floor of the dark room, nothing and no one inside. I looked left and right trying to find any sign of winning or losing the fight with Alex, but I am alive and Alex was no were to be seen. There was nothing, but the splintered chair on the floor holes in the rotten wood and I was alone. No more strobes of lights flashing in the room just dark as if night had eaten me and I was in its stomach. I sat upright fast and looked at my hands moving my head from side to side looking to see were the bite was. I did not see one. I stood and wobbled a little, I was ravenous and need something to eat, and the hunger could take over if I did not feed it, but where was Alex body?

  I walked up the creaking stairs and onto the sun light putting one hand over my eyes to see Alex at the far edge of the woods, left side of the mill. I ran after him, as soon as I saw his smile relentlessly taunting me as if he knew he could deal with me now. Yet I was worried that I was left out cold and my zombie like state did not won consuming Alex’s body. What had happened inside me and what had happened during the fight? Marino; the only word that came to my mind as I knew something had happened Max and Jeremy had left the mill earlier and Marino was the only one probably watching what had happened. I did not wanted to know exactly to what extent I lost to Alex next time it won’t be so easy that is for sure and I will deal with them both soon.

  I looked back to where I saw Alex before but that was just a mirage of some sorts, my head still throbbed and the huger was calling out for food. I started walking to the woods holding my left arm with my right hand just above the elbow, a movement I did not notice till further inside the forest and a deer jumped in front of me, wobbling and limping he was hurt and so was I. The bite Alex had taken at me I just saw at that moment, but then I remember not seeing this just some moments ago. What was happening? I soon found myself face down in the forest floor and hurting and screaming as my back was raided by Max; and Jeremy? Something is definitely wrong. I put both my hands to the ground and pulled myself up with all my strength and threw a punch to the air. Hitting a tree splintering in front of me, it splintered red and it showered crimson all over me. Crimson rain fell as the dark light of the room came all over again. The strobes of white light were still around and I saw Alex on the floor holding his jaw. It was broken and out of place.

  “You ‘itch, ‘at hur’.” He said no being able to form simple syllables of the words with his jaw broken and out of place.

  I looked over him and around. What had just happened was Alex inside my mind all this time. I touched my hand were the bite was still there he must infected me as he did Max and that other poor soul who ever it was that Max had stomped it’s head in.

  Alex stood as he tried to put back his jaw in place. I heard laughter and screaming. I turned around towards the sound, but since it was all over I knew it was Marino through the speakers.

  “What have you done, who is screaming.” The screams invaded the room as Alex finally got his jaw back in place and he could now speak more clearly.

  “That Marino’s is really an evils son of a bitch I think I could use him even more now.”

  I turned to see Alex standing his hand under his jaw as if he was thinking or pondering on an idea he had with Marino’s body.

  “Marino speak you bastard what have you done!” I screamed on to the silence that had fallen on the room as the screams had stopped and a feeling of dread had fallen over me.

  “O, Sara this is wonderful how come you had never told me of this.”

  “NO,” I said under breath as I knew what he had done, “Marino, no, you can’t and won’t be able to control this!” the screams and the sadness was all but real. The love of my life wanted me dead for something that happened 12 years ago. Alex wanted me dead for something I did not even do. Max wanted me dead at first and Jeremy; well
he just wanted to basically apologize for his hunting of me for those twelve years.

  In my head was the urgency to make way to Marino’s hideout where ever it was and stop him no matter what he was thinking, he was still human after all and the hunger would slowly make him ravenous with deranged desires for blood and flesh. I look at Alex still in front of me.

  “Where is Marino?” I asked him firmly as I blew a spit of hair that had fallen over my eyes.

  “What, you think I will tell you? It was hard enough for me not to kill him at first; I was saving him for last I wanted to see his face when I threw your corpse at his feet.”

  “Good luck with that, I am not letting you get out of here alive I am ravenous.” I said smiling as I saw in his eyes what at that moment looked like a bit of fear, but it disappeared as soon as it came.

  Getting his composure back and still holding his chin with his right hand he said “Well so am I and this toying with you were a wrong idea I should have disposed of you as soon as you fell under me.”

  They fell silent and I could sense the tension in the air it was so dense that you could cut it with a knife, yea I know it sounds clichéd, but there was no other way to described it.

  As we stood, we both looked intently at each, looking for that sign of an attacked. None of us moved. I knew I was the one to draw first blood. I let myself fall slightly bending my knees arching my back forward and extending my hands to the side making a big arch from left to right. I open my hands and separated my fingers letting the growl escaped my mouth.

  “This is you end.” I said to Alex as he smiled and did the same as me kneeling a little arching his back forward and separating his hands making that arch, only one difference here, once he let go of his jaw it dropped and swayed left and right as blood oozed to the floor. I lunged myself forward this time not distracting myself from the strobes of light’s and every from now on was as it were filmed in a stop motion camera, the strobes of light made the effect as natural as walking or talking on the phone with someone.