More Than Life Itself

by Nassise, Joseph

  Friday Evening

  The terminal was crowded, the bad weather keeping the majority of the customers inside and out of the rain. Sam stalked through their midst, hunting for just the right opportunity, just the right set of circumstances to put things in his favour. He found it at half past seven.

  The girl had come off the last bus, the sum total of her belongings packed into a small suitcase that had clearly seen better days. She strode past Sam without looking up, and something clicked in the back of his mind. Somehow he knew, she was the one.

  He followed her across the station at a discreet distance, watching. No-one came to greet her, no one seemed to care. She wasn't looking around for anyone, like so many of the other passengers were doing, either. She simply strode for the exit with resigned strides, her bag clutched in one hand.

  Five minutes later, he pulled his car up beside her as she walked down the edge of the street.

  "Need a lift?" he asked.

  "No," she said, without turning to look at him.

  The rain was still coming down steadily, and her thin clothes were already soaked through.

  "Come on," Sam replied, "I don't bite. It's pouring out. You'll catch your death before you get to wherever you're going."

  She glanced at him, but kept walking.

  "Okay, suit yourself. I'm making a delivery to the soup kitchen and thought you looked like you could use a hot meal and a bed, but if you're not interested …" He started rolling up the window, letting the car drift ahead of her.

  The offer of a hot meal was what did it.

  She hadn't had one in more than a week, she said, once she climbed inside the car.

  He let her prattle on for several more minutes, nodding agreeably where needed, until she let her guard down.

  When she did, he clubbed her just above her left ear with his fist.

  This time, it didn't work.

  She reeled from the blow, but didn't lose consciousness. When Sam raised his fist to strike at her again, she stabbed a penknife into his side, just beneath the third rib.

  "I knew it, you motherfucker!" she screamed, stabbing him again.

  The pain was excruciating. Sam turned away from the road, using both arms to fend off another attack, and was forced to take his foot off the gas. The car slowed noticeably.

  That was all she needed.

  She stabbed at his face, forcing him to turn away, and as he did so, she threw open the door and tumbled out into the rain. As the car continued on, Sam looked back through the mirror in time to see her climb to her feet and charge off into the night.

  They were in an industrial part of town, surrounded by empty offices and vacant lots still under construction. Chances were that no-one would see or hear them, no matter what happened. With only a few hours left before his deadline, Sam decided he couldn't afford to let the girl escape.

  He pulled the car off the road, threw it into park and chased after her on foot through the vacant lot into which she had disappeared.

  If she'd been quiet, she might have gotten away. The rain and the darkness made it difficult for him to see. All she'd had to do was to keep down, out of sight, and she'd probably have been able to slip away into the gloom, never to be seen again. But instead she was screaming for help at the top of her lungs, and that made it easy for him to catch up with her.

  The crowbar he'd taken with him from under the front seat did the rest.

  Dragging her unconscious form back to the car, he threw it into the trunk and drove off.

  If anyone had seen them, so be it.

  After tonight, he was done anyway, he thought with grim satisfaction. No matter what, he'd saved his daughter, and that's all that mattered in the long run.

  The stab wounds in his side hurt, but he knew they weren't serious. He'd lost a little blood, and would need to take care of them when he got home, but he certainly wasn't in any danger of bleeding to death. He passed the rest of the ride alternating between cursing himself for getting cocky and grunting in pain whenever he twisted his body in the wrong direction.

  Fifteen minutes later he pulled off on the exit ramp, and shortly thereafter reached his home.

  He triggered the garage remote as he pulled the car into the driveway, expecting to drive right inside, but nothing happened. The door stayed shut and he almost drove into it, so great was his surprise.

  He stopped the car, shook the device and then tried again.

  Nothing.

  "Damn it! I don't need this!" He smacked the remote sharply against the dash and then gave it another try.

  Still no joy.

  Enraged, Sam threw the device against the passenger door, eliciting another flash of pain from his wounds, and then got out. He'd have to open the garage from inside the house.

  A glance at his watch told him he was running horribly behind. He had only four hours to remove the organ, mix it into the shake, and get it over to Jessica.

  He didn't think it would be enough time.

  "Damn well gonna have to be enough, because I'm not starting this all over again!" he muttered under his breath as he got out of the car. He slammed the car door and stalked up his front stairs.

  In his anger, he didn't notice that the deadbolt was disengaged or that the key turned too easily in the lock.

  He moved swiftly down the dark hallway, intent on reaching the kitchen and, through it, the garage. As he passed the living room, he caught a sense of motion out of the corner of his eye.

  He turned.

  A large, shadowed figure loomed there, larger than he was.

  He experienced a moment of stunned surprise when a hard, gun-like object was pressed against his chest, but that was quickly obliterated when the taser went off, sending twenty-five Watts of power jolting through his body.

  Then, darkness.

  ***

  When Sam came to, he found himself blindfolded and tied to a chair. His mouth was dry and the back of his head hurt where he had been struck, but he seemed otherwise uninjured. He struggled against his bonds, but soon gave up the effort; they were just too secure.

  "Hello? Anyone there?" he asked.

  The answer was immediate, as if they had been waiting for him to speak. It was a woman's voice, full of sorrow and regret.

  "I'm sorry you've had to go through this, Mr Dalton. Very sorry. About all of it. But I didn't have a choice."

  "Sorry about what?" Sam asked, but the woman went on speaking as if she hadn't heard.

  "I know it was difficult for you. Losing your wife couldn't have been easy. But we did what we could to make it quick without breaking the rules of the game. We do have some compassion, after all."

  At the mention of his wife, Sam froze.

  "I didn't want to do that to your daughter, truly, but Gray insisted. And that experimental disease culture stolen from his lab sure did the trick. We'd already come this far, there was no sense stopping now. It was going so well, too, until you found that stupid book." The woman's voice changed, became harder, fiercer. "Why'd you have to do that? Why couldn't you just leave it alone?"

  Sam's thoughts reeled. They'd killed his wife? Infected his daughter?

  "No matter now, I suppose. It's Monday. You do know what that means, don't you, Mr Dalton?"

  Monday? No. No, it couldn't be. If it was Monday that meant …

  "The cycle is broken." The anger had been replaced with gloating. "The changes you've managed to impose will swiftly reverse themselves. All your efforts will have been for nothing."

  Instinctively, Sam knew she was right. The manuscript had been specific; seven organs ingested over seven days. While it hadn't said what would happen if the ritual wasn't completed, Sam had no doubt that by its nature it wouldn't be good for it to be interrupted in midstream. Which meant Jessica was going to die, unless he could start the cycle all over again …

  Sam went berserk. He yanked on his bonds, trying to pull his arms and legs free. He twisted his wrists and rotated his ankles. He bent his neck and tr
ied to bite the ropes that secured his chest to the back of the chair.

  None of it was any use.

  At last, exhausted, he slumped in his seat, gasping for breath.

  Despair rose and then buried him beneath its tide.

  At that moment the woman screamed, "Yes! Yes! There it is! Now, Gray, now!"

  Sam felt a sharp stab in his thigh, followed by pressure as something was injected into his system. Immediately, his muscles began to cramp and then stiffen. Like a slow, rising shadow, the numbness spread upward through his legs, to his hips, to his abdomen, rising higher with each passing second.

  He heard the pages of a book being turned, and the woman's voice came out of the darkness once more, rising with excitement until it reached the fevered pitch of exultation. "The seventh and final death - a heart stopped in the moment of despair. We've done it, Gray, we've done it. Jason will live!"

  Sam felt his heart seize, flutter, seize again.

  This time it did not restart.

  In that moment between the stillness of his heart and the pending death of his mind, before the darkness swept in and swallowed him whole, Sam Dalton came face to face with a harsh reality of life.

  Love was the most powerful of all human emotions, and in its name people would do horrible things. Lie, cheat, steal, even kill. It was clear that his captors were following another ritual, one similar to but slightly different from his own. Sam knew instinctively that it had come from a book, and he had little doubt from whom they had obtained it.

  Equally obvious was the fact that he wasn't the only person who loved someone more than life itself.

  More than their own life, or anyone else's, for that matter.

  The darkness closed around him one final time, and somewhere in its thunderous depths, he could hear an empty-eyed saviour laughing wildly.

  About The Author

  Joe is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the internationally bestselling Templar Chronicles trilogy, and several installments in the Rogue Angel action-adventure series from Harlequin/Gold Eagle.

  He’s a former president of the Horror Writers Association, the world’s largest organization of professional horror writers, a two time Bram Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award nominee, and a writing coach who enjoys working with other writers and helping them attain their publishing dreams.

  Connect with him online at: www.josephnassise.com

  Twitter: @jnassise