Phobias

by Ryan Horvath

  Excitement coursed through Calvin’s body as he realized this was finally the moment he was going to kill this double-crossing doctor. In the few seconds it took to get the gun to Justin’s head, Calvin had time to wonder some things. Where was his mom? Would she be proud of him for the homicide he was about to commit? What would Walt say? And most importantly, what would his father have thought? Calvin had one last second to miss his father; the man had meant the world to Calvin. He idolized and adored him and, when his dad was around, Calvin felt whole and like a real person.

  But, as is often the case, Calvin realized that a lot can change in a second. While thinking about his father, he lost a second that proved costly.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  With ninja-like speed, Miedo shifted his weight and threw himself backward. He knew it was going to be tricky getting the kid off balance, but he also knew how to handle Calvin. He’d done it before after all, and he was going to do it again. He used the side of the truck and kicked off of it with one leg, slamming himself backward into Calvin. Keeping his balance to make sure he didn’t topple on top of the football player was the tricky part, and Miedo nearly lost it but, at the last possible nanosecond, he recovered his sudden shift in position and did not fall.

  Miedo whirled around in time to see the gun Calvin had been holding slip out of the kid’s grasp when he hit the ground. He also noticed the former football player landed with his legs parted. The kid’s testicles were protected by the thin layer of his running shorts, and probably some kind of underwear beneath, but not much of anything else.

  While the kid swore as he tried to adjust his large frame, Miedo drew back his foot and took aim. If he was lucky, he’d break the kid like Mr. Star had been broken. He licked his lips in triumphant anticipation.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  “Shit! You fucking bastard!” Calvin yelled as he hit the ground and the gun slipped away. His bullet injury was really starting to itch and Calvin thought he felt feverish. If he hadn’t been reminiscing, the revolting doctor would probably be dead by now. Instead, Calvin was feeling the tear of road rash eat into his skin as he landed.

  He knew he wouldn’t have long to recover. The doctor was either going to slip away, continue the assault, or, worst, go for the gun and put a few more bullets into Calvin.

  Calvin worked to prop himself up and winced as bits of dust and gravel fell from his skin, but he immediately caught sight of the doctor. The doctor was pulling his foot back for a kick, and Calvin could easily see his groin was the intended target. A few days ago Calvin might not have cared. He hadn’t used his genitals in a long time and doubted he would ever be able to again after what he’d been through, and continued to go through, with the rape and his phobias.

  But now that Calvin’s head felt clear and liberated of the noose of fear that had strangled him for so long, he thought he might have a future with someone, maybe even a family. And that meant he had to protect what he had.

  As the doctor wound up, his foot appeared to morph before Calvin’s eyes. He saw it change into the shape of a very heavy-looking sledgehammer head at the end of a human leg. As it came forward, slow motion seemed to dominate the scene.

  Calvin raised himself into a mostly sitting position. His left hand moved at a snail’s pace from where it helped prop him up; its trajectory was toward his groin, and it made it there a split second in advance of the sledgehammer/foot. Calvin managed to save his testicles from being ruptured by a powerful kick. But in doing so, he felt at least two of the bones in his left hand snap.

  Intense pain shot up Calvin’s arm from his heavily damaged hand. He cried out and swore once at the doctor before he saw utter, black, hate in the doctor’s eyes.

  Then the doctor was on him.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Miedo threw himself on top of the former high school jock. Calvin was heavier by at least twenty pounds and he was a good four inches taller, but Miedo was uninjured, angry, and now possessed the upper hand.

  As he landed on the kid, Miedo made sure to drive a knee into his gut, hoping to connect with his diaphragm. He was successful and heard and felt the kid vomit out the air in his lungs. With his other leg, Miedo used his foot and pressed it into the bullet wound he’d inflicted a short time before. He took a second to see new blood instantly flowing from the wound. He looked back into the kid’s face.

  The kid was blood red. Miedo could tell Calvin wanted to cry out in pain, but he didn’t have any air in his lungs.

  Now was when Miedo would finish this miserable little cockroach. For good. For once. For all.

  Miedo bared his teeth, wrapped his hands around Calvin’s neck, and squeezed.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  The heavy foot on Calvin’s bare leg, of course, restarted the bleeding from the gunshot injury. Calvin felt his blood running down his leg. He hadn’t been able to get a breath since the doctor landed on and forced all the air from him. Multi-colored spots danced before his eyes.

  And then the doctor had his hands around Calvin’s throat. Calvin couldn’t breathe.

  Calvin knew his left hand was useless so, with the little strength he could muster in what was probably his last few seconds of life, he reached up with his right hand and went for the doctor’s face.

  But the doctor anticipated him and gnashed his teeth around one of Calvin’s fingers. Calvin felt pain from this new place and he saw blood, his blood, spray out of the doctor’s mouth. Calvin snatched his hand away in defeat.

  Above him, the doctor stared with maniacal glee; blood oozing from his mouth and streaking across his perfectly-aligned teeth.

  This is it Calvin said to himself as he saw a grayness creep in from all edges of his vision. Dad? I’m comin’ to be with you. Walt? You better be there too. And Mom? If you… if… well, if you’re there too, that will be just fine.

  The grayness intensified.

  Calvin stopped resisting.

  Death stood just beyond the haze and waited for him.

  And just as he was about to slip fully into Death’s view and allow himself to be taken, Calvin heard a load roar. He thought he saw blood on the side of the doctor’s head.

  Then the pressure on his neck was gone. The pressure on his chest and leg disappeared right after.

  The grayness withdrew, taking Death with it.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Miedo heard the roar and then felt the sting on his right ear. He looked up and saw the miserable drunk ex-cop and the panty-priss standing in the distance. To Miedo’s surprise, the ex-cop had a shotgun in hand. He’d fired on Miedo and, given the sting and the blood that dripped from his ear, Miedo just missed having his head taken off.

  He shrieked and threw obscenities in their direction and leapt off the kid he had just about finished off. He raced back to the truck and another shot rang out. It slammed into the side of the truck’s bed about a foot from him with a scream of twisted metal.

  After the second shot, Miedo knew he had nothing else to worry about. The shotgun had been one of the ones in the room with the drunk ex-cop, and Miedo had only put two shells in each gun. The gun in Chad’s hands was now empty.

  Miedo scurried into the truck and fired up the engine. He fiercely threw it into gear and sent dust and gravel into the air as he spun the truck around. Through the windshield, he saw the ex-cop and the panty-priss running toward the downed kid. Miedo lined his truck up with them and slammed hard onto the gas pedal.

  The truck screeched forward and bore down on the three former phobics. Miedo felt sheer joy at the prospect of feeling each of their bodies crunch under the weight of his truck. He rocked back and forth in the driver seat.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Holly and Chad raced for Calvin as the truck bore down on him.

  “We’re not gonna make it!” Chad shouted. He looked around frantically. In seconds, Calvin would be under the front tires of the vehicle. Suddenly, he spied the pistol Calvin had brought out here. It was close to Holly. Close enough that she might just have a chance. “
Holly! The pistol! Go for it. Shoot this motherfucker! I’ll get Calvin!” he fired off in a fast police-like fashion that he hadn’t used in ages.

  Holly didn’t need to be told twice. She located the gun in her sights and slid into it as if she was stealing second base. She trained it on the speeding truck and squeezed the trigger. She pulled off three quick rounds, and the last one caused the truck to veer away mere seconds before it crushed Calvin. He was in the clear.

  The truck began to speed away.

  “The tires!” Chad shouted. “Shoot the tires!”

  Holly immediately followed this instruction too. She pressed herself to the ground, completely unafraid that there was any number of creepy crawlies around, and lined up the tires. She fired off rounds and, on the fourth one, she connected with the rear passenger side tire of the truck.

  The truck faltered, tilted to one side, but the tires found enough rubber to grip the sand and the truck again started away.

  “Shit!” Holly spat out. She looked over to Chad who was also on the ground and helping Calvin. “What now?”

  “It’s okay,” Chad said, and smiled. “You got him. He won’t get far in that truck.”

  “F…F…F…Fucking… b…b…bastard broke my h…h…hand!” Calvin let out in a choked, raspy voice.

  “Take it easy buddy,” Chad said. “We’ll get him,” he added with confidence as he gazed in the direction of the settling dust.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Miedo looked at the reflection of his ear in the rearview mirror.

  His lobe had been clipped halfway off and blood was oozing freely from the wound.

  The truck groaned in protest on its battered wheel.

  Miedo knew the situation wasn’t good.

  His truck wasn’t going to last much longer than a few miles, let alone enough to get him out of the blast radius. And he’d brought them out of town too far, so stealing a new vehicle for his escape was also not something he would be able to do and still make it out before the explosion.

  “Shit!” Miedo pondered.

  The last of the rubber on the damaged tire pulled free and the rim bit into dirt roadway. It went about sixty more feet before it wouldn’t go anymore.

  “Shit!” Miedo repeated.

  He looked at his watch.

  If he did everything correctly, the bomb would go off in one hour two minutes, give or take ten seconds.

  Miedo could see only one solution. And it was a long shot. He’d have to go back to the bomb and turn it off. But he didn’t know if he actually could turn it off. He didn’t plan for that contingency. The four of them were the only people around for about five miles. Miedo wondered if one of them might know how to shut off the bomb. It was a moot point because they wouldn’t allow him to live long enough to explain the situation even if he wanted to.

  He sighed loudly and scratched at his arm. Everyone else dying was part of the plan, but Miedo wanted to live.

  He left the truck, grabbed a few items from behind the seat, and headed back the way he came.

  ~~43~~

  “We gotta get him, Chad,” Calvin said through gritted teeth. Sweat broke out all over his body even though he felt chilled to the bone: a good indication that he was definitely in real medical trouble. And although the gray specter of Death no longer hovered in his vision, a number of dancing, multi-colored circles still did. His back was filthy and he could feel blood congealing in places where the road bit into him. But he was still eager to finish this. Calvin thought that, if the sun went down on this enchanting, painted landscape and brought night with it, he would be sucked back into the psychological prison of his phobias. “I need this to be over!”

  “Hold on, Cal,” Chad said. “You’re in bad shape and you look like hell.”

  “So fuckin’ what?” Calvin snapped. His voice was strained. He held up his hand and examined the teeth marks and added, “Fuck!”

  Holly joined them. She was panting lightly and still holding the pistol. “Are you okay?” she asked Calvin.

  He gave her a weak smile. “I’m just fine. What about you? You’re shot too?”

  “Mine is nowhere near as bad as yours,” Holly said quickly. She returned his smile and echoed him. “I’m just fine too.” The strained, tired look on her face said otherwise.

  “How many bullets you got left?” Chad asked her.

  Holly snapped out the magazine and examined the insides. Since the day Mitchell’s worm ate its way across the globe, Holly had become quite familiar with a variety of guns. She snapped the magazine back into place. “Two at least. Weight feels like there’s a third one down in there too. Definitely no more than that.”

  “Plenty,” Calvin rasped. “Especially because I’m gonna rip his throat out with my bare hands.” He started to shuffle in the direction in which the doctor’s truck disappeared.

  A tingling sensation prickled Chad in the center of his brain. It raced down and tickled his esophagus, dropped and did somersaults in his stomach, and then descended into his testicles where he felt the protective skin crawl. “No,” he whispered.

  “What?” Holly questioned. “Let’s go after this son of a bitch and be done with this.”

  Chad looked down at his hands. He was still holding the shotgun, something he would not have been able to do a mere twelve hours ago. He knew it was useless. After his second shot, he checked the chamber and found the gun was out of shells. He tossed the weapon to the ground. “Something isn’t right here,” he said, alternating his gaze between Calvin and Holly. “Why’d he bring us all the way out here? Wherever here is?” Chad posited. “He could have tortured and killed us right in our own house. It’s remote enough. I mean, he killed Walt there without hesitation.” Chad paused as he saw the sting of his bluntness on both of their faces. He pressed on. “Instead, he brought us out here. Why?”

  “Who the fuck knows, Chad?” Calvin croaked back.

  “What are you thinking?” Holly said, stepping closer to Chad.

  “Just… we’re missing something.” Chad looked around them. Aside from the old building they’d come out of, there was just dust, the hills, some tumbleweed, and bushes on their way to becoming tumbleweeds. His gaze ultimately returned to the building. Gears worked in his mind. “He… he … never expected us to get out of that place…,” he said softly.

  “What do you mean?” Holly said.

  “We were never supposed to overcome our fears,” Chad replied. He eyed the nearby firearms. There was no pang of fear. He looked at Holly. “You still have that spider right?”

  Holly had nearly forgotten about it, but she felt the bulge of the vial against her leg. She extracted it from her pocket. Inside, the unidentifiable and unique arachnid sat and stared back at her. The sight of its eight eyes would normally have unnerved Holly, yet she held the spider in her hands with no more fear than if she’d been holding a fork, flower, or favorite dress.

  Chad nodded rapidly. “That’s just it! We were never supposed to get out of there.” He pointed to the building. “But his plan…” He pointed in the direction Andrews went, “…was to leave us here while he made his escape.”

  “So what?” Calvin asked and shrugged. He whimpered as the movement sent pain into his broken metacarpals.

  “So why bother with all of this? Why come back for us to finish the job if his intention was to leave us to sit and be trapped by our fears? If he needs this to be over as bad as we do, then why lock us up and leave a metaphoric lion on guard? Why not just kill us and be done with it? He had the chance.” Chad recalled the top of Walt’s head coming off and the sensation of his young friend’s blood splattering against his skin. “Easily had the chance,” he supplemented. “There’s something going on here that we’re missing.”

  “Well, can we just figure it out after we get Andrews?” Calvin said.

  Chad’s agitation was rubbing off and Holly caught it. “No,” she said. “We can’t. In fact. I think we’re going to need Andrews. He’s set something in moti
on and our escape… or release from our phobias, has caused that to backfire on him.”

  Chad nodded fiercely in agreement. “I don’t like this one bit.” Hairs stood up on his neck.

  A second later, six or so yards away and from behind a rock formation, a stick rose up into the air. Attached to the top of it was some kind of white cloth.

  Holly saw it first. “Guys.” She pointed. “Look.”

  They cautiously moved toward the flag. Holly held their only active weapon at the ready.

  When they got within a few feet of the waving cloth, Calvin was able to read something. He saw his name, printed a number of times, but there was another name with it that was not his, and he realized he was looking at a pair of Calvin Klein underwear. Whoever was behind the rock, and Calvin knew it could only be one person, had used his own underwear as a white flag. Calvin generally knew what the symbol of a white flag meant and he said, “Surrender?”

  The flag lifted a little before it fell to the side. As it fell, a head and face appeared from behind the rock. Justin Andrews looked back at them. He smiled even though he had streaks of blood all around his mouth from his biting attack.

  “Not ‘surrender’,” Andrews said. “Truce.”

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Miedo listened to the trio of his former captives from behind his secure vantage point. They weren’t in a great situation. The football player was badly injured and probably sick. The drunk ex-cop was unarmed. The panty-priss had only a couple bullets left. And Miedo didn’t have a lot of choices left. He sighed and shimmied out of his pants. He stifled a giggle as he yanked off his tighty-whities knowing what he was going to use them for. He slipped his pants back on and found a twig nearby. He tied his underwear to the twig and slowly raised it over his head and into view.

  After a moment, the kid spoke one word, but it wasn’t the word Miedo had in mind when he raised his white flag. He made the correction as soon as he was in view.

  “Not ‘surrender’,” Miedo corrected. “Truce.” He had no intention of surrendering. Miedo left his truck, but not before securing a pair of hand guns, a hunting knife, and a vial of clear liquid. The liquid wasn’t a drug he created with the aid of Mr. Star. It was poison; a deadly mix of nightshade and hemlock extracts. While he returned to the building, the former phobics, and the nuclear bomb, Miedo stashed the two guns, the larger at the small of his back and the smaller in his pocket. Using a scrap of his shirt, he carefully coated the knife blade with the poison.