Phobias

by Ryan Horvath

  “What have you done?” the panty-priss asked him. She kept the pistol she held aimed in his direction.

  Miedo chuckled. “Bravo to all of you. Bravo indeed. Overcoming your phobias is an amazing accomplishment.” He clapped his hands three times in mock applause. “But yes. I have done something. And your preventing my escape from this hell hole has thrown a wrench into my plan.”

  “What have you done?” It was the football player this time.

  “Well, some time ago, I obtained a device. I… I brought that device here… to this place,” Miedo replied.

  “So what is it?” the drunk ex-cop asked.

  “Well,” Miedo said, and shrugged. “It’s probably better I show you.” He moved toward the building. “Would you all please come with me?”

  “Wait!” the football player said abruptly.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  “Wait!” Calvin snapped. “Holly. Chad. Come here.” He motioned them over to him and watched Andrews as they neared him. Andrews looked just as cunning as ever; more so, in fact, with his blood-streaked face.

  “What is it?” Holly asked.

  “Are we really gonna follow this guy?” Calvin said. “I mean, why don’t you just put the last two bullets in him and we’re done with this?”

  “Because,” Chad said, looking over his shoulder at Andrews who smiled back proudly. The smile sent waves of dread up and down Chad’s spine. “Because killing him won’t stop whatever he’s done. Look at him.”

  Beneath the maniacal-looking grin on Andrews’s face, they could see something else. Anxiety.

  “See that?” Chad said. “Even he’s not sure that whatever he’s done can be stopped.” He sighed and for the first time in a while said, “I could really use something to drink right now.” He paused and then added. “C’mon. Now let’s end this.” He moved toward Andrews and the building. When he was beside his former doctor, he said, “Lead the way.”

  As the other two fell in behind them, Chad felt like a mouse walking beside a rattlesnake.

  ~~44~~

  Holly walked silently. Every few seconds, she would steal a sideways glance at Justin. He still looked the same, of course. She still saw in his features what had attracted her to him. But as he walked beside Chad, her heart told her she’d made the right choice in men. Chad was everything to her and she couldn’t imagine a life without him.

  To that end, as they reached the door to the old structure and went inside, Holly decided to speak.

  “What did you bring here, Justin?” she asked directly.

  “You’ll know soon enough,” Justin replied.

  Holly couldn’t read any satisfaction from him. In fact, she saw him glance at his watch and then look even more agitated before he added something.

  “We’ll all know sooner rather than later,” Justin muttered.

  Holly didn’t like the sound of that and went back to being silent.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  “If you guys just would have stayed put, I would be long gone by now,” Miedo began. “And long out of range by the time it happened.” He led them back into the room that he’d been holding his captives in.

  “You brought a bomb here, didn’t you?” Chad said bluntly. He was compelled to recall another place and time with this man when massive explosions rocked the scenery. Chad remembered the sensation of that concussion as it knocked him down. Somehow, he felt this explosion was going to be a lot different.

  Miedo stopped in the room. He stood near the clear crate he’d kept Holly in. He smiled sheepishly but also looked a little embarrassed. His cheeks reddened. Finally, he nodded and said, “Yes. I did bring a bomb here.”

  “Shit,” Calvin spat out.

  “And it’s not like the last bomb you had on that lovely evening you… invited us all over. The evening when you killed Terry, the coach, that poor girl, and Walt’s damn mother? Not quite like that, is it?” Chad said through gritted teeth.

  “Actually, Chad, that night, there were many bombs. This time, there’s only one,” Miedo said.

  “So where is it?” Holly asked, looking around. “Or did you lure us back in here as part of some trap?” She raised her pistol a bit and put her finger on the trigger. Doing so caused a bolt of pain to scurry down her arm from her own bullet hole. Her injury was now itching and she knew that wasn’t a good sign.

  “It’s right down here,” Miedo said and shifted to bend over.

  “Hold it!” Holly snapped. “Keep your hands visible.”

  “Oh, relax, you uptight bitch. I’m not going to do anything. I need you assholes,” Miedo said. He continued his motion and squatted down next to a covered table. He went beneath the cover and heard Holly hiss in disapproval. This made a smile curl one side of Miedo’s face. It was instantly wiped away when he leaned in and saw the timer on the device. “Okay,” he said, as he wrapped his arms around the case he’d secured his bomb in. “Here we go.” He hefted and brought out the case. He stood, turned, and set the case on a different, nearby, dusty, metal table. He watched as the three of them took a step closer and looked at the device on the table.

  “Holy… fucking… shit,” Calvin slowly released.

  “Th… this… is… is…” Chad stammered. “It’s nuclear, isn’t it?” he managed. Chad was a rookie cop in the years that followed 9/11, and even rookie city cops were trained to recognize some basic designs of a “dirty,” or nuclear, bomb.

  “Uh huh,” Miedo said like a boy who’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Nuclear material anyway.”

  “Where the hell did you get this?” Chad asked. He couldn’t take his eyes off the shiny metal and multi-colored wires except to glance at the digital countdown nestled right in the middle of it all.

  Miedo shrugged. “I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, my life has always been interesting.” He paused and looked at each of them. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “I don’t understand,” Calvin said. “This thing is a nuke? It’ll kill thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. Why would you want to do that?” He looked shocked.

  “Why not?” Miedo answered and shrugged. “There was the bomb. I found it. What was I supposed to do? Leave it sit, unexploded? Where’s the fun in that?”

  “I don’t get why you didn’t just plant this thing in our house and be gone. Let it take care of us,” Holly said.

  “Alas,” Miedo sighed. “That would be my arrogance, I suspect. I really thought all of you would be dead by now. I figured my spider would have landed on your face and bit you. I was certain the drunk here wouldn’t have been able to sit still and would have shot himself.” He eyed Calvin. “And I thought my little puppet’s heart would have exploded in the dark by now.”

  “Fuck you,” Calvin fired. With his one good fist clenched, he took a step toward Miedo, but Chad put up an arm and blocked him.

  “We don’t have time for that,” he said to Calvin. He turned his head to Miedo. “So our fears didn’t kill us. And you can’t get out of here. Why are we here?”

  “Well,” Miedo said. “I’m hoping one of you knows how to turn this thing off.”

  Holly and Calvin both made chocked laughs of disbelief. Chad did not.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Chad said. “What makes you think any one of the three of us knows shit about disarming your nuclear toy?”

  “Now can I kill him, Chad?” Calvin interjected.

  “Look,” Miedo began, glaring at Calvin. “We’re all stuck out here with this…”

  “Where is ‘here’ exactly?” Chad interrupted.

  “We’re a few miles outside of your quaint little town,” Miedo answered. “This place was named Potten’s Mill on the map… though I have no idea what they could have milled out here.”

  Holly gasped. “All of our friends!”

  “That’s right. And we have no way of driving out of here, or calling anyone for help. I made sure of that when I picked this place,” Miedo said, sounding testy. “If
you had all just stayed at the mercy of your phobias…”

  “Then everyone would still be dead in…” Holly looked at the timer. “…thirty-nine and a half minutes.”

  “Everyone except him,” Calvin said, pointing at Miedo.

  “That was the plan,” Miedo said smugly.

  “Okay, now I’m gonna kill him,” Calvin said. He used his considerable force and pushed past Chad. “Get over here, motherfucker,” he snarled at his old doctor through bared teeth.

  “Not so fast,” Miedo flashed and quickly produced one of his own pistols. He immediately pointed it at Calvin. “If you want to duke it out, we can duke it out. But not until we take care of this little problem.” He nodded to the bomb. “Now focus, you little shit!”

  “Cal?” Holly said. She moved to him and put a hand on his arm. “I hate to agree with him but he’s right. Live now, fight another day.”

  Miedo glared at Calvin who stared back defiantly.

  “So how do we do this?” Chad asked. “What about the timer? Can we just shut it off?” Chad suspected it wouldn’t be that easy.

  Miedo confirmed Chad’s thought. “I think, if I read and set the thing up correctly, that messing with the timer is going to be a bad idea.”

  “Wait! You put this thing together?” Calvin asked.

  “Parts of it, yes,” Miedo replied.

  “Dumbass,” Calvin snapped.

  “What about one of these wires?” Chad asked, pointing to two wires on either side of the digital display.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Miedo said. “That part was already put together when I acquired the device. But you know… it could be a wrong guess.”

  “Got anything to cut them with?” Chad asked. Sweat ran into his eyes and stung them. He wiped it away.

  “I have this,” Miedo said, and produced a sharp knife. “But metal on metal will make it blow for sure. I think we’d need something non-conductive to cut with.”

  “Can’t we just bury the damn thing?” Holly chimed in. “Let it detonate underground?”

  “We’d still never make it away in time on foot,” Miedo said. He laughed to himself. The three of them would not be going anywhere because, after the bomb was stopped, Miedo planned to fire a bullet between each of their eyes. He thought he might kill one of them now, probably the football player, as motivation, but he still had time to do that if needed.

  “So why is messing with the timer a bad idea?” Chad asked.

  “I can’t exactly be sure,” Miedo returned. “But the timer kind of plugs in underneath.”

  “And it’s screwed in place,” Chad said, touching the timer. “Got a screwdriver?”

  “No. I don’t,” Miedo replied.

  “Your knife will work,” Calvin said. His brow furrowed in a plotting manner.

  Miedo was trained to read human expressions and saw this. He was reluctant to give up the knife, but he also didn’t want to do the unscrewing because he’d then have to let his guard down. Even though fatigue was evident in the hollow look under Calvin’s eyes, Miedo sensed the kid was ready to strike at any moment. “Here.” He flipped the knife so that Chad could take the handle, which he did. When the blade was out of his hand, Miedo adjusted his grip on the pistol in his other hand.

  “Potten’s Mill, you said this place is?” Chad asked. He’d heard of it before from a few of the locals. It was once a popular place for the kids to come drink and have sex. “I’ve heard a few stories about this place. One of them is about fear. Want to hear it?”

  Genuinely intrigued, Miedo said, “Do tell.”

  “Well gather ye round then,” Chad said in a grandiose voice. He noticed Calvin and Holly move closer. If he was reading Calvin right, then he knew he could get Calvin to act when he needed him to. Calvin moved beside Chad. Holly went to the end of the table. Chad had no intention of telling a story.

  Miedo stood alone and watched Chad, the knife, and the timer.

  Chad leaned over as if to begin unscrewing the screws. As he did so, he moved his foot and stepped on Calvin’s.

  In a blinding move, Calvin lashed out. With a powerful fist, he struck his old doctor square in the jaw. Calvin saw blood fly followed by a tooth.

  Miedo howled. In the recoil, the gun he’d been holding slipped from his grip and skidded across the floor.

  Calvin hopped to the other side of the table and struck again; this time a hard blow to the gut. The strain of the second punch and impact wore him down. He wasn’t going to be good for much more. But Andrews doubled over in pain.

  The gun Miedo dropped slid over to Holly. She quickly picked it up and said, “Cal!”

  Calvin looked at her and she tossed him one of the pistols, the one from her good arm. Calvin caught it and fluidly adjusted it in his hands. He pointed it at Andrews, who cowered on the ground.

  “Please,” Miedo managed. “D…D….Don’t.”

  “I decided I’m not gonna kill you, doc,” Calvin said. He pointed the gun at Andrews. “That pretty mouth of yours is gonna make you real popular when you’re in federal prison for what you’ve done here. What you’ve done everywhere.”

  Dread, worry, anger, and hatred flared simultaneously in Miedo’s eyes.

  “Lots of prison trash is gonna love sticking their dicks in what you’ve got, asshole,” Calvin said. “And for good measure…” He fired the gun once, then twice, putting a bullet in each of Andrews’s kneecaps and causing new howls of agony. “Now you’ll never be able to run away from what’s coming your way, you fuck.” He leaned in, spat a thick wad of saliva in Andrews’s face, and then smacked him in the temple with the pistol, driving him into unconsciousness.

  ~~45~~

  “We got him,” Holly said. She stood over Justin’s fallen, bloody body. She kept her gun pointed at him in case he decided to flash himself awake and try to strike again. Their fallen nemesis’s rhythmic breathing and the growing welt on his head told her Justin wasn’t waking up. “That’s it then? It’s over?” she supplemented in disbelief.

  “No,” Chad said loudly and with very clear irritation. “It’s definitely not over.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off the descending digital display since Calvin began his strike. He studied the size of the case. His former doctor had been able to move the bomb and appeared to do so with only minimal effort. Chad liked to think he was stronger than Andrews and that he would be able to lift the bomb easily. He wrapped his arms around the base as he’d seen Andrews do, and hefted the device. It turned out to not be as light as Chad had thought. He wasn’t prepared for the weight and had to adjust his stance. When he had the device off the table, he guessed it weighed around forty-five pounds. That was a little more than he was going to be able to manage so, if what he had in mind was going to work, it was going to take the three of them to make it happen. He knew Holly could easily pull off what was needed, but Calvin had a broken hand and was shot in the leg. The younger man’s assault on Andrews looked to Chad like it might have been Calvin’s last ounce of strength. He decided he’d better switch Calvin’s and Holly’s roles. He set the bomb back on the table and moved to one side of it. “Holly! Come here. You have to help me. Cal. Look around those old desks over there. You gotta find some kind of map of this site.”

  Calvin looked confused for a beat but did what he was told. He limped as fast as he could toward the desks.

  Holly hurried away from Andrews and to the side of the bomb, opposite Chad. “What are you thinking?” she said.

  “Just what you said,” Chad replied. “We’re gonna bury this fucker. Grab that end and…”

  “What?” she gasped. “Bury it? Where? I had no idea what I was talking about. And what the hell are we going to dig a hole with?”

  “We don’t need a hole,” Chad said. He smiled. “At least… we don’t need to dig one. I think there’s already one there. Now grab that end of the bomb with your good arm. You should be able to use that thing there as a handle.”

  “What are you talking about?”
Holly pressed. She moved her pistol to her not-so-good arm and reluctantly took hold of the bomb where Chad indicated.

  Not immediately answering her, Chad said, “Okay now lift. I’ll support the bulk of the weight. I could have carried it myself but it’ll go so much faster with two people. Especially if we have to go far with this fucker.”

  “Where are we going with it?” Holly said, lifting the bomb. Its sudden new weight caused her injured arm to shriek in protest.

  “Potten’s Mill,” Chad said. “It’s not just a few miles outside of Hillsboro. I’s about fifteen.” He paused, then said, “Now head for the door we came in.”

  Holly did as she was told.

  “Found one!” They heard Calvin chime in the distance as they moved.

  “That’s great, Cal!” Chad shouted. He glanced at the timer. The countdown was shy of thirty-four minutes. It would still take a miracle, but he wasn’t about to give up. “Come outside with it!” he hollered to Calvin. Sweat was pouring from him and he saw it dripping off Holly as well. She was also starting to pale and there was a hollow look under her eyes. He silently prayed to a deity he kept on dial-a-prayer for times like these that Holly would pull through this. And Calvin too. Even if Chad didn’t make it, they had to survive.

  “Chad? Where are we going with this thing?” Holly questioned again as she kicked open the door for them.

  “Potten’s Mill,” Chad began. “Well, Andrews was somewhat right. They didn’t mill anything here. The name was misleading. The place was actually a mine. Wait here a sec. Let Calvin catch up.” He slowed, causing Holly to as well.

  They watched Calvin make his way to them. His gait would have been comical if one didn’t know he was nursing a bevy of rather painful injuries.