As if sensing her decision, before Sarah had the chance to put the car into reverse, the huge beast suddenly rose up on its hind legs, putting its forelegs about twenty feet into the air. With an incredible thrust downward, the creature slammed it front legs hard onto the hood of Sarah’s car, crushing it and sending a billowing cloud of steam skyward.
Sarah screamed with terror and gripped the steering wheel tightly as the car’s engine shut down. She twisted the ignition key repeatedly, but the engine would not turn over. Through the rising steam, she watched the buck return to its regular standing position, still staring at her through the windshield, but now its eyes glowing blood red with a fury and fire the likes of which she had never seen before from any of natures creatures. It was then that she realized this was no normal creature born of nature.
Then something inconceivable happened. The massive brute began to tremble and convulse spasmodically, as if in the throws of a seizure, looking to Sarah as if it were moving in some sort of jerky erratic alternating fashion; first blurring then coming back into focus. Sarah thought that perhaps it was mad with rabies or some other disease and that it might collapse at any moment. Then the beast began impossibly to transform. Sarah sat paralyzed with fear, unable to move.
The buck stood upright on its now thicker incredibly huge hind legs, Sarah was certain that it would try once again to crush her car but it did not. Instead, its stood tall, its forelegs also changing, replaced by colossal arms, undulating with muscles. All four of it hooves were now gone, and in their place were lengthy hands and feet equipped with long sharp claws. Now standing in the roadway where once a buck stood was a ghastly horrifying demonic beast, well over thirty feet tall, the top of its hideous head scraping the branches, forming the canopy of leaves.
Sarah looked through the windshield above the rising steam cloud and saw the face of the creature. It appeared to be part buck and part something else, unnaturally unidentifiable. Its snout had shrunken in size becoming pig-like, and its harmless flat vegetarian teeth were now replaced with the incredibly long sharp fangs of a carnivore. The thing’s antlers had risen upward and moved back on its head resembling two multi-bladed swords jutting backward from its skull. The huge raging monster beat its chest with its massive fists and roared in its fury, the sound vibrating the windows of the car and causing Sarah to cover her ears in an attempt to suppress the ear-shattering volume.
The incredible creature lifted its left leg and brought it down hard on the hood of Sarah’s car, crushing it completely flat and shattering the windshield into a web of millions of tiny cracks. The back end of the car lifted at least four feet into the air and as the beast removed its foot from the hood, the back end slammed to the ground with a crash. Sarah felt as if her bones would break from the rattling impact.
Not knowing what else to do, Sarah grabbed for the door handle, swinging the passenger door open and falling out onto the roadway, scraping her legs and hands. She crawled for a few feet along the ground before struggling to her feet and running clumsily away from the scene as best as she could. She heard and felt an incredible pounding sound, the ground rattled beneath her behind her as the beast trotted after her; each of its single lengthy steps equal to many of hers. Within seconds it was on her.
She felt the air forced out of her lungs as the creature wrapped its huge hand around her midsection, picking her up as if she were a child’s toy. She became aware of excruciating pain as the beast’s claws dug into her stomach area and she felt several of her ribs crack under the creatures unimaginable pressure. She screamed in agony but her screams were cut short by lack of air as she realized that one or both of her lungs had been punctured. Looking down she saw that her abdomen had been ripped open by the creature’s sharp claws and her entrails were falling from her body dangling like fleshy bloodied bungee cords between the fingers of the monster.
In one quick motion, the creature threw the broken woman back toward her car, where she flew through the air, at unbelievable speed over top of the vehicle, slamming into a tree on the side of the road. Her shattered body became impaled on s broken branch jutting out from the trunk, where she hung limp in position for a few seconds, before her dead body slid off, falling to the sodden ground with a sickening thud.
The giant beast bent down and using its incredible strength pushed the disabled car off the road slamming it into a tree right next to the one where Sarah had hung impaled and now laid crumpled on the ground. Making a fist, the beast slammed down on the roof of the car sending the windows exploding out in all directions.
Its work now complete, the horrid monster walked over to the side of the road next to the destroyed car and sat down. Taking one of its razor sharp talons, it cut a wide slash across its own stomach allowing blood and innards to flow freely onto the highway. Then it lay down next to the car and once again transformed back into the shape of the buck, and lay dying along the road.
Much later, a passerby would eventually come upon the scene and call for assistance. The police investigation would report the same results, as most witnesses would assume, that Sarah tried to avoid hitting the buck but not only struck the beast but then lost control of her vehicle, crashing into the crop of trees. They would take for granted that she must not have been wearing her seatbelt, and as a result catapulted through the shattered windshield, striking the sharp broken branch of the tree and was killed instantly.
Police would try to contact Charles at home and on his cell phone to notify him of the tragic accident, but they would not be able to reach him, because the only cell phone he had in his possession could not be reached; at least not from this world.
Chapter 20
Leaving the offices of Harcourt and Washington, Charles Wilson walked nonchalantly down the street toward the parking lot where his rental car waited to return him to his hotel. He had another meeting later that afternoon with a perspective client but was not all that concerned about that particular appointment at the moment. In fact, he had decided that he would call the client from the hotel and cancel, fabricating some lame excuse. “Why not?” Wilson thought with a arrogance born of power, “I can do whatever I wish, whenever I wish.”
He was starting to rethink his entire philosophy on life. After all, with his newfound abilities, why should he subject himself to the demeaning process of calling on perspective clients, pretending to have an actual interest in their mundane personal lives and doing anything and everything necessary to make friends with them, simply to score a sale? He realized that he no longer had to do that sort of thing. Come to think about it, he no longer had to put up with working for his pain-in-the-butt company or his pain-in-the-butt boss any longer, either. If he chose to, he could simply take over the company.
Just twenty-four hours ago, he was frantically concerned about making the much-needed commission on the H &W deal as well as the promotion that might follow. Now he could care less. Suddenly the commission seemed like a pittance. The promotion seemed unimportant. Even the idea of forcibly taking over the company did not seem grand enough for him. These things may have mattered to the old Charles Wilson but the new and improved Charles Wilson had an entirely different outlook on life.
He was already reformulating a new life plan. Yes, he probably would take his commission from the H & W deal, but he would no longer be in need of the promotion. Wilson decided right then and there, that he would put together a business plan for starting his own software company, a mega software company. He would hire the best and the brightest minds he could find as well as a crack sales force and would literally bury the competition, no matter how big or how grand. But he had to take some time to figure out exactly how he would accomplish this, not to mention how he might finance such an operation. He now had the power to acquire all the money he needed but he had to do it just right, without reveling how he had done so.
As he walked down the street, deep in thought, he could not help but notice the strange looks that the pedestrians were casting in his di
rection. They all stared sideways at him as if afraid to make direct eye contact or as if they were wary and uncertain of him. Everyone seemed to step aside as he walked by.
Wilson was not comfortable at first with these reactions, remembering how he would often step aside when a homeless person or obviously deranged individual was walking down the street mumbling to himself. He wondered if he was giving off that sort of vibe right now and if that was what was causing the people to react so strangely to him. He passed one woman walking a small dog. The woman moved over out of his way, a look of uncertainty on her face. The dog looked up at him, whined once and lost control of its bladder, piddling all over its own back feet.
A half hour later Wilson walked into the lobby of his hotel, past the registration desk when he heard a voice call his name.
“Mr. Wilson?” A female voice called. Wilson looked around and saw the young girl who had originally checked him into the hotel the day before. Wilson approached the counter as the woman said uncertainly, not looking directly at him; “I have a message for you.” She seemed as if she was forcing the cheery attitude toward him when perhaps she might really have wanted to be as far away from him as possible.
The girl handed Wilson a folded note, which he took and read immediately. It was from his boss, T. Martin Edmondson and read simply, “Tried to call your cell… went right to voice mail….call me ASAP about H & W.”
Wilson chuckled to himself. What a difference a day makes as the old song went. Yesterday he might have rushed for the elevator and headed straight to his room where he would immediately call Mr. Edmondson. Next, he would go through an elaborate explanation of how he forgot his cell phone and how it would be arriving early tomorrow morning. But that would not be the worst of it. No sir-ree, T. Martin ‘Marty boy’ Edmondson would not be content to let that opportunity go un-addressed. The old fossil would insist on making Wilson endure a long lecture on the importance of being in contact at all times. And how if he intended to stay a shining star at Edmondson Systems he would have to knuckle down and take his job more seriously and keep his nose to the grind stone ..blah…blah…blah!
Today, however, things would be different; very different. Yes, he certainly would call Edmondson, but not immediately, rather he would do so when he good and damn well felt like it. He would have to remember to just shut up and let the old man run off at the mouth for a while, as Wilson knew he would, at least for now; no point in screwing up his commission. However, some day very soon, things would be a much different. One day soon, that old fart would be eating his words for supper, his last supper.
Wilson exited the elevator making his way to his hotel room and chose to put off the call to Edmondson for the time being. Wilson had matters that were more important on his mind. He was trying to figure out what might be the quickest way to get some cash to finance this future company. He was now very excited about the idea. He knew that he would have to do something illegal to get the money, but that didn’t bother him; he simply had to figure out what might be the fastest way to do it, and perhaps the most enjoyable.
He supposed he could put on a disguise, walk into a bank and demand the money. He could handle any resistance simply with a touch of the phone. He might have to sacrifice one or two patrons to frighten the others into submission but that seemed like a small price to pay. Then he thought about the possibility of the money being marked or perhaps serialized in some why that might make it impossible for him to use and decided to table that idea for a while.
He also didn’t want people running around telling stories about seeing Hell-born creatures tearing victims to pieces. He needed to keep his power a secret, which meant that anyone who witnessed what he could do would have to be killed, not that he had a problem with that any longer either.
Now that he had time to think more about it, he realized that he probably should have killed Showalter earlier this morning. It might not be a good idea having someone alive who knew about him, but he had convinced himself that with Showalter running H & W, he would have an ally, a foot in the door for future opportunities. He realized that he might be mistaken and might have to think about killing Showalter after all; but for now, he figured that the man was sufficiently frightened and would keep his mouth shut. Besides, who would believe such an outlandish story anyway?
Then he thought of trying to hit an armored truck. He had no doubt, that his little demonic friends could easily burn their way through anything that modern man could devise, such as armor plating, but again there was the chance of the money being unusable to him after the robbery. Wilson had to face the realization that he simply did not understand how things such as robberies worked. Yes he saw plenty of such things depicted on television but that was acting, not reality. He had to think harder, find another way to generate some cash.
Maybe instead of thinking in terms of large quantities of cash, he needed to think in terms of small amounts. The idea of trying to rob gas stations and convenience stores and the like seemed impractical to Wilson although the potential danger and thrill factor seemed to inspire him. It definitely would take too many attempts to get the amount of cash he needed, each attempt being an additional risk of something going wrong. However somewhere deep in Charles Wilson’s evolving brain he felt a charge of excitement at the idea of walking into a store and robbing it not having any idea about what the outcome might be.
He thought briefly about a different approach. What if he could find a source of illegal cash; one that no one would report missing? That would be perfect. He thought about what sorts of activities would produce small amounts of illegal cash that never would be reported. Several ideas came to immediately to mind, drugs, hookers and gambling of course.
Unfortunately, theses ideas also came from his television watching habits and in reality; he again had absolutely no idea where in a town such as this, or any town for that matter, he would be able to find such activities taking place. On TV, they made it all seem so simple but the fact of the matter was that Charles Wilson had always been a law-abiding citizen and had no idea whatsoever about criminal enterprises. Wilson supposed he might have to settle for finding an out of the way gas station, all night grocery, or convenience store to mark his first venture into criminal activity. After all, he had to start somewhere.
Chapter 21
Wilson supposed that he would need to rest if he were going to spend half of the night roaming around in search of cash. He also needed to cancel his afternoon appointment as well as the appointment he had scheduled for the next morning. Then he wondered what he would do if he was successful. How would he get the cash home? He might consider shipping it home but worried that the money might be somehow detected, or worse, might become misplaced. He had a flight booked but probably couldn’t take the money on the plane with him. How could he get it past airport security? After a few moments, he decided that if he was lucky tonight and had a large amount of cash to move, he would simply cancel his flight and drive his rental car home. Why not? Yes it might take an extra two or three days to get home but he was certain he could come up with some excuse to justify his actions to his boss and his wife. He thought about Sarah briefly and was considering calling her but he was very tired and had too many plans to make and he simply forgot about calling her.
Then suddenly Wilson remembered that he needed to call Edmondson. He dreaded the call but decided that he might as well get it out of the way. Then old Marty boy would at least leave him alone for a while. So reluctantly, Wilson dialed his boss’s number and prepared to half-listen to another ridiculous lecture from the ‘wise’ old man.
After a few rings, T. Martin Edmondson’s annoying secretary, Betty, picked up the phone. “Good Morning, Edmonson Systems. Mr. Edmondson’s office.”
“Betty. This is Charlie Wilson. I had a note here at my hotel that Mr. Edmondson needed to speak to me right away.” Wilson said.
“Oh! How nice of you to finally call.” Betty replied sarcastically. Wilson hated the old bag. Ju
st because she was secretary to the main man did not give her the right to treat others as if she were superior to them. Charles made a mental note to have a special treat prepared for her sometime in the future, care of his demonic friends. Betty continued, “Mr. Edmondson was on the war path looking for you, Charles. Please hold for a moment and I will transfer you in immediately.”
The phone click for a moment and Wilson thought to himself, “Transfer this you old bag of crap.” Then he heard the annoying company prerecorded commercials indicating that he had been put on hold. However, he was not on hold for very long as after only a few seconds he heard the raspy old voice of his boss T. Martin Edmondson on the line shouting, “Wilson? Where the Hell, have you been Wilson? I’ve been trying to reach you for the past two days. What are you doing out there Wilson. You had better not be screwing up my deal!”
Wilson took a deep breath and began his explanation about forgetting his phone and so forth. Before he had a chance either to finish his explanation, or to discuss his successful signing of the deal H & W however, Edmondson found it necessary to go into one of his droll lectures on how one should and should not conduct himself in business and the importance of being in contact at all times, just as Charles knew he would. Wilson sat on the side of the hotel bed only half-listening, making mocking masturbatory motions with his hand, smiling to himself, as if to accentuate what a jerk-off Edmondson was. He decided to let the old coot ramble for about fifteen minutes as Wilson sat eyes closed resting, completely ignoring the man.
Edmondson stopped to take a breath or to gather his thoughts when Wilson interrupted him by saying with false contrition, “I understand completely Mr. Edmondson, and promise it will never happen again. I was entirely out of line. Now would you like to know how things went at H & W?” Then he thought to himself, “Or would you rather listen to yourself have verbal diarrhea for another half hour you senile old turd?”
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