Dark Reality 7-Book Boxed Set

by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

  Chapter 6

  Thick fog shrouded the Kamchatka Peninsula. An unusually mild air mass had settled over the area and drew murk from the deep snowpacks in the Northern section of land. Eugene was unbothered by the fog, however. He traveled, oblivious of it, with a single purpose: kill Dmitri Ivanov and his gang. His focus did not deviate from his objective.

  Behind the wheel of a behemoth Hummer H1 Alpha that pawed and climbed over rough terrain, he was focused, intent upon murder. Every cell in his body seemed to vibrate and resonate with anticipation.

  He could hardly contain his excitement as he drove along icy, unpaved roads toward Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the main city on the peninsula which was situated on high, snow covered hills surrounded by volcanoes. His destination, the one that promised multiple opportunities to kill, was an abandoned building selected as the alleged drop sight for a nuclear warhead Dr. Terzini was contracted to create. Of course, there was no nuclear weapon to deliver. He would provide them with something far different.

  Imagining the murders of not one, but five useless humans elicited a response so intense, Eugene struggled to repress it. He knew they were alone. He had surveyed the site earlier. They were like lambs awaiting slaughter and he was the predatory wolf. A reflexive shudder threatened to rack his body. He nearly doubled over but managed to control his enthusiasm and drive on until the drop site came into view.

  It was a squat, sad-looking building with peeling paint, a location befitting the grisly deaths Ivanov and his thugs would receive. Eugene had researched the area before he arrived and discovered not only that the men were alone, but also that the building they were to meet in once functioned as an automobile repair shop. Formerly, it had a white concrete exterior and black, framed windows. Now, it bowed in dilapidation. Moss and graffiti littered the walls. Paint peeled along the casement frames. Of the five windows on the garage door, three were broken, replaced with flimsy plywood. A worn wooden door with a broken fixture beside it held a bare bulb and was the only entry and exit point. Pathetic humans had constructed it, and equally pathetic humans had ruined it. And soon, pathetic humans would die in it.

  Eugene parked the Hummer in the wooded hills beyond the building as per Ivanov’s instructions. Ivanov had informed Dr. Terzini that no one was permitted to park their vehicle in the vicinity of the drop site. To do so would risk drawing attention. The last thing Eugene wanted was to draw attention to himself and risk sullying what was about to transpire.

  He scanned the surrounding area just to be sure then grabbed a large metal briefcase from the passenger seat and dark glasses to mask his feline eyes before climbing out of the Hummer and moving on foot toward the decaying building.

  He trekked across frozen, packed snow cluttered by dense foliage. The trees and undergrowth were a chaotic spectacle, a loathsome riot of twisted and tangled limbs. Eugene’s senses were briefly overwhelmed by unruly branches and intertwined vines. He quickly regained his composure, though, and forced himself to focus on the task at hand. After all, it was imperative for him to push the disorder of nature from his mind and keep moving; the excitement of his assignment needed to remain untarnished.

  Ignoring the pandemonium of the landscape, Eugene moved toward the impending conflict unarmed. He believed that weaponry was reserved for the weak and cowardly. Eugene thought that in order to appreciate and fully enjoy a kill, it must be performed with his hands.

  As he approached, he spotted two members of Ivanov’s gang posted at the door. Though they were hidden by dense fog, he could see they were large and armed. Both burly and brunette, the two were obviously related, likely brothers who were nearly identical outwardly save for a slight height difference.

  Eugene advanced toward the pair. His heavy tread on the ice-crusted snow alerted them. Both men looked into the white abyss.

  Stepping out of the concealment of the woodland, Eugene moved through veils of fog that licked with serpentine tongues at his body, their silky, sinuous shapes passing over and under him. He moved as easily and effortlessly as the opaque vapors, quickly closing the distance between him and the sentinels who stood watch at the building.

  He drew nearer, shedding his cloak of foliage and fog, and delighted in the response of the guards. Both moved their meaty arms to their guns. Each fortified his stance. Eugene felt a sinister smile wrench the corner of his thin lips. He scoffed at how such feeble-minded humans clung to their shiny weapons to give themselves a false sense of security. He could not wait to strip them of their metal trinkets and punish them for their arrogant display.

  Eugene moved to the door, looming before the two men. He saw how their haughty expressions changed as they stood before him, permitted to fully appreciate his impressive form. The twins glanced nervously at each other.

  Eugene chose not to speak right away. He threatened wordlessly, allowing for his enormous physique to intimidate them. The guards stood dwarfed by him. He imagined they no longer felt empowered by their pathetic guns.

  After a moment passed and the guards were amply warned, Eugene decided to speak, his voice a rumbling bass he enjoyed hearing.

  “I’m here to see Dmitri Ivanov,” he said levelly as he laid the briefcase at his feet. “Lower your weapons. I am unarmed.”

  “Are you here to deliver the package?” one of the men asked.

  The guard’s voice trembled. Eugene reveled in his desperate attempt to steady his voice and assume confidence. He chose to be silent again. With one of his powerful hands, he pointed to the large, metal briefcase in the snow at his feet.

  The man standing to the left turned and strode away, beyond earshot. His twin was left clutching his gun and shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Eugene did not look at the anxious man. Instead, he trained his gaze on the guard who distanced himself and spoke into a small, handheld transponder and alerted Ivanov to his arrival. The man with the transponder listened intently while the voice on the other end instructed him. Eugene heard he was to be fully searched before being allowed to enter the building.

  The guard with the radio transceiver returned and his partner stopped fidgeting. Aware of what their orders were, Eugene stepped forward with his arms outstretched in expectation of their check.

  Ivanov’s guards, surprised by Eugene’s actions and compliance, allowed their harnessed automatic weapons to hang slack against their chests as they stepped forward to search him.

  Their hands traveled over his body in search of firearms. Their facial expressions divulged their awareness of Eugene’s strength, that each limb was more solid than the next.

  As they continued, Eugene fought to overcome the intensifying sensations that surged inside of him. Excitement mounted, rolled and boiled, threatened to spew at any given moment. He could not wait to kill.

  Eugene tensed, slightly, fighting to control his urge to act. Ivanov’s guards felt him stiffen. They exchanged a cursory glance and suddenly realized their enormous oversight. Neither man had kept their gun fixed on him. Both men frantically reached for their weapons.

  But it was too late. Eugene struck.

  In an instantaneous motion he lashed out both of his massive arms ensnaring the two men by their throats and lifting them off the ground. He squeezed with measured, vice-like pressure. His hands crushed each of their windpipes and snapped their spines rendering them dead simultaneously. The speed of his kill was necessary to not alarm the three remaining men inside.

  Dropping their bodies to the ground, Eugene smirked at the irony of synchronized deaths issued to the nearly identical humans.

  He kicked Dmitri Ivanov’s pair of recently deceased guards aside and proceeded.

  Stepping across the threshold he entered the decrepit building. He walked down a long, darkened hallway toward a vaguely illuminated room.

  The space was dimly lit and sparsely furnished. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered at irregular intervals and lent an air of eeriness t
o the shabby space. Three large wooden tables and one small table along with a dozen wooden chairs in various states of dereliction cluttered the area. A filmy clock that no longer kept time hung on the far wall alongside an old calendar featuring scantily clad women posed on motorcycles.

  Eugene stepped into the room. Thanks to his creator’s description, Eugene immediately spotted Ivanov seated behind a worn desk in the rear of the shadowy room under the stopped clock. With translucent blond hair and a complexion colored a vivid shade of red, Ivanov leaned back in his chair confidently with his two arms folded across his broad chest. Flanking him were two men armed with automatic weapons.

  Dmitri Ivanov tensed visibly and straightened his posture at the sight of Eugene. His protuberant gray eyes widened and seemed to bulge farther.

  “Put the case on my desk! Do it slowly!” Ivanov barked commandingly.

  Though Ivanov addressed him firmly, spoke to convey his absolute authority, Eugene heard a faint tremor in his voice that betrayed his outward confidence. He was certain Ivanov was afraid.

  Eugene obeyed and slowly approached. He placed the briefcase on the desk in front of Ivanov.

  Ivanov’s scarlet face flushed with anger to an unhealthy purple at the sight of the case that was clearly too small to hold a nuclear warhead.

  “What is this?” Ivanov spat angrily. “You are supposed to be delivering a nuclear warhead, and you’re sent with a case that’s not even big enough to hold the money that I paid for its construction!”

  Eugene remained silent.

  Ivanov glared at Eugene and yelled, “Speak dammit! Is this some kind of a joke?”

  “This is what I was given,” Eugene stated adding an inflexion of perplexity. “This is what Dr. Terzini instructed me to deliver.”

  “Your boss has been warned. And now he plays games!” Ivanov shouted his face a dangerously dark contrast to his pale hair.

  Eugene pushed the case closer to Ivanov. Ivanov angrily grabbed at the case and opened it. Upon seeing its contents, the brawny criminal’s red face blanched. He froze in horror.

  Inside the container was an explosive device. Fastened to the center of the bomb was a digital timer in the process of counting down from ten.

  Eugene watched Ivanov’s guards from behind his dark lenses. The shorter of the two, a ginger-haired man of squat stature stood to the right of his boss. He had beady eyes the color of soil that shifted about nervously. Whether it was drug use or nerves that caused his eyes to dart, Eugene did not care. He simply knew the dumpy redhead would die first. The bodyguard standing at Ivanov’s left was a tall rangy man with black hair. His face drooped and sagged like an aged hound dog. A prominent nose filled much of his face and arched continuously from his forehead, curving outwardly as it sloped to his blubbery lips which jiggled and shook in sync with his racing pulse.

  Eugene watched as their confidence collectively waned, replaced with dread, with fear. Their weapons lowered as they stared in shock at the contents of the case, a mistake that would prove deadly. Such a misstep allowed Eugene a fraction of a second, sufficient time to act.

  In a motion orchestrated with skilled precision, Eugene descended on the guard to Ivanov’s right.

  Caught by surprise, he looked up just in time to see Eugene advancing.

  Eugene moved with the speed and grace of a jungle cat descending on his prey, grabbing his adversary by the face. He used the full weight of his enormous frame and drove the flame-haired guard’s skull into the concrete wall behind him.

  Eugene quivered, elated by the sound of bone meeting the hardened surface, of the man’s cranium crushing under his blow. The impact sent the defunct wall clock above Dmitri Ivanov crashing to the floor below.

  Eugene felt cheated that he could not linger and allow himself to be fully enraptured by the redhead whose life was slipping away incrementally. He wished to lock eyes with the dying man; to be hypnotized by his death, to delight in it. But such luxuries could not be afforded. Others needed to die; individuals with loaded automatic weapons that would soon be pointed at him.

  Instead, Eugene moved without pause to the other man. His movements were instant. Ivanov’s remaining guard had no time to react. He attempted to fire his weapon, but Eugene was already on him and had seized the gun by its barrel, ripping it from his hands as bullets sprayed into the far wall.

  After being disarmed, the raven-haired guard wanted no part of a confrontation with Eugene and turned to run.

  Eugene extended his arms, swiftly landing his hands on the fleeing man’s narrow shoulders. With a swift grabbing motion, he positioned the man in front of him then hoisted him high overhead. With one hand on his groin and the other at his arm pit in a hold resembling a professional wrestling maneuver, Eugene brought Ivanov’s gangly guard crashing down on his raised knee.

  A loud, sickly snap was heard as the spine and surrounding vertebral bones were severed. Death slowly encroached before finally overtaking him. A tremor passed through Eugene as he tossed the lifeless carcass to the floor. He then turned his attention to Dmitri Ivanov.

  As he moved toward the mob boss, the timer on the explosive device bottomed out to zero.

  It signaled the end of its countdown by issuing a distinct ding sound as benign as a toaster. No explosion ensued. The artificial bomb proved a successful distraction.

  He advanced further, stepping slowly, relishing Ivanov’s reaction. Dmitri Ivanov sat mouth agape. Eugene removed his dark sunglasses revealing his unnatural, feline eyes. He parted his thin lips and stretched them across his teeth into a twisted smile. Like a ferocious animal baring his incisors, his face contorted into a nightmarish image.

  He watched as Ivanov’s carotid artery pulsated erratically; he could practically hear its fitful drumming. The burly, blond criminal’s expression was no longer cocky. Instead, he more closely resembled a man who had seen the devil himself. Fear and horror flashed across his reddened face as he regarded the abomination positioned across from him.

  Dmitri Ivanov, though shocked and horrified, attempted to feign confidence.

  “What the hell are you?” he asked.

  Eugene leaned toward Ivanov and spoke, “What I am is the man who was sent to kill you, Mr. Ivanov.”

  Eugene paused, allowing the weight of his words to be fully absorbed.

  “You’ve insulted Dr. Franklin Terzini. You threatened his life. Now, I’m here for yours.”

  “If you kill me, you will start something you cannot finish!” Ivanov said his words pressured by fear he sought to suppress. “Do you have any idea how many men I am connected to? There is no country in the world that you or Terzini will be safe in, you will be tracked down like dogs. If you Let me live,” he tried, but Eugene had heard enough. He interrupted Ivanov’s ramblings and spoke, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.

  “Let you live? I don’t think so. But I will give you a sporting chance and offer you a count of twenty to flee before I come after you.”

  “Do you hear me?” Ivanov asked, his voice turning shrill. “There is no,” he tried again futilely.

  “Twenty!” Eugene spat angrily, alerting Ivanov that there would be no bargaining.

  “You’re a dead man!” Ivanov proclaimed as he rose from his chair.

  Eugene smirked at Ivanov, before resuming his countdown.

  “Nineteen!”

  Accepting his fate, Dmitri Ivanov frantically scrambled out the door in to the surrounding wooded hills.

  Eugene, true to his word, gave Dmitri Ivanov a full count of twenty before slowly walking to the door of the dilapidated structure. He paused at the threshold and sniffed the air. Though thickened by fog, the scent was distinct; it lingered. Savoring the trail for just a moment, Eugene felt a familiar emotion swell with in him: rage.

  He needed to kill. His entire body quivered involuntarily before he stepped outside to begin his pursuit.

  Swiftly closing the distance between hi
m and Ivanov, Eugene descended on his prey.

  There was no longer a need for him to rush, he was able to take his time, enjoy himself.

  If anyone had been in the forested hills of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, they would have heard the tortured screams of Dmitri Ivanov suffering at the hands of his killer. Fortunately for Eugene, no one was present to hear the cries.