Dark Reality 7-Book Boxed Set

by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

  Chapter 26

  Eugene slammed the driver’s side door of the patrol car he’d taken from the overly arrogant state trooper who’d drawn his weapon on him, attempted to intimidate him. The mere remembrance of the officer’s brazenness sent a current of anger through his veins so charged it threatened to overtake him. He abhorred guns and any form of artillery, thought them reserved for the weak and cowardly. He believed that to truly take ownership for death, it must be performed barehanded. He knew from research and experience that human beings clung to their shiny guns passionately. He also observed how heavy weaponry prompted humans to feel superior to those who were unarmed, how it made them feel smug. What amused him about this particular condition of humanity was that their smugness, their arrogant underestimation of him, unarmed, invariably led to their deaths.

  Armed humans were far more loathsome than weaponless ones; those who elected to be without defenses proved more aware, more feral and far more ferocious. With his superior capabilities, his advantage surpassed all measurable human acuity and savageness of course, but unprotected humans proved far more entertaining. They were craftier, more cunning, and far more exciting to hunt.

  Eugene loved to hunt. Disappointingly, his intended quarry, Melissa Martin, was not in her house. He longed to kill her, to satisfy a long-standing vendetta. She had assisted Gabriel in his untimely and unceremonious demise. She was responsible for the months he had spent submerged in opaque fluid, confined to a long cylindrical chamber recuperating from near death. He had been unable to kill for a long period of time, too long. When the time had come and he finally emerged from his induced slumber, he had doubted his killing integrity. Doubt had been unfamiliar to Eugene, utterly alien. He would never allow for such doubt to prevail again; Melissa’s death would all but guarantee its eternal absence.

  But Melissa was nowhere to be found and he did not have hours or days to spend searching for her. Traipsing around randomly was not an option. And if he were to do so, the police cruiser would need to be disposed of. With no sound idea of where Melissa might be, Eugene decided to pay Kevin, Chris and John a visit. Terzini had imprudently cloned them and released them into Harbingers Falls. Without additional education or refinement, they remained the same drooling idiots they’d always been, only stronger, faster drooling idiots.

  The thought of spending time in their company was debasing but necessary as he needed to locate and kill Melissa as quickly as possible. He drove operating on the assumption that they might possess knowledge of her whereabouts.

  Within ten minutes of leaving Melissa’s house, he arrived at Dr. Terzini and Gabriel’s former house. He sped down the winding, gravel-filled driveway and gaped at his nemesis’s previous dwelling. The structure was stunning with elaborate, imposing architecture, more worthy of his inhabitance rather than Gabriel’s. Eugene felt resentment rise within him. He had deserved to live in such opulence, not Gabriel for he was the rightful heir to humanity.

  Unconsciously, he had begun to breathe in short, shallow pants, bitter indignation burning like bile in his throat. He wrestled with his vexation, knew it was necessary to dominate it long enough to obtain the information he desired from Terzini’s revitalized flunkies.

  Eugene stepped out of the patrol car and strode to the entryway. He opened the unlocked front door and stepped across the threshold. He quickly scanned the room only to find Kevin and his drudges seated on mistreated but clearly expensive furniture with cans of beer in their hands. The scent of marijuana filled the air along with a milky layer of smoke that clouded the area surrounding the couches. All three had been bruised and badly beaten. Kevin sat with his leg elevated and a bag of frozen peas sat atop his knee. The display was contemptible.

  He did not move right away, rather he looked upon the pathetic humans with disgust. The three of them sat ingesting as much poison into their bodies as was possible. They had been cloned with additional strength and speed but without augmented cognitive capacity therefore they were as wretched as the rest of humankind, and a waste of his maker’s talent. His frustration began to mount.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” Eugene demanded.

  The three of them looked up shocked. Their eyes, reddened and bleary from the alcohol and marijuana, widened. Recognition registered on each drug-clouded face. There was no doubt in his mind they remembered him, remembered how he murdered them just five short months ago in the wooded area behind their school.

  He also detected a vague sense of comprehension flash across their dazed expressions, like it had just dawned on them that they had failed to fulfill that which they were ordered to carry out. His maker had recreated Kevin, Chris and John with one purpose: to root out and terminate both Gabriel and Melissa; Terzini had been emphatic when detailing his instructions to them. Yet, both Gabriel and Melissa lived.

  Eugene suppressed a wicked grin as he appreciated their confusion and attributed it to what they obviously perceived as his premature arrival. They had not yet showcased their incompetence to Terzini, had no reason to anticipate his appearance, but now he stood before them glowering at their ineptitude, their futility.

  Soon, however, shock was replaced with dread, and fear. He watched as each carotid artery began beating wildly on their respective necks. He began to smell their terror.

  He did not bother engaging in senseless platitudes. They were beyond small talk.

  “How many were there?” he asked and expected to know who, if anyone, Gabriel had aligned himself with.

  Judging from their state of defeat, he guessed an army had stormed the once meticulously maintained house and surprised them.

  “Two,” Kevin replied meekly.

  Eugene laughed. He enjoyed the low maleficent rumble that emanated from his body.

  “That is disappointing, and pathetic,” he hissed. “The three of you were beaten by Gabriel and another human I’m guessing.”

  “Yes, a little Asian guy,” Kevin said, the slightest hint of defensiveness modulating his tone of voice.

  “There was someone else too,” John added. “A girl.”

  “Did the girl beat you, too?” he asked.

  “No way, of course not,” Kevin said as if the idea of a female was more absurd somehow that an unenhanced human.

  Eugene erupted in thunderous laughter, a cruel deep sound that resonated through the house like mortar explosions. They each smiled and looked to each other nervously, laughing but not entirely sure why.

  He then stopped laughing abruptly and leveled his honey-colored eyes at them with contempt. He saw the color drain from Kevin’s face and opened his mouth to speak.

  “So, let me understand this,” he growled. “The three of you, all enhanced with additional strength and speed, were outdone by love-struck Gabriel and a pint-sized Asian guy; is that correct?”

  No one spoke.

  “And instead of going after them and attempting to redeem yourselves from this embarrassing failure, you are sitting around, smoking pot and drinking beers!” he roared.

  “What do you want us to do? Besides, I heard you were taken down by Gabriel and a hundred-pound girl,” Chris sassed.

  Eugene realized that the potent combination of drugs, alcohol and an overabundance of testosterone in the adolescent male body produced a reckless person, lethally reckless. Add to that heightened power and reflexes and the result was an oppositional fool on the verge of receiving a thorough thrashing.

  He suppressed the urge to kill Chris where he stood, restrained only by his need for information.

  Through clenched teeth he asked, “Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know, man. Gabriel, Alexandra and the Chinese dude didn’t tell us,” John answered, emboldened by Chris’s unpunished arrogance.

  Eugene felt a shudder pass through him at the colloquial use of the word “man,” nearly exploded at the use of the idiom “dude.” He was neither, and he was becoming increasingly inf
uriated by the sarcasm.

  “Melissa wasn’t with them?” he asked.

  “No,” Kevin answered groggily.

  “What kind of car does she drive?”

  “Who?”

  “Melissa, you moron!”

  Eugene was thoroughly incensed by Kevin and his friend’s maladroitness, their slurred cloudiness.

  “She drives 1999 Toyota Camry, black. It’s a real piece of shit, you know, all she could afford.”

  Eugene reviled Kevin’s continuance of inanities, his incessant need to offer his vapid opinion and running commentary. He wished to silence him, forever. But the extraction of information was proving somewhat useful. He had remembered seeing an older black Toyota Camry in Melissa’s driveway earlier. Either she had been home and hiding in a most meticulous manner or she had been out when he was there. Regardless, he had a remedy for the situation.

  He reached into his pants pocket and retrieved his cellular phone and punched the numbers 9-1-1. He began to speak in a voice that expertly mimicked the average human being’s voice to the operator and claimed to be a neighbor.

  “I heard screaming and things crashing around then I saw three teenagers run out of the house,” he impersonated. He paused and listened to the person on the other end then responded, “Um, there were two guys and a girl and they got into a late 1990s model Toyota Camry, black.” There was another pause and he rattled off a license plate number and added that he heard one of the guys referred to as “Gabriel.”

  Eugene watched as Kevin, Chris and John looked on in awe at his formidable ability to imitate the various intonations and nuances of human speech pattern. He approved of their admiration of him, he knew his skill was indeed impressive, particularly when he added his final piece de resistance and produced a tremor in his voice that implied impending tears and said, “I rushed over to see if something was wrong, if I could help, you know, and that’s when I saw them.” He feigned an emotional breakdown, gave the address he was at and added, “The three dead kids! Oh God! Hurry please,” then pressed end on his cellular phone.

  Confusion marked their drug-addled features.

  “What dead kids?” Kevin asked.

  “The ones that will be her when they arrive,” Eugene replied cryptically and smirked.

  Kevin made an effort to stand, wobbled on his tender leg and fell back to the couch. John and Chris rose and attempted to dash past him. Eugene shot his massive arm out and grabbed Chris by his neck and slammed him to the hardwood floors with such force the back of his skull crushed on impact. With his other hand, he accosted John and held him still. Desperate to free himself, John began thrashing and swinging his limbs. Eugene grabbed him by the back of his neck and used his free hand to simultaneously pinch his nose and cover his mouth. He held his formidable hand firmly in place. Eugene watched as his wriggling slowed and eventually stopped. He felt a tremor pass through his body, didn’t bother fighting it. He relished in John’s death, delighted in his vacant stare that replaced once animated eyes as life escaped him.

  After the quaver ceased and Eugene felt partially satiated, he walked slowly to the couch. Kevin looked up horrified, and met his gaze. Eugene hoped his glower communicated the pure hatred he felt for Kevin, the utter disdain. He did not speak, dared not interrupt the thrill of descending on prey. Instead, he gripped the leather sofa with both hands and overturned it. Kevin toppled from his seated position and landed on the floor. Eugene felt nauseated watching him squirm and writhe helplessly like the pathetic insect he and all of humanity truly was.

  “This will look familiar to you,” Eugene said finally as he raised his booted foot high in the air and stomped it down onto Kevin’s skull.

  Kevin’s death did not elicit the thrill he’d hoped for. He was disappointed; murdering a pathetic, incapacitated human lacked the pleasure of pursuit. It held the same excitement as stepping on ants on a sidewalk; it is done every day yet is seldom celebrated. But a future adventure loomed on the horizon, one far more titillating than Kevin’s extermination. Melissa, Gabriel and a new male were in the vicinity. He could almost smell them. They would prove far more worthy as adversaries and far more entertaining to slaughter.

  Buoyed, Eugene walked out the front door leaving it ajar behind him and climbed into his police cruiser. He directed the vehicle down the long, winding driveway and he activated the radio mechanism of the patrol car. He smirked as he heard instructions from the command post. They were dispatching units to Gabriel’s former home. Presently the police would arrive and discover the bodies of Kevin, Chris and John. The police force, with additional help from state authorities, would soon be participants aiding in his hunt for Melissa, Gabriel and the mysterious Asian man.