Dark Creations: Dark Ending (Part 6) (14 page)

As soon as he saw the screen door swing open,
he watched as Joe lunged and grabbed a gray-haired woman wearing a bathrobe and slippers and aimed his gun at her head.  Jack was left with the gut-wrenching job of snatching Anna, a woman who’d known better than to take in midnight strangers. 

Screams rang out and Jack’s stomach churned violently.
  He sprung from the shadows and caught Anna as she was racing down the hallway to the phone waiting there on a narrow table.  She spun and her eyes met his, “No!  Please, don’t hurt us.  Take whatever you want, but please don’t hurt us!” she pleaded and her eyes held him.  They were the same exact shade of blue Dawn’s had been, translucent and ethereal.  Their similarities ended there, though.  Dawn’s hair had been straight and the palest of blonde while this terrified woman before him had dark, curly hair that hung to her shoulders. 

His breath caught in his chest, her eyes arrested him, accused him.  He saw in them pure fear and realized that, at the moment, he was her nightmare realized,
a monster, really.  He was an armed intruder. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said gently and he saw that her
curls quivered. 

“Then why do you have a gun?” she asked him, her voice cracking with emotion.

“For protection,” he said, though he knew she could not comprehend what she needed protection from currently, other than him.  He lowered his eyes briefly and tried to breathe to calm his racing pulse.  When he raised them, a pair of pale blue eyes watched him intently.  “I need to cuff you,” he said softly and shame burned up his cheeks. 

“I’ll do it, Jack,” Alexandra said
as if she’d sensed his overwhelming trepidation and made her way toward them.  He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket and tossed them to her.  He watched as Alexandra cuffed Anna’s thin wrists behind her back and felt his insides coil tightly.  Anna had released him from her gaze and did not resist being restrained.  Her attention had been diverted elsewhere, over Alexandra’s shoulder to her mother who alternated between weeping and muttering, “I’m sorry,” to her. 

Pain etched Anna’s delicate features and for a moment, Jack felt
as if he might vomit.  He followed Anna’s line of vision, punishing himself further, and, for the first time, saw the older woman, Anna’s mother.  Initially, she’d been a blur of pink with indiscernible features.  Now, he saw that she had chin-length silver hair and pastel blue eyes that matched her daughter’s eye color. 

“I’m so sorry about this,” Alexandra apologized sincerely.  “When you find out what is really happening, when you see it for
yourself, you won’t hate us as you do now,” she finished. 

“We don’t mean you any harm, we promise,” Daniella appeared at her friend’s side.  “We’re here to help you.”

“Help us?” Anna asked dejectedly.  “How are you helping us?  By barging into our home in the middle of the night, waving guns in our faces and handcuffing us?  Stop me when I get to the part where you help us.”

“No, well, that does sound bad,” Daniella fretted and began wringing her hands. 

“Don’t bother,” Jack told her and felt disgusted with himself.  He knew there were no words any of them could say that would comfort Anna and her mother, that they had violated their sense of safety, their freedom. 

He gestured to Joe who stood sentinel by the front door. 
“Radio the others,” Jack said.  “Tell James we are inside and the women have been restrained.”

A disheartened sigh sounded from Anna and Jack felt his insides ball and twist. 

Several moments later, footsteps thumped overhead and Joe turned to him and said, “James is in place,” which meant James had made it to the roof to assume his position with his automatic rifle. 

“He’s set?” Jack asked for good measure.

“Yes,” Joe answered. 

“All right,” Jack said then looked to Anna who now sat beside her mother on the floor
in the hallway.  “Wait here with them.  I’ll go outside and get Ryan and the others, get everyone else in place before Terzini’s men get here.”

Joe nodded and Jack jogged out
the front door to the side of the house where Ryan waited with his gun trained on the mayor and sheriff’s backs.  He waved him in wordlessly and Ryan nudged Mayor Sheldon along who immediately began running his mouth. 

“Thugs!  You are no better than the thugs we
send to prison!” he hissed as soon as he saw Jack.  “And you will go to prison for a long time for what you’re doing tonight!” the mayor charged and hit an already raw nerve. 

The twisting in
Jack’s belly spiraled tauter and Jack clenched the fist that did not hold a gun so tightly, his fingernails bit into his palms.  He did not respond to Mayor Sheldon, for he did not disagree with him entirely.  And while he knew that, ultimately, the conclusion of all that was happening, that the mayor and sheriff would witness members attempting to storm Anna’s house and be able to ready the rest of the town to defend themselves, would justify the process, and all the wrongs he was committing now.  Rationally he knew that to be true, but it did not relieve the snaking in his gut. 

“
Shut your mouth, old man,” Ryan said as if he’d felt the impact the mayor’s words had on Jack and nudged the portly man with his weapon. 

Headlights appeared down the lane
in the distance and dimmed immediately.  Jack saw the passing flash and recognized immediately that reinforcements had arrived.  Two more men from his camp pulled up behind Joe’s car and parked.  Jack lingered on the front lawn and waited as they jogged up the road carrying large figures.

“You got them?” Jack asked
despite seeing the evidence in their hands.

“Yep,” the men answered and
turned two mannequins wearing wigs to face him.

Jack began walking back to the house
and directed them inside. Ryan was ahead and had just stepped over the threshold with his gun aimed between the mayor and sheriff.  When they walked inside, Anna and her mother, seeing the mayor and sheriff handcuffed as they were, began to scream again. 

“Oh G
od, they have Mayor Sheldon and Sheriff Baker,” Anna’s mother cried. 

“Joan!  Anna!  Are you hurt?” Sheriff Baker addressed the women, but his eyes rested on Anna, on her trim, exposed legs.

Anna’s pale eyes hardened and looked like a thin coating of ice atop freezing water. She quickly tucked her legs beneath her bottom.  “We’re fine, Sheriff Baker,” she said with the same frostiness her eyes bore. 

Jack wondered whether they had dated, whether their chilly encounter was a result of bad blood.  He did not know why their dating past concerned him, but it did, inexplicably.

When one of the men holding a mannequin crossed the threshold, Anna looked to him and inhaled sharply.  The dummy’s eyes were hollow, its expression vacant.  He realized in that instant how macabre the figures were when they weren’t dressed and posed in department store displays.  That sentiment was not lost on Anna whose fear was palpable.

“What do you plan to do
with those?” she asked and the iciness left her eyes, replaced, instead, with fright.  “What are you going to do with us?” she asked and a single tear slipped down her cheek. 

Her face transformed from steely to panicked within seconds.  He wanted to comfort her, to assure her and her mother that they would be okay, that he would not hurt them. 

He took several steps toward her and she recoiled.  He squatted next to her despite her reaction and looked into her eyes.  “We are not here to hurt you,” he promised her.  “My name is Jack Downing and I am a retired United States Army Staff Sergeant.  Please, trust me.  I am not going to hurt you or your mother.”

Her face was unreadable for a moment and he thought perhaps he’d penetrated the wall she’d put firmly in place to guard her against him and the others.  But quickly, her features toughened.  She set her jaw resolutely and squared her shoulders. 

“You’re not a soldier anymore, are you, Jack Downing?” she looked from his face to her cuffs then to the gun he held in his hand.  When her eyes met his again, she arched a dark brow at him. 

Jack rose to stand slowly and felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach, felt the winded burn
deep within his chest.  He shook it off, though.  No time existed to wallow.  She would hate him until the day she died, but if she were alive to do it, he’d feel better about what he put her through now. 

“Let’s get this set up,” Jack surveyed the house as he spoke.  Overhead, he saw a wrought-iron banister and ornate spindles in matching metal.  They ran the length of a hallway that over
looked the small living room and entryway.  “We need to move everyone up there,” he pointed to the second-floor hallway.  “Dress the mannequins then put them on the couch.  Put the television on and turn the lights out,” he ordered.  And at his command feet began shuffling, and their plan was set into motion. 

His goal was for the members to see the mannequins and shoot them while the mayor, the sheriff, Anna and her mother watched. 
By seeing what they were up against, what the entire town of Eldon was up against, they would be urged to act, to warn the rest of the town. 

Jack ascended the staircase behind Ryan who prodded the mayor and sheriff along with the muzzle of his rifle.  For a man who’d been deemed the “gentle giant,” Ryan was proving to be a key player, a valuable soldier Jack was glad to have on his side. 

Once everyone had been seated along the far wall of the hallway with a bird’s-eye view of the front door and living room, complete with dressed mannequins, Jack removed the walkie-talkie from his waistband and depressed a button. 

“James, you see anything?” he spoke into the transponder.

A crackling echoed and James’ voice followed.  “Nothing yet,” he replied.  “I’m using the night vision goggles and all is clear so far.”

“Thanks James,” he said.  “Let us know when you see them, okay?”

“Roger that,” James answered and the line went silent. Jack replaced the walkie-talkie to his waistband.

“What do you want us to do now?” Anna’s mother
, who Jack now knew was Joan, asked. 

“Now we wait,” he replied calmly. 

He knew all too well what was headed their way.  He just hoped he had not picked the wrong house. 

Chapter 11

Oily shadows twisted and bent menacingly as treetops billowed in blustery gusts.  Gabriel and Yoshi had ridden the motorcycles of the members they’d shot in the woods across town and had abandoned them in favor of continuing on foot as they drew closer to Terzini’s lair.  They needed to remain unseen and silent.  The whine of motorcycle engines would all but announce their arrival to those with average hearing.  For members, that sound would be amplified tenfold.  Gabriel had been walking for roughly one mile.  His clothes were wet and clung to his body as a fine sheen of rain continued to spray.  The wind blew at irregular intervals and penetrated his soaked clothes, chilling him to his bones, despite that the night air had grown balmy. 

Yoshi’s footsteps were barely audible as he moved alongside him toward a clearing ahead.

“There is a break in the tree line,” Yoshi pointed, his body a pitch-black silhouette against an only slightly lighter backdrop. 

Their pace quickened and the closer they drew to the clearing, the brighter the night became.

“Streetlights,” Gabriel muttered more to himself than Yoshi. 

“Yes, we need to be careful,” Yoshi said quietly. 

They needed to proceed with extreme caution.  While they knew they would not encounter a group like the one they’d happened upon earlier, the one that had rallied in the heart of Taft, he was sure plenty of reinforcements had been left behind to protect Terzini.

“You ready, Yoshi?
” Gabriel turned to his friend and asked.

“Not at all,” Yoshi replied candidly and Gabriel stifled a
smirk.  “You?”

Gabriel felt unprepared as well, but they were going.  They would find Terzini’s compound and rescue Melissa
, whether they were ready or not.  He fingered the gun holstered at his hip, felt the cool metal touch his skin as he pressed it with his fingertips.  “I guess we’ll find the answer to that soon, won’t we,” he replied and Yoshi chuckled.

“Shit, that was the worst rally speech I’ve ever heard.  The dude in the kilt in that movie you showed me a few years back was way better.”

“Thanks, Yoshi.  But this isn’t the movie
Braveheart
and you’ll never see me sporting a skirt.”

“They weren’t skirts.  They were kilts and they were badass.  Whatever.  You
missed the point entirely.” 

“What was your point then?”

“You need to inspire me,” Yoshi gestured, his arms more visible now as they stood at the edge of the wood, where tangled bramble gave way to asphalt.  “We’re going into battle.”

“You want inspiration?” he asked sharply
and felt a turbulent rush of anger rise unexpectedly.  “How’s this for inspiration?  The maniac clone of a deranged geneticist has my fiancée at his house and will not hesitate to kill her.  I will kill anyone and everyone who stands between me and her.  I won’t stop until she is with me, safe and on her way home.  How was that?” Gabriel finished and placed his hands on his hips.