Dark Creations: Dark Ending (Part 6) (27 page)

He
promptly completed the sequence.  The digital display commenced its ten-second countdown. 

When the timer ticked down to zero, Gabriel felt himself flinch in expectancy.  He
did not know why, but he’d expected a sound, an explosion, something.  But he’d heard nothing, at first, just eerie silence.

B
efore long, however, bloodcurdling shrieks echoed from beyond the open window.  It became obvious to him that the ultralow radio frequency was being emitted and was transporting a concentrated form of electromagnetic radiation potent enough to evoke the screams.  Gabriel’s insides froze and he realized he was holding his breath.  He did not know why he still braced himself for impact, why he waited for the quintessential ax to fall.  He could feel what the others felt.  He did not experience what the members around him were experiencing, and judging from the sight of it, he was grateful he was immune. 

Member after member clutched their heads and collapsed to their knees.  Wails carved the
brightening cerulean sky and sliced at the rising sun.  They cried out in aguish as though they were being tortured.  Seeing their reaction reminded him of Amber’s words when they’d spoken earlier, when he’d learned of the frequency emitting device.  She’d said that creations would feel as if a hole were being drilled into their brains, that it would be a slow, painful death. 

Nothing she’d said had been exaggerated, for he saw firsthand what they were enduring.  Blood oozed from their ears, noses and mouths.  Some of them even wept thick, crimson tears as they howled and moaned in agony. 

He turned to Melissa, careful to keep Terzini in his line of vision as well, and saw that she covered her ears with both hands, the sounds of suffering too unbearable.  He balanced the device in the windowsill and drew her into his arms and exhaled.  He held her tightly, embracing her shivering body against his own.  All the while though, he looked over her shoulder at the carnage beyond Terzini’s window. 

Members continued to hemorrhage from every orifice of their bodies for several minutes until one by one, their bodies began to ripple with spasms.  Beset by powerful convulsions, their arms and legs thrashed and flayed uncontrollably and tongues protruded and lolled about.  He watched in horror as one member bit down so hard on his tongue that the tip of it fell to the ground in front of him.  But the member seemed unaware of it, his body shuddering so violently and the pain so excruciating, it melded as one into a single torturous event.

A small part of Gabriel felt pity for the members dying before his eyes.  Their suffering was great and prolonged, the result of a madman whose mean streak exceeded that of the most malicious monster to ever breathe.  He knew that the members had killed many, that they’d assassinated entire towns – innocent men, women and children – and that they would kill him, his friends, and Melissa.  For that reason, he was glad that their miserable existence was coming to an end. 

When finally t
he writhing and wailing stopped, the still bodies of hundreds of members littered the lawn.  Many of them lay face-down in pools of their own blood while others managed to roll to their sides to take their final breaths.  Regardless, the ones on the grounds of Terzini’s compound were no longer a threat. 

“It’s over, Melissa,” he whispered into her hair.  “They’re dead.  It’s over.”

Melissa did not say a word.  She laced her arms around his waist and clung tightly to him.  Warm tears moistened his shirt and he hated that she cried.  She had already suffered so much.  Witnessing what she’d just witnessed only added to it.  The need to comfort her gripped him.  He drew her close and hooked his finger beneath her chin.  He tipped her face up so that he could look upon her features.  She was battered and bruised but beautiful to him, nevertheless.  He pressed his lips to hers carefully.

“Oh someone get me a bucket so I can vomit into it!” Terzini’s whiny voice clawed at Gabriel’s ears.  “I mean really!  I have just lost close to
eight hundred of my men and you two have the audacity to celebrate!”

“How about you shut the hell up,” Gabriel said hostilely as he spun on him.

Terzini’s hands shot up in front of his body submissively.  “Okay, okay.  Relax,” he said nervously.  His beady eyes searched Gabriel’s before he added quietly.  “I am ready to leave now.”

“You’re what?” Gabriel asked sharply.

“I did what I said I would do.  I showed you how to use the device and,” he glanced over Gabriel’s shoulder and beyond the open window.  He cringed.  “From the looks of it, every man on my property is dead. Now you have to let me go.”  His gaze returned to Gabriel’s face.  “You promised to let me live.”

Gabriel
narrowed his eyes at Terzini and said, “No.  I never said I’d let you live.  I said I wouldn’t kill you.”  He then turned and placed his gun in Melissa’s hands and offered her a knowing glance.  Realization settled over her features.  He turned to face Terzini again.

“What?  No!” Terzini sputtered.  

Gabriel watched as Melissa raised the gun out in front of her body, clutching it with both hands.  Her features smoothed and a look of peace graced her face.  Sun streamed in through a window behind her, haloing her golden hair. 

“You bitch!” Terzini spat, but his words were silenced by a loud blast echoing through the room.
  Tezini yelped and gripped the area just below his collarbone where a bullet had torn through his flesh. 

“
See, I told you I was a man of my word,” Gabriel said unemotionally as Terzini held the bloody hole in his upper body.

A thunderous boom resounded again as Melissa squeezed the trigger a second time.  The bullet drilled Terzini’s midsection.  He doubled over and clutched his belly. 

“Bastard,” Terzini gurgled as blood-tinged spittle bubbled from his lips. 

She fired again and her shot pierced the top of his head, silencing him forever.  He dropped to the floor immediately and Melissa just stood there, watching life escape him. 
Gabriel went to her and slid the gun from her hands. 

“It’s okay,” he said and cradled her head in his hand.  He pulled it to his chest and held her for several moments.  “He’s gone,” he smoothed her hair and planted soft kissed atop her head. 
“It’s over.  Terzini is finally dead.”

Chapter 23

Jack knew something was wrong.  He could feel it deep inside him, feel the strange, erratic whirr in his bones.  All around him, the people of Eldon celebrated what they believed was a victory, and while they had managed to kill many members and force their ranks back, he did not believe for a moment that Terzini’s army had retreated completely. 

“
What did you mean before when you said ‘it’s only just begun’?” Anna’s eyes searched his as she echoed his words.  “They ran off.  They retreated.  We won.”  Her words were meant to sound confident, triumphant, but her tone was anything but.  She placed her hands on her hips and waited for him to confirm her hopes.  But her hopes were just that; they were wishful thoughts. 

He hated to dash her optimism, but she needed to know the truth.  She needed to know that tho
usands still lived, and that they’d likely withdrawn only briefly to regroup and reassess their strategy. 

Jack turned to face Anna.  He folded his arms across his chest and tried desperately to keep his
expression neutral.  But it was hard to conceal his concern.  Anna and the rest of Eldon were still in danger.

“What’s wrong?” she asked a
nd seemed to read his features expertly.

He glanced at her mother, Joan, who sat in a chair in the far corner of the room.  Wearied from the trauma of the night and early morning, she, too, was only cautiously optimistic.  But Anna was not cautious in her hopes.  She was confident.  He needed to answer her question, but struggled to tell her the whole truth.

He wanted to tell her he had been a soldier for most of his adult life and that inherent in that role was an instinct that never left him, on or off the battlefield.  But how could he articulate the intuition of a soldier to a civilian? He wondered. 

“Something doesn’t add up here,”
was all he managed to come up with as he scratched the scruff on his chin before returning his arm across his chest.  He watched as her aquamarine eyes narrowed and her full lips parted. She looked as if the very same awareness that scurried across his skin like the legs of hundreds of spiders had scuttled across hers as well.  Understanding drained the color from her cheeks and he hated that he had been the person to crush her hope.

He had just opened his
mouth to explain to her that he believed things were too quiet, that he believed something was about to happen, when gunshots exploded on Main Street.  The sharp bangs that ripped through the unnatural quietude of town caused Jack to grip Anna’s thin wrist and yank her to the floor.  He covered her body with his, crouching over her protectively as he shielded her head with his arms.  He looked up to see that Joan had dropped to the floor and lay on her stomach.  Several seconds passed after the last shots had resonated but his heart continued to pound like a jackhammer.  Slowly, he released her head.

“Are you
both all right?” he asked her and her mother and heard the panic in his own voice.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she answered breathlessly.

“I’m okay I think,” her mother answered in a trembling voice.

“Stay down,” he told them
.  “Please.”

He rose to his feet
cautiously and rushed to the window, careful to remain low. His eyes swept the street from left to right and what he saw made his breath hitch mid-gasp. 

From the stout, three-story buildings that lined Main Street in downtown Eldon, he watched in horror as person after person w
as pitched over rooftops and hurled from open widows down to the bloodied road below.  More gunfire broke out.  More shots than Jack could count, in fact, erupted from every direction and made him flinch and take cover by the wall.  He still had a view of the street from where he stood as blasts continued to detonate.  The collective sound rumbled like thunder, only to his knowledge, thunder did not place bullets through bodies and drop them to the ground below. 

“We have to go,
now
,” he said to Anna.

She did not
question what was happening and she did not ask him what he’d seen.  Instead, she nodded nervously and stood.

“Stay low,” he said then rushed to the door. 

He turned the handle and yanked the door toward him before stepping out into the hallway.  When he saw four identically dressed shapes rounding the corner at the end of the corridor, he did not hesitate.  He rushed out further and opened fire on them. 

His gunshots exploded and filled the narrow
space.  The smell of smoke filled his nostril along with the acrid stench of sulfur.  He tried not to breathe through his nose as he scanned the hall and he saw that four heavily armed members lay dead in front of him. 

“Come on!” he urged Anna
and her mother.  They hurried down the hallway.  He held Anna’s hand as she stepped over the bodies.  He was fully prepared to fire at first sight of anyone that flinched among the fallen.  After she’d made it over them, he looked behind him and saw that Joan stood with her back plastered to the wall and her head was turned away from them, away from the dead members she needed to tread over.  He leaned down and asked Anna quietly, “Is your mother okay?” then nodded to Joan.  The woman looked to be in shock.

“No, no she’s not,” Anna answered concernedly
and confirmed his fears.

“I’ll get her,” Jack said and started to move toward
Joan but Anna slid her hand beneath his arm and gripped his bicep firmly.  Warmth rushed from the spot she touched and swept up to his shoulder.  He looked to her hand and then to her face.

“No.  I’ll go,” she said and released his arm.  The cold left behind in the wake of her hand sent a shiver through him.  He shook his head
to refocus his thoughts and stared down the hallway.  Three doors lined it.  Behind any of those three doors, members could have infiltrated and could burst from them.  All of them could be killed in a matter of minutes.

His eyes reverted to Anna.  She stood beside her mother with a hand outstretched and whispered words that were inaudible to him above the fitful drumming of his heart.  He wished she’d hurry.  They needed to move to safety, if such a thing existed.

After several seconds, Anna managed to get her mother moving again and they all walked down the hallway.  But his movement halted when the clatter of footsteps could be heard stampeding up a staircase that waited at the end of the hall. 

Jack felt his blood
turn to ice.  The footfalls were heavy, and many.  Just he and Anna and her mother waited in the open.  Anna held her gun at her side.

“More are
coming,” he whispered.  “I need you,” he nodded to the gun she clutched in one hand. 

She allowed her hand to fall from his arms and gripped her
gun between both hands, ready to fire. 

The footsteps drew closer and closer, their galloping pace matching the beat of his heart.  When the first black uniform appeared, two more flanked it immediately.  Jack
did not falter.  He sprayed them with bullets immediately.  Their bodies absorbed the impact of the hits, jerking and lurching to and fro.  The three members dropped to the floor and Jack glanced at Anna.  To his surprise, she had widened her stance, clasped her gun out in front of her body expertly and fired.  She had not hidden and she had not run.