Masked (12 page)

I looked like an idiot. Picture a
kid trying to dress up as a ninja for Halloween, but wearing his mother’s
sunglasses. I hadn’t had the time to consider fashion or my masculinity.

“Ok, here goes nothing,” I sighed
as I pushed a button on the wrist control.

Instantaneously, I appeared in a
clearing covered in loose grey gravel, directly behind the store. Where I landed
was luckily free from any obstruction; however there were two cops standing only
a couple of feet in front of me with their guns raised and a shocked expression.

Before they had any time to even
register what was going on, I applied just the right amount of force to two
quick punches, a jab to the one on my left and a backhand to the other. They
both fell unconscious to the ground, without even a word.

I hated to do it. The poor guys would
most likely be out for a while, but I needed to get to the girl as soon as I could.

I moved to the corner of the
building and peered around towards the front. I didn’t see anyone from that angle.
I was hoping all of the other officers were inside by now. Even if they were though,
I knew it wouldn’t be long before they came back out, so I had to hurry.

I saw a small storage building just
in front and to the side of the store. If I made it to the far side of the
small building I’d be able to see what was going on in front of the store and
if I could make it to my truck, but still be out of sight. I estimated the distance
to the far side of the storage building, entered the estimate into the wrist
control, and held the control out towards the destination. With a push of a button
I appeared on the far side of the storage building.

Being able to estimate distances
was part of the PTD training we received while at the HUB. One had to be accurate
in distance estimation in order to effectively use the device. The standard
setting was ten feet just in case one needed to make quick reactive jumps. Whenever
I needed to make a calculated jump though, I had to estimate the distance and
enter it into the device.

From the side of the storage
building, I could see the front of the store as well as my truck. The Land
Cruiser was where I’d left it, parked at the pump and luckily facing the road. I
realized I never did get any gas. The gauge hadn’t been completely on empty,
but it had been close. Where they were taking the girl wasn’t far away; I had plenty
of gas to make the drive. I’d worry about what do after that once I stopped them.

There were three police cars
parked right in front, but I didn’t see any officers outside the building.
Assuming they had arrived two per car, there should have only been at most four
left. It appeared they had gone inside while the two searched around the
building.

“Perfect.”

I entered the distance to the
truck on the wrist control and jumped right to the driver’s side door with my keys
already in hand. I quickly got in, started the truck and took off turning right
onto the road heading away from the highway. I looked in my rearview mirror and
didn’t see anyone initially leaving the store.

While reading Billy, I saw the rendezvous
point was a small clearing about five miles away. From there they’d switch
vehicles and take a series of logging roads to a lake cabin. I still had plenty
of time to make it to the clearing. The police probably assumed they fled on
the highway, unless they could get Billy or Travis to talk. Either way, I thought
I had plenty of time to stop them first.

I hoped to god the girl was alright.
Enough people had died. The thought of that caused my blood to boil again. For
a truck full of money, and probably not much money, relatively speaking, they had
killed how many people? Over the past year, I had seen so much sick, twisted
darkness, so much selfish dark indulgence at the expense of innocence and the happiness
of others. People like those, with no respect for others, no respect for life, were
not people at all. They were monsters, monsters that needed to be stopped and
put down.

Once I was about a half a mile
from the rendezvous point, I pulled over. I still had the gun I took from
Travis and the clip was full. I opened the compartment in the back and grabbed
another handgun and a knife, to strap to my right ankle, replacing the one they
took.

I still had the ski mask, glasses
and gloves on. It was getting warm, but there were too many breaks in the trees
where the sunlight shone through. I could have probably avoided those spots but
the rendezvous itself was in a clearing so I needed them once there anyway.

Fully armed, I quickly moved out through
the forest on foot. It seemed the bullet in my leg wasn’t slowing me down much.
I felt good. I was high on anger and adrenaline. The thrill of making those SOB’s
pay was the fuel that drove me.

It only took a few minutes to get
to the perimeter of the clearing. I stopped just on the edge of the tree line, obscuring
myself behind a large fir in order to assess the situation. I saw two older
trucks, one of which was the one Hank and Billy had pulled up to the truck stop
in. At the edge of the clearing were two more vehicles, newer looking SUV’s,
one black and one navy, both glimmering in the morning sun.

In the space between the two
groups of cars I saw Hank, Bobby and two other men standing together. They seemed
to be discussing something. I didn’t see the girl. She was probably already in
one of the SUV’s.

The smart, cautious thing to do was
to wait until they were more separated and take them out quietly, one by one.
However, I wasn’t in a cautious mood right then and decided to go with a more
rash theatrical approach.

I back tracked a little and found
an open path to the clearing. I was facing the two older trucks and the four men
standing on the other side of the trucks, still in conversation. I made my
move.

I started running and quickly
picked up speed until I was almost gliding across the ground. The leg was holding
up well, despite the bullet. There were a few trees I had to veer around, but I
was able to maintain my speed. One gun was already in my left hand and as I ran,
I drew the holstered gun in my right. In a manner of seconds, I was fast approaching
the two trucks and just feet ahead of them, I jumped, launching myself over the
two trucks towards the group of four men with the two guns stretched out in front
of me.

Hank and Bobby’s backs were towards
me. As I soared towards them my heart pounded fast and heavy, the hell bent rage
inside me was like a jolt of electricity, energizing me with the oncoming
fight. The other two men both looked up wide eyed as I flew towards them. Before
they had a chance to react, to ever consider if what they were seeing was real,
my weapons simultaneously thundered and connected with their targets. I landed
with a soft thud just as the two men hit the grassy earth. I was just a few
feet behind Hank and Bobby, who, at the sound of the gunfire had turned and now
faced me.

They both went for their guns,
but I was able to move in, kick Bobby’s out of his hand and throw an elbow to
his face. Bobby was falling backwards as I grabbed Hank’s wrist and twisted it,
causing him to lose his grip on his weapon. I brought his arm behind him and
then pushed him forward towards the ground.

Bobby started to go for one of
the fallen weapons, but I was able to kick it away before he could get to it.
He then rolled back away from me and I let him stand.

“Who the hell are you?” Bobby shouted
as he backed away from me.

I saw Hank on his knees, trying
to move towards one of the other weapons and I fired a shot into the ground an
inch from his out stretched hand.

“Don’t,” I warned with a weapon
on each of them. “You’re not going to walk away from this.”

From behind me, there were two
quick explosions as what felt like two sledge hammers hit my back. I turned to
look back at the girl in the Boise State sweatshirt pointing a rifle at me. Sharp
consuming pain hit with recognition of the rifle.

“What…” I started to say when I saw
Bobby coming at me from the side. He was moving with incredible speed and planted
his fist dead center with my face, causing the sun glasses to shatter. The sun
hit my eyes and the exposed skin erupted in what felt like fire.

“Ahhh,” I yelled out as Bobby swept
my legs and I fell to the ground.

“Bobby. What’s...,” Hank began to
speak as there was another loud thunder of a gunshot. Through watery pain
ridden eyes, I could faintly see a dark hole appear in the center of Hank’s
forehead. With a look of utter confusion, Hank fell backwards with a thud onto
the soft grass.

“Thanks babe,” Bobby said to the
girl who had just killed Hank. His accent had changed from stupid country boy
to something more New Englandish.

“Sure. Who is this guy?” She asked,
pointing her gun at me.

“I don’t know, but did you see
the way he moved in here?” Bobby said. “And he was strong too.”

“I saw. Is he like us?”

I didn’t hear Bobby’s answer as I
laid on the ground, the burning around my eyes turning into a pulsing numbness
and my head starting to spin in what felt like a random vicious cycle of turns.
The sun was draining me. Even with just the small area around my eyes exposed, I
could feel my body growing weaker. The pain from the gunshots was lessened, but
I was dead unless I could get out of there. I tried to move, but couldn’t. The
sun was working too fast on me.

I felt a light kick to my side
and I looked up at Bobby.

“Who are you?” he asked with his gun
pointed at me.

I gave a small weak laugh. “I do
have to give you credit. You’re smarter than you look” My body was growing weaker
with each passing moment of exposure.

The girl walked over and bent down
to look at me. “Let’s see,” she said and then ripped off the ski mask.

“Ahhh,” I screamed out as more
burning heat flooded my face. I tried to move my arms to cover it, but it was of
no use.

“How did he find us?” asked the
girl once she recognized me. “What’s wrong with him?” I heard her add.

My head was spinning; vision and
conscious thought were fading in and out. I could see them looking down at me
as they faded to blurry splotches of color and shadow. The shadow overcame the
color until all that was left was blackness.

I think someone once wrote that right
before you die your life flashes before you. You recall all of the high points,
the people you’ve loved and have impacted your life, the moments that have made
you the happiest. You also remember the not so high points, your failures and mistakes.
As I lay on the soft ground in that small north Idaho forest clearing, those types
of thoughts went through my mind, however what I knew of my life was fairly
short and it didn’t take too long to re-live. As far as my greatest failures, I
really had two. One of which was the series of events that led up to me lying
lifeless in a clearing and the other was losing Sara.

I was so careless, so confident
and now look at where I was. I was dead and useless.

It then hit me. If I was laying there
thinking about those things, then I couldn’t be dead. That bit of clarity awoke
the rest of my consciousness, pulling it back up from deep inside. The bright
light was blinding as I opened my eyes, but it didn’t take long to readapt and
for my vision to come back into focus. In the sky were dark ash colored clouds moving
rapidly through the area for as far as I could see.

I sighed in relief. “If there is
a god, thank you.”

I was still in the clearing, not
where I was laying when I’d passed out, but now at the foot of Hank’s truck.
The bodies of Hank and the other two men were lying nearby, also against the
truck. The shots I’d put into the other two men had not been lethal. Each shot connected
with their right shoulders just as I’d intended. My objective was to disarm,
disable and cause pain, not critically wound. I noticed they each had a scarlet
hole in the middle of their foreheads to match their buddy Hank.

There was a crackling noise coming
from behind me and I could smell burning oil. I struggled to slowly move my
sore body, to look behind me and saw orange flames licking the top of the truck
and black smoke rising above it.

“Oh crap,” I shouted as I
franticly tried to crawl from the burning vehicle. My body was weak and it took
enormous effort to move. I saw a good sized rock jetting out of the ground
about twenty feet away so I continued to move towards it, my adrenaline kicking
in and refueling my depleted energy levels.

The sound of the explosion echoed
throughout the clearing just seconds after I made it behind the rock. Burning
pieces of truck flew past, but the rock gave protection from the fiery
shrapnel. I relaxed myself against the saving stone.

I wasn’t so sure about god, but
someone was watching out for me. If I hadn’t just woken when I did…

Whatever rifle the girl had used
to shoot me had a high caliber. The rounds had passed right through me. That
was lucky because if bullets were lodged in any major organs, I’m not so sure I
would have been able to recover from the sun weakened state, under such trauma.

Bobby had gotten the better of me
and I was the idiot who let it happen. From what I saw, his strength and speed were
probably a match to mine. How could that be though? The only people I knew of who
could do what he did were others from the HUB. I remembered a comment the girl made.
She had asked if ‘he was like us’. Did that mean she had the same abilities too?

All in all, the day hadn’t turned
out the way I thought it would. I should have been sound asleep in a dingy
motel room somewhere already. Instead I had let people die and almost got
killed myself in my idiotic rage fueled vendetta. It was all way too close. The
whole morning was a mess and I was way too sloppy.

With the fire going strong, it wasn’t
going to take long for someone to come and investigate. I continued to sit for
a few more minutes, as the fire continued to consume the truck and once I felt like
I had enough strength to walk, I slowly got up and staggered over to the only
remaining vehicle not on fire. The wounds in my torso were painful still, but
just an echo of what they initially were.

I opened the door to the black
Blazer and saw the keys in the ignition. I was able to get my sore stiff body
into the drivers’ seat and get it started. I drove back up the road to where I
had parked the Land Cruiser.

Despite still not being able to
move very well, I took everything out of the Land Cruiser and transported it into
the Blazer. It was as good a time as any to get rid of it, plus it didn’t have
enough fuel. The Blazer had a full tank of gas and it looked like it had enough
tinting on the windows to protect me from the sun, so it would do.

I was going to be leaving the
Land Cruiser near several dead bodies and the location of an explosion. For a
moment I considered if it was a bad idea, but immediately put the concern to
rest. Sure, the police could pull my prints from the vehicle if so inclined, but
I was fairly confident I didn’t have prints on file anywhere. After all, I
wasn’t supposed to exist.

Quickly, I got everything loaded in
the Blazer and then drove back up towards the clearing where the fire was. The
police would come up the road that led to the highway so I had to find another
way back down.

It had been one mess of a last
twenty-four hours. I was way too reckless and way too lucky. I needed to rest,
to process all that had happened. I really needed something to eat.

I passed through the clearing and
up one of the logging roads that led north, away from the direction of the highway.