Tandem of Terror (19 page)

Sirens filled the air as Jeff double over in
pain. "Hold on Jeff," Camille said as she held his hand and rubbed
his sweat soaked head. "Hold on honey. They'll be here any
minute."

"
It's the longest minute of
my life!" Jeff howled.

Within moments the paramedics burst into the
house and the journey to the hospital had begun.

Jeff was rushed into a room for an emergency
C-section. In seconds a menagerie of machines and wires were hooked
up to his body, he was pumped full of drugs and the incision that
would make history commenced.

With his wife by his side, holding his hand
and coaching him Jeff waited intently for the birth of his first
child. He never thought he would be the one giving birth to it, not
in a millions years but life was different now and the world was a
different place.

Doctor Hadgmon and an army of other doctors
and specialists crowded around the anxious couple as Jeff's stomach
was opened wide. The reporters and media were barred from the
hospital to protect the couple at their hour of need and the final
moment was at hand.

"
It's a boy," Doctor Hadgmon
beamed, a smile as wide Jeff's.

"
A son," Jeff cried. "I've
given birth to my son!"

Silence captured the room as everyone stared
in awe. A moment later the silence broke as applause erupted
throughout the room.

He was a large child, larger than any of the
doctor's had remembered seeing recently. He weighed a considerable
amount and heavier than any child the Doctor had handled. His skin
was a bit pale but soft. His eyes and mouth were shut and he was
unusually quiet. The veins that covered his body bright and stood
out noticeably. They were a sharp blue that seemed to mesmerize the
onlookers.

Doctor Hadgmon suddenly noticed something
completely unusual, utterly unheard of. The baby had two umbilical
cords, an occurrence never before seen in human birth. It was a
miracle. The doctors surmised the baby needed more nutrition than
the male body could provide at one time and thus created a second
cord to speed things along. They could not wait to document it and
get into every scientific journal imaginable.

Doctor Hadgmon severed the cords and
immediately placed them in a sterile jar. He handed them off to
another doctor who carried them away for further study. After
washing the baby, Doctor Hadgmon tapped his bottom to wake him
up.

It has no effect. The baby's eyes and mouth
remained closed.

He spanked him again a bit harder and still
nothing happened.

The baby was immediately examined but
everything was fine, he was breathing normally, heart was beating,
lungs were working, all of his senses were intact, all digits were
accounted for. His eyes moved beneath his lids as if her were
dreaming. A third time resulted in some stirring and that was
all.

"
You have a very quite son,"
the doctor chuckled as a nurse wrapped the baby in a blanket and
took it to the its sectioned off room, away from the other
children.

A confused Jeff looked on as everything
seemed to happen so fast. They patched him back up and gave him
something to help him sleep as his excitement infected the room. It
was still abuzz as they wheeled him to his new room.

Hours later Jeff finally woke to the smiling
face of his wife. His vision finally settled on her bright eyes, as
grogginess swept him into a daze and a killer headache did its best
to scrambled his brain.

Balloons and rainbows of flowers filled the
room, a banner with the words "It's a boy!" stretched across the
left wall.

"
Our son is doing fine,"
Camille said then kissed her sore and overwhelmed
husband.

"
I think we should call him
Matthew," Jeff whispered.

"
I love it, Matthew it is."
Camille's eyes widened with the sound of footsteps entering the
room. "Here comes our son."

"
I'm dying to hold him."
Jeff smiled.

The sound of clicking cameras and reporters'
voices filled the hallway as the nurse brought the baby. Behind the
nurse followed Doctor Hadgmon who closed the door behind him to
give the family privacy.

"
How are our proud parents?"
the doctor asked.

"
Just fine," Camille
answered with a smile.

The nurse lowered the baby into Jeff's
outstretched arms. "We've decided to name him Matthew." Jeff
announced.

"
A fine name," the doctor
answered.

Jeff looked into his son's face and noticed
that his eyes and mouth were still closed.

"
Let me hold him," Camille
asked. "Honey, let me take him? Maybe I can wake him
up."

Jeff handed him over reluctantly with a sigh.
Camille took him into her arms and cooed. "Matthew, c'mon little
one wake up. Matthew, open your eyes."

Matthew did open his eyes and Camille wished
he hadn't. His eyes were pitch black and without pupils. His mouth
opened at the same time as his eyes revealing coarse, deformed
teeth. Camille screamed as she did the baby spat in her face with a
noxious fluid.

The fluid scalded her face and Camille
shrieked, dropping the baby to the floor and stumbling away. "I'm
blind," she wailed as she covered her face with her hands. "I'm
blind!"

Incredibly, Matthew was unharmed by his fall
and managed to pull himself to his knees. He crawled across the
floor and found his mark at Camille's thrashing legs. He pushed his
mother towards the hospital window and sent her crashing through
it, ten stories down to her death.

Jeff sat frozen in bed, a bewildered look
plastered onto his face. Doctor Hadgmon and the nurse gasped, all
color draining from their faces as they eased their way to the
door.

Matthew turned his head and spied their
attempt at escape. With a growl he leapt from the floor and struck
the nurse first, sending her crashing to the floor. She flailed
like fish out of water as he bit into her throat and ripped a chunk
out of it. Blood splattered across his face.

Doctor Hadgmon grabbed a chair and smashed it
across Matthew but it seemed to have little effect. He growled at
the doctor and his eyes flickered with rage.

The doctor's eyes widened with panic and he
turned to run but Matthew was already hurling himself onto his
back. He crawled up his back and bit into the back of his neck, a
low growl rising in his chest. Doctor Hadgmon crumbled into a slump
and gasped his dying breaths. Blood ran rivers across the
floor.

"
Mr. Reynolds! Mrs.
Reynolds!" A chorus of reporter voices called from the hallway.
"What's happening? Doctor Hadgmon can you tell us what's
happening?"

Matthew lifted his head as he drank the
doctor's blood and cocked it like an animal. A look of fear swept
his face as he heard the crowd growing louder outside the door. He
turned to look for his father, blood dribbling down his chin, but
found the hospital bed empty. A click drew his attention back to
the door. "Da..da.." he whispered in a raspy snarl.

Jeff finished locking the hospital room door
and addressed his child. "Have no fear son." He walked slowly and
painfully towards his boy. "No one will ever hurt you. Come to me
my Matthew..." He stretched his arms to him. "Flesh of my flesh. Bone
of my bone."

Matthew went willing to his father and
climbed into his arms. He let out a soft purr as Jeff cuddled
him.

Pounding assaulted the door as security
officers and nurses gathered at the room. The calls and bangs grew
louder as Jeff turned and headed towards the broken window.

Matthew continued purring as he closed his
eyes and buried his face in his father's chest. Jeff looked back at
door as it began to break in. He climbed up on the window ledge
with a dazed look on his face and kissed his son on the top of his
head.

The door broke down and a crowd of people
rushed into the room. Jeff looked back at them then whispered into
his son's ear. "It's okay Matthew my son. No one will ever hurt
you."

With his last words he hurled Matthew and
himself out the window.

Rogue
Wolf

Eric S. Brown

The car plowed into the creature, the metal
of its hood folding back from the impact as the beast was thrown
through the air to land roughly on the gravel road several yards
away. The beast lay in a pool of blood with the white of its
fractured ribs protruding out of its fur. Mark unfastened his
seatbelt and staggered out of the wrecked vehicle onto the road. So
far things were going exactly as he'd planned but he knew at best
he'd only bought the team a few minutes to get into position. The
lycanthrope was far from dead.

Sam, who'd been the bait to lure the monster
out onto the road, was already closing on the beast, his AK-47
chattering as its rounds tore and shredded the monster's flesh.
Alex followed in Sam's wake, preparing himself for his part in the
team's plan to take the lycanthrope alive.

The wolf stood up. Its bones were already
healed though it still leaked blood from the dozens of bullet holes
from Sam's continued attack. "Now!" Sam screamed at Alex. Alex
locked eyes with the beast as its howls of rage and pain filled the
night air. Alex strained to a hold on the thing's mind with his
own. The beast's rage was red and powerful. Blood poured from
Alex's nose and trickled from the corners of his eyes as he clamped
down on the thing's anger and switched it off. The lycanthrope
stood motionless for a second then collapsed onto the roadway. Alex
himself fell to his knees his face a tortured look of pain. He
watched as Mark strolled over to the creature and fired a massive
tranquilizer dart, point blank, into its skull.

"
You can let go now Alex,"
he heard Sam saying to him. Alex released his hold on the beast's
mind as Sam helped him to his feet. Alex wiped at the blood on his
face with the back of his hand. "I...I didn't think I was going to
be able to take him there for a second. It must have been Jacob's
PSI training."

"
But you did," Sam smiled.
"Jacob knew better than to try to leave the Team, Alex. Someone had
to bring him in before he killed anyone else."

Mark walked over to join them where they
stood. "Trust me, Alex, it was for the best. The team always takes
care of its own. Jacob was a valuable member but you know he wasn't
exactly stable. This was bound to happen sooner or later."

"
We'd better pack him up and
get out of here," Sam informed them. "We've still got that blood
sucker over in New Bern to deal with tonight."

Alex managed to nod weakly as the team's
clean-up vans made their way down the road towards them.

Emily

Eric S. Brown

I saw them again today. Her in our green jeep
and him in his gray van, parked side by side at the car wash. They
were leaning out their windows talking and making plans. To meet
like that is so much safer than ever using the phone. They believe
I don't know about their "affair" but I am on to them. It's been
going on for months now. When she leaves at night with her excuses,
I smile and pretend to be clueless as to where she's actually
going. I ask her when she'll be back and tell her to have a safe
trip. Emily hugs me and closes the door behind her as she leaves to
lay in his arms.

She'll leave again tonight, I know. Her
excuses won't matter. I'll know, like always, that she'll be with
Frank. Frank is a very predictable guy once you get to know him and
I've worked side by side with him for the last seven years. He'll
take her to the inn just off exit 106 on I-26 but tonight I will
there too. The rituals are complete and I can feel the changes
inside starting even as I drive home. When the moon rises, my eyes
will burn red and my flesh will become that of a demon.

Oh, I could have confronted them, had her
leave, and lost everything in the divorce which would have surely
followed. I could have plotted their murder like a normal man and
went to jail afterwards or maybe even gotten off on a plea of
temporary insanity but this way is so much more fun.

You see, my grandfather was a warlock of some
renown. He was burnt at the stake, shot by a firing squad,
disemboweled, and
after
all that they cut off his head just
to be sure he wouldn't be getting back up. They didn't burn his
books though. The books were passed down to me as part of my family
history. No one knew the spells and magic inside their pages of
treated human skin were real. I certainly didn't believe until my
life crumbled and I got desperate. When I first found out about
them,
the books leaped into my mind as if they were calling
out to me. I tried a few simple spells at first and was shocked to
discover they worked. It drove me on deeper into their pages and
gave me my answer, my means of vengeance. Using their magic, I will
become a demon straight out of Greek myth, a male version of a
Fury, and their blood will taste sweet upon my lips as I tear them
limb from limb. Then I will die myself as the sun rises, in the
wake of my vengeance, and burns me to ash but it will be well worth
the price.

After the sun has set and she is gone for an
hour, my clothes shred away from me as new muscles bulge and
leather wings spread to embrace the night sky. I take flight from
our backyard and cover the distance to the inn in mere heartbeats.
I swoop down at the inn, crashing through their window on the third
floor. The room stinks of sweat, sex, and a fresh fear.

Emily is screaming and trying to cover
herself as I move towards Frank. Frank has always been paranoid so
the gun on the night table comes as no surprise. He yanks it up and
pops off round after round into my new body. I shrug them off as
though they were nothing and reach out, crushing the gun and his
hand alike in my taloned hand. Franks opens his mouth to cry out
from the pain but the talons of my other hand slash open his
throat. Blood sprays onto the covers of the bed as my talons tear
his windpipe apart. I lift his falling body effortlessly and toss
it through the window to the street below.