Dark Creations: Dark Ending (Part 6)

Dark Creations: Dark Ending

(Part 6
)

A novel

By Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

DARK CREATIONS: DARK ENDING (Part 6)

Published by Je
nnifer and Christopher Martucci

Copyright © 2013

All rights reserved.

First edition: April 2013

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall.

~
Mahatma Gandhi

Chapter 1

Mild, muggy air blew against Arnol
d Gathers’ face as he turned into the gravel filled parking lot of the Dew Drop Inn.  He’d been driving for a little less than eight hours and was in desperate need of a warm meal and a few beers, anything to take the edge off the persistent anxiety and hunger he’d been feeling.  Both had gnawed at him unendingly for the last couple of hours, making him feel more edgy than usual, and both could be remedied with a healthy dose of fried food and alcohol.

As he shifted his cargo van
into “park,” a breeze created by a passing vehicle on Route 9A rushed through his window and filled the interior with the sumptuous scent of bar food.  The smell of something being deep-fried hung in the air like a tantalizing mist.  Arnold salivated, the thought of sinking his teeth into a juicy cheeseburger with all the fixings so tempting, he swore he could actually taste the individual flavors tease his taste buds. 

His stomach growled loudly.  Without wasting another moment, Arnold, intent on answering the demands of his appetite, slid from the driver’s seat and stepped out of his van for the first time in what felt like eternity.  His legs, wearied from being in the same position for so long, threatened from beneath him for a split-second before regaining their strength. 
He began walking to the entrance of the Inn above which a neon sign read “Ba.”  He guessed the sign should have read “Bar,” but found that “Ba” was more befitting the patrons inside the establishment.  They were, after all, sheep.

Arnold chuckled to himself, satisfied with his wittiness, and
checked his wristwatch before quickly scanning the parking lot.  The dinner rush most eateries experienced had likely passed and few cars were parked there along with a handful of motorcycles.  Some likely belonged to employees while the rest were undoubtedly customer vehicles.  Not that a car count mattered in the least.  And neither did a headcount, for that matter.  Arnold could disappear in an empty room as easily as he could in a roomful of people. 

With that thought swirling in his mind, Arnold looked to his feet somberly.  As he did, his thick, plastic rimmed glasses glided down his nose as they so often did and he slid them up just in time to see a burly man dressed in dirty, tattered jeans and an equally dirty, tattered denim jacket barreling toward him. 
He hadn’t seen or heard a car pull in.  The man seemed to appear from nowhere.  Arnold was just about to reach for the doorknob and pull the door toward him when the burly man shouldered in front of him and jerked the door open.

Noise swelled from the opened door, along with the intoxicating aroma of fried food and liquor, before quieting abruptly.

“Watch it, buddy,” the man grumbled without so much as glancing at Arnold as he hurried inside ahead of him. 

The man’s words would have been lost, carried
away on the clamorous wave filled with the clanging of plates, utensils and laughter, had Arnold not had impeccable hearing.  Unfortunately for him, his hearing was perfect, and he’d caught the man’s comment.

Arnold lowered the
hand he’d reached for the doorknob with and his arm fell slack against his thigh.  He dropped his chin to his chest and a thousand responses to the burly man’s comment swam in his head.  So many clever, snappy comebacks yearned to be hurled, but stopped just shy of his lips.  His throat burned, choking the words there, and his pulse thundered in his ears.  Sweat stippled his brow, and his palms and insides trembled chaotically.  He felt dizzy and nauseated.  Still, he wished he could lash out at the rude man who’d charged past him, say something bold to make the man reconsider his discourtesy.  But Arnold was famished and unsure of how long he would have to travel before he found another establishment that served food as well as drinks.  If he were to say something to the man, to retaliate verbally, a confrontation would likely ensue and force him to leave.  So he had said nothing, and he supposed that was why people always treated him as the man had, why they disregarded him entirely. 

For a moment, he reconsidered his dining choice
, considered taking his chances on finding another place further down the road.  He even thought about climbing back inside his van and finding a fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru window.  Beer could always be bought at a gas station market.  He could dine in his van, far from impolite or downright cruel people.  

A glance at his van reminded him of what was inside, his very precious
freight.  Luckily, it would be safe when left unattended, even in a less than respectable neighborhood such as the one he was in. 

He did not worry about the van or its contents.  No one could steal it, not even professional car thieves.  The locks were standa
rd, but the windows were bulletproof and shatter proof.  But that was not what made the security of his van unique.  It also possessed a sophisticated antitheft system that disabled both the gas and brake pedal if it were started by any other means besides the one key its ignition came with. 

With the van safe, what else did he have to worry about? He wondered.  He breathed deeply, focusing on that important point, until he was sufficiently calmed and ready to enter the bar.  When his pulse rate slowed to normal and the strangling sensation left his throat, he realized his anxiety attack had been pointless.  Everything was going to be just fine.

Arnold reached out his hand and turned the knob as he pulled the door toward him.  The smell of greasy treats greeted him immediately and his stomach did an excited somersault.  His eyes swept the room and he noticed that he was dressed differently from everyone there.  Wearing tan slacks and a button down collared shirt with a sweater vest overtop it, he looked out of place among the sea of denim and leather ensembles. 

Oh dear
, he thought and felt his heart rate spike.  He ran his damp palms down the front of his pants and waited patiently to be seated. 

When the scantily clad, redheaded waitress finally looked his way after an unacceptably long stretch of time spent lingering beyond the threshold, she called to him exasperatedly. “This isn’t a diner.  Sit where you want,” she said without lifting her eyes from the pad she scrawled on.

Arnold glanced behind him to be certain she was, in fact, speaking to him before shuffling to the bar.  As he made his way there, men, all larger than he, jostled and elbowed him.  He assumed it was his size that made them feel superior to him.  He was only five feet four inches tall and weighed a touch over one hundred twenty pounds.  Small by adult male standards, men were often aggressive with him.  They seemed to feel empowered by picking on a man they deemed weaker than they were.  And while Arnold could not out bench press any of the men around him, he’d been created as the Grim Reaper of humankind.  He kept that very relevant point in mind as he bumped along to the bar and sat on a stool. 

Though the bar was not extraordinarily busy, the bartender refused to make eye contact with Arnold.  Instead, she opted to squish her ample b
reasts together and thrust them in the face of the man that had shoved past him in the parking lot.  The same burly and disheveled man was now perched on a barstool and seated at the end of the bar monopolizing the bartender’s attention. 

Even in the forgiving light of the bar, the man loo
ked worn and weathered.  His skin was deeply creased, leathery and tough, and looked like old furniture.  Arnold doubted the man cared for his body in the least, doubted that he minded what he put inside of it or ever even bothered to exercise.  Still, things were not always as they appeared.  He was a living, breathing example of that. 

Arnold Gathers
, perhaps the most lethal man on the planet, was invisible, or so the rest of the world thought.  His invisibility was by design, not mistake, though.  His maker wanted it that way.  And while he was made of flesh and blood and did not exist as a blob of clear plasma wavering suspiciously in the air as science-fiction movies depicted invisibility, Arnold
could
blend in with the background of every situation he was placed in.  Such a phenomenon was essential, especially since he’d been awarded the esteemed title of executioner of the masses. 

In the coming day
, he would deliver a virus that remained in his cargo van, stored in a large, stainless-steel vat.  The vat contained a strain of virus more potent than any to ever befall the planet. But initiating the fall of humanity was not his first order of business.  He was not in any particular hurry to fulfill his task.  Other, more pleasurable duties, needed to be fulfilled first.  Among them was eating. 

He raised his hand, proud of
its pale, supple skin and attempted to get the buxom bartender’s attention.  The man she was fawning over glanced at him and eyed him hostilely. 

Yes, yes, you are very brave, my brawny friend
, Arnold thought acidly. 
Keep looking at me with disgust.  May that look of disgust be the expression you wear while dying.
  And the man would die.  There was no question about it.  All of humanity would fall to the virus waiting in his van.

The virus, created by Lord
Franklin Terzini, was a modified mixture of both the Anthrax virus and the H5N1 bird flu; only his concoction was far more contagious than either alone.  It would pass easily between millions of people at a time and would spread quicker than any expert would have time to identify it, much less stop it, before it killed every single human being on Earth.  It would begin with flu-like symptoms that would rapidly degenerate to pneumonia and respiratory failure.  And the entire process would occur within the duration of the common cold.  His maker’s plague was the worst weapon mankind would ever come under attack from, and the last.  And Arnold would have the privilege of unleashing it on them.

Arnold could not wait to release his maker’s viral cocktail
.  Especially on deserving brutes like the one at the end of the bar.  But he could not do anything, could not drive or even conceive of eradicating humanity on an empty stomach. 

“Uh, excuse me,” he said in a small voice as he waved his hand feebly. 

The woman glanced his way with an expression of one who’d just smelled an offensive odor, seemed to look past him even, and then quickly resumed her flirtation with the beefy beast.  Arnold lowered his head and stared at the nicked wood of the bar.  While he did, he heard the man say, “Nerdy little bastard sounds like a damn woman.”  The bartender laughed exaggeratedly at his comment, the sound a grating cackle.

Rage gathered in Arnold’s belly, cramping it.  In that moment, he wished Terzini had c
reated him as formidably as the others in their membership; that he was strapping and intimidating looking.  But he was not.  He was, as the man called him, a nerdy little bastard with a voice like a woman. 

He slid his glasses from the tip of his nose to it
s bridge and tried to gets the waitress’ attention again.  This time she looked right at him and, with an eye roll, sashayed toward him. 

“What’ll ya have?” she asked and did not mask the annoyance in her voice. 

“Uh, may I please have a pitcher of beer and a bacon cheeseburger, rare, with a side of fries,” he said softly.

“A pitcher of beer?” the bartender
questioned and wrinkled her nose unattractively.  “You expectin’ friends?”

“Uh, no, ma’am,” Arnold answered confusedly.

“So you want a whole pitcher of beer
for yourself
?” she asked incredulously. 

“Uh, yes, that is correct,” he replied. 

“O
kay
,” she quirked a brow at him and shook her head as she scribbled on her notepad.

“Thank you,” he attempted, but she had already
turned from him abruptly and set about fulfilling his drink order. 

She returned with a pitcher of beer in one hand and a frosty mug in the other.  The mug was an unexpected delight he rarely had the pleasure of indulging in. 
He poured his beer into the icy glass slowly then brought it to his lips and enjoyed a long, foamy swallow. 

He’d finished more than half of the pitcher and felt considerably relaxed by the time his bacon cheeseburger and fries arrived.  Nearly a half-hour had passed since he’d ordered it and while he’d waited, he’d watched the burly man from the parking lot join his friends in the far corner of the bar. 
They sat beside a man who’d passed out moments ago and snored loudly.  They’d ordered round after round of shots in addition to food.  Of course, they’d received their food sooner than Arnold and grew louder and rowdier with each series of drinks that had arrived.