Gabriel's Sacrifice (The Scrapman Trilogy Book 2) (24 page)

He seemed to be everywhere at once, echoing through the place from every discernible direction … until Kyle’s cries suddenly ceased.

The blood stain of Beetlejuice was just ahead, marking the hatch directly above. Still he needed to find a way up. He split the aisles, finding the same assembly of rolls on the other side, making up a sort of staircase, when a second object came again to collide against him.

The hand of Kyle, falling limp to the floor.

He turned to find the figure standing not ten feet away, the blade at his side drenched in the blood of his men. The hunter yelled, firing as the bogeyman slipped out from beneath his aim. He ran after, cursing at the nothingness beyond the bend.

That left only Jackson.

He rushed back to the stairway and climbed it. Plywood still rested atop the rolls, creating a sturdy floor on which to walk as he reached the ladder to his exit. He unlocked the hatch, thrusting it open, and pulled himself up onto the roof. Rifle at his side, he ran for the rope he hoped was still there … and it was, coiled up at the corner of the building.

But he slowed as he came to it, discovering the bodies of four men lying out beneath the sun, along with something resting bloody at the peak of its pile.

Jackson’s hand.

The rope itself had been terribly shortened, the end of it tied into a grisly and sinister slip-knot.

It was a trap, the macabre display set out just for him.

“There’s your exit,” a voice informed him as he turned from the noose to fire upon the dark figure. But the bogeyman didn’t move. He stood firm, accepting each bullet as it deflected harmlessly off a violet energy surrounding him. Still the hunter held down the trigger, releasing with only mere bullets to spare.

He lowered the weapon, looking into the vacant eyes of the skull. “What the fuck are you?”

“Death,” the bogeyman answered, “redefined.” He reached up to remove his hood, pulling the mask free from his face.

Beneath it … beneath it were the dark features of a man he swore he’d seen before.

“I know you?” he asked.

“Knew me,” the bogeyman smiled, “well enough to have your boys throw me over the side.” He motioned toward the edge of the building. “After you killed the last hybrid.”

He squinted at him, but it couldn’t be. “Rifle … Rifleman?” the hunter realized. “But you … you were dead.”

“I think you’ll find death becoming rather relative, Hunter.”

“You died.” The hunter pointed a finger at him. “We watched you die.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” he offered. “But I was brought back to ensure hybrids have a safer second chance at life.” He revealed the hunter’s knife again as he wiped it off on his clothes. “And I’d say a world without you is a decent start.”

And on the rifleman’s hand, the hunter witnessed some otherworldly device, clearly crafted not of this earth–its origin … elsewhere.

“Aliens,” the hunter said. “Those things brought you back.”

“Amongst others, as well.” The rifleman nodded. “But I’m the only one who knows of it. The rest still think they never died. We are the once-dead, resurrected to carry the hybrid gene.”

The hunter shook his head, his reality beginning to crumble.

“Have you cracked my code yet, Hunter–numbers one through six?”

“They … they’re the order of our deaths.”

“Correct. As you can see I had to deviate slightly with number four, when he tried to take my number six from me.”

“Rick.”

The rifleman nodded. “So who’s number one, Hunter? Solve my riddle.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then see for yourself,” the rifleman said, extending his hand toward the four bodies.

The hunter stepped away from the wall, approaching the strategically-placed cadavers.

Four bodies.

The closest was Jackson. Number five. His right hand gone, his face calm, considering. Then Kyle. Number three. His jaw agape, eyes wide open. Then Kevin. Number two. The fingers of his left hand matching those of his severed right, his face identical in the terror that claimed his brother. And then the first body. Number one … covered in a dark blanket.

Coda
.

It would be the rifleman’s ultimate revenge, the hunter’s own son paying the price for the deeds of his father. He wouldn’t be able to bear the sight. Without the boy, he would welcome his own demise–nothing else on this earth worth living for.

Just above the rise of the deceased one’s nose, he wrapped his fingers around the cloth, finding it quite cool to the touch. With breath held in his lungs, he peeled the fabric away. But it wasn’t horror that overtook him at first sight of the dead man; it was instead a kind of stunned perplexity.

“What is this?”

“You remember that night, don’t you, Hunter?” the rifleman asked. “The night I left that handprint on your wall?”

“Yes,” he answered, the ringing of Victoria’s screams in his head.

“And what number was on the palm of that print?”

God, no
… “One.”

“Yes, that was the night,” the rifleman smiled, “the night I snapped your neck in your sleep.”

He looked down at the man, his own flesh upon the bone frame, tucked cozy beneath the shroud.

“So you see, Hunter, we are not so different, you and I,” he continued. “But while my purpose is just beginning, it seems yours has already been out-lived.”

The hunter said nothing, the pit falling out from within his stomach, the rifleman’s words like a tourniquet around his lungs.

“You were the first, the number one, and you’ll be the last–the full circle. And upon your resurrection, in you was planted a new seed of evolution, a seed that now resides within that pretty blonde.”

“Victoria,” he whispered.

“Death was never justice enough for you, Hunter. From your hand, the hybrids were slain–only fitting that from you, they will be born again.”

The hunter lifted his rifle, taking several more shots as he approached the rifleman. Still he was protected by that shield. “No more hiding!” he shouted. “You want revenge? Then fight me!” He tossed the rifle to the floor, beckoning the man forward. “Put down your weapons and fight me!”

“Why not?” The rifleman smiled, looking toward the heavens. “I have until sunset, after all.” He threw the knife a good distance away.

“And that thing!” He pointed to the device on the rifleman’s hand. “Whatever it is, that thing, too!”

“Very well.” The rifleman slipped it off, dropping it to the floor.

“Man to man,” the hunter said. “As it should be.”

“Then that’s your first mistake,” the rifleman noted, “thinking I’m just a man.”

“Well I am!” the hunter spat. “And one thing about men, in case you’ve forgotten, we’re all cheats.” He pulled the pistol from his waistband and fired on the unarmed Rifleman. Making at least one connection, the dark man rushed him, stole his weapon and sent him through the air.

Impossibly fast, the rifleman’s strength was unlike anything the hunter ever encountered before. He collided like a rag-doll against a run of ducting, settling in a heap back onto the factory’s roof. His body was alive with pain, the fight already over, his arm and collarbone badly broken.

“It’s over now, Hunter.” The rifleman walked casually toward him as he lay there, returning the bullet as it somehow squeezed from his skin. “You are beaten. I have only one more question to ask you.”

But, clutching at his arm and hissing through clenched teeth, the hunter didn’t respond. Pain quickly filled his mouth with nausea.

“Who visited you that night, Hunter?” the rifleman asked. “That night I left you the handprint. Was it the woman from your memories?”

“Wha … what?”

“That woman I saw lying sick in the bed. Did she visit you? It would’ve seemed like only a dream.”

Andrea.
The rifleman was talking about Andrea. He … he did have that dream about her … just before he woke up. “Yes.” He nodded.

“And what did she say?”

“You … ” He couldn’t help but laugh slightly to himself. “You reap what you sow.”

The rifleman’s eyes widened, Andrea’s message seeming to mean something to him. “Then it’s what I thought,” he whispered. “More than just an echo.” And after a moment of apparent reflection, the rifleman grabbed him by a handful of shirt. “Come now, Hunter,” he said firmly. “Let us end this thing.”

Being dragged toward the noose, the hunter’s fingers scratched along the roof’s surface, but nothing was there to aid him. He soon crossed the
X
as he slid over it, the words there reading:

The edge was approaching, the end of that rope soon forced around his neck. And his final thought, waiting for it to catch the weight of his broken body, was of Coda, the boy he’d be leaving behind.

Coda … dear boy … may your fate be different than mine.

F
oolish it was, premature and unsatisfying, to kill the hunter so soon, until Gabriel had arrived to offer another suggestion. The Traveler was intrigued by the man’s relationship with the pretty blonde, a relationship he thought the mission might benefit greatly from.

“Make her unconscious,” Gabriel had whispered as Mohammad looked up to find the Traveler’s large head within the room, like some kind of morbid, mounted hunting trophy.

So he pressed the glove to the blonde, being sure she would not awaken during the hours of the hunter’s absence as they were busily cooking him up a new body.

And even though Mohammad had gotten away scot-free with murder, the lesser man in him couldn’t help but leave behind a small clue.

The numbered handprint.

One death down–five more to go.

That was when Gabriel instructed him to leave the hunter and his group alone, so that he and the blonde might relax enough for procreation. But as she didn’t bed with the hunter for many days after, it seemed Mohammad’s selfish display backfired in that regard. Only when she believed the bogeyman dead did she return to him.

Then there was the comical, numerical threat the hunter left for Mohammad on the wall of the building, amusing only because of its underlying ignorance. Again, if he was truly at the level he believed himself to be, the only conclusion he could have possibly come to, the only rationality there was to find … was that he was already dead.

And there, watching the rope snap out the hunter’s second life, Mohammad finally brought an end to the six. His body dangled but ten feet from the ground, soon to be discovered by whatever search party would be dispatched on their behalves. And on all their chests, they would find the mark of the bogeyman–his legend alive and well again, a warning to all his would-be adversaries.

Mohammad grabbed his mask and slipped again inside the factory, leaving the past behind as the shadows engulfed him. It was finished, his vengeance for Radia complete.

Still he felt … nothing, all in vain without her there, without her wide, green eyes in the face of what he had become. With all the anticipation, all the meticulous planning, he was certain he’d feel something. But all he felt was numb. Not a tear had he ever shed for her, too preoccupied for such distraction. Still, even now when his mind was freest to devote, no emotion escaped him–his eyes dry as any desert.

It seemed Gabriel had created a monster, void of all feeling.

“Was it everything you hoped for?” Gabriel asked as he found the Traveler standing before him, a slender finger tapping the side of his pale cheek.

Mohammad shook his head.

“Pity, then,” Gabriel appeared to empathize. “Still, there is tomorrow.” He placed a large hand on Mohammad’s shoulder. “It is your purpose that will drive you now, Mohammad, your mission that will consume you.” Gabriel gave him an awkward squeeze. “And if you haven’t found your satisfaction in this, perhaps you’ll find it when your purpose is fulfilled.”

Mohammad did not agree or disagree; he simply looked up at Gabriel, asking the next most logical question. “So what now will you have me do?”

Gabriel’s brow crinkled in thin ripples above the glossy blackness of his eyes, just before a smile could be seen tugging at the corners of his lips. “Next?” he asked. “I think it might be time for you to be done with this place. Would you agree?”

Mohammad looked about the factory, to all the machines that had made up his home. Too many memories lingered there; he was ready to start fresh. “Yes,” he agreed.

“Very good.” Gabriel’s smile widened. “Do you remember that feline you caught for me?”

Mohammad nodded. “The orange tabby.”

“Well, she has since earned herself a name.”

“Is that so?” he asked. “Someone pick her up?”

“Her name is Dinah,” Gabriel nodded, “and I couldn’t be more pleased with the feed I’ve been receiving from her.”

“Must be something real special about that junkyard.”

“See for yourself.” He triggered his wrist device, erecting another holographic image above it.

A steady resonance filled the area as the audio brought them first the blissful purr of the feline. Her orange tail swayed gently before the image as she seemed to be curled up at the moment. Beyond the swish of fur, Mohammad witnessed a portion of her surroundings–a makeshift home of sorts. But the walls were … the walls were made of earth, like someone decided to set up camp in a large hole in the ground.