Revenence (Novella): Dead Red (12 page)
With no small amount of difficulty, Daphne made her way to the door. As she reached out to push it open, she supposed that the sound was likely to be worse outside.
She wasn't wrong. The echo was unlike anything she had ever heard, pulsing through the mine, the yard site and the entire clearing surrounding the facility. It flowed up and down 49, a channel for the sound waves with its high-sided treeline as a barrier. As the door swung all the way open, Daphne saw a flash of headlights as a motorcycle came skidding past her. It tipped onto it side as its stupefied, panicked driver engaged the brakes upon approach of the mine's edge. The bike's momentum was great enough to propel the vehicle and its driver over the edge and past the steep drop-off. As the man plunged into the mine, where Daphne saw the silverey rainbow still hanging, his terrified screams were quickly lost to the overall roar of the explosion.
Daphne glanced down the driveway, the direction from which the motorcycle had come. She saw over a dozen more headlights, though several of the bikes were already stationary, having either tipped over or crashed in the explosion and its ensuing chaos. She steadied herself, navigating carefully as the lights and sounds around her shook and vibrated with excessive energy. From a pile of rubble that was, only moments before, a conveyor and its corresponding building, at least two sadists moaned, finding themselves in pieces among the debris. As Daphne peered through the wavy air, she saw Reese's disembodied head. She moved closer to inspect the pointed length of wood protruding from beneath what was left of his nearby torso. She reached the object, bending down to look more closely. As she had hoped, it was her ironwood lance. She yanked it from beneath the headless corpse.
It had been previously tempered, so it was no worse for the wear. Even its sharpened tip had held its shape. Lifting its heft with both hands, she rose and looked around her. She could see several forms to her right, moving down the driveway and toward the building, but they were largely obscured by the enveloping cloud of dust and debris. She looked to her left, toward the mine. She saw two figures rushing away, retreating south toward the treeline.
From somewhere north, likely miles away, Daphne heard another group of motorcycles being started and embarking down 49. She hurried over to the building, lance in hand, and waited in the shadows as she held the pointed length of stony wood like a staff with its tip sitting well above her head.
As she had predicted, it was only moments before the motorcycle-riding newcomers rounded the corner in pursuit of Red. They were on foot, having left their bikes in front of the building.
"Is that him?" one of them asked, peering down the narrow stretch of gravelled clearing situated between the mine and the woods. The two figures moved quickly, the sound of their hurried footsteps amplified by the presence of the man-made canyon beside them.
"Hey, Red!" one of them shouted. The two figures only responded by picking up their pace even more. "Yellow-bellied, limp-wristed shitlicker," the sadist muttered.
"Did he really call us out to help his ass, just to run away and leave us to deal with that maniac?" asked a female just arriving on the scene, turning the corner of the building.
"Sure as shit," said one of the men.
"Miller tried to tell Pfeifer," another male said. "Red's good for nothin'. Not sure why we haven't cut him loose yet."
Daphne watched from the shadows as the surviving motorcyclists congregated between the mine and the eastern wall of the building.
"Is this all of us?" one of them asked.
"Yeah," replied another. "The rest either crashed, blew up or slid into that god damned mine."
"Oh, my God," said a sturdy, plus-size female through gritted teeth, unholstering a rifle from behind her back. "I wanna kill him more than I do her."
"Hold off," one of them urged her, holding his palm up toward her. "Red," he yelled, "stop right there, buddy, or we'll shoot."
An emission of gunfire was dispatched from Red and his companion. The area was sprayed with .44 rounds and buckshot, though no one was hit.
"As you can see," Red shouted, "we'll shoot, too. Should we make it to kill?" He continued to run backward, aiming his revolver at the group.
"Should I do it?" the rifle-bearing woman asked the others in her party, pointing the muzzle at the fleeing pair.
"Shit," one of them muttered, "I don't see why not. We'll tell Miller that little freak got him. He won't know any different. We'll be bringing back her head, anyway."
Red decided to take pre-emptive action against the rifle aimed his way. He gathered the fact that the group was intent upon retaliation for the mess in which he had entangled them, so he targeted the hand with which the woman supported the barrel. He pulled the trigger, missing her hand but obliterating the arm at the elbow.
In the space of less than a second, a full-blown firefight erupted between the duo and the newcomers. Daphne snuck toward the group while both sides were distracted. She didn't want Red to be taken out inglorioulsy in a gunfight with other sadists. Red was hers, her rightful prey. She quietly ambushed the group, clotheslining two of them beneath the chins with her spear while they re-loaded and dashing them down into the deep mine.
She tucked herself beneath a truck for cover as the two let out high-pitched screams just before they hit the mine's bottom. She saw an older male holding an AR-15 turn his muzzle away from Red, swinging it around the yard. Since he was distracted, Red and his partner targeted him next. Moments after he toppled, lifeless, to the gravel, another of his comrades fell. There were now only three members of the group left, including the woman whose right arm was hanging by mere shreds. She lay on the ground sobbing, her face red and shiny with tears. Her two remaining companions scooped her up, each of them supporting her under one arm and retreating around the corner of the building toward their bikes.
The rumbling of the group of motorcycles from down the road was now closer and noticeably louder. To her right, Daphne saw two undead--likely ones which she herself had created--rush toward the road before they were eclipsed by the building, obscuring them from her view. She saw Red and the other member of his two-person team resume their flight. Slithering out from beneath the truck, she paused for a moment as she stood, gauging the distance between herself and Red. She estimated him to have crossed about half of the length of the mine.
Approaching the massive pit, she peered down into its depths and dropped down inside, falling about six feet. She landed on a flat, one-foot-wide ledge spanning the mine's upper, inner circumference. Her bare feet were a blur as they moved, only barely touching the surface and creating no sound as she closed in on Red via the ledge, below the rim of the mine and out of his view. As the southern treeline began to loom closer, about twenty-five yards away, Daphne began to overtake Red. She sprinted faster, reaching the edge of the mine well before the evading pair.
She slung herself up and out of the pit, dashing twenty feet across the gravel clearing to reach the fringe of evergreens, the dense border where humankind relinquished control back to the forest. As she prepared to confront Red upon his arrival at the treeline, she saw and heard the group of motorcyclists arrive, their headlights shining from around the corner of the building.
Covered in dry blood and clutching the heavy wooden lance, Daphne waited as Red's footsteps drew near. She sat cloaked in the tangled, overgrown limbs of a mulberry tree with new green growth just beginning to emerge. When Red and his companion were around ten feet away, Daphne let out a low, inhuman growl.
"What was that?" asked the other person with whom Red was traveling. Daphne saw that it was Logan, the one who had administered the drugs prior to Red's freehand artwork on her back.
Daphne saw in red as she glared at him, the colorless rainbow pulsing frantically in the background behind him. Leaping from her cover of dense, reddish mulberry branches, she held her lance with its tip pointed at Logan's approaching abdomen. As his open leather jacket came within a few feet of Daphne's weapon, she fine-tuned her aim, going for the strip of his torso covered with only a t-shirt, between the open zipper of his jacket.
The point of her lance entered Logan's abdominal cavity readily, just below the sternum. She lowered her chin to her chest, glaring over her sweating brow. The clear sweat mixed with the red blood caking her from head to toe, creating trails of pink where the fluid ran down, then dripped off. She plowed forward and to her right, gripping one end of her lance with Logan impaled at the opposite end. He had no choice but to instinctually move backward to avoid the lance being driven in any further.
Leaning forward as Logan's feet neared the mine's edge, Daphne lunged, angling her torso forward and reaching her free hand, equipped with the dagger, out to her victim. She used the weapon in her left hand to slice away most of Logan's right ear. Sheathing the dagger once again, she grasped the ear between her left thumb and forefinger, then continued to hold it while she angled her weapon upward, forcing Logan up slightly onto his toes. His dark form momentarily eclipsed the middle of the rainbow behind him from Daphne's point of view. It was flashing with an even greater intensity. It reminded her vaguely of X-ray images of broken bones flashing at unfathomable speeds. She regarded the arch briefly as she yanked back on the lance, freeing it from Logan's body just before the leather-clad man fell, screaming, into the open pit. His had ear ripped away as he fell, its lobe still held fast in Daphne's firm grip.
She looked to her left, where Red was already twenty feet away, running toward the building. He had apparently forgotten, however, about the re-inforcement that he had requested from his allies only to cause the deaths, either directly or indirectly, of all but three members. The newly arrived group of motorcyclists emerged from around the corner of the building, about 150 yards away. Some raised scoped assault rifles, aiming in Red's direction. As Daphne had expected, he changed course immediately, bolting toward the woods to the west that led to the highway.
Daphne chased after him as a few rounds were discharged in his direction. She watched him escape into the treeline, where he slowed slightly to reload his gun. From the north, in the direction of the driveway, Daphne heard the sounds of many different types of guns all going off at once. Their varied sounds bounced around the mine and surrounding areas.
She didn't bother to wonder what was going on back near the building. She probed into the darkened wood, whereupon the sounds of gunfire were significantly and promptly dampened, though still quite audible. She noted Red ahead, his revolver pointed at her face.
She evaded upward into a tree, swinging her lance up and around a low-hanging branch. She hopped up slightly and gripped the lance with both hands to either side of the branch, hoisting her weight up and grabbing around its circumference with both of her bare feet. She swung herself onto the branch and sprang upright, side-stepping as she anticipated the squeezing of Red's trigger finger and the barking of his muzzle. He dispatched four shots, one after another, at his moving target. The rounds bit into the branch inches from Daphne's feet, sending chunks of bark and splintered fragments of wood into the air. Several splinters embedded themselves into her bare legs, serving to further enrage her.
She glared down at Red, wanting to ruin his monstrous visage. Before he could fire the last few shots, she dropped down onto him, her legs squeezing around his torso to cease her descent. Although Red more than doubled Daphne in weight, the force was sufficient to knock him onto his back on the carpet of wet, decomposing leaves. As her fists rained down onto Red's over-sized face, the overcast, over-burdened sky began to precipitate, rinsing away from her skin much of the blood that was already slightly wetted with sweat.
Her right fist moved up and down like a piston, barely pausing for re-positioning between blows. The back of Red's dense skull rebounded off of the ground as he struggled to lift his head. After several seconds of inundation, he managed to roll over, knocking Daphne off of him.
She rolled once, gripping her lance in her left hand, then leaped to her feet, driving the point of her weapon into the dirt. Holding the shaft with both hands, she used the weight of her upper body to push down on the implement while bringing her legs up, her feet in the air. She planted her soles hard into Red's face as he stood. The force didn't knock him down, but he visibly reeled from the impact. Having collected himself slightly after a moment, he searched the ground for his revolver, which he had dropped upon Daphne's assault. He raked his boot across the fallen leaves, and felt the metal bulk two feet from where he had fallen. As his right hand reached down to retrieve the weapon, Daphne's lance spun low through the air, angled down, and pinned his palm to the ground.
As Daphne came in toward him, he yanked the lance free with a loud, groaning yell and a fair amount of difficulty. Although his right hand was ruined, his left dove into an inner pocket of his jacket. He grinned, his eyes twinkling and his brows raised, as he produced Daphne's beloved titanium talon, the gut hook-tipped knife that had been with her since the beginning. For a split second, in its pale, shining blade, she saw the rainbow reflected from behind her at the mine, visible as glowing fragments through the branches obscuring its totality.