Part two...
"Where is he?" the giant bug-thing growled
impatiently.
Athena squirmed easily out of Elizabeth's stunned grasp and
rand away to the farthest corner of the house. She was normally agressive, but
she wasn't foolish, either.
Elizabeth paused She took a deep breath and
stood her ground. "What the hell is going on?"
The thing frowned, or she
thought it did. It took a step forward and its whole body seemed to
crunch from the moving exoskeleton. "Tell me where he is or I eat
you."
She stood her ground even though every muscle in her body was
screaming to run. She wondereed what had happened to her sanity as she asked,
not timidly, "Who are you talking about?"
It narrowed its eyes and said,
"The Man in Black. You know of him, pus-bag. The one called
'Kay.'"
Kay? She didn't know any Kays. Kevin? Did it
mean Kevin?
"I don't know wh you're talking about. Try the
neighbors." She was continually amazed by her sudden flippancy.
It came
closer and she allowed herself to take a step back. She slid her hand over the
nail gun on her worktable.
"I think you do know who I am looking
for. You will tell me, or I will--"
"Kill me?" she finished for it.
"You've seen too many movies," she said, swinging the nail gun up and firing,
and at the same time thinking, as the bug-thing shreaked in pain, Lizzie,
next time try a less trite phrase than 'you've seen too many movies.' Well, if
there is a next time...
She sprinted toward the door and down the
hall into the kitchen. When she looked back, it was not pursuing her. She looked
out the window above the sink and saw her pickup in the driveway. Got to get
out of here, it'll find me here, go to find Kay--er, Kevin, she thought,
amazed that she had used the name the bug-thing had. It sounded right, but she
had no idea why.
She slowly slid open the back door and stepped out, nail
gun at the ready. Dirty Harriet, at your service. She grinned, but the
smile was short lived.
Crunch. Crunch. CRUNCH.
It
was coming and she tried to run faster.
Almost to the
truck...
Almost...
A dark shape loomed over her, and a shiny-shoed
foot swung into her line of vision from above. "I don't think we'll be going
anywhere, human."
The voice was grating and strong. She looked up into
the face of a middle aged woman, wearing a black suit with a white shirt, and
strangely enough, Ray-Bans. The woman, who seemed to be into her second stage of
decay, Elizabeth noticed, had a weird, cylindrical silver gun pointed at her.
She heard a roar from behind, spun around, and shotthe thing in the eye.
It exploded in a green mess. The bug groped at the newfound hole in its face and
whined pitifully.
"What's going on around here?" A sigh, and then, "Boy,
you were supposed to capture her and question her, not get yourself
shot."
The bug-thing that had been chasing her whined, "Elder, it is
dangerous and must be killed! She reared up and grew long talons and fire shot
from her mouth and--"
"Silence, little one." Elizabeth thought that
comment hilarious, considering the bug was much larger than the strange-voiced
woman, but she kept herself from giggling. She had a feeling that the woman was
much more powerful than her otherworldly nemesis.
The woman slid down
from the cab and stepped close to her. She smelled just as dead as she looked,
and it revolted her.
"Now. Where is the human called Agent Kay, the Man
in Black? We know that he is here." She came closer, studied her face. "You are
his mate, are you not?"
"Look, I don't know what is going on here. I've
lived out here by myself for twenty-three years, and I don't know anyone named
Kay."
She stared at her a little longer, and then drew back. "Boy, take
her to Ragrok. Oh, and this time, don't let her blind
you."
----
"Where are you taking me?" Elizabeth growled. The
bug-thing had her by the waist.
"If it was up to me, I'd eat
you."
She pummeled his hard exoskeleton in anger. She felt as if her
teeth were rattling in her head with each step that he took.
"We're going
to our... great fortress!" The blinded bug exclaimed triumphantly.
And
then he stopped.
The sound of a heavy wooden door creaking open, and the
smells of hay and horses and old saddle leather came to her.
"My BARN?
Your great fortress is my freaking barn?!?" Even though she was scared to death,
she coudn't help herself. The though of her musty odl barn being the hideout of
an ugly misfit space alien and a rotting woman who wanted to kill her was just
too much.
She started to laugh.
The bug-thing raised her above his
head and threw her to the far side of the barn. her breath was knocked out of
her, and pain shot clear throgh her head and back all the way to the tips of her
fingers and toes. She could hear the horses in their stalls moving around in
agitation. They weren't happy with the intruders, either.
"Pus-bag! I'll
rip you to pieces!"
She struggled to sit up, faintly thinking to herself
that laughing hadn't been her greatest plan, when she heard a voice from behind
the bug.
"No, little maggot, you won't."
Thebug stopped and his
one intact eye seemed to dilate instantly.
"Ah, father, I wasn't-- I was
just--"
A figure walked into view, not even six feet tall. It was human,
at least, uponfirst glance.
"No, you were waiting for me, weren't
you?"
She squinted to see the man's features as the bug nodded and looked
incredibly nervous. As he came closer, she recognized him as old Doc Dobson, the
local vet who lived down the street a ways. He helped her through a couple of
rough winters with Jake.
"Doc?"
But she realized she was mistaken
when he came closer. His skin, which had begun to wrinkle and sag with age, was
now smooth--almost bulging, as if he were swelled up. Yet, it didn't look like
that, precicely either. he looked as if something were sharing space with old
Doc Dobson.
The man grinned lopsidedly, somewhat like a stroke
victim.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Cunningham."
Kevin walked down the hall, carpeting warm and soft under his feet. He blew on
the coffee to cool it off; it rippled and steamed. He thought of Elizabeth as he
walked and wondered if she had painted over the spot or interated it.
Well, he thought, she took me in after thirty years...
He
stopped at the doorway and knocked on the door.
"Lizzie, it's a beautiful
morning."
She didn't answer. Still painting. She could really get
caught up in her work. He slowly pushed open the door and loooked
inside.
"Lizzie?"
She was nowhere to be seen.
He set the
coffee on a paint-splattered table and stepped into the room. The floor felt
hard and smooth under his feet and the air was heavy. A feeling settled over him
that wan't quite right, like the skin on the back of the neck was being pulled
taut. He rubbed his hands, which had started to strangely tingle
By the pricking of my thumbs--
He saw nothing but
the painting which Elizabeth had been working on.
--something
wicked this way comes
He shook his head and tried to shake the
sudden chill that had fallen on him. He turned to leave, when he realized that
there was someone standing over by the picture window that looked out over their
expansive 'backyard.' The person was dressed in a simple black suit, dark
glasses. The arms were crossed and relaxed, and the fingers were laced. The
figure simply stood eerily at attention. He knew that the eyes were watching
him, even though they were concealed.
"Who the hell are you?" He asked
gruffly. "What are you doing in my house?" The figure made no move. He stepped
closer.
The figure--a woman--reeked. Her skin seemed to be... no, it
couldn't be, he thought, but his mind insisted that yes, she seemed to be in the
early stages of decay, and her skin was ashy and peeling aroudn the neck and
jawline.
He came even closer, a foot from her, and she never moved a
muscle. Hesitantly, wondering if someone had deposited a dead woman in a black
suit in his house, and just for kicks had stood it as if she were alive, he
reached out to touch her face.
Instantly, the woman's arm shot out and
grabbed his with inhuman strength. A voice, unlike any woman's--or any humans,
for that matter--issued from her rotting, peeling lips.
"It's time, Agent
Kay. Are you prepared?"
more to come... NOT! Sorry...