The Samaritan Cometh
Part 8: Rewind: "Really Bad Things"
By Brian Lewis a.k.a Red Vector
They’ve finally gone to ground. I have been tracking them for a couple of weeks now to
this abandoned air strip here in the high desert outside Flagstaff, Arizona. According
to news reports, the local and federal authorities have been unable or unwilling to
stop them dealing poison to children, and selling weapons to street gangs through out
the southwest. They’ve also been terrorizing outlying communities through
intimidation, and have also been suspected in a number of disappearances. They call
themselves Satan’s Sinners or some such nonsense. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what
they call themselves, before the night is out they will all be dead, by my hand. Why am I
doing it? Because I can, that’s why.
Conditions are perfect, it’s a moonless night and the sound of the desert wind covers
my approach. Not that it matters anyway thanks to my stealth ability; I have become the
wind and the night. So the sentry is totally clueless until my hand seizes the back of his
head. And in the same motion I flick my wrist, he’s dead before he hits the ground. He
was the last of the sentries; the others were dispatched with equal speed and silence.
They were smart to post sentries to watch the access road to the airstrip; however
they didn’t post any to watch the surrounding hill sides. Apparently they were counting
on the treacherous terrain as a natural barrier to attack, by the police and the feds.
Under normal circumstances they would have been correct, but I’m anything but
“normal.”
I hear the distinctive sound of a V-Twin motorcycle engine approach, and turn to see
the last of the sentry’s brethren enter the main hanger. The massive hanger doors
close behind him with a thunderous sound, shutting out the chill desert wind. My
enhanced hearing picks up the sounds of him being greeted by his friends and the
revelries that ensue. He has much to celebrate him and the other leaders of the gang
have just beaten a murder charge. Thanks to a corrupt judge, and DA they think they
are untouchable. For that reason no sentries are posted outside the hanger doors or
side entrances.
“Let’s do this.” I say, to the night. A coyote howls in the distance as if in approval of
what is about to happen. The desert wind whips my leather duster against my legs; the
sound is like the flapping wings on a monstrous bird of prey.
Approaching the rear of the hanger, I take off my glove and place my hand on the
junction box. Using my mechanical affinity ability I link my mind to the building’s
electrical system. In my mind’s eye I trace the wiring to the system that controls the
motor on the hanger doors. With a thought, I lock down the motor. Now the doors
cannot be opened, and they’re far too massive to be opened manually. That task
completed, I barricade each of the side entrances with old aircraft engines, effectively
cutting off all avenues of escape. Scaling the outside of the building I slip in through
one of the roof vents and make my way along the steel trusses.
The festivities have begun in earnest judging from the trash metal music blasting from
stereo speakers set up around the hanger. Some are drinking, snorting coke, fighting,
and shooting pool. Still others have broken up into smaller group’s playing cards. I wait
and watch assessing the biggest threats. There’s a bar set up roughly in the middle of
hanger, the bartender has a Mossberg combat shotgun handy behind the bar. He will
die first.
I jump from my observation place firing as I fall, putting a round into the head of the
bartender. The fifty caliber bullet splatters his brains all over the glass wear, the
counter top and the concrete floor. By the time my size twelve’s hit the floor no less
than six are already dead under my twin Desert Eagles. Drawn by the sound of gunfire
the others approach and I become the eye of the storm. Which is exactly what I had
intended, I wanted them to come to me. Like a swarm of hornets, they think they can
bring me down by the weight of their numbers, they are wrong.
“Here I am without as much as bottle of wine.” I say calmly, as no round is wasted for
every pull of a trigger there’s a kill. “Where are my manners?”
Suddenly, I feel the hammer blows of four high velocity rounds hit me in the back. I
pivot on my heel and fire in the direction they come from. The shooter is hit in the
neck; the bullet impact nearly decapitates him. Arterial blood fountains out of the
wound as he falls like a lightning struck tree. Another of his companions from twenty
feet away brings an Hp-9 machine gun to bear and starts firing. Before I can reload I’m
hit twice more in the chest, but I drop and roll evading the remainder of the barrage. At
the same time I snatch up a pool cue off the floor and throw it like a spear. It impales
him in the upper abdomen just below the breastbone. At the point of impact his finger
tightens on the trigger and the weapon’s own recoil spins him around as he dies. This
sends the errant rounds into his friends killing or crippling more of them before the
weapon clicks empty.
At some point one of the biggest of them decides that he can take me hand to hand. So
he lunges forward swinging his fists. I drop below his reach and slam the flat of my
right hand in a piston like motion into his midsection. The impact of which generates a
shock wave that ruptures his intestines, bladder, and rips his liver in half. He staggers
backwards with a rapidly spreading red stain down running down his pants. He dies
writhing on the floor in agony before he bleeds out, which doesn’t take long.
“NEXT!” I scream with savage glee. A few of his brethren with similar aspirations drop
their crude weapons, and run away from me, they don’t get far. It’s during this time that
I take the opportunity to reload.
As the battle, continues I feel a tsunami of adrenaline flood my body. My already acute
senses expand to the point where I am hyper aware of everything around me. The
perception of time shifts. Pain response is non existent. Conscious thought gives way
to raw instinct. In a “normal” human being this is the “fight or flight” response in me it
becomes something infinitely more powerful and deadly. It becomes “seek” and
“destroy.”
Like the lone patron of a museum of the macabre, I stagger tiredly through the
carnage. The hanger is littered with bodies. Most have been shot others have been
mangled almost beyond recognition. The smell of GSR still lingers on the air mingling
with the smells associated with the massive destruction of the human body.
My clothes are soaked with blood and riddled with bullet holes. I hurt as I begin to feel
the crash that is to come. There is a price for my power, a price that is extracted in pain
and fatigue. My chest and back throb from the residual effects of multiple high velocity
bullet impacts. Just because my skin is bullet resistant it doesn’t mean that getting
shot doesn’t hurt. Even though they don’t penetrate they do leave behind painful black
and blue calling cards. Painful as they are, bruises are still preferable to blood spurting
holes.
“You’ll have to wait awhile old friends.” I say to the pain and fatigue, as if they were
entities that could be reasoned with. “There’s still work to be done.”
It’s with an effort of will that push the pain and fatigue to the back of the bus. As I do so
I make my way to a stack of crates, which I saw earlier. A stack of crates they were
determined to defend to the death. Upon opening the first one, I could understand
why. It contained military grade weapons and ammo. The crates were a mixed bag of
Russian, Chinese, and American made weapons. They looked to ready to be shipped to
parts unknown.
“Toy’s for Tot’s from hell.” I say to myself. “What else were these bastards into?”
I didn’t have to go far to find out, in another part of the hanger I find the counting
room. On a large table I find stacks and stacks of cash it appeared to be in hundreds
and twenties. I see a counting machine is still on, it’s read out was flashing five
hundred seventy five thousand. At least that’s as far as they got before I interrupted
them. In another area I find kilos and kilos of cocaine, crystal meth, heroin, and bags of
ecstasy. The last were shaped like little candy hearts, in mockery of Valentine’s Day.
“Well no surprises here.” I say. “I knew they were dealing. I expected as much.”
That is until I see on a table in the corner, at least two dozen neatly stacked black DVD
cases. As soon as I laid eyes on them I had a feeling of dread. A profound feeling of
dread that was confirmed when I saw the cryptic markings on their covers. They had
the dates when they were made and were marked with the letters S.F. /F.V. or S.F. /M.V.
It didn’t take a code breaking genius to figure out what those markings meant. I’ve
discovered their most vile enterprise of all something that polite, civilized society
dismisses as urban legend because the realities of it would be too perverse.
“Snuff films....these fucking maggots were making snuff films.” I say, as I pick up one of
the cases. “And the people who disappeared no doubt had starring roles.”