Kane slowly came back to his senses, finding himself strapped to a chair across from Rebecca, shirtless, his hands tied behind his back. He tested the bonds, but they were well done. He looked around the room, checking for any chance of escape. Nothing presented itself. Wiggling his feet, he was surprised to feel his Ka-Bar still in its special sheath in his left boot. He was contemplating how to get to it when the door opened and the big guy entered, looking at Kane with cold, dead eyes as he circled the room.
“Five guys in two days, Kane. Six if we count poor Michelle. She will probably never wake up with her brain swelling like it is. Not to mention all the guys I lost trying to claim the bounty on your head. We had to work with the fucking mall beasties to do it, and I lost three of my best pets in the process. I owe you, Kane, and I’m starting to think you’re not worth three years of rations—but the extra two I’ll get for delivering your head to the parking garage might make it worth my while. I’m going to take my time with you, so that I get a little extra compensation for all my trouble.”
Finishing his circuit around the room, he stopped on Kane’s right. The big man hit him then, and the sheer power of it shocked him. It was even harder than Rafael had hit him—and the two teeth he spit out onto the table damn well proved it.
“We’re going to have lots of fun, Kane. We get to spend some time together soon … but first, two friends of mine want a little payback.”
Aiden and Orange Hat entered the room, the latter with a significant limp. Aiden flushed red with rage when he met Kane’s eyes, jaw muscles clenching.
Orange Hat just stood there smiling. “I don’t have any kids, you filthy beast. How fucking gullible can you be?” he said with a laugh.
“Aiden, cut his hands free. Connor, bind them with the leather restraints on the table. It’s always best to start with a man’s hands,” the big guy said.
Aiden moved around to Kane’s back and began loosening his bonds while Orange Hat—Connor—approached on his left. As his bonds loosened, Kane moved with lightning speed, drawing his Ka-Bar and burying it to the bolster under Connor’s chin. In a flash, the big guy had Kane pinned to the table with ungodly strength. While Aiden hurriedly forced Kane’s hands into the leather straps on the table, securing them tightly in place.
“Seven,” Kane said, without an ounce of emotion or regret on his face.
Aiden gulped loudly as he backed away from the growing pool of blood leaking out of Connor.
“Why didn’t you search him?” the big guy screamed at Aiden.
Aiden retreated until his back hit the wall. “Ww-we d-did, Commander,” he finally managed.
“Well, check him again!”
Aiden briskly approached Kane and began rifling through his pockets, withdrawing nothing but lint until he came to the small container Kane had stashed in his other boot. Opening the lid, Aiden dumped the contents on the table. The ootheca rolled toward Kane’s elbow.
“What’s that?” the big guy asked, prodding it with a pen he pulled from his pocket.
“A chrysalis,” Kane responded casually.
The commander looked at Kane carefully, then sneered. Drawing his bowie knife, he buried in the back of Kane’s left hand, pinning it to the table. Kane screamed, his dry throat cracking dangerously with the force of it.
Across from him, Rebecca stirred, cracking open her unswollen eye. “Kane,” she mumbled groggily. “Watch out, Kane. My old commander, Chuck, is here somewhere. He’s a bad man, Kane. Be careful…” Her mumbling trailed off into incoherence.
“Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca,” Chuck chided her softly. “Such a clever girl. She was one of my best soldiers. I tried telling her that women are not cut out to be SEALs, but she would never listen. She failed three times, but she never gave up, and the fourth time, when she passed, I knew the military had gotten too soft. I decided it was my duty to show her that she could not handle it, but she kept sneaking through by the skin of her teeth.” He sneered. “Women do not deserve to hold combat positions. It’s not right. So, I put her through a final test—and she got her whole team killed in the process. But she survived, despite it all, and they court-martialed me for it. ME!” Spit flew from his mouth at the last word, and the crazed look in his eyes told Kane all he needed to know.
Rebecca stirred again at Chuck’s outburst, and the blood oozing from her ear and the papillae of her missing feathers dripped from her chin onto the table. The men stared at it for a moment before Chuck looked back at Kane.
“Enough talk. It’s time to have some fun,” the commander said as the maniacal smile spread across his face again.
Aiden did not move, but he flinched when Chuck slipped in the blood pooling on the floor around Connor’s corpse.
“Get this hunk of meat to the beast pens before it starts to smell!” barked Chuck.
Aiden tripped over his own feet in his haste to escape the room. He grabbed Connor by the ankles and backed up to the door, dragging the body with him. He relinquished his hold on one leg to open the door, but as he dragged the body through, the door slammed on Connor’s neck, and his chin caught on the doorjamb. Rather than shift the body and open the door, Aiden heaved hard on his ankles. With a sickening crunch, Connor’s jaw and neck broke, and he slipped through.
“Alone at last,” the commander said, clutching the knife in the back of Kane’s hand. With a quick jerk, he yanked it free, then brought it down just as abruptly, and Kane watched his right thumb and index finger roll across the table before the pain blasted up his arm. He screamed again, and this time Rebecca sat bolt upright.
“Goddamn you, Chuck!” she spat, groggily evaluating the scene before her.
Kane bit back a moan as he made eye contact and saw that she was barely there. She was running on Pure adrenaline; she would crash soon. Now was his only chance. With a silent prayer to Tieng’s great Buddha, Kane slammed his face into the table by his elbow, sucked the ootheca into his mouth, and swallowed.
Chuck looked at him curiously, and for a few moments, Kane feared nothing would happen. Then all of a sudden, his head was swimming, and he felt the changes taking place. Through sheer force of will, he promptly halted the transformation, trying with all his might to redirect it into two things: razor-sharp forearms like Tieng had, and a pair of wings to match.
He felt the hard shell on his back comply, cracking open as wings sprouted through the armor plating, looking like weird dragon wings, but with the translucent membrane of a praying mantis. Meanwhile, he shoved his now serrated forearms deeply into the restraints at his wrist, slicing them clean open.
Chuck reacted with inhuman speed. Kane watched in shock as his jeans tore and muscles bulged beneath the tattered seams. His arms instantly followed suit, and his blue camo jacket shredded because of the swelling muscle mass beneath. Then he sprang at Kane and slammed him into the wall behind him, pinning him again. Behind Chuck, Rebecca struggled feebly, but all she could do was watch helplessly. Chuck was still transforming; black skin and hair spread quickly over his entire body. A giant gorilla now stood before Kane as his own feet dangled a foot above the floor.
“Another Offloader so soon—two in one month. First the one at the parking garage, and now you. No wonder he wanted you dead. Now I know I have to keep this info from him and his wife, or I might be the next one with a bounty on my head. You must be new though. What are you loading? Two, maybe three animals? Pathetic. And going up against a compound this size? You must have had a lot of faith in your skills.” He intently took in Kane’s confusion for a few seconds, then his eyes widened as he scoffed, “You don’t even know what you are, do you?” He laughed raucously for a moment as Kane continued to struggle in vain.
“Boy, it’s going to be almost sad to kill you. I would have liked to see what you’re capable of, but I guess we’ll never know. I haven’t faced another Offloader in years—not since that whelp Miguel was running around here. I beat him so many times that he finally fled, deep into Pennsylvania.” Looking at Kane’s scrabbling fingers, he noted that the severed index finger and thumb had already regenerated. “Rapid healing is something most of us have. Consuming fresh flesh heals all of us, of course, but Offloaders heal much more quickly.”
Rebecca shifted behind the gorilla-man, but there was still nothing she could do. Kane was seeing stars dancing in his vision as Chuck tightened his grip around his throat, and darkness began seeping in. There was another clatter behind Chuck, but with the last of his strength, Kane kicked him hard in the chest, and the noise was forgotten. The gorilla headbutted him then, breaking his nose for what seemed like the tenth time in recent memory. Kane spit blood in his face. Chuck laughed as he began to go limp in his grip.
Then came a deafening roar in his face, and Kane found himself on the floor with his back against the wall as Chuck stumbled around wildly with Rebecca on his back, stabbing him repeatedly with the bowie knife Chuck had left on the table. As Kane slowly came to his senses, he staggered to his feet just as Chuck finally grabbed hold of Rebecca’s ankle and slammed her forcefully to the ground. She did not move. As Chuck tried to pull the bowie knife out from between his shoulder blades, Kane stumbled towards him.
The gorilla-man looked up just as Kane raked his serrated forearm across his jugular, and Chuck forgot all about the blade between his shoulders as he tried to ebb the free flow of blood from his neck. Dodging to the side, Kane kicked the back of Chuck’s left knee, and it buckled, bringing him crashing to his knees. Kane grabbed the blade from between Chuck’s shoulders and slammed it into the top of his head. Chuck collapsed like a bag of stones, dead.
Rebecca stirred beside him, and he went to her side to help her to her feet. He looked over her body and was surprised to see that her feathers had regrown, and her missing wing bones were slowly regenerating before his eyes.
“How are you healing like this?” Kane asked with wide eyes.
“Ate one of your fingers,” Rebecca said with a grimace.
Kane smiled at her discomfort. “You are a clever girl.”
“Shut up, asshole,” she said as she slugged him in the shoulder.
“Ouch!” Kane rubbed his shoulder carefully but could not keep the smile off his face. “Do I taste good?” he asked, unable to help himself.
She lunged at him, but he swiftly danced out of her reach. Rebecca was glaring daggers at him from the center of the room. She glanced down at the corpse of her former commander, and her scowl deepened.
“I’m sad it wasn’t me that got to kill the bastard, but I’m glad he finally got what he deserved. It blows my mind that a consumer was the leader of the Humanists—but he wasn’t really a consumer, was he? What did he say you two are? And what’s this parking garage he was talking about…?”
Rebecca opened her mouth to continue her flood of questions but Kane abruptly cut her off, cocking his head to the side. Someone was approaching from the hallway. He motioned for Rebecca to position herself beside the door as he took the other side.
The door opened towards Rebecca, and Kane grabbed the person who entered, slapping a hand over their mouth. But he had forgotten about his razor-sharp forearm, and he faltered slightly as the strap of the dress the young woman was wearing caught on the serrations and tore jaggedly in two, drooping down and exposing a lacy red bra beneath. She squirmed in his grasp and screamed, thankfully muffled by his hand. Rebecca closed the door as Kane dragged her over to the chair and shoved her down into it.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The young woman gazed around the room with wide eyes as she registered the dead gorilla lying on the floor. She composed herself remarkably quickly, looking up at Kane and then at Rebecca.
“Where is Charles?” she asked, voice quavering.
Kane nodded to the still form of the massive gorilla. She stared at the corpse for a few moments, then began to weep quietly.
“You’ve ruined us,” she sobbed. “He was the only one keeping the peace in this town! It will descend into chaos when they find out what’s happened.”
“You knew he was a consumer?” Rebecca asked in shock.
The petite, unremarkable woman nodded. “I think I was the only one outside his family who did. He’s visited me many times over the years. I was his favorite; he would often get me for the night just to talk to me.”
“You are a prostitute?” Kane asked unabashedly.
“Goodness, no!” she said with a shiver. “I’m just a housewife. Prostitutes do lewd things for you. I’m more of a maid and cook.”
“But they pay you to come to their house, and you often have sex with them?” Kane asked with a confused expression.
“Yes,” she responded with a small smile.
Kane leaned towards Rebecca and whispered in her ear, “She’s a few flowers short of a bouquet.”
Rebecca nodded, and they decided to try a different tactic. “Where is the closest exit? We want to get out of here so that we don’t have to hurt anyone else,” she stated slowly.
The young woman began nodding and opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut and began shaking her head instead. “I won’t help you,” she said with conviction.
Kane looked at Rebecca, drawing a blank. Rebecca leaned in close and began talking to her quietly. “Your group attacked us first. We were only sent to figure out why you attacked us, but everything went sideways.”
“Liar!” the woman yelped, and her chin began to wobble with the threat of more tears.
Rebecca put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “We really just want to leave. You should gather your people and come to Newmerica before this chaos you fear begins to ruin your small town.”
That seemed to get through to the woman. She glanced at Chuck’s body again. “There is an unguarded exit; you just have to take three lefts and go up the stairs.”
“Thank you,” Rebecca said earnestly. “We do have to lock you in here until we escape, but someone should be by soon to get you.”
“No!” she screamed. “You can’t leave me in here with him! You can’t! You can’t…” She was crying again, creeping towards hysteria.
After pulling Chuck’s bowie knife from his skull and his MK 3 from his pocket, they hastily sidled out the door. The woman continued to wail behind them as they made their way down the hall. They peeked into a few rooms as they passed, but they did not see their gear anywhere. As they took two lefts and approached the third, they began to hear the sounds of a large group of people. Hugging the corner of the third left, they stood facing the stairs and the set of double doors above them. As they tried to decide what to do, their options became null; the doors opened, and the eyes of the young man standing there raked over Rebecca.
“That lying little bitch!” Rebecca hissed as she met the young man’s gaze.
He stumbled backwards, and as the double doors slowly closed again, he began yelling on the other side. Without a word, Kane and Rebecca spun around and ran back the way they had come as the doors behind them slammed open with a crush of people. Rounding a few turns, they risked crucial seconds to check a few more rooms for their gear. They discovered that they were in the basement of a small hospital, and just as they were about to give up, they came upon a room where their gear was sitting on a table.
Closing and locking the door behind them, they pushed the large table in front of it. Kane’s CZ was missing, and the M16 he had borrowed was gone as well. He flung the strap of his katana awkwardly over his winged shoulder and buckled his holster on anyways, followed briskly by his belt of throwing knives and bowie knife sheath. Rebecca’s MK 3 was missing, and so was her sniper rifle, but she donned the remainder of her clothes and buckled her backpack on. Kane had to quickly modify his shirt to fit over his wings. Looking around the room, they found a small window near the ceiling. Kane would not be able to fit, but he might be able to convince Rebecca to leave him here. He opened his mouth, but she beat him to it.
“No, Kane. I’m not leaving you behind.”
He shrugged. “I had to try.”
She looked at him with a knowing smile. “I would have done the same.”
Just then, someone tried the door handle. Voices rang out on the other side, followed by banging on the door.
“Looks like this might be the end?” Kane said in a conversational tone.
“Maybe … but we get to kill a bunch of them in the process,” Rebecca said with a wry smile.
“Bet I can kill more than you can,” Kane said mockingly as he tossed his bowie knife to Rebecca and drew his katana.
“You’re on,” she said, testing the weight of both bowie knives in her hands.
After a few minutes, a crunch sounded, and the door inched open, banging into the table. Kane promptly sliced the hand off the arm that reached in to grasp the table, and as its owner began to howl in the hall, the table started scooting away from the door quickly as the men began to pile against it and push. Then the dance of death began, and thankfully the tight quarters worked to their advantage; none of the Humanists could get a clear line of sight on the two of them as they darted among the group, leaving corpses in their wake. As the last body was hewn down and the echoes of footsteps fleeing down the hallway died away, Kane scanned the bodies scattered around Rebecca with a smug look on his face.
“Six,” Kane said.
“Ha! Seven!” Rebecca crowed in triumph.
Kane frowned. Then they both began to hurriedly comb through the bodies. Kane found another M16, and Rebecca discovered a beautiful M4A1 with a four-times scope. Kane slipped a .40 S&W into his empty holster, and Rebecca inserted a Desert Eagle into hers.
“I would not have pegged you for a Desert Eagle fan,” Kane said.
“I’m not, but Rafael was. He called his Desert Falcon,” Rebecca said soberly.
“Come on,” Kane said, peeking out into the hallway.
They checked a few more rooms with no luck, but when they passed the elevator shaft again, Kane had an idea and came to a stop. “Elevator,” he said as he tried to open the doors.
With a grunt, Rebecca joined him, and together they pried open the doors of the long-dormant elevator. Kane banged on the ceiling until he heard the hollow thunk of the service hatch, then pried the panel off to reveal it. Pushing it open, he jumped up to grab the ledge, pulling himself on top. After closing the doors, Rebecca jumped up as well, ignoring the hand Kane offered.
“My wings are too wide for me to fly up,” she said after glancing up the short shaft.
They could see the light of three floors shining through the openings onto the shaft wall. Kane leaped onto the elevator cables and began to shimmy up. “Guess we’ll just have to climb then,” he said, continuing his ascent.
They reached the top as quickly as they dared, with a few close calls as they encountered decades-old grease on the cables. Kane began banging on the grate above their heads, but it looked as if it was bolted shut. Holding on with one hand, he got a better grip and tried kicking it instead. It bent a little, and he tried again.
Suddenly, the door to the second floor of the shaft slowly began to open, and a man peeked down and then up. Spotting them, he jerked his head back. “They’re in the elevator shaft!” he yelled.
The door to the first floor flew open as Rebecca unholstered her Desert Eagle. As two more heads popped into the elevator shaft, she shot them both, and the men fell limply into the shaft, slamming into the roof of the elevator below.
Kane’s ears were ringing from the sound of the gunshots in the enclosed space, and he nearly let go of the cable. “Fuck!” he yelled, his voice sounding muffled to his own ears. Glancing down at Rebecca, he saw that she was saying something, but he could not hear her.
In a last-ditch effort, he put all his might into a swing and kicked out with everything he had. With a screech he felt rather than heard, the bolts broke free, and the grate spun away into the predawn light on the roof above. Kane flung himself through the opening and lay there, waiting for his hearing to come back as Rebecca climbed out after him. She kicked him in the ribs, and he grunted as he sat up.
“Time to learn to fly,” she said, no humor in her eyes. “Although in your case, it’s probably going to be more like ‘falling with style,’ ” she said, making air quotes.
He laughed bitterly, and his knees wobbled slightly as he got to his feet.
“Scared of heights?” Rebecca asked, noting the apprehension on his face.
“Scared of falling,” he responded earnestly.
Her smile widened. “Short lesson: push them down to go up, flare them out to slow down. Good luck!” With a wink, she launched into the sky with a powerful flap of her wings, wavering slightly as she adjusted to the smaller feathers that were still regrowing on her new wing. She looked down from at least fifty feet above him, and Kane leaped as hard as he could, furiously flapping his wings. He crashed unceremoniously back to the ground and heard raucous laughter from above as he disentangled himself. He tried again, with much the same result, but the next time, he got a little lift from the downward thrust of his wings.
He was about to try again when the roof access door to his left flew open, and armed men began pouring out, aiming their guns in his direction as they caught sight of him. Gunshots pinged around him, and he sprinted towards the edge of the roof as Rebecca rained deadly return fire from above. As he rushed the ledge, he did not have time to look back, leaping off as a bullet bored into his right calf and ricocheted off the bone. The force of it spun him around, ruining his jump, but he managed to flare out his wings and coasted to a nearby roof.
Landing gently on one leg, he flapped his wings feebly to see if he could lift off like Rebecca had. She was above him now, still raining death from above with her Desert Eagle, but then he heard the slide slam back as she exhausted her ammo. He glanced up at the sound as she holstered the pistol and brought her rifle up to her shoulder. Watching her wings adjust to the recoil, he tried to mimic her movements with his own. He could feel different muscles in his back and shoulders shift with the attempt—and with a jolt, the mechanics of it all clicked into place.
With a one-legged jump, he used the new muscles in his back to thrust downward and shot into the air, zooming by Rebecca in the process. She faltered, and a few shots missed their mark on the hospital roof as she followed his path into the sky. Sliding the rifle onto her back, she adjusted it so it would not interfere with her wings and hovered beside him. Kane was smiling broadly now; the exhilaration in his chest made him feel as if he would burst. Whooping triumphantly, he made a loop— until a bullet whizzed by, and he remembered his wound. He glanced down to see blood running off the toe of his boot and dripping to the ground, over two hundred feet below. Spinning in place, he got his bearings, then nodded toward where their vehicle should be parked. They lifted higher into the sky and headed in that direction.
As they swiftly approached the valley ridge, they spotted vehicles following them on the ground. They landed on the ridge as half a dozen of them tore out of the town gate and disappeared into the woods, heading in their direction. A terrifying roar ripped through the town below, and Kane reached for the binoculars in Rebecca’s backpack as she hauled out the first aid kit and started working on his leg. He promptly found the source of the roar: the weird building he had contemplated while scouting out the town from the ridge. The side of the building had opened like a gate, and a colossal titan was standing there.
As Kane surveyed the scene, he saw Chuck’s young housewife gesturing frantically in their direction, trying to get the monster’s attention. It had to be a mix of at least a dozen different creatures. As he watched, it swatted the woman aside with a minute gesture, and Kane knew all the way from here that she died instantly as she smashed against the side of the building. The titan sniffed animatedly, shambling towards her shattered, bloody corpse and scooping her up. Shoving her entire body into its gaping mouth, it began chewing slowly, and Kane shuddered. He lowered the binoculars as the monster began lumbering through the streets of the small town.
Rebecca stood up, finished with his leg. “A fate worse than death,” Kane said as he handed her the binoculars.
She took a look, and a small gasp escaped her as she located the titan. It had found another human, and she watched in horror as it bit the body in half. She lowered the binoculars with a shudder. “Oh god…” she moaned as she put them back in her bag.
They could hear the convoy of vehicles getting closer behind them, and Kane faced Rebecca. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” she responded coyly, and they lifted off and soared into the clouds, continuing their escape towards the SUV.
. . . . .
Rebecca drove Kane’s SUV up the ramp of the scavenger compound late the following day, and he climbed down carefully from the passenger side. Though their captors had left the first aid kit in Rebecca’s backpack, they had taken out all the antibiotics, and Kane was developing a fever as the infection in his leg worsened. As he limped gingerly toward the roll-up door, it began to open. Mitchell sat in a wheelchair beside the controls, and Kyle stood beside him. Kyle’s antlers looked more menacing than usual, but it might just have been that Mitchell was no longer towering over everyone, drawing their attention away.
If you included his ten-pointed rack, Kyle was the second-tallest scavenger, and the second fastest after Cally, the panther-lynx. She often took months off at a time to work at Kane’s brother’s club, Purrlesque. Although Kyle was not a Purist, he had consumed a deer and two antelope, so his primarily cervid biology made him look like one. He was fast, and he could jump extremely high, but he was almost too nice to be a scavenger. Though he lacked a military background, he was a natural born leader with a heart of gold.
“You look like you need a wheelchair more than I do,” Mitchell said to Kane with a hint of concern.
“If he doesn’t get to Rosa soon, he’ll be in one forever, if he’s not careful,” Rebecca retorted as she steadied Kane.
Grunting in dismissal, Kane dropped his hand on Mitchell’s shoulder as he passed. “Debrief Rebecca while I get patched up,” he said gruffly. “I will get with you afterwards. We need some tokens to resupply, or we won’t be able to finish the mission you gave us. Give them to Rebecca so we can see the weaponsmith and gunsmith before we leave.”
Kane kept hobbling towards the infirmary as he spoke, so he nearly missed the worried look Mitchell shared with Rebecca. As he entered the infirmary, his vision was going dark at the edges, and he fell to one knee as Rosa approached. The beautiful reindeer Purist blurred slightly. He saw her black lips moving but did not hear the words as the darkness overtook him and he knew no more.