Three men in trench coats entered the Four Seasons hotel abruptly and strode decisively towards the counter. They wore long khaki colored trench coats and aviator style sunglasses and were well dressed under the coats. They appeared very professional and authoritarian, and when they approached the counter, the clerk’s first thought was to assume that these men had to be part of the government.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” The clerk asked while coming out from the back room.
One of the men nodded and reached across the desk, picking up the logbook without saying a word.
“Excuse me sir you can’t…” The clerk began to protest, but one of the other men stepped around the other side of the counter to crowd his space. The clerk instinctively backed up. “Do you have a warrant?”
The man remained oddly silent, but the other two were obviously searching the room occupant list for something. After a few minutes they appeared to find whatever it was that they were looking for and dropped the book back on the table.
“Are you police? Do you have a warrant? Can I at least see a badge?” The clerk demanded, though obviously intimidated by the three abnormally tall men identically dressed, was now becoming suspicious.
They began to walk away down the hall towards the elevators, again without so much as a word to the clerk or to each other.
“Security!” The clerk yelled out into a walkie talkie for the second time today.
Two security officers walked out and blocked access to the elevators. The three men did not slow their approach.
“We need to see some ID if you are law enforcement.” One of the security guards announced. “We proudly support local law enforcement we just…”
One of the men pulled a pistol from inside the trench coat and opened fire without warning. Both security guards were struck multiple times and fell to the ground. The pistol was obviously suppressed, and the sound did not echo quite as loud. Instead of the loud “bang” that was so distinctive of a firearm being fired, the sound was more of a mechanical “think” sound, a combination of the slide recoiling and the gun discharging.
The clerk’s eyes went wide in fear, and he froze in shock. Before stepping onto the elevator, the man with the pistol turned to aim the gun, which was lengthened by the black suppressor on the end of the barrel towards the cowering clerk.
“No please, I…”
Think think. The sounds of two more shots rang out, and though the man was now halfway down the hallway, he exhibited considerable pistol marksmanship as both shots landed center of body mass, and the clerk fell to the ground bleeding out quickly. All three men silently boarded the elevator and pressed the button for floor thirty-four.
* * * *
Deacon had finished explaining what had happened the night before, and it didn’t make any more sense to the young woman than it did to him.
“So, the last thing you remember was they were about to kill you?”
“Right.”
“And then you just blacked out?”
“Yep. And then I woke up naked in the alley down around the corner.”
“That is…weird.”
“Yeah. But I do think that those people are worth taking another look at. They obviously know something.”
“Sure does sound like it.” Zoe looked out the window lost in thought. “Do you have a habit of going naked or losing your clothes?” Zoe glanced skeptically out of the corner of her eye at the young man seated on the couch.
“My hobbies include long walks on the beach, streaking through downtown Chicago…” Deacon returned sarcastically.
Just then, both of their attentions were diverted back to the television flickering with the volume turned down low on the opposite end of the room. There was a large media presence in downtown Chicago, and they were showing scenes of the nightclub that they had been to the night before.
“Whoa, what’s that?” Deacon pointed to the screen as he realized that something was happening at the club. “Turn up the volume.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Zoe returned, but bent down to grab for the remote on the coffee table and clicked the button to raise the volume. Suddenly they were both watching the breaking newscast in awe.
“Police say they are baffled by the strange case and have sent out to a prominent zoologist and animal control experts for assistance. Again, if you’re just waking up with us today, six men were found mauled and torn apart outside the Excalibur nightclub on the corner of Dearborn and Ontario by what local officials, incredibly enough, claim look like a pack of vicious wild animals…”
An interview with a police officer’s statement was injected into the broadcast just then. He was a typical Chicago cop, with a neatly trimmed brown cop moustache and spoke with a stereotypical Chicago cop accent.
“On first glance, it appeared to me at least that something had torn the victims apart. We don’t have a good explanation yet, this is still an active investigation, but it looked like it had to be something pretty big, like a bear.”
“A bear in downtown Chicago?” The unseen reporter behind the camera pointing a microphone at the officer’s face asked.
“We’re waiting for the animal experts to get here before we come to a solid conclusion, but some of the victims appear to have been partially…eaten. Now we’ve already contacted the Lincoln Park Zoo, and they say they don’t have any missing animals at this time.”
“Partially eaten?” Deacon exclaimed.
“Seems like it.” Zoe shook her head while watching the program.
Deacon got up and walked into the other room. He had partially dressed already but now went to finish. He sat down and slipped on his boots before putting his arms through his black T-shirt while coming back into the main room.
“It’s on all the news.” Zoe said while sitting on the arm of the couch. “Everybody is talking about the killer bear on the loose.”
“It’s not a fuckin’ bear.” Deacon pulled his lips tight and rolled his eyes. “Anyway, get dressed, we gotta go.”
“Where do you want to go now? I’m almost out of time. It’s Thursday and I’m supposed to contact the kidnappers tomorrow. The note said they would give me instructions on where to drop off the money.”
“We ain’t giving them shit.” Deacon growled. “We’ll have her back by then.”
“I hope so. What makes you so sure?”
“Trust me. I’m in a bad mood after they tried to kill me. I’m gonna go back there and tear that place up.”
“By yourself?” Zoe asked incredulously.
“Yeah. Hurry up and get dressed, we gotta go.”
“Alright, alright calm down.” She began moving towards the bedroom.
“Hurry up!” Deacon barked even louder, but with a smile playing on his lips. “I ain’t got all day!”
“Shut up.” Came Zoe’s voice from the other room. “Dipstick.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Silence overcame the room for a time while Deacon finished buttoning his shirt and watched the newscast with a growing sense of dread. The last thing he remembered, he was in that same alley where those men had been ripped apart, but he remembered seeing no bear or any other wild animal for that matter. In fact, he couldn’t really remember how it all turned out, he remembered they were about to kill him one moment and the next he was waking up naked. What the hell had happened?
“Y’know it just occurred to me…” Zoe called from the bedroom, the door was cracked slightly, and he got a brief glimpse of her in her underwear that sent his blood running hot. “Were those the same guys that tried to kill you that they found?”
Deacon sighed. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Hear me out, it might sound crazy, but do you think it might be possible that you turned…I mean the bite might have…”
There was a light but insistent knock on the door just then. Deacon sighed out a growling curse word under his breath. He figured it must be the security guards back for a second look. Didn’t he make fools enough of them the first time? Well, this time he decided he would not be so nice. He stomped over to the door and grabbed for the handle.
“What do you want now?” Deacon growled, opening the door.
What was on the other side of the door was not what he expected. Three men in FBI styled tan trench coats and matching aviator sunglasses stood there calmly.
“What the fuck do you want?” Deacon asked confrontationally.
The three men exchanged a glance—or a signal—between them and nodded before all three lunged the smaller cab driver. At about 5’8” Deacon was usually the smallest dog in the fight, and all three of these men were over six foot, but even with their coordinated assault, they were not counting on the young Southsider’s bad temperament and ferocity. Even though they got the jump on him, Deacon reacted like lightning, and the leading man got a savage punch to his jaw.
Deacon was not large but knew how to throw his weight around where it counted, and he punched like a trained fighter, twisting at the waist and throwing his hips into it. The closest man who thought he was surprising the young man himself was surprised with a perfectly placed punch that caught him under the chin and knocked him out cold. The other two however, managed to tackle the cabbie to the ground and overwhelm him with sheer bodyweight.
One fell to the ground while the other two men came crashing into the room and landed hard on the ground. Deacon managed to get his elbows to his ears and absorbed a flurry of blows with his forearms that otherwise would have hit his head. He managed to roll with the momentum and kept thrashing and twisting until he managed to roll clear of his two attackers.
“What the hell is going on out he…?” Zoe’s head peaked out the doorway and stopped cold when she saw the two men attacking her cab driver.
She had not finished fully dressing and had nothing in her hands to use as a weapon, but there was a decorative lamp on a table next to the bedroom door. Her brain processed the scene in a moment and before her brain caught up with her actions, she scooped up the lamp with both hands and threw it at the nearest man she assumed to be a bad guy.
The man managed to twist his body and brought his arm up as a shield and the lamp hit his forearm and shoulder instead of his head. The lamp shattered into hundreds of pieces, doing little lasting damage to the physically impressive man, but it did give Deacon the split-second distraction needed to scramble out from underneath the pair and back to his feet.
Deacon didn’t need to know who these people were or what they wanted in order to meet force with force. The fact that they had attacked him first was enough of a reason to scrap. Deacon began swinging for the fences with closed fists, trying to land a haymaker that would knock one of the men out. But it was his turn to be surprised when the man proved capable of defending himself against the wild streetfighter. The man went into a boxing stance and managed to deflect the blows with his forearms and shoulders. He managed a jab of his own that struck Deacon in the mouth.
Deacon noticed then out of the corner of his eye that the other man was stalking towards Zoe. He had a moment that this would be a one-on-one fight, which he figured favored him. The man was taller and heavier than him, with better reach, strength, training and probably other advantages as well. But he couldn’t have counted on the young man’s Southside experience and pure meanness. Deacon sized his opponent up, and he appeared to be prepared for any dirty strike that he could have thrown, so he adjusted his tactics. Deacon leaped at the man, grabbing two fistfuls of the back of his coat. The man tried to grab Deacon, but before he realized what was happening, Deacon used the tried and true hockey move and pulled the man’s tan overcoat up over his face. With his assailant preoccupied, Deacon jumped and wrapped his body around the man’s right arm and let himself fall to the ground. Deacon only weighed around a hundred and seventy pounds, but falling straight to the ground, it was enough to pull the man to the ground with him.
Deacon had control of the man’s arm and stretched it out straight while pushing and controlling the man with his legs. He twisted his armbar until he managed to begin hyperextending the man’s elbow joint. At that point the other man had reached Zoe and held a gun to her head.
“Let go.” The man demanded.
Deacon sneered. He twisted the lock with all his might, bending the man’s elbow the opposite direction than what was intended by nature. It was the first time he heard the man’s voice throughout the tussle, and it was a bloodcurdling scream of pain. Deacon at that point calmly got to his feet and stared daggers into the man with the gun.
“Who are you dickholes? You ain’t no cops.”
The man adjusted his grip on the pistol he held though it now seemed like an empty threat. The first man that had been knocked out was now rising to his feet. His sunglasses had been knocked off and Deacon could see that he still had some clouds in his eyes from the blow, but he was now walking over to assist his partners.
“You the cab driver?” The man with the gun spoke, quickly drawing Deacon’s gaze back to him. “You sure this is the guy?” He then asked the man walking over.
“Deacon Crawford?” The other man asked.
“Better than your name, Captain Shitpants.” Deacon replied.
“But that’s not my name.” The trenchcoated man replied in a condescending manner.
“Yes is it fuckwad. From now on your name is Captain Shitpants and that’s Marshmallow Twinkletoes.” He nodded at the man with the gun.
“Deacon!” Zoe pleaded. “Stop! He’s got a gun!”
“That is not my name.” The man insisted through gritted teeth. Had Deacon struck a nerve? What kind of hitman or whatever these men were got flustered over name-calling?
“Aren’t you a little young to be a cab driver, kid?” The man with the gun asked.
“Aren’t you a little old for me to still be fucking your mother?” Deacon returned. “I mean, come on.”
“Don’t talk about my mother!” The man quickly pointed the gun at Deacon.
“Really, I mean normally I wouldn’t go for women that old, but I make an exception for your mother. She knows how to do a trick with her tongue…”
“Shut the fuck up you runt!” The man was now enraged, and Zoe could not believe that Deacon did not seem intimidated or frightened by enraging a man with a gun actively trained on him. She had seen him employed in reckless and fearless behavior before, but this was taking it to a whole other level. The man gripped the handle of the pistol tighter, and she could see it shaking.
But that’s also when Zoe realized that he had loosened his grip on her and was no longer paying any attention to her. Emboldened by Deacon’s bravery, she stomped down as hard as she could on the man’s toes with the chunky platform heels she had just managed to slide on before all of this had happened.
The man screamed and backhanded the young woman who went spinning to the ground, but Deacon was already lunging across the room at him. Deacon pushed the gun arm out just wide of his own head and the gun went off twice.
“You dirty motherfucker…” Deacon growled, enraged by the action.
The cab driver was still struggling with the man over the gun and the man was stronger than him. Knowing he had to work quickly, he instead punched the man in the throat, and then twisted around and hammer punched the man in the crotch. As the man fell to the floor, he managed to wrench the gun free, but couldn’t keep hold of it and it instead went flying across the room.
The other assailant had his hands on him then and bearhugged him from behind. Deacon tried to thrash his head backwards, but the man was too tall to hit anything except his chest. The tall man lifted Deacon off the ground, and they began to twist and wrestle until they both went to the ground crashing through the glass coffee table. They continued to thrash and jockeyed for the upper hand through the wreckage and broken glass of the coffee table. Elbows and punches fell wildly, and the obviously well-trained attacker seemed surprised that he could not easily overpower the much smaller cab driver.
Zoe watched the scene in horror, silently routing on the cab driver to win the contest. She did not want to even think about the consequences of what would happen if the other man gained the upper hand. She did not know who they were or what they wanted, but she could only assume the worst. The other man got the upper hand for a moment, picking Deacon up and charging across the room, where they both slammed hard through one of the glass curio cabinets which shattered around them. The man managed to keep his grip on Deacon, and next they crashed halfway into the wall.
They scrambled for position, throwing more punches at each other, but Zoe noticed that somehow, Deacon had managed to grab hold of part of one of the table legs of the broken table. When they both emerged from the wall, he began striking the man savagely in the head and did not stop until the man stopped moving. He dropped the makeshift weapon and fell onto the couch, heaving for air.
Zoe came running over and he swatted her away grumpily. His face was bleeding from several cuts and his eye was swelling.
“Are you okay?” She asked.
“Grab a shirt, hurry.” He answered breathlessly, then with a crooked smile he added “Or don’t, you can go like that.”
Zoe had managed to slip on a pair of black tights and a skirt, but it wasn’t until that point that she realized that she was still only wearing a bra.
“I don’t believe you.” Zoe shook her head. “At a time like this?”
She ran into the bedroom and snatched a black t-shirt from her bed and came out sliding into it to discover that Deacon was up again. He kicked one of the other men on the ground who was reaching for a gun inside the trench coat. He then chuckled while stepping on the other man’s elbow, which was still grossly hyperextended.
“Might wanna get that checked out.” Deacon said.
He then looked up and saw her. He grabbed her roughly by the wrist and yanked her along out of the hotel room and into the hall as the other man was getting his wits about him again. They made it into the elevator just in time as the last of their attackers still able to move leaned out the doorway and began firing an Uzi wildly down the hallway at the pair.
They both sighed heavily in relief when the doors closed, leaving the attackers on the other side of them.