64) And sometimes the bear gets you

My mouth hurt, from the broken tooth. But it surprised me that I wasn’t hurting anywhere else.

That’s a lie, my shoulder hurt, but only if I thought about it… or tested it by moving my arm the wrong way. But everything else, all the little aches and pains that you get as you age and have to shrug off as something you’re going to have to learn to live with because they were never going away…

They were gone, or at least dulled down to the point I wasn’t noticing them at the moment. Although that was probably due to being busy finding my way to the exit and the pills I had taken.

But for once, I was keeping ahead of the coyotes.

Normally the beasts tended to get ahead of me, and then patiently waited for me to catch up while they sniffed at things. Then they took turns trailing along behind me as if to keep me from getting lost. Now I was moving at a good pace so they had to keep moving to keep up with me.

I wasn’t even out of breath by the time I caught up with Hiram as he stood there waiting by the pile of rubble that had fallen out of the bottom of the elevator shaft.

The man was kicking at some of the wreckage while trying to look up the shaft but turned around to look back when he heard my footsteps on the linoleum covered floor.

Smiling and giving me a nod, I saw his eyes go a little wide as he pointed at his chin.“You got some blood there Harry.”

I rubbed at my chin and looked down to see some blood smeared on my fingers. Swishing some spit around in my mouth I could taste the blood before I spit a bloody gob out onto the floor. “Busted a tooth fixing myself up. Hurts like hell.”

For once Hiram wasn’t smiling. In fact, his face twisted up and he shuttered. “Agh! Don’t tell me that.”

I grinned. “I’m not sure how bad it is. Can you check?” Opening my mouth wide, I hooked a finger below my cheek and pulled back the side of my mouth that hurt while stepping up close to the Sabatour.

He turned his head away and tried to wave me back. “Jesus! Just take a picture of the inside of your mouth and check yourself!”

Taking a step back I grinned, and started to protest that he had destroyed my phone before asking him to take the picture, but before I could the wreckage in the elevator shaft began to rumble, with a few chunks of cement coming loose and rolling down the slope.

Me, Hiram, and the coyotes moved back sharply as the framework of the elevator door twisted with a groan of bending metal and pulled back with broken cement blocks shifting out to replace it. The ramp of wreaked metal and cement sunk down with a rumble into a more shallow slope leading upwards to a star lit sky.

Hiram rushed forward, scrambling to rush up the slope as he snagged a chunk of rubble from the ramp as he rushed upwards. “Give me a five count so I don’t catch you in the Fear burst Harry.”

Looking down at Wylina, I shrugged. “He’s leaving us behind for the bear isn’t he.” She looked from me to the exit and then began running up it with her pups following behind. “Et tu Coyotay?”

I rushed up behind them as best I could, catching up with Blue as she stopped at the top of the ramp and looked back to make sure I was keeping up.

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At the top, I paused to take a breath, not quite exhausted, but still feeling the strain of running uphill on broken ground. The new entrance of the dungeon seemed to be in the side of the old Hospital, but not all that far from the doors we had come into the place by.

In fact, I could see two trucks with flashing lights on the roof heading my way from the trailers the Border Patrol seemed to be using as their control center.

A few guys in bulky body armor with rifles that had light on them had moved up to cut off Hiram as he was running all out for the edge of the parking lot. The hitch in his left hip which I now realized he had the entire time since I had met him again seemed to be gone, smoothing out his gait and letting him cover some ground pretty quickly.

With both of his hands in the air over his head, he began to yell at the men in between him and the orange plastic fencing around the old hospital.

“The monsters! They’re right behind me, I think they got Harry! Help!” Stumbling to a stop, he stood there panting. “Just don’t shoot his coyotes, they’re on our side!”

As I began walking out, at an angle away from the oncoming trucks, I looked for a way out.

As two of the gathering agents walked over, cautiously, towards Hiram, one held out his hand, either to grab the old man before arresting him or perhaps to offer him some support to an old guy who was panting so hard he looked like he was about to collapse.

I would never know, since Hiram abruptly straightened up, and screamed, “Only the Shadow knows!” And beaned the border patrol agent in the front of his helmet with the chunk of cement he had picked up from the exit.

Not hard enough to really hurt the guy, but more than enough to activate the Sabatour’s new power.

A nearly visible wave of Fear Essanceburst away from the Smiling man in all directions, as it hit me, I knew the difference between this and when he hit me with raw Fear Essence. I wasn’t specifically frightened of him this time, it was something shaped, more of an underlying fear of something unseen.

Something out there in the darkness, lurking, waiting to strike.

Breathing heavily, I moved along toward the orange fencing, and it was only when I saw the cut open gap in it behind the two freaked out border agents who had confronted the Saboteur that I realized that while I had been so busy looking for some unseen danger, that I had completely ignored Hiram.

He had vanished from my perception, like a shadow when the light that cast it went out.

I smiled to myself, grimely, “Nice trick. But you suck at teamwork Hiram.”

Yeah, he had gotten away, but it hadn’t helped me any. Trying to circle around to the hole in the fence behind the two border agents aiming their guns in all directions only got their attention focused on me. The lights on their rifles highlighting me as I stood there, coyotes milling around me.

With my shotgun still in my hands.

“Drop the weapon!”

They screamed some other things, which I lost track of as more people came running and the two trucks pulled up. I made the shotgun vanish into my storage, then ducked down to kneel on one knee.

It was so much easier to do that now. I dropped down without even groaning. Although getting back up might be more of an issue.

“Wylina! Come!” As the growling coyote backed up toward me, she gave out a yelp as I pulled her close. Blue didn’t even look back as I half lifted, half yanked her to my other side. “Chubby, get close before they shoot you!”

He was behind me, so it was only when I felt him press up to straddle my lower leg that was flat on the ground that I knew he had listened to me.

Surrounded by lights being shined right into my eyes, idiots all yelling at the same time so I couldn’t know which order they were yelling to obey, I just stayed in place with both hands gripping the scruff of the girls to keep them from moving away from me and giving the border agents a clear shot at them.

As I heard a car door slam, and saw some of the agents moving aside as all of them stopped shouting, I guessed someone in charge had caught up with me.

So, I let them know what they had just walked into. “Anyone hurts one of my coyotes, and I coming at you shooting with both hands! I’ll die, but you’re going to have to explain why you killed an unarmed seventy five year man who just destroyed one of the damned dungeons!”

Someone standing in the darkness behind the lights sighed. “Just cooperateand surrenderMr. Bright, and there will be no need for anyone, or your pets, to get hurt. Not tonight anyways.”

“But you are under arrest. And it is my greatest hope you spend the rest of your remaining years locked away in prison.”