Blind Rage - Chapter 19

Thursday, July 30, 1997, 7:06 am

Texas (somewhere to the left of the middle of nowhere)

Rachel stopped walking to look east toward the rising sun. She’d woken up many hours before, but she didn’t dare attempt finding her way back to the camp at night. It wasn’t because she couldn’t see in the dark, but because she still harbored a childish fear of being alone in the woods at night.

There was also the possibility that she wasn’t alone, and if Dave was still somewhere in the area, she preferred to have him attempt to sneak up on her while she was sitting in the open. It wouldn’t do much good, but she might have a chance to scream and alert the others.

Dave hadn’t returned, and once the sky started to lighten, Rachel got up to look around the area. She was trying to search for something familiar, but every tree looked the same to her.

Laughing with annoyance, she said, “Terrific, I’m prejudiced against trees.”

She took a few more steps before she stopped herself and groaned, “What the hell am I looking for? It’s not like any of these trees have a phone jack.”

She decided to walk in a straight line. Either she would find the camp, or she would find a road. After all, she wasn’t in some third world country. She was just in the Texas backwoods.

The idea caused a voice in the back of her mind to admit, But every year a few hikers get lost in woods like this, and they never come back.

The voice troubled her because the hikers who got lost at least had some kind of outdoors experience. The longest hike Rachel ever made was taking AJ out for walks.

She wondered what good enhanced senses did her when she had no understanding of how to use them to get out of her present situation.

When she needed to track someone online, she knew how to use an IP trace to sniff them out. But her enhanced nose was useless in finding out where Jobe was. She couldn’t tap in a command: sniff out Jobe.

She had no internal sense of direction, and no way to hone the skill on her own.

Exasperated, Rachel thought, What good is a werekin who has no business being in the woods?

***

Thursday, 8:40 am

Gavin stopped to look around, but the act hadn’t once helped him figure out where he was. “Sure, I’ve got the senses of a bear, but I’m still working with the brains of a city slicker.”

Gavin kicked the ground, but it was not in frustration. Rather, it was one of the few good ideas he’d had since waking up with a splitting headache. Every ten to twenty feet, he kicked a divot into the ground. If he decided to backtrack to where he’d woken up, all he head to do was look down for his tracks.

But, they could also help Jobe and George track him down too, and so, either way, he considered the plan good.

He was not really angry about being lost, though his grumbling had shifted to the topic. The real source of his anger was Dave, who had twice managed to knock Gavin out without him being able to fight back. Gavin never even had the chance to ball up his fists.

He didn’t believe he had much of a chance against Dave. Jobe had more training in fighting than Gavin did, and Gavin’s training had come from watching westerns in his childhood.

Dave was taller than Gavin by almost a full foot, and he had ninety pounds of extra muscle adding to his size advantage.

All of these differences were side notes to the fact that Dave knew how to fight, and Gavin didn’t. Of course Dave would be able to wipe the walls with him.

Or, in this case, he could paint the trees with me, Gavin thought.

He stopped walking when the wind shifted and he caught scent of Jobe and George behind him. Turning around, he spotted them much farther away, and he raised his hand to wave to them.

At first, they didn’t notice him. Both men were looking left and right instead of directly ahead. Then George spotted Gavin and tapped Jobe’s arm.

No one spoke until they were all together, and then Gavin said, “He tossed something into the fire to blind me, and then he hit me with a branch...again.”

Jobe nodded, saying nothing as he turned around and started walking back.

George dropped back, letting Jobe take point while he offered Gavin a smile. “If we were giving out badges, you wouldn’t be getting yours.”

“Dave got the drop on—”

“I was talking about your scout badge,” George said, cutting him off. “You know, Dave dropped you off less than a hundred yards from the camp, and you still managed to hike three miles in the wrong direction.”

Gavin’s mouth flapped open and closed, and George chuckled before he patted Gavin’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, there’s always the consolation prize. We found you, and you won’t starve to death.”

The three walked for almost an hour before George commented, “He’s dragged off the ones who would get lost easily. I think he wanted to distract us so he could concentrate on the orc.”

“Yeah,” Jobe said.

“So...I don’t think he’ll hurt her,” George said.

Jobe nodded. “That’s what I’m praying for.”

***

Thursday, 9:00 am

Rosa clawed at the sides of the hole, screaming even though her throat was raw and sore. Every root she tried to climb slipped from her grasp, and the only thing she’d managed to accomplish was that the walls of her prison now had a spherical shape.

The floor was filled and packed down with the loose soil, raising Rosa up by almost two feet. Yet the lip of her prison was still three feet out of her reach.

Something popped above her, and Rosa stopped, listening before she heard the sound again. She couldn’t identify it, but she guessed someone had found the tarp.

Desperate to be free, she shouted, “I’m down here!”

She heard a loud hiss, and then soil fell into her face. She dropped her head, gingerly pushing her fingers into her eyes sockets to wipe out the dirt. The grit was painful on its own, but rubbing the dirt out made the sting worse.

Her fingers began to make patterns of black on pink in her mind, and she realized that someone had uncovered the hole, exposing her to the sunlight.

She kept her head down, not wanting anymore of the painful dirt to fall into her empty sockets. “Please, find a rope before Dave gets back.”

“Bad news, Rosa,” Dave said. “I already got back. I was just checking on your pack, and they’re still not back from searching for Gavin. That still leaves your little Asian friend lost in the woods for the time being.”

Rosa said, “If you hurt Rachel—”

“I hurt her less than I did you, and you’re already healed from what I did.” Dave paused, but Rosa wouldn’t speak to him. “I know you’re infected, and I know that you and your pack are trying to keep the werebear alive. I can’t let you do that, so I had to get your friends lost in the woods. Jobe and George will track Gavin down, and then they can look for Rachel next. And while they’re looking for her, I hope the creature will come looking for you.”

“It’s called an orc.” Rosa hunched over, hugging her legs. “The orc was brought here from another plane of existence.”

Though she couldn’t see it, Dave leaned over the hole. She had his full attention, and there was no skepticism in his expression.

When she stopped talking, he prodded her to go on. “Who would bring it here? No, better yet, why would they bring it here?”

“It was captured by a black elf, but the other elves wanted to kill the orc.”

“Right, because it can spread the curse.”

“Not with the collar on, no.”

“The what?”

“The orc was wearing a collar to contain the werekin curse when he arrived. Gavin broke the collar off with a tire iron, and the orc got away. That’s how all of us became cursed.” Rosa paused, and she risked raising her head. “Should I stop now?”

Dave said, “No, go on.”

“Last week, during the full moon, our pack met up with the orc, and Jobe got the collar back on the orc. So now, he can’t pass the curse on to anyone else. He’s been hunting wildlife and cattle here, and since attacking you, I don’t think he’s even been near another human.”

“Oh, now I gotcha.” Dave nodded. “So the fairy tale was to convince me to spare the...the orc, is it?”

“Dave, please, listen. You used to at least pretend to listen to me when no one else would.”

“Hey, I am listening, Rosa. I just don’t know if I can believe you.”

“You need to. The elf didn’t give us much to work with before he went back to his dimension because he’s trying to get more collars for all of us, even some spares. He said that you can’t break the curse by killing it, and you aren’t saving anyone by doing this. If you kill him—”

“If I kill him, it’s justice,” Dave said. “The orc murdered three people, and he wounded the four of—”

“No, I made Rachel,” Rosa said quietly.

Dave frowned, not sure he’d heard her right. “Do what?”

“I slipped...” Rosa dropped her head, her voice and face filling with embarrassment. “I slipped in a puddle of ice tea on my kitchen floor, and Rachel tried to catch me. I was screaming on the way down, and one of my teeth broke the skin in the top of her head.”

She started to scowl when Dave laughed. “Okay, maybe it’s funny to you, asshole.”

“Rosa, I know you won’t appreciate this, but I admire you.”

“You’re right. I don’t care.”

“No, probably not, and that’s fine. I admire you, because you want to save a monster. You make a good case, but the elves wanted to kill this thing too. So if that answer is good enough for the elves, it’s good enough for me.”

“Dave—”

“I didn’t pull the tarp back to fight with you. I’m going to drop some food and something to drink.” Rosa growled, and Dave asked, “Would you like a snack, or should I pull the tarp back and just let you keep screaming for another few hours?”

“Dave, don’t do this. Don’t torture me and act like you’re the good guy here.”

“I never claimed I was a good guy, Rosa. But I’m not doing this to torture you. You’re just bait now.”

Clenching her fists, Rosa shouted, “You’re such an asshole!”

“I’m a hunter. I always have been. Your orc only made my instincts stronger when he passed this curse to me. Maybe it’s something I never should have been given, but I’m going to use this curse, and I’m going to make sure the orc can’t infect anyone else. I need bait to flush him out of hiding, and your screaming carries a long way, even with you being stuck down there.

“But don’t twist this around and make yourself into a hero. You want to help a murderer escape justice. I’ve taken you prisoner, yes, but I won’t torture you. In fact, I’m still trying to feed you to make sure you’re not too uncomfortable while you wait.”

Rosa said nothing.

Dave shrugged, indifferent to her anger. “So, do you want the food or not?”

Rosa knew what he wanted, and the word sat sour on her tongue. Her voice warbled as she said, “Please.”

“That’s better,” Dave said.

He dropped the bag of beef jerky, and it landed beside Rosa. He dropped a can of citrus soda, but Rosa had already leaned over to grab the beef jerky.

Opening his mouth to warn her, Dave’s voice died in his throat when the can cracked her shoulder blade.

Rosa screeched while she wound an arm around herself to clutch her shoulder.

“Why?” Rosa screamed. “What the fuck did I do?”

Dave cringed, rubbing the back of his neck. He stammered, I-it—”

Rosa’s voice was filled with rage as she cut him off. “Dave, you useless piece of shit! If I ever get my hands on you, I’ll make you sorry for being born!”

Dave gaped as Rosa’s skin shifted to a ruddy crimson shade. She was working herself into a true hissing fit.

“I’m sick of this shit!” the berserker screeched. “Everybody keeps using me, like I’m some fucking doll that you can play with and lay around wherever you like!”

Dave knew she was trying to goad him into saying something, but by that point it was obvious that an apology wouldn’t help. She was still stuck in a hole being used as bait. The apology would be too little, too late.

Dave got up and pulled the tarp over the hole.

The berserker sensed the return to complete darkness, and her rage burned with an intensity she’d never achieved before. “You bastard! I can’t believe I ever—I’m going to get yooo—raaaw!” Her voice became a snarling growl as the beast inside her rattled the bars of its mental cage loose. The berserker and beast rushed together and merged, obliterating what little self-control Rosa still had over her body.

Dropping over into a crouch, the berserker hissed in panting gasps as the transformation began.

***

Dave was going to ignore Rosa’s threat, but the shift from screeching into animal growling and hissing alerted him to the fact that he’d pushed her too far. He didn’t bother staking down the tarp. He just started running.

The hiding spot with the rifle and his equipment was well over two hundred yards away from the hole. Dave wanted the extra distance to ensure that whoever showed up, he was outside of their range...or he would be, so long as the wind didn’t give him away.

Now, he had a bigger problem: the distance was too great for him to reach the gun.

He glanced back in time to see the tarp fly up as Rosa leapt out of the hole. He turned to watch the tarp hit the ground, and even with the distance, he could hear the angry cat shrieking as it clawed at the nylon material surrounding it.  

Rosa broke through a slit in the tarp. Once her head and shoulders were free, she blurred as she leapt away from the shredded camouflage material. The panther dropped into a low crouch, growling as she sniffed the air.

Dave tried to take a step back to keep going for the gun, but his feet were stuck in place. His mouth hung open as he stared at Rosa’s cat form.

The morning sunlight made her sleek black fur glimmer. Every muscle rippled when she moved, and even with her eyes missing, her panther face was beautiful.

By not moving, he gave Rosa nothing to hone in on. The moment stretched out, with Dave admiring the beast that wanted to rip him limb from limb.

The span of quiet lasted until the wind shifted, and Dave flinched when Rosa hissed and turned to face him.

He spun, running as fast as he could. But he wouldn’t make it, and she would overtake him. Her whisper quiet steps were getting louder as she closed the gap.

He thought, Why am I running? I’m already cursed.

Dave turned around and set himself in stance, watching the cat’s charge with a tense expression. Rosa leapt, and he shifted to her right, dropping an arm under her throat. He let her momentum carry them both to the ground, and then he closed his legs around hers, rolling onto his back to give her no leverage.

Rosa’s arms bent at odd angles as she tried to attack Dave, but her thrashing grew weaker and weaker as he choked her. A normal human wouldn’t have been able to contain her, and even with the curse augmenting his strength, she was straining him to his limits.

She went limp in his arms, and he rolled to the side to drop her. He didn’t waste time looking at her before he ran to get the gun.

He ran back with the rifle, nervous sweat beading on his skin as he forced himself to move faster. If she wakes up, I might not get so lucky on round two.

He slid to a stop behind Rosa’s still form and flicked off the safety. He was sighting the rifle when Rosa’s skin started to bubble.

Dave lowered the gun, taking his finger off the trigger while he watched hairs retract back into their pores. Her skin lightened from a dark grey to light brown, and then Dave saw all of Rosa’s scars.

He’d avoided staring at the scars on her back, but once the full patterns of her torment were exposed, his conscience forced him to take a long look at her.

He almost dropped the gun, and the strength slipped away from his legs. He sat down hard, covering his mouth to muffle his disturbed groan.

The thickest scars were long and straight, though there were countless short, thin curves interwoven among the deeper cuts. Randomly placed among the cuts, words were scrawled in capital letters. But in every case, the letters were almost lost in a flurry of crisscrossed shallow scars.

On her forearm was the word BITCH, and on her back were the words WHORE and SLUT.

Smaller white dots matched in pairs on either sides of the thick lines. Stitches, he thought. My god, it must have taken a few thousand stitches to keep her together.

Dave set down the gun, crawling around Rosa. A guilty knot clenched his stomach and forced bile into his mouth. He tried to look away, but his conscience hit him with a gut wrenching accusation, You were going to shoot her. Damn you, look at her.

Dave looked, and another moan of dismay rose in his throat.

Scars ran across her nipples in crosses, and more of the deep, straight cuts formed crude stripes on her stomach. Over her black thatch of pubic hair, the crosshatched lines weren’t as thick, making it easier to read the word CUNT.

Dave swallowed hard when he realized why the men hadn’t touched her neck. Her wounds avoided areas of the body were a superficial cut could be fatal. She had no scars near her inner thighs, where a cut to the femoral arteries could have drained Rosa in seconds. There were no cuts near her jugular veins, and the wounds on her arms were shorter, as if the men were trying to avoid major veins.

They had left her face mostly unblemished, and yet they’d taken her eyes. Nothing of the lids was recognizable, leaving her with exposed, open sockets. Scars trailed in a web around the holes, but none trailed up through her eyebrows or down to her cheeks.

Dave rocked back and forth as his gaze moved down her body. His vision blurred, and then he couldn’t see the words carved into her skin.

He closed his eyes, and his cruel memory recalled the first night that he had taken Rosa to bed. She was no novice by then, and neither was he. They’d both been suffering from a “dry spell,” and they’d both sworn that it wouldn’t mean anything if they had sex.

Except, it had.

His memory brought back the tender moment to remind him of Rosa’s deep brown eyes staring at him as he entered her. She’d dropped her guard and he saw how much she loved him. His plans for a quick five-minute fuck were lost, and instead, he’d made love to her.

She never closed her eyes to be somewhere else with someone else, and her intent gaze spoke of her longing to earn his love.

Against his better judgment, he’d let himself feel something real with Rosa. Instead of taking pleasure from her, he worked to please her. She’d done the same, and it had led to the single greatest intimate act for both of them.

But the moment of honesty also frightened Dave. He couldn’t have admitted why in his youth, but with age, he knew that he’d been afraid of disappointing her. It had seemed better for him to push her away. The longer she stayed with him, the greater the damage would be when he hurt her.

His memory blurred again, and his shoulders started to shake. It had only been a few weeks afterward that he went back to roaming around. Acting colder hadn’t pushed her away, so he needed something less subtle. He’d thrown a weekend party at John’s house, and Rosa “caught” him stripping three girls out of their bikinis.

His conscience chose this memory to remind him of the pain he’d seen in Rosa’s eyes. In one look, she told him that he’d broke her heart, and she didn’t need to say it out loud. Her eyes said everything for her, and she left without a word.

Because of him, she cleaned up her act. She started doing better in her classes, earning straight As while Dave got by earning Cs and Ds. She stopped sleeping around, and Dave didn’t. Her partying days were over, and he pretended like his would never end.

And ultimately, she was rewarded for turning a new leaf by having her life destroyed. Meanwhile, Dave coasted along in life, never aware of how sheltered he really was.

He opened his eye and rubbed his hand over his cheeks to wipe away his tears. Forcing himself to look at Rosa’s empty eye sockets, he thought, This wasn’t an animal. People did this. The orc didn’t do anything like this. The orc is a hunter, like me. He would never be so cruel.

He pushed aside the thought, but he knew that he couldn’t kill Rosa, even if she was a threat to him. No matter how infected he was, there were certain lines that he never wanted to cross, and killing Rosa was one of them.

Dave got up and returned to his hiding spot to grab his rope. He returned to Rosa to bind her hands and feet behind her, and he carried her back to the hole. He sank to the ground and lowered her into the hole, and then he lay on his stomach, wanting to extend his reach as much as possible. It was all he could do to lessen the impact of her landing.

She hit the bottom with a soft thump, but she didn’t wake up.

Dave’s stomach turned as he took the tattered remains of the tarp and layered them over the hole. Fresh dirt and debris were scattered over the top, but he couldn’t be as thorough in hiding the nylon without weighing down the material.

Dave felt like the lowest form of pond scum as he walked back to his gun, and then to his hiding spot.

If the orc hadn’t taken the bait that night, he would have to carry Rosa back to civilization before he could continue his hunt. He couldn’t keep her fed if she had to be bound, and with her clothing shredded on the bottom of the hole, he was leaving her exposed to the elements.

Hunkering down behind the cover of a fallen tree, Dave rested the stock of the rifle on the ground. His hands clutched at the barrel, and he leaned his head against the weapon.

Dave closed his eyes and thought, I’ll kill this monster, and then I’ll turn myself in. Even if I’m trying to do the right thing, I deserve to be punished for this.

He repeated the thought over, I deserve to be punished for this.

He wouldn’t let himself forget. It was his hunt that forced Rosa to venture into the woods, not Jobe. It was his plan to use her as bait, and he had already hurt her.

And for what? For revenge.

It was the real goal. Not revenge for taking his truck, nor for taking his eye. Dave was infected with the werekin curse, and his normal slacker life was over. The orc had stolen Dave’s life, replacing it with a living nightmare that was only going to get worse with every passing day.

Dave thought of Rosa’s pleading voice as she explained how the orc was collared. He thought, Who cares if it is?

But his conscience spoke again. She cares. It attacked her, and it took away her old life too, but she still cares.

Dave shook his head. “I’m not her.”

But what if the orc has a collar? What if Rosa isn’t lying, and the orc is no longer a threat?

He wouldn’t be saving anyone from the curse if the orc was collared. Killing it would only be an act of retribution.

When he could concede that truth, he could also admit that it wasn’t a retribution taken in balance. Killing the orc was a stronger punishment than the crime he’d committed.

The voice that spoke next in his mind was cold, but it sounded logical too. The orc only injured you, but it killed three people. This is justice.

That voice ended the debate, and Dave’s face fell slack as he relaxed and settled himself in for the long wait.