KIDNAPPED

CHAPTER 9

SLAUGHTER HOUSE

It was time to make tracks when I saw open ground between me and my exit point. I met Ricky exactly where I had left him. His arrow supply cut in half, but our primary goal had been reached. Eight dead men littered the grounds around the cabin and lab, but nobody living as yet knew we had been there.

I croached in the brush hugging the child to me trying to keep him calm and warm. He must have been in shock. He didn't cry or fight or anything else. He just hung in my arms and accepted whatever happened to him. I felt he might need years of therepy or maybe he would just wake up in the morning and decide it had all been a bad dream.

Ricky looked at him as if trying to decide what to do with him. He seemed uncertain as what the next course of action would be. Did he take the child and go, or stash the kid and take down a major drug lab from unknown parts? I could tell leaving the lab and other hostages behind was wieghing heavy on his mind.

" So, now we have the kid and one hostage is on her way down river. Do we take the rest with us or make another trip and maybe find out that they left before we could get back?", I think he was asking himself as much as he was seeking an opinion.

I gave him my take on the matter," We can leave now and be heros. Nobody would fault us if we just left and sent the troops in to mop up. We could also keep the kid a safe distance from harm, and see who's in the lab besides four naked women. It's not a large building. A lab, four working girls with a chemist would take up most of the space inside. I think maybe one guard if that. A gunshot in there may turn the whole thing into a roman candle. I say you keep the kid, I'll go look and if possible set the women free or possibly get them to hang on to the kid and we both take out the main house."

" Why do I keep the kid and you take the risk?"

" I'm expendable. If you have to send in troops they would rather get their orders from you. If I tell them, they will have to investigate first, then act. I just makes more sense to me. And by the way, nice shooting Robin Hood.", I couldn't resist.

" Thanks, I learned from the best. Of couse it dosn't hurt to have been doing it since I was a kid. I'll go along with you for now, but if it goes wrong bail out and meet me back at the boat. I'll wait for you as long as possible, but if it's between you getting a ride home or the kid making it out of here, you'll have to find your own ride."

" Deal. Now let me see what's cooking."

I left Ricky holding a scared three year old and moved around the wood line to the lab at the rear of the compound. No guards were left alive to slow my progress and I felt my plan might go off without a hitch. I simply opened the door and stepped inside.

The man at the door was startled and unsure about the intrusion. He only got a second to think about it before he was in dream land. The chemist turned out to be a slightly built man of middle age and as nonthreatening as a human could be. He reminded me of Mr. Rogers.

The four women were busy sifting and filtering processing agents at varying stages of production. They either didn't notice a man had just been attacked, or it was so common place that they ignored it.

I spoke to the chemist quietly asking if he would like to go home or stay and fend for himself. His face brightened visably and he immediately set the beaker down and spoke to the women," This man will take us away from here, or you may stay if you wish."

The reaction was unanimious. Every one of them stopped what they were doing and filed around their work stations to line up behind the chemist. I instructed the chemist and the ladies to head North for the wooods as soon as we were outside and follow the river until they were met or found the iron bridges. They all nodded showing that they understood. I stepped outside the door and watched the cabin for activity as they single filed it to the woods.

Four nice looking women, all sporting their natural hair color, filed by me unashamed of their naked bodies. Things were going well and they had almost reached the woods when I heard a boat motor slow and stop at the front of the compound.

I motioned the hostages forward and followed on their heels. We were just in the edge of the brush when I saw who had arrived. My old buddy, Agent Webber, hand gun in hand and badge in the other walked shamelessly up the river bank and directly towards the cabin.

I ushered my charges towards our escape route. They moved eagerly, seeming to recognize the urgency of the situation. Ricky was ahead of us on the trail and handed the child to the first woman in line. She reacted as motherly as if he had been her own. None of them slowed down.

Ricky told the chemist about the boat only a mile upriver and told him to go up stream till he came to an iron bridge and head South from there. They would eventually hit town on their own or we would catch up with them before then.

They all disappeared into the thicket ahead of us. They looked like five ghosts. A man in a white lab coat and four white fleshed woman. It was an eerie sort of parade.

Ricky and I both moved back to the compound. We arrived just in time to see Special Agent Webber knock on the front door of the cabin. He was standing there with his sidearm in one hand and his pecker in the other jerking off as he waited for the door to be opened for him. He didn't have to wait long.

The door flew open and he was instantly smashed in the face by his host. He went down instantly. His got off a round into the air before the man was on top of him beating the fuck out of him.

Men poured out of the building weapons ready looking at the dead men around them. They looked back at Agent Webber and couldn't beleive their eyes. How could anyone so incompetant have accomplished such destruction without raising an alarm?

Gary was the last out of the cabin and the fisrt to relize the gravity of the situation. He began giving orders to his remaining men. They broke away from him and fanned out to secure the grounds while he led two more to the lab. Ten men in all emerged from the cabin. All of them armed, pissed off, or scared. They were not happy campers.

Shouted reports were coming from where the guards found the dead sentries. Two men with lights strapped to the barrels of their assualt rifles were coming towards us sweeping the area on the run. We both readied ourselves crouching in the brush to let them come to us.

They found the dead senties and shouted back their report to their friends back in the clearing. I struck with the swiftness and lethal power of an inhuman predator. I fought the urge to transform and wade into the group of assailants. I wanted to keep my secret from my friend.

Ricky sprang onto the second man as soon as he reported his finding. He must have been tired or the man was very quick. the guard got off a shot before his throat was cut. It brought every man in the compound running towards him.

I couldn't stop myself. A friend, and a very good man, was being overrun by low life thugs. I had to act and do it quickly. I was changing in mid leap from my place of concealment. The first man to see me in my full glory fired wildly in my direction as I seemed to fly into him at cheast level. I sank my fangs into his throat and ripped him open to the spine. He died still firing his weapon in death.

An arrow flew by me and into the next man striking him in the heart. He stood shock still staring at the projectile protruding from his chest until he sank to his knees with his lungs filling with blood.

I didn't hesitate as I moved with the unatural speed and agility of what I had become. The men lagging behind stopped in their tracks and opened fire. Terror had taken control of them. Panic and fear guided their aim as I quickly covered the distance between me and two more men. One of them had his abdomen open from navel to chin, spilling his entrails on the ground at his feet. His friend found an arrow in his chest at almost the same time he released his urine.

I had already moved on before either of them fell. The bullets were starting to find their mark as I was hit by several rounds. The wounds closed almost instantly but they staggered me. My assailants confusion and fear was compounded as I released an unearthly howl of rage as I renewed my advance.

My continued advance on the remaining men drew their fire, leaving Ricky free to send his bolts of death into two new victims.

Retreat had now become an option for the only two men alive. One man was holding Agent webber. The other was their leader, Gary, the man who had ordered my execution, and likely been behind the whole operation.

I wanted him for myself, and ran after him in a gait that covered ground and could last forever. I let him run. I heard the sound of an arrow striking meat to my right as I passed Agent Webber's captor. I knew the Special Agent was safe, at least from everyone but himself. That only left the man in front of me. He would know fear before he was caught.

I loped after the gangster leader. He fired his handgun over his shoulder as he ran away, even missing the forest that quickly engulfed him. He ran as fast as he could and he never gained a step. I followed on his heels, but not so closely that he defend himself.

He emptied his weapon and flung it aside useless to him. He rushed through the darkness of ancient forest and brush that clawed at him. He broke through thickets and briars that choak out the light of day. I caught him and tore at his flesh only to release him to run some more. I wanted to torment him for as long as he could last, then kill him.

He was a bloody mess when he finially fell for the last time. He was exhausted, having run for more than two miles in utter terror. The adrinalin rush was over. He collapsed in a heap and waited for his living demon to finish him. It took a long time for him to die as his skin was ripped from his limbs.

He swore to repent and change his ways. He even prayed for salvation while he waited for death to end his suffering. It may have got him some slack with his maker. It got him nothing from me. In the end I ripped his face off with the hidious canines that had struck repeatedly during his last moments on earth.

I snapped his neck and twisted decapitating him. Then left the pieces for the savagers. I loped away into the deep woods of the river bottom to spend the rest of the evening hunting as a beast. I saw things no human could hope to experiance as a man. I was uninhibited by the restraints of decency. I was for the night, a wild animal.