Thomas Craig - The Outkast

“And your delusional plan to bring the boy into your dark scheme has been uncovered, which means it has no potency anymore. It’s a complete failure. It won’t work. You need to give it up while you still have a chance to do so. It’s your call to choose between the desire to be helped and the desire to be destroyed. You need to-”

And the front entrance door to Holly Smallwood’s home flew open. Even as it did, swinging violently inward and letting the huge shape fill the portal, a bullet clanked against the front bumper of the cruiser. A second clunked against the metallic side of the megaphone, denting it before ricocheting off.

Caught flat-footed, Brian yelped and tossed the megaphone aside. He staggered backwards two steps, recollected his composure, grabbed his gun with both hands, and quickly assumed a shooter’s stance behind the shelter of the cruiser.

Allan was right. The man that burst out through the door wasn’t, in the real sense of the word, a man. Better to put him in the same class with the Unknown. Seeing his face illuminated by the light outside the house, Brian thought The Outcast was a monster. He was, indeed, an it .

Almost as soon as The Outcast had launched his first assault, Craig opened fire in return, chipping off the building sidings, the porch step railings, and even the jamb and lintel of the doorway through which the terror embodiment had materialized. None of his shots hit his big target, mostly because of the duck-and-shoot exercise he was doing from behind the cover of the car, but also because of his clingy fidgetiness.

At first, The Outcast didn’t appear wary of being hit. He just came running at them, yelling unintelligibility all along, his hands spitting fire as he advanced, until the enemy bullets started flying past around him-thanks to Craig’s effort, which, although didn’t exactly hit a home run, slowed the big monster down a bit.

Brian thought this killer of men might be a raving lunatic, but he wasn’t absolutely dead to the fear of death, after all.

As The Outcast sidestepped and then moved back a little towards the porch steps, all in an attempt to evade the slugs that were flying around and panting to tear his flesh open, Brian took aim. He shot.

And his attempt paid off in spate.

The bullet snagged at the bastard’s left hand, ripping the flesh open at last, shattering the metacarpal bones, and forcing him to drop the weight of his assault rifle entirely on the other unscathed hand. That unbalanced him-the ferocious pain that traveled along the length of his left arm and the abruptness upon which it rode. Shocked, agonized, he growled and began to lift his gun up, determined to let the battle continue, determined to spill the impure blood of the enemies and make the gods delighted.

But Brian wouldn’t let him. Hell, it wasn’t the time to pass up a golden opportunity. He had already followed up with a second shot that zoomed across until it struck The Outcast’s right hand, wreaking an even greater havoc than the first.

At last, The Outcast dropped the gun, spinning like a top. With an aggressive show of his sharp simian teeth, he shrieked at the men. Turning around, he ran back up the porch steps. All along, even while he was dancing around in throes, and then making a beeline for the entrance door into the house, the two officers never ceased fire. Yet, no bullets touched him-besides the two from Brian’s shots. Despite his huge size, for some reason, he seemed to be an uneasy target. It appeared there was some sort of magical aura around him that helped repel harm.

But that magical shell-or whatever it was-could be cracked.

It had indeed been cracked. Once.

He had almost disappeared through the doorway when he changed his mind and swiveled around, his black robe billowing in the process.

“Coming back for us?” Craig shouted, not making any effort to conceal his amazement at the unparalleled foolhardiness demonstrated by the robed monster.

“Let it come back. It works in our favor,” Brian hollered back. “Position yourself. Focus. Fire!”

But he didn’t come back for them. He came back for his rifle. Grabbing it with awkwardness from the ground, he turned around and raced back towards the entrance. He had made it to the steps, climbed the first and second. Before he could make it past the third, a bullet sank into his left calf; another lodged in the thigh of his second leg. He tripped, collapsed on the porch floor, and the rifle flew away from his feeble hands onto the ground below.

This time, rather than going back to pick up his treasured weapon, he crawled inside as fast as he could.

“Hold your fire,” Brian yelled over the rat-a-tat of the gunshots.

“Okay.” Craig edged closer. “The bastard’s gonna bleed to death. Pretty soon. What’s next, Sheriff?” There was a token of jubilation adorning the texture of his voice. A sense of victory, Brian assumed. Of the awareness that this war was, after all, coming to an end-praise God on His High Throne in the heavenly places, and thank all His good angels. If life in general is a bitch, then duty call in the world of a cop is a demon. But the intense experience was about to blow over, and he would live to see the joy of another day-and the beauty of many more to come. His breath rushed out in jerky streams, warming up Brian’s cheek.

Brian was busy slamming fresh magazines into his guns. “You do the same as I do, and do it really fast, ’cause we’re going inside there.”

Craig’s jaw dropped. Frantically, he set his hands to work, reloading his guns, his eyes glued to his boss. Brian could almost hear him say, Hey, I thought we’re done here? Well, why don’t you please pick up the megaphone and work your miracle one more time? Call the big fella out for an alfresco breakfast and let’s finalize the business deal in the open. I love transparency.

Brian spoke before Craig could say a word. “It might be bleeding, but it’d do anything to kill the mother and her son-if they’re not dead yet. No hesitation for us, Craig. No turning tail. I don’t know what it is, but if it can bleed, it can be killed.”

“It’s probably got Allan’s and Dwayne’s firearms,” Craig observed glumly.

“It definitely has their guns. I’m aware of that. Allan didn’t lose his guns to the trees-he lost them to the monster. But we’ve got to put an end to this whole shit, kid. It’s been drawn out for too long. And this isn’t the time to give up. We’ve gone so far.” He ran towards the steps, gun trained ahead of him, not looking back to check if his deputy was still part of the struggle, or if he had indeed turned tail. “Craig, we’ve gone so fucking far.”

With all the lights out downstairs, The Outcast slid into a corner near the foot of the sink in the kitchen. He couldn’t see much of anything, but his intrinsic acuity advised him it had nothing to do with the absence of light.

He had dissipated so much blood in so little time.

Right now, with his vision losing its sharpness, every inch of his body throbbed with acute ache, and the pain intensified at the thought of the boy.

The boy. The traitor. The wolf in sheep’s clothing.

How could he not have smelled it-the foul odor that had lain beneath the veneer of true blood all along?

His downfall had come from the one he’d wrongly loved. From the one he’d thought belonged to him.

When he had crawled back inside the house, with gunshots roaring behind him, he’d observed that the boy and his mother had vanished from where he’d left them. The boy had cut his mother loose.

An urge to scream overwhelmed The Outcast. He reined it in. He mustn’t scream, because he must reign-even without the boy.