Thomas Craig - The Outkast

He moved to the kitchen, pointing his gun at every corner, as if Brian might have overlooked those spots, and thereby missed the killer when he had checked earlier. He was just turning around to walk back to the door when Holly’s scream shattered the quiet.

He jumped, but when he realized it was her, and that she had reacted to Brian’s presence rather than the intruder’s, he sighed.

Out in the hallway now, with his heart beating fast, Craig walked back and forth. Right on the spot, he felt like calling out to Brian to get the woman and the kid so they could just get the hell out of the house.

But then, he thought he saw the missing link on the floor. He moved closer and bent over to check. At that moment, gazing down at the tiny drop of blood, he smelled the danger nearby. Even before the crazy shriek that rushed out from the dark room located to his right, he had already started rising and turning-which was good, because the keen-bladed knife that would have been buried deep in the center of his back only sliced through his right shoulder.

Craig fell on his back, crying out in pain and calling for Brian as he went down. He didn’t know if he could handle the situation and make it on his own. However, he knew he definitely wouldn’t make it if he let go of his gun, so he held on to it all the way down to the floor.

As his bones jarred against the flooring, he took aim, shot, missed, and was surprised-then freshly afraid-at the creature’s agility to have evaded the bullet despite its initial bullet-wounds. How could it have had enough strength to do that?

Or maybe it was his own fear getting the better of him. Whatever you do, Brian’s voice echoed in his head , Craig, in God’s beautiful name, don’t you let your fear get the better of you…

So, he attempted to shut the door on his fear and concentrate instead. He took aim again, and began to pull the trigger even as he watched the pointed nose of the knife sail through the air like some miniature rocket. It flew at him too fast and sank too deep into his chest.

In his dying moments, Craig believed he had shot the monster dead, because he heard an agonized cry.

Friendly fire.

The tune played over and over in Brian’s head as The Outcast approached him with a big knife in its hand.

It’s got to be… friendly fire.

Brian rushed downstairs in response to Craig’s call for help. He was close to the landing, toting his gun and searching for The Outcast. Instead, he caught sight of Craig and the soaring knife very briefly before something hit him in his right breast. The thing had teeth, and it bit into his flesh voraciously.

There had been a blast, so it must have been a bullet.

He screamed and grew weak all of a sudden. He tumbled down the rest of the way and rolled far into the center of the living room.

Lying on the floor in the pool of his blood, watching the big beast as it tottered towards him with its scintillating knife, Brian thought, Yeah, the end has come, and it’s because of the friendly fire from Craig’s gunshot, it’s got to be… friendly fire.

The Outcast didn’t lift Brian up from the floor, which was his favorite thing to do. He was burned-out. So burned-out he felt like he would pass out again. But he knew he would be all right, because his strength would come back to him. Come back even multiple-fold. He was doing a great job spilling the blood of the impure. The gods would reform and replenish him for his valor, when everything had been accomplished.

He knelt beside Brian, who was howling helplessly.

It was time to stab the foolish Sheriff to death. When The Outcast was done with him, he would go after the woman. And then the traitor.

The Outcast lifted his knife up, but he couldn’t swing it down to kill. The pain. The ferocious pain had arrested him once again. He screamed.

Standing at the foot of the staircase, ready to take Robert and run out into the dark, Holly watched in awe as Craig yanked the knife out of his chest. It was a heroic act, but it was also the single stroke of action that sealed his fate. Blood, which had hitherto been flowing out steadily, now gushed out like wine from a broken barrel.

The sheriff’s deputy began to convulse.

To Holly’s right, the evil creature who had called himself The Outcast was going down on his knees, no doubt enraptured by another atrocity he was about to commit. His back was turned to her.

Although Holly had intended to run away, two things made her change her mind.

First, she thought there was no guarantee the killer wouldn’t track them down, anyway, that it was just a matter of time before their deaths would come knocking, too.

But the second thing-and the stronger of the two-was the feeling she had towards the fallen fighters.

These were men who had sacrificed their lives for her and her son. They could have turned their backs on the mission to save her, capitalized on the fact that Ogre’s Pond was equipped with only six officers of the law-including the fatally wounded-and waited till they got help from outside, at which point the help would have been nothing but useless. But they had chosen to travel along a high road, and that same valiant journey would soon cost them their lives.

Trembling with a toxic mixture of fear and rage, Holly grabbed the bloody knife from beside Craig and dashed across to where The Outcast was kneeling. Without thinking, she rammed the cold steel into the base of his neck, rammed it in really hard. And while the big devil was screaming with his hands dancing wildly in the air, Holly wrung the knife out of his flesh and rammed it back in, harder. She had never killed before in her entire life-had never thought she would need to. But right now, it felt good.

Behind her, she heard Robert’s distant cry calling her.

It’ll soon be okay, baby , she thought, preparing to go for the third round. Soon as I finish this business, it will be.

All of a sudden, The Outcast turned around on his knees and grasped Holly’s biceps. His grip on her was unbelievably firm for a man who was supposed to be on the doorstep of death. It was like a repeat of Samson pulling down the pillars of the temple when he was thought to have become a complete goner . The Outcast pulled and jerked, intending to flip Holly over right in front of him.

Holly fought back hard, digging her heels in to create sufficient resistance against the monster’s tug. But as much as she tried, she finally caved in, and her back was slammed on the floor, the big frame of the man atop her.

Then, it was over. The Outcast’s body relaxed. He was dead.

Underneath the huge body now, Holly felt a bloom of pain spread from the center of her stomach to both of her flanks, then move straight to her backbone.

She struggled to roll the weight off her, but she couldn’t. The bulk of the man had knocked the wind out of her, she concluded. And in such a very short amount of time, she had grown really weak.

She heard Robert’s voice.

Her son had drawn closer, pulling The Outcast’s body out of the way, doing as much a rescue job as his tiny self could afford.

For how long had she been stuck under the man? She had no way of telling.

With her back resting against the wall now, she looked at Robert’s innocent little face. Her boy was crying, and she was trying to tell him not to cry, that the business was over now and they could have some chocolate and cookies and cheese. But for all she was worth, she couldn’t give voice to her thoughts.

She was growing weaker by the minute.

Reaching out to touch Robert’s face with one hand, she cradled the handle of the knife that had ruptured her stomach with the other. The same knife that had killed The Outcast was buried within her.