James Moore - Subject Seven

“Rob!” the man’s wife called out, frantic, panicked, and he turned toward her. He had nothing against her. No reason to wish her harm. “You keep out of this! This has nothing to do with you!” His voice was a tight snarl, and he watched her flinch as she heard him. The anger was growing bigger and though there was no reason for it, part of him wanted to hurt her too. Anything to make the man suffer more. Joe shook his head. A little experiment here, just to see if it would work. He pushed and willed his subordinate to focus on the man instead of the woman. The brute struggled for an instant but then listened, obeying without realizing why he was obeying. Joe felt his smile spread wider.

The woman backed away, terrified, and behind her the girl moved closer, ready to do something stupid like come to her dad’s defense. Rob shook his head and reached for the stranger. His reflexes were a joke, but still he wanted to protect his family.

The enraged teenager grabbed the man’s wrist and squeezed as hard as he could. Flesh softened under his grip and beneath his fingers he could feel the bones creaking in the man’s arm.

Revrund Robbie screamed, and he smiled at the notion. It was not a pleasant smile. The thing spoke and Joe listened.

“You feel like preaching at me some more, Robbie? Is that it? You feel like telling me how it is again?” Robbie tried to free his arm. He thrashed and whimpered and wagged his arm frantically, and all the while the hand clenched harder.

Something wet popped inside Robbie’s wrist and the man screamed, a raw, desperate noise that sounded like music.

“Oh God! Please, let me go! Let me go!” Robbie’s voice shook and his skin grew deathly pale.

The satisfaction died away, replaced by a deeper anger. Weak! The man was weak. The thought disgusted him. “Why don’t you tell me how the world works again, Robbie! Tell me how I keep getting it wrong!”

“Leave him alone! You leave my daddy alone!” The girl might as well have been a stranger, not only to Joe but also to the brute he felt everything through. Her face was familiar, yes, but there was no emotional connection. She was just a pretty girl with a screechy voice. He’d never, ever seen her with the expression she had on her face. She was angry, scared. She had auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail and she was dressed in running pants and a T-shirt that probably belonged to her dad. Her face was as pretty as ever, but now her eyes were wide, her mouth trembled on the edge of tears and her soft voice was loud. She wanted to protect her own. That was admirable, but unfortunately she was trying to protect a loser.

Admiration could go to hell. He couldn’t believe the feelings he had for her-No. Joe shook his head. Those weren’t his feelings, or even the brute’s; they belonged to the hidden side of the monster. Bleed over was bad here, worse than he’d ever experienced with his Other. This one’s Other had actually had a crush on her once. He shook the thought away. “Shut your stupid face! You don’t know anything! He doesn’t deserve your love! He’s a drunk and a loser!”

Robbie screamed but tried to man up. He swung with his free arm and threw his weight into it. The blow landed well enough to snap his head to the side and to clack his teeth together.

The world went red and Joe tried to stay calm in the sudden storm of anger.

Everything around him was the color of blood, and from deep in his chest he heard a roaring noise. Robbie had started to get a little smile on his face, like maybe he was feeling good about the shot he delivered, but that changed when the growl grew louder.

He didn’t merely growl, he roared, his voice shaking the windows, sending the people in the room into a terror.

His hand slapped across Robbie’s mouth and mashed his lips into his teeth and broke his nose. Rob barely even managed to grunt his pain out before he grabbed him in both hands and charged. Robbie weighed in at close to two hundred pounds, but lifting him was easy and so was charging across the living room, knocking his daughter on her butt as he moved past her.

The brute hefted the screaming man over his head and ran harder, straining as he aimed his burden at the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony and the best view in town.

He roared again as he threw Revrund Robbie through the air. The doors were tempered glass. They were designed to withstand a solid impact without shattering. That didn’t stop Rob from flying through them in a shower of broken shards or the chorus of screams from mother and daughter alike.

Rob screamed as he cleared the porch and sailed through the air toward the distant river. Gravity got to him before he could reach the Hudson. The trees and shrubs caught him on his way down. They were not gentle.

He watched the man fall and felt a grin spread across his face. The two women ran past him, forgetting him as they looked toward where the woods below had swallowed Robbie.

Joe pulled his mind from the other one. A few moments later he saw the dark shape of the brute as he left the building. Joe stood perfectly still and merely watched. Not time yet to introduce himself but soon, very soon. He had to get everyone where he wanted them-now that he knew he could.

“Mrs. Ramirez? Hi, this is Tina Carlotti. I used to live next door to you. I-I was hoping maybe you’d remember me and my mom.” Tina licked her lips nervously. She’d called almost everyone she could think of, but mostly what she’d gotten for her trouble was answering machines, busy signals or no answer at all. She couldn’t leave a message. She didn’t want anyone calling her back. She didn’t have any close friends and money was tight and what if they called the wrong people and reported where she could be found? Maybe she hadn’t done anything. Maybe Tony Parmiatto was just fine and she could go home, but any way she looked at it, she had crazy loads of money in her possession, and that sort of cash had to belong to someone. It sure as hell wasn’t hers, but she was holding on to it.

She’d almost completely run out of phone numbers that she could remember and the lady who’d finally answered was one of the few where she would have felt safe leaving a phone message.

Lucille Ramirez was close to sixty years old, and there had been a time when the woman had watched her while her mom worked. Back before her mom fell for the wrong guy and got hooked on smack.

“Oh my!” The woman’s voice shook. It almost always shook. Her voice was like a mouse, small and shaky and maybe a little scared of everything. “Oh, Tina, sweetie, I was so sorry to hear about your momma.”

“My mom?” Her stomach tried to shrink down to nothing and Tina licked her lips again. “That’s why I’m calling. I haven’t been able to get her on the phone. I-do you know where she is?”

“Tina, honey. Oh, sweetheart, I heard it on the news. Your mother’s dead, honey. They pulled her body out of the river three days ago. They just now identified her.”

“I-what?” She had to have heard that wrong. That was all. There was a mistake.

“Honey, the police, they’ve been trying to find you. They wanted to let you know, and now they’ve been worried that something happened to you too. But your mother, she’s dead, baby. I’m so sorry.”

The phone fell out of her fingers. Suddenly it weighed too much to hold. She watched it bounce across the cheap carpeted floor and flop to the side.

“Mama?” Her voice was tiny, so much smaller than Mrs. Ramirez’s that she could have been a flea in comparison to the woman’s mouse. “My mama’s dead?”

She fell back on the bed, the nice old lady who used to watch her completely forgotten.