Jack Kilborn - Endurance

Calvin got the spiked end in the eye.

He honked again, rolling off of her, slapping both hands to his face.

Deb grabbed the knife and pulled herself upright, ready to fight back. But the strange, heaving sounds Calvin made had a familiar, rhythmic pattern that made her pause.

He’s crying. Like a little kid.

While Deb was deciding what to do next, Calvin let out a mighty roar and tackled her, both of them flying over the railing, crashing to the floor twelve feet below.

# # #

Florence spent a lifetime studying the martial arts to become more in touch with her body, her surroundings, and her spirituality. But along the path to enlightenment, she also learned how to fight.

The two shots to the head didn’t even slow down the monstrous Warren, with his massive skull and elephantine legs. But Florence also had a knife. She moved easily and fluidly toward the stampeding giant, dropped her left shoulder, and rolled up to him, thrusting the Sheriff’s blade deep into his inner thigh. Florence twisted the knife, intending to sever the body’s largest artery, the femoral. Battlefield triage in Vietnam had shown her how quickly an injury like that proved fatal.

Incredibly, Warren swatted her aside, like she was a pesky fly. Florence moved with the blow, deflecting most of its force, and faced him on all fours, still clutching the knife. She waited for him to drop.

He didn’t. His leg was bleeding, but not gushing like she’d expected.

His thigh is so thick I missed the artery.

“You stabbed Warren,” Warren said.

“And I’ll do it again unless Warren leaves me alone.”

Florence eyed the door. She probably had a chance to get away. But Warren would no doubt follow, and alert others to what was going on.

It’s self-defense, Florence told herself. I’m not actively trying to kill a man.

But Florence knew Warren had to die if she was going to find Letti and Kelly.

Strangely, she was okay with that.

“How many brothers do you have, Warren?”

Warren plodded over to the dresser, picking up a packet. He tore it open and slapped white powder onto his thigh and forehead. The bleeding stopped almost immediately.

The styptic the Sheriff mentioned.

“Warren has lots of brothers.”

“How many is lots?”

He turned to face her. “Lots.”

“Your brothers have my daughter and granddaughter. I want to know where they are.”

Warren took a step toward her, spreading out his arms. “In the slave cellar. Where y’all ‘r gonna be.”

“Warren, if you go back to bed, and promise not to tell anyone, I won’t kill you.”

Warren made a low, throaty sound, that Florence figured out was laughter.

“Warren is big ‘n strong. You ain’t gonna kill Warren.”

He reached out his hands. They were so swollen and distorted they looked less like hands, and more like balloons with sausages sticking out of them. Florence gracefully sidestepped his attempted grab, clutched one of his fingers, and drew the blade across the underside of his wrist, cutting as deep as she could.

The blood came out like a lawn sprinkler turned on. Warren howled, turning to reach for the styptic. Florence changed her grip on the knife and stabbed him through his grossly deformed big toe, pinning his foot to the floor. Then she backed out of his range.

Warren tried to reach for the knife handle, but his stomach was so distended he couldn’t bend down low enough. It took him less than a minute to bleed to death, and Florence was surprised by how detached she felt watching him.

Then she stumbled into the bathroom and puked her guts out into the sink.

Good. For a second I thought I’d stopped being human.

Still queasy, Florence retrieved the knife and crept out of the room and into the hallway, almost bumping into a man with no arms. Her mind flashed back to Eleanor’s words.

“ Legend says one slave, after his fifth drop, lost both of his arms when they ripped from his sockets. He’s said to roam the hallways at night, looking for his missing limbs.”

But this was no ghost of a slave. This was another of Eleanor’s perverted brood. And while he didn’t have arms, he did have hands. Underdeveloped baby hands, sticking directly out of his shoulders.

He lumbered toward Florence with a bowlegged gait, and his mouth seemed too small for his overabundance of teeth, which jutted crookedly from his lips in all directions.

“Don’t come any closer,” Florence said.

Like Warren, this one didn’t heed her warning. He came up fast, kicking at her chest, knocking Florence onto her back. One of his filthy feet pinned her wrist to the floor, and he actually gripped the knife with his toes, trying to wrestle it away from Florence.

She made a fist and punched upward, connecting between his legs. He groaned, doubling over, giving Florence easy access to his neck. She raised the knife.

The red sluiced down like hot, sticky rain.

Getting out from under him, Florence heard a thump. She crawled to the railing and looked down.

Deb, and a man, were sprawled out on the first floor. There was a growing pool of blood, and neither one was moving.

Then Florence heard a door open. Followed by a few others.

She did a slow turn, taking everything in, and saw she was surrounded by freaks.

# # #

When JD took off through the open door, Kelly followed. The smell hit her first. A rotten, putrid smell. It reminded her of the time she was taking out the garbage and one of the bags broke open, spilling out the remains of a chicken dinner from a week ago.

There’s something dead in this room.

But Kelly couldn’t see what it was. Unlike the other rooms in these underground tunnels, this one had no overhead light bulbs.

Then the door behind her slammed shut, cutting of the little light that had been filtering in.

“JD?”

The dog didn’t come. Kelly took a few steps forward, hands out in front of her so she didn’t run into anything in the darkness.

Her fingers brushed something.

Something moist.

She recoiled, and strong arms grabbed her from behind. Before she had a chance to scream, the man clutching her said, “Kelly?”

“Cam?”

Kelly was still afraid, but he kept his hands on her shoulders, and that felt kind of nice. She felt her face get warm.

He’s way too old for me. He’s got to be at least nineteen or twenty.

Still, he is cute. And I am almost a teenager.

“I can’t find JD,” Kelly said, trying to keep her voice strong.

“Hold on. I have a lighter in my pocket.”

A flame appeared in front of Kelly, illuminating Cam’s outstretched arm, along with—

“Oh, wow…”

The room was filled with suitcases. A maze of suitcases, stacked floor to ceiling. Some of them looked really old, and were moldering in the dampness. Others looked so new they could have been purchased yesterday.

“How many do you think there are?” Kelly asked.

“I dunno. Hundreds.”

“Do you think…?” Kelly let the sentence trail off, not wanting to speak her thoughts out loud.

“Yeah. I think each one came from a person these psychos murdered.”

Kelly shivered. “I don’t like this place. We need to find my dog. He ran in here.”

“I know. I saw you and followed…”

The flame went off. Kelly pressed herself tighter against Cam.

“Sorry,” he said, flicking the lighter back on. “Thumb slipped. Let’s see what’s around that stack.”

Cam walked around Kelly, taking the lead, and she was sort of sorry he wasn’t holding her anymore. She followed close, a single step behind him. The lighter flame cast wild, flickering shadows, making the heaps of luggage seem like they were swaying.