#50 - Driven

Thoughts rushed into and out of my head like a quickening stream. Tears smeared and blurred my vision as the darkened scenery rushed past. I came upon a branch in the path, quickly veering to the left. I was going much too fast, that much I knew.

“I didn't mean to,” I muttered to myself.

Talking always calmed me down, but there would be no one to be there to receive my words. My knuckles went white before me, biting down upon the leather wheel that spanned before my body. The roar of the vehicles engine fell upon my deaf ears. The cabin bounced hard as the tires collided with a speed bump. My breath caught in my throat, my right foot hesitating.

“No,” I told to the ghost in the passenger’s seat, “I can't stop.”

I spoke the three words over and over as I pressed my toes down upon the metal lever. I vigorously wiped at my face with a forearm, my mouth and tongue coated in thick, stringy saliva. I swallowed hard.

“I only wanted to tell him how I felt,” I spoke again.

As if the words were a key, my brain was instantly unlocked of thought. The drab looking buildings that lined my peripheral vision were suddenly unimportant. He was there, his smiling eyes and warm smile filling me with a mixture of utmost love and bitter contempt. I shook my head to clear the thought. He wouldn't budge from my mind.

He was standing at the base of the stairs. His face was now filled with sorrow and loss, a single tear staining his strong cheek.

“Baby, I'm so sorry,” he had said, taking a step forward, “I had no idea that I hurt you like that.”

I was angry. I wanted to make him feel what I was feeling. I wanted him to hold me and never let go.

“Don't!”

I pushed him. Why did I push him? I wanted him closer. I wanted to be within his tight embrace, the apology washing over the both of us. Instead, I watched as he lost his footing and careened down the long flight of steps. I called out to him, just as his head slammed into the stone hearth adjacent with the final stair. He was still.

“I love you,” I said again and again, “I know you loved me too. I'm sorry.”

I could now hear sirens behind me, followed by the twinkle of blue-red light that resonated from my mirror.

“No,” I said, my head shaking, “No, no, no.”

I repeated the word dozens of times. Hundreds. I refocused my attention on the task at hand, slamming my foot down upon the gas pedal. The siren was blaring and deafened me, but I still pressed on. More tears blotted at my eyes, skewing the road ahead of me. I took another moment to wipe at my face.

An impossibly large force suddenly lifted one side of the cabin. My gaze widened as half of the vehicle was upon the curb. The next instant, my face was in contact with a bright white surface. The noise of tearing, scraping metal was all around me, combined with noises of shattering glass. Pain was an alien concept to me; my body had little space for anything but fear and sorrow. At last, the car settled to a halt. I knew I was injured; my leg refused to move and I felt the hot flow of something from the top of my face. All around me, the blare of sirens sounded. I heard their footsteps. I knew that they were coming to take me away.

“I'm sorry baby,” I muttered into the material still clinging to my face, “I didn't mean to.”

“Ma'am, are you all right?”

I turned my head to see the young face of a man peering into a now shattered opening that was once a window. I watched him for a few moments before allowing my head to fall back into the material once again.

“No,” I said with a tired, groggy tone, “I just killed my husband.”

#49 - Hide and Seek

Their sergeant’s barked orders were easily overpowered by the deafening noise of gunfire that echoed all around him. His body was pinned to the ground, a heavy helmet perched atop his greasy, dirt-slathered head. All around him, men were shouting and screaming; some in fear, others in extreme pain as bullet after bullet zoomed past the small group.

“We will take this goddamn hill, men!”

Somehow, he had heard the order from his superior. His eyes focused forward. Directly before them, a small, grassy hill stood. It was scarcely a few degrees steep, he briefly mused. Easily climbable for his daughter-

“Evans, go! Now!”

At the mention of his name, he shook away any lingering thought and began crawling forward. Although he couldn't see them, he knew they were there. A flash of a gun barrel ahead, a rustle of the distant bush. The ear-splitting gunshots that seemed to whiz just past his cheeks. To his immediate right, a fellow man cried out. He turned his head to see a neat hole punched into the man's skull, his helmet clearly long forgotten. He lied still upon the red-streaked ground, his grasp slackening upon the handle of his gun.

“Move! Move! Move!” the sergeant chanted.

Dirt, grass and grime scraped at his exposed arms as he continued to crawl. He readied his weapon and fired at random into the surrounding bushes, his own gun's noises indistinguishable from those around him. The rustling ahead looked almost playful, he thought. He grinned a bit as the memory of a little girl playing hide-and-seek with him flooded his mind.

“I found you!” he had said, his strong arm reaching into the long, spindly fronds and latching onto his daughter's shoulder lightly.

The sound of her giggling was fiercely silenced as a monstrous pang sound flooded his ears. He felt his head vibrate uncomfortably as he realized his helmet had taken a bullet. He was lucky enough to have kept his headgear.

“Almost there! Keep-”

The body of their sergeant fell into the grass, a look of pain evident upon his face. He looked for a fleeting instant to see the man's face. His glazed eyes were staring directly into his own. The world seemed to slow to a snail's pace. He looked ahead, a wall of enemy men now emerging from the foliage. Each wore both a look of malice and a fully-loaded weapon.

“Shoot the bastards!”

He wasn't sure if it was something he had heard from the men surrounding him, or if it was his own thoughts materializing into reality. He aimed his gun and fired again and again. He watched as the men in front of him fell into the grass. He quickly reached into a pocket upon his side and reloaded, the zooming shots around him missing their intended mark. He readied his gun and resumed. Each shot seemed to exit the barrel as a worm exits the earth. He didn't have to look to his sides to know that the men around him were already shot and bleeding. He hardly felt the kiss of white-hot metal punch into his right shoulder. He focused ahead, his weapon ejecting round after round. His daughter was back there in the bushes, waiting for him. All he had to do was go to her.

He felt as though he was being kicked again and again. Blood flowed freely from him; he felt it coating his hands and dripping from his fingers. He continued to press upon the trigger, unsure if the chamber held rounds or not. Suddenly, a force caught his left temple. Strength left him instantly, his eyes going unfocused. His body was failing him, gravity hungrily forcing him downward. He slumped backward, his eyes staring up at the blue skies overhead. Although his ears could barely pick up sound, he knew he still heard her. The faintest of giggling reached him as his final breath escaped from his lungs. He wanted to play with her one last time.

#48 - Carlson's Discovery

“What the hell?” Carlson couldn't help but ask aloud as he gazed down in the trunk.

Laying curled against the floor of the trunk, with a multitude of bruises and scraps, was the body of a young girl. She looked to be around eight of nine, as far as Carlson could guess. A dirty mop of reddish-brown hair fell around her face and shoulders, hiding her eyes from him. A tattered dress hung from her beaten body.

Carlson leaned closer.

“Are you alright?” he asked tentatively.

No response. He pressed his hand lightly to an exposed arm. She felt warm against his skin.

“Hey, you got to wake up kid,” he muttered with a bit more urgency as he shook her lightly.

Again, no stirring from the child. Carlson chewed the side of his cheek in nervousness.

A muffled sound suddenly rang from somewhere to his left. His eyes followed the source to the cabin of the ambulance. The vehicle suddenly bounced to one side, as if a large weight had suddenly been dropped from within. Carlson's eyebrow rose in confusion, then widened in shock as the impossible suddenly took place.

First, the tires of the car shot out in all directions from something creating a drastic force inside. The wheels crunched beneath the ambulance in one, swift motion; the suspension crashing to the ground as if it were able to squat.

Carlson could only stare with dry eyes and mouth agape as he witnessed the fabric of all he thought normal and logical tear asunder before him. Red and white lights flashed, accompanied with a deafening blare of siren. The headlights flickered, but not in pattern. The sound too, Carlson thought. Even the siren didn't sound natural. It sounded strained; almost akin to a sickeningly piercing chuckle.

He was barely able to quickly scoop the child from the trunk of what remained of the car as it was smashed into. The ambulance lumbered forward – first on one side, then the other - upon the asphalt in a horrifying show of tearing metal and impossible acrobatics. It looked to be blundering toward him.

Time to go, moron! His cynical mind seared through him like a fire tipped arrow.

He jumped back as it reared back and smashed into the car once again. The broken headlights seemed menacing somehow. They appeared to glare at him.

“We got to go, I'll take you somewhere safe.”

He wasn't sure who he was speaking to particularly. Either to the unconscious girl cradled in his arms or his own trembling self. He did not wait to ponder the thought as he heard more crunching behind him. His mind briefly pictured the grill of the lumbering machine changed to show a set of razor-sharp alloyed teeth that gnashed for his blood.

Well muscled legs kicked up in a run as he shook the thought away from his panicked mind. He heard additional noises, but refused to crane his neck to see behind. The handle of his car felt cool as he ripped the door open and nearly flung the girl to the passenger seat. His hand went instinctively to the ignition before realizing he had left the car idling. How long had it been since he had left this chair?

He gripped the cool leather of his gear shift while simultaneously slamming the car door. A harsh lurch shocked his system as he bashed the floor of the pedal with his foot. The car peeled into reverse, then accelerated forward and bent around the scene of the unimaginable. That vision of the lurching ambulance, as if it were a living, breathing thing would haunt him for a very long time. He was sure of that.

“It's over. No need to worry, just go home and figure all this out.”

He often spoke to himself aloud whenever he felt something out of his personal control. It was a bad habit, since he often had to face the embarrassment of others giving him uncomfortable glimpses if ever he caught himself in public.

Something collided hard with the glass of his windshield. His adrenaline spiked again as his face shot back in shock. A mutilated and torn Human head faced him from his now cracking windshield. A female, he quickly added in his mind.

With a muffled scream Carlson turned the wipers to full power. With a few hard clunks the head was loosened and fell away from his sight, a large bloodstain left in it's grizzly wake.

“What the hell is going-”

The road ahead was a deep, black and purple color. He barely noticed as his car skidded across the stream of oddly tinged slime. The car began to slide for a moment, as if on freshly poured oil. The next moment, a grinding sounded beneath his wheels. White knuckles gripped tightly upon the steering wheel as he attempted to gain some control.

A skittering noise sounded from somewhere beneath the vehicle. Carlson couldn't help but yelp in shock as dozens of fist-sized purple insects began furiously clambering around his windows and car. He witnessed as one of them attempted to sink it's dark fangs into the glass.

Logical thoughts were far out of reach for Carlson at this point. With one, fluid movement he placed a strong arm to his side to protect the young girl while slamming the brake. The resulting force bounced him in his seat while throwing his head mere inches from colliding with the steering wheel. What looked like hundreds of the small critters flew to the front of the car, some bouncing hard against the metal of the vehicle's body. The next instant, the car charged forward. What remained of the insects of horror that still clung to the roof and windows finally relinquished their hold. At least, Carlson hoped that was the case.

Within the chaos of thoughts and terror that swam freely around his head, the smallest sound reached his strained ears. It was a light groan, but in the state of his psyche it might as well been a great roar from a hungry lion. His head shot over to the source to see two icy blue eyes staring back at him. It startled him a bit.

“Hey there,” he said with a smile.

He began driving forward again. He glanced again to the girl. She continued staring at him. Through him.

“Are you hurt?” he asked after a beat of silence.

Still, nothing.

“Do you remember how you ended up there in that other car?”

His attempts at conversation had little affect on the girl. He thought she flinched a bit when he mentioned the other car, but she continued to sit in reverence. With an audible sigh Carlson faced forward and tried to calm his still raging nerves. He kept stealing glances to the girl, however. That griping gaze still was focused heavily upon him. He felt it boring a hole into him.

“My name's James,” he announced with a small smile, “People call me Carlson. What's yours?”

#47 - A Woman's Job

He passed her by. Her hand slowly reached down and wrapped around the long hilt of the katana that rested at her beltline.

“Hojo Soshika,” she barked the name, her thumb pressed firmly upon the end of the sheath.

The man turned around slowly, his own hand moving to his sword.

“Fifteen years ago,” she began, taking a moment to brush her black hair behind an ear, “You murdered Jin and Taira Tamako and left a little girl for dead. Her name was Irie Tamako.”

She instantly tore the blade from it's holster, it catching the mid-morning sunlight and sending brightness into the man's cold, black eyes. He watched her evenly, his lips pressed thinly together.

“Today you pay for your sins against her!” she shouted, people around her beginning to back away for cover, “Today you learn that you cannot take life without punishment!”

She ran at him then, her long weapon at the ready. The man was smiling, and she hated him for it. With expertly trained precision, he removed his weapon at the instant her's would have bit into his flesh. A heavy clang rang out as steel collided with steel. Irie instantly slid the weapon away, making a hearty jab for his ribcage.

“How long have you wanted this, Irie?” Hojo taunted, his body scooting backward to dodge the attack, “How long have you been looking for me? Revenge cannot be tempered into a true warrior.”

She ignored the jeers and sliced at him again and again, each time connecting with metal. Her entire life she had been waiting for this moment! This man was not going to control her any longer!

“The true warrior within you is old and feeble,” Irie shot back, taking fresh note of the man's deep-set wrinkles that snaked through his face and hands, “He has shouldered the blood of many innocents. It grants him only weakness!”

She charged at him again, her weapon slicing downward. Although he brought his arm to block, the force of the attack caused his own blade to cut into his shoulder. With a grunt, he pushed outward. Irie lost her footing, granting her a light cut to her forearm as Hojo retaliated. Suddenly, he was upon her. She parried blow after blow; the man before her seemed to have awakened a previously unknown fount of energy within himself. Twice more she felt the unmistakable sting of a sharpened point gnawing into her skin. She took a few running steps back, feeling the warmth of blood staining at her clothing. Her breath was ragged and uneven.

“Thus ends the might of the Tamako family,” Hojo jeered, his footsteps growing steadily closer to her, “I should have known that a family of warriors would produce an equally strong daughter. Had I known you would come back to annoy me like this, I would have killed you as well.”

She let him speak. He thought he had won, and she bided her time. She merely stood there, he back hunched. She was waiting.

“It was nothing personal, you know,” Hojo went on to say, “Just a job that they needed to die. Had a lot of trouble with the law, those two-”

His sentence cut short. He watched her in confusion for a few moments before looking downward. The hilt of a long Tanto was protruding from his chest. She was smiling wickedly as she stood to her full height. She re-gripped her weapon and swung at the man. He was able to block weakly. She brought the blade up again and back down. Again, he blocked, falling to a knee. A third time she carried out the attack, his body failing him quickly and causing the hilt to leave his hands and clatter to the floor. With slow, deliberate movement, she picked up his katana.

“Spoils of war, correct?” she said, taking note of the unmistakable crest that decorated the woven cloth, “The Tamako family seal. You have had the pleasure of using my father's blade. Now you will feel it's pain.”

She unceremoniously stabbed the point through the man's throat. He watched her with wild eyes, his body jerking a bit on the tip. Then, he was still, prompting Irie to jerk the weapon from him and allow his bloody body to settle into the dusty road. She knelt down and jerked the hilt away from the corpse, placing the blade in it's rightful place. At last, she thought. The Tamako blade could finally be put to rest.

#46 - Lust

She was on her way, knowing full well what she wanted. She needed him after such a long, tiring day of constantly having to waitress a seemingly endless line of hungry customers. She deserved this more than anything.

She halted before his home, pausing only long enough to throw the vehicle into park and tear the keys from the ignition. She walked briskly toward the door, a snaking tendril of delight sliding down her spine. With a hidden smile, she pounded upon the door.

“Hey, you're early-”

He couldn't say any more; she would not allow him to. She pounced upon him, wrapped her arms around his strong, muscular frame. Her lips locked with his', cutting his light protesting short.

“I got the rest of the day off,” she explained quickly, her fingers already working upon the simple buttons that held her blouse together, “I need you. Now.”

A sly smirk spread across his thin lips, accenting the high cheekbones held within his face that gave him a bit of a dimple.

“Whatever you say, miss,” he chortled, his hands searching beneath the fabric of her shirt.

He dove for her lips, practically lifting her from the floor in his haste. His fingers felt like sweet lightning; she needed his touch now more than anything in the world. More than oxygen.

He led her briefly into the bedroom, their maddened kissing and touching put on hold. Once inside, he instantly resumed, placing his lips upon her neck and chest. She let out a sigh of contentment at feeling him so close to her. With quick, fumbling fingers, she removed the blouse that caged her body from him, pausing only long enough to shrug the material from her shoulders.

“You are beautiful,” he stated simply, his movements never ceasing.

She tilted her head back, the feelings within her overpowering. She felt his tongue slide upon her stomach, it feeling cool to the air. In fact, it was freezing.

Her brow drew together at the odd feeling. His tongue seemed to be growing somehow, as if it covered a much more massive area than it should. She began to shiver. She brought her head back and looked at the man she was with, immediately screaming in surprise and horror. He stared at her with mismatched, unfocused eyes. An impossibly large tongue, easily the width of her arm, flicked from a broken, dangling jaw. His warm, soft hands were now twisted masses of flesh and claws.

“What's wrong, baby?” it asked in a pitch that mimicked a horse whinny, “Are you all right?”

With that, he came closer to her face, the large facial protrusion wetting her cheeks and causing the same extreme cold as before. She drew her hands together as she watched the man in complete fear.

Suddenly, a sharp pain sourced from somewhere upon her middle. She gazed downward to see a large chunk of her skin was discolored and frozen solid. She winced at the feeling, her skin ripping and cracking as it broke away like ice. She screamed in a mixture of pain and surprise, then turned her attention back to the monster before her. It clawed at her body, creating deep, bleeding cuts upon her arms.

“What's wrong?” it asked, one eyeball facing her successfully.

More and more of her skin seemed to break away. A bit of it fell into her outstretched fingers; a hunk of her left cheek. She slammed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the unprecedented pain and images that floated just before her. She wanted to be free of the sudden horror. What had she done to deserve such a thing?”

“Baby? Baby! It's ok! It's just me.”

She reopened her eyes. His face was before her, back to normal. Concern lined his features, his strong jaw back to it's original composition. She continued to stare at him while allowing her breath to slow.

“Baby, what happened?” he asked, his eyes never leaving hers, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she responded back while pushing herself to stand, “I think I need to go.”

She quickly redressed and left, her ears deaf to his protests. She didn't really need him after all.