Twenty-Five
Getting to my feet and spitting out some of the charred, grass in my mouth, I surveyed the damage dealt to the football field. The entire ram’s head icon painted into the center was gone, as was a good portion of the surrounding field. Chunks of dirt and grass rained down all around me, and a slight black haze made everything waver like a hot day in the desert.
Kevin stood in the exact center of the destruction, holding his scepter and tilting his head back, laughing his spoiled rotten ass off. The whole flickering back and forth between his normal face and the glowing skull underneath thing? Totally nauseating. I hated it. I hated him. He had to die. Or, if he was already dead, he just needed to stop existing in whatever cursed half-life he was currently experiencing. Either way I needed him gone.
He turned to me and pointed his scepter my way, firing bolt after bolt towards me.
I dodged and weaved, far too fast for him to hit at this range.
But we were stuck in this stalemate. If I got any closer, he’d stop missing his shots. If I stayed away, I couldn’t rip his heart out. Neither option worked for me.
My powers had grown considerably since that dino-man broke into the Hilltop gas station, called me the mortal champion, and tried to murder me, Derek, and Tabitha. I’d fought all kinds of creatures I once thought of as mythical, and always come out on top. But I’d never wielded any magic.
Autumn’s command over nature was the closest thing to magic I had in my arsenal.
I needed Lana.
As if summoned by the very thought of her–okay, realistically, she probably just heard the massive explosion and came running–or flying, whatever–but a guy could dream–the little goth fairy came twinkling over the top of the stadium seats with both of her wands blazing.
Like a military jet making its attack run, she unleashed an impressive barrage of dart-like spells that ripped up the scorched earth all around Kevin and zeroed in on him. Crystal needles, fiery streaks, and icy shards all converged on him en masse, forcing Kevin to lay off firing bolts towards me and conjure a shield around himself to fend off Lana’s attack.
She zoomed towards him and orbited, forcing him to stay focused on her and all the damage she was dishing out. Something about the way she floated through the air so gracefully, like a hummingbird or a butterfly flitting around in slow motion whilst unleashing a swarm of deadly projectiles with the force of a 50-caliber minigun mounted on an attack helicopter, completely evaporated what little remaining willpower I had left to say no to her anymore. Her cute little ass was jiggling as she fired spells full-auto down on my nemesis, and I made my mind up right there.
If she wanted to take her chances sliding down my dick, she could have at it.
“Ryan, now!” She called out in a tiny voice.
Oh, right.
Dismissing my daydream about my manic pixie dream girl, I charged across the field towards Kevin and drew upon every last ounce of rage and pain I had in my psyche. The memory of Hannah and my accident came readily to mind.
I was in the passenger seat, watching hundreds of trees race past under the moonlight night sky. There was a dazzling display of aurora over Eastport, one of the wonders of our fair city. The radio was on. Hannah and I were singing along to our favorite song.
For a single, perfect moment… I was the happiest I’d ever been.
My eyes drifted over to her. She was so alive with passion as she belted out the lyrics, but oh so off key. It didn’t matter. I loved hearing her ‘remix’ and told her as much, drawing a smile from her lips that brought her eyes around to meet mine.
“I love you so much,” I said to her, my cheeks hurting from the smile splitting my face.
She stuck her tongue out between her teeth playfully. “I love you back, Ryan Stryker. Always will, too. I chose you for a reason, you handsome bastard. And it wasn’t that monster between your legs, either.” She reached for it, laughing when I pulled back and told her to focus on the road.
A flash of headlights ruined our perfect moment. Coming right at us.
An outline of a face in the opposing driver’s seat. A young blond guy around college age. Ducking her head up from his lap was a young girl, same age, dark hair, dark eye shadow.
I shouted Hannah’s name to get her attention. She reacted in a split-second, those advanced drivers training courses she took to get into the police academy showing up as she sped up and jerked the wheel around, executing a sharp J-turn that barely let us escape the drunk driver swerving across the road.
For a second we just breathed, gripping one another just to reassure ourselves we’d both made it. Then the second pair of headlights sprang up.
A terrible crunch of metal and a jolt of fear and adrenaline.
We were in the trees, our car spinning and flipping around haphazardly.
With a shuddering crunch we came to a stop.
Hannah was yanked out of her seat. I yelled out in protest and reached for her. Something lashed out at me. A spray of blood splattered the windshield and a splitting pain erupted just below my left elbow. A searing soreness that would linger for a year.
I didn’t have time to focus on my own injuries. I kicked open the door and rushed out into the dark forest; calling out Hannah’s name over and over.
Wandering until I found her. Lying dead at the base of a tree, dozens of yards away from our car. Her skull had been split open by something, not just by the crash. I tried to hold her together but she was gone.
I was losing too much blood. I had to get back to the car, and our phones.
Crawling through the leaves and branches, vision darkening.
Rummaging through wreckage. Grabbing my phone. Dialing. Dialing.
“Emergency operator, how can I take your call?”
Hannah’s dead. Nothing will ever be okay again.
Two years to the day later, and I was a few strides away from that blond bastard who ran us off the road. My memory was a little fuzzy, and some things weren’t the clearest. But I remembered seeing his stupid face heading our way. And I remembered seeing Hannah’s body lying in the forest.
Whatever else had happened in between those two events, I was suddenly unsure of. That memory had never come through that sharply before. But I was here. Vengeance was at hand and this motherfucker unleashed a plague of zombies on my city.
He had to die.
Lana let up on her assault a split-second before I barreled into her kill zone.
Kevin dropped his shield and prepared to retaliate, pointing his scepter up at the annoying fairy harassing him. He’d forgotten about me. His last mistake.
My hands became blades, and I lifted up off the ground, letting my momentum carry me that last meter as I let out two years worth of pent up pain and ran him down. I cleaved through his chest and slammed him to the ground, clawing open his chest cavity.
He tried to raise his scepter and cast another damn spell, but I slashed my arm through his arm, just below the elbow, and then stabbed him. Over and over.
Kevin’s skull flared with eldritch light as he let out an otherworldly shriek that would have scared the piss out of me back when I was twelve years old.
Adult me though? I just kept stabbing him harder.
My eyesight tinged red and I let my right arm morph back into its human shape, punching through his ribcage and clutching his beating heart. With a jerk like I was trying to start up a chainsaw, I yanked my gruesome prize free and showed it to him.
Then I cut off his head.
So ended the tale of Kevin, the piece of shit who killed Hannah… probably.
Alright yeah, that flicker of uncertainty might come back to haunt me, but for now just let myself enjoy my moment of pure bliss. I’d had nightmares about that incident for two years, always featuring his face in the driver’s seat of the car that ran us off the road, and something told me they were over with.
Finally.
That new piece to the memory. All the extra shit about a second car and Hannah getting dragged from the car after we’d already crashed? That was a problem for future Ryan. Right-now Ryan just earned himself a moment of reprieve, damn it.