Chapter 4: Crunch
The phone clicked dead. Nicholas stared at it in stunned silence, unable to believe what had just happened.
If that guy was telling the truth… if that was a real gunshot…
“Goddammit!”
Eileen leapt to her feet and bolted for the door. Nicholas ran after her, pausing only long enough to grab the razor blade from the bowl and stuff it in his pocket before giving chase. As he burst from his room, he nearly slammed into Tommy.
“Whoa, Nicky!” Tommy said, holding up his arms and staring after Eileen. “Who was that girl?”
“Not now!” Nicholas turned and left his friend there, running down the stairs after Eileen. He managed to get down to the living room just in time to catch her opening the front door.
“Where the hell are you going?” Nicholas shouted, running up to her and grabbing for her arm. She ripped away from him and burst out onto the front lawn, turning back just long enough for Nicholas to see the fear in her eyes.
“I have to get away from here!” she shouted. “They can’t find me!”
“Who are they?” Nicholas asked, but she had already taken off. Cursing to himself, Nicholas ran after her into the street.
Earlier, when the noon sun had climbed to its apex the suburbs had been mostly empty as people ran inside to escape the heat. Now in the cooler afternoon there were plenty of people out in their yards. Most of them stopped and stared at the sight of the boy running after the girl dressed in the oversized shirt through the neighborhood. Some of them recognized Nicholas, and that was enough to get them to ignore the spectacle. He really couldn’t care less.
Nicholas had never been really been good at physical activity. He managed to keep thin with all the walking he did while he was thinking, but anything that could work up a sweat in just a few minutes was mostly beyond him. About the only advantages he had here were his long legs, and anyway, Eileen didn’t seem to be any faster than he was. The distance between them didn’t close at all, but it didn’t open either.
Up ahead the street ended in a cul-de-sac. Nicholas hoped she would stop when she ran out of street, but that was in vain. Taking a left, she cut across someone’s lawn and disappeared behind their house. By the time Nicholas managed to round the house, she was gone.
Stopping to rest, he gasped for air and swore in between each breath. This was horrible. Not only had he lost his only test subject, but she knew what he could do.
If she tells anyone…
No one would believe her, of course. The very idea of mind-controlling blood was ridiculous. Still, Nicholas couldn’t help but feel like having her running around loose would be bad for him.
Looking up ahead, however, he felt like his luck hadn’t completely deserted him.
The back yard Eileen had run into was blocked on either side by other houses, which meant the only place she could have gone was over the fence, and into the woods beyond.
Nicholas knew those woods better than anyone else. After years of walking through them whenever he wanted to be alone, he had a mental map of the place burnt into his brain. All he needed was for her to have stopped to rest. He would be able to catch her in there, he was certain of it, but if she was still freaking out, it wasn’t going to be easy. Then again, he had a very powerful weapon of persuasion on hand. The only problem was how he was supposed to use it.
He had come up with a few ideas for situations like this in the past. Although he had never tested it, he was pretty certain direct injection of his blood would generate control, probably even faster than ingestion. Problem was that he didn’t have any syringes on hand. Just a razor blade.
Wincing at the thought, he climbed over the fence and dropped onto the other side. The trees towered above him, their full green leaves blocking out the summer sun. Grateful for the shade, he pushed on into the forest.
#
Eileen fell against a tall tree and tried to catch her breath. She was certain she had lost him, but she looked around, just to be sure. She was in a small little dip the in the earth, hidden mostly from sight, the trees going on forever all around her. She was confident that she would be able to spot Nicholas dressed all in blue if he showed up. Of course, she was wearing the same thing, so it worked against her as well.
When she was certain she was alone, she let herself sink to the ground, gasping for breath and wishing she had done a bit more exercise back when she had the time. In between each breath, she could almost hear that man’s laughter ringing in her ears.
“Bastard,” she muttered, gritting her teeth. Eileen hated him, hated him more than anyone she had ever hated in her whole life. He was the one she had been running from for more than a month now. He was the reason her whole life was full of misery and constant fear.
Sighing, she closed her eyes, feeling her second wind coming on. Just another minute and she’d be ready.
It had been nice to get a shower and actually talk to someone before heading back to running from town to town. Then again, she found just where she had been running to, and now she had to leave.
She decided on what she would do. She would find some other place where she could draw attention away from Nicholas, and then return when he was in the clear. She really wanted to tell Nicholas herself, but it just wasn’t safe being near him. He would be caught, sooner or later.
A twig snapped off to her left.
Oh shit.
She tried to spring to her feet, but Nicholas tackled her to the ground. As she fell, Eileen felt her arm scrape against the bark of the tree. It tore through the shirt, peeling away flesh. Grunting in pain, she tried to force Nicholas off of her, but he had her pinned to the ground.
“Calm down Eileen!” he shouted. Eileen gritted her teeth as he accidentally twisted her arm, and she wished she was just a bit stronger.
This is what I get for spending more time in front of a computer than in the gym.
“Get off me!” she yelled, figuring her only option would be to knee him in the groin, which she really didn’t want to do.
“What are you so scared of?” he asked, not budging an inch. She saw the determination in his eyes and wondered if he was still in control of her. That couldn’t be though, because then he wouldn’t have had to chase her down.
Sorry.
Grunting, she brought her leg up, trying not to hurt him too much as her knee struck him right between his legs.
“Dammit!” he groaned, and she felt his strength diminish as he slumped onto her. She rolled him off of her and began to scramble to her feet.
Something caught her leg and she tripped, bringing her hands up just in time to stop from slamming her face into the ground. Looking back, she saw that Nicholas had grabbed her ankle, and was pulling himself towards her.
“Will you just calm down for one second and tell me what’s going on?” he growled.
Eileen shook her head and kicked free, but he climbed on top of her again. Cursing, she prepared to knee him again, but before she could, she felt him clasp his hand down on her wounded arm. The sting caused her to falter for a second, and then Nicholas pulled away. Looking through half-closed eyes, Eileen saw him fall onto his back, his chest rising and falling in exhaustion. He didn’t even look at her.
Not even stopping to wonder why, Eileen rose to her feet and ran off. Twigs snapped beneath her feet with each stride, so she couldn’t hear if Nicholas was following her or not. The wind bit at her arm, and she glanced down at it to see how bad it was.
“Eileen, come back!”
The shout cut through the woods and reached her ears, and she felt horrible about leaving him in the dirt like that without any explanation. She knew she should go back and at least tell him why she was leaving.
She stopped dead in her tracks, thinking about what he had just yelled. Drawing up the torn sleeve, she stared at her bleeding scrape. She thought about how Nicholas grabbed it right before getting off of her. There was blood smeared on the wound, much more than could have come from her.
Oh no… Nicholas, I really hope I don’t get you killed.
#
A hundred yards away, a man lied on the ground, holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He watched the girl suddenly stop running away from the boy, and then turn around and walk back to him. There seemed to be no more hostility between them. The boy even seemed to examine the wound on the girl’s arm.
“Eileen’s not running anymore,” the man whispered into the headset he was wearing. “She’s acting like nothing’s wrong all of a sudden.”
“I see,” asked the voice on the other end, deep and lacking in emotion. “Did you see anything strange? Did the boy say anything to make her calm down?”
“Nope. They were just fighting, kicking the crap out of each other, and then they stopped. They’re acting all cute and friendly now. It’s weird.”
The voice chuckled, the only sign of emotion it ever gave. “Sounds like Eileen didn’t take her sister’s death very well. Maybe she just realized that running away would be stupid. She’s safer from us with him anyway. Just had to come to her senses, that’s all.”
The man nodded, watching as the boy and Eileen left together, heading back towards the village.
“They’re going back to his house,” the man reported. “What do you want me to do?”
“Leave them alone for now,” the voice ordered. “He’ll convince her to stay, one way or another. We aren’t going to lose her any time soon. Besides, we’ve already gotten from her most of what we want.”
The man grumbled, putting his binoculars away in his satchel.
“If it wasn’t for a certain someone,” the man said as he rose to his feet, “we could just kill her and be done with it.”
The voice fell silent for a moment. Finally, it said, “I don’t think so. She’s a strange one all right, and I think watching her effect on that boy will be interesting.”
“Since when are you ever interested in anyone?” the man scoffed as he began to walk off, twigs crunching under his boots.
“How long have you known me to make that decision? It’s none of your concern anyway. Just do your job. At least you’re good at that. Much better than that cop. He’s a complete failure.”
“What do you expect from the police force of a suburb? Besides, we can’t all be army vets, now can we?”
“I suppose not. Now go back to your post.”
“Whatever. Out.”
The man shut off his headset and tossed it into the satchel, walking away from the woods and leaving them as empty as they had been before.
