Time & Space (Short Fiction Collection Vol. 2) (8 page)

This was more like it. Carson still didn’t like the hit, but he was far too greedy to pass up a chance like this.

“All right Stein… you got yourself a killer, but I want more than twenty grand. I want a hundred, and not a god-damned nickel less, you hear me?”

“Done” Stein said without hesitation, an obvious look of relief on his face. “Same terms. You get fifty-thousand now… fifty later.” He quickly counted out five thick stacks of cash and placed the money into Carson’s hands before he changed his mind. “Any questions?”

“Yeah, when do you want this done?”

Stein and Bishop huddled together for a moment, then Bishop asked, “What are your plans for tomorrow, man?”

***

Carson was walking three paces behind Stein and Bishop on the narrow wooded trail, when they came to a sudden stop. The trail ahead continued on, and as far as Carson could tell, nothing was impeding their way.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“This is as far as we go, man,” Bishop whispered, the tension and nervousness in his voice almost palatable. “For some reason, the son of a bitch draws the line right here. We can party all day here where we’re standing, but step past that big boulder ahead there… you’re freakin’ monster meat.”

“Would you stop that?” Stein glared at his partner. “You know perfectly well it’s a man we’re dealing with here.”

Carson wished they would both shut up. They weren’t exactly building his confidence with all their crazy talk. How had he managed to get himself into this mess, anyway? More importantly, how was he going to get himself out?

A full week had passed since their meeting. Stein and Bishop had been all gung-ho to race down here the very next day but Carson had balked. It was his ass on the line, and he wasn’t going anywhere until he was good and ready. In this case, ready meant getting his hands on some very serious firepower. He’d be damned if he were going to play one on one with some backwoods maniac without being prepared. It had been difficult getting his hands on an untraceable Magnum 44 handgun and a Heckler and Koch HK-51 machine gun on such short notice, difficult but not impossible. When Carson had said he wanted serious firepower, he’d meant it.

Stein and Bishop had picked him up in a nondescript Plymouth Voyager mini-van. They had taken the Eisenhower Expressway out of the city, then caught the I-55 southwest towards the state line. They had travelled some two hundred and sixty miles in four hours, before pulling to a stop at a dilapidated farmhouse on the outskirts of the town of Alton, Illinois. Carson’s had felt quite good on the drive down, but now that it was time to earn his money, his confidence was wilting rapidly as the sun slowly began to set.

“I’ve got more guns back in the van,” Carson stalled. “Why don’t you both come with me? The three of us stand a better chance of taking this guy out, than me on my own.”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Carson,” Stein answered, rapidly shaking his head. “This is your line of expertise… not ours. We’re going to stay right here.”

Bishop, turning white as a ghost at the mere mention of going into the cave, for once never even responded. Like it or not, Carson was on his own.

“Tell me again what happened to Jack Clinton?” he asked Stein, while rechecking his machine gun and ammunition clips.

“We’re not really sure. All the other men who went in, we found deposited right back here. This is the spot where we took all of those ghastly pictures. Mr. Clinton entered the cave two weeks ago and there’s been no sign of him since. There’s a chance he’s still alive, but it’s not very likely.”

“What does this guy want, anyway? Have you been in contact with him at all?”

“No, not a word. He’s carved obscene pictures into a few of the victim’s bellies, but there’s no apparent method to his madness. We don’t know why he’s doing this? Maybe you can ask him… before you kill the bastard. Pump a bullet through his twisted brain for us, okay?”

Carson nodded and took a couple of tentative steps along the trail. He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

“Good luck, man,” Bishop said from behind him. Then in a barely audible whisper, said, “You can bet your freakin’ ass… you’re gonna
need
it.”

***

Stein had instructed Carson to follow the trail to a shallow stream. Just across the stream, he’d find a path sloping up and away to his right. The entrance to the cave was at the top of the slope, where the ground leveled off.

It might have been his imagination, but Carson was sure the forest had become quieter. As if every plant and animal in the area were collectively holding their breath, awaiting the outcome of the battle ahead. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves, and started moving forward again.

It wasn’t long until he spotted the stream about one hundred paces away. He could just barely make out the noise of its water gently gurgling downstream. It would normally be a calming sound, peaceful, but tonight it filled him with dread. Soft as it was, the flowing water would still easily cover any telltale noises of someone trying to sneak up on him.

With every step closer to the stream, the noise, as well as his anxiety, steadily increased. Carson’s heart was pounding so hard, that by the time he made it successfully to the edge of the shallow stream, it felt like a sledgehammer banging inside his chest. The journey had taken two minutes, but had felt more like two hours. Although extremely nerve racking; so far, things had been relatively uneventful. Things wouldn’t stay that way, though. Carson could feel the approaching danger like an icy January wind. Something bad was about to happen and he knew it was going to happen soon.

Carson had no idea how accurate his prediction would be. He had only waded a few feet into the knee-deep dark water, when his feet were suddenly swept out from underneath him. He barely had time to draw a deep breath and register the presence of a massive man rising above him, before landing on his back, submerging beneath the froth.

In his panic, Carson sprayed off a few rounds from the rapid-firing Heckler and Koch, but the shots were wild, more of a reflex action then any real attempt at defending himself. He quickly tried to get his head above water and regain his feet, but a large hand crashed into his chest, pinning him to the rocky bottom. Carson tried to pry the assailant’s hand away and roll loose, but whoever it was, they were as strong as a bull.

Carson’s lungs were already screaming for oxygen. If he couldn’t fight his way to the surface soon, there would be no fight left in him. He didn’t want to die like this. The water was cold, dark, and so murky that Carson couldn’t see the hand on his chest, much less the face of the man who was killing him. The machine gun was of no good for this kind of in close fighting. His only option was the Magnum 44. The Magnum was one of the most powerful handguns around and would make a mess of this madman from this range.

Carson somehow managed to wiggle the handgun out from under his belt. He was forced to use his left hand to fire the weapon but from an arm’s length away, it was virtually impossible to miss. He had a horrific vision flash through his oxygen-starved brain, of pulling the trigger over and over, but the gun being too waterlogged to fire. Fortunately, the Magnum performed flawlessly, the first bullet exploding out of the chamber toward where Carson believed his assailant’s chest to be.

The hand pinning Carson lifted away, as the deafening blast must have scored a bull’s eye, tossing the large man backward. Carson had barely broken the surface and gulped a few mouthfuls of air; hadn’t even had time to wipe the water out of his stinging eyes, when amazingly, the attacker was back on top of him pushing him beneath the water again. What kind of a man could take a .44 caliber slug point blank to the chest, then get back up to continue fighting? He should have been dead instantly, floating downstream with a six-inch hole shredding his back. Unlikely as it seemed, maybe the shot had missed.

Before Carson could fire again, the man drove a fist into Carson’s face. The powerful blow stunned him enough that he fumbled and lost his grip on the gun. He was making a feeble attempt at recovering it when the next blow landed solidly on the left side of his jaw. The world exploded in a star burst behind Carson’s eyes, and then everything went black. For the next minute, he faded in and out of consciousness, wondering how he seemed able to breathe underwater all of a sudden. He was too dazed to realize he’d been lifted from the shallow stream and was now being dragged by his heels up the sloping path toward the entrance to the cave.

Through unfocused eyes, Carson managed to finally catch a glimpse of his adversary, and realized how this psycho might possibly have been able to stand up after the direct hit from the Magnum. For some unfathomable reason, the huge man dragging Carson into the darkness of the cave was wearing what appeared to be a suit of polished golden armor. Carson tried to make some sense of what he’d seen, but his eyes rolled up into their sockets and his mind drifted into the blissful arms of darkness.

***

Carson awakened drenched in sweat, in the grip of the worst headache of his life. His jaw also hurt like hell. The rest of him felt relatively okay, with nothing more serious than a few cuts and bruises. Carson had no way of knowing how long he’d been unconscious, or what had become of the man in the golden armor.

He was lying on his back inside of a crudely constructed steel cage. Through the bars, he could see the rough limestone walls and ceiling, and realized he was inside of the cavern. He felt a blistering heat beneath his back and when he rolled over to check out the source, he was shocked.

The cage he was in was suspended fifteen feet in the air by a steel cable that disappeared into the shadow shrouded ceiling. Below Carson, and obviously the source of all the light and heat in the cavern, was the lake of liquid gold.

With the exception of one small area near a bolted wooden door, the entire cavern appeared to be submerged in this decadent sea of unimaginable wealth. The gold glowed with a bright, ominous aura that could only be described as heavenly. Great geysers of the precious metal rolled on the surface, then shot into the air on currents of super-heated steam and venting gases. It was a breathtaking sight, and Carson had never witnessed anything like it.

With a loud thump, the only door into the chamber was thrown wide open and in walked the man Carson had fought with. When he came into full view, and Carson finally had a chance to really take a good look, he let out a scream of horror and amazement. This man, if that was in fact what Carson was looking at, wasn’t wearing a suit of armor after all – in fact, he wasn’t wearing anything whatsoever. He was completely sealed in a cocoon of gold. No, that wasn’t right either, because there were no breathing holes or cut out apertures to see from. Carson couldn’t believe his eyes. This wasn’t simply a man covered in gold, but a living statue of a man, made entirely
of
gold.

He was nearly as impressive of a sight as the lake he guarded over, his sculpted image shining with the same inner brilliance. He turned and looked up at his captive, smiling a large toothy grin, which Carson would have thought impossible. How could a creature made of solid gold, have the ability to perform a flexible maneuver such as smiling?

“You have many questions, I’m sure,” the golden man said in a gravely, yet perfectly decipherable voice.

Carson was too stunned to speak. Was this really happening? Maybe he was still unconscious and simply dreaming this craziness. Finally he built up his courage and asked, “Who are you? I mean… what are you?”

“I am exactly what you see, a fully functioning man, who’s all that you are… and more. I’ve simply evolved differently than you. Obviously, what with our similar features, we must have paddled around together in the same primordial soup back when the world was young. But from there we chose our own paths.”

“But that’s…” Carson was about to say impossible, but the last thing he wanted to do was piss this creature off by ridiculously denying its obvious existence.

“Enough of this pointless talk, it’s time for you to die,” the golden man said, walking over to the wall on his left where he casually began turning a rusty handle. To Carson’s horror, the cage he sat within, slowly began lowering toward the molten metal below.

“No!
Wait
. I’ll make you a deal,” Carson pleaded. “Let me go and I’ll make sure no one ever bothers you again. I’ll kill Stein and Bishop myself if you want. They’re only interested in the gold and all the–”

“Gold? What gold is that?”

Carson thought he was kidding. “The lake, of course.”

“This… lake, as you call it, isn’t made of gold,” he said incredulously. “It has similar properties, but believe me, it’s not gold.”

“What is it, then?”

“Actually, it’s my people… my family, if you will.”

“Your
what!
” Carson asked, shocked to the core.

“It’s hard to explain. Why don’t I show you?”

The golden man raised his hands to his mouth and blew a short high note, which echoed within the confined room. Almost immediately, a head popped out of the molten liquid, quickly followed by dozens of others. Soon people were walking out of the lake to stand near their leader. With every new body, the level of the lake dropped a few more inches. With mounting amazement, Carson realized that these people weren’t coming out from being in the golden liquid – they
were
the liquid. It took ten minutes, but eventually every ounce was used up, and the cavern was filled to capacity with gleaming people.

“Now do you understand?” their leader asked. “We live as one entity within the lake, but can separate and solidify at will. We’ve lived countless millennia within this planet’s molten core. It wasn’t until a massive underground tremor caused a shifting in the tectonic plates that a gateway opened between our subterranean world and yours. Even after we learned of your existence, we still only sought to be left alone, to live in peace, but things seem destined to change for us.