Transformation Read online

  Ben had been trying to manipulate the coven members for weeks and was close to succeeding, but the attack by that asshole made he and Willow look weak, especially Willow who hadn’t yet been able to stand since. The dude had hit her so hard her brain must have been damaged because she’d been dizzy and her vision blurry ever since. Her neck was also fucked up bad, and she couldn’t turn her head. And her face . . . her face was a wreck.

  Rachael was grateful. As bad as Ben was Willow was worse. Rachael had never thought of herself as a murderer, didn’t think it was a possibility for her, but lately she’d been seriously considering it. Even before the attack the rest of the kids were scared, hungry, and were murmuring about following Ben, not understanding that their lives would be worse than ever if they did that. She could see that several of them were whispering and chatting with Ben, planning something bad no doubt. Ben was scary and manipulative, charming when he needed to be, and Rachael felt powerless to deal with him.

  But that last abduction. Thank god for that last one. Rachael felt terrible that her friend Ricky had to get hurt and then murdered but seeing Ben and Willow taken down a few notches went a long way to breaking Ben’s hold on the kids. Even though it gave Ben the opportunity to hold them all hostage she was convinced the kids would now be completely against Ben.

  It was Rachael who spoke first, “I choose Zamfir.” She was hoping that the others would follow her lead, but it wasn’t to be. Ben seized an opportunity to intimidate her and the rest of the coven.

  “Then you are my sworn enemy.” Ben pulled his knife and turned to the others with a smile. “Please everyone, choose. Rise and stand by your chosen leader.” He stepped back to make room for the coven members.

  All the kids stood stiffly and hobbled over next to Ben. All of them gave apologetic looks towards Zamfir and Rachael. Many were sobbing and most of them mouthed the words, I’m sorry.

  That’s it. We’re dead. Rachel thought.

  “You two are not welcome here.” Ben started barking orders then turned back to the confused pair. “Leave now! Walk away! Before I change my mind.” Ben wasn’t being nice. He sensed the hope budding in his captives, their readiness to take action, and decided to dismiss the two rather than try and kill them while surrounded. He would deal with them soon enough.

  Ben ordered his followers back down on their robes at gunpoint.

  Zamfir was in the lead and tripping over himself to get away. Rachael didn’t blame him, she was amazed he even returned with her. It took a great deal of persuasion and threats of abandonment to get him to come with her. But she felt sick walking away from the others. She hiked her robes and took slow careful steps that moved her quickly away, quicker than the panicked Zamfir. She had no idea where they were in the vast Big Sur wilderness but didn’t care. She had time to figure out exactly where they were later. Right now she was just happy to be alive and wanted to get the hell away from Ben. She looked back and saw Ben through the trees pacing the glade and wished she could simply kill him.

  They marched as quickly as they could for almost an hour, looking back every once in a while to make sure they weren’t followed. Finally Rachael stopped and pulled off her robe. She wore jeans and a t-shirt underneath and suddenly she was a typical twenty-something. She draped the robe over her shoulder. Zamfir followed suit and cast his on the ground. He was wearing a white t-shirt and black sweat pants. He cast the medallion aside as well.

  “Just ditch that thing,” he said to Rachael.

  Rachael giggled. “Hi Everet.” She dropped her thick black robes. She reached behind herself and drew the pistol from the back of her pants. It looked like a black Beretta, not that either one of them knew that. She pointed it at Everet and pulled the trigger several times.

  Click. Click. Clack. Nothing happened but sparks flew from the end.

  “Still doesn’t work,” she smiled as she tossed the novelty lighter aside.

  “Would have been useful.” Everet said and looked down, feeling bad the lighter he chose didn’t work.

  “But it did work,” Rachael said. “It kept Ben from killing us. And on second thought…” She bent and retrieved the fake gun.

  Everet Lewis smiled and looked at his feet. “We need to keep moving. I was hoping to find a house or something before the sun went down.

  Rachael’s mouth dropped open. “Shouldn’t we go back and help the others?” She knew Everet well but even she was surprised he was going to walk away.

  “What can we do for them? We waited in the woods for days and approaching Ben was our big gambit. We could’ve died. Easy.”

  Rachael’s stared at the top of his bald head. Her expression softened. She remembered how meek he could be. “We’ll think of something. But you’re right. We do need to rest tonight. It has been days since I’ve slept soundly.”

  “Or eaten.” He added.

  “Or used a toilet.”

  “Or took a shower.”

  They both felt their moods lightening with every step away from Ben and towards any other place in the world.

  “Or laughed.”

  “Or smiled even.”

  They continued on for a few moments but fell quiet soon enough.

  The self-appointed high priest of evil was now a frumpy middle-aged man. Without the robes and the motivation, Zamfir disappeared and Everet came out. Funny, he thought, no one ever seemed to catch on that Zamfir was the master of the pan flute. Hardly an evil figure. Well, I guess that depends on how someone felt about the pan flute.

  “Everet, look.” Rachael stopped and shielded her eyes from the low setting sun. “What do you think?”

  Above them on a high steep hill was a house. The house looked to be upscale and had no fence around it. Rachael knew that they were somewhere they could find a lot of what they needed and a path back to civilization. Everet smiled. He started the climb. The house was only one story but it covered a large area. Virtually every window would have a spectacular view. There were solar panels on the roof and a large propane tank off the drive, hidden behind some shrubs. These houses were owned by the ultra-wealthy and were self-sufficient. They had to be as they were fairly remote and the only way to ensure constant water and power was to generate it yourself.

  It was a hard climb but had so much promise. Best of all these were mostly second homes and vacant most of the year.

  “Oh my god! The water’s running and it’s hot. Oh my god! There’s hot water!” Rachael was yelling. She checked the bathrooms first. Everet popped his head in. He was drinking a Diet Coke. “They have power too. The fridge is cold and . . . I’m going to fix dinner while you clean up.”

  Later Everet chopped most of the length of the goatee off with a pair of scissors he found in the kitchen. He had Rachael trim the remaining hair to neaten it up. He wanted to keep some of it to fill in his chin.

  That night they slept deep. They loathed the thought of ever leaving the place, but they had to help the others and with Ben out there they couldn’t rest too easy for long. They planned to return to the glade when the sun came up but had no idea what they would do when they found it.

  §

  Ben stood over his naked flock. Old Zamfir chose them well, he thought as he admired some of the female bodies laying prone on the ground. There were only a few males but it wasn’t Zamfir who chose the members, it was Rachael. She chose who to let in and the girls never caused nearly the problems the guys did.

  The nine nude bodies were in a line, their robes wrapped around their heads and gathered up underneath like a pillow. They were all shivering violently. The combination of the evening cold and the intense fear was almost too much to bare. Most of the girls were sobbing and several had wet themselves.

  Ben paced back and forth trying to decide which of the followers to make an example of. He stopped at a male body. This one wasn’t shivering. He apparently wasn’t scared enough and the cold didn’t bother him as much. This made him a potential problem that needed to be removed. Him it is, Be
n thought. He was going to kill two birds with one stone.

  It would all be good fun for now. Soon he’d move on. It pissed him off he had to choose between keeping the coven for fun and taking Zamfir and Rachael as captives. Ever since that Cooper guy beat him to shit and escaped, he’d been seeing red. It made him even more pissed off he’d never see that guy again and couldn’t dish out some punishment on him.

  3.

  “He looks harmless.” Ron mumbled and shrugged as he looked down from the second level of the parking structure at a well-dressed Asian man. He was very leery of strangers now, but this guy didn’t look like a threat. Nothing jumped out that looked iffy to him. But still . . . he doubted his own judgment. The fact that the man spoke perfect English made him more comfortable, he had to admit, knowing that it was an unfair judgement.

  Dale, now clean shaven and hair buzzed short, stood next to Ron and looked down on the man a little more skeptically with the eye of a trained detective. He sensed something wasn’t quite right. He spoke loud and clear, “Hey Alvin. You say you’re alone?”

  “Just me.” The shrug and open hands facing out a gesture of openness.

  But Dale had questions. Why no weapon? Where are your belongings? Why do you look like you just stepped out of a clothing store?

  Dale debated and decided they couldn’t shut people out of the community. He’d have to trust this newcomer, Alvin, to some degree but would keep a close eye on him. He wanted another opinion, not for its value but for the chance to further interact with the cagey old man.

  “Hey Francis, what’d you think?” Dale raised his voice as he addressed the elderly man working under the hood of a nearby car.

  Francis Burwell, AKA Weed, grimaced at his birth name. He always grimaced when they spoke his name but especially hated it when the pig addressed him. Don’t you worry, he told himself, this can’t last too long, not with your ornery nature and proclivity for violence. One way or another this is going to end soon. As usual it was easy for him to hide his true feelings when dealing with the group.

  Weed, for he still thought of himself as such, stopped working on the car and straightened up. He admonished himself, Don’t stand too tall Francis. You’re supposed to be a decrepit old bastard, not a spry-as-fuck old bastard. You gotta’ keep up appearances.

  Weed wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. He played the part of old grandfatherly Francis well. He moved slowly, stooped, pretended to forget shit that he didn’t care enough about to remember. He didn’t appear to be a threat and no one ever asked him to do any heavy lifting. The brainy weird kid asked him to take the batteries out of all the cars on the second level. He walked over still holding the large wrench he was using and locked eyes with Dale. Man he wished that pig would just leave him be. He was here just like everyone else trying to survive, not that it started that way.

  Dale gave him that look again, that fucking cop look, that “guilty until proven innocent” look. The asshole had been an undercover before the fall of mankind and Weed could see that the pig suspected he was more then he appeared to be. And he was, far more, or used to be. Old Francis had been trying his best to wait out the pig, see him calmed down so he could live in peace, but things only got more tense as time wore on. His primary concern was to not be a suspect in whatever might happen.

  “It’s kind of hot Gramps don’t you want to take off that shirt? Or at least roll up those sleeves.” Dale said, trying to draw attention to the old man’s behavior. But they all naively accepted him as a harmless old guy.

  “Lay off Dale.” Ron muttered absentmindedly.

  Dale couldn’t believe that even though Ron was super paranoid about letting people into the community, he still didn’t seem to know a threat when he saw one. He was almost murdered by bikers at least twice that Dale knew of. He was especially incredulous that Ron didn’t give his opinion more weight as a former undercover cop with experience dealing with outlaw biker gangs. And Sal would always go along with Ron.

  Ron and Sal both insisted he give the man a chance. Chance to kill us all, he thought. Dale caught a bad vibe from the guy immediately just based on his overall demeanor. Things like his stance, speech, and vocabulary placed him somewhere in the criminal underworld. He also noticed details such as white skin on several fingers where rather large rings used to be. He had multiple piercings in his ears that didn’t look old and closed up. That was in the first five minutes of meeting him. Of course, there was the long sleeve flannel shirt he hadn’t taken off for the week or so he’d been with them. Dale suspected that the shirt hid a body covered in a lifetime of tattoos that told Old Francis’ story. And there was that large bandage on his neck, probably another tattoo that he couldn’t cover with the shirt. He was most likely a biker but could just be an associate. He wondered if he were connected to the bikers they just finished dealing with. He worried that there may be more of them out there.

  Dale smiled and nodded. “Just messing with you. Just wanted you to meet Alvin.”

  “Yup.” Francis tried to smile at him but failed. Fuck you Francis smiling at cops ain’t natural, he thought. Best stand next to the coon for appearances. He stood next to Ron to demonstrate his comfort and as a show of camaraderie. He’d learned over the years that people are easily manipulated with a hundred little tricks like this. It was actually part of his fighting style. Since he was a dirty fighter—a tricky, mean, and downright cruel son of a bitch—he had no qualms about smiling at someone, pointing at the sky, then kicking them in the nuts as hard as possible. He’d kick them when they were down and keep on kicking until he was tired. And when he grew tired of kicking, he’d start stomping.

  Weed put his hands on his hips, feet slightly apart, and looked down at the newcomer. The man could have familial roots going back to a dozen different countries but to Weed he was just the china man. Shit, are his eyes open or closed? He asked himself and that made him smile. Damn he’d have to remember to think about some funny shit like that next time he needed to muster up a smile. He looked at the china man and started thinking of some of the jokes he’s heard over the years pertaining to yellow skin and slanted eyes. This made his smile even bigger.

  “He looks like a solid fellow.” Francis said, smiling. While his words expressed one sentiment and he smiled for another, much darker, reason the combination of the two made him look like a downright nice fellow, accepting of his fellow man no matter what his differences may be.

  “OK.” Ron spoke down to the man who gave his name as Alvin. “You can come up if you agree to the terms?”

  “Of course.” Alvin smiled and gave a thumbs up.

  “I’m gonna get back to these cages,” Francis turned away and scowled. Terms! Ha. Bitches patted me down and took my knife. But I got some news for you assholes, I got myself a gun.

  The second level was where a majority of the cars were that had been in the structure. All the cars on the first level had been moved outside to the parking lot for added security. There were not many cars as most of the spaces on the first level were for busses and shuttles and those were all in their barns by the airport over a mile away. Having searched only one row of cars on the second level, about 45 of them, Weed found a handgun with a box of shells. He even found a few ounces of weed to add to his ever shrinking stash. He’d run out soon and was wracking his brain for places to search. What he really wanted was to find some plants and start growing his own.

  Dale smirked, yep a biker. Bikers called cars cages. He’d let other slang terms slip, or wasn’t aware the terms were so unique to the biker world. Dale considered that maybe the old guy really was just trying to survive and didn’t want to scare the civilians. He’d been keeping a close eye on him in any case.

  Dale and Ron went to lower the elevator. Weed continued to remove batteries and stack them on a rolling cart. As he opened each car and popped the hood release, he also searched them. Not much in most but he continued to find interesting and useful things but other than the gun and the s
mall amounts of Mary Jane there wasn’t much worthwhile. And as usual, he went back to rolling that damn puzzle over and over in his head; how’s the problem betwixt he and the pig going to resolve itself? He didn’t feel justified in outright killing the fellow, but he was seriously pissing him off.

  Weed had infiltrated the parking structure with the sole intention of slaughtering the entire bunch, except maybe a bitch or two for fun. At first he blamed the group for the deaths of his brothers and fellow bikers because they did in fact kill the men. But he soon discovered that there was more to the story. Weed was rescued by a former rival biker named Banjo and had heard all about what the coon did to their bikes. But what he didn’t hear was how Banjo started the whole mess by trying to lynch the spade. That put a damper on Weed’s bloodlust as he stewed over old Banjo’s deception. Had he known Banjo had his own agenda when he arrived at the clubhouse things would have turned out very different.

  Figures, he thought, Banjo was a fucking Satan’s Angel. I should have listened to my brother Muscle and told him to fuck right off. If I had all my brothers would be alive today.

  The way Weed understood it no one knew he existed since the fat fucker, a Satan’s Angel aptly named Fats, pushed him in that hole early on. There was no mention of an unaccounted for biker in their discussions. It seems that the fat ass picked up his buddy and prez Jeeter and carried him into the dead heads, thus killing them both. Now Weed would have never believed that shit had he not been personally pushed to his apparent death by the fat fuck himself.