1  

 It should have been a simple job. All he was required to do was find a missing girl. A missing teenage girl. A missing teenage girl with several leads at that, two possible boyfriends, four good friends and several family members. He had a lot to start with, much more than usual, and took less than nine hours to make visual contact with his mark. After running background on one possible boyfriend, it was a short drive to his residence. It was an even shorter shakedown of the teenage boy and he recieved a solid lead on the girl's new circles. Seemed the girl had a whole circle that involved some weird new "goth" occult stuff, and that groups of this circle were often supposed to congregate at a factory and warehouse compound fifteen miles outside of town that was abandoned in the early fifties. It should have been a simple job. That's what Turbo Ramone told himself as the rattle of a submachine gun erupted behind him, strobing the darkness with flashing lights and sending a shower of wood chips from the cabinet he was hiding under raining down on him.

       Turbo's mind worked fast, and though it would appear that he had been caught off-guard and pinned inside a room with only one exit, he was already taking in a myriad of facts at once. During the ear-splitting rattle, he recognized the sound of the weapon, even through loudly ringing ears. It was an HK MP5 that was being fired at him, the three round burst that strobe lighted the dark room combined with an unmistakable rattle gave Turbo the make of the SWAT weapon of which he was well acquainted. 9x19mm Parabellum rounds riddled the wood and pinged loudly into the metal around him. The desk he was half under was mainly metal, but a good portion of the top was wooden, and there were two file cabinets to his left. Turbo counted the metallic clanks that echoed off the metal and made himself as small as possible. If it was a tactical weapon, it most likely had a thirty round clip, and the desk was thick enough and the attacker's aim bad enough, that he could wait this out. He hoped.  

     Turbo reached under his black duster and slid his hand around the grip of his own pistol, hidden in a well-designed in-seam holster, feeling the weight of it in his hand. He wore fingerless leather driving gloves, and his bare fingers wrapped around the steel of the heavy AMT Hardballer Long Slide, his forefinger easing comfortably inside the trigger guard and resting on the lever itself. His thumb clicked the saftey button. He usually carried two of the seven inch long chrome barreled beasts, but this was supposed to be an easy job, and had left the other one in his car. He almost came in unarmed at all, foreseeing no trouble from a gathering of teenagers. He wrapped his large right hand around the handle and supported the underside with his left hand, holding the gun with an experienced grip, giving him maximum control, anticipating the inevitible kick from the weapon. The bullets continued to crack into the room in intervals of three for a few more seconds, and Turbo belly-crawled to the other side of the long file-desk. He thought for a moment of the irony, the desk reminded him of a teacher's desk, and he was three seconds from giving this guy a shooting lesson.

     Turbo's heart thumped in his chest as he timed his move in between bursts. His mind worked quickly, above the noise and danger and picked up on the man's shooting habits instantly. It felt like a scene playing out in slow motion to the large bounty hunter, though it all took place in mere seconds. The shooter was spraying the Heckler and Koch left to right, back left and now to the right again. Turbo leaped to his feet opposite the line of fire. He brought his own gun level much quicker than the shooter could have anticipated. The shooter's eyes went wide as he tried to cross his piece back the other way. A loud shot rang out, followed by a succession of four more as the long barreled pistol lit up the dark room, the lever sliding back, ejecting the hot casings that clanked to the ground. Again, his ears rang from the air-shattering blasts, drowning out the noise of the shell casings and pretty much everything else, including the man's subsequent exclamations. The first shot hit the shooter between the lower neck and upper chest, the other four .45 rounds left gory wound channels that blew him backward, and made sure he didn't get up once he fell.

     Turbo crossed the distance to the open doorway, where faint light spilled into the room, leading with his pistol at the ready. The door was the only way out of the room, and he knew that when he stepped out, he would be a target should there be any more waiting for him. He put his back to the doorway and briefly looked down at the dead man, five massive entry wounds leaking blood onto the ground. Turbo peaked his head up enough to see out the door. All seemed quiet. Turbo knew better.

     It had not taken long for Turbo to find the girl and track her to this warehouse. He figured from the start that it had not been a kidnapping but more of a runaway situation. From the boy he'd talked to, this place was a haven for outcast gothy teens and young adults. He'd set up surveillance for only two hours before his visual with the target, as she went inside with a few other older men. He had waited five minutes and when she didn't come back out, he figured it to be a drug haven of some kind and went in, that's when he was pinned inside the storage room. Turbo had been in enough live combat to operate calm and steady. He didn't figure these drug-dealer types could boast the same experience. 

     Turbo swung out into the doorway with his gun leveled, firing his remaining two shots blindly at the nearest source of cover, a metal support beam. His plan was to rattle anyone who may be waiting and it worked, another man emerged from behind a nearby wooden crate and fired a few rounds from a pistol at him. Turbo calmly released the empty round cartridge, reached into his coat and replaced it with a full one, clicking it into place. He didn't bother going for cover, the drug-dealer was so shaken by the fire fight that his rounds went well wide of the big man, went well wide of the whole doorway. Re-loaded, Turbo took aim as the drug-dealer fired one more round before ducking behind the wooden crate. Difficult shot, they were a good distance away from each other. Turbo pulled back the slide, forcing a bullet into the chamber. He took a quick note that the crate was hollow. He took aim and fired three rounds.

     Three loud pistol cracks preceded three holes exploding through the wooden crate, showering splinters that tinkled to the concrete ground. The man hiding behind the crate was hit all three times, and he slid backwards across the smooth floor two feet before coming to a final rest. Turbo strode out of the doorway and quickly moved deeper into the warehouse, knowing that the loud firefight would have attracted the attention of any other armed criminals that may have yet been loitering somewhere inside. Then with an electronic fizzle, the industrial overhead lighting began shutting off in succession, leaving the world pitch black in the rolling wake.

     Turbo was always quick with his reactions, and even before all the lights were off, his left hand was moving up to the side of his dark wraparound sunglasses. His big finger found a catch-button streamlined into the side of the frames and clicked it. The world suddenly went from black to an eerie green, as his nightvision was engaged. A small shuffling from behind had his attention, and he spun around, leading with his firearm, only to find nothing. Another shuffling had him whirling back to the front, again, even with his nightvision he could see nothing. Then there was a noise that seemed to come from everywhere around him at once, an echo that bounced from the high ceilings of the long dark warehouse. The noise started like a soft rumbling of thunder in the distance but quickly grew in volume and in pitch. Turbo realized that it was laughter, and it was now very loud and distinguishable.

     "You thought to come into this sacred place and cause problems without swift retribution little man?" A voice with an odd frequency came from above.

     Turbo's pistol was drawn and leveled before his eyes had even settled on the figure. It was a shadow on a balcony, glaring down at him. At six-three, and two-sixty, Turbo was not used to being called little. 

     "I'm just here for the girl." Turbo answered in a deep voice.

     "Yet you murder my thralls?" There was anger in the voice now.

     "Thralls? I shot your goons 'cause they shot at me. Give me the girl and I won't have to shoot you too." Turbo's voice was steady and menacing, this was not a threat, this was a promise.

     "You want the girl? Take her." The strange figure on the balcony above him announced.

     Suddenly a shadow darted out from his side, moving impossibly fast, like a bat flapping after insects in the night. A second later, the same young girl from the picture he had been given was glaring at him. Something was not right, her face was pale, her eyes...

     Were they glowing or was it a trick of the green luminescence? Turbo divided his attention between the girl that was strangely stalking to his side and the menacing figure above him.

     "Cindy?" Turbo called out, fearing to take his eyes off the looming shadow for too long. "It's OK now, he can't hurt you. Let's go home."

     Suddenly Cindy hissed, a terrible noise like that of a snake about to strike. She leaped at him like a starving wild dog. Turbo did not get his nickname for being sluggish, and he not only surprised the young girl with his speed, but he had to admit that he was surprised himself. He managed to side-step the clawing girl, and she stumbled in front of him. Turbo managed to kick one of her legs out from under her, sending her slight frame sliding across the cold concrete floor.

     "You really shouldn't do drugs." Turbo off-handedly remarked. Judging by her appearance, she was even more doped up then he would have guessed. She sprang to life, coming back to her feet in a quick motion. She bared her teeth and screeched a hideous harpy noise at him. "You're going to a clinic or something before I take you home." Turbo added. 

     "Drugs?" The figure above him laughed. "Oh, but what I have to offer is so much more than drugs bounty hunter. Perhaps I will share the gifts with you as well."

     The shadow darted from the balcony, and fell quickly in a pounce towards Turbo. He was a good fifteen feet above him and Turbo was through playing games. As the laughing shadow descended on Turbo, he opened fire, emptying the rest of his clip at the man. Four ear-splitting .45 caliber rounds erupted from the muzzle and punched right through the falling man. Turbo saw the back of the man's clothes erupt with a red mist through ripped clothing. He knew that all four shots passed clean through and saw the sparks of the bullets hitting the metal balcony above.

     The falling body changed trajectory from the force of the gunshot blasts, and the back of the body's coat was now catching fire where the bullets had passed. Turbo stepped out of the way to let the body slap against the ground with a wet slump. He had no more ammunition in his duster and he re-holstered his long pistol while turning towards the girl.

     "You can hiss and moan all you like, but you're coming with me now." He growled. "Don't do this the hard way."

     The young girl shrank back from the fingerless gloved hand that was proffered. He was about to reach out and throw the girl over his shoulder when he recoiled instinctively. Turbo's blood went cold suddenly as he sensed movement from behind him. He spun around quickly, expecting maybe another gang-banger that he'd missed in the commotion. Turbo's mouth sneered in disgust, as if he was witnessing an infestation of spiders or a particularly gruesome car accident. It was the shadow that had just been shot through four times, rising to his feet like a zombie. The figure threw off the smoking jacket that had four flaming holes through it and smiled.  

     "You cretin! You can't kill that which is already dead!" The zombie-man half hissed and half laughed.

     Turbo's green nightvision fell on the man and locked eyes with him. This time, he was sure that the man's eyes were actually glowing, like a deer caught in headlights. Turbo's sneer grew.

     "Guess not. But I can sure kick it's candy ass!"

     Turbo then shot foward and began pistol-whipping the ghoul in the face with the handle of his long heavy pistol.      

2

Turbo was aware of two things, first was a sudden weightlessness, as the creature shoved him ten feet into the air, the second was that this man had not been injured in the least by his assault. As his girth flew backwards across the warehouse, he regained a sense of weight, painfully, smashing hard into the concrete ground. He once again reholstered his heavy pistol and launched back to his feet.

     The ghoul-like entity stalked gleefully toward him, careful to avoid what little light there was remaining in the long room. Not that it mattered much anyway, Turbo's sunglasses had the nightvision toggle engaged, and the dark warehouse was an eerie green landscape, the creeping man was plain to his eyesight. Turbo figured by the way the man moved through the darkness that he could see just as well, though with no obvious means. Turbo was no believer in the supernatural, and though he had no explaination as to how this man had taken four bullets, several blows to the face with a heavy metal gun and managed to lift him so very far into the air, he believed that answers would come. Whatever hoax this would prove to be, answers always came.

     The man dodged behind a large box, and Turbo quickly caught on to the game. He was much smaller than the bounty hunter and if Turbo had not experienced his amazing strength firsthand, he would not have believed it. There were explanations that came to mind, drugs still being the biggest probable suspect. Turbo had seen a man on PCP throw a butcher knife from his porch and have it actually stick into a car door in the driveway. He had also once seen a relatively small man enraged on drugs, and it had taken six police officers to take the man down. He had no plan yet on how he would take this man down, for if the man was similarly drugged, he would have to go to extremes to do so. Turbo deftly moved behind a crate himself, mirroring the strange man's movements.

     Turbo waited patiently, hearing the slight shuffle of the weird man's gait coming towards him. He was quiet, but not so quiet as to avoid the perceptions of the large bounty hunter. He was stalking Turbo, and Turbo was in turn baiting him to stalk him, leading the man to a better tactical position, leading him where Turbo would have the advantage. The crazy man stalked in between the many boxes that Turbo had slipped through, quietly gaining on his elusive prey. He was hunched over now slightly, taking on a predatory gait as every step carried him closer to his goal. A scuffle came from behind the boxes in front of him. The large man must have lost his footing in the dark.

     The stalker of the shadows leaped around the boxes the opposite way, taking the bounty hunter from behind. Only the form of a large man did not greet him immediately, two blinding floodlights flaring on did.

Betcha didn't see that comin'.

Then the roar of an engine come to life. The man squinted against the suddenly brightened world, straining to see through the floodlights. He heard a chuckle from the bounty hunter. Turbo, standing beside the machine, rammed a lever down, and the forklift vaulted to life.

     The man held the prongs as the forklift lurched forward, Turbo swung around the side, leaping into the operating position. He threw down the accelerator, giving the little sideloader everything it had. The forklift boasted a surprising amount of power, and was launching forward faster, gaining rapid momentum. The man hissed and sneered at Turbo, trying to gain leverage to escape the forked end. Turbo lifted it slightly, so that the man's feet left the ground a few inches. The man caught Turbo's sunglasses with his eyes, a wellspring of malevolence swirled inside.

     "What are you hoping to...?"

     Turbo estimated that the little forklift climbed quickly up to around thirty-five miles an hour by the time they hit the other end of the warehouse. In simple reply to the man, Turbo extended a middle finger across the instrument panel in the man's face, then leaped off the sideloader. A terrible crash sounded, the floodlights died with a shower of sparks as the twisted metal shrieked into the darkness. Turbo could not see much of the accident through the wreck, but what he could see was not very attractive. The man was still alive somehow, but pinned as he was, squirming between the wreck and the wall, he could do nothing but moan. Turbo wasted no time in finding the girl, and though he had been distracted in a rather weird way, he set about his business in a hurry. He found the girl, her face pale, her eyes dark, back against the wall, close to the spot he'd left her.

     "Come on, time to go." He demanded, his voice authorative, leaving no room for argument. Still, she found one.

     "They've marked me as their own. They'll come for me." She hissed, pulling her arm roughly from his strong grasp. He was not deterred, and instead, redoubled the strength behind his grasp.

     "Ain't you just a ray of %$!^&ng sunshine? All good girls should be in bed at this hour." Turbo remarked off-handedly, noticing several green forms of light coming out from a hall in his nightvision, blocking the way he'd come in.

     "Unhand me ruffian." She twisted and squirmed violently, surprising Turbo with her strength. She thrashed like a wild animal to get away from him, and he was forced to rethink his hold on her. He instead quickly moved behind her, hefted her up and threw her like a large package over his right shoulder. She saw the other figures in the darkness moving towards them. "Over here!" She called. "You uncouth barbarian! They won't let you take me! They won't!"

     "They don't have a choice." He growled. With a stubborn determination, Turbo plodded forward, breaking into a run, barely encumbered by the hundred and twenty pound frame over his shoulder. Turbo ran the length of the long warehouse, until he was cut off by two more men, one gangly like the one half-embedded into the wall, another almost as large as he was.

     Turbo quickly shifted his weight and turned directions. There was a hallway to his right that he blindly charged through, cut off in both directions. He heard the sounds of shuffling coming from behind, and he didn't take the time to turn his head and see how close they were. He knew they were close, they moved with the same staggering speed as the one that he'd fought moments before. Whatever speed these kids were on nowadays was dangerous, he thought, and he hoped that it wouldn't become an epidemic.

     The hallway was much longer than Turbo had anticipated, and before he was halfway down it, he was drawing shorter gasps of breath. He had humped larger packs than her in the military, and for much greater distances, but that had been long ago. He knew that he wasn't in the kind of shape for a long chase. He heard noise coming from up ahead, a rhythmic pulsating noise that he felt in his chest. He heard the noise of his followers a step behind, and one even tried to pull the girl from his grasp. Turbo saw stairs leading down and bounded them in one leap. His ankles burned as he landed, but he forced himself on, and through a large set of double doors at the end of another small hallway. Now he was in another hallway, lighted with a single flickering light above. 

     Turbo pressed himself against the wall suddenly, sensing his followers a step behind. One leaped down at him and missed, Turbo shoved his body weight against the man, crashing against the wall. The attacker's breath was blasted from his body, Turbo's weight was considerable and crushing, still he managed to lash out. Turbo ducked away quickly, and swung the girl's legs around, catching the man in the face. He was moving again, before his attacker had regained his wits. The girl was shouting dozens of curses in his ears, sometimes in a language that he was unfamiliar with, or perhaps just a strange accent, either way, his ears were closed to it. Another door ahead, and Turbo plodded recklessly forward, crashing into the fire-exit style bar that opened the portal.

     The portal that led to...what? Turbo saw more flickering lights, but not those of industrial lighting, but from dancing fires. He heard the pulsing noise louder now, as it was originating from this area. It was a techno-style rhythm he realized, something that Turbo hated more than foreign cars. Turbo hated foreign cars.

     Turbo saw many shadowy figures moving erratically among the throbbing firelight, coming from several garbage cans and one large bonfire in the center of the room. No one was dressed modestly, and in some of the corners kids danced in ways that could not have been shown on television. Not even MTV. It was another whole warehouse it seemed, and by the looks of it, this was a shelter of sorts for runaway teens. But by the way they carried on in the darkness, these were not wholesome teens. They stopped and regarded the newcomer, sensing immediately that he did not belong. They hissed like vipers and cried out like coyotes, some made even more peculiar sounds that Turbo could not begin to describe.

     The door behind him flung open, and six pale men, garbed in all black stepped inside and glared at him with sunken, dark eyes. Turbo dropped the girl to the floor, careful not to hurt her, but was not cautious to be gentle either. Fearlessly, he turned to regard the six men that began stalking around him in a semi-circle.

     "You've come here to stop our ritual." One of the men proclaimed. "Foolish cretin, we'll rip you apart with our bare hands and feast on your naked soul."

"I'm kinda usin' that." Turbo replied.

     Turbo took a step back for every one that they took forward, careful not to allow himself to be surrounded. One had a chain. One had a knife. One had a tire-iron. He quickly catalogued each opponent and accessed threat levels. The light from the fires was glaring and blinding his night-vision. He brought a hand up to click it off quickly. Once again the world was dark, but he immediately noticed several things that he had not before. Chief among those was the fact that there was a large symbol of some odd shape painted on the ground. It was not a pentagram, nor any other satanic symbol that he may have recognized, but sent a shiver through his spine all the same. Somehow the signs and odd logic-defying shapes seemed to speak of an unthinkable age. The kids continued their revelries in some corners, others came forward hungrily.  

     "You don't gotta like it. I'm takin' the girl. If you try to stop me, I promise I'll not only stop your little dance party here, I'll shove my foot so far up..."

     "You can't kill that which is already d..."

Tell that to your friend hanging from the forklift.

     "Would you shut the $@&^ up!" Turbo interrupted, launching forward to attack.

     Turbo surprised the men with his speed. It was not natural that anyone as large as him could have moved that fast. Even for their enhanced senses. They were merely keeping up. He managed to spin one of them around and get a firm grip around his throat. He reversed his chokehold, using enormous upper-body strength, and a dull snap came from the thug's neck. Before the other's could react, Turbo had snapped another one's wrist, grabbing a falling knife from mid-air. A moment later the knife was attached to another attacker's heart. It was only after this that one of them managed to hit the large bounty hunter in the side of the head with a tire-iron. The bounty hunter's body went limp almost immediately. Turbo was not finished. With a roar of rage, he yelled, trying to wrap his massive hands around another's throat. He was hit again. Then all went black.    

3

Turbo awoke with a start. He had not been unconscious for long, he knew that much, and he also remembered how he had gotten to that condition. It had not been favorable, he had gone down swinging. He opened his eyes and looked around him. There was a strange growling noise coming from the darkness. He was aware at once of that fact that he still had all of his equipment, including the soft weight of his custom sunglasses resting on his nose. He reached up quickly and pushed the button that illuminated the world of shadows around him into a sea of green.

     Turbo leaped to his feet as soon as the nightvision was toggled on. He was surrounded now by the gang of teenagers, closing in on him with unatural hunger in their eyes. He still was not sure what was happening around him, and he had no time to form a logical conclusion either. He was outnumbered by extremely poor odds, there were twenty or more teens in his optical world of green light, he was out of bullets and there seemed to be no weapons of any kind within reach. A garbled voice sounded from behind the crowd. Turbo looked up to see the speaker. He could not distinguish any details in the nightvision, all faces pretty much looked the same, but he could tell that it was a man. A tall man, looming above the others, framed on both sides by the same men that he had gone down fighting. It was a trick of his mind, he realized, he was still fighting the effects of being hit with a blunt weapon. A moment later, he shook off his grogginess and could understand the speaker's words.

     "Blood for the blood god! He demands it! Kill this man and offer his blood as sacrifice for your initiation!"

     Initiation. There was a strange word, Turbo thought. That must mean that these kids were not yet into whatever drug rituals that the rest were. That meant that there was still some hope for them, if only he could show them the folly of their ways and this strange cult. Wait a minute. Offer his blood as sacrifice? This was a violent cult indeed if they were performing human rituals. Turbo grimaced under his dark mustache, he would show them the folly of their ways in an equally violent manner.

     Turbo did not wait for the teens to attack. He launched himself forward, springing into a violent offensive. His large gloved fist slammed into the nearest cartilage of a nose, an elbow thrust into a nearby doughy neck, his head connected with soft lips. One of the kids was brave enough to grapple with the big man. Turbo wrapped an arm around the kid's neck and threw him to the ground forcefully. The display was not enough to deter them. They had a distant, hungry look in their eyes, they were desperate to please whatever cruel masters they had aligned themselves with. The blood god he had heard someone say. Like a wave of humanity, they launched forward.

     Turbo reverted into something more than human, and less than human. It was a condition he had learned several years ago, in the war. It was the same condition that he slipped into sometimes when he was driving fast, pushing the limits of machine and man. It was the condition from whence he had derived his nickname, someone had once called it "the Turbo zone". It was when everything else slipped away and he became more of a machine than a man. His hands shot out in several directions at once, becoming a blur of blistering movement. These teen cultists were not, could not have been ready for anything like this. A trained killing machine unleashed against young kids who had probably never even seen a fight that was not on the television or in a video game.

     It was like putting a tiger in a cage with a group of puppies. The results were no less violent. He spun around a boy, his duster twirling about like a black cape, so that he was facing the opposite way as the boy. With a quick jerk, his arm came around the kid's neck, and pulled him forcefully backward, with a loud pop. An elbow snapped back violently into a young girl's face that thought to leap upon him from behind. Her nose exploded in a hot rush of blood and she swooned instantly. Another boy quickly thought to use an advanced fighting move on the huge man. He side-kicked, obviously mimicking a move that he'd seen in a movie. Turbo moved to the side faster than the boy could kick. He hip-checked the kid with such momentum, two-hundred and sixty pounds worth, and sent the boy toppling over backwards. Another bright thinker thought to trip him, but simply didn't carry enough weight on his teenage frame. Turbo stood his ground with ease, and the kid's knee was shattered a moment later for his effort.

     Turbo continued to fight, his gloved fists pounding into flesh at every angle. He caught a boy's punch at the wrist and with a quick shake, like shaking out a lit match, Turbo snapped the boy's wrist. He then pulled the wrist hard, sending him into another attacker behind him. Turbo stepped forward and punched another girl in the jaw. The girl's face popped and gave way under his force, snapping her jaw bone at the mandible and shattering a side tooth. A boy then leaped onto his back, and Turbo spun quickly to catch another attacker's arm, mid-thrust. Heedless of the weight on his shoulders, he used the attacker's momentum against him, and broke his arm easily. Turbo continued to fight for several moments like a caged animal with the boy wrapped around his neck, trying to choke the big man out. Trying desperately, giving it everything his adolescent muscles could muster.

"A" for effort...

Trying, but not coming close.

"F" for failure.

     Finally, Turbo reached up and grabbed the young man by the collar. He spun around and heaved him into another snarling attacker. The next several moments were a blur of activity, as the untrained teen cultists continued to throw themselves at the tiger, and the tiger growled and snapped back. He did not think about his actions or internalize them. He simply reacted. Reacted with the precision and accuracy of a machine. He was in the zone. Punches and kicks were thrown and deflected, and then returned, with the force of a heavyweight boxer. Turbo's blows were unforgiving, and what little organized fighting style that he used, Aikido, utilized an opponent’s body weight and used it against them. It also trained to come forward instead of falling back, aggresively taking an opponent's space, attack before you could be attacked. The results were usually the sound of wet snaps as bones broke and the sounds of heavy thuds as bodies hit the hard concrete. When Turbo put them down once, if they were still conscious, they didn't dare get back up.

     Several moments later, Turbo found himself to be the only one still standing. He was breathing heavy and seething with anger. He looked up to see the trio of men who had orchestrated the brawl watching him with a mixture of surprise and amusement splayed out across their faces. He looked down at the piles of broken, battered bodies surrounding him. He probably would have been surprised and amused too.

     "What have we learned about joining evil cults?" Turbo asked the mostly unconscious bodies at his feet. "Go back to your familes, and get to church on Sunday."

He knew that the beating they had suffered wasn't enough. He would have to serve the same pain to their leaders. He would have to reverse the brainwashing, have to prove them impotent. He glared at them from across the room from under the dark wraparound sunglasses.

     "I was only interested in getting the girl. Now I'm gonna stomp a mudhole in you jackasses and walk it dry."

     The two goons surrounding the tall man leaped across the distance with ease, as if they could somehow glide through the empty air. They were on the offense almost before he could act. Almost before he could act. They thought to surround him, and Turbo reached out and caught one of them in mid-glide. The other one sailed past and slid to a halt. With a scream, Turbo ran towards the middle of the room, holding the man in the air with pure strength. The man clawed and kicked but could find no leverage against the huge man. Turbo hefted the man up higher on his shoulders as he ran. He neared the middle of the room and shifted his enormous girth, preparing to thrust the man to the ground with all of his might. He then power-bombed the ghoul-man into the blazing bonfire.

     There was an explosion as the fire leaped and licked the air. Turbo realized suddenly that the explosion was not only from the force of the body weight thrust down upon it, but that the man himself had actually exploded into a volcano of sparks and ashes.

"Crom!" He exclaimed.

The other pale ghoul was on top of him, before he sensed the danger. He had leaped onto Turbo's back, thinking to take him down from his bodyweight. Turbo bent his knees and flexed his leg muscles, catching the man's weight on his broad back and holding it fast. The crazy drug fiend scratched and clawed and actually tried to bite Turbo. He tried to bite Turbo!

     Turbo had enough of this idiot cult crap. He reached up with both arms and bent low, slamming the shrieking man on top of the fire. More sparks flew as the flames leaped higher again, singeing Turbo's face. The man kept shrieking as he leaped out of the fire, but he had caught blaze impossibly fast. He ran in a few circles before coming at Turbo once more, wearing a cloak of flaming yellow and orange. Turbo cocked his fist back as the fiery man came at him. He stepped to the side at the last moment and punched, hard. Nothing fancy, an old fashioned Popeye punch. What happened next surprised even the stoic bounty hunter. The drug fiend's head exploded into floating ashes, and as he collapsed, his body followed suit. There was nothing left of either man now, save for two piles of ashes. Turbo looked behind him just in time to see the tallest man bearing down on him supernaturally quick.

Turbo saw the man coming at him fast, but Turbo could move fast too, faster than any man his size had any business moving. With a single graceful movement, Turbo bent low and grabbed a large log from the fire; he twisted his body and hefted it like a huge fiery missile while falling to his back. The log hit the man squarely in the gut, and with a shower of sparks and ash, he changed trajectory in mid air and fell backwards. Turbo was already rising to his feet, he had chucked the log into the air with everything he had, and knew it was bound to take the wind from the man’s sails. Surprisingly, the man was already back on his feet, he had not burned as easily as his minions. With an evil hiss, the tall man leaped forward again and was upon him, it was all that Turbo could do just to reach out and grab him. Turbo fought against the clawing nightmare, he was thrashing like a maniac, and even with Turbo’s sizable strength, it was hard to hold onto him.

They struggled for what seemed like an hour, though in truth it was probably only a few minutes. The crazy man was much stronger than he looked, Turbo outweighed him by a sizable margin, probably a hundred pounds. Turbo could tell that the man was used to relying on his freakish strength, but try as he might, he could not overpower the huge bounty hunter. He tried and got mad, refusing to believe that he could not move Turbo, but he could not. Not even with supernatural strength. He thrashed and pushed and growled and got even madder, but everything he threw at Turbo, the bounty hunter grit his teeth and handled. An average man would have been impressed with the man’s well of energy and strength, but not Turbo.

The man was frustrated, and tried to come in closer, lowering his head and opening his mouth wide. They were face to face, and Turbo could smell his rancid breath, could see his fangs growing even as his mouth opened wider. He had heard of such practices, in some third world countries, and some island peoples, where they sharpened their teeth thus. The man ducked his head low, and went for Turbo’s exposed neck. Turbo was fast with his reactions. He let go of the man while they struggled, and the man stumbled off balance suddenly. Then Turbo thrust his head forward suddenly, pounding his head like a sledgehammer into the other man’s open mouth. One of the sharpened canines fell out of the man’s head, the other down his throat, and he reeled back for a moment. It was all the moment that Turbo needed.

Turbo launched his assault, cocking a huge fist back and then driving it mercilessly into the pale man’s face like a piston. Again and again, without ceasing, the blows continued to rain down upon the man. The crazy man was stunned by the blows, but came to his senses quickly. He lashed out, clawing Turbo like an animal across the face. Turbo felt the warm sensation of blood trickling down his cheek, and got angry.

“OK, if you dunno how to play nice, you ain’t gonna play no more.” Turbo rasped through gritted teeth.

Turbo stepped away as the man came surging forward, suddenly off-balance as his prey ducked back. Turbo spun around the man, the trails of his duster whirling like a big black dress in the wind. He used his size advantage and wrapped his huge arms around the man’s neck, tightening him into a crushing chokehold. The man gasped, trying to draw breath into his lungs so that he could speak out. Turbo cut him off.

“You were going to tell me how I couldn’t kill something that’s already dead?” Turbo mocked. "Blow it out'cher ass!"

The man kept trying to wheeze in a breath, but Turbo held his neck tight, not allowing it. Finally, the man conceded and simply nodded in reply.

“Shut up.” Turbo growled forcefully. “Understand me. I’m only gonna ask this once. Where’d you take the girl?”

“She…is…taken.” The man breathed, Turbo let up just enough so that he could answer.

“That’s not an answer tough guy.” Turbo said while shaking the man.

“Taken…she is…chosen.”

“Chosen for what?”

“To be the sacrifice. Tonight, we summon the blood god, Shal-Thiggur. Her blood is needed to awaken him from his…” The man winced. “…eternal slumber.”

“Where?” Turbo demanded.

“In the middle of the compound. There is a refinery. It goes two floors down. There we have prepared the Hollows for his arrival.”

“Tell him that Turbo Ramone is his snooze button dicknose.”

“You cannot stop the ceremony. The whole coven is there, preparing for his arrival!”

The man wiggled free with an enormous burst of strength. Turbo cursed himself for loosening his grip enough to let the man talk. Again the man hissed and came at him, Turbo caught the man’s arm and neck, using a practiced Aikido technique, using his own momentum against him. Turbo spun him around, jerking his arm and leading him into a throw. There was a snap as the man’s arm popped out of the shoulder socket. And then he went into a dive. Turbo launched him with all of his strength across the room. The man landed in the middle of one of the many wooden crates that littered the room, smashing the top of it. Splinters erupted as the crate broke, from the sheer force of Turbo’s throw. The man looked up at Turbo, and the bounty hunter was ready to fight once more. The man-ghoul smiled, blood trickling from between his lips.

“You can’t stop it.” He smiled.

Hell I can't.

Then his eyes closed. Turbo looked down and saw a huge jagged piece of wood driven through the man’s chest, sticking up into the air, leaving a gory gaping wound. Turbo heaved his body towards one of the rising cultists, feigning a lunge. The kid cowered away, falling over himself to get away from the large bounty hunter.

“Get out now.” He growled “Anyone still here when I get back dies.”

Turbo left the room immediately, wasting no more time with the “initiates.” He made a path back through the warehouse, opening the door to the outside. The pale full moon loomed overhead like a searchlight. Turbo reached into a hidden pocket and pulled out a small electronic piece and clipped it to his ear. He pushed a button on the side of the earbud, and a small light blinked. A voice sounded in his ear a moment later.

“Turbo? What’s wrong?”

“Stone. GPS my car and wait an hour. Then call the fire department and send ‘em here.”

“Is there trouble?”

“About to be.”

“Why wait an hour?”

There was a moment's pause, Stone was about to repeat the question, but Turbo answered.

“’Cause I want it to burn.”

Turbo reached up and clicked a button on the earbud, ending the transmission. He then spoke into the earpiece, as he had walked the short distance to his car.

“Open trunk.” He said as he walked around to the back of the vehicle.

On command, the voice operation system sent the signal and his trunk popped open. He reached in and pulled a cover away, exposing a secret cache of heavy ordinance.

“Shady Tigger…” Turbo laughed. “Blood god, meet the fire god.”

4

More of the pale ghoulish weirdos were now out in the main cargo area of the compound. Three vertical bay holds were on the left, where trucks may have once came and gone. To the right were the hallways that Turbo had found the teenage dance party. Soul Train. Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. The party that he had pooped. Now he had another one to ruin, and if the few druggies he had run into that seem to be running the show here were any indication, they would not go down easily. That suited Turbo, he liked to do things the hard way sometimes too.

Let's see who's way is harder.

A dozen shadows flitted in between crates, boxes and junk, shadows that Turbo would have missed in the darkness, had his nightvision not been toggled on. He mentally captured and catalogued each movement, judging distances and assessing threat ranks. They had undoubtedly been given a description, and to their surprise had run into their quarry without trouble. There was no hiding or sneaking like they had expected, the large bounty hunter had come back into the warehouse, walking a straight path towards the center staircases. He was in all black, a cloak-like cowboy duster trailed behind him like he was the grim reaper. He was death, and not making any attempt to hide.

The first of the druggies felt brave and leaped at Turbo, perhaps feeling secure cloaked in the shadows and having no reason to suspect that the bounty hunter could see in the dark. As the man leaped supernaturally high and bounded a great distance towards the large man, Turbo raised one arm and revealed what he’d brought back with him. He wasn’t empty handed coming back in. A shiny black shotgun leveled at the falling creature, at an equal speed. The leaping creature had a split second to marvel at the human’s reaction.

One handed, Turbo clicked the trigger a half dozen times. This was no ordinary shotgun that he’d brought with him, this was a Benelli gas operated semi-automatic tactical slug slinger. The barrel erupted with flashes of light, six discarded shells clinked to the concrete floor. The roar of the spitting barrel sounded as one continuous eardrum shattering echo inside the closed quarters. Six slugs hit the leaper in the chest and face as he fell toward the erupting barrel. The concussion of twelve gauge slugs ripping through his chest, splitting bones like twigs, sent the leaper suddenly back in the opposite direction. Before the hole-filled ghoul hit the ground, another leaped up to take the bounty hunter by surprise. Turbo had his own surprise. He lifted another Benelli supernova tactical shotgun and brought it to bear with the same speed one would with a pistol. Even though the shotgun was longer and more unwieldy, he seemed to have no trouble carrying them one handed. They were made to reduce kickback for maximum accuracy. Three shots rang out from the gun in his left hand now, passing through the shadowy attacker and splitting open the front of a crate behind him.

Duel shotgun wielding, Turbo aimed the weapons independently, bringing the left one out in front of him and shifting the one in his right hand out further. More deafening shots rang out, and the flanking creatures paused their advance. The darting shadows were quick, and most managed to retreat back to the shadows. One was hit in the shoulder by a slug, and thrown backwards three feet into a wall. Before the shadow could regain his senses, Turbo brought one of the guns around and leveled it. A single blast exploded into the darkened warehouse, and hit the ghoulish creature in the head, where half his face exploded like a ripe fruit.

Turbo then emptied the rest of the payload into the darkness, to keep his attackers down, and off-balance. Quickly, he set down both weapons, leaning them against his waist and began shoving shells back into them from his pocket. His pockets were swollen with twelve gauge shells, the tactical military weapons could hold a maximum payload of twelve a piece. His hands worked fast, but he kept his eyes on the green luminescence all around him, waiting for the creatures to get wise and try to attack him as he reloaded. He was just about to click the last shell into the chamber when he heard a loud crack, like a hammer striking a frozen horse trough in winter. Though his ears were still singing from his own weapons, he still recognized the sound as a firearm, a specific firearm. Even as it registered in his brain that the sound had to be a large bore revolver, most likely a .357, or a .45, another two shots rang out. Turbo quickly dove for cover behind the nearest crate. He was pinned down, and he saw a shadow moving behind him.

The skulking man had long hair dangling in his predatory eyes, that much Turbo saw before the man slashed at him with talon-like fingernails. Turbo was quick to retaliate, and before the pale skinned shadow could react, Turbo whipped his shotguns and began using them as clubs. The black shotguns assaulted the man, hitting him in the face and shoulders a half dozen times. The man was not idle though, and took the punishment with a great deal of resiliency, even managing to swing his fists about, trying to stop his attacker. Turbo reacted quickly, parrying most of the blows with the guns themselves, and every blow was met with hard metal thuds. Turbo feigned, then kicked the man backwards, bringing both shotguns to bear and pulling the triggers twice. The slugs almost ripped the man’s body in half at point blank range. Surprisingly, the shadowy attacker was not dead, and he tried to crawl away while at the same time trying to hold his own intestines inside his body. Another two blasts rang and the body stopped moving.

The crate that Turbo had been ducking behind was riddled with holes suddenly, as the magnum punched through the wooden box four or five times. Turbo kept his head down and kept reloading until both shotguns were full. The fire ceased for a moment, Turbo wondered if the gun was being reloaded. He peeked through the holes in the crate, trying to judge the trajectory of the bullets. He looked up and saw a green blob in his nightvision on an operating platform. It was roughly the same platform that he had met his first supernatural druggie of the night. Another blast sounded, and almost took his head off, Turbo didn’t know why it hadn’t. Whether by luck or by poor aim, the bullet had missed. His face was showered with splinters and he realized that he’d made a terrible tactical mistake. There was another shooter on the platform that’d he’d missed, and they were taking turns shooting and reloading. Turbo was surprised that these cultists were using some form of tactics against him, and even as he thought it, he heard a few scuffles behind him. They were keeping him pinned down in front so that the others could surround him. Suppressive fire and flanking maneuvers, concepts above most street thugs’ ability to comprehend. There in the darkness, Turbo had a frightening flashback of a foregone time. He froze, suddenly stricken with visions superceded onto his consciousness, and it took a great deal of willpower to separate the fantasy from the reality.

Another two shots hit the crate and Turbo was now lying flat against the ground, facing the opposite direction. He could play games too. He feigned weakness for a moment, another shot sent wood chips raining down on him, and he heard the front of the crate begin to give way. He pretended to still be reloading. Sure enough, a few moments later, the shadows came up from behind, sneaking in closer and trying to flank him in the darkness. Turbo took stock of the situation in a heartbeat’s time, counting five green figures coming at him in the dark. His hands gripped tight around the cushioned pistol grips as they came closer.

Suddenly Turbo had both shotguns blazing fire into the darkness. The gas operated Benellis were the fastest semi-auto shotguns, showing no delay or drag between clicks of the trigger, and Turbo pulled them fast. Twenty-four slugs ripped a swath through the air in less than two seconds, faster then his attackers had time to react. It was a brutal field of fire, Turbo pulled the triggers so quick that he didn’t even have time to adjust his aim as well as he would’ve liked. Not that he was the greatest aim around anymore, not by a longshot. The slugs tore screaming paths through the air. Bones shattered, spines split, skulls broke, blood sprayed. Bodies limped and twisted, four fingers were severed, more blood sprayed.

Another few magnum rounds fired behind him, and he had to concentrate on his shaking hands as he forced them to reload one of the shotguns. The world seemed like he was underwater suddenly, as his ears closed up and went temporarily deaf. A mixture of deafening shotgun blasts and raging adrenaline had closed his ear passageways. He chanced one more look at the ledge and changed strategy. Instead, he reached inside of his coat, to another bulging pocket, and produced a hard, fruit sized object. He bit down on the cold steel ring, felt it come free in his mouth. With the strength of a major league pitcher, Turbo threw the object towards his enemies. He waited a moment, slinking back down behind cover as best as he could.

The world was suddenly turned upside down. A bright light that shined with sun-like intensity accompanied a roaring explosion. Turbo felt the thud from the concussion blast vibrate through his body. His chest and stomach felt the bass as the warehouse suddenly shook and tore open. The room was ablaze for a moment, then darkness settled back in. Turbo fired a slug at the platform as it fell in slow motion. There was a great clatter that seemed to shake the very ground as the platform crashed to the ground in a haze of fire and smoke. Turbo was already loading his second shotgun.

A moment later, the black clad destroyer strolled through fire and twisted metal wreckage, brandishing two long guns, ready for action. Though his head did not turn, nor did he pause to consider the sight, he took in and accounted the fact that both shooters had been incinerated by the blast. Turbo continued past the scene, and headed for the hallway beyond.

Before leaving the scene, just to make absolutely certain that every dumb sumbitch in the room is dead, another grenade gets tossed behind me for good measure. Fire, smoke, concussion, a particular smell that's hard to describe and heat on the back of my neck. The bodies are gone. Not shredded, like being cut up by an M-60, not burned, like a flamethrower, but gone. Just gone.

Then he saw a large room, and a staircase leading down, further into the compound. There were no more guards, Turbo’s shotguns had shredded any of the vampire-creatures that had dared venture away from whatever ceremony was taking place. What the shotguns hadn't completely destroyed, the explosions incinerated. Even now he could hear strange muffled voices rising to his ears from below the stairs. There was an odd harmonic rhythm to the voices, one that seemed peaceful and agreeable somehow. Turbo shook his head and spat on the ground, realizing the harmony was a chant of some sort. Whether the chanters were speaking in another language or just using muffled syllables, Turbo could not tell. He did however, hear and recognize one phrase that was beginning to grate on his every last nerve. The sound was like fingernails on a chalkboard, a circular saw squealing a path through sheet metal.

“Shal-Thiggur.”

I am so mad at that stupid name.

Without pause, he began descending the staircase, plunging into the darkness below.

5

They were waiting for him, laying an ambush, stealthing through the darkness. Then, to their surprise, they heard footsteps coming down the metal staircase. There were three of them, and they had been charged that under no circumstances, should this intruder be able to interrupt the ceremony. They stalked back into the shadows, waiting for the footsteps to come closer. They watched and waited.

Suddenly the man came into view. He was a large man, wearing a black trenchcoat, his features masked in shadows. He was walking carefully down the stairs, as if expecting the ambush from below. They did not want to disappoint. They waited for him to come a little closer, then, with a nod in the darkness, they sprang out from the shadows. All three reached the shadowy figure at the same time. They stopped, something wasn’t right. When they got close enough to attack the man, they realized that it wasn’t who it appeared to be. It was instead, one of their own, all three recognized him, he was simply dressed in the bounty hunter’s trenchcoat. The vampire was now shaking his head furiously at his three companions, and they realized that his hands had been tied behind his back. They received the warning a second too late. They heard a sudden sharp echo from a piece of metal tinking off the metal staircase, as something fell from above.

Old one. They still fall for it. Don't gotta teach an old dog new tricks when the old ones still work. Stupid $%@^s don't even realize what's happening until it's too late. Until they're wrapped in a blanket of fire. I can't hear it over the roar of the blast, but I laugh despite myself.

Then came another blast of fire and shrapnel. All four of the ghouls were torn apart from the impact, and the fiery blast purged clean the supernatural fiends from the stairs. Then another shadow walked through the fire and smoke, and the other two shadowy figures that had taken refuge from the explosion heard the footsteps coming closer fast. One of them stuck his head out to look, and a deafening twelve-gauge blast met his gaze. The head exploded in a spray of juices, but the undead body was still clinging onto its unnatural life. The bounty hunter reached the bottom of the stairs and kicked the headless body to the ground, where it lay convulsing unnaturally. The second ambusher reached out and grabbed the intruder by the throat, a smile playing across his wicked face as he sensed victory.

He comes at me hard. Wraps his hands tight around my throat, anticipating the kill, wanting nothing more than to squeeze his fingers together, crush my throat to mush. He wants it bad, wants to squeeze until my eyes pop out and shoot against the back of my glasses. Silly sumbitch doesn't even think to look down, or wonder why I make no attempt to stop him from reaching me.

He did not realize that the bounty hunter had played him, both shotguns were under his chin, and he never even heard the loud blast as they both went off. Staccato slugs split his head in half, brain matter splattered and oozed out the left side. Turbo continued down the stairs without missing a beat, passing the first floor and hurrying to the second. No one was there to stop him.

They're setting up an ambush, or they ain't got anyone left to try and stop me. One or the other.

Pausing for a moment to retrieve his fire retardant trench coat and refit inside, Turbo then walked through an open doorway that led to a long hall. He could sense the ambush, and his fast reacting mind began thinking where and how he would be trying to ambush someone coming down the hall. He heard noises coming from the other end of the hall, he continued carefully. To his surprise, he made it down the hall and to an open doorway at the end.

Lights flickered, presumably from candles. Turbo peeked in and saw the source of the chanting. There they were, just like the one had told him, at least twenty more of the ghouls gathered together. Turbo saw the girl along the far wall, and the vampire things were in a half circle around her. No, not around her he realized, there was something at her feet. It was a badly decayed skeleton, probably a hundred years old, or more, Turbo was no expert, but a simple guess said it was truly archaic. No ambushes now, just about twenty of the diehard creatures between him and his target. They must have thought that the last batch of their cronies would have taken him out. They were about to be surprised. It looked like a bad situation, but he thought briefly about a time in Minnesota…

Turbo walked down the staircase and entered the ceremony room. There were banners on either sides of the walls, proudly displaying antiquated symbols. The chanting stopped, most of the congregation turned to see the shadowy figure walking towards them quickly. Turbo walked with a purpose, there was no hesitation to his steps, nor was there any fear in his gait. Before they could group together any kind of action, Turbo leveled the two lightweight shotguns and began opening fire. The bright flashes from the barrels temporarily lit up the room more then the multitudes of candles. The slugs opened large holes in the undead, broke and shattered bones. One of the rear guard held up a hand to stop the bullets, a moment later the hand was severed. Turbo clicked the triggers as fast as he could, more than twenty slugs tore through the air, ripping the creatures apart. The bitter smell of brass and blackpowder filled the air, overpowering the smell of the candles.

Turbo clicked the triggers until the guns were empty, then dropped the shotguns to the floor. Before the vampires could rally together what was left, he pulled both of his handguns from his coat. The barrels went instinctively towards bodies and the triggers began firing. Now that the shotguns had thinned their ranks, there was a straight shot between him and the girl. He aimed down, not wanting to risk hitting her by accident. The barrels raised from the kick of the weapons, he continued firing at any piece of meat around him. Seven forty five caliber bullets emptied from each gun in the span of about a second. Now he was out of bullets.

A few of the undead ghouls did not or could not get up. It didn’t look like he killed any of them, but a few had trouble getting to their feet with shattered kneecaps and twisted and shattered shinbones. Most of them were now gathering their wits and about to lunge for the big man. The looks in their eyes said volumes about what their minds were thinking. Some were amazed that this man was still alive, some were awed by his audacity, to walk right into the group of them and open fire. Mostly they simply wanted to tear him to shreds. Turbo noted the looks and reached inside of his pockets.

A fraction of a second before they leaped at his throat, their acute hearing picked up the soft sound of two small metal objects clinking to the ground. The bounty hunter’s hands now had a firm grip on two objects. His thumbs had pulled the pins from them, and it was that sound that the undead had heard. He now held a grenade in each hand, and his face held no fear or hesitation.

“Who wants to party now?” Turbo asked.

The vampires now took a collective step backward, normally this would be a poor gambit, but this human seemed crazy enough to drop them and burn the whole lower floor from the face of the earth. None wanted to test him at that moment.

“You’ll never get out of this compound alive.” One of the creatures sneered.

Turbo took a bold step towards the speaker, holding the grenades out before him. The man stepped away in fear. None of the vampires could see the big man’s eyes, they were masked by his dark wraparound sunglasses, and an expressionless poker face. Turbo strode through the congregation towards the girl. She was tied to the wall, her face was a gathering of mixed emotions.

“Untie her or I blow this god thing’s bones to hell.” Turbo stated, guessing that was indeed what lay at his feet. He took a gamble that this Shal-Thiggur, whatever he was, had something to do with them. With a nod from a few of the robed cultists, one of them stepped forward to comply. With a slash of his claws, the girl was cut loose. She no longer looked at Turbo with hatred, but gratitude, relief. Was whatever spell they were keeping on her wearing off? The young girl ran to the safety of the big bounty hunter and threw her arms around him. He seemed strong, invincible at that moment, like a strong father to a small child. She noticed the earbud attached to his ear before any of the others did. It had a faint blue light on the side that was barely visible, save for the darkness.

“He won’t do it!” One of them growled. “He’s not going to kill himself!”

“He won’t kill the girl either!”

The girl noticed the earbud light up, signaling an incoming transmission. She was close enough to hear some of it, but didn’t quite understand what it meant.

“Deception course of action, Twenty three and counting.” Came the voice in Turbo’s ear.

Turbo took a few backwards steps, trying to bluff his way back towards the stairs before these guys got too suspicious. They began closing the semi-circle in, gathering closer to him. Turbo was an excellent judge of intentions, it came with the job, and he could tell that they were looking to each other, waiting for someone to make a move so that they could all dogpile him. They wanted to kill him, wanted to tear him to shreds, but wanted to make sure it was all right with the others. It would be any second.

“Run.” Turbo whispered to the girl. It took her a moment to register what he had said, he repeated himself again more forcefully. She took the cue a split second before the first one leaped, and began running for the stairs.

Turbo followed a step behind, he was now actually close to scared. His heart let loose a flood of adrenaline, surging to his limbs. If he punched one of them hard enough, the grenade could go off, and dropping them to fight was not an option either, they were not fakes, they were live and primed. They had finally called his bluff. Turbo turned around and threw both of the explosives as far across the room as he could. He leaped, grabbing Cindy in his large arms, wrapping them both in his cape-like duster, trying to bound up as many stairs as possible.

The two explosions were so close together that they seemed like one continuous blast. The whole world seemed to topple and turn upside down. Turbo was thrown five feet into the air from the hot wave that accompanied the fiery blast. It was a good thing he’d stopped to retake his flame retardant duster, without it, he and the girl would probably have been burned alive. But then again, he had begun to come up with the plan some time ago, as everything he did seemed a mixture of amazing forethought and on-the-fly reaction all at once. He tried his hardest to get to his feet and keep running up the stairs, he didn’t know how many, if any were still pursuing them. He couldn’t tell up from down for a whole minute, and ended up limping only two steps before he fell down another. The flames died down, the spots in his vision began fading and the ringing in his ears slowly died down to a continuous buzz.

“Ninteen.” Came a voice in his ear, it took a moment to recognize speech and register the words into his brain.

Turbo chanced a look over his shoulder and saw to his relief that most of the creatures had been blown apart it seemed. He watched for a moment in wonder as the floor began moving. Was his vision playing tricks on him? He squinted his eyes and stared, indeed the floor was moving. It was moving like liquid. Blood from all the shredded vampire corpses was flowing in one direction, defying all logical laws of physics. Turbo followed the blood with his eyes to determine where it was all heading. Then he understood with horror.

“GO!” He yelled at the girl.

Turbo forced himself up and moving, despite his cloudy vision and despite the fact that the ground seemed to be moving as if he stood on the deck of a ship. He forced the stars from his vision and with a strong hand, he guided the young girl back to her feet and together, they started moving up the stairs. The sight of the blood, all flowing in one direction, was still implanted on his vision. It was as if the creatures’ blood was all sentient, as if it was a colony of ants, moving with a single ambition, flowing towards the ancient skeletal remains in the back of the room. Turbo blinked a few times, trying to get the image out of his head, he had to have been imagining it all. It looked as if the blood was flowing towards the skeleton and the skeleton was reforming tissue around itself.

They continued to limp slowly up the stairs, as hard as he tried, Turbo’s legs would not respond to his commands as he wanted them to. It seemed as if the girl was in as bad shape as he was in or worse, her eyes were still glazed, as if waking from a terrible dream. He practically had to carry her up the two flights of stairs, and once they finally reached the top, he leaned against the railing for a moment, trying to catch his breath. He thought about how he could have handled this situation much better if he was still twenty-five, and able to rebound quickly from anything. His head was still swimming from the explosion. His ears were still ringing so loudly that he barely heard the sound of a voice in his earbud and when he did it seemed like it was coming from the bottom of a tin can.

“Sixteen.”

Turbo heard a noise coming from the staircase below them, an evil noise that brought goosebumps to his skin and a chill in his bones. It was the sound of laughter, but not happy laughter, and not from human lips either, it seemed as though there were two gelatinous voices laughing together in chorus. The voice carried up from below.

“You have destroyed my coven, my pawns, but I yet live again! I can hear the rats scurrying from the farmer, the disobedient children from the angry father. I will rip your life from your lungs and replace it with an unlife filled with eternal torment. Unable to live yet unable to die, every waking moment filled with unimaginable pain, you will scream for a merciful death. After a century or two, if you learn to beg well enough, I may grant it.”

Turbo rose to his full height, as impressive and terrible as he could manage under the circumstances, and did his best to put on his most ferocious scowl. He was a large man, used to being the largest in most circumstances he found himself in, or in the least, one of the largest. He slipped off his duster, and let it fall to the ground. He called out in a large powerful voice.

“Your mother. Your big fat ugly sweaty @$!%& suckin’, chicken dumplin’ eatin’ mother.”

The laughter stopped abruptly.

“You dare run your filthy, uneducated mouth in the presence of a god?”

Turbo began waggling his fingers towards his body, as if daring the vampire lord to bring his worst. “Bring your sorry ass up those stairs faster boy, I ain’t got all night! And I’ma whip your stupid ass back to whatever cheap “B” movie you crawled out of, go to the store, rent a copy of it, and smack you upside the head with it!” Turbo then addressed the girl quietly without turning. “There’s a black sportscar outside, along the west side of the building. Go out and wait for me inside the car. Whatever you do, don’t get out.”

She nodded blankly and scrambled away. Before she hit the doorway, she turned once more to look at the big man who had saved her from this cult. There was an unfathomably immense shadow coming up the stairs, engulfing him in its darkness. The shadow was not natural, and looked as though it had flailing tendrils of some sort that were going to reach up and wrap around Turbo. The bounty hunter stood defiantly, perhaps insanely, refusing to back away or back down. As the monstrosity drew closer, he began shadow boxing, throwing punches into the air, as if he were preparing for a heavyweight title bout.

6

The mass of gross comes at me fast. I was expecting it to be fast, and it still surprises me. The horrible tendrils shoot out to engulf me or to pummel me to death, something along those lines. I don’t even get a chance to fight back, I’m thrown through the air like a child standing in the ocean tides, all of my strength is like a match in a hurricane against this thing. I can’t tell up from down, left from right, its stronger then I have a chance of standing against. But then again, I knew that five minutes ago.

The tendrils dashed Turbo against the walls, even against the ceiling. They tossed him into the air only to catch him again, roughly, and shake him like a doll. They stopped before they killed him, and retreated without warning back to their source. In the initial attack, Turbo had not even seen that they had a source, they seemed to be everywhere at once, as if the room was alive suddenly, and attacking him. They disappeared back into a vaguely humanoid figure, that now took the final step up the staircase. The figure was lean, but impossibly tall. Turbo couldn’t tell if he was now hallucinating from the beating, perhaps from a concussion, but the shadowy figure seemed to be like nine feet tall.

“You will pay for your insolent tongue child.”

Turbo stood up, the tendrils had thrown him about the room, and he was now a good distance away from the slowly approaching figure. He was dizzy, and it took a moment for the room to make sense to him, but after a quick analysis, he found nothing to be broken or seriously injured. His legs supported his weight, though his churning stomach threatened to give out and turn the opposite way on him.

The new opponent, Turbo figured it to be Shaal-Thiggur himself, paused his methodical approach for a moment and cocked his head in amusement. The human was back on his feet and holding his arms now in a fighting stance. After the display of a slight amount of his true power, the vampire lord could not believe that this human was not running for his life. Not only did he not seem scared, he was actually holding his fists up to fight! Shaal-Thiggur chuckled at Turbo.

“The ant looks up to the human above and dares him to take a step. The human wonders if the ant could possibly comprehend the powers that he holds over the ant.”

“The ant looks at the human and tells him exactly what he thinks of him. With a gesture, the ant lets you know that you’re number one.” Turbo held out a hand and extended a single finger.

“How crudely amusing.”

Shaal-Thiggur stalked towards Turbo more aggressively now, taking impossibly long strides, crossing the distance between them quickly. Turbo made no attempt to move or dodge aside of the angry self-proclaimed god, nor did he stop making his finger gesture. In fact, he waved it from side to side a few times as the tall figure approached. The vampire lord was soon upon him, face to face, his displeasure was quite evident in his blazing eyes.

“The god swats aside the gnat.”

Shaal-Thiggur drew back a clenched fist and prepared to strike. Turbo lashed out unexpectedly, throwing one arm out to push back on the coiled punch while throwing a gloved fist into the vampire’s mouth. The vampire pulled his coiled arm away, but momentum was not on his side, Turbo applied pressure and body weight, and threw the nine feet tall giant to the ground. The vampire lord looked up with wide eyes, how had this human managed such an incredible feat of momentum?

“The god talks too &%!#$@^ much.” Turbo replied.

The vampire lord let out an inhuman roar that shook the room with deep bass. A tendril shot out, wrapping around the bounty hunter’s leg, lifting him high into the air. Shaal-Thiggur calmly rose to his feet and regarded the man hanging before him.

“You certainly are an interesting opponent, let me…”

“Take this tentacle and #$@% yourself with it!” Turbo interrupted angrily.

Turbo was flung across the room as the tendril shot out, its grip was like iron. Before he knew what was happening, he was smashed through one of the many wooden crates, a shower of splinters rained across the floor. The world was upside down and he felt his momentum reverse suddenly. There was a sudden shock of pain as something impossibly solid hit him. He couldn’t tell but he imagined it was another of the creature’s strong tentacles, the world spun violently for a few moments before he felt the sudden irresistible tug of gravity. Turbo fell to the ground hard, it felt as though something broke under him, but whether it was a box of some sort or his own body he could not immediately tell. He looked up with a great deal of effort and saw the tall figure looming above him.

Turbo rose. His knees popped and he felt a sharp pain in his back, like he had been struck by a burning whip. The vampire threw a sloppy punch at him, though his head was swimming and he could hardly make sense of the movements, he found his trained body reacting faster than the speed of thought. Turbo moved around a punch, using an Aikido move he manipulated the punch aside and struck the creature in the face with a quick elbow. It was like striking the hull of a battleship, and though he had put over two-hundred pounds of force behind the blow, the giant didn’t even budge. Turbo was swiftly rewarded with a retaliatory blow to his face. It felt like being hit by a truck.

Before Turbo could even fall backwards, a tendril grabbed him from behind and once again, he was sailing through the air. The movement stopped, Turbo looked around and saw that he was dangling upside-down a good ten feet above the floor. He flexed his abdomen and bent in half, grabbing hold of the tentacle with both hands. He pulled himself upright, but before he could attempt to take control of his situation, another appendage wrapped around his body from behind. The creature below him laughed. Turbo did the only thing available to him, fifteen feet above the ground, he opened his mouth and bit down on the shadowy tentacle. It tasted like sour tuna.

Shaal-Thiggur squealed in rage and in the blink of an eye, the tendrils flung the bounty hunter across the room.

“Still a great deal of fight left in you? I’ll give you a small amount of credit worm, you have more willpower than most humans I have ever seen.”

There was a sense of weightlessness; Turbo imagined it felt much as it would floating in space for a moment. Then gravity took hold once again and he smashed to the ground with a force unlike anything he had ever felt before. He tumbled uncontrollably, and felt boxes and debris crashing around him. Rather, he was crashing through them. His thoughts briefly wondered back to a motorcycle accident he had survived fifteen years ago. He remembered the feeling of sliding and tumbling across the pavement at sixty miles an hour, the helplessness of the feeling, and thought it to be favorable to what he was now experiencing. Sharp pains bit him all over as jagged metal, shrapnel and splinters stabbed and sliced his body.

A moment of silence. Turbo was now sure that he had suffered a concussion, his vision was blurry and doubled, and things that he saw were confusing. He tried to sit up but couldn’t, his stomach churned and he felt as though he was about to retch, though from dizziness or pain he couldn’t tell.

I try to get up. I try and try but can’t. I feel as though I’m at the bottom of a pool, with weights chained to my limbs. I’m having a bad dream and no matter how hard I try, I can’t lift a finger, can’t force myself up and awake. My arms weight seventy pounds apiece, my legs, twice that. I’ve come out of car accidents and felt better than this. It would be so easy just to give up. Just give up and let him win. Why keep fighting anyway, what’s the point? I think, just give up and let him win, why not? But then again, I think, #@$% him.

Turbo managed to roll aside, sluggishly, and dropped out of sight behind the boxes and crates. The vampire lord seemed amused, he waited a moment before making a move.

“How interesting. You wish to play child games. The wounded rabbit ducks inside of a hollowed out fallen tree to lick his bloody rends. The hawk circles above, flexing his sharp talons, measuring the next strike.”

Still suffering from a concussion that clouded his thoughts, Turbo could barely understand the words that echoed across the still warehouse. Worse still, he could not tell if the next few moments of his life was a hallucination or not. It would be months before he even remembered the strange hallucination. Somewhere in the tumble, Turbo’s sunglasses had fallen off, his eyes no longer saw through the green illumination of his nightvision. Still somehow he saw light in front of him and squinted his eyes against the darkness to make sense of it. It was a distinct shape, a glowing outline, an animal.

A tendril came crashing down into the crates, smashing and scattering them, reducing them to scattered fragments. Again, the strong appendage came down, but Turbo had managed to move, and both times it came down well wide of his position. Turbo rolled through the debris and ducked inside of another crate, he heard another sharp crack as wood shattered a few feet to his right.

“The rabbit hides but soon realizes that it is fast running out of room. The rabbit is quick, even though it is wounded. The hawk circling above sees all and has a much greater range of motion soaring above the earth. The rabbit realized that it has no place to go.”

Turbo saw the glowing outline move in front of him. At first he was on guard, thinking it to be an attack by his supernatural opponent but as his eyes began to slowly uncloud, the shape began to register in his brain. It still made no sense, it was indeed a glowing animal. Turbo thought back to his childhood, his father’s old world teachings. He realized that he was looking upon a totem spirit, a fox, even though he never believed in them. He heard a buzzing in his ear and remembered the earpiece.

“Five, Turbo, five!”

Turbo smiled, he remembered the countdown. He crawled out from the crate, ducked his head low and ran through the warehouse, staying behind the boxes and crates. He heard more wood smashing a moment later, he imagined it to be the crate that he had just been hiding in, but that could simply be fancy. He saw a large shadow twirl through the air as if the large object had simply lost weightlessness, before it came crashing down again with an ear-splitting shatter.

“You can’t hide rabbit! You can’t hide from me!”

Turbo felt something wet on his face. Small drops, like rain. He wondered briefly if he had suffered brain damage worse than he could imagine, it was utterly impossible for rain to hit him inside of the warehouse. Turbo ducked behind a metal support pillar and raised his fingers to the liquid he felt on his face. He looked at his fingers and cringed. It was not water, no water that he ever seen was such a crimson color. He looked up, feeling the drops fall on his face and realized that it was raining blood. He heard the creature in the dark warehouse laugh maniacally, and let out a deep sigh. This was supposed to be an easy job. That’s what Turbo had thought, this was supposed to be an easy job.

Turbo heard a swift noise and saw a shadow flitter in the darkness impossibly fast. He realized that the creature was now flanking him, and growing closer fast.

“The hawk prepares for a dive. Come to me rabbit!”

The tendril came in fast and smashed a box to the bounty hunter’s side. Turbo darted out quickly and grabbed it with both hands. With a mighty heave, he pulled on it, catching the vampire off guard. The tall figure stumbled ahead clumsily, and met suddenly with an outstretched arm, with two-hundred and sixty one pounds of force behind it. Turbo leaped into the air as he clotheslined the villain, and as he landed, he rolled quickly back to his feet. He heard a growl escape from the downed ghoul.

“Who’s hiding dicknose? Come get some!” Turbo replied.

The vampire lord was back on his feet in a flash, faster than the human eye could track, and three of the shadow tentacles shot out and pinned Turbo to the wall. The wall did not give and he collided with a tremendous amount of force. The air was blasted from his lungs and his legs went numb and tingly for a minute. Turbo feared that his spine may have shattered. His earpiece fell and went sliding across the ground, his hand shot out to grab it but it slipped through his fingers. He knew the countdown was close enough, it was time.

“Such an insolent fool!” Shaal-Thiggur snarled. “Look up at the talons rabbit, look up to the hunter and see death swooping down upon you!”

Turbo saw one of the shadow tendrils now shaped in a point, like a long blade and it hovered just above his face. Turbo looked down to the earpiece, it was out of reach, he knew he was in trouble. He stretched his arm out, though the strong appendages kept him on his feet and he knew there was no way he could reach the small object blinking on the ground. The tendrils held him fast to the wall as the creature stalked towards him, no matter how hard he pressed against them, they refused to move. Turbo’s clouded mind was racing, trying to figure out a way to retrieve the object. Something warm filled his mouth and he spat it out, blood, and not the stuff that was unnaturally falling, it was his own.

That can’t be good. The coppery taste makes me want to throw up. I got one final gamble, I’m gonna let it all ride on this jerk’s arrogance.

“Dare ya to say that to my face.”

“Excuse me?” The vampire lord’s voice bordered on incredulous, he tried to stifle his amazed laughter.

“Clean the #$%@ outta your ears dumbass, I said I dare ya to say that to my face.”

“I have lived for thousands of years. Whole civilizations have thrived and crumbled on my command, my breath sent thousands out into the field to die for my glory. A fraction of my power could burn all of Rome at its height. I could crush you with but a thought. What insanity possesses you to continually mock me rabbit?”

“Deez nuts jackass!”

“I’ll crush you with my bare hands!”

The tendrils dropped and Shaal-Thiggur shot forward, hands outstretched. Turbo ducked low, gathered his remaining energy and launched his entire body weight into a tackle. His shoulder hit the creature’s abdomen and they both fell. Shaal-Thiggur screamed in rage, but Turbo was no longer paying any attention to the supernatural menace.

Stirred up the hornets good this time. He’s really pissed. He wants to kill me worse now than anything else he’s probably ever wanted in his entire unnaturally long life. He’s not gonna waste any more time, he’s gonna go straight for it. No more long winded speeches, no more idiot talk about hawks and rabbits. Whatever. I could care less now. My fingers reach the earpiece, I feel it in my hand. I also feel his rage, terrible and powerful, like pissin’ off an elephant. I think again about giving up, the scream that escapes from him shakes the room like a thunderbolt. But then again I think, %$@# him.

Turbo tried to scramble to his feet but was slapped repeatedly by the tendrils and the giant’s closed fists. Shaal-Thiggur had beaten him to his feet. The blows rained down like steel beams, like concrete blocks crashing into his face and chest. Turbo felt his cheek bone break, his collar bruise, his eye socket shatter. The tendrils shook him so hard that his teeth rattled, felt as though they would shake loose. He bit down hard on his tongue, once again feeling the coppery taste of blood inside his mouth. All the while he concentrated every muscle he had, every bit of willpower he could muster, and stubbornly held his fist tightly around the earpiece he had scooped up when they both tumbled. He wondered if he’d bit the tip off and hoped he didn’t. The thought of stitches inside of his mouth was unpleasant. He tried to spit the thick liquid out but was shaken roughly again, and it instead oozed out the corner of his mouth.

The imposing vampire lord slapped Turbo against the wall again, and the bounty hunter felt his brain rattle. The ghoul was shaking with rage. He punched his fist and Turbo managed somehow to dodge his head aside, barely escaping from the blow. The vampire’s fist punched a hole in the wall, shattering bricks where his head had just been. Turbo somehow managed to open his mouth, though he could not find breath, though his tongue was swollen and his mouth was numb, though he felt as though he was fresh from the dentist, mouth full of novacaine, he rasped to the vampire, his voice barely above a whisper and badly slurred.

“Do I get lath worths?”

The ridiculous statement gave the enraged vampire pause. He regarded the broken and badly beaten human with amusement for a moment. Then he replied.

“You continue to amaze me fool. For a thousand years I have not met a fragile bag of meat with such daring, such audacity. Caesar himself in all his ambition was not as stubborn as you. I’ll grant you last words, though I assume you’ll waste them in a pointless insult.”

Turbo shook his head.

“Very well, continue.”

“I juth wanted to say…” Turbo clicked the transmission button on the side of his ear bud. “Bye-bye Athhole.”

Bye-Bye. Before I came back in blasting with the Benellis, I made a short detour. I found a large box in the back of the car that I’d forgotten about. Kinda stupid actually, really dangerous, if I’da had an accident… “Bye bye”, the phrase was pre-programmed to send the electric charge through the air and detonate the seven pounds of C-4 I strapped to the outside wall.

The explosion was deafening and turned the whole world upside down. It was strapped to the opposite wall, the blast was too far away to blow the creature to bits, but then again, Turbo was aware of that. Debris rained down on them and the vampire lord laughed at the human’s final attempt.

“That was quite pathetic.” The tall ghoul laughed as the rumbling began to die down. “Inventive, but pathetic. You’re final ruse failed, you must have known that I was too far away for that blast to do any damage.” Shaal-Thiggur mused.

“Yeah, the blasth wasthn’t meant for you, goonfaith. It wasth sthrapped to the outsthide sthupport beam.”

With a shudder and shake, the wall gave way and tumbled, shaking the very ground as it came down. It brought a slight fraction of the ceiling down with it, and by the time the vampire god realized Turbo’s ploy, it was too late.

It’s probably been so many years since this pansy ass creature has been among the living, he’s “slumbered” for so long, waiting for his followers, his worshippers to resurrect his stupid body, he couldn’t help but showing off. He couldn’t help but flexing his muscles and showing off how superior he was to me. In all of the confusion and fighting, the jackass got so wrapped up in his amusement in toying with “the fragile meatbag”, his arrogance, in showing off his powers, he had lost track of something vital. Time. For all his years and powers, he’s still a dumbass.

The morning sun shone in through the new opening that the fallen wall had created. Spears of brilliant morning light shone through the smoke and rubble. The spears of light stabbed through the warehouse and fell upon the vampire lord. The creature squealed and hissed, letting out terrible inhuman noises as his skin began to smoke and bubble. He fell away from the bounty hunter and tried to scramble away, but found his rapidly melting feet to be glued to the ground. Turbo looked into the enraged monster’s eyes.

“The hawk swoops and realized that it was not a rabbit he was stalking but a fox. The fox waits, lets the hawk get close and attacks. The hawk melts like chocolate cake in the hot sun and screams about it like a lil’ girl.”

Turbo peeled his pain-wracked body from the wall and drew back his fist. He punched the squealing monster in the mouth hard, and the ghoul’s jaw fell off from the jolt of the blow. The squealing turned into a gurgle, he was knocked off his feet and landed on his back. Turbo walked across the room, temporarily disappearing from the melting creature’s sight. The vampire lord’s eyes stared up as the bounty hunter loomed over him. Turbo put his sunglasses back on.

“All the power in the world, so much better than me. Could crush me with a thought. You forgot the one thing that an Indian has that a crazy ten foot vampire god can never…ever…have.”

Shaal-Thiggur looked up with wide eyes, his body was quickly turning into a puddle of burning goop, but his face was the last thing to fully melt. The last thing the creature saw was the bounty hunter standing over him wearing his wraparound sunglasses, a smile creeping across his bloodied lips.

“A tan.”

* * * * *

The sudden explosion had split the early morning like an earthquake. With a shudder, the warehouse compound was unleashing a huge outburst of black smoke into the air, and it was beginning to fall in on itself with a rumble that shook the ground. Cindy looked towards the warehouse, and her eyes went wide with surprise. She had half-expected to be stranded out here, but now she thought otherwise. The large dark bounty hunter came out of the building, against all odds, and calmly walked towards her, as if escaping the situation he had just come from was no big thing. Maybe it was not, to him, maybe he had seen worse, though that hardly seemed possible. But there was something in his demeanor, in his purposeful stride, that was at once humble, but also foretold of a power, a great strength. She opened the passenger side door and took a step out to look at him. He crossed the distance quickly to his car, and spoke to her as he neared.

“Thanks for not running. I’ve had a bad night.”

It was almost comical how casually he said it, but there was no hint of frustration in his tone. She found herself nodding, with a strained smile on her face. He unlocked the doors with a word, and told her to get back in. She did not refuse. She began to climb inside, she caught a strong odor, and realized that she had a lack of room in the expensive sportscar.

“You have a gas can in my seat.” She observed plainly.

“Set it on the ground. There’s room.”

Cindy did so, and climbed in with the gas can at her feet. The big solemn man started the car, and one of his large gloved hands went to the shifter.

“Why the gas can anyway?”

“Long story.” He replied casually.

“We’ve got a long ride.” She answered.

“Let’s just say I ran outta gas once, and it’ll never…” He glanced her way briefly, his eyes masked by his dark wraparound sunglasses. “…ever…happen again. Bottom line: worst experience of my life.”

This seemed almost funny to the young girl, after what he just went through, how could he consider anything else worse than that? Her curiosity was peaked now.

“Tell me about it?”

“Don’t even wanna think about it. Ever.”

“Come on, we got like an hour drive back to town.”

“Not the way I drive. Twenty minutes. Tops.”

“No way.”

“Took me nineteen to get here.” There was no joking in his tone.

The young girl glared at him, pleading with big doe eyes. He tried to ignore them for a moment as his attention was focused on the road, the black land missile pulled out onto the street. She finally looked away, staring out the window in quiet indignation. A long moment went by, he shifted gears again, and a long sigh escaped from under his black moustache.

“Rainsburg.” He said suddenly in a deep powerful voice that didn’t mean to be so. She imagined that if he’d set his mind and his voice into intimidating someone, he could make them truly afraid. There was a relaxed nature there though, that almost seemed approachable, like a big teddy bear. For this moment at least.

“Rainsburg? Never heard of it.” She replied.

“Good.” His voice was serious. “Rainsburg.” He repeated as if remembering a truly terrible experience. “It all started with a red blinking light…”