Night Strike

  "Jerry Healy," Miller and Stone said in unison, "Has to be."

  "Probably," Kat shrugged, "Whoever he is."

  Mason shook his head, having the most memories of any of them, he didn't know what to think about this. He knew better than to be surprised, but annoyed just the same.

  "This is insane," Mason said, "Isn't it, Mike?"

  "I'm not arguing," Miller shrugged, "I got to see Tracy again."

  A.J. Durell pulled out a cigarette and lit it up, walking over to the others. Mason walked over to him, glad to see someone else with cigarettes.

  "May I?" Mason asked, "It's been a long time…"

  "They smell terrible," Medoferro said, "What are those?"

  "An old way to give yourself cancer," Karen said, "Or the wasting sickness, as you know it."

  "Sounds dreadful," Medoferro shuddered, "I think I'll pass."

  "We all die sometime," Durell shrugged, "How are you, Mason?"

  "Fine, A.J.," Mason said, shaking his hand, "Have we actually met?"

  "Not directly," Durell told him, "I've heard about you though."

  "Same here," Mason shrugged, "Damned if I know where from."

  "We all know each other a little," Glen Strader said, "We've all be talked about together more than once."

  "Starts the ears burning, doesn't it?" Chris Gabriel told them, "I hear my late unlamented brother is in the other room."

  "Cavorting with Elise," Karen nodded, "I got that from Corrie Albiston."

  "I'm amazed Corrie didn't go apeshit," Miller said, "She still carries the scars."

  "No scores to be settled tonight," Nick said, "Even Freddie Pena is here, but something tells me it wouldn't do to start a battle."

  "This is a strange party," Durell said, lighting Mason's cancer stick, "I'll give you that."

  "Whoa," Kat said, slipping next to Durell, "Did you see what just walked over by the couch and kicked the dog?"

  "Aleksandr Timonchenko," Durell said, "Man, he still looks like someone out of Night of the Living Dead."

  "They didn't bother to clean me up," Timonchenko said, "Freddie Pena still has a Honda Civic emblem imprint on his ass."

  "That's what you get for being bad," Durell chuckled, "I have no regrets. I should have killed you the first time."

  "Then you wouldn't have had her," Timonchenko said, pointing at Kat, "I'm the reason you ended up in Finland."

  "Not the place to discuss it, boys," Kat said, looking around, "I think we've been gathered for a reason."

  "You've got that right," Medoferro said, "Someone has taken a lot of trouble to put us all in this room."

  "And make us all speak the same language," Karen pointed out, "Medoferro should be speaking a dialect foreign to everyone other than Mason and Myself."

  "Ok," Chris said, "We're here. So what do we do?"

  "I think we should go pay a visit to the back rooms," Mason suggested, "I have a feeling that they will be an educational experience."

  "I'll pass," Timonchenko said, "It's bound to just piss me off some more."

  They all watched as Timonchenko shuffled off, readjusting the wooden spike that was in his chest. Karen shuddered and looked over at Mason.

  "I'll go if you will," Karen said to Mason, "Or are you chicken?"

  "Could be fun," Mason shrugged, "Who else is going?"

  "I am," Miller nodded, "Chris?"

  "Why not," Chris Gabriel shrugged, "I think we should all go."

  "I think most of us need to," Durell said, "I just feel compelled to go back there."

  "I'm in," Medoferro said, "No reason not to, really. Whatever powers brought us here can do what they want to us at will."

  "Strader?" Mason asked, "You coming in?"

  "I'll pass," Strader said, "I need to keep herd on my team, and I don't have the same burning need to go back there."

  "Everyone believes in their own way," Medoferro shrugged, "Let's go."

  Chris Gabriel, Mason and Karen Stone, Mike Miller, Nick Jones, A.J. Durell and Kat Pekarininen walked into the next room to see what was going on in there. They stayed as a group because it just felt more natural that way.

  "Whoa," Nick said, looking around, "I take it this is where the people who weren't so lucky ended up."

  The bedroom looked like something out of a horror movie. Corpses in various conditions sat around, but they all looked like they were partially alive as well. Some were fleshed out, some were only a splatter.

  "Welcome to the hall of the dead," a familiar voice came, "I wondered when you would show up here."

  "Come on out, Elise," Miller said, "The theatrics do not suit you."

  "They would have had you not denied my immortality," Elise Steel said as she walked out with a young man on her arm, "Don't you recognize what you have all created?"

  "You were the corpsemaker," Mason reminded her, "Right along with your young friend there."

  "So this is how you turned out, dear brother," Jerry Healy said, the burn marks from the bullet hole on his head still there after all these years, "Pathetic. You never knew…"

  "I was right," Chris smiled, "You were not even a movie of the week."

  "I would have been," Elise snarled, "Had it not been for all of you."

  "I didn't have anything to do with it," A.J. Durell said, "But I am definitely not going to argue the point."

  "Argue all you want," Elise said, "Look around, for this is what you have wrought."

  "You sound like a bad novel," Karen said, "We didn't do this. You two killed many of these."

  "But only because you needed an adversary," Jerry said, "Do you think I would have gone the way I did if you had not been there to try to stop me?"

  "Exactly," Elise smiled, her eyes cold and dark in death as they had been in life, "I was there to challenge you, to gain my immortality. An Immortality that you denied me!"

  "Immortality is overrated," Mason muttered.

  "Immortality is something that you have all achieved," a voice said from behind them, "Each and every one of you."

  "I'd like to know how," Durell said, "My knees deteriorate by the day. That doesn't stink of immortality."

  "I am immortal," Mason said, "Don't tell me that they share my affliction…"

  "Not in the same way," the voice continued, "You all share this particular affliction, however."

  A large man walked out of the shadows and looked around the room. The biggest thing they all noticed about him was the sheer ordinariness he exuded. They could perceive little from him.

  "Who are you?" Medoferro asked, "Why do I know you?"

  "You know me because I am you," the man said, looking around, "You are parts of me as well."

  "Are you the creator?" Kat asked him, "You know…"

  "For you, I am," the man shrugged, sitting down, "That's all I need from you, Elise. You and Jerry can go enjoy hell together."

  "I'm not done yet!" Elise yelled, "Not by a…"

  "Yes you are," the man said, snapping his fingers, "Jerry, escort her, will you?"

  Jerry looked at the crowd with hate, but did as he was told. The assembled crowd thought it was strange that Jerry took orders from anyone, but this man had something about him.

  "There is no god," Miller said, "If there was, Tracy would not be dead."

  "For you gods don't matter," the man said, "The stories follow you. You make them as much as I do."

  "My entire life was ruined by that monster in the other room," Chris said, "You could have stopped it! Why didn’t you?"

  "I could have," the man admitted, "I could have made your lives a utopia."

  "Then why do you torment us so?" Mason asked him, "Immortality is a serious bitch."

  "Look at your lives," the man said, "Look at your personalities. I may have been the spark that created you, but you made yourselves what you are. I merely enabled you to become what you were always meant to be."

  "Alone, in pain?" Mike asked, "I asked for this? I didn’t ask for Tracy to d
ie!"

  "Of course you didn't," the man said, "Medoferro didn't ask to become The Mullinix. A.J. Durell didn't ask to have to go through that Finnish Rebellion and lose his friends. Chris didn't ask for Jerry to lose his marbles. Mason and Karen didn't ask for immortality either."

  "That's for sure," Mason said, "So if you have this much control why did you do it?"

  "Because I could," the man said simply, "Because you have all done and been things I never could. Without you I would have gone insane years ago."

  "That still doesn't answer it," Durell said, "Why?"

  "Because utopia is boring," the man said, looking them all in the eyes, "You would not be anything like you are if it had not been for all the things you have gone through."

  "Would that be a bad thing?" Karen wondered, "I mean… Of course it would. We'd be boring otherwise."

  "She gets it," the man smiled, "I could have made life easy for you, but then I'd never finish what I started. You have made my life interesting."

  "So much pain for you being interesting," Chris said, "I don't think it is worth it."

  "You guys would go nuts sitting around like I do most days," the man said, "You are my method of avoiding that. You keep me interested, so you continue to exist. We need each other. Without me you cease to exist, without you I lose my will to exist. It's a symbiotic relationship."

  "So we all are here because we need each other," Durell snorted, "That's rich…"

  "Don't complain," Kat told him, "At least we're together."

  "But Tracy…" Mike said, "I guess it fit the tone of the time."

  "Nobody wins in a situation like you were in," the man agreed, "No one at all."

  "Much like life," Karen grinned, "That's why we are the way we are as well."

  "Flexibility is the key," the man agreed, "Now there isn't much more for me to say and I'm tired of making us say it. Why don't you all go join the party?"

  There was no argument, mainly because the author was tired and had said enough for one story. Everyone filed out and rejoined the party. The man watched them and watched the page.

  All was as it should be. His characters were tucked inside his mind, waiting for the day they would be needed again.

  The Crazygal

  This is a short freshly written for this compilation. It is also Krista's prize for winning a trivia contest I did on LiveJournal while this book was in production.

  For the record, Krista requested that she be made the villain of this story. The rest of the elements are fictional, products of my warped imagination.

  I figured I should at least write a couple fresh shorts for this compilation, so this is one of them. I hadn't done a good Nick and Corrie short for a bit, so they get another go round trying to capture the Crazygal.

  Ahh, Livejournal… I haven't even logged in there for several years now. I've turned out to be rather lackluster in the social media space. This one was fun to write though, I do seriously need to do some more Nick and Corrie shorts before I start another large project.

  -Rodney Mountain 7/30/11

  Chapter 1

  The blonde woman looked around the field, her ice blue eyes darting about looking for her target. She was annoyed and it showed in her facial expression as she walked out.

  "Come out come out wherever you are…" she said, a bit of mischief dancing in your eyes, "I'll find you…"

  Her target, a young man who was barely clothed, darted away from her. He had barely gotten out of the car with his life, something that annoyed her very much.

  The woman was not going to give him an inch, however, seeing his pasty white body against the dark background. She was in much better shape than he was and fully clothed as well. The lack of shoes was what really allowed her to catch up.

  "You don't know how to have any fun," the woman said as she caught up, "Come now, let's have some fun!"

  "You tried to kill me!" he yelled.

  "Yep," she agreed as she caught up and tripped him, "That's how I have fun."

  The young man took a header into a small pond, hoping that he'd be safe from her. She went in right after him and pulled him up, shoving him up against a nearby tree.

  "Why?" the young man whimpered as she brought up her knife.

  "Because you don't deserve to live," the woman said, her ice blues penetrating into his brain, "That's why."

  She leaned in and kissed him softly, her tongue dancing over his lips as she buried the knife in the young man's stomach, feeling the blood spill out over her hand.

  Without so much as a second thought she washed off her knife and her hands in the pond and headed back to the car. She pushed her hair back, the moonlight glinting off of it as she cracked her neck and drove away from the scene of the crime.

  Chapter 2

  Nick Jones' old car sputtered as it came to a stop outside of town. As usual there was a glut of crime scene tape and blinking lights by the time they got there. Corrie Albiston pulled off her seatbelt and climbed out of the car.

  "Isn't Miller trying to get us a new car?" Corrie asked him, "That thing is about to seize up and die."

  "It's old, but it has a few more miles left in it," Nick grinned, patting the dying car, "At least twenty at any rate."

  Corrie rolled her eyes and started walking over to the crime scene. Nick chuckled and followed along looking at the country area that he was not used to seeing.

  "Why are we here?" Nick asked Corrie, "This is out in the sticks."

  "The city line is a half mile to the east," Corrie said, "This is the section the city annexed two years ago."

  "Great," Nick said, "Still should be handled by north side."

  "It fits your profile," a detective said, "That's why we called you. You guys are the experts on this, are you not?"

  "Thank Sleeping Beauty for that," Corrie muttered, the memories of that psychotic woman coming back to her, "Think this is the same one who left the other bodies this week?"

  "M/O fits," the detective said, "We've left things as they were found for you."

  "I think that's our cue," Nick said, "Let's see if it's our friend again."

  Corrie nodded and they walked over. The body was still half submerged in the pond, but it was easy to tell what he had died of. The smear of blood on the tree helped show it.

  "Large knife," Corrie said, "Probably the same as the others."

  "Looks like the Crazygal again," Nick agreed, "Ok, we need pictures of the whole area."

  "Already done," the detective said, "We were waiting for you to eyeball it."

  "Make sure you don't dunk him," Corrie said, "She usually kisses her victims. I want a solid link."

  "It won't help unless we can find her," Nick sighed, "We have a connection, but no actual woman."

  "It's a woman doing this?" the detective said, "Isn't that unusual?"

  "Not unheard of," Nick said, "But uncommon."

  "DNA proves it," Corrie agreed, "Send the pics to our office. CSI can handle the rest of the mess."

  "Wait," Nick said, "Look at the ground."

  "Footprints," Corrie said, "Cinderella… I love you…"

  "Have CSI make casts of those," Nick said, "Thanks."

  Chapter 3

  "Ok," Mike Miller said, his feet up on the desk, "Dazzle me, guys."

  "A lone female," Nick told him, "Blonde hair, naturally so. She gets men alone and kills them with a large hunting knife."

  "Any relationships with the men?" Miller asked them, "Any common ground?"

  "She's random," Corrie said, "The only link is that they are young, somewhere between eighteen and 28. All on the small side, probably so she can overpower them."

  "How does she get them?" Miller asked them, glad to see his best team was as sharp as ever.

  "No set place," Nick sighed, "We have five corpses now, all from different sources. No rhyme or reason to it, just murder."

  "I swear," Miller said, "If I didn't know better I'd think that Elise Steel
e was back."

  "Don't even think that, man," Nick shuddered, "I don't think anyone could be that destructive."

  "This one does one at a time," Corrie said, "There's also no public contact. Their thrill is in the hunt, not in the publicity."

  "See if CSI has anything," Miller said, sighing, "Hand off anything else you had cooking to Marcus. This is your only case for now."

  "Right," Nick said, "What did we do to you?"

  "Hush," Corrie grinned, "We're good at it."

  "Oh yeah," Nick said, "There is that."

  "Now go prove it," Miller told them.

  Chapter 4

  The blonde woman rinsed her face off in the battered porcelain sink in her bathroom. She massaged under her eyes a little to help with the dark circles caused by staying up too much.

  "Krista!" a male voice yelled, "Where the hell are you?"

  Krista pulled her blonde hair back again and put on a smile as she walked out to meet her husband. The malice was almost gone from her eyes as she came out to meet him.

  "I'm here," she said, "What do you need?"

  "A cold beer," he grunted, "It was a long goddamned day."

  "We're out," she told him, "Your paycheck bounced and I couldn't get groceries."

  "What the fuck do you mean I'm out!" he shouted angrily, "Go get some!"

  "No money," Krista said, spelling it out for him, "What do you want me to do? Go turn tricks to get you some beer?"

  "If that's what it takes," he grunted, "No beer, smartass wife, what a fucking miserable night."

  "Miserable husband," Krista mumbled, "I'll figure out how to get some beer."

  "See that you do," he said as he went over to her, "Now you know what you need to do to make up for it."

  "Not tonight," she seethed, "I said I'd get you beer."

  "Beer can wait," he said, unzipping his fly, "This can't…"

  Chapter 5

  "This is insane," Nick said, looking over the notes, "There's no reason for this."

  "You know what Gabriel taught us," Corrie said, "The reasons don't tend to make sense."

  "I swear," Nick grumbled, "I hate serial cases."

  "Name me someone who likes them," Corrie grinned and slid over next to him on the couch, "If it weren't for the fact that we were both on the Sleeping Beauty case we'd have never gotten together."