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  Black Water

  S. D. Rudd

  http://www.StephonRudd.com

  Copyright © 2012 Rudd Books

  All Rights Reserved

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  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  PROLOGUE

  “IF WE KILL him now, wouldn’t that take away our advantage?” Duran Huntley said. “We need leverage, you know.”

  He watched Sylvain Ambrose stare at a green blip on the monitor, torn between silence and another challenging question. Only few could ever challenge Sylvain. Most would’ve dropped to the floor before they even knew a silencer was pointed at their temple.

  “I’ve never seen anyone like him,” Duran continued. “Everything. He’s withstood everything we threw at him, even ploys that would have disarmed any dangerous man.”

  No response from Sylvain. Instead he stood arms folded, motionless, fascinated by the green blip. As if it was going to morph into something interesting. Perhaps it was? Either way Huntley hated being ignored. He was glad to be standing behind him. Duran did not want to see Sylvain’s facial expressions right about now.

  Seeing how that didn’t interest him, “What about the girl?” he said. “Is she really a necessary asset? We’re carrying the wrong packages. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes what has happened.”

  Sylvain released a barely audible sigh. “You speak like an idiot,” Sylvain said.

  Duran was getting to him. Now he pressed at his own luck. And safety. “He even escaped the Nest.”

  Sylvain looked sideways at him for the first time. Before then he hadn’t so much as glanced Huntley’s way to see who else had stepped into his quarters with him. “You’re sure.”

  “Twice. He has no memory of it, though. Each day he ends up back in it, which proves he’s forgotten.”

  The hint of shock registering on Sylvain’s face caught him off guard. It was uncharacteristic of Ambrose to not at least have run pass a fleeting probability. “How is this possible?”

  Duran shrugged. “He’s Superman, I guess.”

  Sylvain’s grunt told him the venomous creature was not impressed with the sarcasm. He switched gears.

  “So, what do you want me to do?”

  It took Sylvain a moment to say with nonchalance, “Call Mathias and order the hit.” Then he returned to the green blip on the oversized monitor.

  “Are you serious! You’re gonna do it anyway?”

  Without taking his focus from the monitor, and with absolute care, “Samuel holds the documents. Samuel has the device. Samuel will not release them unless force is applied. Therefore, Samuel must die. Simple mathematics. One day you will learn the art of calculation as I have.”

  “Sir…”

  “Do you recall what happened to my assistant a couple of weeks ago, Mister Huntley?”

  He did. All too well.

  “He was my nephew. I cared deeply for him.”

  He got the point. “I’ll call him right away, sir.”

  “The whole family.”

  Duran froze in horror but he knew better than to question him again.

  “Is something the matter, Mister Huntley?”

  Huntley hesitated a moment. “No…no, sir.”

  “Then send a crew over to these coordinates,” he said, pointing at the green blip.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It infuriates me to know that you and your men failed to locate this animal,” he added. “A bullet should be through your inferior thinking device even as I speak but I prolong that gesture in hopes that you will somehow locate redemption. There’s nothing more burdensome than an assistant incapable of fulfilling his only role.”

  “My deepest apologies, sir. We swept the whole restaurant but his body was not there, I swear, and we heard sirens coming so we had to get—”

  “Save your ineffective speech. Just get over there before it disappears again. We must find him before he…”

  Sylvain stopped dead. At first Duran thought the man had heard something within the facility. But when he looked at the monitor he knew that was not it. Then he realized that the orders to send a crew over would be changed.

  The green blip on the screen.

  It was gone.

  Again.

  “I’ll send a crew over to those coordinates.”

  Sylvain threw up a hand, back still against him. “Too late for that now. He’ll be expecting something.”

  “You think he knows what happened?”

  Sylvain hesitated. “If he doesn’t he’ll be well on his way to finding out long before we can get there.” He turned to face Duran and took a step into the light, revealing his terrible scar that ran down the right side of his forehead, through his permanently half-closed eye, and three inches into his face. It was the first time he’d noticed that Sylvain wasn’t wearing his eye patch. Ambrose must have been peeved even before Duran entered the room with an unwise interrogation.

  “Calculations, Mister Huntley,” he said. “He’s not a fool. He’ll know soon enough. The last thing we need is to lose more men. Not now. But, soon, everything will come together.”

  “How?”

  “It would appear that the mouse will always take the bait if the right bait is in place, even after realizing the trap. It’s something about lure that shrinks the judgment of the greatest of minds.”

  Sylvain seemed pleased with that thought. He turned to face the monitor again. The green blip had not reappeared.

  “I calculate him taking the bait, Mister Huntley. He will. I calculate him coming for it and I calculate him taking it…then we’ll take him.” He mulled over it a moment. “Yes,” he finally said. “Calculations. Simple mathematics.”

  ONE

  I’M A KILLER. That’s what I do. I’m not a hit man but if I was I would be the best. Never have I murdered out of emotion. Rage. Or contract. Serial, vengeance or for any other pointless reasons.

  But I may today, if I can ever make it through without interruption. Out of vengeance, though. Bad reason yet good at the same time. Sometimes people touch the wrong things, things that are close to your heart. And sometimes good people do evil things to make sure that doesn’t happen ever again.

  That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it? It’s not my intent to be bad. I just want to be free…and I have less than twelve hours. Most of what I’ve done was motivated by survival. Or protection of one outside of myself. Many have died trying to infringe upon the both of these.

  God only knows what they put in me.

  I am Alan Charms…my name is Alan Charms.

  About ten years ago I was kidnapped by some unknown men and sent to a place called the Nest, a place of which even a vague memory of it escapes me. They say I was missing for only two days but in that world I’ve been there two and a half years. That world has taught me some unusual abilities that
I sometimes have trouble accessing but maybe it’s to my benefit.

  I’m stronger.

  More dangerous.

  Many have died at my hands but none of my friends and family knows about it because I’m naturally gentle. I’m only twenty-five.

  Black water.

  There’s something I’m supposed to remember about the black water. Don’t drink it…don’t touch it…something. I just know it’s powerful. Poisonous yet electrifying. I’m a man. A small amount of me thirsts for that power but I know it’s wrong; unlike me at all. There’s something evil about that water and I should run from it.

  Or at least taste it.

  This world is taking my mind, she would say.

  I have to get out of here before I lose myself again. Monica. She is my only concern. Locating that doomsday device should be priority one but Monica has taken that place. A world without her would be comparable to vast earthen desolation.

  Have to remember all of this stuff. Camille needs my help. My father is in trouble. Two-thirds of the people in this world are scheduled to die in less than two weeks and they don’t even know it.

  My head is starting to spin, like at the black river. Did I drink it? Did I touch it? I can’t remember.

  There’s something powerful about that water.

  I’m dying slowly and I don’t know why but I know there’s a cure and it’s not at the river. My vision just turned red, thermal heat vision, and I’m not even angry in the least bit.

  Something is wrong.

  Something is terribly wrong.

  It’s only a matter of time before…

  TWO

  “ALAN.”

  He heard a gentle male voice that soothed him. His muscles relaxed at each ripple, baritone, yet soft and breathy tone. When he first heard his name Alan’s stomach fluttered. Then it hit him. He knew this voice. But how?

  “Alan,” he heard again. His body twitched, coming to life. Blood flowed into his toes and his fingertips, restoring his warmth and feeling. His nostrils popped with an air that filled his lungs and stimulated his imagination. Fragrance. The fragrance he now smelled was of frankincense. He didn’t know how he knew that but he was familiar with this experience too.

  As he lay there on the ground, he assumed, his eyes remained shut out of exhaustion. The vortex had sapped every ounce of his strength. Yes, it was the most exhilarating field trip of his life, possibly of any he would experience ever again. But it left him drained and, like jetlag from an inbound flight from Honolulu to Dulles after an eight-day retreat, he was determined to lay there for a while.

  If possible.

  “Alan,” the male voice said, more melodic this time. Yes, he knew this voice; he was sure of it. “Alan. Alan, can you hear me?”

  I can.

  “Do you trust me?”

  I do.

  “How long will you love me?”

  Forever.

  “And always?”

  Even in death.

  “Then get up!”

  THREE

  THE STEAM FROM the bubbling vat the tips of his toes swung dangerously close over got to him. In the back of his mind, Alan was running escape scenarios as if his situation were not impossible enough.

  Both his wrists were clamped together over his head with an impressive chain wrap that could have forced a polar bear into a fatal submission. The stench from the putrid steam choked his breathing, filling his lungs with a thick pain unimagined before he was dragged through the white forest.

  And hung here.

  To die.

  What fusion was to take place? Alan never heard the rest of the conversation before blacking out. A shadowy man stood in the darkness and watched as his assistant, who followed orders through intense tears, perform every order slipping through his lips, his eerie low rumble of voice stilling the room with terror on every syllable.

  Something about fusion; something about transformation.

  Something about death.

  Days ago Alan would have thought this were all a dream. Days ago…it was. Today it didn’t seemed like it. Not at all. Or tonight. If there was a night. If there could be a day or a night in a world that didn’t exist except for within the imagination. He was not living, he was dead. Not physically. Not yet. But soon. Yes, soon.

  Soon enough. Maybe tomorrow night; maybe after his feet disappeared inside that boiling black vat in the basement of what appeared to be an old wooden house. He was a freak but only in this world. This world. What was this world? Alan still struggled with that one. She had told him once before yet he’d forgotten.

  Again.

  Nothing could have prepared him for any of this. Hanging over his death, waiting to transfer into the afterlife and losing his motivation to writhe free from those chains after three long days of intense resistance.

  The feeling had long left his arms. Both his eyes were half closed up. His torso was snaked by the thick chain all the way down to his ankles and the back of his head was matted in a sludgy substance Alan feared was old blood from the unforeseen heavy blow back at the river. The room was getting darker but the lighting had not dimmed.

  His eyes.

  It was his eyes.

  The windows into his soul, also the ones to the outside world, were wearing down. Dying. His vision was dying. He was dying.

  Fast.

  Someone called his name. But it wasn’t a voice. More like an echo. Inside his head. A soft deep voice sounding like many oceans colliding…calling him.

  Alan?

  Nothing could save him from these chains.

  Alan?

  Not even the voice that reached out to him from nowhere.

  Alan?

  So he hung his head, loosened his frame, and stop fighting for air. If it were his last, Alan would resign to taking it. Exhausted, he gave up fighting…for his life.

  Alan…do you know who you are? Alan?

  He had an answer for that one…no.

  Alan…do you know who I am?

  He had an answer for that one too…no.

  It’s not time to remember this. Get up. You still need to get up…and run!

  FOUR

  SHE STOOD SILENTLY at the bottom of the steps and stared into the darkness. At what she’d hoped to God was the front door. The only way she knew out. Every other exit was nailed shut. She didn’t have time to pry or kick anything open. In seconds, she would be dead.

  Or worst. Right back in that room.

  Shackled to the cold, splintery floor. Writing in her journal.

  Her journal. She must have lost it…but where? Outside. How? Fear. That‘s how; that’s what she felt. No, terror. And nothing would make her move. Nothing!

  Not even the evil clacking of thick talons along the aged wooden floors from upstairs. Behind her, above her. Creeping an inch. Hesitating a moment. Then creeping another inch. Like whatever it was searched for its prey. Shrewd, that’s what it was. Sly. It moved with an absolute caution and quietness. So quiet that chills riddled every part of her bones. Slow. The beast moved so slow. Yet she knew from the encounter at the river that it moved in a blur, its strength unsurpassed and its cunningness frightening.

  It was thinking of something, scheming. She felt it, as if it already knew where she was but savored the ecstasy of pursuit, somehow transmitting an unfamiliar force that seemed to engulf her entire petite frame. An aura, its presence. She had never felt such a force. Terrifying enough to make her want to break into a dead sprint through the white forest, yet her body felt an eerie fondness of the beast. Like she wanted to turn back to safety but her subconscious knew that would be a mistake.

  Bondage, was the word that kept entering her mind. She was in bondage. But she couldn’t help wanting to stay there even with the knowledge that her life was slowly coming to an end. Power. This strange attraction to fear, this adamant desire to go find it before it found her and applied punishment…was its power. It was how it got ahold of her in the first place. That and curiosity, thrill se
eking. Deception. No, she was not going to move. Not with it on the prowl. She’d made that mistake this morning in the woods, her last escape attempt, after she thought it had gone back to its abode as it did every morning before dawn.

  The woods. Where she’d lost her journal, the journal she’d written in daily to keep her sanity. The pursuit from this creature had made her lose it. In the woods. And she needed that journal. Bad. It was not supposed to be there yet it was. Somewhere. In the woods. Away from its home. In the daylight? And, maybe it was the lightning speed the creature exhibited, maybe she was too out of her mind to pay attention to such details, but she never saw it coming.

  She never saw it.

  Like it had temporarily blinded her, yet she could see everything else. Trees, brushes, dark withering grass. Everything. Or like it had moved much too fast for the natural eye to perceive.

  She didn’t know.

  All she knew was that foolish escape attempt had resulted in a painful lashing she would never forget, that and the loss of her journal! Yet…she couldn’t remember the lashing at all, she couldn’t even remember being thrown to the ground or losing hold of her sacred book. If she was thrown to the ground. She just remembered waking up with a thick, bold scar stretching six inches down the inside of her right forearm.

  One of nine others along her stomach, back and thighs. Oddly, there was no blood, fresh or dried up. And the scars on her body had all healed overnight. Except for the one on her arm, this still throbbed with an abnormal amount of pain. Yet, somehow, she was used to it.

  Someone else might have been doubled over in complete immobilization. Not her. No, she had gotten used to the struggles, the torment and the stench of sulfur in the air whenever the creature drew near. Her struggles, a torment. How long had it been since she’s been free? She’d lost count after four…months. But she had to escape now. It was her last chance. Not because she was going to die, but because she didn’t have any nerves left to try again.