Intro
The house was empty with quietness, people sleeping, perhaps snoring quietly. Nothing moving, not making a sound……or so it seemed…… Next door was a different story, the Crush's house… One person sleeping, the rest armed and dangerous… The sound of glass breaking, and they enter… The one person sleeping is now awake, but too late… They have already found what they want… A vague, uncanny, 14 year old boy… His name? Perhaps the neighbors knew, but at the moment their mission was to retrieve the boy and bring him back…
He stood alone on one side of the room, while five others were on the opposite… With grizzly smiles… The man on the far right was in his mid- 40's perhaps the eldest of the bunch, a scar was across one of his cheeks, it stretched from about his temple to his lips, almost as if one side of his head was cut off. He was smiling with teeth that looked like they hadn't been brushed for years and eyes that had the fires of hell in them, and the man's hair was a dirty blond color, but you couldn't really see it in the pitch- black of the night. The man next to him was also horribly ugly, but had eyes that he could look at you and you'd feel his eyes burning into your skin, he was a bit chubby for his line of work, but unfortunately that didn't slow him at all. But the next person next to him was a woman, very lean, but not like anorexic skinny, but so thin that it almost looked as if she was about to break in two, because her head was too heavy.
The person next to her was another man, who could have passed as Satan. Everything about him was unnerving. His eyes intense through the blackness, and his posture crippled looking, hunched over himself, like a hook. Expressions creepy, like spider webs, like there was another side to that smile that was more than just evil. The man next to him was strangely almost normal looking, except for his face. It seemed as if he was in a car crash and the doctors that were supposed to fix his face, seemed to get the pieces of his face a little crooked.
Anyone who would have ever met this group was doomed to death, even before they did anything to them. Jake being the lucky person that he is, was now standing in front of them. The satanic man swiftly came at him with an atrocious smile and a laugh that was astoundingly horrific. Jake moved out of his path and zig- zagged in front of and behind the others. Fortunately for him he could see fairly well and knew his house adequately. He ran up his stairs to his aunt's room. The person pretending to being his aunt was a person by the name of Eliana. She was someone hired by the same agency that had hired Jake, the one that almost got him killed 2 times in the past 7 months. His parents died, and were spies working under the same people. How they did it for 14 years without him knowing and without going completely insane, he would never know.
He burst through her door and locked the door behind him. His house began locking its self down. His house was programmed to do this in case of emergency situations in which this counted as one. Eliana was standing there petrified expecting Jake to be one of the others. She had never been in these kinds of situations, unlike Jake who had been in these more than any fourteen- year old would ever know. But he was still in a panic just as anyone else would have been.
"You alright?" Jake asked panting.
"Yeah, I think so." She replied backing away from the door.
Jake ran a hand through his black hair and thought of something.
"What do you have?"
"What do you mean?"
"Anything, gadgets, string, tape?"
She reached into her pockets found nothing then looked around.
"Never mind, we don't have time."
All of a sudden there was a loud thump at the door.
"That won't hold them for long… We have got to find a different way out."
"I've got an idea…"
"What?"
"We should-"
"Don't explain-" There was another blast but this time it was a gun, and the bullet almost ended up in Jake's head.
"I'll follow…" Eliana said lowering her head.
Jake went to the door in the left corner of the room. He paused right before he opened the door, and ran a hand through his hair. For some reason running his hand through his hair relaxed him and brought him into deeper thought, because his mom used to do the same. Eli was right behind him afraid that they might shoot through the door again. Someone looked through the hole in the door, it was the woman. Jake saw this and took the blanket from Eli's bed and stuffed it through the hole. Jake went to the other door and opened it but didn't go through it.
"What're you waiting for?"
"I'm thinking…"
"Hurry it up!"
That voice reminded him of the man who had hired him. Very impatient and when you did what he wanted he just gave you more to do.
"Shut up" He said sternly, but quietly.
"What?!"
"Shut up!" He said a little more loudly.
She pouted. Even though she was at least 10 years older than he was, she still acted like a little child.
He went to the other door and opened it as well, and ran through it. He went to another door that was already open and ran through that one. He jumped over a balcony that went down to his living room and waited for Eli to jump. He caught her and set her down roughly and tore away the metal grate that went to his fireplace. The man with the scar had also jumped down with them. Jake threw the metal grate at the man's face, but didn't wait to see the outcome. He shoved Eli into and up the chimney, but turned around to see who was nearest to the chimney. Beside the scarred man there was the chubby man who was coming at him. Jake charged at him and they both clashed. They both went for each other's necks. Since the chubby man was just about Jake's height they grabbed each other's necks and began throwing each other about. The scarred man intervened to get some revenge for the grate. Jake quickly let go of the chubby man's neck with one hand to punch the scarred man. The strike was a success but what he doesn't notice is that the satanic man was above him on the balcony about to jump on top of him. The chubby man struggled losing breath just as Jake did, but kept him under the satanic man. But just as the man was about to jump, Jake threw the chubby man in to the stick woman and ran up the chimney. All them ran after him getting their guns out.
"You alright?" Eliana asked following Jake to the edge of his house.
"Yeah, fine." Jake coughed from the soot and the choking, still trying to catch his breath.
There was a momentary silence as Jake backed up and ran toward the edge of his house, not showing any signs of stopping. He leaped across the space between his neighbor's house and his own house.
"Are you insane?! I'm not going to jump that!"
Jake jumped off the neighbor's house and went under his house while Eliana prepared to jump. The people came up the chimney slower than they wanted to but got to the top and shot just as Eliana jumped. The bullet had met its target. Jake saw her as she fell. He caught her, but the bullet had gone all the way through her head from the back. She had a surprised look permanently pasted on her face. Jake closed her eyes and set her down carefully. Then he ran his hand through his hair again. Upset he picked her up again and started running. He ran for the city, for the agency. He ran with all the fury he could, which was surprisingly fast. Faster than any of the others could run. The satanic man reached for his tranquilizer gun. Jake ran for cover with her still in his arms. He went behind a house that he didn't know and found that he had run behind the wrong house. A Rottweiler was sleeping lightly, unchained. Slowly Jake backed up, but it was no use, he woke the dog up anyway. Jake ran faster than he had been before to narrowly escape the snapping jaws. The dog strangely sensed that Jake wasn't going stop running so it went for the group of horrendously ugly people standing still, waiting to be chewed on. The woman shot the dog in the head with a look of disgust. The satanic man loaded the gun slowly waiting for the opportune moment to shoot. He raised the gun slowly, aiming.
"That bugger's fast! Goddamn it!!!"
He shot and missed. The woman was now short in patience and decided to give it a go. She raised her arm with crisp movements, as if her arms were metal. Another shot was fired, and Jake fell forward.
"He's not that fast." She stuck her nose up to show that she was more dominant.
But Jake got back up as they walked forward. Still carrying Eliana, now she was heavier than he could carry because of the sedative now in his blood. His vision began to blur and he began to run slower and slower it seemed to him. His body wanted to drop Eliana, but he wouldn't let go. He started losing control of his body that was going into a downward spiral. He continued to run toward the city, but everything was now one color. Out of the distance, he saw lights. Even though his mind was getting slower, he knew exactly what they were. Police, someone was alerted when he had jumped on the neighbor's house, and they had seen what happened to the dog and they had seen that they were trying to capture Jake. Jake thought that if he could keep away from the cretins that called themselves humans he could possibly have a chance at living. But he soon felt hands clasping him, he pulled as much as his body would allow, but the police cars seemed not to move. He dropped Eliana and fell unconscious.
* * *
He woke lethargically. Opening and closing his eyes to adjust remarkably bright light directly over his head. He was bound in chains behind his back. He was slouching uncomfortably in a sturdy wooden chair, and tried to sit up to get a bit more comfortable, but it didn't help much. He must have been sitting there for quite a while because his muscles were very stiff and settled in the position he was sitting in before. He stretched his arms, perhaps for future use. He looked around still squinting. The room was plain, cement walls, no furniture, and no color what so ever. The door could have passed as part of the wall, because there was no color to it either. But the room was also falling apart, with crumbles and holes in walls, and dents in the heavy metal door. And the chair itself was beaten up, and obviously used before. He couldn't hear much, only the bloodcurdling screams of the torture that was taking place here. He could tell that he might soon join the chorus of screams of those in dreadful pain.
His eyes were now adjusted to the unneeded light, and could now see that there were video cameras, in all the four corners of the room. Surely if they tried that hard to catch him they would be watching him carefully. They were probably sending someone or a group now, and sure enough he heard a few men yelling indistinct orders. Jake looked up, wondering if there was a god, and noticed that there was a head brace that wasn't on him yet.
"In here!" A familiar voice shouted.
Jake looked back at the door, and shivered. Not because of the temperature, but because of the shear fear and nervousness of what was about happen. The door opened with a screech that was like nails on a chalk board. Two men stepped in the room. The first was none of the others he had seen before, short, fat, strange hair cut and moustache under his pointed nose. The second was the satanic man that had shot at and had missed, not that it would have made a difference. For some reason Jake smiled, to show that he could be their worst nightmare. The satanic man smiled back trying to outdo him, but the short man, had seen this confidence and didn't smile. Jake prepared himself for the worst that he could imagine.
"You, Jake Crush, have disturbed me and I wish not to take long to dispose of you, and if you give me the information that I want, perhaps I could make your death a little less painful."
Jake said nothing, but the smile had disappeared from his face, and so had the satanic man's.
"My God," he paused, "I didn't know that Americans had stooped this low, to bloody children!" He chuckled, and so did the satanic man.
Jake kept his mouth shut; only because this didn't offend him, he knew how good he was.
"Although you did give quite a little chase…" He stopped smiling.
This comment made Jake give a little bit of smile, but more of a smart smile.
"I'm sorry that the rest of the team couldn't show. But this man, Mr. Slade, did have enough time to see the end of you."
"No, no don't worry, 'cause you aren't going to see the end of me… Not today."
"Glad to see that you're confident in that thought, but you know you're going to crack. You're a brainless and meaningless child."
This did make Jake a little angry, but he didn't show it. He had been trained well enough to avoid showing weakness.
"So if I'm brainless, how do you think I jailed the president, how do you think I took down one of the biggest gangs in the U.S. and how do you think I gave your blockheaded beastly people a run for their money?"
The short man was temporarily quiet. He looked as if he was in deep thought. He gave the man/beast called Mr. Slade a strange look. Mr. Slade gave a stronger look as if to signal the shorter man that he was still in front Jake. The man all of a sudden turned back to Jake.
"You're brainless because every time you got caught and you're here, rather than the police station. Isn't that right?"
Jake sat there not knowing what to say, because in a way he was right. Jake stood down and allowed that comment/insult to pass, and stopped staring the stubby man in the eye. Jake sighed loudly waiting for something to happen.
"So, what do you want?" Jake finally asked after a long silence.
"I'm so pleased you asked that. Brace him."
Mr. Slade went around behind Jake to put a brace around his neck and forehead. Jake never liked being braced there was always something very bad going to happen if there were braces involved.
"You are going to behave yourself whether you like it or not." The compact man said getting uncomfortably close to Jake's face.
Jake hadn't struggled up until this moment, but this man was insulting him and standing irresistibly close. When he knew he couldn't reach the man, he stopped and sighed again. Anxiety was building and soon he was going to burst.
"What I want from you is quite simple; I want to know as much as you know about your agency."
Jake swallowed hard. The man already knew that he didn't know anything. All the man wanted was a reason to hurt him. Jake refused to look into the man's eyes even though they were a mere few inches from his face.
"No." Jake answered simply, seeming to get more confidence, or enough to look in the man's eyes.
The man laughed so loud it was enough to hurt Jake's ears.
"Why don't we persuade him Slade?" The man said still having a broad smile.
Slade reached from around the chair and grabbed a hold of Jake's shirt, and tugged harshly ripping his shirt off. Slade chuckled as he stuck little suction cups all over Jake's torso. All of them had wires connecting them to a machine that was behind him. Jake started breathing heavily as the runty man backed up. He also felt more being stuck to his back. Oddly the man was right, Jake felt as if he was going to throw- up and in the process tell them everything he knew. He fought with himself wasting precious seconds that could get him out of this situation. And out of nowhere something bust through the door.
It was the odd women from the chase, "Your guests are here… And they claim someone was following them."
The man looked almost disappointed as he whispered into Slade's ear. After a short moment Slade looked back at Jake as the short man walked out with the woman.
Slade started taking off the suction cups, and as he took the last one off he said, "The guests are more for you than they are for us. Behave as I unbrace you or I will make you behave."
He sat still knowing that he wouldn't be able to get out anyway.
"Good boy, now stand up and go to the door."
He stood up obediently but didn't go to the door. In the back of his mind something was telling him not to do it. Slade got up and stood in front of the door.
"Nothing is going to happen okay?"
But out of nowhere a chatter of bullets exploded and went through the door killing Slade instantly. Jake's eyes widened but went back to normal quickly hearing rapid footsteps approaching.
He looked at the electrical machine that Slade was about to use on him, then at the chair. He looked around for something else, then took the chair and shoved it under the door handle trying, to buy himself some time. Then he took the machine and connected the suction cups to the door and turned the machine on. He backed away from the door, looking around again, trying to keep himself from hyperventilating. He looked at Slade on the ground.
"Come here…" He rasped almost inaudibly.
Jake submissively went to Slade.
"Take this, protect it with your life, don't die before…" Then he passed.
Jake closed Slade's open, dead eyes and looked at the object that Slade had given him. But he didn't have time to because the intruders had gotten to the door. He pocketed the object and shoved the chair again, for it had come loose. Though he had been trained for these kinds of situations, he had no idea what to do. He had no secret panel in the room, no vents he could crawl through. Nothing. He dragged Slade away from the door and put him up against the wall in front of the door. He searched him further, trying to find something to work with.
He found a switchblade and a pack of gum and cigarettes. Someone tried the doorknob and he heard the man cuss a torrent of angry words as he pulled away. There was a low rumble of steady voices and planning as he got Slade on his back. Another thing that Slade had on him was a smoke bomb. It all worked out (somehow) perfectly.