Highway 41, Katina
"Of course, today of all days, it had to rain on this part of the planet."
Mike O'Donnell rubbed at his violet eyes and let out a yawn before reaching over and taking a sip of coffee from his thermos. Part of him regretted not simply taking an in-atmosphere transport to Kepler College in the Katinese capital of Atvar.
What had firmly set the canid's mind on driving had been some words of advice from his father.
"Son, this is the best time of your life. Take a road trip and have some fun now, before you have responsibilities. Before you give me and your mom grandkids to spoil."
Mike let out a small chuckle before focusing back on the road. On either side, the plains stretched for miles. Normally arid just like the vast majority of the planet, they were getting a rare deluge.
To an outside observer, Mike would be mainly dingo in appearance, right down to his sandy-brown fur. However, his tail was bushier and his ears were more pointed, indicating that he had some lupine heritage. For clothing, he wore jeans, a red t-shirt, and a black leather jacket.
The canid squinted as he saw a shape on the side of the road and eased off on the gas. As he got closer, Mike could make out the silhouette of a Volkman Scarab sedan on the side of the road.
Noting that the Bug's lights were off, Mike began to wonder how it had ended up there.
"Must've broke down," he mused aloud, "Or ran out of gas."
The canid remembered the billboard from several miles back warning southbound drivers that this was the last gas station for a number of miles that he could no longer remember. What he did know was that even though he was on three quarters of a tank, he had still topped up.
Better to spend a few extra credits than endure an endless amount of lectures from his parents and an endless amount of teasing from his twin sister.
After squeezing his eyes shut briefly, Mike drove past the Scarab. For a fleeting second, he thought he saw something through the sedan's window, but couldn't make anything out through the rain.
"Just my imagination."
A few more minutes passed before Mike spied another shape in the rain. Only this was no car, it was a person. Said individual had their arm outstretched and their thumb extended.
Mike briefly tossed the mental coin before turning on his signal and pulling over to the shoulder.
"He's gonna get fucking pneumonia out there. And I need someone to keep me awake," the canid thought as he watched the figure run towards his car.
Once the hitchhiker had reached the passenger door, Mike hit the unlock button and watched as the other person quickly clambered into the car.
"My mother told me never to do this," Mike said in a joking manner before pulling back onto the highway.
His newfound passenger didn't respond, but merely let out a sneeze. He was reptilian in appearance, but aside from green scales and what were clearly crocodilian features, Mike could not pinpoint the other man's species. For clothing, the hitchhiker was wearing a black leather jacket, a white shirt, and brown jeans.
"Two hybes in a car," he thought as his eyes flicked towards the two thermos' in the drink holders.
"You can have that one if you want," Mike said while pointing at the one in the passenger side holder, "It'll warm you up."
"Thanks," the lizard replied before picking up the thermos and taking a big swig.
After the reptile was finished, Mike held out his hand.
"I'm Mike O'Donnell."
The reptile's yellow eyes narrowed before he extended his own hand and shook the canid's.
"Eugene Clegg."
Something felt off to Mike about the handshake. Clegg's hand felt cold and clammy in his, though the dingo-wolf hybrid was quick to mentally shrug it off.
"Well, he was stuck in the rain."
A few minutes passed in silence before Clegg murmured, "I'm getting your ride wet."
"That's alright," Mike replied, "I bought her secondhand."
Clegg let out a grunt and took out a pack of cigarettes, causing Mike to wonder how he had managed to keep them dry.
"May I?" asked the lizard.
Mike simply nodded. Plenty of his friends had smoked in the old Rapier, and the canid was fairly certain that the original owner had been a smoker.
There was the click of a lighter before Clegg took a drag and without being prompted by Mike, lowered the window slightly so he could blow the smoke out of the car.
Another few minutes of silence passed as Mike drove and Clegg smoked. The reptile would end up taking a final drag before shoving his spent cigarette out the window and rolling it back up before turning his gaze onto Mike.
Feeling uncomfortable about being scrutinized, the canid glanced over at his passenger.
"Why're you looking at me like that?"
A corner of Clegg's snout turned up in a grin before he answered, "You've got your father's eyes, kid."
Even though he had been told that many times in his nineteen years, hearing it from Clegg gave Mike a bad feeling. Bringing his attention back to the road, the wild dog attempted to change the subject.
"So, where're you going anyways?"
"Wherever you're going, kid."
Nodding, Mike continued, "That would be the next rest stop. It's all I can do not to nod off here and now. You're probably looking to grab some shuteye too."
"I don't need sleep," Clegg dryly replied.
His curiosity now in overdrive, Mike ventured, "Well, if you're not gonna sleep, what are you gonna do?"
The canine's question prompted a bout of laughter from Clegg. Laughter that was making Mike feel even more uneasy.
"What's so funny?"
Clegg leaned back in his seat before replying, "That's what the last guy said."
"The last guy?" Mike asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"Yeah, the guy in the Scarab," Clegg deadpanned.
"I didn't see anybody in there," Mike retorted.
"Oh, he was there. Couldn't have gotten very far."
Fighting hard to keep his face impassive, Mike asked, "Why not?"
Clegg's lips skinned back from his teeth in a wicked smile.
"Cause I cut off his legs. And his arms. And his head."
The reptile turned towards Mike.
"And I'm going to do the same to you."
The canid's eyes widened in fear and he froze in place. His mouth moved, but no words came out. Then Mike broke out of his stupor and went for the compact blaster in his jacket's inside pocket.
He wasn't quite fast enough, for Clegg threw off his seatbelt and crossed the distance, grabbing Mike with one strong hand and pressing a switchblade to his throat with the other.
"Eyes on the road, kid," the reptile growled when the car started to drift into the other lane.
Once Mike had corrected course, Clegg frisked him, soon taking hold of the blaster and making it disappear into his pocket.
"Where's your commlink?"
"Wha… What commlink?" Mike stammered.
Clegg growled and pressed the blade of his knife into the canid's throat a little harder.
"Don't. Lie. To me."
Sighing in defeat, Mike meekly answered, "The center console."
Out of the corner of his eye, the wild dog saw Clegg open the console and take out his commlink, crushing it to pieces in his free hand. Gulping, he ventured, "What do you want from me?"
Clegg simply tilted his head to the side.
"Ever wonder how much blood jets out of a guy's neck when you slit his throat?"
The lizard moved the blade upwards until it was mere inches from Mike's eye.
"Ever wonder what happens to an eyeball when it gets punctured?"
Gulping, Mike repeated, "What do you want from me?"
To the canid's surprise, Clegg answered, "I want you to stop me."
Eyebrows raised in confusion, Mike exclaimed, "Stop you? You're the one with the knife!"
"If you're anything like your old man, you'll stop me."
The dingo-wolf hybrid slowly shook his head.
"I'm not my father."
Clegg let out a grunt before saying, "Be that the case, I want you to say four simple words."
Mike took a few shaky breaths.
"What do you want me to say?"
That same wicked smile appeared on Clegg's snout.
"I want to die."
Mike glanced over at his passenger turned captor as the rumble of thunder sounded from outside.
"I….I….I don't know if I can say that."
"Sure you can, kid. Just repeat after me. I."
Reluctantly, Mike said, "I."
"Want."
When Mike didn't reply, Clegg pressed the end of his switchblade into the side of the wild dog's neck, hard enough to break the skin and draw blood.
"Want," the lizard growled.
"Want."
"To."
"To."
"Die."
Mike took a big swallow, really not wanting to say the last part of his captor's deranged sentence. It was then that he caught sight of a red light on the dashboard showing that the passenger door wasn't fully closed.
Relieved that something that had been a problem the entire time he had owned the car could now very well prove to be his salvation, Mike fixed the murderous hitchhiker with a glare.
"I don't wanna die!"
The canid punctuated that by throwing a punch at his tormentor, catching Clegg off guard and knocking him back into the passenger door, which burst open.
Not wasting any time, Mike aimed a kick at the reptile and sent him out of the vehicle. After leaning over and pulling the door closed, the wild dog stomped on the gas.
For a few seconds, Mike was panting heavily, but then he found himself laughing.
"Yeahhhhh! Fuck you, buddy!"
Outside, on the shoulder of the road, Eugene Clegg's yellow eyes cracked open. Picking himself up, the lizard stared at the pair of taillights that was quickly receding into the distance.
Despite being caught out in the rain again, the reptile cracked a smile before taking out and lighting another cigarette.
"Looks like he's a chip off the old block after all."
…..
It didn't take long for Mike's euphoria at escaping a near-death situation to give way to cold hard reality. Clegg had admitted to killing one person and had attempted to kill him.
"If someone else picks him up, he'll kill them too. I've gotta find a cop shop."
Thus, the canine kept his eyes peeled for a road sign that would tell him where the next police station was. That proved easier said than done due to the rain, which was showing no signs of letting up. Nonetheless, Mike soon spotted a yellow sign in the distance that was shaped like a badge.
Everything that happened after was a blur as Mike pulled into the parking lot and sprinted through the rain into the station.
Now, with a bandage over the spot on his neck where Clegg had jabbed him, Mike was now seated across a desk from the station's sergeant, a female dingo who looked to be about the same age as his mother.
"So," the officer, Evans, as Mike had noted from her name tag, stated, "Did your attacker have a name?"
"Yeah," Mike replied while slowly bobbing his head up and down, "He said his name was Eugene Clegg."
To his shock, the sergeant's eyes widened.
"You're sure about that?"
"Positive."
Evans looked down and shook her head, mumbling a few things that Mike couldn't make out. When she met his gaze again, the dingo said, "I don't know how to tell you this, kid, but Eugene Clegg's been dead for years."
It took a couple of seconds for the dingo's statement to register with Mike. After briefly sitting there with his mouth hanging open, the canine sputtered, "Wha, but how?"
Sergeant Evans didn't reply, merely typing on her computer keyboard and then turning the monitor so Mike could see. The image it showed made the wild dog's blood turn cold.
Staring back at him from a mugshot on the screen was the same reptile who had terrorized him two hours earlier.
Eugene Roger Clegg
But it was another line of text that really caught Mike's attention.
Died: 13 ALW
"That's three years before I was born."
"I'm surprised you don't know about Clegg," Evans put in, "Tracking him down was the last mission for both Star Fox and Star Wolf."
"Dad's never mentioned that," Mike said with a shake of his head.
"Any which way, you've given us the best lead in this current case," Sergeant Evans said with a far away look in her hazel eyes, "There have been killings on this stretch of highway for the past month. Last week, we found a family of four."
The dingo-wolf hybrid glanced downwards and mumbled, "Fuck."
Realization then dawned on Mike.
"Uh, officer. Is there any way here for me to call home? They're gonna get worried if I don't check in."
Evans nodded and then opened a drawer on her desk, taking out a commlink and putting it in front of Mike.
"That's my personal device," she said before standing up from her chair.
"If there's anything you need, let us know."
Once the sergeant had left the room, Mike took the device and punched in the code for his father's commlink.
"They should just be sitting down to breakfast back home."
After setting up a video call, the canine waited with baited breath as a blue circle spun before his eyes.
"Come on, Dad. Pick up."
As if on cue, an image of a one-eyed lupine appeared in front of the canine.
"How the hell did…."
Wolf O'Donnell stopped mid sentence at the sight of his son.
"Mike, what the hell happened? You look terrible."
"I feel terrible," Mike murmured before proceeding to explain everything that had transpired over the last two hours. He was quick to note his father's shock at the mention of Eugene Clegg.
"Is it true that taking him down was your last mission?"
Wolf nodded before glancing towards a pair of feminine voices offscreen and holding up his hand.
"Yeah, it was," the lupine explained, "Fox didn't hold anything back when we caught up to Clegg. Can't say that I blame him. I'd be in the same boat if Clegg had killed my mother."
"So, you actually saw him die?"
"With my own eye, son," Wolf said while gesturing towards his organic eye.
Glancing towards the offscreen voices again, the lupine shrugged.
"Your mom wants to talk."
Wolf moved aside, his place taken by his wife Carmen. Mike flattened his ears when he saw the worried look on his mother's face.
"Mom, I should've listened to you. I'm sorry."
The dingo sadly shook her head.
"I'm just glad you're okay, Mikey."
Taking a moment to wipe away some tears, Carmen continued, "So, what are you going to do now?"
Mike gave a shrug.
"Well, the cops have impounded my car for DNA testing. So I guess I'll grab a bus to Thieryville and see if I can catch a flight to Atvar from there."
Nodding, Carmen said, "Good thinking, Mike. Please keep us posted."
"Sure thing, Mom."
It was then that Carmen stepped aside, making room for Mike's twin sister. Where Mike mainly took after their mother, Julie had generally gotten her looks from their father. She was primarily lupine in appearance with grey and white fur, including a messy tuft of headfur that reminded Mike that it was early morning in the Blaine Valley. The one thing that she had inherited from Carmen was her brown eyes
"Wish I'd gotten accepted into Kepler," Julie remarked, "Then we could've split up the driving."
For the first time that night, a devious smile crept onto Mike's muzzle.
"The way you drive, we'd have ended up in the ditch," he snarked, prompting an indignant snort from his sister.
"You should get some sleep, Mikey," Julie murmured as her annoyed glare changed to a look of concern.
"Yeah," Mike replied while letting out a yawn, "I'll call you guys later."
With the call ended, Mike really began to feel the exhaustion creep in. As if on autopilot, the dingo-wolf hybrid folded his arms on the desk and layed his head on them, closing his eyes and quickly falling asleep.
It wasn't long before he began to dream.
He was back in his car again, driving down a lonesome stretch of road while rain poured outside, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled.
"Kid," a voice rasped from beside him.
Though it sounded scratchier, Mike still recognized the voice and quickly turned his head, coming face to face with Clegg.
The sight of the hybrid would have been terrifying on its own, but what greeted Mike took things to a whole new level.
Clegg's jaw hung at an awkward angle, there was a hole in his chest showing off muscle and ribs, and where his left eye had been was a mess of flesh and blood.
Speaking of blood, the lizard was covered in it, to the point that he looked more red than green.
Reaching out and grabbing Mike by the throat, Clegg let out a raspy growl that chilled the canine to the bone.
"One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces!"
The last thing Mike heard was a woman screaming. Eyes shooting open, the wild dog bolted up from the desk, panting heavily.
The first thing Mike noticed was that the office was now pitch black. Initially, he assumed that someone had turned off the lights, but that was dispelled when he glanced over his shoulder and didn't see any light on the other side of the door.
His first assumption was that the power was out, but then logic reasserted itself.
"This is a fucking government building. Backup generators are mandatory."
Another realization dawned on Mike, one that made his fur stand on end.
"It's quiet, too quiet."
Fumbling around on the desk, Mike found Sergeant Evans' commlink and quickly brought up the lock screen before pressing the icon that turned on the device's flashlight. From there, the canine quickly crossed to the other side of the desk and began sifting through the drawers.
The first two yielded nothing that Mike would find helpful, though the third proved to be the ticket as it contained a compact blaster that the wild dog was very glad to see had a full charge.
"Okay Mikey, just like Dad showed you," the dingo-wolf hybrid thought as he held his left arm, the one that was holding the commlink, horizontally while he rested his right arm on top of it, pointing the blaster ahead of him.
For a short while, all that was visible to Mike was the darkened hallway that was barely illuminated by the commlink's small flashlight and the only sound he could hear was his own haggard breathing. That all changed when his shoe landed in something that let out an audible squelch.
Panning his flashlight down, Mike caught the sight of blood. Against his better judgment, the wild dog panned the light upwards and was rendered both startled and nauseous by the sight of a dead dingo.
For a split second, Mike thought that it was his mother that was lying dead on the floor, eyes fixed up at the ceiling in an eternal stare. He quickly realized that it was actually Sergeant Evans.
Fighting hard not to drop his light source and his weapon, Mike moved the beam further ahead and was greeted with a sight straight out of a nightmare.
Every cop and civilian worker in the station lay dead on the floor in pools of their own blood. Some were even missing limbs or were decapitated.
Hands shaking, Mike swept the flashlight and the blaster around the room. He was startled when lightning flashed, illuminating the darkened station and allowing Mike to catch his reflection in a mirror.
Behind him was a certain reptile poised to strike with a blood-stained axe. Mike had barely dropped to the ground and started to roll away when he felt the whoosh of air from Clegg's attempted killing blow.
Finishing his roll, the wild dog brought up his blaster, only for Clegg to bat it out of his grip with his free hand. Thinking quickly, Mike hurled the commlink at the lizard before turning and bolting the other way, though it wasn't long before another set of footsteps was rapidly gaining on him.
"Get back here, you little fucker!"
In his haste to escape from his attacker, Mike tripped and crashed into a desk, the wind being knocked out of him. But he still managed to roll out of the way when Clegg got near and swung his axe again, embedding the blade into the spot where the canid had been seconds earlier.
Noticing that his tormentor's weapon was stuck, Mike braced himself against the desk and leaned back, kicking out with both his feet and striking Clegg in the chest, causing him to stagger back. The canid moved in, delivering a left hook and then a right.
However, Clegg ended up catching Mike's third punch and knocking him to the floor with a headbutt. The wild dog had barely registered the blood gushing from his nose when the reptile got on top of him and wrapped his hands around his throat.
As Mike struggled to pry himself out of his tormentor's iron grip, Clegg growled, "Don't fight, kid. It's like going to sleep after a long day."
With the edge of his vision starting to go black, Mike suddenly spied the switchblade tucked into the waistband of Clegg's jeans and found himself filled with a newfound strength.
"Not today, fuckhead!"
Mike quickly reached out and grabbed the knife, extending the blade and burying it in Clegg's abdomen.
"GAAHHHH!"
Feeling the lizard's grip loosen, Mike pushed him off and then pounced on him, driving the knife into Clegg's chest over and over again until his arm muscles felt like they were burning.
Finally stopping and leaving the knife impaled in Clegg's chest, Mike sat back, panting heavily.
"Who the fuck are you?"
Wiping his bloody nose on his sleeve, the dingo-wolf hybrid turned around and used the desk that Clegg had buried his axe in to pull himself up from the floor. He had just barely gotten his breathing under control when he heard a grunt behind him.
"You know damn well who I am, kid."
Mike whipped around just as there was another flash of lightning and saw Clegg standing before him. For a brief moment, Mike thought he saw the same broken Lylatian as the being from his recent nightmare.
The wild dog's survival instincts kicked back into high gear as Clegg pulled the switchblade out of his chest and began advancing on Mike. Feeling his hand land on the handle of Clegg's buried axe, Mike began struggling to pull it free, even as the reptile's footsteps drew closer.
Finally, the canine wrenched the weapon free and whipped around, putting all his might behind the swing. There was then the wet smack of a blade striking flesh as the axe fell, right into Clegg's neck. As the reptile dropped his knife and started to shake, Mike narrowed his eyes.
"You made one mistake. You pissed off an O'Donnell!"
Once Clegg fell to the ground, Mike let the axe slide from his hand and fell back against the desk. No longer able to fight his nausea, the dingo-wolf hybrid dropped to his hands and knees and began heaving up his guts.
He did not notice the sound of approaching sirens from outside.
…..
The last twenty four hours had been a blur for Wolf. It all began when he had gotten a call from a Detective Halsey telling him that the same man who attempted to kill Mike had somehow tracked him to a highway patrol station and killed everyone inside.
Everyone except for Mike, that is. Wolf's head was still spinning at the fact that his son had managed to not only fend off his attacker, but also kill them.
"He really does have the O'Donnell spirit."
The lupine's thoughts were interrupted by Detective Halsey's voice being broadcasted over his ear piece, causing him to straighten up in the passenger's seat of the taxi.
"Basically, Mr. O'Donnell, until DNA tests and fingerprint analysis come back, we have no way of knowing who this guy is. Though if you ask me, it's probably a copycat killer."
"Right," Wolf mumbled before adding, "Thanks Detective."
"No problem, Mr. O'Donnell. I'll let you know when we have any new information."
After hanging up, Wolf removed the earpiece and put it in his pocket before throwing a glance over his shoulder at his wife and daughter in the backseat. Much like on the flight to Thieryville, Carmen had her head resting on her hand, the fur below her eyes visibly flattened and wet from tears. Julie, meanwhile, was staring out the window, occasionally pinching the spot between her eyes.
Wolf brought his attention forward without saying a word as the local hospital came into view. Truth be told, he was barely keeping it together himself, but he needed to be strong for his girls.
Eventually, the cab stopped in front of the building's front entrance, with Carmen and Julie promptly getting out of the vehicle while Wolf passed some credit chips to the driver and mumbled, "Keep the change."
Stepping out of the vehicle, Wolf led the way into the hospital and up to the reception desk. The O'Donnells didn't have to wait long, for they were soon ushered over by an elderly bonobo doctor by the name of Estridge.
"How is he?" Wolf asked.
"Physically, he's fine for the most part," Doctor Estridge replied before adding, "You might want to look for a good psychiatrist, though. He hasn't said more than two words to me or the nurses."
"Right," the lupine said before thinking to himself, "Maybe I'll give the blue girl a shout."
Finally reaching Mike's room, the primate opened the door, revealing the canine seated on the edge of the bed, head cast downwards.
"I'll leave you to it," Dr. Estridge said before walking away.
As the trio entered the room, Wolf cautiously called out, "Mike?"
His son's ears twitched at the mention of his name and he brought his gaze up towards his family.
"Mom. Dad. Jules," Mike croaked before sliding off the bed and starting towards them.
Once the canine was close enough, he threw his arms around his father and buried his face in his chest, quickly starting to sob.
As Carmen and Julie joined in the embrace, Wolf glanced skywards, feeling tears start to gather in his organic eye.
"Whoever the fuck you are, I hope you burn in the Ninth Circle of Hell for doing this to my boy!"
….
Within the lower levels of the Thieryville Morgue, all was quiet, save for the beeps and hums of computers and cooling units.
But a new sound joined the white noise, the sound of something tearing.
From a body bag currently laying on an examination table, a green-scaled hand burst through the fabric.
The End?