Simple Unicycle
Fetzen
In … The Beast Within: Pt. III
Terrace, British Columbia
Five days had passed since James Hudson and Heather MacNeil had first encountered “Logan” on that snowy Kitimat road. But more importantly to Jerome Jaxon, Can-Am Corporation’s chief executive and Hudson’s boss, it had been five days since the Guardian project had missed out on funding from the Canadian government. He had only heard from Hudson once since, despite peppering him with phone calls constantly, and even then he’d sounded hurried, almost indifferent to the fact the project Jaxon had been bankrolling for him for three years was on the skids. The tone of voice James had used on the phone with him had left him so incensed that he’d wanted to get on a plane to Iqaluit that very morning. His assistant had talked him down. After four days of radio silence, there was no talking Jaxon down again.
The septuagenarian had boarded a private jet all the way to the town’s remote airport, where a heavyset man in an ill-fitting suit was waiting for him. The driver helped Jaxon climb into the blacked-out jeep and then set out towards the location that had been provided for him. It was an hour’s drive away, even on these open roads, and Jaxon soon found himself incapable of sustaining the rage he felt towards "Jimmy" Hudson. He reached for his cell phone, punched in a familiar number, and launched into a diatribe that seemed to have neither beginning nor end.
“So I have to find out from Maxwell Lord of all people that we lost the bid … Langkowski, I think. You know Langkowski, we met him a few years back at that stupid gala the Van Dynes hold. Well, trust me when I say if you saw Langkowski you’d remember him. He’s huge. Used to play football back in college. One sec, Gabe.”
Jaxon had been ranting for the best part of thirty-five minutes, though it felt like longer for the driver that had suffered through it in the driver’s seat. The petrochemical mogul had only stopped because the jeep seemed to have come to an unexpected halt. He leant forward, peering over towards the driver with a scowl.
“What’s the holdup?”
The driver pointed to a yellow sign that had been planted in the middle of the road. “Road’s out up ahead.”
“The road’s out,” Jaxon sighed as he slunk back into his seat. “Great. Even in the middle of butt-fucking nowhere we’re still running into traffic issues. Gabe, you there? Yeah, sorry about that. Where was I? Oh, that’s right ... can you believe that cocksucker Jimmy didn’t even have the stones to tell me we had lost the bid? After all the millions I’ve poured into this crappy project of his.”
The jeep took a sharp turn into a bumpy offroad. Jaxon felt each shake in his weary bones, but was too proud to ask the driver to slow down. His friend Truett Hudson had passed away three years ago to an unexpected stroke, and he was almost twenty years younger than Jaxon, and ever since, despite his bluster, Jerome had become acutely away of his own advancing years. After a minute or two of rough going, the jeep came to another sudden halt, this one more violent than the first. It took all Jaxon had not to be hurled out of his seat.
“What is it this time?” Jerome shouted towards the thick man in the driver’s seat. “Let me guess: an avalanche has b-”
Without saying a word, the driver flung his door open and took off sprinting. Jaxon watched him in bemusement for a few moments, almost incapable of processing what was happening, before suddenly snapping back to life. He opened his own door, stepped halfway onto the road, and howled towards the driver with rage.
“Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
If the driver could hear him, he showed no sign of it. Jaxon let out a deflated sigh, rested one of his arms against the open door and leant against the seat in disbelief at what had just happened. He suddenly became aware of the fact that he still had the phone pressed against his wrinkled ear.
“Great. Fucking great. Gabe, can I call you back? My driver has just bailed on me … Yeah, you just can’t get the service anymore. Alright, you take it easy now, and lay off those g-”
There was a scream in the distance. The phone fell from Jerome’s hand onto the rock path, its screen smashing on impact, but he showed no sign of caring. There was something among the trees that had caught his attention. Jaxon made out two arms and legs, a torso the size of a small car, and lithe, silver tentacles that seemed to move as if they had a life of their own. His palms grew sweaty and his aged heart began to pound uncontrollably in his chest. Each heartbeat sounded like a bomb going off in his head.
And then there was the screaming again. The sight of something hurling towards him caused him to stagger backwards into the jeep for protection. There was a dull thud and the entire vehicle shook as the projectile made contact with it. Jaxon peered out and almost vomited as he recognised it as the driver’s ravaged corpse.
“Holy crap.”
Jaxon panicked and surveilled the inside of the jeep in search of a weapon. His arthritic hands fumbled around desperately but found nothing. From the trees, he could sense the figure approaching. With a lunge, Jerome leant out of the jeep for the cell resting on the path. His fingers made contact with it but it was just outside of his grasp. He stretched out further than his old rickety skeleton would allow and almost had it when a large booted foot came stomping down on top of it.
“You are the one they call Jerome Jaxon, nyet?” came a chilling Russian accent. “Chief executive officer of the Can-Am Corporation?”
Jaxon looked up at the man. He was bigger than any human had any right to be, but it wasn’t his size, nor even the vicious tentacles slithering from his arms that concerned Jaxon the most, it was his skin. It was grey and lifeless. He’d never seen anything like it before. The man looked dead – deader than dead, almost – and the straw-like hair and red bandana across it only made him appear even more ghoulish.
Sensing that the man was growing impatient, Jaxon made no attempt to disguise his terror when he answered. “Uh, yeah ... that’s me.”
One of the man’s tentacles slithered up an around Jaxon’s neck. It clamped around it tightly and lifted him from his seat with ease. Each second it was in contact with him, the old man almost felt like he was suffocating – like his life force was being sapped away from him. He felt it come rushing back slightly as his attacker pulled him from the inside of the jeep and slammed him against the side of it.
“Take me to him and I shall let you live.”
“T-take you to who?”
The question seemed to anger the grey-skinned man and the tentacle around Jerome’s neck tightened with his annoyance. “Weapon X.”
“What? I… I don’t understand, I don’t know what that is,” Jaxon cried. “But I’ve got money, lots and lots of money, I’ll … I’ll give you as much as you want, please, just don’t kill me, alright?”
“Tsk, always money with you people.”
A look of dread flashed across Jaxon’s face. There was a sickly crunch and his neck crumpled beneath the tentacle. He fell to the ground with a thud, landing alongside what remained of the driver, and what little life was left in his body began to drain away. The light in Jerome’s eyes began to darken and his tongue, now purple and discoloured, came sliding out of his mouth with a pathetic lurch. The last thing he saw was the grey-skinned man walking away from him. As he faded out of distance, he passed by old snow-covered sign that read: ‘Kitimat: 22 miles’.
