Friendly Who: Elfleda, Noah What: Networking Where: Las Vegas, Auto Salvage Yard When: Present Ratings/Warnings: High - violence, creepy stuff
Two hands clawed and dug through loosely packed earth, trembling. They were attached to an equally trembling man, stomach pressed against the ground, panting as silently as he could. He was concealed beneath a 1984 Plymouth Reliant, rusted, dented, beat to hell, the doors chewed off from a jaws of life rescue mission. Most of the vehicles at the salvage yard were like that. Throwaways, reminders of near-death or worse collisions, an auto morgue.
“Carl. This isn’t very friendly of you.”
Carl was dry sobbing, his eyes bulging out slightly with the effort of staying quiet. There was a black streak across his ruddy face, an interrupted handprint of soot. The back of his cheap polyester shirt had been burnt, half-melted into his skin.
Noah approached the back of the car, placing his hands palms down on the trunk, and concentrated. The metal began to get warm, heated energy coursing, conducting. Soon, the vehicle would feel like an oven to Carl, enveloping him.
The man slowly, painfully slithered out from beneath the Plymouth and rolled over, looking up at Noah in exhausted horror. The pyrokinetic removed his hands from the trunk, grinning and shaking them out before kneeling beside Carl. “How do you want your wife to find you?” Noah asked, tilting his face to peer deeply into the frightened man’s eyes. “I can lay out some options.”
Two large dogs barked and climbed against the metal walls of a kennel, saliva flying from open mouths as they scratched and stared at Noah. Behind them lay the curled, burnt and smoldering remains of a human body. He reached inside his denim jacket and pulled out a small stack of Polaroid pictures. They all featured Carl in graphic, compromising positions. The pyrokinetic let them fall, one by one, onto the man’s heaving chest.
“You should have paid the blackmailer,” Noah continued, sighing, his eyes sweeping over his cowering victim. At that moment, the lights illuminating the salvage yard flickered and popped, allowing darkness to reign for a matter of seconds.