Unfathomable
Drew Starnes had been working late a lot recently.
For the last couple weeks, as a matter of fact. Drew had always been fearful that his wife’s work would interfere with family life, but the occurrences of a couple weeks ago stepped over the line. His own son, for Christ’s sake … was nothing sacred to Michaela anymore?
Truth be told, though Drew spent many late nights in his office, it wasn’t necessarily to work on upcoming lectures or to grade papers. Though he probably should’ve been spending the extra time away from home concentrating on Civil War intricacies or the realities of Nazi Germany, he instead used the time to think.
And familiarize himself with an old friend, Jack Daniels.
Drew was proud of himself; tonight, he didn’t pour his first glass until after the sun went down. He’d spent three hours trying to perfect the syllabus for the History of Etruscan Civilization course he’d be teaching in the fall, and after all that time trying to figure out what to cover first, Drew felt he deserved a drink.
Besides, who was going to see him in the near-pitch black of his office?
***Begin Adult Content: Violence***
Samantha squinted, watching Drew Starnes pour himself a drink. He didn’t wear stress well; she could see it in his posture and the lines beginning to form under his eyes. There was trouble at home. The Slayer smiled, knowing that would make what she was about to do even sweeter.
Humans were frail like that; even when angry at each other, they still crumbled to dust whenever someone t hey cherished was broken.
Samantha kept to the shadows, though they were plenty when the sun set and Drew kept the lights off. He didn’t want anyone knowing he was here, didn’t want them wondering why he was here and not home with his wife and children. She almost sensed he was ashamed of it, quickly deducing that Drew was close to his weakest point, and that made him ripe for the taking.
She was going to kill Drew Starnes. Neither quickly nor with remorse, but she would kill him. All to prove a point … not to Drew, but to his bitch of a wife, who had the audacity to take her son away from her.
Samantha hadn’t killed Gerald Watkins, yet Michaela barged into her house, slapped on the handcuffs and made sure Cory got a one-way ticket to the purgatory of Child Protective Services. The Slayer would find her child, and she would save him – but not before making everyone who ruined her life pay.
Michaela Starnes wasn’t on top of that list – Grace held that honor – but the detective was damn close.
“Bet you never told your kids the truth,” Samantha called out from the shadows, “about the deal the Nazis made with the Russians.”
Drew dropped the glass, he was so startled. He rose from his seat as glass shattered on the floor and booze stained the carpet. His eyes darted about the office, wide with fear and uncertainty.
He couldn’t see her. Good, that upped the feat quotient significantly. She cracked her knuckles with a gleeful smile on her face, feeling the caked blood on her cheeks. Her last kill was losing its freshness, but this one was more important. This kill would be a statement. A declaration written in flesh and signed in viscera.
“How the Russians were training vampires for military operations and the Nazis wanted to recruit them for night missions. The Nazis knew the Americans were kicking their asses, and they wanted highly-trained vamps to attack U.S. soldiers while they slept.”
Never mind the fact that the Russians were on the same side as the Americans – depending on who one spoke to, that was all a front and a precursor to the Cold War that would occur decades later.
At least, that was what Russell would say. But what did he know? He was dead.
“Wh … who’s there?” Drew spit out, his hands shaking and beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He felt nausea begin to bite at him, and for the first time in weeks, the history professor wished he was at home.
“You don’t know me,” Samantha countered, “so giving you my name would mean nothing.”
Drew didn’t need to know who killed him, but Michaela did. And she would know, Samantha would make sure of that. Again, she cracked her knuckles, enjoying the way the sound seemed to carry in the office, the way Drew seemed to cower as the sensation warped along his spine.
He was terrified, and terrible at hiding it.
Samantha finally emerged from the shadows, her dirty blonde hair shielding her dark eyes. Her nostrils flared as she approached Drew’s desk, her jeans tattered and what used to be a white top now faded gray where it wasn’t torn away. Dried blood clung to her skin like tattoos, symbols of a once battled-hardened Slayer overtaken by darkness.
Drew’s eyes widened upon seeing Samantha for the first time. He found himself clutching the arms of his chair so hard is knuckles turned white, and a cold chill ran down his spine. He’d never seen something so primitive, so … basic. And it almost literally scared the shit out of him.
“What do you want?”
Samantha shrugged, leaning against the desk. “Not much, really,” she mused, her fingers idly playing with a fancy pen Drew displayed on his desk. Mahogany wood, his name engraved in the side … and a nice, sharp point. Without thought, the Slayer chucked the pen, watching it pierce Drew’s left leg as he screamed in agony.
“World peace … a million bucks … my son back … your wife’s head on a pike.”
Drew was so busy bleeding and writhing in pain he almost missed the veiled threat at his wife. He finally took his eyes off his leg, staring through narrowed eyes at the blonde, whose face was now inches from his. His nostrils caught a strong odor, and the professor gagged.
This must be what death smelled like.
“Mi … Michaela?” he sputtered, blood dripping from his leg onto the floor.
Samantha’s smile grew in disturbing fashion. “If you choose to call her by her name, yes,” the Slayer offered, her finger trailing Drew’s shuddering cheek. “I’ll just call her a raging bitch.”
The finger moved from Drew’s cheek to his nose in the blink of an eye, grabbing his glasses and tossing them across the room after cracking them. With a growl, Sam poked her finger into Drew’s left eye, piercing the eyeball and drawing another piercing scream. Samantha suppressed the urge to laugh, instead wiggling her finger inside his eye.
One good pull and the eye would come out of the socket, complete with all the necessary blood and mess. More importantly, it would hurt like hell, which was what Samantha was going for here. So without any warning or saying a word, the Slayer tugged hard, pulling the eyeball out of Drew’s socket and letting it hang over his face as he screamed and his body began to shake.
The professor was starting to go into shock already. This was disappointing. Samantha was really hoping to have more fun with this one. Then again, he was only human, and he was much older than the Slayer, so it wasn’t entirely surprising.
“You suck,” Samantha pouted, ramming her elbow into Drew’s nose. The bone cracked and more blood dribbled down his face as the chair he sat in spun on its wheels. As the chair spun, Samantha huffed to herself, grabbing Drew by the hair before the chair faced her again and lifting him out of it.
She could tell by the look in his eyes that the professor wasn’t far from losing consciousness. So if she was going to inflict more pain on him, she had to do it soon.
Grabbing Drew’s left shoulder, the Slayer dug her nails in, puncturing skin through his shirt before giving her arm a quick tug, causing his shoulder to pop out of its socket. Drew belted another scream, this one several octaves higher than before and echoing off the walls of the office. The Slayer smiled again, admitting to herself how much she enjoyed the sight of the professor’s arm hanging loose like that.
Tossing Drew to the ground, Samantha dropped from the desk, wiping her hands as if they’d been dirty. She watched Drew shake and try his best to move, but he couldn’t. The shaking continued and got worse, until Samantha stood over him and pushed him onto his back. She grabbed Drew by the collar, lifting him as his eyes began to roll back into his head.
“Your wife took something from me,” Samantha growled through clenched teeth. “How a mother could take a child from another mother is simply … unfathomable. I know she has two kids … and when I’m done with you, I’ll go after them. One by one, I will take from her everything she took from me.
“And there’s not a goddamn thing anyone can do to stop me.”
If Drew had the strength to speak, he would’ve likely called her any number of names for the things she was saying about his wife. Through the pain, the professor found himself wishing he hadn’t been so at odds with Michaela over the weeks. He could literally feel the life leaving him, and he knew he wouldn’t be leaving this office in anything other than a body bag.
Oh, how Drew wanted to hold Michaela one last time, apologize and tell her he loved her.
But a quick fist to his gut told Drew nothing of the sort would happen, and he hacked and coughed as the Slayer slammed him on his desk. He could feel the keyboard break beneath him, and he felt the pointy end of a trophy he was honored with in 2009 puncture his right hand.
Drew no longer had the energy to scream, merely grunting as blood ran down his fingers.
Samantha; nostrils flared again, her eyes darkening more than Drew thought possible as he felt consciousness come and go. He felt her grip on him tighten, the fabric of his shirt tearing under her strength. He’d never seen someone so strong, male or female, before, and if the pain weren’t so real, he wouldn’t have believed it.
But the sensation of Samantha breaking every single one of his fingers told Drew how real this all truly was, and it was then the professor finally blacked out. So when Samantha broke his knee caps before pinning his unconscious body against the wall and drove two stakes into his wrists to keep him there, he didn’t feel a thing.
Nor did he feel it when the Slayer carved his chest open with a machete, snapped his sternum in two and tore out his heart. Samantha left the organ on the desk, on top of the broken keyboard, before admiring her handiwork.
Drew Starnes, murdered. Carved open and hanging off the wall in his own office, a sacrifice to the cause of rescuing Cory Blanchard from whatever hell he was in and getting back at those who had the audacity to screw with the Slayer.
Despite having died, Drew was still bleeding. Samantha smeared her fingers in it, adding his vitae to what was already caked into her pale flesh. The rest she smeared on the wall, on either side of his lifeless body. And when the Slayer hopped out the window and back into the darkness of night time Las Vegas, all that was left was Drew’s body and a notice: