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Here is my author information: Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html Email: kavrik@hotmail.com Twitter: @MichaelOffutt Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Slipstream/164452693676933
Author's Note: On my website, I have included a picture of Jordan in the gif image. Please validate me with an email if you agree that he's cute :). You'll also find a link to a blog post I wrote on Kolin and killsuits right under the blurb for the novel. That blog post contains a picture of Kolin modeling in his armor and looking rather sexy.
"Wraith" uses the main characters featured in the science-fiction novel "Slipstream", but is its own story to be featured entirely on Nifty. Both of these tales are based on the events established in the short story, "The Insanity of Zero." If you like Jordan and Kolin, please consider giving "Slipstream" a read. I promise, the plot is a whole lot better than "Wraith."
Chapter Ten
Jordan ran with Mercurial speed, pushing his ripped physique to the point where flames danced in every muscle. They didn't stop for words. If Jordan took his eyes off the retreating crimson tail lights, he wouldn't know where to go when they disappeared.
No street lamps functioned in this part of St. Louis.
With the truck now out of sight, Jordan estimated how far he needed to run to arrive at the place where they'd turned. He took off in that direction at breakneck speed. He had such a light step as he ran that he created little noise. A couple of times though, he thought he saw something move down side streets and in alleyways to the left and right. But whatever Jordan had glimpsed maintained no particular interest in him.
In about two minutes, he reached the street where he was sure the truck must have gone. Taking deep winded breaths, his eyes darted around in the shadows thrown by the twisted remains of skyscrapers that protruded like bony fingers into the night sky. The eastern end of the road on which he paused was lit from a fire contained in a barrel. It looked about three blocks distant.
He stood in place waiting for his sister. She came up behind him, panting heavily.
"Jordan, slow down."
He glanced over at her, his face wet with sweat.
"Kat, there isn't time. They're going to KILL him."
He gently laid his forehead against hers, his matted blond hair hanging into his eyes. Jordan placed his open palms on her shoulders. Her eyes darted from his face to the dirty Skechers on his feet, and her breath calmed. Jordan deliberately took this time so that his words would sink in.
"We can't let that happen, Kat. We have to save him."
She nodded. "I know, I know. I just can't keep up with you. Go! Run as fast as you can. I'll try to stay up with you, but if I can't, just let me be. I'll catch up, I promise."
"Unacceptable," he said.
Before she could argue, Jordan grabbed her hand and started running down the street, half pulling her as she struggled to keep up with him. Three blocks down, they stopped and stood motionless, just outside the circle of light drawn by the fire inside the 40-gallon oil drum.
The buildings and their facades formed a cul-de-sac, and Jordan noted that the truck which transported the prisoners had parked next to a non- working fountain in the shadow of an enormous stone edifice.
The two women he'd seen earlier busied themselves by unloading the bed, forcing their prisoners to march at gunpoint into the towering ruin of a cylindrical hotel, several floors of which were lit from behind pristine glass.
Unlike the first two or three floors, the upper stories of this hotel were in bad shape. Jordan spotted exposed rebar, partially collapsed floors along the fifteenth and sixteenth story, and even further up, some missing outside walls amidst the ruin of hundreds of windows. A partially lit sign in the front advertised it as the Millennium Hotel.
A bank stood across the street. In its heyday, it was probably something to write home about. But now it too looked decrepit and sad, a badly damaged piece of real estate. However, parts of it still had electricity.
"Who lives here?" Jordan muttered to himself.
"More like WHAT lives here?" Kathy answered.
Jordan blinked the sweat out of his eyes and swallowed uncomfortably.
The rear of the truck bed had been backed into a concrete receiving area some four feet above the level of the street. The bed stood flush to the platform. The prisoners marched in single file from the truck to an oversized gray metal door on the left. Jordan read the words, "Service Entrance" in faded black paint.
He slipped around the corner of the building and bolted over to the side of the truck where he crouched next to the passenger side tire. Jordan looked over and the last few prisoners had almost entered the building. Worried that the door might lock, he slipped past the front of the truck, keeping the stone edifice between his path and the door. To avoid being spotted, he hid with his back against the smooth concrete wall of the service platform. He took shallow breaths and kept as silent as a ghost.
Directly above him, he smelt cigarette smoke. He heard the guard at the door nudge the last prisoner through. A second later, he heard the bottom of the door scrape across the concrete as it slowly closed. Jordan bolted up and pulled himself onto the deck. He flew to the door handle, catching it just before it had a chance to latch. Sweat dripped off of his face, but he held it still so that it would look closed from the other side.
Jordan's heart pounded in his chest. He looked over and saw his sister scramble up the same way he'd come, and she joined him, breathing heavily. She tried to be quiet by holding her hand in front of her mouth.
"I can't believe you did that," she said.
"I had to do something," he whispered. "I don't have a key to this thing. You ready?"
She nodded, pulling the Colt .44 out so that if she needed to use it she could.
Carefully, Jordan tugged on the door and opened it a crack. He went slowly so that the snap of the latch wouldn't be audible to anyone on the other side. His sister peered through the crack and voices filtered out.
"Take them upstairs to the lobby," a voice declared. "Wraith will look them over, select some for his pleasure, and designate others as presents for the arriving Cihuateteo."
"What of him?" a female voice asked. "Can we have a little fun with him? It's been a long time since I've had some fun."
"No," the first voice answered. "Just keep him in the cooler until after the party. Wraith has said he wishes to play with this one."
"How about after that?"
"After Wraith is done playing with him?" The speaker chuckled. "He will no longer be handsome. What is left of his flesh will still live, but you would find it unappealing. Wraith intends to eat his penis."
"Do you see anything, Kathy?" Jordan whispered.
"The hall is dark," she reported. "The voices you're hearing are coming from a room down the hall. Directly across from us is a storage closet. We could hide there for a minute--better than just hanging out here."
Jordan grimaced, tugged the door open and they bolted across the hall and into the closet. Once there, he closed the door carefully, leaving it open just a crack.
The floor of the hall outside the door was laid in white linoleum tile to match the walls. He saw a single height-adjustable bed tray with some surgeon's tools on it halfway down the corridor. And in the room in which they found themselves, rows of shelves held four gallons of unused bleach, a box of paper towels, and boxes of latex gloves. Toward the back of the small room he saw a vacuum cleaner, mop and bucket. Some really old Pine Sol floor disinfectant occupied the corner. Seemingly out of place was an unopened box of syringes.
Jordan grabbed one of them, popped the cap to the needle, and then slammed it into the side of a jug of bleach. He filled the entire reservoir up with the liquid.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
"Nothing that the good doctor didn't order," he whispered, holding the needle up and tapping it with his finger.
"She's coming back this way," Kathy warned. Jordan motioned for her to get behind him.
When the female guard got to the service door, she paused to light a cigarette. Jordan purposefully scuffed his feet on the ground, causing her to turn around. As he expected, she hefted her rifle in both hands, loosely holding the lit cigarette between her lips, and nudged the door to the closet open with the barrel.
"Who's in there?" she queried.
Jordan positioned himself to the right of the door which opened inward. Crouched down and with his back pressed as tightly as he could manage against the wall, he created such a small profile in the dark to be almost invisible. When the guard stepped inside and as the barrel of the rifle came into view, Jordan seized it with his right hand and aimed it upward in one smooth motion. With his other hand, he jabbed the needle of the syringe into her carotid artery and pressed down on the plunger with his thumb.
Her eyes went wide with horror, and Jordan covered her mouth with his hand nearly strangling her in the crook of his elbow.
A moment later she collapsed to the floor writhing in agony, her fingers forming claws in the air. When she stopped moving, Jordan dragged her corpse to the back of the closet and motioned for his sister to step into the hall.
He grabbed the guard's rifle and slung it over his back. Then he exited and closed the door to hide the body.
"Let's find Kolin," he said.
Will Jordan save Kolin? Or will they all end up as dinner for Wraith? Do you have any special requests you'd like to see in the story? Tune in next time for Chapter Eleven if you dare.