The Ultimate Prey
Chapter 4
by
DreamWeaver and Hunter
DISCLAIMER: Everything belongs to Marvel except Kiefer, Jan, and the Disco.
FEEDBACK: Yes please. . . . katduza@yahoo.com or mainsmel@yahoo.com
HUNTER'S NOTES: Many thanks to Dream Weaver for all her amazing hard work to get this done before I left for Canada. It was a pleasure to work with you.
DREAMWEAVER'S NOTES: Kudos to KAT for setting out the whole idea! An amazing mindmeld as we sliced, diced, and spliced the story together over many a chat. Great fun!
AUTHORS' NOTES: The dialect of the two main baddies is of Southern African origin: South Africa (Kiefer) and next door Namibia (Jan). (boet--Afrikaans for 'brother', in slang-comrade or close friend)
The beating was cut short this time. A little going-away gift. Swollen eyes still closed Logan automatically took a mental inventory. Feeling was nonexistent in hands and arms. He wondered how long he'd been suspended from them senseless. A long time by the ache in the small of his back. With wrists and feet fastened firmly to the wall a limp body tended to bend in unaccustomed and painful ways. He slowly straightened and every vertebrae sent out distress signals.
Face--yeah, the bastard had gone for the face again, attempting to rearrange the features. Nice to know that somebody cared. Nothing broken, everything bitching and whining about bruises, aches, twinges, smarts--the complaints went on and on. As usual ribs and gut had borne the brunt. Major throbbing and soreness there, a shooting pain every time he tried to breathe deep. Just as well he'd had nothing to eat since that greasy pizza at the disco. He tried to count the number of days since then, stopped at 'eternity'. He carefully lifted his head and bit back a groan. With no food and each shift of guards taking their turn at the 'punching bag' his recovery time was slower and slower.
"How ron . . . "
"You've been out about half an hour," Bobby was quick to reply.
Hank had persuaded the new guard, Thomas, in such a way that the man thought it was his idea to put the kid in a kind of straightjacket where the only target for his jets of ice would be himself. That way the boy would be physically fit to be 'hunted' when the time came and Thomas wouldn't have to bother about the intravenous feedings.
The next day Hank had been turned loose--literally. The four had planned that Hank would attack the guard when freed, then free the rest. Or if that proved impossible--find the boat, go for help, come back with the Marines, the Mounties, the Girl Scouts--oh, yeah, and the rest of the Xmen who were toasting their toes on a beach in Florida. But the guard hadn't freed Hank, at Kiefer's signal had merely pushed a button. The steel plate Beast was fastened to rotated in the wall. When it circled back the shackles were open and empty and Hank was gone. No Marines had yet put in an appearance.
And today it was Logan's turn to be released. He twitched his head in the negative. "Mfph! How long left?"
Bobby's response was slower this time. "I don't know. Soon, I think. We already had bre-- Soon."
Logan's neck cracked as he nodded. He'd heard the kid backtrack on the word 'breakfast.' "'S'okay. I'll catch me sumpin to eat outside. Fas' food." He attempted a chuckle and it came out a cough.
"You scared?" The voice was low, hesitant--fearful.
He willed his eyes to open and squinted at the kid bundled up in one of the mercenary's oversized camouflage jackets, making him look smaller than ever--long sleeves crossed in front, tied in back, the versatile metal prisoner panel providing a band that secured him across upper arms and chest--and thought about the question. "Scared? Yeah, a little. Mainly, 'cause I don't know what's out there. It's good to be a little scared. Keeps you on your toes."
Bobby scowled. "You don't look scared!"
True. He probably looked like a slab of tenderized beef. But he felt like he'd been pounded into dog food--cheap dog food, at that. "Kid, I've been scared so much in my life that my 'scared' look is plain worn out. All I got left is 'mad' and 'bored.'"
A shaky laugh was his reward.
"I-- I was scared," Bobby confessed, "real scared, that day . . . Honest, I didn't mean to kill anybody. And then the guy busting apart like a broken glass . . . I didn't know I could do that. I sure don't want to do it again!"
Logan looked at the kid who was staring down at his feet. "Yeah, I know you were scared," he said softly. "We all were, still are, as a matter of fact. Anybody who's been knocked out and kidnapped and chained up . . . I'd say you're entitled to be scared. You'd have the brains of an earthworm if you weren't. Like I said a little scared is okay. Makes you think. But a lot scared--that's when you end up doing things you're sorry for the rest of your life. Believe me, I know."
Bobby's head sunk lower.
"Okay. So. What can you do different? Maybe next time you're scared just freeze the bastard's shoes to the ground, or if he has a gun, make it so cold he drops it."
The kid looked up, eyes wide with excitement. "Yeah! Or put a wall of ice around him, then he couldn't move. But I'd leave an air hole at the top so he could breathe!"
Logan grinned. "That's the idea."
"They're coming," Scott now murmured.
Logan and the panther had already heard the cadence of marching feet, Kiefer's quirky little ritual on a level with the formality of a firing squad. There was no glory in death--only worms. But in dying, when the 'die-ee' knew what was happening . . . That was the time to spout immortal words to be recorded in history. Logan supposed there was some logic to it, albeit sick.
Kiefer, Jan, a little troop of five guards. All entered in formation and ranged themselves before the prey, the odd, fifth guard looking lonely and out of place with no partner. Probably six guards used to come to these ceremonies when Carl was still alive and kicking, Logan thought, and suddenly wondered if the seven men were the total number of occupants in this place. Something to keep in mind when it came havoc time.
"I think you know the procedure, joke man. You have half an hour before Jan and I set out. Find the boat and you're free. Any questions or comments?"
It was at this point that Hank had given a little speech on tolerance. Logan also poured out his heart.
"Get stuffed!"
Kiefer's eyebrows rose and his lips quirked in a smile. "Curious. I was just thinking the same thing about you."
He lifted a finger and Logan's panel revolved.
Logan knew where he was by smell before he was able to see all the details--a tunnel running behind the cages and the prisoner panels. This must be where the fans vented for the animal stench was so thick here he could all but feel it. No problemo! as Bobby would say. Once the shackles were opened he'd stay in the tunnel, then when the guards left he'd cut through an empty cage and free the others. Kiefer and his creepy shadow could just haul ass all over the whole damn island while he waited here snug and cozy.
The shackles clicked open, his lifeless arms dropped. The platform began to rotate and he staggered free. Or did he? Instead of rock under his feet, the ground felt just like the smooth, slick disk he'd been standing on the past several days. He peered closer through the gloom and saw that the tunnel floor was metallic. What the hell?
As if on command, hell came in the form of an electric shock to his bare feet. It was mild, but startled him enough to elicit a squawk. Another followed that, then another, and he found he was being herded towards the end of the cage row where there was a glimmer of light. He tried once to stop and go back but the jolt he received told him his captors had planned for that. Once he passed a point the voltage there cranked up. The same thing happened if he just stopped and stood.
Nor, he discovered, could he claw a way through wall or ceiling. He was in a large metal tube, all of it wired. So in short order he was hustled through the tunnel and ousted like a bum given the heave-ho from a bar. A steel door slid shut behind him, nipping his heels. He tested it with a finger, yelped and jerked his hand away.
Whether the door remained electrified all the time he had no way of knowing, nor did he have any desire to wait around to find out. He teetered on the narrow ledge of a cliff. Above him sailed white, puffy clouds. Below him surged white-crested waves. It was sunny at the moment but a brisk early morning wind was energetically herding a fog bank towards the island and chill gusts buffeted him to the point where he thought he might be blown into the sea. A path even narrower than the ledge straggled across the cliff face in an upwards direction. There was no choice but to take it.
Logan stumbled up the track, his bare feet bitten by sharp rocks, his leg muscles knotting after days of inactivity. His arms swung like dead weights of their own volition, sending him periodically off balance so that he must throw himself against the rock wall to keep from falling. And all the while arms and shoulders, feet and legs burned as if dipped in acid from the returning circulation.
Despite the pain, he demanded of himself the greatest speed he could muster--a lurching shuffle. He hadn't eaten for at least three days and his stomach was a little sullen lump that made its presence know with lightening bolt jabs. He had half an hour. Thirty measly minutes before the hunters came after him. And from the cliff top they could pick him off in an instant. They might even be waiting for him now at the end of the path! Ice water ran through his veins. No. No, he still had time. But the coast itself was dangerous. They knew he'd have to follow it to find the boat. He had a fifty-fifty chance of starting off in the right direction. The hunters had a hundred percent chance of knowing where he must go.
Exhausted, he scrabbled up the last part with the aid of his claws and for precious seconds sprawled face down on a mat of moss and pine needles as he caught his breath. How the hell had Beast managed that climb? The path was so narrow he must have had to inch up it sideways. But he had made it. The evidence was in front of Logan's nose. A crushed pine cone, a flattened clump of fern, a patch of moss scuffed up from damp earth, and in the middle of that pocket of dirt the impression of a claw-tipped footprint half the length of Logan's forearm. Hank had passed this same spot twenty-four hours ago. And then where had he gone?
Pushing himself first to his knees, then to a stand, Logan scrutinized his surroundings, staring up and up at the towering evergreens that crowned the island. Huge of girth, each rust-colored trunk was concealed at its base by dense, vivid green undergrowth of fern and shrub. The morning sun had disappeared during Logan's climb and now a cold, gray mist drifted among the trees, coating each needle, leaf and curling frond in a chill dew. Rain forest. West Coast. He could be any where between northern California and Canada. At least the moss and the fairly level terrain made walking easier, but the profusion of trees and exuberant foliage reduced his line of sight to a few feet. Hearing also was affected, sounds muffled by dampness and the constant, muted slap and growl of breaking waves. Worse than the lack of sight and sound was that of smell. The air was saturated with moisture. The perpetual mist and fog rolling in from the sea was what caused the rain forest to exist, and that humidity would neutralize all warning scent of Kiefer and his men.
No help for it. And the hunters were just as handicapped, he reasoned. But if he was going to make good his escape he must have food. Logan forced his reluctant muscles into a slow jog, eyes following Hank's track of trampled moss and at the same time searching for breakfast. He ripped up a handful of young fiddlehead fern as he trotted and crammed it into his mouth. The taste was fresh, green, slightly bitter. He pulled up two more bunches leaving hollows in the earth where their roots had been, blazing a trail even a blind man could follow. The juice helped quench his thirst, was kind to his shrunken stomach. But he hadn't clawed his way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian. He needed meat.
Already winded, he slipped between the bushes into the thick of the forest and soon found what he was looking for. Some horrific storm years past had downed a giant of a tree. But in its death the tree now provided life. Mushrooms grew from its rotting trunk, a tangle of wild blackberries filled the space where it had stood, and tunneled under the tree itself was a rabbit burrow.
Logan squatted behind a sapling twice the thickness of his body and licked the back of his hand. Many animals come to the distress calls of their kind. Rabbits are among that number. Setting his lips against the wet skin, he gave a long, drawn-out, sucking kiss, a squeaking sound of pain and fear.
Fast food. The rabbit wasn't fast enough. The animal came to aid its own and the claws stabbed down.
"Sorry, bub," Logan murmured. A flash of blade skinned away the fur and the next instant he was gnawing the warm, bleeding flesh. The main course was over in a matter of minutes and coppery-salt taste of the blood served only to whet his appetite. He stripped off a handful of blackberries for the liquid and the instant energy the sugar gave. Munching on those, with a claw tip he pried up a strip of bark from the tree trunk. Beneath squirmed a seething mass of fat, white bodies as long as his thumbnail. Logan grinned. He speared up the grubs one after the other, popping them between his teeth. Bland and buttery. Pure protein.
Supplied with two more handfuls of berries he returned to the track, crouched a moment, the wary beast, listening, looking, sniffing, before he stepped out on that trail. Still following Hank's spoor he felt strength flow through him and he picked up the pace.
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