Escape from Endeavor by Daniel A. Jones

  ***

  Jake sent Lenard to give Sam a torch while he took one to Bob. They had a pretty good-sized fire going and it was time to start working on the house. He had thought about burning the barn and other buildings but had decided against it. Who knew, Faust may have hidden something valuable in one of them.

  Jake was careful as he moved around and through the buildings looking for Bob not to give Angelica a shot. When he found him, Bob was in a small shed with a window facing the house. He had a pile of kindling at his feet that he’d gathered while waiting. He also had a ladder he’d found just inside the barn. They talked for a few minutes working out a plan of attack and decided that Jake would run across to the house with the ladder and set it up while Bob covered him. Once it was ready, he would run back and Bob would run over with the torch and kindling.

  So Jake picked up the ladder and got ready to go. His heart was pounding with adrenalin as he ran across the thirty feet to the house. When he reached it, he quickly set up the ladder then ran back for the shed. He got the feeling something was wrong, but before he could figure out what it was, Bob started firing at the house. Jake didn’t even look over his shoulder, he just ducked down and added more speed when he was close enough he dove into the shed, slamming the door behind him with his foot. A bullet slammed into the door, knocking it back open. Bob and Jake pushed it back shut and waited as more bullets hit the door and window.

  “Oh, great, now they’re waitin’ for me. I ain’t running out there now,” Bob complained as he ducked down away from the window.

  “Yeah, wait for Lenny and Sam to get their attention back on the other side of the house,” Jake said as he eased his way up to look through the window now that the girls had stopped shooting. As he looked out it struck him what was wrong. Where was Daemon’s corpse? He stuck his head up higher to get a better look.

  Angelica wasted no time; she fired at the fool.

  If it hadn’t been for Bob pulling him out of the way, Jake would have lost his head as more of the window shattered where he’d been looking just seconds before.

  Both men tried to will themselves into the ground as the girls opened fire on the shed. The first few shots passed through the window and out the back of the shed. After that they started hitting random places on the wall. The large caliber bullets from the hunting rifles had no trouble punching through the boards and passing right over their heads.

  The gunfire only lasted a few seconds but when it was over Bob was in need of clean underwear. Jake was yelling something at him but he was too scared to understand. Finally, Bob started to calm down and make sense of what Jake was asking.

  “Where is Daemon’s corpse?” Jake was frantically yelling.

  “I don’t know, in the barn, I guess.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? Didn’t you move it?”

  “No, he must not have been dead. I saw a blood trail leading to the barn from where he was. Don’t worry, nothing can lose that much blood and live,” Bob said confidently, trying to reassure himself as much as his friend.

  Jake was not so sure. Angelica had told him that her brother could heal really fast and it had helped him during his fights with the Rift monsters. He knew she was sensitive and he often thought she could read minds. Maybe her brother could regenerate. Jake stopped himself. That was crazy. Nobody could have survived that shot; he had to be dead.

  The idea that Daemon had fought a Rift monster and survived still amazed and worried him; the idea that he might have to face Daemon in a fight terrified him. Jake had to get to the barn and make sure he was dead.

  The two men started kicking boards off the back wall so they could get away. The torch had gone out in the confusion. Bob was going to have to go back to the main fire to get another one while Jake made sure Daemon was dead. Bob thought it was foolish but Jake was upset for some reason so he didn’t argue. It took them a few minutes to break enough boards away to crawl through. Neither man was very observant: Neither saw the smoke coming from the other side of the house.

  Jake stopped at the back of the barn while Bob continued on. He wanted to tell Bob to stay with him to check the barn together, but Bob had already told him he was wasting time. So Jake sneaked in, his rifle at the ready. Jake slowly moved from shadow to shadow toward the front of the barn. He finally got to where he could see the blood trail leading behind some boards. He crept up to where he could peek around them. Jake didn’t consider looking up; if he had he might have seen Daemon crouching on a rafter.

  Daemon could feel the man’s fear and it made him feel powerful. Daemon jumped down onto the man’s back feet first, allowing his full weight to land squarely on Jake’s spine. The man broke in half like a rag doll bent backward. Daemon rode the fall and Jake’s broken body all the way to the ground, making sure he was dead.

  Daemon took a few seconds to get up, as he did he recognized the man was Angelica’s boyfriend, Jake Bender. He had liked Jake and wondered what had happened that Jake would be attacking them. Daemon picked up Jake’s rifle and like most guns, it didn’t feel right. He knew how to shoot and was pretty good at it but it just felt wrong killing from a distance. The only weapon he’d ever felt comfortable wielding was an ax. He couldn’t bring himself to use the rifle; whoever was attacking them disserved the terror of seeing their killer. So he set the rifle down, pulled Jake behind the pile of boards and pushed some of them over on top of him. He took a few seconds to look around to see what weapons were available and which he would need. Daemon picked up an old ax he’d outgrown and the broken handle of a pitchfork.

  He could sense three other people in the woods around the house. There were two on the other side of the house and one by the river.

  First target would be the loner by the river. As he left the barn, Daemon saw that the house was on fire. He stopped for a second, scared that his sister was still in there. He could sense her and knew that she was still all right, but that wouldn’t last for long. He started running. He had no time for any fancy stalking—the next few minutes were going to be fast and brutal.

  Bob heard what he thought was Jake running through the woods toward him. He barely had time to realize his mistake and start to yell before Daemon hit him with the ax. Daemon had not even slowed down to aim the ax swing. He just ran past Bob and swung the ax in an underarm swing, catching Bob just below the sternum and lifting him off the ground with the force of the blow. The ax handle snapped like a dry twig with the force of the blow. Bob went flying backward, blood and gore spraying over a wide area. Daemon didn’t stop, he just kept running. He had two more to kill before it would be safe for Angelica to leave the flaming building.

  Daemon knew the next two would be harder. He was going to have to fight both of them at the same time or risk getting shot again. He would have to either slow down and sneak up on them or charge them, hoping they’d be startled and slow to react. A quick glance through the woods at this side of the house told him what he had to do.