The devil beast was right in front of him, not more than five feet away. It was alone.
Herk set the flashlight to its highest setting and shone it directly in the beast’s face. The thing howled and tried to cover its eyes.
The flashlight hit the ground as Herk leaped on the beast and slammed it to the ground. In the faint light of the fallen flashlight, he hardly saw what he fought, but it attacked him fiercely. Herk grabbed it in a bear hug and smashed the horned creature into the concrete wall of the tunnel. Chips broke loose from the surface. The beast reached one arm over, grabbed Herk in a headlock, and tried to take him down to the ground. Herk went down with the beast on top of him as it snapped at his throat.
As he fell, the drug pleaded with Herk as he fell. It begged him to let it have a chance to make the difference. He had no choice, as his arms were pinned back, and allowed it some control. He kept enough of himself back to initiate the kill switch when he needed it.
Leon was already planning what he’d do to the woman when he took the muscleman down. This was a real fight, not the waste of time those men with pistols thought they could give him. He was almost at the neck with his artificial teeth, when his victim broke his grip in one precise move and stood up. Leon rolled over, this was impossible! His suit was built to have the strength of a polar bear. He still didn’t believe it when the muscleman grabbed him by the throat and squeezed. As the lights faded and he kicked without use, Leon realized there were more ways to increase human strength than he’d realized.
It was later, as they relaxed in the hotel room, when Linda finally asked Herk about his last minute burst of energy. She was tied to the wall when he defeated the beast and didn’t tell the whole story to the police detectives when they showed up. She’d watched as Herk dragged the lifeless form of Leon in his kill-suit over to her and freed her from the wall. Linda quickly found the destruct code on the kill-suit and watched it dissolve into its organic components. The police would find their killer, evidence of his victims, and be happy.
“You let the drug loose,” she said in the hotel room. Herk was in his robe and she in her nightgown.
“I had to,” he replied. “It was the only way to kill him. Too much of the suit was still bulletproof. I needed the drug to activate so I could strangle him.”
“But you turned it off,” she stated. “You can do that?”
“I can for now,” he said. “This time I turned it off. It didn’t want to go; it wanted me to go after you next. I was able to keep enough back when it activated to shut it down after Leon was dead. The next time, who knows? We still have nine more tasks to find out.”
Linda leaned over and lightly kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve thanked you three times for saving my life. You want to try four?”
“It’s a good start,” he said and undid the tie around her nightgown. It fell to the floor and she was on top of him in a second.
By morning, Herk and Linda had completed five tasks in the hotel room. She wanted more, but he needed to sleep.
Copyright
Copyright© 2016 by Stephen King
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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