So You Used to Be Human - Book 3 (Original Version)

Chapter 39: Panic and Other Malfunctions

The double vision of Claude looked up from his watch and reached over to the bed where an army-type knapsack was sitting open. He pulled out a black and silver tube that looked a hell a lot like the flash-bangs that I see cops on television use so much and it was at that moment that I realized what he had done that had fucked me up this much, and that he was apparently going to do it again.

"COVER YOUR EARS!" he yelled, and threw the grenade into the hole in the wall. Claude ducked down, hands goign to his ears and I turned away, squeezing my eyes shut from my wandering double vision and covering my ears tightly.

A muffled BANG! came from next door, and I tried to gain my feet again, looking back to Claude, who was rushing over to me, concerned.

"Sorry about the first grenade, that was mainly one hundred percent instinct."

"Your instincts have a habit of hurting me," I said. Something clicked in my ear and suddenly I could hear perfect again, kind of like after clearing your ears from the pressure.

"Good to see you too, but we should be running before those guys come after us." Claude had grabbed the knapsack from the bed and it really didn't match his suit, but it somehow looked right at home on his shoulder. Claude had that James Bond thing going on where he could go through a dozen sewers and rivers of blood and still come out with a slightly dusty but still very good looking suit, even if he had lost the tie a very long time ago. It was amazing to witness.

I was instantly aware that I was a mess in my blood-stained black t-shirt and blue jeans that had been through so much in a matter of hours. I currently had no idea where my shoes were and was desperately hoping that we wouldn't have to walk over any broken glass tonight, but the odds were not in my favour.

"Good idea, " I said and pulled open the door. Hopefully there was nobody around to scare with my appearance. We exited quickly into the corridor and walked quickly towards the elevators. "They have a hard-on for finding you and ripping you to pieces. You stole their six-thousand year old vampire and they kinda really want him back."

"I'm surprised anybody wants that crusty old bastard back. I've got him upstairs hopped up on Five-Hour Energy."

I gave Claude a long look and he grinned at me, then glanced at his watch, perfectly happy with himself to have pulled off the perfect rescue in the middle of this perfectly normal looking motel.

BLAM! There was a loud crash that made the both of us spin around, my spin a hell of a lot less graceful than Claude's; I stumbled into a wall and he had suddenly produced an extremely large handgun from apparently out of nowhere. My need to find out how he had done that magic trick was squashed by the sight of a lumbering Mr Bryce in the middle of the corridor, the broken door from his room, on the floor in front of him.

Blood was streaming out of Mr Bryce's ears and from the way he stumbled about, he was most definitely blinded from the way he moved his head back and forth as if he were almost smelling for us. And yes, he was most definitely pissed off.

"You should have put a bullet in his head when you had the chance," I murmured to Claude. "But I don't think that would have slowed him down much either."

"You going to introduce us or are we going to run?"

Mr Bryce took a step forward and grinned. "Bob! Come out and play!"

I made the decision for us: "Definitely run."

Claude reached into his knapsack as we backed up down the corridor, slowly picking up speed, mainly putting more distance between us and the abominable Mr Bryce. In one smooth move he pulled out a shiny metal ball, pushed a button on the side of it and pitched it underhanded at Mr Bryce.

"What is that thing?" I wanted to know and regretted asking instantly.

"Pepper bomb," Claude replied and we turned and hauled ass out of there.

BOOM! The corridor shook behind us and Mr Bryce screamed as he was enveloped in a fast spreading cloud of burning pepper. And I do mean burning pepper, as in pepper that was on fire. Take a cloud of any solid object, especially sugar and add flame and you're going to get a fireball. This fireball was made of pepper and it burned Mr Bryce in many, many ways.

Me, I just wanted to be far from the cloud of pepper as fast as possible.

We stopped running at the end of the corridor and dared to look back, since we had not been murdered yet; I was glad to see the figure of Mr Bryce lying prone on the ground in the middle of a blackened patch of corridor. Parts of the wallpaper and carpet were still on fire.

This was of course when the sprinklers kicked in and drenched that part of the corridor in water.

No, the entire floor wasn't drenched, since most sprinkler systems do not work that way, no matter what the movies tell you. They're actually referred to as "one-at-a-time-activation" systems, and only the sprinkler closest to the fire will turn on.

Claude and I looked at each other.

"That had a little more boom than I had planned for,"Claude admitted.

"It was pretty awesome though. What else do you have in that wonderful bag of yours?"

"You really don't want to know."

I really didn't.

"Gimme the gun," I said. "I really need to put a bullet in his head. It will take him a few days to make it and by then we're going to be a long time gone."

Claude pulled his gun away from me, giving me a weird look. "Since when did you get so gun happy?"

"It's been a really fucked up week dude. Gimme the gun!"

"No way in hell I'm doing that dude. The Bob I know doesn't go around putting bullets in people's heads!"

"Fuck that! That fucker over there is not people by any stretch of the imagination! He and his pals are the scariest motherfuckers ever to walk this earth and they want nothing more right now than to kill the ever-loving fuck out of me, so the Bob you know is going on vacation! Now gimme the gun or I'm taking it from you!"

Down the corridor I could see Mr Bryce rolling over and pulling himself up.

Claude pointed at Mr Bryce and whispered urgently to me: "Bob you idiot! It's a trap!"

That one stunned me for a second, and I waited for my brain to catch up, but it was still very far behind.

"Say what? Come again?"

Claude lowered his voice to a low whisper, even as he placed the gun into my hands and then proceeded to rifle through his bag.

"There are three of these motherfuckers, right? And yet Magilla Gorilla over there is the only one outside in the corridor. He practically shrugged off two stun grenades, one of which went off right next to his head, and he's still going. Flash-bangs, pepper, caffeine or whatever the fuck you use on these guys doesn't work the same way as it does on you. So ask yourself this: where are the other two?"

Claude was right. Mr Bryce was the muscle of the outfit but it was Mr Flynn who was the brains. If there was anyone who needed a bullet in the head, it was him, but he wasn't out there. Instead they had sent the tank, the one guy among them who loved taking a beating and came back for more.

I looked at the gun in my hand and back at the rising hulk of Mr Bryce. Claude nodded and I nodded back.

"It's a trap."

"Yep, it's a trap."

"Tell me you got some more tricks in that bag of yours. Something that's going to bring him down."

Claude checked his bag, looked at me and then back at Mr Bryce. Mr Flynn stepped out of the room, blood streaming from his ears and looked me in the eye.

"Mister Sinnel!" he called and a chill went through me. "Bring me their heads!

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's the beginning of the end kids! The boys are back together and shenanigans are afoot.  And to think this entire chapter came about from a simple plot point "Claude rescues Bob using stun grenades".  That's literally all I had to work with.