Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Sixty-Two

It was all Sam needed to see. He dodged away, attempting to lure the man to the stream.

The mighty blow Sam had delivered scarcely had phased the young brute, but a slight trickle of blood from the man's nose showed that he was not as durable as he was strong. The fellow could be hurt.

Sam high-stepped as best he was able through the water of the stream, until he came to a stone and sand strip 20 feet from the nearest bank. There, he turned and waited for his huge opponent.

It took no time at all. The man was right behind him, and in a sudden rush grabbed Sam around the torso, very nearly knocking him into the water. The injury Sam had received minutes before was terrible, even life-threatening, but it was not as painful, nor as incapacitating, as the earlier strikes from Bennet's rifle had been.

As the young attacker tried to get a proper grip on him, Sam pummeled the fellow's head and face with all his might. No single blow seemed to slow Sam's opponent, but incrementally, over the next few minutes, the younger man's efforts grew sluggish.

But Sam also slowed. For the first time, it became clear that there was blood in the spit and froth that flew from the veteran's gasping and wheezing mouth. The contest, at least at that moment, seemed to be one of endurance, one that did not favor Sam.

In a huge burst of energy, the younger man planted a foot between Sam's legs, locked his grip around the older man's torso, and lifted him from the ground in a huge bear hug. The youth squeezed with what seemed to be all his might. For Sam, the pain of the lad's grip wasn't unbearable, but such tremendous power drove the remaining air from Sam's lungs.

It was now or never. Drawing back as far as he was able, Sam delivered three hard head-butts to the man's nose, before hearing the crack of cartilage he sought. Yet the young man continued squeezing and, in fact, squeezed even harder. Sam gasped, kicked, and with both palms cupped, boxed the man's ears three, four, five times, as hard as he was able.

The youngster's grip still didn't relent, but the man staggered half a step to Sam's right.

That was it.

Having found his adversary's chink, the old Chicagoan dug his thumb into the hollow just below the man's right ear, gouging and pushing with all his might, and screamed like a banshee into that same ear.

Momentarily disoriented and off balance, Sam's opponent staggered again and lost his footing. The two crashed to the ground, half in the water and half on the stone-strewn sandbar on which they struggled.

Incredibly, the young man's grip still did not relent, but Sam reached out and snatched up a huge rock with a single hand and began pounding the top of the young brute's head with it. After many minutes of such hammering, the pressure on Sam's lungs and torso eased, ever so slightly.

Seizing another hand-sized stone after the first broke, Sam continued his relentless battering. After several brutal minutes, the man's grip again eased. Sam twisted half free of the clench, grabbed a larger stone and, with both hands, recommenced his ferocious assault.

The Chicagoan's savage battering of the man continued until the younger man released his grip entirely and flailed about for a moment, as if he sought to rise and flee.

But it was too late. Somehow, the now breathless and exhausted Sam managed to get to his knees, and, with all his remaining strength, gave five powerful blows that ended the young man's struggles and took away his life.

***

Only when he slouched breathless and spent at the side of his dead enemy did Sam realize he could still hear the girls screaming on the slopes above. His legs were frozen, though, and he was unable to rise.

Yet, the damnable sound of swishing leaves caught his ear, and he turned to see yet another soldier emerge from the brush, raise a short rifle, and take careful aim.

Well, motherfucker, Sam thought.

In a pathetic and desperate act of defiance, Sam snatched up a tennis-ball sized stone and hurled it at the man who now stood on the bank, not 20 feet away. To Sam's eternal surprise, the projectile caught the young soldier square on the forehead. The man went down in a heap.

Motherfucker is right, sighed Sam inwardly. He'd never had a good pitching arm.

Many minutes passed before Sam could regain his feet, and then it was all he could do. The voice of one of the soldiers he had left lamed higher on the hillside, calling his comrade's name and asking what was going on, wafted down to him. Sam thought to respond, to yell out a curse or a rebuke, but he hadn't the breath or the energy. He went over to the man he'd felled with the stone—Rogers, according to his uniform's nametag—and gave the man several hard kicks to both ankles. The young Special Forces sergeant wouldn't be following anyone soon.

Sam picked up the man's rifle, slowly and painfully. The weapon was unlike any he'd ever seen. The barrel was tremendously thick and the magazine large. Sam detached the magazine and examined several cartridges before pocketing them. They were of a heavy caliber, and the bullet that tipped them was of a color, shape, and consistency he'd never seen.

The sturdy Chicagoan knew one of those bullets had gone through him and probably had nicked his lung. It explained his inability to breathe properly and the frothy blood in his spittle. He could feel the entry wound on his left side. Most of the bleeding had stopped, but he knew he would need medical treatment of some sort.

He also was certain the round had exited through his back, and was grateful for that fact. He didn't have the heart to look. The exit wound would be a mess, but it was infinitely better than having a bullet lodged inside him. Sam soon would heal—he hoped. But no scalpel devised could cut his skin.

As the oldster crept his way up the hill, the shouts of the soldier faded, but he could still hear the girls calling out above.

Had there been more soldiers, they already would have found him, but he had no intention of waiting around for reinforcements. As he neared the spot where the girls were shouting, a list of the things he should be doing, but lacked the strength to accomplish, ran through his head.

Just before he reached the spot where he'd left the youngsters, even before he'd gained sight of them, their cries turned to shouts of joy.

Celia can sense my presence, he thought.

"Yup," shouted the girl.

He emerged from the bushes and untied the crying and laughing children, who grabbed him in frantic hugs, but Sam announced their immediate departure. He asked only for a moment to lean against a nearby tree to catch his breath. He knew if he sat now, he'd never get up again.

As he eased his battered and damaged carcass against a large oak, he realized the girls had dashed off, downhill. Their cheerful and chirpy voices, hurling insults against the surviving soldiers, wafted upward, calling them "motherfuckers" and "ass clowns," among other less pleasant epithets. Celia crowed that the men were lucky Sam didn't come down and drown them "like kittens."

Sam wasn't certain where they'd learned such language.

He wanted to shout to the girls, to tell them to come back, but he was unable. After another five minutes, two forms came lumbering up the hill, through the underbrush. They looked like nothing so much as two walking piles of army field gear. Celia had known to scavenge what they needed by peeping into Sam's mind.

When they returned, the youngsters gingerly examined his gunshot injury. Sam's fears of an enormous and gaping exit wound were eased when Celia pronounced that it was, "Just a little hole ... you big wuss."

They disinfected his injuries and bandaged them as best as they were able from an army med-kit. After restocking on food and water, and acquiring some more rain gear and new t-shirts from the soldiers' assault packs, they again set off on their path north, as fast as they were able to travel.