The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER FORTY

293

The dog watched the female with interest, but not with its eyes. Anyone who may have seen the animal at this moment would have seen mere amber ovals where the dog's eyes should have been. It was no breed known to man. Its ears perched up. Those were the keen sensitive antennae the beast used to plot the movement of humans, when it was this way. When the light was to intense or to intrusive it could retract its pupils. When the thing felt the necessity to do this it could hear with, an intensity that would rival any animal.

The creature wanted the soldier, not just as a resource to quench his thirst, but as a captive too. The hints of rebellion in Reese had increased and the beast was preparing for the time when he would have to dispatch him. As mentioned it was inevitable that a slave would do this, when the secretions the beast had injected them with settled and waned. They would eventually desire independence even though the need for the sweet blood would never be overcome.

The beast could not allow this, it would not tolerate competition from one it had created and so when he saw that one he'd enslaved start to react as if a loner and then begin to demonstrate this type of behavior he only had two alternatives. He could either allow an escape to compete with it for the blood of others or just kill them. Another kiss would not suffice unless it was the means by which he wished to destroy them. But he could not rid himself of Reese just now, he needed him, his expertise, to continue on its quest, this was essential for he had to find the swamp and when successful the vessel so he could awaken the others.

So now he had chosen a new victim to bring under his control. Once this was done the three of them would return to the journey east searching for a swath of wetlands, dense clusters of cypress and pine where a huge rock reclined. A meteor some thought, but in reality a vessel, a cocoon in a sense too, a cocoon once in flight through the infinite void of space, searching, endlessly searching for blood, the blood of humanity. But this place may not exist, as he had known it and how would the rock have fared if this was true? What environment would it be languishing in with its hidden cargo, the villain's brethren? It was about for he could sense it, feel it on the wind. 

294

 And he was grateful that others, these humans couldn't breach it. And he knew he would find it, he knew it to his hideous core. And once they found it he could dispense with Reese and later the soldier once he brought out the others.

The soldier was a marvelous specimen and he would make an extravaganza of his death. He also knew he would need others to, as the situation arose upon their merry trip. He would need to kill a lot of them too for he was quite famished having so long gone without imbibing blood.

He would need a child also an unspoiled young child whose precious blood was the antidote that would revive his brethren. But presently he had to quench his and the slave's thirst for the blood. So now he had decided this female was a proper victim to serve up their needs.

The dog had sat curled around the base of the shrubbery as if it was a serpent. It had waited patiently for the soldier ignoring the customers who came and went from the club despite their growing hunger. It ordered its captive to stand in the shadow of the street holding the human clothes it wore when it was bipedal.

As they had followed the soldier from the bus terminal the captive was eager to spring an attack upon him almost immediately, but the master insisted the conditions would have to be just right for he had other plans for this one he explained to the captive. He would make him a slave also. They must approach him cautiously.

Reese grew jealous and sulked. When the master showed another any attention he did this. And once the guard Crumpler was brought under the master's control he too became petty and suspicious of his predecessor when the master was about. The atmosphere was always tense with competition for the master's attention. But this concern of Reese's was never born out because the master had deferred to him most often as the designated superior of Crumpler who ultimately let his stupidity force the master's hand into killing him.