THE man smothered his cigarette into the car’s ashtray. He was burning through fewer cigarettes today—a good sign that he wasn’t agitated. From the driver’s seat he watched a colleague carry the wooden container through a rearview mirror.
“Today’s job is a breeze. And one where we’ll collect a hefty payment. I want more jobs like this,” smiled another colleague from the passenger’s seat as the container was shoved into the back of the minivan.
“Why don’t you try telling the boss that? He might negotiate with the group for you.”
“You make scary suggestions sometimes, y’know? Underlings like us complainin’ about our work will only get us killed and harvested for our organs.”
“No kiddin’,” the driver chuckled and started the ignition.
“Oi! We need to hurry! Not makin’ it to the meeting place on time is what’s gonna get us killed!” shouted the man with a shaved head in the back seat as he angrily kicked the back of the driver’s seat.
“Sure, sure. We need to be at Kisaza Port by 1:00 a.m., right? Piece of cake. We’ve got plenty of time,” the driver said and stepped on the gas.
The men were low-level members of the Yellow Dragon Syndicate that exercised its authority over the surrounding area. They were usually given jobs involving the sale of illegal drugs, collecting overdue debts, and setting up stalls at festivals. All they ever got assigned were extremely dangerous jobs with little profit or safe jobs with barely any profit.
But the job they were assigned this time had them kidnapping the girl in a picture and delivering her to a predetermined location. Not only were all the tools necessary for kidnapping her provided, such as the sedative to knock her out and the exact time and place she’d be alone, but the compensation was ten times their normal rate.
“I feel like this job is too good to be true. Way too good,” the man in the passenger’s seat grumbled worriedly.
“It’ll be fine! Just means lady luck is finally on our side!” laughed the driver.
“I also thought they could have done it themselves instead of asking us when they already had everything prepared,” the man with a shaved head voiced his suspicions from the back seat.
“You guys are serious worriers! I mean, isn’t this for the group’s regular customer? Probably works a job where he can’t get his own hands dirty. Maybe it’s for a politician?”
“I guess it could be.” The man in the passenger’s seat was satisfied by his explanation. He folded his arms and sat back into his seat. The driver looked through the rearview mirror at the man with a shaved head. He showed no signs of further argument.
BANG!
The container moved. The men heard a faint moan from it.
“Hey! Shut up back there!” the man with a shaved head kicked the container. Apparently, their target woke up.
There was no telling what the girl would do inside the box once she caught onto her situation and fell into despair. Her value would decrease if she tried to commit suicide or hurt herself.
“We need to quickly deliver the goods now that she’s up! What a pain!” The driver stepped on the gas. The silver minivan increased its speed to race down the freeway; few cars were in its way because of the time of night.
After thirty minutes at a high speed, the deserted port came into view. The driver sighed with relief at the sight—too soon to be relieved.
A black silhouette appeared right in front of the car. He was looking forward the entire time, but the silhouette came out of nowhere. The car and silhouette slammed into each other before the driver recognized it as a person. Yet the collision sounded nothing like running a person over.
It was no different from two cars crashing into each other. Without his seatbelt on, the driver crashed through the windshield and rolled onto the ground in front of the minivan. The intense impact to his body ripped the breath right out of his lungs. His arm bent at an impossible angle for the bone to be intact.
A man clad in a swaying black trench coat stood before him with one bare hand on the front of the car. The fender bent around his hand where he stopped it. His eyes were such a deep, glowing red they couldn’t be human. Every part of the driver’s instincts screamed at him telling him the man in front of him was not human. It was a monster.
The red-eyes turned and locked onto the driver. The man slowly walked toward him. Fear rendered him speechless. Every fiber of his body commanded him to run, but he couldn’t get up. He heard the guttural bellow of his colleagues then. From the corner of his eye he watched his two colleagues, one with a knife and the other a metal bat, charge at the red-eyed man.
“DON’T!” the driver screamed, unsure of whom he was trying to stop. Was he telling his colleagues not to charge at the monster? Or was he yelling at the red-eyed monster about to kill them?
Everything was over in an instant. One side-swing of the arm by the red-eyed monster severed one of the men’s heads from his body. He repeated the motion a second time to take off the other’s head. The driver saw blood dripping from the right hand that had ripped through his colleagues.
“Hey, Kou! You forgot one!” The driver heard someone say above him. He looked up to see a man of delicate features and light-brown hair. The man with feline eyes raised his fist and darkness consumed the driver.