Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 111: Escape

Laz had never really considered the consequences of his actions as being important. When the last few years of your life have seen you living mostly alone and with no real limits being imposed, you start to forget that you can't always do what you want. Laz felt that he was a good person. He never really did anything bad or made things hard on anyone or broke any laws. That is, until a few months ago when things started getting weird. That said, he didn't expect to find himself in a woman's bed when her father came home.

Of course he never expected to do these things with Kat either, but that wasn't a thought that needed to be voiced. For the moment, what he really needed to do was to get the hell out of there and try to escape, FAST.

With a speed and skill he didn't know he possessed, Laz slid out of be while Kat started stirring at the noise and got dressed in record time. Luckily, all of his clothes were in the same area off the side of the bed. After hearing Jon's voice getting closer, Laz realized he was still downstairs in the dojo and fled out of Kat's room like a bat out of hell.

After making his way back to the kitchen, Laz was able to hear Jon coming up the stairs. With no other ideas making their way into his now clear but useless brain, Laz poured some wine on his clothes, rubbed some into his face like a cologne and laid on the floor under the table.

Being passed out drunk was the best he could come up with.

Strangely, it worked.

When Jon finally got into the kitchen, he noticed Laz 'passed out' under the table and couldn't help but sigh. He knew how old Laz was and didn't think this was the right behavior for a young man of his age. He didn't blame Laz though for Jon knew that the boy had been led astray by his daughter.

Sadly, this wasn't the time for addressing these issues.

Jon reached down without a word and lifted Laz straight up into the air, throwing him on his shoulder. He then made his way down the hall quickly to were Kat's room was and started banging on the door, figuring she was probably in there.

"Katie?"

"KATIE!! OPEN UP!"

"DAMN IT DAD. I HEARD YOU. GIVE ME A SECOND!" Kat finally yelled back. After a few moments of stuff being knocked over and Kat's swearing, she managed to open the door while covered in a bath robe. Seeing Laz draped over her dad's shoulder pretending to be passed out drunk caused her to want to laugh so she had to do her best to fight back the urge.

'This little shit...' She couldn't help but think to herself. She felt it when he left originally, but just figured he was going to that bathroom or something. The truth that he was running away didn't hit until she heard her dad's voice once he got upstairs and she had to praise him for his quick wits. Things would have gotten really weird if her dad found them together in her bedroom no matter what excuse she came up with. She had no way of knowing that he had just panic'd and did the first thing that came to mind in this situation; playing dead. Had she known, only god knows what he reaction would have been.

"Get some stuff packed and get ready to go, QUICKLY!" Jon said once he finally saw her.

"What the hell?"

"No time. Make it fast. I've got to wake Laz up." Jon said and made to move away,

"Don't bother. Here, let me," Kat said and walked up to Laz who was still pretending to be passed out. In one smooth motion, she swung her hand, slapping him across the face.

"SON OF A BITCH, WHAT DID I DO?" Laz yelled, immediately "sobering up."

"See? All awake," Kat pointed out with a smile.

"Uh... right. Anyway, come on Laz, you need to get your stuff packed and we need to get out of here now.

"Uh... right." Laz had heard those instructions before and apparently, it was the same for him. He got a bad feeling something had happened, but he didn't know what and it didn't look like Jon was going to explain..

Getting down off his shoulder, Laz quickly made his way downstairs and to his own room. As he went through the dojo though, he noticed there were two strange men standing at the door and the window, looking out. None of the lights were on which added even more of a strangeness to the whole scene.

Getting into his room, Laz quickly threw everything into his cloth knapsack as he never really unpacked anything. After a quick look over the room, Laz exited back to the dojo, only to find Jon with his own bag, talking to the two who were watching the street.

"Laz. This is Roberto and Rick, two old friends of mine." Jon made a quick introduction while the men looked over briefly and shook Laz's hand before returning their attention to the road.

"What's going on?" Laz couldn't help but ask. He noticed something though as he asked the question. Both men had on red jade bracelets leading Laz to figure out that both men had abilities.

"Roberto's gift had been giving him trouble the past few weeks. He's able to sense thoughts, not like mind reading, but more like... intent," Jon began to explain.

"At first, he didn't think much of it, but then it started getting worse, which was when he told us about it." Jon finished up.

"What was it?" Jon's answer was incredibly vague.

"It was like a constant buzzing in my head. Felt weird, like I had both my ear drums blown out. Started as just a small thing over top of the normal feels I get from people. But then it kept getting louder and louder," Roberto answered back.

Laz took a minute to observe the two men. Roberto and Frank both looked to be about the same age as Jon, but that was where the similarities ended. Roberto was a bit on the heavy side and balding where as Rick was incredibly skinny with a mustache that looked straight out of a 70s porno. When compared to the hearty, bear like proportions of Jon, each man looked like they were as different as can be.

"Anyway, we went to go check it out since Rick's ability allows him to track thing's like a bloodhound. Basically, we just went around looking for where the noise was the loudest and the smell was the weirdest.

'That explains why Jon was missing for so long without returning Kat's calls and why they smell so bad,' Laz concluded to himself. He had been wondering what the stench was after he shook hands with the two or them.

"What did you find?" Laz couldn't help but ask.

"It... him... them... it's hard to explain," Jon said.

"We eventually ended up outside of town at this old farm. The place looked like it had been abandoned for a while, but that was where both the smell and the sounds were coming from," Rick explained.

"After looking around, we finally figured out that something was in an old methane well under the farm, although we had no idea what it was. Now although this farm was abandoned, there were still people walking around it at various times. You would think it sounds like guards, but the fact was that there were people of all ages from kids to elders and both males and females just mindlessly wondering around. Since we didn't know what was happening, we decided to observe it for a few days since even if we called the police, they would probably ignore it since we didn't see anyone actually doing anything. The other night, a few days ago, something even more weird happened. We saw a couple dozen people being brought in, people who had been tied up. They were dragged over to the mine shaft, kicking and screaming and shoved in. That when we all heard the loud buzzing come to life like a bee hive that just became threatened. It only took minutes for it to settle down though before the people who had been thrown in walked back out, looking just as mindless as the others," Rick finished his portion of the story and Roberto decided to finish it from there.

"We needed to go see exactly what was in that mind shaft. So earlier today, once everything had calmed down and many of those mindless people had walked off or just disappeared, we made our way down to the mine shaft and went inside. And not too far in... we saw it... we saw, him..." Roberto's voice started to cut out at this point as a look of pain or disgust filled his face.

"This guy... it was like... he had grown a fucking bug's nest on his back... like a giant bee hive" Rick explained while shaking.

"We didn't think there would be a person in there and when he saw us, he didn't move. I don't even think his body is able to move. But the bug's nest on his back came alive and started... thumping... like a heart. Then a fuck ton of little bugs shot out of it and came at us," Jon explained.

"If it wasn't for Jon here, we might had either died or been taken over or something already," Roberto said, taking a deep breath.

"As we ran out, some of the mindless ones started chasing us. They act like zombies most of the time, but when they are mad, they are just as smart as a human. Plus, it seems like when one of them sees you, they all know where you are and come after your as a group. As we got in Jon's truck and drove off, they got in their own cars and followed. It took almost the whole day to lose them, but now we need to get the fuck out of here," Rick concluded, giving a glare at Jon who called for Kat one more time.

She eventually appeared, looking like she had even taken a quick shower. She had a modestly sized bag packed and looked like she wasn't in a hurry in the slightest.

"Bout time," Rick commented.

"Fuck off," Kat shot back. Seems like she knew him.

"Yo! Robbie," Kat waved hi to Roberto.

"It's Roberto..." Roberto's voice trailed off. Laz actually got the dynamic of these three figured out pretty quickly.

"Alright. Here's the plan. We are going somewhere else, not here, so we can call someone like the police or whatever to take care of this shit." Rick laid out his plan for everyone.

"Where are we going then?" Kat asked.

"Uhh..."

"We can go to my grandpa's. He owns a rather empty apartment complex so at least everyone will have a bed to sleep in. Also, I know a guy named Bill who might know some people in the government who can do something about this," Laz suggested, much to everyone's surprise.

"Works for me," Rick replied.

"Yeah," Roberto chimed in.

"Sounds like a good plan," Jon added in.

"Can I stay at your place?" Kat whispered to Laz, much to his delight. He couldn't help but nod his head yes, causing her to giggle.

"Alright, We have Jon's truck, but the two of you..." Rick tried to figure out which poor saps were going to have to ride in the uncovered bed.

"It's fine, my grandpa's truck is here too so Kat can ride with me," Laz offered. It seemed like they wanted to take as few of vehicles as possible to not attract attention and since Laz had to lead the way, it would be easier if Kat rode with him as opposed to driving her own small car.

"Good. Alright. Then let's not waste time." Rick threw open the door while Laz fumbled for his keys from his bag, eventually grabbing them out.

Everyone went outside into the rather cold and snowy night and quickly went for their respective vehicles. Laz quickly opened it up to let Kat in before going around to the other side to start it. Grabbing a snow brush from behind the seat, Laz quickly cleared off the old truck before hoping back in and heading for the exit. As he was parked at the exit to turn on to the road, he saw the lights from Jon's truck pull up behind him and flash him, indicating that they were ready to go. Just as Laz was about to pull out, he noticed a person walking down the road towards them. As Kat turned to look at what Laz was staring at, she saw the person as well and couldn't help but pointing out,

"Hey, he's walking pretty funny. Like that guy we ran into the other night, remember?" She asked, looking over at Laz.

He now knew that it was one of those controlled people. It seems like they had been discovered.