Free Dark Screams, Volume 1 by Brian James Freeman Page B

fell from the claw to hit the concrete with a splattering sound. Branches, cans, rags, massive clumps of green riverweed, the child’s tractor. Then something else hit the concrete with a loud slap.
    Goliath stared at the objects. I stared, too. Because there were two corpses. A pair of women, with drenched hair sticking to their faces, and their eyes wide open. What I noticed more than anything else were their collars. They were chained together at the neck, too.
    —
    The giant lurched forward, those massive hands outstretched. He grasped the ten-foot chain that connected the two dead women to each other and dragged the corpses from the pile of wet junk that the claw had scooped from the river.
    I started in horror.
My God. Those two women had been chained together, too, just like Goliath and me.
One of the women was probably in her twenties, with red hair and wearing a green silk dress. The other woman, forty or so, wore the uniform of a bus driver. Their faces were scratched, and their fingernails had been ripped from their fingers.
    “They fought a battle before they died.” I was so shocked I actually uttered the words aloud, forgetting that I was trying to remain invisible to my chain buddy. “Did they fight each other?”
    Goliath grunted loudly. The bodies interested him. Crouching down, he examined the steel collars, and fingered the padlocks that secured the chains as well as locking the collars in place. He slapped the face of the redhead, perhaps believing he could wake her.
    No way,
I thought.
She’s dead as a beached fish.
That’s when the man paused with a thoughtful expression. He touched the collar on his own neck, grunting in a beastlike way (so far I hadn’t heard him say a single word). He seemed to be understanding that he was chained in the same way. In fact, he did something that sent ice blasting through my veins. His eyes focused on the chain links closest to his own throat, then he followed the chain with his gaze. Soon his eyes would track all along the chain until they found my face at the other end.
What then? A smile and a friendly nod? Hardly. He’s likely to rip my face off.
I’d seen how he’d mutilated his victim just minutes ago.
    He began to grunt with excitement as his eyes followed the links toward my face at the other end.
Any minute now, he’s going to—
    “Hey, John! I found a screwdriver back here!”
    My eyes darted toward Nev. The pizza-delivery boy leaned out from the recess, brandishing a screwdriver with a long shaft.
    “John!” His yell combined dread and triumph. “I’ll throw the screwdriver to you. Kill the psycho. Stab him! Stab his eyes and face! Kill the bastard! Here! CATCH!”
    Nev tossed the screwdriver in my direction. What an absolutely useless, terrible throw. The screwdriver hit the concrete floor five feet from me, bounced once, and rolled over the edge of the channel into the river. My mouth dropped open in astonishment. The screwdriver had vanished.
    Nev groaned. “Oh, crap.”
    I expected Goliath to throw himself at me in nothing less than murderous fury. Instead, however, he sprinted toward the recess where Nev had been shackled. The chain snapped tight, and I nearly flew through the air after locomotive man in front of me. Wherever Goliath went I had to follow.
    I wonder if Nev regretted what he did. Or if he had the chance to curse himself for such an inept throw that sent the screwdriver into the river. Maybe such musing is academic, because Nev died quickly. Goliath punched him in the face. After the second punch, Nev begged for his life. The third punch slammed into the side of his head. No blood came out of his nose or his mouth, but a gush of crimson liquid spurted from the kid’s ears. A hemorrhage, I guess. Either way, he didn’t live long after that. His eyes went dull, the eyelids drooped, and he flopped down in the recess. Only the wrist shackles kept him upright. Goliath kicked Nev so hard in the chest that I heard the kid’s