THE CURE: Chapter One- What's a nice girl like you...
She walked into the saloon. Coming through the dusty dented metal doors
she felt all the blood shot eyes of the men in the room glare towards her. She
could smell the blood and sweat on them all, it was a smell she herself knew
much to well by now. All of them, bloodthirsty killers just like the man she was
looking for. They soon lost interest in her and went back to their
conversations, and their poisonous drinks in their filthy glasses. Walking
towards the bar she ordered a shot of Whiskey. It arrived in a filthy chipped
shot glass; She shot it down her throat and swallowed hard. A grimace came over
her face and then fainted away. Yep, this was the place all right, the place
that the old man had spoken of. The place where she knew she would finally find
him. Her name was Samantha Scarenth, but she’d been called Sam most of her
life. Wondering into this God forsaken hellhole in the middle of nowhere was no
mistake, she had come here on a mission looking for a man she thought by now,
might only be a myth. The old man had told her he was headed here not but a week
ago in a run down bar similar to this one. He said he'd heard that Riddick was
coming out this way. Then she saw him sitting in the back, in a dark sunken part
of the saloon. Instantly she knew it was him; it couldn't have been anyone else.
As she went to walk towards him, her legs turned to stone. Not one muscle would
move. All she could do was watch
him, watching her. Straining through the dark, smokiness of the room to see him
she could tell he was wearing a black tank top. Through it she could see his
muscular torso. The shirt seemed to meld to his body. His arms were thick and
sculpted. A pair of dark goggles
was strapped across his eyes. It was obvious he hadn’t shaved for a few days,
but it looked good on him; Much more handsome then she had imagined. Yes, this
had to be the infamous Richard B. Riddick. She had been searching fervently for
him ever since her release from the Slam two months before. Sam had been doing a
little hard time for illegal smuggling of precious jewels from the Tanbell
Nebula, when she was caught. While there, the other inmates told her about an
escapee named Riddick. They told her all sorts of wild stories about him, and
his escape. She wrote to a couple of her friends in the judicial department, who
had also helped get her sentence cut, for more information on the mysterious
Riddick. What they sent her both frightened and intrigued her. After being
released from the Slam on probation she skipped town and went in search of him;
Getting tips now and again and reports of sightings, she had just all but given
up hope when she stepped into that bar over in Sector 9. Smitts, the barkeep,
had over heard her talking to a couple of cutthroats about Riddick. He pulled
her aside and said a man of such description had been in there a day or two
before. He mentioned that he’d thought he over heard him talking about going
to a bar in the Raiber Quadrant, the very bar she now stood paralyzed in.
Finally, Sam was able to move again. She was headed towards Riddick when one of
those drunken fools walked in front of her.
“What’s
your hurry little girl”, slurred the drunken slob. He looked older with a
bandana tied around his head. He was wearing a black leather vest with matching
pants. His arms were heavily tattooed, and he had a large scar starting on his
for head coming down over his eye and down his cheek.
“Out
of my way”, said Sam who shoved him aside and into a wall. He was drunk enough
that he stayed down. No one else in the saloon really seemed to care. They
hadn’t even looked up from their drinks to see what was going on. Sam looked
back up to see Riddick making his exit through a back door. Running through the
bar she made her way to the exit. Running through the door and into the night;
the door gently closed behind her leaving her enveloped in the darkness, with
nothing but the stars in sight. The only thing she could hear was her own heart
thumping in her chest and her breathing, which had become quite heavy. Spinning
in the darkness she looked and listened for any sight of Riddick. Then it
happened, felt it right across her neck; the cold steel so close one false move
and she’d be slit open from ear to ear. It was a knife. It was Riddick.