Hey, welcome to my fiction site. A lot has happened lately, so I’ll try to keep things updated:
* My first-ever sold story (to a real market, that is) - “Der Fuhrer’s Bunker” - has been published and can now be read at www.reflectionsedge.com. The check is on its way, for which I plan to frame and place on my wall above my writing desk. I can only hope it’s the first of many. It is the featured story for the next 3 months. My first two sold stories and both are “featured” stories for that month - not bad, if I may say so.
* I have sold “Safe & Sound” to the British magazine “Whispers” for $75. No editing process has begun as of yet. No timetable as to when it will be published, either. I’m proud of this sale, however, because “Safe and Sound“is one of only two stories I’ve written this year (almost all the other stories found here were written or heavily edited/updated between 2007-2008. This same story was a runner-up for a very respectable magazine “Allegory,” and I received a very nice note of encouragement from that magazine’s fine editor, Ty Drago. And yes, I plan to spend this money - no framing of another check on the wall.
* My story, “Night Draws Near” has been published in “Dark Recesses“magazine, one that I’ve always admired and have been rejected twice in the last year-and-a-half; I feel happy with this sale. You can view the story at www.darkrecesses.com.
* My story “Little Girl Blue” — concerning a haunted dollhouse — is still in the possession of “Dark Cellar” - it has made it through the all-important first cut. Haven’t heard anything back from them yet. But any time your fiction gets selected from the huge brush pile of submissions, it’s worthy of celebration.
* Other than “Safe & Sound,” the only other story I’ve written this year, I’m sad to say, is “The Feeding” “Pale White Limb” and “Nasty Little Thoughts.” I’m hoping to write more stories, of course, but a good percentage of my time, concentration and so-called “writing juice” is being expended at work - I’m averaging about 4 newspaper stories a day, plus a ton of freelance side work for extra income. Not much juice nor energy is left inside me by the time I drag myself home. How can I clone myself?
* I did plan to spend the entire 2009 re-writing all the stories that have been or will be critiqued by the good folks at “critters.org.” Right now, that’s more important to me than penning new fiction. Once that’s completed, I will send out these stories again to available, paying markets, though instead of the typical “shotgun” spread, I plan to go “sniper” mode, targeting specific stories with specific magazines/markets. (Typically, once a story is rejected by one magazine, you send it on to the next one on your list). I think I might be able to sale more quickly and for more money if I plan out my selection process. My goal is to sell enough stories to qualify for admission into the Horror Writers Association of America. By doing this, my name goes “international,” with a network helping expose my fiction not only to a larger audience, but available agents. And *that* means novels, my dear friends. And big money. God-willing.
* I still have stories to write, or *will* write, so don’t fret. Here’s a rundown of what I’m planning to write between now and… oh, say the end of 2011:
* Nasty Little Thoughts - The title may change, but this one came from a show I watched recently about dead-beat fathers. It will be a very short-short piece about a father who visits his kids in bed each night and fascinates about killing them as he lovingly peers down on their sleeping forms. (Thus the word ‘nasty’ in the title). I have to pull this one off correctly, writing-wise, to make it work. If I can’t, I’ll probably dismiss it altogether. It’ll have to have a killer twist ending, too. I’m chewing on it…
* Home Security - I want to write a story, similar in structure to “Road Rage,” about my anxiety when it comes to protecting my family and ensuring my house and property stays safe. Due to several neighbors we’ve had living next door to us over the last 5 years (one was a college frat house, the other a meth lab), I’ve become paranoid almost to the point of lunacy about the activities taking place in my neighborhood, spying, keeping note of this and that, who is who and who is going where. This will be a personal story, much like “Road Rage,” where the main character is, essentially, myself. I’m getting the itch to write this one.
* (Untitled) - I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese soldiers from World War II who held out for decades inside jungles on remote Pacific islands, still trying to carry on the war (true story!). I want to write a horror story about this, perhaps involving a modern-day reality television “monster hunting” group, that’s on the trail of what they *think* is a monster, but is in fact an insane, desperate Japanese soldier. Of course, the major problem with this premise would be the soldier’s age (WWII vets are old and weak now, and dying off fast) - thus, this is why this one is still gestating.
*More J.A.C.K.A.S.S. stories - I really enjoyed writing the first J.A.C.K.A.S.S. story, which is a tongue-and-cheek treatment of all those action-adventure books I read as a teenager (Mack Bolan, Able Team, Phoenix Force, The Destroyers), mixed in with my general hatred for fans of Star Trek and Star Wars. In a recent re-write I followed the story loosely along with the plot of the first Star Wars movie, and I think it really worked. (You can read it below, just click on the title to your left). So I want to start mapping out some further adventures of my dumbass group of freedom fighters.
As always, from the bottom of my heart, thanks for reading!And now, a WARNING = for those of you who know me, either family or friends, realize that I write so I can explore my fears, whether supernatural or all-too-human. With that said, many of my tales are extremely dark and, in some cases, extremely violent. For those that know me to be a quiet and mild-mannered boy, some of the stories could come as quite a shock (Oh my God, Kevin’s so nice… could he - you know - be like a serial killer or something?). So please read with caution. And if you don’t like horror, it’s best just to steer clear altogether. My fiction isn’t for the faint-of-heart, and certainly should not be read by children.
As always, thank you for reading and supporting my writing. I hope you get a thrill (or better yet, a chill) from what you read!
David Hoover would always remember the irony of it all.
Less than a minute before it all came down, he was sitting at his desk, the paper done and on its way to the printers, monotonously updating the Web site, listening to the woman’s voice on the scanner droning on about escaped cows on county such-and-such road.
“Wish a plane would fall from the skies,” he said, “or a building would blow the hell up.”
He said it with tongue firmly planted in cheek, of course, just to get a reaction from his coworkers. They were all there – John and Lex and Cody and Kevin and Linda, all of them swiftly transitioning from the paper they’d “put to bed” to the one they would have to piece together, like Frankenstein’s monster, over the next twenty-four hours. And they laughed – Lex beside him, John and Kevin and Cody across the room from him. He even heard a giggle from the adjacent room, where Linda was hovering over the fax machine.
But he was partly serious, too. A former firefighter, he craved excitement, which is why he didn’t mind grabbing a camera and flooring it up to 80 to catch a glimpse of a four-car pile-up out on I-44, or film some spaghetti shots of an industrial accident over at the Butterball plant. Such occurrences, rare as they were, helped keep the newsroom sharp, dulled over time by 18-minute long school board meetings or the latest update on an injured owl found at the local hospital.
“Got some storms coming in,” Hacker said.
David grunted. For several months now he’d been wishing for a tornado to come sweeping into town. That would give them a juicy front page, no doubt about it.
“Yeah,” Cody said, “Maybe-”
And then it all came down.
It was a horrific sound, something none of them had ever heard before. It wasn’t just a crash; wasn’t just a thunderclap. It was a unique blending of the two, peppered with the scream of twisting metal and heavy bits and pieces smashing and splitting and scattering across a wide area. And the length of it – Jesus Christ, this agonizing rumble from hell continued for more than twenty seconds, sometimes changing in pitch but never – ever – in volume, until it just suddenly *did* end, as abruptly as it had erupted.
They sat there, all of them, stunned into silence. They could hear a bird chirping outside their door; a dog barking off in the distance, but nothing else; no sirens, no screams, no… no nothing.
“What the hell was *that*?” someone asked — probably Linda.
Nobody answered; and nobody said a word. They just sat there, arms at their sides, eye wide and unblinking.
Making a whining sound, Kevin slipped the headphones from his head and pointed a quivering finger toward a nearby window.
David turned, and saw a wave of dusty debris blow through the intersection outside their building, up Central Street, moving west. Moving fast.
“Airplane?” John asked.
“Couldn’t be a car,” Cody said.
David just shook his head. “It’s a train, guys.”
Two blocks east, toward Central and Garrison, a train bridge crossed Central. The only thing David could think of was some kind of freak derailment. One of those slow-moving industrial types that must’ve blown a rail, skipped across the twisted steel rent, momentum tipping the entire stack over and then flopping like a flung toy nearly twenty feet down to the street below.
David was the first to move, grabbing for his camera, knocking over his wheeled chair. Off in the corner the emergency tones sounded on the scanner. At that moment, John’s cell phone lit up. Lexie grabbed for her phone. Seconds later, Kevin did the same, punching buttons on the phone.
David dashed through the newsroom and toward the front door. He brushed past a customer, who stood like a statue at the front desk, hands cupped over her mouth, her eyes white and wet as she stared outside.
David shouldered his way outside and immediately closed his eyes and mouth at the cloud of grip which have enveloped the parking lot. He pushed up the seam of his shirt to cover his mouth, so he could breathe. It wouldn’t be the first time that morning he wished he wished for his old firefighting equipment, with its air mask and portable tank on the back. But he’d given up his voluntary firefighter status at the fire department to go full-time at the newspaper. He hadn’t really regretted that decision until now.
He’d stumbled through the debris for nearly a block, heading east, before the soot cloud had cleared up enough for him to see what had caused such horrendous destruction. And the glimpse of it stopped him cold, gummed-up in his tracks, his mouth breathing soundless curses over and over again.
A train had derailed, as he’d expected. And it had spilled over the trestle’s edge, just as he’d expected. And the train, at least four or five sections, had fallen atop an R-9 school bus.
He hadn’t expected that one.
The train cars, spilled damn near in the center of Central, were no longer recognizable in any way, shape or form. Except for iron axles and wheels protruding here and there at impossible angles from the pavement, it was as if a series of wooden bungalows had been flung out of the sky and smashed to bits. And then those bits dropped and smashed yet again.
It seemed for a second to David that no one could have survived such an impact and such vast destruction, but within seconds the screams of the living sufferers blanketed the street. But they were no ordinary sounds, made by the lungs and opened maws of human beings; instead they were the moans and screams and cries from something entirely darker and infinitely more painful, as if someone had wrenched open a rusty portal to the very pit of Hell itself and those imprisoned there were encouraged to cry out their pain to their heart’s content.
He saw one man stagger towards him, arms outstretched, as if for a welcoming hug. He wore a dust-covered business shoes, complete with expensive brown shoes and silvered cufflinks. He looked normal to David’s eyes, except for the top of his head, where the skull had been torn off, rather the way one would crack an eggshell with a spoon. David could clearly see the grey-and-pink pulp glistening within the splintered skull. The fellow’s face was entirely drenched in blood. Only his two white eyes, stretched and bugged, broke up the smooth monotony.
David reached out and steadied him. He shied away when the man tried to lay his head on his shoulder.
“What’s your name?” he asked the man.
Those two white eyes, flicked with bits of brown and black, slowly rolled up to meet his gaze.
“I’m gone,” he said, matter-of-factly, as if speaking about the day’s weather.
“Wha’…” David said. “Wait–”
The man’s eyes then rolled up and he sloppily sagged to the ground. Standing over him now, he could only stare as a fresh spurt of red from the split skull slowly blanketed those staring eyes.
He moved on, no longer running, no longer even capable of feeling his feet hit the ground, seemingly floating forward now, wanting to vomit but couldn’t, wanting to turn away from the grim spectacles popping up all around him now, but couldn’t. It was like those old ‘80s “haunted house”-styled exhibitions put on by a small-town Baptist or Methodist or Christian Church congregation that showed in shockingly gruesome fashion the repercussions of those who dared sin against the Bible and God’s commandments, be it drinking and driving or having an abortion.
It was like this now, but infinitely worse.
A woman walked past him, heedless of his presence, limping, softly singing a nursery rhyme to herself, her left breast missing, her chest just a red smear there.
Off to his left, two men from an adjacent auto dealership helped remove a crushed body had lay just feet from the crushed yellow school bus. The body was a girl, no more than eight years of age.
David fought back another urge to vomit.
Absurdly, the bus’s blinkers were flashing, the “stop” sign extended, words of caution visible to those who approached it.
A man ran screaming past him, yelling his daughter’s name over and over again. The man’s clothes were torn, and he was bleeding from a number of cuts. Whether the man was from the train or the bus or maybe a passing car caught in the conflict, David never knew. He watched the man trip over a woman, who was propped up against a tree. Except for a little blood on her face, she seemed uninjured.
The man stumbled on. David yelled at him, but the man ignored him. He looked down at the woman. She was staring past him, toward the smashed bus.
“Do you need help?”
No answer.
He slapped at his camera bag. He had a half-empty bottle of warm water there.
“Hey,” he whispered, bending down in front of her. “You need water?”
The woman’s face softened at his words, becoming almost dreaming. She never looked up at him, but she nodded at his words. “That would be so sweet of you.”
He began unscrewing the bottle’s cap.
The woman smiled.
David flinched.
Her mouth was filled with blood. And she had no teeth.
He dropped the bottle cap. Cursing, he paused to fish it from the grass. He snaked a hand around to the back of her neck, to support her as she sipped.
But the woman was dead, lips stretched into a final, ragged and blood smeared grin.
He stumbled away from the woman, the water bottle falling and spilling across his shoes.
Sirens filled the air, from seemingly every direction. Screams and shouts and yells tried to drown out those approaching sirens. And somewhere above, he could feel the thump of an approaching helicopter deep within his bones.
He turned to look behind him. A few men and women were doing what he was doing, wading into the mess, trying to help where it was needed. Most, however, stood as silent and still as cattle, shocked at the sights and sounds and, worst of them all, the smells. He spied John Hacker off to his left, camera up and flashing away.
David heard a noise behind him.
He whirled around.
The bus was in front of him, the front end crushed by one of the train cars. The impact had nearly torn the vehicle in half. Now that he stood in the eye of this horrific hurricane, the sounds way out there on the perimeter – the sirens and screams and shouts – seemed almost muted now, hazy, like sounds struggling through a thick lake fog. Standing in the destruction’s shadow, he could hear even the most insignificant sounds – the tick of heated steel, the dripping of some unknown fluid, the metallic rubbing of steel on steel…
…The scrape of fingernails on pavement.
He heard the movement before he spied the movement with his eyes. The hand lay practically at his feet, just a few feet away. It was pale, as if bloodless, this hand, tipped with small and delicate fingers that were slightly curled into claws.
David stared down at the fingers for a second or two, stunned, before the movement of the hand’s index finger galvanized him into action.
“Hello?” he said, directing the words toward the hand and the half-inch of blackness between the edge of the bus and the stretch of the pavement.
Two fingers moved or flinched, almost jolted, even, as if they’d momentarily touched a charged electrical wire. Seeing the physical reaction to his words, he dropped to his knees. He reached out and gently cupped the girl’s crumpled hand with his own. He feared he’d dreamed up the movement of the fingers, that they and the rest of the hand would be cold and stiff at his touch. But they were warm, and they were soft, and when he gave a squeeze, those delicate pale fingers gave him a squeeze back, as if in gratitude.
“My name’s David. David Hoover. I’m getting you out of here. I’m not leaving you. Hang on.”
He paused.
“If you can hear me, understand me, give my hand a squeeze.”
Her hand gave him a squeeze. He felt a flood of relief rush into his stomach and chest and arms.
“Can you speak?”
No sound.
“You can’t speak?”
A squeeze.
“Okay, don’t try to speak. Don’t even try to move. Just hang on.”
He released his grip, grabbed the edges of the bus and gave it a mighty heave, spraying spittle as he grunted through clenched teeth. The damn thing didn’t move. He spied one of the buses shattered windows and tried to crawl through to the girl, leading with his feet on the first attempt, his head with the second. Neither worked; one of the vehicle’s plastic seats and broken from the floor and denied him any wiggle room. He flopped back from the bus, cursing, wiping the sweat from his face. He also blew out his nostrils, the left first, and then the right one, trying to rid them of *that* smell – the smell he’d grown accustomed to in his years spent with the department’s EMS services. The smell of death, of burned flesh, of voided bowels and pools of urine, of coppery blood and spilled entrails…
He flopped down onto his stomach and tried to peer beneath the bus, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl crushed beneath it.
He saw only darkness.
“You still with me,” he said, grabbing up the girl’s hand.
She squeezed her reply to him, and his grin was grim.
“Hang in there,” he whispered to her, and then suddenly pivoted to scream at those behind him to hurry the fuck up and help him.
“Help’s on the way, honey. You’ve been a trooper.” His whisper sounded raw, his voice weak and hoarse. He turned and screamed again for help.
The girl squeezed his hand, as if in encouragement. Her fingers were so tiny, so unblemished by hair or wrinkle lines. And her grip was a good one. The nails tipping her index finger and thumb had been chewed, as most young girls and boys tend to do, and they’d been recently painted, because both still bore the scars of chipped red nail polish.
“Help’s on the way,” he repeated.
Her grip reminded him of his own daughters, when they’d been newborns, the way infants will grab a mommy’s finger or a daddy’s thumb and squeeze it with surprising strength.
Footsteps were fast approaching him.
“Calvary’s coming,” he said.
He heard a sigh. It was soft, a quiet as a gust of spring wind, but he heard it. It gave him hope. Seconds later, men were falling beside him, all of them panting, sweating, eyes wide with adrenaline and shock, hands shaking from exertion.
“Gotta lift it off her *now*,” David said, slightly raising the girl’s hand so the strangers could see it for themselves. Without words the men fanned out, squatting down and grabbing the edge of the bus, ignoring the sting of chipped glass, grunting as they breathed in and out, pumping up their lungs and muscles for the huge upwards push.
“You still with me?” he whispered down at the hand.
She squeezed; he squeezed back.
Counting down from three, the men heaved simultaneously. The bus lifted several inches off the ground. David could have joined them, but he didn’t want to let go. He pressed his cheek against the cold pavement, hoping to spy the girl’s face or white eyes staring back at him from the darkness.
He saw nothing.
“Hurry for Christ’s sake!” one of the man grunted, spittle splattering the beard beneath his quivering lower lip.
“Watch the glass,” another man growled.
“Gotta pull away,” a third man spat, a Carthage firefighter whose name David didn’t know. “Can’t… lift…w’ you wedged in there.”
“Two more inches,” David yelled. “Two more inches and I can pull her out.”
The men groaned, and the bus lowered an inch.
“Shiiiit,” one of the men groaned, his face twisting into an agonized mask.
The bus slipped down another inch.
David squeezed the girl’s hand.
Absolutely no response.
He squeezed the hand again.
“C’mon,” he hissed to himself. Down on the ground like he was, he was flanked on both sides by the legs of the men holding the bus, their legs quivering, shoes making little stamps in the dust as they tried to maintain their grip and balance.
Following a devastatingly long five seconds, the girl weakly squeezed his hand back.
“One more,” David shouted to the man. “One more push and I’ve got her…”
There were more grunts and curses and twisting shoes in the dust. One man down on his left shit himself as they gave it everything they had, and then some.
And the bus rose.
One inch…
Two inches…
Three inches…
Four inches…
Above them, others hissed and grunted and strained.
“Okay,” he said, tightening his grip on the girl’s hand. “Here goes.”
“Pull her out!” someone screamed. The edge of the bus lowered a half-inch.
He squeezed the hand again.
“Pull her the fuck out!” another man panted, his eyes rolling up into his head.
And the girl squeezed back. He saw with his own eyes the index finger and thumb snake around his hand, the delicate bones of her hand rippling beneath the smooth flesh as she clenched him once, one of those half-painted nails digging hungrily into his thumb.
Rising to his haunches, David took a deep breath, prepared to pull out a girl weighing roughly eighty or so pounds, let out his breath and pulled with a mighty yank.
Less than a second later, he was instantly on his back, falling onto his side, and knowing down deep in his gut that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
“Oh Christ!” someone cried behind him.
He felt something bump against him. David opened his eyes. Peered down at his hands.
And there he stared.
There was no body.
There was no girl.
Only a pale white limb, severed just below the shoulder, curled, pale fingers wrapped in a lasting embrace.
Four cities. Nine days. It’s a record even for the likes of me.
The cities have blurred together in that time. Kinda reminds me of a mud-slicked windshield. Or maybe it’s the days that have blurred together. I don’t really know anymore.
I push my smoking Buick into a dank alleyway.
Why are these damn slivers of asphalt so wet and dark even in the late afternoon? They are concubines for rats, the homeless and whores.
I pass a man veining Cocaine into a bruised left arm. Just a few yards down stands a whore, plying her trade as she leans her face against the weeping brick, opening her buttocks for a man dressed in suit and tie. A corpse of a tire-crushed tabby lies at their feet, unnoticed.
I move out of the alley, motor down a narrow side street, and swerve into a second tributary lane. Moving further into the stinky bowels of this city.
The city in summer is a cacophony of humanity’s unwashed stench. The dank sewers would be a pleasant respite from the stink generated by these steamy concrete jungles. At least down there, where the rats rule, it’s damp and cool. Up here, the concrete sighs flame.
I spy a motel. It’s a brick building, with a lone neon sign that’s flashing despite the sunlight. One of those ridiculous coffee shacks sits in the parking lot’s center.
I ease the ancient Buick into an empty spot and make my way into the office.
Unbelievably, it’s hotter in here than it is outside in the sun.
A seedy man with bits of food tangled in his reddish mustache refuses to glance up from his battered television set when the swinging door clatters a bell. He only looks up when I ask him for a room.
“What?”
“I need a room.”
He grins rotted teeth, nodding. He flips through a stained ledger, licking his fingers every few pages.
“By the hour?” he asks, peering past me into the foyer, searching for a corner whore.
“Just me. One night.”
I watch an insect land on the man’s half-eaten ham sandwich.
The man shrugs his hairy shoulders. “Eighteen dollars.”
I pay in cash.
He swivels around to snag a slightly dented key from the wall behind him. Room 420, he says, tossing me the key.
“You have a good one,” he says, grabbing up his sandwich. He never saw the fly.
I begin climbing the dark stairs toward the fourth floor. Room 420 is tiny. A mirror facing the door is cracked in three places. There’s a grimy bed, single wooden chair and a wobbly table supporting both a telephone and a black and white television and that’s about it.
The walls are slicked with a greasy slime — feels like wax on my fingers as I switch on the light. And I smell a mixture of mothballs and mold, mixed in with the weak scent of pine cleaner.
My head begins throbbing, beneath my right eyeball.
I’m feeling the urge again.
In the silence of the room, I can hear commotion through the thing walls.
Snoring.
Two people fucking.
Two more people fighting.
I ease the door shut behind me and turn toward the fighting couple in the room sharing the south wall.
I push inside them.
They are married. Evicted from their home. Living in this motel. He’s cheated on her again, certainly not the first time. He’s trying to tell her.
I compel his confession.
Now she’s shouting back at him, with hurt and anger. She’s no innocent human either, it seems — she’s cheated on him just as many times as he on her. Worse, she has no apparently inclination to confess like he’s attempting to do.
So I compel her rage.
Soon there’s the sound of breaking glass.
I smile. Human are all too eager to rise to anger, aren’t they?
I stroke their rage, softly blowing on the flames, glowing the embers; growing the smoke.
The woman hits the wall with a muffled scream. One blow from the man’s fist actually shakes our shared wall.
There’s a whimpering sound coming from the room.
And now choking…
And a short snap of the woman’s neck
I release the man’s rage.
Soon there are footsteps.
Pounding fists against the door.
Much later, police officers force open the door and discover the sobbing man, covered in blood, and his bludgeoned wife at his feet.
He claims a sudden and uncontrollable rage, something he doesn’t understand. If the police knew the truth, if they knew of me, they might believe him. Humans, see; can do enormous feats in times of stress. The same hands that can lift entire cars off a child’s body can also snap bone with a single, cupped fist. Nobody can explain why.
I grin in the dark.
But I know why. Sometimes they just need a little ‘push.’
Instead of listening to the man’s frantic ranting, the officers haul him off in cuffs, their pistols drawn.
Later, I walk outside and down to the corner where a streetlamp has been shot out by a .22 pistol. Coated in shadow stands a whore. I smell her from a block away. I manage to hide my sneer.
She’s sickly looking, wearing a dirty gold skirt and high heels. Bruises pepper her calves. She has a long horse face and tired, sad eyes. She’s led a brutal life — she’s also terminated four infant lives inside her womb over the last three years.
She says something to me, and I nod at the word “fuck” and “honey.”
I lead her back to my hotel room on the fourth floor.
She says more words to me, shrugging off that gold blouse, using her hands to cup her breasts. Her naked body is malnourished and awash with drugs.
She smiles at me.
Sometimes I like to play with humans — toy with them, make them see their wrongs.
Not tonight. Tonight I won’t play.
So I push the whore.
Hard.
She screams, and I clench the noise shut before it proves bothersome. I then clench her shut for good. Her body falls to the grimy carpet and neatly rolls beneath the bed.
Later, I wonder why she had screamed the way she did. When I glance at the cracked mirror, I know why. The whore must have seen my reflection in the glass.
I chuckle at the thought.
Ten minutes later I’m atop the bed and flipping through fuzzy channels, seeing but not watching.
Day turns to night and night turns to day, and by mid-morning I feel strong enough to resume my search in this fourth city in eight days.
I enter the hotel’s foyer and ask the clerk the location of the nearest hospital.
“Why? You hurt?”
I stare at him. There’s honesty in his voice. I bite down on my astonishment. Humans —
They never cease to amaze me.
“Well, it’s ‘bout a mile or two that way,” he continues after a pause, gesturing south. “Called St. Anne’s Mercy.”
Mercy — As if St. Anne or any of the saints ever possessed any. The saints, after all, were human.
Because of his honesty and concern, I reach out and lightly tap him on the arm.
He shies away from me.
“—The fuck?”
The cancer inside his left lung shrivels.
“Have a nice day,” I murmur. As I pass through the door, I push and remove his memory of me. The room will stay ‘occupied’ in his ledger until the smell from beneath the bed becomes much too strong to ignore.
Then again, it’s just a whore.
My Buick takes me to St. Anne’s Mercy.
I shake my head again at the irony of the name. As if placing God’s name into the equation will somehow save soiled souls.
I step into the lobby and breathe deeply. Smelling the fear from those who have something to fear invigorates me.
On every floor, in every waiting room, someone paces or sits nervously or twitches atop a seat cushions because someone they know, someone they love is dead or dying.
I walk through to the elevators.
Before the twin metal doors close, a doctor and two nurses join me. The oldest of the two women is good, and so I won’t push her. The woman next to her has some infidelity issues and has participated in several minor sins, but those deeds have been done not out of spite but by stupidity. I ignore her, too. The man, however, is a different matter. He has killed an innocent soul on the surgical table, years before, and has managed to repress the truth to his superiors. So I push into him, hard, and I can see him wince and grit his teeth.
After he exits the elevator and enters his office on the 26th floor, he will take a scalpel and shove it as far and deep into his right eye socket as he can.
They are so easy to manipulate.
Then again, this is the price they pay for their hard-fought free will.
I exit on the 14th floor.
I pause outside a room, sniff the air, and enter it like a whisper. A balding man lies in the bed, tubes snaking into his arm and nose. He has cancer — black, weepy stuff.
I can smell it.
It is in remission, which is why I am here.
In a few days he will be released, and he will be free to prey on his two young stepdaughters.
I won’t let that happen.
He can’t see me but he can feel my presence, and he’s trying to say something, even with his eyes closed. He knows something is wrong, of course. He knows something is out of the ordinary.
To help him along, I let him know that he’s going to die. Soon.
I watch his eyes milk with desperate fear.
Fingers slap at the panic button that will summon the nurse.
So I push.
Inside, I expand the cancer until it overpowers his senses. He slumps inside the sheets. The monitor beside the bed records a flat line.
I make my way out of the hospital.
One more stop to make.
Head throbs. Again, just below the right eyeball.
Time to feed…
I wind my way through the city inside the smoking Buick. More dark alleyways and side streets, moving into and out of places nobody else would dare to go.
I park alongside the street twenty-some minutes later.
I look at the building in front of me. Even from here, without a wind, I can smell his stench. Greatly saddens me that such a thing could helm such a beautiful and awe-inspiring structure. I enter the church; make my way past the foyer and its iron churn of holy water.
The congregation chamber is magnificent, with Him on the Cross at one end, a platformed-organ at the other, with reams of stained glass windows running along both lengths.
I follow the stench past the curtain in back of the podium.
A dozen paces and there’s a shift in the air. It’s like struggling to maintain balance in the midst of a fast-moving stream.
The moment I see him, he sees me.
The color has left his face. His feet seem rooted to the plush carpet of the hallway. “Good God in Heaven,” he finally whispers. He drops a mug of wine across his polished leather shoes.
I slide up alongside him.
“No…”
He knows why I am here, of course. In some ways I resemble the Biblical avenging angel — in other areas not even the slightest.
His face melts and he makes a break for it, turning in panic and running headlong into the wall.
There’s a snap of a bone and the stinging odor of blood in the air, but the priest’s panic has momentarily overcome pain — maybe a finger; maybe an arm.
Panting, he turns. His face is streamed with tears, but he remains standing. I marvel at the man’s strength. I’m impressed, and that doesn’t happen very often.
I grin at him.
“You should not be here,” he whispers, grabbing at a gold cross that’s tucked tightly against his Adam’s apple. “You cannot be here.”
He wears the cloth and the cross, which gives him an essence of power, yet there’s no glowing aura of Belief about him, hugging him like an additional layer of flesh. His shock of seeing me, here in my true form, is genuine.
A puddle of urine soon forms at his feet.
Realization of why I’m here has finally set in. No doubt all the little boys he’s touched are flashing through his mind right now, as are the faces of the five boys buried in the garden out back. I let each innocent face linger in the priest’s mind’s eye, staring and shimmering, before I reach for him.
“No,” he whimpers, bumping against the wall.
As if in answer, the golden cross he’s clutching so desperately for protection has sliced his fingers, mixing gold with crimson.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name,” he begins to speak. The words irritate me, coming from him.
“—Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is—”
I push.
He is silenced forever.
In an instant I’m outside the church, crossing the busy street at the corner and climbing into my Buick.
There I sit for a spell, shuddering, getting my bearings, as I slowly come down from the high of feeding and releasing.
I push, and the trusty Buick rumbles to life, farting smoke behind me.
Five false priests and countless sinners in four cities in ten days —It’s a record even for the likes of me.
I click on the radio as I pull away from the curb.
Two hundred and eighty-two miles away, the next city waits…
This story has been deleted because it has been sold to the magazine “Reflection’s Edge.” You may view this story, my second sold piece of fiction, in early December at www.reflectionsedge.com.
May 23, 2009, 1900 standard
Somewhere inside a dark and dank Romanian castle
“Pig of an American,” hissed Anton Lupescu, sadistic director of the Romanian secret police force and implacable foe to all freedom-loving western forces. Flanking the skinny little elf of a man stood Chang, Lupescu’s impassive manservant, and Madam Oui, the cold but gorgeous Eurasian assassin. “Facing imminent torture and eventual death, will you not save yourself hours of pain and simply tell us where you’ve hidden the plans for America’s new orbiting, sub-molecular, three-stage fusion conversion unit?”
Carl “Killer” Hunter, leader of the government agency J.A.C.K.A.S.S., grinned beneath his gag.
“My friend,” the Romanian softly said moments later, “my torture techniques are a service no man should ever willingly have to face. Why not save yourself the… annoyance, and simply tell me the information I so dearly seek?”
Hunter’s blue eyes flashed with amusement. He remained mute.
“So be it,” Lupescu said with an obvious sneering lisp. He turned to his two underlings. “Bring me my torture implements.”
Chang and Madam Oui left the room.
Strapped down, Carl sighed loudly. The question was, where was the fusion conversion thingie-bopper’s plans? And how far would Lupescu go with this talk of torture? A day? Two days? More?
Carl was deep in contemplation when Lupescu quickly slashed his binds.
“Wha’? Huh?”
“We must hurry, old man,” Lepescu said. The Romanian lisp was completely gone now — replaced instead by a distinct British accent. “They’ll be back in a shake.”
“I… I don’t understand—” Hunter began, but his words were disemboweled in mid-sentence by Lupescu, who stuck his hand into his mouth.
“Shhh!” the British agent said moments later, taking out his hand and frowning at his salvia-drenched fingers. “British agent 43,250,902 at your service, you Ass.”
“Wh’?”
“Couldn’t bloody reveal myself with Chang and Madam Oui mucking about, now could I? Skip and hop those plans off to your bosses in D.C. as soon as you can, old chap. Oh, and here’s a gun. It’s loaded. Now carry on. Chop chop.”
A small snub-nosed Walter PPK was placed into his right hand, fingers folded gently over the stock.
Carl smiled, cocked the pistol and pointed the barrel at the British SAS agent.
“Wha’?” the agent snarled, taken aback. He was shot through the heart even before he could finish his exclamation.
“Your loyalty to the people’s government has long been suspect,” Hunter told the corpse in perfect… Chinese? “Now we finally know. Emperor Ching-Chang-Chew will be quiet satisfied with my actions here tonight.”
Hunter threw aside the PPK, stepped over the leaking corpse and opened up the door. In front of him stood the huge and menacing manservant, Chang.
“Dog,” the big man growled, lifting a heavy automatic and pointing it at his chest.
“Wait!” Carl screamed, throwing up his hands. “You don’t understand! I’m not who you think—”
Chang fired once. And once was enough. Carl slumped to the floor, dead, shot through the heart.
Quickly, Chang ripped off his oriental face and revealed himself to be the true Anton Lupescu, Romanian scum-sucker and all-around Bad Dude.
Madam Oui strolled back into the room and gasped, clutching her ample bosom, staring down at the two leaking corpses on the floor.
“Don’t be alarmed, my little flower,” Lupescu purred. “The imposter calling himself Carl Hunter was actually Chang, a spy for the communist Chinese.”
“And the other?” Madam Oui whispered, gesturing at the second corpse. “The one that looks like your twin?”
Lupescu grinned. “That is the true Carl Hunter, of J.A.C.K.A.S.S. fame, and a true pain in my ass. He was in disguise, see, as a British agent.”
The Romanian madman pocketed his pistol. He then turned to Madam Oui. His eyes never left her breasts. “Now we search for the plans — you and me. And after that? I WILL RULE THE WORLD!” Only a throaty cough mucked up his perfectly executed and minute-long chuckle of pure, triumphant evil.
Madam Oui giggled. The two of them searched the Chinese spy resembling Carl Hunter, but came up with nothing. They next searched the real Carl Hunter, aka British spy, aka Anton Lepescu. This second search proved much more beneficial. Slapping hands and probing fingers revealed an artificial wart near the crack of the dead man’s ass. Once pinched between thumb and forefinger, a tiny computer microchip oozed onto Lupescu’s finger, gelled in yellowish pus.
Qui squealed with disgust, but Lupescu chuckled, holding the chip up to the light for a closer look-see. “Ahhhh! The Kremlin will reward us well for this.” He leered at the woman. “American technology — gotta love it.”
Following another long, evil-sounding chuckle, he turned hungrily on Madam Oui. “Reward me now. Bend over!”
Madam Oui squealed. She then pulled off her face. Next, a heavy automatic found its way into her hand. Finally, she fired the gun.
“Dog!” she hissed in a man’s voice.
After the gun’s discharge, the true Carl “Killer” Hunter leaned back with a sigh, mopping at the ample amounts of eye shadow and lipstick clinging to his angled face. He was a good-looking guy. Hard muscles. Blond hair. Blue eyes — all the stuff that made guys like Carl score with chicks inside country/western bars. The make-up only enhanced his features.
The leader of J.A.C.K.A.S.S. fell onto his ass, brought up his left leg and painfully wrapped it around his neck until the back of his ankle bumped up against his mouth. Grunting from exertion, and in obvious agony by now, the ‘Ass spoke into the microphone sloppily sewn into his white sock.
“I’ve got the package,” he grunted, face red with pain.
“Don’t move,” replied a voice from his sock. “We’ll come and pick ‘yo ass up pronto!”
Carl nodded. “Ass out…”
May 23, 2009, 1930 standard
Somewhere inside the uber-secret J.A.C.K.A.S.S. base in Langley, Virginia
Question #33 — The diabolical Dr. Hand has just stolen the plans to control every artificial limb on Earth, hoping to make these various plastic arms, legs, fingers and feet do his evil bidding. You find yourself at the corner of 133rd and 52nd street, armed with an over-under M-16/M-203. You spot said Dr. Hand running across 52nd street toward an idling car. He has surrounded himself with a band of innocents — men and women, children, a few babies in carriages, even a loveable dog. None of the innocents know Dr. Hand’s identity. Only you do. So — how do you stop him and bring him to justice?
(Please choose one (1) answer from the following choices:
A) Scream ‘Stop!’ and fire a warning shot into the air.
B) Pepper the entire area with bullets. You’ll kill innocents, but you get the bastard Hand.
C) Deem the venture too difficult and head for a nearby pub.
D) Do nothing and pick your ass.
E) All the above.
Hog sighed, mopping at a damp forehead. This was obviously a trick question. He didn’t remember much from high school, but he did know about those coveted “all the above” answers. Didn’t matter what the subject was — when a test had an “all the above” answer possible multiple-choice answer, you picked it. No questions asked.
He marked (E).
He moved on to the next question.
Question #34 — You are chasing a plutonium bandit in your Jackass-mobile through a back alleyway, avoiding whores giving homeless men head. Swerving onto 233nd street, the bandit bastard suddenly steers his van onto a sidewalk, scattering screaming pedestrians in all directions. With the sidewalk all to yourself now, you see a woman hovering over a baby carriage in your path, frozen in absolute terror. You have just seconds to react. What the hell do you do?
Please choose one (1) answer from the following choices:
A) Run over the woman and child and chalk ‘em up as ‘casualties of war.’
B) Stop the car and save the innocents, but lose the bandit.
C) Run over the two innocents, then stop the car, allowing the bandit to escape.
D) Swerve the car into a nearby brick wall, killing yourself.
Damn tricky one, Hog thought, chewing on the end of his cheap J.A.C.K.A.S.S. promotional pen. And no easy “All the above” answer like before.
He checked “C.”
Why?
Simple — by killing the mother and her child, Hog reasoned, public opinion would sour toward the bandit and his evil organization, since the bandit was the initial cause for the chase in the first place. Thus, public opinion would become a valuable ally with future covert operations against the group. And maybe — just maybe — the bandit would see the deaths of the innocents in his rearview mirror, search their souls, give in to the pang of guilt and turn themselves over to authorities.
Hog smiled. Way too easy!
Question #35 — A nuclear bomb is ticking down to its final lethal seconds, and you find yourself standing next to it inside a locked, smelly bathroom. You are completely naked, and the cell is devoid of any features that could help you either escape or stop the bomb’s detonation. What combination of body fluids can stop the bomb from blowing its wad?
Ah hah, another easy question. The answer was a combination of three body fluids, actually. When these fluids were mixed in the right and precise way, they could become as lethal as a nuke’s detonation or its spewing radiation. He knew. Long ago, Hog had once mixed these three potent fluids together, way back in the early 1990s, when he was visiting his cousin Joe on the family’s radish farm. He’d gone in with a Hustler magazine for a nice and soothing dump. No problem, right? But he’d forgotten to flush the toilet after his business, nor did he give it a single courtesy flush. When he turned to flick from his fingers a single sticky ball of nose candy into the smelly stew at the bottom of the bowl, there’d been a flash, a huge roar and an even “huger” explosion. The stuff had eaten its way down to at least the Earth’s core. Hopefully, it had made it all the way to China, like Bugs Bunny did sometimes in his cartoons. Communist bastards deserved it.
Grabbing up his pen, he wrote, “Piss, Goobers & Shit chunks” on the testing form.
Question #36 — True or false — you can’t trust anybody ‘cept your Ass-mates?”
False, Hog wrote.
Hal Brognolia, his boss, stepped into the room when he was done.
“Yo,” Hog said, picking his nose.
“Good news and bad news, Hog. The good news? You passed your re-certification test. You’re still an ‘Ass.”
Hog whooped it up.
“The bad news? You’ve got a new mission. So get your ass down to Florida.”
“What’s up?”
“Some geek convention. May be a threat to national security. I’d send Carl, but he’s off in Romania. And the others are on a mission at a mall in Kansas. You’re the only ‘Ass I have.”
“Yippee!” Hog grumbled, rising up from the seat and lugging the M-60 behind him.
May 23, 2009, 1940 standard
Somewhere inside a Wichita, Kansas mall
Thank Christ her M-245×10 machine gun was silenced at the tip, or all inside this Christian bookstore would’ve been alerted to her presence. As it was, Hillary O’Connor was able to silently rub out the pretty lady shelving the “Bible Man” videos, stuffing the bleeding corpse beneath the magazine racks without too many visible bloodstains. And the old crone who saw her near the Vacation Bible packets? The bitch caught sight of Hillary’s cock tattoo, and damn near fainted, whispering a warding prayer over and over again, until the J.A.C.K.A.S.S. member’s knife dipped into crimson mush eighty-three times. It was the final thrust to the woman’s pinky finger that did the old hag in. With that, Hillary was once again on the prowl.
She silently crawled across the blue carpeting of the bookstore on her stomach, passing a bunch of Bibles and greeting cards. Turning, she crawled across an open aisle into the children’s reading section, where she stopped to catch her breath. She was closer to her dangerous target now.
Counterfeiters. Vile scum — counterfeiters. Worse, they were disguised as Christian bookstore owners and employees. Hillary had faced some of the best of the world’s worst in past campaigns — Al-Qaida, airline hijackers, drug lords, left-wing Republicans, conservative liberals, Queer Nation and Jerry Springer guests. But all of those groups and various individuals paled to insignificance when compared with the unabashed evil she now faced just feet away from her.
… Counterfeiters.
The thought alone nearly stopped her dead in her tracks. They’d brought their fake moneymaking ways to the proud people of Kansas, and she wasn’t about to let it continue.
Hillary, facially at least, was a good-looking woman. That assessment held true until she decided to shave the hair from her head. Then, during a drunken sex spree with a Seal team back in ’93, she got a tattoo. Not a rose on the ass or kitten on the ankle, but a huge black cock that stretched from her right forehead down to her left shoulder blade. Cock or no cock, she possessed a lean and mean fighting’ machine of a body, honed to perfection in her days with the all-women anti-group F.E.M.M.E. (she’d held out for contract negotiations, but Hal Brognolia and J.A.C.K.A.S.S. came along with a better free agent offer, and she’d taken it).
She ducked down as three teens sauntered past her position. Deep in conversation about naked nuns, the boys failed to see her there on the floor. Because of this, they were spared painful deaths.
The same couldn’t be said, sadly, for the old man near the audio books, whose legs Hillary crawled through as she made her way toward the front counter. When he looked down with a confused expression, she sent a poisoned quill from her wrist crossbow into one of his testicles. She didn’t even bother to look back when he slumped down next to her on the floor, dead.
“Casualties of war,” she whispered. “Casualties of war.”
Due to the importance of nabbing these counterfeiters “dead and in many bloody pieces” (as the instructions crayoned atop a box of Cracker Jacks stuffed inside a convenience store dumpster had clearly stated), J.A.C.K.A.S.S. couldn’t go around sneaking and crawling and hiding and shit like that — it went against ‘Ass doctrine and logic to do such things.
Which is why all hell was about to break loose.
“Asses,” she whispered into her microphone. “Time to dance.”
She whipped out her gun and waited for the grenade to go boom.
*** ***
Nearby, Jake “Little Boy” Tyler slithered through an assortment of dusty books, trying to stay as quiet as a mouse. Jake was a dwarf. Or a midget. Normally these were completely different things, but not when it came to Jake. Jake, see, was both. Born a “dwarf midget,” he was barely two feet tall. But his short stature wasn’t a nuisance. It had, in fact, bailed him out of numerous nasty situations. For example, he once had to crawl up a sink faucet during an operation in Mexico City, a move that saved his life. His life was saved again two years later, when he crawled up inside a woman’s coochie as assassins searched to decapitate him. He’d even managed to give the woman an orgasm, which was kinda kooky, since she was KGB and a lesbian. So yeah, his short stature had come in handy numerous times, and it was proving valuable once again — here in the heart of Kansas.
High above the store’s book-lined aisles he crawled atop the various bookshelves like a slimy worm. Twice he damn near sneezed from the collected dust. He almost fell a third time. Through it all, he crawled and he hummed the tune to “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Over and over and over again.
He paused to check his watch.
Almost time…
He clipped off a grenade from his utility belt around his rather ample waist, bit off the body, spat out the grenade and threw the pin with a shout. He then hunkered down to wait for the grenade’s explosion.
Moments later, a startled counterfeiter — having been hit atop the head by a metal pin from the shelf above her head — heard a faint groan, a whispered and rather high-pitched “You jackass!” and then the sound of an opened palm slapping a forehead.
Seconds later, the counterfeiter’s world turned light, then red, and finally, dark.
*** ***
“Move it, dearie,” Frenchie whispered to the girl staring up at him with an opened mouth. Frenchie adjusted the sight on his sniper rifle propped up on a bookshelf, and gestured for the girl to high-tail it out of there as soon as possible. Little Boy’s grenade was due to blow in just seconds, and he—
Speaking of blowing… A male employee came into his sights, and Frenchie’s heart melted. Yeah, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the French-born man with the birth name of Jacque Chateau was gay. Only Jacque — or Frenchie, as friends and lovers knew him — could wear his obnoxiously pink war suit or leave his signature eye shadow marks on the scope’s edge. Despite it all, he could still place a bullet between a frog’s gonads at four hundred yards out. For that reason, and sole reason alone, the dark-haired European was a needed asset.
Before Frenchie could eye the man employees’ crotch through his scope, Little Boy’s grenade blew poor Ted into a million crimson pieces, and Frenchie began to pop bullets out by the bushels.
*** ***
The grenade exploded. Little Boy went flying as his twin machine pistols spat flame and lead while riding smoke and flame across the room and out into the mall’s rather crowded hallway.
O’Conner, cursing nearby, hefted her assault rifle and opened fire.
Twelve died. God she loved her job!
Screaming, Frenchie sniped two counterfeiters before launching twin missiles toward the front counter. He then returned to his sniping, spitting out steady three-round bursts. In the next aisle over, he heard a telephone ring.
O’Conner cursed, slashing the knife across a customer’s exposed throat. Shoving the corpse aside, she lobbed two smoke grenades and fervently hoped the call wasn’t collect.
Before this mission, she’d asked Brognolia for those radio headphone jobbies, the type that all the other anti-evil groups — Gray Berets, Kick-Ass Team, and the Marauders — wore. But oh no, Hal just had to take his damn trip to Bermuda, so there hadn’t been enough money left over to purchase such exotic equipment. Given a couple $20 bills, she instead visited a local Radio Shack across the street to purchase multiple microphone headsets worn by those crabby Monday Night Football commentators way back in the 70s — you know, the ones that looped around the face with a big colorful sponge ball tipping each end? Anyway, she’d been told by a pimply-faced teen working there that the damn things were reliable. But that was bullshit. Reception kept cutting out, twice the damn thing picking up feed from a Spanish-speaking radio station in southern Mexico. The Toros had won a soccer match, she was told, with rain expected in Mexico City by nightfall.
The phone kept ringing. Why the fuck did phones ring at the most inopportune times? And no, the phone tied to her hip wasn’t a walkie-talkie, cellular jobs or even a cordless. It was a big black phone one usually found bolted to grimy subway walls. It took up most of her leg and weighed a friggin’ ton!
She grabbed up the chipped receiver and screamed a heated, “Yeah?”
“Yes ma’am,” a polite, Asian voice said, “AT&T has received a collect call—” Hillary groaned and rolled her eyes, “—from one Hal Brognolia at the CIA office in western Virginia. Will you accept the charges?”
Another grenade exploded, and Hillary ducked a flying severed head. A spray of blood spattered her from a counterfeiter who waved a severed stump for a left arm.
“Yeah… why the hell not?”
There was a click.
“Hillary?” a man’s voice growled in her ear.
“Kinda busy here!” she snapped back, biting the pin off a grenade and chucking it toward the children’s reading section. “What the hell do ‘ya want, Hal?”
“We need you back here in Virginia pronto. Something’s come up.”
“What ‘bout the counterfeiters?”
“To hell with ‘em. This is waaaay more important.”
At Hillary’s feet sat a suitcase nuke, to which she was presently arming it. She hit the “1,2,3,4,5” combination and the nuke beeped acceptance. Two minutes before detonation, the bomb read, and counting. “Where’s the rest of the team?”
“I’ve sent somebody to pick up Carl’s ass up over in Eastern Europe. I personally sent Hoggie down to Florida to prep the rest of you when you get there.”
“Sir?”
“Just cut and run, O’Connor. That’s an order.”
“Jesus…” she cursed, shaking her head. “Let me gather up Frenchie and the ‘Boy, and we’ll leave the bookstore and try to—”
“Bookstore? What the hell you mean, a bookstore? No, damn it, no! The counterfeiters were inside a candy store! A candy store! And—”
“Oh,” Hillary said. She then brightened. “Hey, I think we saw a candy store just down the hallway, near Sears.”
Hillary’s boss groaned. “Screw it. Just get your jackasses back here pronto! Brognolia out!”
Cursing, Hillary hung up the phone’s receiver and labored to use the rotary dial to start calling the rest of her ‘mates.
“This’d better be important,” she bitched, as more blood splattered nearby book covers.
*** ***
Less than a minute later, a helicopter landed and flew the three ‘Asses the hell out of Kansas. Local authorities found thirty-four people dead inside the bookstore, all of them innocent bystanders. It was the largest tragedy to ever hit that portion of the state…
…Until Hillary’s nuke detonated ninety seconds later.
May 23, 2009, 2012 standard
Somewhere inside a brightly-lit but crowded Florida conference room
“Morph Noph Ak,” grunted a skinny boy with slicked back blonde hair, acne, a Star Trek uniform and a pocket protector. He pushed up his glasses to peer out across the convention hall, which was filled with more than a thousand male and female mirror images of the speaker. Taking in a deep breath, Brent Mayne set up his joke with a “Hasph Norph Kanaf, Nok Messampeph!” With a growing smile, he polished off the joke with a grunted, “Nof! Nuk nok niiki-a-morph!”
The convention hall erupted with laughter and appreciative applause. Brent blushed, waved to his comrades below, and stumbled off the stage.
A man in a three-piece suit and wearing pointed rubber Vulcan ears lifted his hands to silence the masses. The Vulcan salutation salute followed seconds later. A hush fell over the crowd as every single soul returned the hand gesture, many with tears in their eyes.
Charles Kitszman, director of the “East Coast Trekkie fan club,” golf-clapped as he searched through the hundreds of faces for Brent, who was now sitting at a nearby gaming table filled with Klingons.
“Hey! How ‘bout another round for our Klingon comedian, Brent Mayne, from St. Louis!”
There were cheers.
“Listen, I don’t want to bore you like some drunken Masospern—” here Kitszman paused as a wave of laughter washed over him, “—but we’ve got to Warp Factor Nine on over and discuss today’s additional events.”
He pointed at a nearby projected screen filled with words.
“Now, at 2 p.m., out in the main hall beyond you all, a reenactment of the Borg attack on Federation Starbase 243 will take place, so you don’t want to miss that! At 4 p.m., there’ll be the regular commencement for our new “Trekkie” brothers and sisters and — hey guys, let me briefly pause here to congratulate you all for spreading our religion faster than a wild fire on the planet Qagire!” Again there was a bubbling eruption of geeky laughter from the throng, since all of them knew Qagire was a planet entirely comprised of water. “Now, in the corridors beyond, you’ll find multiple tables filled with plenty of hot Star Trek board game action. Just be sure to shower off after participating in one of those hot sessions!”
“Later tonight, we’ll have our annual “all-nighter,” where you cinema Trekkies can view all the Trek movies, as well as any episode from any of the numerous television incantations. And for the few of you who want ‘em all, simply grab a Romulan self-duplicator and watch them all simultaneously!”
The walls echoed with geeky laughter.
“Okay folks, repeat after me — Kirk to Spock!”
“Beam me up, Scotty!”
“Boldly go where no one has gone before!”
“Kirk to Enterprise!”
“Warp Factor Nine, Mr. Sulu!”
“Live long and prosper!”
“Stardate 54321!”
“Damn it, Jim, we’re doctors, not climatologists!”
“I can’t give ‘ya anymore, captain! I’ve—”
Hog “Wiley” moved up to the front of the throng, because all the machine-gun fire over the years had damaged his hearing, and he figured what this skinny little dude had to say was important to his undercover mission.
He stuffed a hot dog into his mouth and chewed. He noticed some mustard had drooped onto his hairy alien costume he wore as a disguise. Attempts to clean the mess only caused the mustard to seep more deeply into the suit’s fibers.
“Damn it…” Hog snarled, spewing out tiny pieces of hot dog. It was only at this moment that he noticed the room was as silent as a nun’s nightly bed.
Up on the stage, Charles had trailed to stuttered stop, staring in disbelief at the hairy apparition in front of him. Right there, as plain as shit on linoleum, was a…
Was a…
…A Wookie!
A Star Wars Wookie!
“Imposter!” Kitszman suddenly screamed, gesturing wildly at Hog Wiley. “Security! Security! Grab him! Call Lt. Worf this instant!”
The screaming mob of skinny, four-eyed geeks rose up with girly shrieks and tackled the cursing, farting jackass of a Wookie.
May 24, 2009, 817 standard
Somewhere in a bright but dark CIA office in Virginia
“We’ve got a problem,” Hal said, chewing on an unlit cigar. “A big problem.”
“So what the hell else is new?” Hillary crabbed with a drawn-out sigh.
“No,” Hal said with a shake of his head. “A big problem!”
“How big?” Carl asked.
“Bigger than the biggest thing,” Hal answered with a grave look.
“Bigger than the time you sent us against that alien spacecraft looking to turn us all into human cattle?” Carl asked innocently.
“Bigger than the time,” Hillary added, “you had us go to the center of the Earth to defeat those Atlantis dudes?”
“Bigger than the time, you bastard, you made us wipe out my brothers and sisters in Queer Nation?” Frenchie snarled.
“Bigger than me?” Little Boy squeaked.
“Trust me, it’s bigger than all of those things — yes, even you Little Boy. In fact, it’s the mother of bigness.”
“So… what is it?”
Hal took in a huge swell of breath. (Insert some scary music here) “There’s an evil religion spreading like a cancerous growth across America. This religion — this cult — is recruiting people — the young and the old, the sick and the insane — to help do its evil bidding. It’s got to be put down.”
“Put down?” Carl asked. “You mean kill?”
Hal rolled his eyes. “That’ll be your task.”
“A religion?” Hillary muttered to herself.
“Who?” Little Boy added.
“The Baptists, maybe?” Hillary said suddenly, with a knowing nod of her head.
“No,” Carl countered. “I bet it’s those damn Jehovah Witnesses!”
“Satanists!”
“Hare Krishna’s!”
“Scientologists!”
Hal shook his head. “No. It’s none of those things.”
“Then what?” Hillary asked.
“Trekkies!”
DA DA DA DUM
All activity ceased.
“What the fuck is a trekkie?” Hillary asked.
“Are they… like Methodists?” Little Boy pondered aloud.
Hal just rolled his eyes.
“They don’t declare jihads, do they?” Carl had had his fill with those kooky Islamic good-for-nothing bastards.
“Jesus,” Hal said with disgust. “The show. Haven’t you asses ever heard of Star Trek?”
They all shook their heads no.
Hal cradled his head in his hands for a second or two, cursing beneath his breath.
“Is it one of those new reality shows?” Frenchie asked.
“No, Frenchie, it’s not — far from it, in fact. It’s a science-fiction show. Or was. And a shitload of really bad movies, too. So listen up. Hog’s already on a solo mission down in Florida, infiltrating the bastards for some needed Intel. You guys are the fire team. You go in there, and you kill. But getting into their lair will be damned difficult.”
“How so? What’s the proper procedure?”
Hal looked at him. “You open a door.”
Carl nodded sagely. The others went “ooohhhh!”
“But before you open that door, you’ll have to know a greeting to get inside,” Hal finished.
“A greeting?” Carl asked.
“What’s the greeting?” Hillary wanted to know.
“Roark a morph-mif-mok,” Hal said.
“Excuse you,” Hillary said, reaching for a tissue.
Killer frowned. “What the hell you’d just do, boss-man?”
Hal grinned at their confused looks. “It’s the greeting, but in another language — Klingon. And only by reciting the phrase at the door will they let you in.”
“And if we don’t?” Carl asked.
“…Or we get it wrong?” Frenchie chimed in.
Hal shrugged. “Then you get a photon torpedo shoved up your ass.”
Frenchie squealed with glee.
“Jesus,” Hillary whispered.
“What?” Hal asked.
“Nothing. Just a damn good defense. A door, a secret greeting — that’s way better than an armed guard.”
“Or a claymore mine,” Little Boy added.
Carl nodded. “Better than a dozen claymores. Hell, better than a dozen F-15 fighters flying CAP.”
“No no no,” Little Boy added enthusiastically, “Better than the Death Star!”
“Better,” Hillary said, “than the—”
“ENOUGH!” Hal screamed, a tiny lock of hair falling across his eyes. “Enough already! Listen, there’s a super-secret big-ass convention the Trekkies are holding this week. That can’t take place. You hear me? It cannot take place.”
“Where’s the convention?”
Hal sighed. “We don’t know. Not even satellite imagery is helping us here.”
Hillary kicked aside her chair.
“However,” Hal continued, “There will be an ‘Ass-friendly contact to meet you in Miami. Find him at Gellapo’s Pizzeria. Talk to him. He’ll have a British accent, and a mystical love for cucumber pizzas. He should know the location of the Trekkie convention. And if he doesn’t, he’ll know somebody else who does. Understand?”
“Crystal-clear, boss-man,” Little Boy said.
“We done?” Carl was rising to his feet.
“Almost,” Hal said. He brought out a manila folder, handing one to each human jackass. “In each of these folders are your personal disguises, to help you infiltrate the Trekkie convention. All other particulars will be handed over to you en-route. Carl? You’ll be a mundane Federation officer. Hillary? A Klingon female warrior. Little Boy? You’ll be a Tribble. Fren—”
“What’s a tribble?” Little Boy asked.
“A little ball of fur.”
“Oh.”
Hal turned to Frenchie. “You’ll be Captain Kirk.”
The French-born warrior looked pleased. “Tiberius Kirk, eh? He was my first masturbation, you know — back when I was fourteen and living in Paris.”
“Jesus,” Carl said in disgust. “Way too much information there.” He nodded toward Hal, a pleading look in his eyes. “Are we done here?”
“I suppose….”
“Good. We’ll go and get this done, Hal. No worries.”
Hal nodded. “Good. Now get the fuck outta my office, will ‘ya? Y’ll startin’ to make me choke on my own vomit.”
May 24, 2009, 1923 standard
Somewhere in a bright but stupid Florida interrogation room
“I’ll never join you!” Hog screamed, trying but failing to break free from the chains binding him to his chair. “Nooooo!”
“Yessssss… you will, you hairy beast! Now! Who are you?”
“I’m Hog, you fucks.”
“No! You’re Lt. Worf of the Starship Enterprise!”
“No… no, God no, I’m Hog, of the Starship Jackass and — damn it, of the anti-evil group J.A.C.K.A.S.S.!”
With a sigh, a pencil-thin interrogator in a Starfleet tunic turned away from the trussed-up Hog as a tall man moved up from behind, staring at Hog through a bulletproof window.
“Mr. Gaunt sir, uh… it’s worked — to an extent, that is. But this bastard of a man yonder is a strong one. He’s a Cardassian in every capacity, except maybe for his physical looks and body odor. I suggest we move on to the physical optical portion of the testing to ensure the overall mental transplant is completed without too many defects.”
Gaunt just stared at him. He finally stirred and shrugged. “Yeah, whatever.” He hadn’t understood a word the man had said. Gaunt was the leader of the Trekkie splinter group, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was a very smart man. “Just don’t hurt him. He’s valuable to us.”
The man nodded and flicked a few switches over here, a few over there. He then jammed a thumb down atop a flickering red light. In front of Hog flashed a 120-inch television screen. Hog screamed when William Shatner’s face appeared there.
The interrogator grinned and motioned for a black man sitting behind a control board to flip a switch. “Give ‘em the bloopers,” he mouthed to him.
Up on the screen, a black screen appeared —
‘60s Star Trek Blooper #1 “Spock,” Captain Kirk whispered in his now infamous breathless voice. “Spock! How could you? How could you kill Bones and Scotty and the others? And now our warp drive system is no longer operative. How could you—” Rising up from his commander’s chair, he stubbed his big toe against a metal strut. “Oh SHIT FIRE!”
Laughter exploded off-camera.
Hog wept uncontrollably. “Noooo! Oh God, my mind…”
‘60s Star Trek Blooper #2 The scene showed stars, as the bone-white USS Enterprise model on several strings streaked through space at Warp something-or-other. Suddenly, one of those not-very-invisible strings snapped with an audible twang. The domed ship fell off-screen.
Hog wiped at some tears but remained quiet and relatively still.
‘60s Star Trek Blooper #3 A woman walked in through the sliding “whooshing” door, carrying a tray of food and juice for Kirk and a group of Romulans. As Kirk opened his mouth to speak his rehearsed lines, the woman’s tunic split open and out spilled her ample breasts.
“Oops,” the actress said, blushing.
Hog lost his hurt expression and began picking his nose. “Kooks!” he whispered to himself.
‘60s Star Trek Blooper #4 “Captain,” Spock said, stepping away from his station toward the Captain’s famous swivel chair. Kirk was there, listening, hanging as he did half-in, half-out of the throne-like perch. “Captain. External starboard sensors have detected a strange (Faaaaart….)
Hog chuckled. Not bad. Not bad at all, particularly from this skinny little Nimoy character. He wouldn’t go as far as rating the butt ‘plosion a ‘7’, but a ‘4’ might just do it. Maybe even a ‘5’, if the little bastard squeezed up those cheeks a bit more tightly ‘round the edges next time. Cripes, this was kinda’ getting fun now!
The interrogator turned and flashed Gaunt a shit-eating grin, who nodded in return.
“Now,” Gaunt said, spinning around, “Finally! His ASS is ours’!”
He cackled.
“And we’ll use this ‘Ass as our weapon against our mortal enemies! The East Bay Star Wars Fan Club!”
He laughed like a madman for at least a minute, until he grew bored and left the control room.
May 25, 2009, 0823 standard
Somewhere in a sunny but smelly Miami pizzeria
“So, who is our contact?”
They scanned the restaurant’s interior. There were about twenty people slurping down slices of pizza. Most of ‘em were pimply-faced teens. There were a few adults present, though. Most were dressed in shorts and T-shirts. One pasty-faced man was wearing a three-piece brown suit, with a cane, and sipped steaming tea from an expensive china cup.
“Don’t know,” Carl said.
“He’s a Brit, correct?” Little Boy asked.
Carl nodded.
“How the hell we supposed to find a Brit? They’re like Canadians! They all blend in together.”
“Fan out,” Carl barked. Each began moving over to various tables, trying to hide their various weapons as they asked each man, woman and child if they were a jackass or knew of a jackass. Most scowled at these inquiries, or told ‘em to go fuck themselves. But one of ‘em didn’t do that. He, in fact, nodded enthusiastically.
“I’m an ‘ass,” the three-piece suit man with a British accent said. “Have a seat. Took you chaps bloody long enough to get here!”
Little Boy leaned over to Carl. “Accent sounds cheesy. Brits don’t sound like that. They sound more like Chinese.”
“Are you our contact?” Carl asked.
“I am,” he said, nodding.
“How can we be sure?”
The man gave him a queer look.
“Who’s our boss?” Hillary asked the alleged SAS agent.
The man swiveled to peer at the penis-sporting bald bitch. “Hal — chap’s an old college buddy of mine. How is he doing by the way, that shaggy ‘ol dog?”
“He was a dog?” Little Boy said.
Hillary turned to tug at the contact’s sleeve. “Who are you with? What outfit, I mean?”
“Her majesty’s SAS, I should say!”
“Never heard of them,” Frenchie whispered to Carl.
“Hullo?” the man asked, confused.
“What’s your name?”
“Edmunds. Cheerio!” he extended a hand toward Carl, who gripped it. “And you must be S.T.U.P.I.D.A.S.S.”
“Um…” Hillary said.
“I’m your contact,” Edmunds said, beaming.
Carl nodded. “We were told you had directions to this convention place thing.”
Edmunds shook his head no. “Apologies mate. No such thing. I have been instructed to say you should travel to a downtown supermarket on 33rd street. Talk to a sacker there named Ben. Understand?”
Carl shrugged. “No.”
“Ta ta!” The British agent tipped his hat, rose from the table, nearly tripped over a nearby wooden chair, snagged up a piece of pizza and took a huge hunk of it in his mouth, then leaped through the front window.
“That was informative,” Carl quipped sarcastically. Hillary just shrugged.
Fifteen minutes later…
Due to the M-60 machine gun and various rocket launchers thrown over their shoulders or clinging to their backs, most of those waiting to check out had left the store in droves, screaming, hysterically leaving behind their food-encrusted carts.
“Nice,” A skinny blonde-haired sacker said, untying his apron and shaking Carl’s hands. “Love the M-16, by the way.”
“Thanks. It was a Christmas gift,” Carl said. “We’re J.A.C.K.A.S.S., see, and we’re here for some information concerning the Trekkies. You do know something about the Trekkies, don’t you?”
The boy shook his head no. “Sorry. Don’t have the location. I do have a code for y’ll, though.”
“A code?”
The boy nodded. “You bet.”
“Then give us the fuckin’ code,” Hillary snarled. She was getting pissed, puffing out little clouds of enamel from her teeth grinding.
“Here goes. Cold blue a no no go. Dog shat in water cup. Bird flew north while an ape walks south. I eat cat shit. President Jimmy Carter was a gay wad. Fingers are doorways to the soul.” Here, the boy stopped and looked expectantly at the four anti-evil warriors. You got that? Understand?”
“Hunh?” Little Boy squeaked from atop Carl’s shoulder.
“Run that by me again, would ‘ya?” Carl asked helplessly.
“Code blue?” Hillary whispered to herself, hairless brows furrowed in concentration.
“He is?” Frenchie asked the boy in disbelief. “He was gay?”
The boy held up his hands. “That’s all I know. Really. They only tell me what y’ll need to know, but they never tell me what the heck it all means.”
“Great,” Carl said, throwing up his hands in surrender.
“To understand the code, go talk to Chung, over at Chews Chews Chinese Take-out.”
Seven minutes later…
“No unnerstand,” a crotchety Chung griped, working to prep orders of steaming hot Chinese slop for waiting customers out in the dining room beyond them. He slapped Carl aside to stir up a bowl of steamed, spicy chicken. “CIA giva’ new code. Eat at Joes. Hmmm? Unnerstand? Eat at Joes.”
“This is fuckin’ ridiculous,” Hillary bellowed.
Chung slapped at her with his spatula. “Unnerstand. New code — Eat at Joes. If know you more, talk to pimp Jarvis down street corner for more unnerstanding. Unnerstand?”
Carl growled and turned away.
“Wait! Sale on chicken rice! Great deal. Chow main, anyone?”
Nineteen minutes later…
“Yo’ trip,” Jarvis said, hefting his pimp cane and gesturing at the four warriors. Sunlight glinted from his purple and fur-lined caddy. “Shit’s on. Nuttin’ skip but a big-o bangin’ bip! Solid rush gone down the groun’, fuck slip to a daisy-may dip!”
“Um…” Carl said. He turned to his ‘Ass mates with a wobbly grin. “Guys?”
“Can anyone speak jive?” Carl asked.
“Wait…” Hillary bellowed, pulling out a thick, leather-bound book. She began flipping through it.
“What the hell’s that?” Carl asked her, staring at the leather-bound book.
“Nat Bo X’s best seller, dumbass — “How to Speak Nigga’. I always keep it in my fanny pack, just in case.”
“Oh,” Carl said. “Good thinking.”
“Okay, okay, okay…” Hillary said to herself. “Um…” she got the pimp’s attention. Her brow was sweaty and drenched. “Uh… yo bro. Shit’s dissin’ up a… a storm. Things be lookin’ duff, ready to puff, fuckin’ tuff, you ready for my stuff?”
The man grinned, showing gold teeth. “Honkin’s a-tonkin.’”
Like a live tennis match, the rest of the jackasses now swiveled their heads between Jarvis and Hillary.
“I… shit.” She threw aside the book. Then she eyed the pimp. “What the hell does the code mean?”
The muscular black man frowned. He reached into his back pocket and whipped out a tattered paperback. It was R.J. Rutherford’s best seller, “How to Speak Honky.”
He tried to speak, stopped, started again, stopped, and then sighed. “Um… yes. Salutations. Uh… the code that you all desire and seek with such fervent fury usually means to…” he flipped through some pages. He flipped through some more. He finally snarled and threw aside the book. “Fuck it. Jig-jag ‘til ‘ya splig-splag.”
Hillary furiously flipped through the pages of the “Nigga’” book. “Um… No mo croe?”
The pimp nodded, leaning against his white pimpin’ cane. “No no mo.” He shrugged, again flashing gold.
“Shit,” Hillary said. She pocketed her book.
“What did he say?” Carl asked.
“He doesn’t know.”
Suddenly, the pimp came back to life, gesturing at Hillary.
“Yes?”
“Hangin’ and trippin’ with the spic-matic at the wash-o-rama…” he snapped his fingers and pointed both hands at her, pistol-style. “No no mo.”
She nodded.
“Huh?” Little Boy asked.
Carl nudged her. “Now what?”
Hillary shrugged. “He said he doesn’t know what the hell we’re talking about, but he thinks a Mexican-American could probably tell us.”
“Where?”
“Just down the road,” she said, pointing south. “Inside a Laundromat.”
“Okay, we’re outta here,” Carl hissed.
Hillary nodded, then turned to the pimp. “Thank you, sir.”
“Ain’t no thang.”
May 25, 2009, 1056 standard
Somewhere in a dark but bright room aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
“Art thou cometh?”
Ben Gaunt absently scratched at his rubber Vulcan ears. He turned to his second-in-command, Bob, who was frowning. “What?”
“Prithee thy enemy cometh to meeteth useth in battleth for theireth ultimath destruction-eth.” Bob wiped away the spittle.
Ben rolled his eyes. “George, you do know Vulcan’s don’t talk like Shakespearean characters.”
“They don’t?”
“They don’t.” Gaunt sighed. “Listen, I know you’re new to this whole Star Trek thing, Bob, and I really appreciate your enthusiasm, but maybe — you know — maybe you should be something besides a Vulcan. Maybe a Cardassian, or a Ferengi? They like to manage money, just like you do.”
“But I like Vulcans, Ben. They’re smart and tough.”
Gaunt shrugged, turning his attention back to the computer in front of him. “Anything new with our enemy?”
“No, sire — nothing. According to our Tribble spies, these government group sent against us are still trying to ascertain the exact location of our hideout.”
Gaunt chuckled. “The idiots.”
“It appears so, sir.”
“Why is it taking them so long?”
Bob shrugged. “No one really knows.”
“How hard can it be?” Gaunt said. He sounded almost disappointed. “I have these wonderful traps planned for these ‘Asses, and their stupidity is actually saving their lives right now. That really disappoints me!”
Bob nodded sympathetically. “Apparently H.O.R.S.E.A.S.S. isn’t what we’ve been led to believe by our Google search and that long Wikipedia entry.”
Gaunt growled, scratching at his rubber ears. The things sometimes broke his face out in hives.
“True,” he said moments later, absently nodding. “Too true — and that’s J.A.C.K.A.S.S., by the way. Actually, these asses may be more intelligent than I’ve given them credit for.”
“How so?”
“Think of it. We’d all anticipated them storming in here like a bunch of drunken Klingons, but they’ve done nothing of the sort. They’re staying low, near cover — hidden, making us all wonder what their next move will be. Hell, I’m wondering. Are you wondering?”
“I’m wondering,” Bob obediently muttered.
Gaunt nodded. “We’re all wondering.”
“It’s almost cunning — if I may say so, sir.”
“You may.”
Bob grinned. “It scares me.”
“No need to be scared. We just need to be prepared — that’s the ticket. We need to be wise. Wise to their ways, you know? We need to use this up here,” he said, tapping his skull, accidentally dislodging one of his fake ears. He took a few seconds to straighten it.
“It scares me, sir,” Bob continued, “because none of the moves made by L.A.R.D.A.S.S. makes a heap of sense. They are bumbling about like keystone kops on Meth. I dunno…”
“That’s J.A.C.K.A.S.S., Bob, and rest assure, I have a plan to end their bumbling and stumbling.”
Bob nodded. “How so?”
“Ever read an action/adventure novel?”
The man shook his head no.
Gaunt rose to his feet and strolled around the room, deep in thought. “I’ve read plenty of ‘em. Most of ‘em are cookie cutters — the same read, just different stories and different guns. But several things always happen. It usually takes three days for the good guys to sniff out the so-called bad guys — that’s one. Two — there are at least two major battles and one major car chase in each book.”
“And three?”
“Three is… well here, read it for yourself. Out loud.”
Bob cleared his throat, opening up a dog-eared paperback — Kickin’ Ass Force #35 — somewhere in its center.
“Rising up from the leather couch, Commander Falcon Hawk reached for Susan’s breasts, pawing at the nipple with his thumb.
“Oh Falcon, you tried to kill me,” the woman said. “Now you defile me.”
“You’re a Communist Al-Qaida. But you have nice tits.”
“Oh, your touch is so vile to my flesh. Yet you have me near orgasm.”
“It’s what I do.”
Their lips met.
“I’m coming…” the girl moaned seconds later. Freedom intoxicated her.
“Kickin’ ass,” Falcon mouthed his famous saying, and then slid inside for the orgasmic kill.
Later, Falcon and—
“What the hell are you reading?” Gaunt asked Bob.
“Um…” he flipped the book around. “Kickin’ Ass Force #35. And—”
“Jesus, go on to another section.”
“Wait, sir… I uh… I think if I keep reading this particular section, it will—”
“Bob…” his boss said, tapping his foot.
The second-in-command hung his head. “Yes sir.” He flipped forward thirty or so pages forward.
“Read aloud, please” Gaunt said, gesturing to the book in Bob’s hands.
“Okay…”
Bob spent the next two minutes reading about Kickin’ Ass Force, led by Commander Falcon Hawk, killing sixty-three terrorists in a hail of bullets and explosions. Done, he closed the book.
“Get it?” Gaunt prodded moments later.
Bob shook his head no.
“Jesus, Bob! Action/adventure novels average a battle roughly every eighteen or so pages, give or take. How many pages comprise this stupid story so far?”
Bob squinted up at the center of this page. “Looks like we’re moving on twenty pages now, boss.”
“Exactly! Twenty pages without a juicy bloody battle.”
Suddenly all the lights came on upstairs. “Ohhhhh,” Bob said, his eyes wide and shiny.
“There you go. Gather up the troops. We attack their asses within the hour.”
May 25, 2009, 1256 standard
Somewhere inside Stately Wayne Manor… Oops, I mean a Dodge van…
“We’re being followed.”
Carl was up front, eyes rarely moving from the rearview mirror.
Hillary cocked her AR-17 machine gun rifle. “What the hell is it? Cars? Some vans?”
“Uh… no. Some kind of flying thing.”
She squinted way up in the sky, and there she saw a plane. Yet it wasn’t a plane. It was… something else. A boxy shuttle type something. No visible engines or propellers, yet it flew. It had a cockpit, and a large door on its ass end. At its sides were two long, metal tube tanks, but they weren’t exactly tanks, because each glowed a blue color. Were they the thing’s propulsion units?
“You’re right. I don’t know what they are.”
“There’s more than one of ‘em now,” Little Boy said.
“Three of them,” Frenchie said, squinting through his sniper scope. “And they’re lining up for an attack!”
“And here they come!” Carl screamed seconds later.
The first of the three Star Trek shuttles swooped down on them, like a robotic bird of prey. From indentions set into the side of the ship’s fuselage spat bolts of reddish energy. They slapped the pavement, sizzling off the highway’s painted lane markers. A lucky few smeared the roof. There was a loud sizzling as metal liquefied. Smoke and stench filled the van’s interior.
“Who farted?” Carl screamed.
“Open a window!” Hillary bellowed.
“Little Boy,” Carl thundered. “Get behind the wheel!”
Carl was a much better gunner than he was a driver, while Little Boy could win a NASCAR race atop a toy plastic tractor.
Soon, his tiny body came bumping and bouncing forward, and the two anti-evil dudes quickly swapped positions.
Running into the back of the van, Carl smashed a big fat red button near the side sliding door. Above him, a section of the vehicle’s roof popped off like a burned pop tart. Carl leaped up, caught the edges of the hole, and pulled himself up onto the roof. Next to him sat what appeared to be an ordinary satellite dish. In actuality, the dish was an armor-plated shield, while the antenna receiver served as the barrel of a .50-caliber machine gun.
“Comin’ ‘round again!” Little Boy screamed. He began tossing and turning the van all across the highway. Sweating to swerve the sizzling bolts of death from high above, the dwarf/midget accidentally bumped aside a Ford Focus filled with a young couple and their three blonde-haired, blue-eyed children. The vehicle careened beneath a passing diesel semi and burst into a fireball of death.
“We’re not out of this yet.” Hillary yelped. She glanced over at Frenchie. “Help Little Boy up front!”
The sniper nodded, threw aside his sniper rifle and climbed up to the front of the vehicle, strapping into the passenger seat and pausing to carefully check his hair in the side mirror.
“Hillary, man the other gun!” Carl screamed down from the roof. Grumbling, Hillary unbolted a belted .50 caliber from the side of the wall, swung it out, locked it into place in front of her, then kicked open the van’s two back doors. Both she and Carl slipped on their 1970s bubble-beaded microphone headsets.
“You copying me?” Carl asked.
“Fuck off,” Hillary replied with a snarl.
Carl grinned. “Roger that.”
The van continued to motor down the highway, making spectacular twists and turns — at one point even roping up on two wheels to avoid a man bumping along atop a moped.
Carl adjusted his headset, gripping the gun’s twin trigger handles. “Still with me, bitch?”
“Fuckin’ A,” Hillary responded. Her voice sounded scratchy.
“Okay. Stay sharp.”
Up front, Little Boy and Frenchie searched the heavens for the attacking Trek shuttles. The dwarf eased back on the gas pedal as the van bounced all across the congested Interstate.
Carl reached toward his control, turning a knob. Beneath him, Hillary sat in readiness for the expected attack, hands resting tensely on the cannon’s twin triggers.
Little Boy spotted the enemy.
“I see them!”
The Federation shuttle craft sliced through the air toward the ‘Ass van, one veering off to the left, the other one off to the right. Their passing wakes dangerously rocked the van, now speeding well above 100 mph.
Cursing, Carl swiveled the gun to follow the craft, yet the crafts were mockingly too quick to track.
The third shuttle raced past the van, firing dozens of laser beams. It passed in front of Hillary, who followed and fired at it with her big-ass machine gun. Above, Carl did the same. The shuttle suffered a minor hit, bouncing slightly, trailing a thin trace of smoke.
Carl cackled.
Two other shuttles swooped around and dove — plastering the area with heated death.
Hillary shot at one of the assailants with a long burst — missing. “They’re coming in too fast!”
Laser bolts sizzled past the windshield, impacting and cratering the roadway around them.
“Left!” Frenchie screamed. “Right! LEFT AGAIN!”
The van shuddered as a lucky stray bolt hit close to the cockpit, taking off one of their side mirrors and the portable CB antenna. Mopping sweat from his face, Little Boy glanced over at Frenchie. “Too close.”
Another craft dove at them. The thing grew to almost gigantic proportions in the windshield before Little Boy bounced from its path at the very last instant. The bolts intended for them consumed a nearby Greyhound bus instead.
“Great move!” Frenchie screamed.
But again the van lurched dangerously from side to side, throwing Frenchie against the dashboard.
“Hey!” Little Boy screamed over his shoulders. “You guys humpin’ back there or something. Start killin’ some!”
“I’m the boss,” Carl scolded him from atop the roof. “I make the orders.” Nonetheless, he let go a long, 20-second burst.
He missed.
“Fuck!”
The van lurched again as a bolt splattered the side paneling.
“Hey!” Frenchie yelled. “We just lost lateral control!”
Lateral control? Did he mean the van’s anti-brake system?
“Don’t worry!” Little Boy yelled back. “She’ll hold together!”
Another nearby flash of laser fire caused the dashboard to flicker and darken momentarily, while little sperm-like waves of blue energy played hide-n-seek across the steering wheel.
“You hear me, baby?” Little Boy whispered, looking around at the van’s interior. “Hold together!”
Above Little Boy and Frenchie, Carl swiveled his gun mount around, tracking a shuttle with his cannon. He squinted, belched and let loose a long and grinding spray of lead across his field of fire, watching the bullets bounce off the craft with little firecracker flashes of flame. Seconds later, the spaceship exploded in a dazzling display of orgasmic violence.
Hunter cackled hysterically, pumping his fists in glee.
Below, Hillary spied the burst of flame and smiled to herself. She just made sure he didn’t see her look of approval.
But the two other shuttles were still up and out there, and they swooped in from behind them this time, unleashing a barrage of laser bolts. But Hillary, hanging out the opened back door, was more than prepared. Smiling grimly, she lined up the top of the barrel with the swooping spaceship and scored a spectacular direct hit.
Carl leaned down and gave Hillary a victory wave. “Great bitch! Just don’t get cocky!” He turned back to the gun controls. “Still one more of ‘em out there.”
Angling low to the ground, it appeared the craft was lining up for a potential suicide run. Above, Carl sprayed fire as it crossed his target area, tracking it as it speared its way across the sky. Below, Hillary acted in the same manner, picking up the craft in her zone of fire and laying heavy on the trigger.
“Don’t cross the streams!” Little Boy bellowed up from the front of the van.
The combined lines of lead met in the middle, and the third Trek craft exploded high in the muggy Florida skies.
“That’s it,” Hillary screamed.
Above, Carl let out a huge whoosh of stale air and threw aside the headset. He glanced back down the freeway, at all the burning holes, the crashed cars, and the dead corpses. Shrugging, he carefully climbed back down from the roof, where he met Hillary.
“We DID it!”
The two embraced. They then kissed. Carl was going for a breast when Hillary pushed him away, her face flushed, her nipples hard. Carl smoothed out his clothes self-consciously. Hillary slapped him.
Carl looked sheepish. “Sorry.”
The victorious van moved majestically off into the early evening downtown traffic, still in search of its elusive prey.
May 25, 2009, 1345 standard
Somewhere in a dark but bright room aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
“We failed.”
“No shit,” Gaunt hissed, slamming a fist against the back of the couch. “Where are those Asses now?”
“Not sure. They’re headed for a convention hall near here.
“A convention hall?”
“Obviously they have updated Intel. on our secret convention gathering, and they’ve surmised it’ll be held inside a regular convention hall. So they’re going to Miami’s largest convention hall to crash the party.”
“Idiots. So they don’t know our true location here?” He chuckled. “Must we draw a dotted line for them?”
Bob shrugged.
“What’s the convention hosting? Not one of those stupid-ass bass master tournaments, I hope.”
“Uh… no, sir, nothing of the sort. It’s uh…” he leaned in and whispered a couple dozen words into his bosses’ ear. Seconds later, Gaunt exploded with laughter.
“Oh Spock! A suicidal Romulan in the Neutral Zone couldn’t have thought up a better death scenario than that! And you say they’re still dressed in Federation uniforms?”
“Our spy in the Pentagon confirmed the ‘Asses plan to infiltrate our ranks by posing as Federation officers.”
Gaunt walked over to a window and stood looking out over the bay, still hooting with glee. “Okay. Tell our forces to stand back. Let the ‘Asses go to the convention hall unmolested. Their deaths by our mortal enemies will be a perfect ending to a perfectly splendid operation. Meanwhile, we’ll turn our resources toward dominating the known universe and creating a REAL Earth Federation up in Earth orbit!”
Bob grinned and nodded.
“Then get it done,” Gaunt said, tightening back on his rubber Vulcan ears.
May 25, 2009, 1515 standard
Somewhere outside a rather hot and dirty Interstate 10-laner
J.A.C.K.A.S.S. had been searching — searching rather unsuccessfully, that is — for a Star Trek convention for more than four hours now. Even if the battle back at the freeway hadn’t taken place, the four ‘Asses would have been nearing the point of exhaustion by now.
Poor Carl, blonde hair pulled from their roots and drooling unchecked, was even now teetering on the precarious edge of insanity.
“How? How? Huh? How?” he yelped to himself, leaning over the steering wheel, the hot Florida sun baking his flesh. “Hog was able to find it. Hell, Hoggie can’t even find his own shit in a stool, yet he found the convention hall lickety-split! Geeks are flockin’ to it by the hour, relishing inside it. But we can’t. How? Why? How?”
Sitting in the passenger seat beside Carl, Hillary’s head suddenly jerked to the side. She groaned and slapped her forehead.
“The hell?” Little Boy asked her.
“What’s the secret code word to get in?”
Silence.
“Er,” ventured Little Boy. “Was it… muff duff something?”
“Excuse you,” Frenchie said.
Carl thought for a moment, and then spoke. Instead of words, he spat forth a large, purple goober, which growled and oozed off beneath the driver’s seat. “At least,” Carl said moments later, blushing, “it sounded something like that.”
“No, no, no,” Little Boy scolded. “It was… like, morph or something. Or something.”
“Or something…” Hillary growled, glaring at the bearded dwarf/midget.
“Mif-muf-morth?” Carl ventured.
“Muf-muf-morph,” Hillary countered with a shake of her bald head.
“Didn’t anybody write the damn thing down?” Little Boy wanted to know.
Frenchie began to sob.
“Maybe,” Carl said, his voice hesitant, “maybe we oughta head back to headquarters and see if Hal would—”
(Author’s note: Hey. It’s me, the writer. Aren’t these jackasses a bunch of… well — jackasses? Their stupidity has surprised even me. Me! Their creator! So I’ll just help ‘em out by creating a convention hall right here. (POOF!) Ahhh… there it is. Okay, back to the story, and sorry for the intrusion!)
“THERE IT IS!” Carl screeched, scaring the hell out of the other three ‘Asses. He slammed on the brakes to slow down the wobbly van, then pumped the accelerator and charged across several lanes of traffic, swerving onto a side road on just two wheels.
And there it was, sure enough. See it? A nice structure. Great brick cropping. Plenty of parking. Wonderful storage space for those hot summer days and—
“What does the sign say?” Hillary asked, squinting.
“And here is some kind of star club there,” Frenchie pointed out.
“Star… Star Trek. Convention. Yep, this is the place!”
Hillary shrugged. “Okay. Let’s become Trekkies!”
Carl nodded. “And let’s get our fifth ass back, too.”
They all grabbed wrists, pumped their arms three times, released, and screamed at the top of their lungs, “HOG!”
Moments later, they began undressing and grabbing for their Star Trek costumes.
As they dressed, a gust of wind blew outside. A tree limb fell away from the convention hall’s sign. It now read—
MORRIS AUDITORIUM, STAR WARS CONVENTION! ALL WEEK!
May 25, 2009, 1522 standard
Somewhere outside a rather big and crowded convention center
Something — wait, some thing — met the four members of J.A.C.K.A.S.S. at the door of the convention hall. It was a… squid person. Or something like that. Very fishy, and pretty damned ugly. They knew the Star Trek universe was filled with a shitload of aliens — the Bajorans, the Tholians, the Androians, the Tellarites and the Gorns. But this thing took the cake. The thing was also armed with some type of long pistol thing. Its business end was pointed toward Carl and the others.
“Yeah,” the squid said, his words gurgled. “Wha’d you dudes want?”
“Uh… we’re here for the convention.”
The squid looked the four up and down with its scaly eyes. “Okey-doke. You got the tickets and the pass to get in?”
Carl looked around at the other members. Nodding, he stepped forward. “Roark a morph-mif-mok.”
“Bless you,” the squid said.
Carl tapped his foot.
“What are you guys s’posed to be?” Squid-face asked.
“Well, I’m your standard Federation officer, see. And—”
“Federation?” the squid said, confused. “Is that pre-Empire?”
Carl shrugged. “I guess…”
The squid nodded.
Carl pointed to Frenchie. “This is Captain Kirk.”
“Admiral Kirk,” Frenchie hissed in Carl’s ear.
“Sorry, admiral Kirk.”
The squid frowned.
Carl threw a thumb back over his shoulder at Little Boy. “This here’s a Tribble.”
“A Tribble?” the squid asked.
“Yeah. And the woman is an alien female warrior.”
“Oh,” the squid said.
“So,” Carl said, grinning. “Roark a morph-mif-mok.”
“Why the hell you keep saying that?”
“‘Cause we want to get into your convention thingie here. We want to become members of your club.”
“Oh!” the squid said, bringing out a clipboard. “Well hell — should’ve told me that right off the bat. No problems. But…”
“But what?”
“You guys are really dressed all wrong, y’ know? Don’t recognize any of your costumes. That won’t bode too well inside.”
“Don’t worry,” Hillary said. “We’ll just kill ‘em.”
The other J.A.C.K.A.S.S. members chortled.
Little Boy pushed up to the man. “You are a Federation officer, are you not?”
“Again with the Federation!” the squid dude growled. “I’m a Quarren.”
“A what?”
“A Quarren.”
“Never heard of you.”
The thing shrugged its shoulders. “We like our isolation.”
“So, are you located here in Alpha Quadrant, with Earth? Or are you Beta, or Gamma? Even Delta?”
“Earth? Jesus, we’re in a galaxy far, far away from Earth! Y’ll should know that!”
“You’re not a member of the Federation then?”
“Most of us are proud members of the Imperial Empire. But—” he chuckled long and hard.
“—never have we been a federation! What a hoot! The Emperor would never allow such shenanigans.”
“Hmmm,” Little Boy said, rubbing at his chin. “I know your universe pretty well. I know of the Vulcans and the Romulans and the Klingons and the Borg, ‘course, and even the Cardassians. But… I’ll be honest here — I’ve never heard of any Quarrens. Were you old school? You know, the original television series?”
“Television series? I—” the squid froze.
“Now I know you!” Little Boy squeaked seconds later. “You’re not Star Trek. You’re Star Wars!”
“Ooops,” Carl whispered, slapping his forehead.
“Oh good Christ!” the squid snarled, dropping the clipboard and fumbling for the blaster hugging his hip.
Carl again stepped forward and pulled off his mask. “My name is Carl Hunter. I’m the leader of an anti-evil government group named J.A.C.K.A.S.S. We’re undertaking a super-secret mission to put an end to the Trekkie menace our good mother Earth currently faces. We want to strike a deal with you… um… guys.”
“A truce?” The squid sneered.
“A truce,” Carl said, nodding. “Help us, nameless Quarren. You’re our only hope.”
The young man dressed in his squid costume stared at Carl for nearly a minute, sizing him up, his rubberized gilled jaw opening and closing. He finally stepped aside. “I’ll taking your asses to our admiral. C’mon.”
Carl brayed in triumph like a donkey.
May 25, 2009, 1533 standard
Somewhere in a dark but bright room aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
“What’s the latest?” Gaunt asked.
“They’re still inside the Star Wars convention hall, sir,” Bob said.
“For how long?”
“Just over two hours now.”
“They’ve gotta be dead. No way would the Admiral or Jabba the Hut allow some Trekkies to exist that long inside their domain.”
“Intel out of Langley in Virginia believes J.A.C.K.A.S.S. is indeed dead, sir. They are even now mobilizing to wage war against the Star Wars boys.”
Gaunt balled his hand into a fist and kissed each knuckle. “Yes! God yes! Just as I predicted!”
“But sir?”
He turned to his second-in-command. “Yes?”
“What if they somehow survive? What if those bastards tell them where our hideout is? What then?”
“We kill them.”
“Of course, sir. But—”
“We use our secret weapon on them.”
“Our secret weapon?”
Gaunt smiled. “Our newest recruit.” He clapped his hands together. Behind them, two doors parted. Seconds later, a big man dressed in a yellow Trek tunic farted.
“Welcome our newest Trekkie, Bob — Lt. Hog.”
Hog Wiley grinned, waved and then belched.
Gaunt threw back his head and laughed crazily.
May 25, 2009, 1621 standard
Somewhere inside a rather big and crowded convention center
The Admiral and Carl shook hands.
“We appreciate this. We really do,” the J.A.C.K.A.S.S. leader quipped.
The Admiral nodded. “It’s not a favor if Trekkie blood’s spilled.”
The caped man turned and gestured toward a large electronic wall display. The low-ceilinged room was filled with star pilots, navigators, a sprinkling of RD-type units and a dash of golden and silver protocol droids. The Admiral — Dodonna — hit a button and a display of the famous U.S. aircraft carrier flashed up on the board.
“The battle ship out in the harbor is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than most nation’s entire armed forces. Its defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault, mostly from the air. We can attack it, but we won’t be able to get inside it. But you ‘Asses — you can do that.”
Carl nodded.
“Pardon me for asking, sir,” Little Boy asked, “but what good are small attacks against something so huge?”
“Well, the Trekkies doesn’t consider a ground attack to be that substantial. If they did, their defenses would reflect it,” Dodonna said. “An careful analysis has demonstrated a weakness in the structure. Look here. The approach won’t be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench, on foot. The target area is only two feet wide. It’s a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a nuclear chain reaction which should destroy the ship.”
A murmur of disbelief rippled through the room.
“Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction, however.” Dodonna said, emphasizing each word. “The shaft is titanium-shielded, so you’ll have to use proton torpedoes.”
“Proton torpedoes?” Carl asked. “What the hell’s that?”
“Yeah,” Hillary snarled. “They don’t even exist.”
“Oh,” Dodonna said. “Oh. Okay then. Dragon rockets will do.”
The ‘Asses nodded. All except Carl.
“That’s impossible,” he said, “even for an ‘Ass.”
“It’s not impossible,” Hillary barked at her leader. “I used to bull’s-eye swamp rats in my ’66 Mustang back home. They’re not much smaller than two feet.”
Dodonna nodded. “May the Force be with you all.”
The four all grabbed wrists, pumped their arms three times, released, and screamed at the top of their lungs, “JACKASS!”
May 25, 2009, 1533 standard
Somewhere in a dark but bright room aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
The Jawa waddled up to the door and promptly died. His corpse fell among a dead Wookie, a Tauntaun, three Bothams, two Sandpeople and a smoking R2 unit.
The Trekkies — a huddled, geeky mass inside the control tower of the sprawling aircraft carrier — chuckled as they ducked back down behind debris with blasters in hand.
“I got a bad feelin’ about this,” Carl said. He stood up behind the smoldering remains of an F-18 fighter and launched a hail of bullets at the Trek geek warriors from his M-16. Return phaser fire showered the area with lethal bolts and sparks.
“Now what?” Hillary muttered, gnawing upon the barrel of her M-60. Above, Star Wars X-fighters and Trek shuttles duked it out, one or the other occasionally evaporating in a flash or, trailing smoke, ditching into the surrounding waters of the cove.
Several Ewoks shrugged. They chattered among themselves. A Rebel pilot in his orange suit, and two white Storms troopers, stared at their dead mates scattered across the ship’s planking.
J.A.C.K.A.S.S. and the Star Wars group, simply put, were getting their asses kicked.
“Well?” Carl asked, turning to the others. “Any ideas?”
They’d fought their way across the harbor. They’d defeated the Trekkie forces scattered throughout the docks. They’d even made their way up to the deck of the aircraft carrier. But here their momentum bled out. Reinforcements were piling up behind them, but they had no place to go.
“Don’t you guys have a plan?” Little Boy squeaked.
“You dudes are the Asses,” one of the Storm troopers growled, his voice scratchy through his the COM link. “You guys’re supposed to be leading us!”
“But you dudes fought the Empire,” Hillary screeched. “You dudes have all the people and weapons! You guys are the fighters — unlike your Trek geek enemies over yonder.”
“True. We did defeat the dreaded Empire. Still—”
“But what?” Carl wanted to know.
“We only have six movies to choose from, ‘least when it comes to attacks or strategies.” The Rebel pilot rose to his feet, ignoring the danger of his actions. “Did we have a television show every decade? Hundreds of novels? Fan clubs by the dozens? Ten movies? A next generation? Oh sure, we’ve got those damn prequels — shitty though they may’ve been! Regardless, do we have millions dressing up to be Jabba? Do we have millions here on Earth wishing the planet could somehow be transformed into Tatooine? Hell no! And don’t you even dare mention those ascenine made-for-television Ewok adventures. So what can we do? If we were Trekkies, we’d have unlimited battle options to choose from. You know, like that teleport ambush from episode #61? Or when Kirk mind-fucked Kahn and was able to make it out to that Nebula thingie on just auxiliary power? Top-notch stuff, let me tell you!”
Hillary’s eyes were glowing now. “So let’s do it! Let’s do that teleport thingie! We’re all game!”
“No,” the Rebel pilot suddenly shouted. “How dare you speak of such things!” Behind the pilot, the Storm troopers trashed about, obviously disturbed. “No way in hell would we copy, let alone break, a Star Trek copyright. No way. On smoldering Nien Numb’s corpse I take a stand and make this vow.”
The Ewoks whooped it up as the other rebels, still ducking laser bolts, applauded enthusiastically.
“Perhaps…” a nearby 3PO robot chittered, ducking as a phaser bolt singed its metal head. “But may I suggest that you could go ahead and recreate frame #468 from ‘Return of the Jedi?’”
That stopped the Star Wars fan club members cold. Slowly, they nodded their heads in unison.
“Yeah, y’ know…” the Rebel pilot whispered, snapping his fingers. “That may just work.”
“What might just work?” Frenchie asked.
He smiled. “We get their attention.” His voice shifted. “It’s over, Commander. The Rebels have been routed. They’re fleeing into the woods. We need reinforcements to continue the pursuit…”
And it worked.
Up went the doors and out poured the Trekkie masses, three squads worth. And the Star Wars dudes and J.A.C.K.A.S.S. converged on them, and then slaughtered them.
“Now it’s up to you guys!” The Rebel pilot screamed, shooting down a Trekkie dressed like a Klingon. “Go. Blow this motherfucker up!”
“We’re gone!” Carl screamed, and entered the ship.
May 25, 2010, 1533 standard
Somewhere in a dark but bright room aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
Bob flapped his hands to grab Gaunt’s attention away from the computer screen. “Sir?”
Gaunt turned.
“We’ve analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your helicopter ready?”
Gaunt scoffed. “Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you’re overestimating their chances!”
Gaunt strolled over to a computer readout screen. He slapped a button with his thumb. “Release the ‘Ass into the trench. Order him to kill the intruders.”
“Secret weapon, sir?” Bob asked.
“This is all about to come to an end,” Gaunt said with a sigh, falling back into his chair and throwing his feet up on a nearby desk. “Just you wait and see.”
May 25, 2013, 1533 standard
Somewhere in a dark but bright hallway aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
For nearly ten long minutes, the four members of J.A.C.K.A.S.S. jogged down a long, trench-like hallway. From the sides spat lethal bolts of lasers. Though a few of the deadly, sizzling sparks came near them, none of them thankfully kissed flesh.
Yet…
Silence surrounded them.
“The guns,” Frenchie hissed, pulling up short. “They’ve… They’ve stopped!”
And so they had. Just like they’d done in that one movie. You know, that one movie — the space thingie. With ships and explosions and a dude that breathed really, really badly?
“Here…” Carl slipped a huge Dragon anti-tank rocket launcher from his shoulder and threw it at the dwarf/midget. It nearly killed him. “Let’s make our way on down the trench. Move!!”
Little Boy, straining from the weight of the weapon, continued down the hallway.
“Hey, you ‘Ass!”
The voice was coming from Little Boy’s COM link.
He stopped, threw aside the rocket launcher, grabbed up the mike and hit the button.
“Yeah?”
“Enemy fighters — coming your way.”
“Great…” Little Boy growled. He hefted the rocket launcher and ran as fast as he could down the hallway. Carl, Hillary and Frenchie flanked him. Periodically glancing behind him, Carl was the first to spy a group of elite Trek warriors, on foot, huffing and puffing, catching up to them. They began to fire their phasers. Liquid energy bolts hissed and flashed past them.
“I gotta bad feeling ‘bout this,” Carl said. Beside him, tiny legs churning as fast as they could, Little Boy hefted the rocket launcher and shot off a single fiery wad. They watched it recede down the hallway and explode way down at its end.
“Did you get it?” Dodonna wanted to know, her voice reedy over the COM link.
“Negative,” Carl yelled. “It didn’t go in. It just impacted on the surface.”
Little Boy threw the rocket launcher back over his shoulder, and they continued their trek down the aircraft carrier’s dangerous trench.
“Hillary, Frenchie, let’s close up,” Carl yelled. “We’re going in, and we’re going in full throttle.”
“Right with you, boss,” Hillary hissed.
“Hey,” Frenchie panted. “At this speed, will we be able to pull out in time?
Carl chuckled. “It’ll be just like Beggar’s Canyon back home in Utah!”
(The orchestra music flares)
“Keep going,” Hillary encouraged Little Boy, as the rocket launcher bumped on the ground behind him. “We’ll stay back far enough to cover you!”
Flak and laser bolts flashed and hissed.
A bolt smacked into Frenchie’s leg. He screamed. “I’m hit! I can’t stay with you!”
Get clear, Frenchie!” Carl bellowed back over his shoulder. “You can’t do any more good back there!”
“Sorry!” Frenchie bellowed, and dove into an adjacent hallway.
The Trekkies ignored Frenchie. “Stay on the leader,” one of the elite Trekkies, an oversized Klingon, belched.
“What’d you say?” Little Boy screamed.
“Just stay on target!” Hillary yelled over to him. Still running, she turned and fired her M-60 at the Trek geeks. Several spilled like bowling pins.
“Almost there!” Carl bellowed.
The far wall, holding open its exhaust port like a vagina, was slowly coming into view. But then Carl screamed. A bolt popped him in the back right shoulder. He flopped to the ground and played dead as the Trekkies, whooping and hollering, ran past him. He reached for his gun to shower the bastards with bullets, but the gun was gone. Instead, he began dragging himself over to a maintenance closet.
“Carl?!” Hillary called to him via the COM link.
“I’ll live,” Carl gasped. “Think there’s an escape pod in here somewhere. Just keep going.”
But seconds later, aimed bolts tripped up Hillary, too. She flipped and rolled into an adjacent room, kicking closed the door just as the Trekkies ran past, hollering.
“I’m down!” she yelled into the COM link. “The bastards got me, too! Little Boy’s unprotected!”
Up ahead, Little Boy continued to run as fast as he could. Behind him, three Trekkie warriors — the big Klingon, a Borg and a Romulan — formed into a perfect, unbroken formation.
“Almost there!” Little Boy gasped.
Stealthily, the Trek formation crept closer. The big Klingon moved up behind Little Boy, unsheathing a sword.
…Little Boy slowly brought the rocket launcher up to his shoulder.
The Klingon raised the giant blade high above his head.
…The dwarf lined up the yellow cross-hair lines of the launcher’s targeting screen.
The Klingon screamed a battle cry.
…Little Boy’s fingers tightened on the launcher’s trigger.
The sword descended.
A loud belch suddenly filled the trench.
Startled, the Klingon looked about him in surprise and shock. He could see movement behind him. Seconds later, the Borg on his left exploded in a grisly shower of blood and bone.
“YAHOO!” grunted a triumphant voice.
Little Boy recognized that voice immediately. What he saw behind him made him almost want to seek out a fire hydrant and hump it madly. It was Hog! Hog — dressed in a Trek uniform, but pointing and firing his weapon at the Trekkies stalking him.
“LOOK OUT!” The Romulan cried out, shot in the back by Hoggie. The alien tripped the Klingon’s legs out from under him. Both went tumbling and skidding across the floor, the sword clanking against the far wall.
Hog leaped over them both, snorting with laughter. “You’re all clear, Little Boy! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!” He then snickered, since he’d used the word ‘blow’.
With a grunt, Little Boy yanked on the launcher’s trigger. The torpedo erupted with a smoky farting sound, and tiny rockets propelled it to motor toward the two-foot-wide exhaust hatch leading directly into the ship’s main reactor.
Hog reached down and picked up Little Boy. Cradling the dwarf in his arms, he veered to his left, smashed through a door, crashed through a second door, and then dove headfirst through a narrow porthole.
Just as Hog and Little Boy landed in the salty waters with a ferocious splash, the U.S.S. Enterprise ceased to exist.
May 27, 2013, 0933 standard
Somewhere in a bright but dark CIA office in Virginia
Hal Brognolia slapped away his 17-year-old girlfriend, quickly wrote her a slip so she could head back to her second hour biology class before ushering the five ‘Asses in.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” he said grumpily, zipping up his pants, “I heard, I heard, goddammit. So great job, thanks and all that other nanny-panny pussy shit. Now get the fuck outta my office. You’ll making me sick to my tummy.”
“Thanks,” Carl said.
“Thanks,” Hillary said.
“Thanks,” Little Boy said.
“Thanks,” Frenchie said.
“Thanks Star Fleet,” Hog said.
Hal looked up at Hog. He turned to Carl. “Is your ‘Ass okay?”
Carl nodded. “No worries, boss-man. The mind-altering shit’s still messing with his mind somewhat, but his head’s on straight.” He patted the big hairy man on the back. “Or as straight as it’ll ever be.”
Hal grunted. “Well…” he looked at his left wrist for the time, though he wasn’t wearing a watch, “Damn! Look at the time. Gotta wash my hair. Do my homework. Gotta clean out the attic, too. So uh… why don’t you guys just hightail it outta here now, ‘kay?”
“Well…” Hillary stuttered.
“What?” Hal barked, irritated. “What?”
“We gotta do the denouncement,” she said.
“The wha’?”
“The denouncement.”
“What the hell’s a denouncement?”
“You obviously never took theater in high school,” Little Boy said. “It’s the last part of a play or television show. It not only answers unanswered questions, it also serves to restore the audience to emotional normalcy.”
“Um…” Hal said.
“It’s something our stupid writer, that idiot Kevin guy, has dreamed up,” Carl said. “He wants our endings to be happy.”
“Happy? There’s no happy in action/adventure.”
Carl shrugged sympathetically. He turned to the other ‘Asses. “So who wants to do it?”
The others looked down, shows scuffling on the floor. Finally, Little Boy sighed. “I’ll do it.”
The dwarf/midget walked over to a window, looked out across the Mall, sighed loudly, and said in a stiff voice, “Boy. Glad that mission’s over with!”
Peeking down at her script, Hillary read, “Uh… yeah, me too. Boy howdy! This mission had me scared. Thought I was gonna pee my pants.” As she spoke, she rolled her eyes and fiercely whispered, “I wouldn’t say this, goddammit!”
“Stay in character,” Carl hissed back at her.
The room was suddenly bathed in light. Around them, the Star Trek teleporter transformation hum filled the air. Sighing again, Little Boy stupidly, facedown on the floor. He then made mewling sounds.
Waiting the standard three seconds, the others suddenly burst into forced laughter.
Behind his desk, Hal’s face was turning beet-red by.
“Finish it!” Little Boy whispered up from the floor, damn near lost among the carpet tufts.
Frenchie then jumped up and muttered, “Uh — heh heh — Little Boy fell. I hope he — heh! — He didn’t beam himself.”
There was more forced laughter.
“Ha ha ha ha ha…. (urp!)”
“Okay. This denou… this denouncem…” Hal stuttered and spat. “This shit’s over with! Now get your ‘Asses outta here! You’re makin’ me want to spontaneously fucking combust!”
When Austin spied the note scribbled into the kitchen table’s dust, he thought he didn’t have any tears left to give. He’d wasted about a gallon’s worth at his wife’s funeral. Over the last year, however, he’d carefully packed everything that reminded him of her, hauling it up and hiding it inside the attic. He hadn’t shed a tear since.
Until now, that is — until he spied the dusty note.
I miss you Come to me your Loving wife Stevie
It was a joke, some stupid, cruel joke. Had to be. He’d had his buddies over to play poker last Saturday night. One of them must have traced the note with a finger while grabbing a Coors from the ‘fridge.
Had to be, the bastard.
Austin wiped the message away with his hand. He heaved himself up from the chair and went on with his life.
*** ***
Austin settled into the couch with a heavy sigh, yawning. He had one of Stephen King’s new short story collections spread eagled atop his chest, but he was way too tired to read. He also had no interest in clicking on the 36-inch television he’d purchased a few months back, since he was sick to death of reality shows.
Instead, he lay in the dark, yawning, listening to his cats chase each other across the living room floor.
He reached down to pluck the book from his chest. He replaced it with a framed picture of his wife. It was one of his favorite pictures of her. It was snapped when they were off in Colorado. She’d been framed in the doorway of their Breckenridge cabin, her red hair peppered with bits of fine snow.
He hugged the picture close to him, almost snuggling it.
The couch is his bed. He’d been lying atop it for the past year. Because of the nightly use, and because he’d gained nearly forty pounds since Stevies’ death, the couch had a sizeable sag in the middle. Austin didn’t care. He refused to sleep in the nearby king-sized bed. Even after all the long months, the sheets and pillowcases still contained ghostly wisps of his wife’s “essence” — of lilac and peppermint linen spray, of Downy fabric softener and the hint of pinched cinnamon.
The smell of bed always spawned nightmares of her death, like clockwork, whenever he slept between the sheets. Sometimes those visions were so graphic, he’d contemplate suicide upon waking.
So it was the couch for him — the couch, the cats and the framed picture, the only item he hadn’t taped up inside a cardboard box.
He kissed the top of the picture frame before closing his eyes. He was out within minutes.
*** ***
The cats heard it before Austin ever did.
One minute, Nemo and Sassy were chasing each other like they always did in the late evening. Moments later, they were silent and staring, huddled at the bottom of the stairs. It was probably the lack of running and tumbling, at times resembling dancing elephants, which stirred Austin from his slumber. And it was their uncanny poses at the foot of the stairs that ultimately forced him up from the couch with a chill sliding between his shoulder blades.
As he approached the two animals, Nemo hissed at something above. The Maine Coon’s tail was all frizzed out, twitching back and forth in little, athletic swishes. Beside him, Sassy just sat there, low to the ground and looking spooked.
Nemo hissed again — this time is was a low and throaty sound, almost a feline version of a canine-like growl.
Holding his breath, Austin peered around the corner and up at the second floor landing.
Nothing — just the seventeen green carpeted stairs and inky blackness at the top.
At his feet, both cats’ ears were laid back, crouched close to the carpet in defensive positions. Sassy’s tail had gone all skunk-like now, frizzed out and fat. Nemo looked as if he was ready to spring.
They were obviously seeing something that Austin hadn’t or couldn’t see.
Reaching up, he clicked on the overhead light.
Again, there was nothing.
Austin suddenly chuckled, bending down to ruffle the heads of the two cats. What the hell had he expected to see up there — a decapitated head with fangs? Something hell-spawned with crimson-splashed orbs shining from the darkness?
Shaking his head, he flicked off the overhead and turned away from the landing. He’d taken two steps before both cats rumbled out more throaty warnings.
Austin pivoted and dashed back to the stairs. When he ducked around the edge of the stairway, he saw a blob duck out of view.
He went cold inside.
“Hello?” He clicked on the light. “Anybody up there?”
Austin looked around for a weapon, couldn’t find any. He finally snaked off his belt, wrapping one end around his right fist, prepared to use the buckle as a sort of flail.
He took one step up the stairs. Another. Still another.
From the computer room came soft sliding sounds. It sounded like a weight sliding against it. Below, Nemo rose to all fours, hissing, and arched his back in a defensive gesture to look larger than he really was.
What the hell were they seeing?
Another soft sound, more like a sliding sound, could now be heard. It sounded closer, as if was occurring just to the left of the stairway’s wall, unseen.
Was it a mouse, or maybe a rat? If it was, why the hell were the cats acting so terrified? Didn’t God make cats natural born rodent killers?
Nemo bolted up the stairs — two, four, six — and stopped just in front of him, tail twitching. Below, Sassy arched her back and hissed.
That’s when Austin saw a circular shadow move against the far wall.
Nemo gave out another growl, high-pitched but still menacing. Austin had never heard him make such a sound before. It made him grow cold inside.
Was there an animal up there? A dog?
Now Sassy bounded forward, weaving between Austin’s legs, to join Nemo about halfway up the stairway. Both continued to stare up at the second floor landing, ears pricked forward.
Maybe it’s a person?
Austin grew all cold and soggy again. He wished he had something more than a $10 leather belt in his fists.
“Who’s up there?” Austin asked. He tried to keep his voice steady and calm, but he didn’t do a very good job.
The upstairs hall light, next to his partially opened bedroom door over in the corner, was — dampening. A shadow was bleeding into form there, staining the light. As Austin watched, the smudged bulb grew dimmer and dimmer, before finally winking out. Had a line broken? No — the lights downstairs were glowing as happily as ever.
“Hello?”
From out of the computer room bounced a bright red balloon.
Austin just gaped at it. He had no inkling of it — where it had come from or what it was doing inside the bedroom. Stevie had always loved red balloons. He always tried to get one for her when they went out to a restaurant or fair, or on her birthday. It’d always been a joke between the two of them, since Stevie had lusted after red balloons as a child. But what the hell was one doing here?
He tried to wrack his brain. He could only guess that one of them had been stuck somewhere inside the room, hidden and forgotten, and the exploring cats or blown air from a nearby heating vent had dislodged it.
Out in the hallway, a dull red spark began to glow within the pocket of shadows. As the blackened bulb began to brighten, he noticed the balloon had moved into the middle of the open landing, hovering just above the top step.
The cats at his feet bolted at the sight of the bobbing balloon, bolting down the stairs and on into the living room. He turned to watch them go, more amused than alarmed. Turning, he glanced back up at the balloon.
It was now two steps below the landing.
Shaking his head, Austin turned and descended the steps, heading for the couch in the other room. He sat down with a sigh, and then threw his legs up and swiveled onto his back.
“Balloons,” he said, chuckling. He wiped at the sweat beading his forehead, a bit surprised by how spooked he’d been on the stairs. “Must be going insane.”
He picked up the Stephen King book to read. But the words blurred as his mind churned over the cat’s behavior. Why had they acted so spooked?
Something to his left caught his attention, and he turned toward the living room entrance.
It was the red balloon. It had floated down the steps and, hanging a right, bounced silently into the room.
“Maybe I am crazy,” he said aloud, staring at the balloon, feeling spooked and nervous.
The balloon bobbed in almost quiet agreement.
*** ***
Join Me Sweetheart
Austin rolled over on the couch, putting the pillow over his head.
Join Me Sweetheart
He grumbled, reached out and turned on the box fan beside him. It was winter, and the air chilled the hell out of him, but at least the sound was a droning monotony, which tended to lull him to sleep.
Join Me Sweetheart
Most of the time, that is. Rising from the couch, he stomped into the kitchen and fished out two or three Ambien sleeping pills his doctor had prescribed to him right after the funeral. He popped them into his mouth and chewed without a single sip of water. Ignoring the aftertaste, he stomped back into the living room and flopped down atop the couch, throwing the blanket over him in a single, fluid gesture.
Join Me Sweetheart
Even with the drugs, it took Austin more than an hour to fall into a dreamless sleep.
*** ***
In the night, Stevie came to him. She snuggled up against him on the couch, like they used to do together, when he was sixty pounds lighter and they could both fit on the couch. She kissed him, violently, with lots of tongue and wet saliva, and he immediately responded to her. She whispered into his ear, how I want you and to fuck me hard and you can do anything to me you wish. And she went down on him, yanking down his shorts and taking him in her mouth and sucking hard until he exploded deep into her throat and then over her mouth and chin when she drew him out. Austin was gasping, because she’d never done anything like that before, and now she was mounting him, shoving aside the thin strip of her cotton panty so he could cleanly sink into her wetness — she’s over him now, grinding away, keeping him hard, arching back so her full breasts thrust out into his hands, eyes glowing white, breath coming in quickening spurts, calling out his name, urging him to Join Me Join Me Join Me and he—
—And he woke atop the couch.
He was alone inside the darkened living room. Down below he was a God-awful sloppy mess. He felt like a teen again — he hadn’t had a wet dream in decades. He was panting, and he felt physically spent, but strangely satisfied at the same time, as if a long-tangled tension deep inside had suddenly drained away. It dawned on Austin that he hadn’t had an orgasm in more than a year.
It took him a few minutes before he smelled Stevie on his clothes and on his hands and even in his beard — wispy traces of lilac and peppermint linen spray, of Downy fabric softener and the hint of cinnamon. But it was more than that — he can smell her, her musky smell, the smell of her wetness, the smell of her down below, of sweat and heat and sexual desire.
In the middle of the night, in the middle of the living room Austin laid awake, frightened, vulnerable, heart sick — sniffing the lingering remnants of his dead and buried wife.
*** ***
He found Stevies’ wedding dress crumpled in a heap at the foot of the closet.
Brow furrowed, he reached down and hefted it, checking to see if the wire hanger had broken. It hadn’t. He smoothed it out, running his hand down its length. It was a Sheath-style gown, flowing down to the ankles with a form-fitting bodice and a slit down the front. She’d loved the cathedral train the best, extending two-and-a-half yards behind her from the waist.
She’d been so damned beautiful.
He carefully placed the dress back in the closet, shutting and locking the door.
*** ***
Austin answered the door on the second ring.
“Hey you,” he said, surprised.
It was Marcia, a girl he worked with at the newspaper. She was a hard-nose reporter, and he often worked with her as editor on several projects. He’d heard rumors that she liked him. But he never gave those rumors much thought. He now wished he had.
“Sorry, I was… just in the neighborhood, and I thought I’d stop by.”
“Oh well, good.”
They stood there, awkward, smiling at each other.
“May I come in?”
“Oh well, sure, c’mon in.”
They chatted on the couch, sitting on opposite ends, mostly about work. He offered Marcia a drink, and she asked for wine. When he came back into the room, she’d slid over onto the middle cushion. Feeling a stirring in his loins, Austin didn’t protest.
“This is good,” she said, sipping at the wine.
“It came from a box,” he said, and grinned. It felt good grinning. He hadn’t done it for ages.
“You’ve got a nice smile, Austin.”
“Thank you.”
“I…” she paused, biting her lip.
“What?”
She leaned over to give him a long and wet kiss. It lasted for nearly a minute before he finally pulled away. His cheeks were flushed, partly from embarrassment, partly from lust.
“Sorry. People tell me I’m forward.”
“It’s what makes you a great reporter,” he said. His words sounded thick.
They kissed again. It didn’t take long for their hands to touch flesh, stroking and caressing.
“I want you,” she whispered.
“Bedroom’s behind you” he said through his kiss.
“Bathroom first?”
“Hallway on your left.”
Nodding, she broke off the kiss, rose from the couch and disappeared down the hallway. Soon, he could hear running water from the bathroom sink.
Austin leaned back against the couch, blowing breath out with an explosive force. He had to unzip his pants to relieve the pressure building there. Though he appeared calm on the outside. Inside, it was a churning turmoil. A part of him, a needy physical part of him, clearly wanted Marcia. But there was another side of him that felt sleeping with Marcia would destroy what remained of Stevie. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know which part was healthy and which part was unhealthy? Did other widowed husbands face this sort of dilemma?
There was an audible gasp from the bathroom.
“Everything okay?”
The door flew open, and Marcia staggered out. When he saw her, his heart plummeted into his bowels. Her face was a white as skim milk, bottom lip quivering and clothes looked sloppy, as if — in the middle of pulling them off — she’d hastily shrugged them back on again, stuffing bits and pieces into the hem of her skirt.
“I… uh…” she sounded distracted, eyes glazed, searching around the couch for her purse. “I’ve got to go.”
“Go?” A part of him felt relieved. But another part of him shriveled. He’d wanted her badly.
“I’m sorry, I… um,” she found her purse and slung it over her shoulder. She brushed a brief kiss across his cheek, checked herself, and gave him a long one on the lips. When they parted, she looked up at Austin with wet eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She looked to be on the verge of tears.
She said something else to him, her back to him.
“What?” he asked, watching her from the couch as she made her way over to the front door.
“Watch yourself, Austin,” she said, and shut the door behind her.
“Watch myself?” he demanded from the closed door in front of him. Of course, he received no answer.
*** ***
Stevie had kept all the family albums in the downstairs computer desk’s bottom drawer — nine of them in all, each carefully pieced together with loving care.
But someone had violently opened that bottom drawer, and the fourth album was now laid out atop the desk, opened on pages 51 and 52. Those two pages contained their wedding pictures.
One had them holding each other and smiling. A second had them kissing just moments after exchanging their vows. The third and fourth showed them sharing the cake. The fifth had them standing together, hand on hand, slow dancing.
Austin stared at the pictures, teeth worrying at his lower lip. His face was drained of color, and he blinked rapidly, as if his eyes wouldn’t or couldn’t quite focus.
He stirred long enough to shut the book, absently running fingers along the book’s spine. Hen then placed it back inside the drawer and closed it with the toe of his shoe.
He fled the room.
*** ***
Marcia was sitting at a table in the break room, an unopened can of Sprite in front of her, when he walked in.
She’d been staring at the far wall, lost in thought, but she stirred and gave him a thin smile when he sat down opposite her.
“You haven’t said much to me the past week. What’s up?”
She shook her head. “Been sick.”
He nodded. Marcia had missed three days of work.
“You better?”
She nodded.
“I uh, wanted to talk to you about the other night.”
She sat there for a spell, silent, her fingers dancing over the top of the weeping aluminum can. Two of her nails were chipped.
“I saw a face in the bathroom mirror,” she finally said. She bit down on her lower lip until it was as white as her cheeks. “It’s stupid.”
He stared at her for a spell. “A face?”
She nodded.
“I’m… not following you.”
“Was in the bathroom, washing my face, hot water when — when I looked up and a woman was staring back at me from the… you know, from the mirror.”
He stared at her, hard, searching her eyes. She wasn’t lying.
“It’s stupid,” she said again.
He reached into his pocket and flopped out his worn billfold. “Want you to look at something.”
He fished his fingers into one of the niches and brought out a picture of Stevie. He laid it face-up on the table in front of her. “Was this the face you saw?”
She stared at the picture for a good fifteen to twenty seconds before tears welled up in her eyes and she bolted from the chair. He thought he heard sobbing.
Sighing, Austin shoved the picture back inside his billfold. He then popped the lid on the Sprite can and chugged the liquid in three sloppy gulps.
“Shit,” he whispered to the walls.
*** ***
“Just stop it!” Austin cried out at the four walls of the empty room, clapping hands over ears. Nemo heard the tone of his voice and bolted, his ears all twisted and eschewed.
/Won’t you Die tonight for Love/
Was he going insane? Was this singing voice in his head the first step over the edge of the bottomless Abyss?
/Baby, join me in Death Won’t you Die/
He didn’t want to admit it. Not in his head and certainly not aloud where she could hear, but the voice — this damnable voice — was Stevies’, in every way and shape and form.
/Won’t you Die/
A voice from the dead — her voice!
/Won’t you Die tonight for Love/
Oh God Stevie I miss you so damn much but you’re slowly driving me fucking nuts!
/Together in Death/
“Just leave me alone,” Austin said. It was neither a shout nor a scream, but a defeated whisper. He had little strength left inside to do or say otherwise.
/This world is a Cruel place Death bless me with you/
“Please Stevie — please — just leave me alone. If you love me…”
/Together in Death/
Austin broke down in tears.
*** ***
When Austin answered the door, Marcia and a strange man carrying a briefcase stood on the porch, their features washed out by the weak porch light from above.
Marcia gasped when she got a good look at him.
“Oh my… Austin, are you okay?”
He nodded. He’d taken his full three weeks of vacation, and probably hadn’t bathed more than three times in that time. He’d lost a lot of weight — he hadn’t found himself sporting much of an appetite.
He invited them inside his apartment that hadn’t seen a vacuum or washrag in more than two weeks. It stank of body odor, rotting food and at least one unclean litter box.
Though she was visibly disturbed by Austin’s appearance, Marcia tried to put up a brave front. “Had a nice vacation?”
He shrugged.
“You coming back to work on Monday?”
He shook his head. “I quit.”
Marcia just stared.
“Who’re you?” Austin asked the man. He was standing uncomfortably near the front door.
“This is Kenny, a friend of mine. He’s a…” she looked at him, her voice trailing off.
“I’m a paranormal investigator,” Kenny said, stepping forward to shake Austin’s hand. “Marcia’s told me about some rather… uncanny happenings taking place in your apartment.”
Austin nodded.
“Do you mind if I search your home?”
“Be my guest.”
For the next two hours, the skinny man dressed in suit and tie walked around the house with a number of futuristic implements: a “portable motion sensor,” a “three-axis digital AC gaussmeter,” an “electromagnetic frequency detector,” an “infra-red thermometer,” an expensive digital audio recorder, an “ion counter” and several digital cameras/DVD recorders.
While the man worked, Marcia tried to keep up the small talk, but she was visibly uncomfortable, while Austin mumbled out one-syllable answers.
Within the hour, Marcia’s friend had completed his work, clicking the EMF detector back into his spot inside his briefcase. He then shook Austin’s hand.
“I’ll have the results back to you within forty-eight hours,” he promised.
Austin grunted. He led Marcia and Kenny to the front door without another word.
*** ***
He kept a pistol inside a gun safe beneath the bed in the master bedroom.
When he walked toward the closet to dress, the safe had been pushed out from beneath the bed, opened, with the gun sitting neatly on its edge.
Stopping in mid-step, he cautiously approached the silver box and its black pistol.
There was a layer of dust on the safe’s top. Someone had written a message for him.
I miss you Come join Me my Love
He picked up the gun. He liked its hefty weight in his hand. It was a .38 pistol, a six-shooter. It was also loaded. Because he kept the gun in a locked safe, he figured it was okay to keep it loaded. Ironically, he owned it to use on some faceless intruder breaking into their house.
Never once did he think he’d turn the black thing on himself.
Is that what you’re going to do?
Austin cocked the gun. His eyes never left the dusty message — I miss you Come join Me my Love
Is that what she wants you to do?
I miss you Come join Me my Love
He wedged the pistol’s barrel between his teeth.
How do they do it, Austin wondered to himself — the guys and gals who “bit the bullet,” so to speak. Did they literally bite down on the barrel before pulling the trigger, pointing it down toward their tonsils at the back of their throat? Or did they angle the barrel up toward the roof of the mouth, so the bullet would savage the brain — ending life with a quickly descending curtain of darkness?
I miss you Come join Me my Love
Austin thought about the recoil. How the pistol would most likely slam back into his gritted teeth, shattering and splintering bits and pieces into the soggy gums and tongue. For some strange reason, this thought sickened him more than what the bullet would most likely do.
I miss you Come join Me my Love
Besides, the taste of the metal inside his mouth was truly revolting, tweaking Austin’s gag reflex. The metal tasted tangy and coppery — almost like blood.
I miss you Come join Me my Love
Austin slipped the gun from his mouth, snipping apart two spit trails like umbilical cords.
“Not today,” he whispered at the dusty message written by the woman he had once loved. “Not yet.”
*** ***
Kenny was back in his tiny apartment, minus Marcia, within thirty-two hours. The two men sat side-by-side at the kitchen counter. Kenny appeared excited.
“Let me start out by saying that I’ve never in my years have ever recorded such a strong amount of evidence in such a quick—” he continued on, rambling about “energy spokes” and “irrefutable evidence.” — “Usually spirits linger because of attachment to a material thing, like a dress or a piece of jewelry. At first I thought it was a residual EVP, which means there’s no intelligence behind it, but—” Austin tuned out the man’s words, nearly yawning at one point.
“Now, the first piece of evidence I want you to hear is an EVP, which stands for electronic voice phenomenon. These are sounds that our own human ears can’t pick up; only mechanical devices can ‘hear’ them. I’ll play that clip for you.”
He punched a few buttons on a fancy laptop, and a green bar with strange lines appeared.
About halfway through, they heard a female voice…
Join Me Sweetheart
“One of the best EVP’s I’ve personally ever recorded,” Kenny said, barely able to contain his excitement. “But that one pales to this next one. Listen carefully, it needs no explanation.”
He clicked play. Within seconds, they could both hear Stevies’ singing voice:
Forty thousand men and women every day Come on Baby take my hand
“Utterly and absolutely fascinating. Here, let me play it for you again.”
But Austin never gave the man the chance. He threw such a fit, made so many curse-filled threats, that he was able to get the man off the stool and out the door within a minute.
Slamming the front door behind him, Austin turned in circles, hand clutching at his temples, screaming at the top of the lungs for Stevie to leave him alone alone alone alone alone alone
*** ***
Join Me Sweetheart
Austin rose from the kitchen table and walked into the master bedroom. Throughout the morning, he’d made more than two dozen trips up to the attic, hauling out the cardboard boxes of his wife’s stored belongings and shoving them in the back of his Bronco. From there, he’d driven the entire mess out to the dumping grounds on the edge of town. One by one, he chucked the boxes into the morass.
He’d then driven back to his apartment and had gotten dirty and stinking drunk.
But it hadn’t worked.
He chugged another can of beer, crumpling the can with his fist, staring at the wall.
Stevie was still here, urging him to join her.
Austin wiped at his eyes. His eyes — hell, his entire face — felt like sandpaper. “Fuck it,” he said.
He stumbled into the bedroom. There, still in the middle of the floor, was the unlocked gun safe — Stevies’ message still visible on the lid. He fished out the pistol. He’d conducted some research a few days ago on the Internet — the best way to kill oneself with a pistol was to do it from under the chin. Apparently there was less bone and skull for the bullet to smash into and potentially get diverted.
“Fuck it,” he repeated, cocking the pistol and firmly wedging it beneath his chin.
He closed his eyes.
And then opened them.
From where he sat on the floor, he could see his bed. And above the bed was the wooden headboard. And on that wooden headboard, reflecting light from the kitchen, was Stevies’ beloved Irish symbol. She’d glued it onto the headboard when they first got married. It was the Triquetra, the triangular Irish knot representing the three planes of existence — physical, mental and spiritual — and the invisible connection between life and the afterlife.
Austin slowly slipped the pistol from his face, setting the hammer gently back into place.
He approached the bed. Using the pistol’s grip, he managed to pop the symbol off the headboard. It sat heavy in his left palm, like an oversized set of car keys.
He dropped the gun on the floor, pocketing the Irish trinket, and turned immediately for the front door.
*** ***
Forty minutes and twenty-two miles away, Austin dropped down in front of his wife’s grave, touching the epitaph with slightly quivering fingers.
The physical representation of Love
Buried here, but not alone
Ella “Stevie” Hutchison
He then bent down in the soft mud in front of the gravestone and buried the Triquetra. Done, he leaned over and kissed the cold stone.
“I’ll meet you soon — but not yet, honey. Not yet.”
Steven loves the light, how warm and bright it is, the feel of it on his bare skin. And he loves to dance atop the pools of sunlit sidewalk, slapping each spot with his shoes, much like girls do with hastily drawn boxes of chalk.
He hums while smelling a patch of pretty purple flowers. He giggles, ignoring the drip of drool from the corner of his lips. He soon forgets the flowers, however, after spying a nearby honeybee. He follows its movement with his eyes as it flies from one pretty flower to the next. He walks two blocks, cutting through yards and over a fence, before a cloud moving across the Sun creates a shadow that wrenches Steven’s interest away from the overworked bee. He chases the cloud all the way out to Chester Street.
Steven is a huge man, five inches over six feet and weighing close to three hundred pounds, though he’s far from slovenly. Sadly, he has a 7-year-old mind manipulating a 32-year-old’s body. Most of the folks in the neighborhood know him to be harmless, and they’ve learned to keep their eye on him, as they would any 6-year-old out wandering the neighborhood alone.
Truth be known, there’s only one thing in the whole wide world that Steven loves more than sunlight splashes on the grass or slapping soles atop sidewalks, and that’s a pink-faced infant.
The cloud disintegrates above him, and he slowly turns away from the corner of Chester and Blaylock. He will go no further. He’s never liked cars much — they smell funny to him, and he’s always possessed an instinctive fear of them, even his Daddy’s Plymouth. Making an about face, he ambles back the way he’d came. In the distance, he glimpses the top of the pine tree in his front yard, where Violet Street turns into Rose Lane.
Hooting, he lumbers toward home. But halfway there, something brings him up short. It isn’t a flower, bee or cloud, however. It’s a mother stooping over a baby carriage, working to tuck a blanket around the edges of what appears to be a sleeping infant girl.
Steven knows most of the people living in the neighborhood by sight — he certainly knows all the local babies. Yet he neither recognizes the mother or her baby girl. Grinning his crooked teeth, he rushes forward with a loud mewling sound of excitement.
The woman doesn’t notice Steven until his shadow falls across her daughter’s crib. Startled, she turns with a slight yelp. When she sees Steven’s size, she seems to shrink into herself, protectively covering the carriage with her arms.
Steven can’t speak a single word of English, yet he communicates to others through a complicated series of moans and gurgled hoots. He can smile, however. It’s probably why Steven grins so much, to compensate for his lack of verbal communication. In that respect, Steven has an extremely soft and almost beautiful grin, despite the slobber.
“Who are you?” the woman asks Steven. But Steven ignores her. After all, everyone in the neighborhood knows Steven can’t speak; that he’d much rather coo and tickle the cheeks of babies inside their carriages.
But when the woman sees that Steven is ignoring her, that he’s intending to sidestep her to get closer to her daughter, she blocks his way with her body, and spits out a sharp “NO!”
Steven frowns. Her tone hurts him; makes him feel like he’s done something wrong. His lower lip trembles, as if he’s prepping to cry. He takes another tentative step forward.
“Do not touch my baby.”
Steven looks down at the mother and gurgles out a response. He’s about to take a step back, because he doesn’t like the look the woman is giving him, but then he finally sees the baby snug in its blanket, and he’s smiling now, one of his wide, toothy grins, and he leans forward so the baby will see it and match his grin with a toothless one of her own.
“Please go,” the woman says, scolding him like a punished pet.
Steven makes another attempt to peer at the baby.
“Just go!” Her voice is hard now. She begins pushing the baby carriage up the street, away from him.
Steven follows. He keeps two paces back, grinning, slobbering, peering around the woman so he can maybe see the baby. When the mother looks back at him, and sees how close he is to her, she walks even faster.
And so does Steven, giggling. He loves games — especially chase.
But then the carriage hits a raised end of an uneven sidewalk slab, and the carriage pitches dangerously to its left. Alarmed, Steven rushes forward and catches the carriage just as it’s tipping over. He gently pushes it back the other way before baby and blanket can spill atop the sidewalk. Setting the carriage back down atop its four wheels, he glances down at the mother with a proud grin. He expects a grin in return.
Instead, the angry woman slaps hard across the face.
A thin finger-flick of spit sprayed his shoulder. Too stunned for words, Steven simply stands there, dumbfounded, a red handprint slowly bleeding into view across his cheek. He raises a tentative finger to poke and prod at his burning cheek. His mind can’t quite grasp what has just happened.
“Get away from my baby!” the mother says, sneering, a teary mixture of rage and fear wetting her eyes and cheeks. She almost hits Steven again, and the man-child ducks away with a terrified moaning sound. Instead, she turns and pushes the carriage over the crack and on down the sidewalk. She’s practically running.
Steven stands there for a moment or two, probing his cheek, before bursting into tears. He lets out an anguished moan, shoulders vibrating from several volcanic sobs, wiping spilled tears across the shirtsleeve of his too-short flannel shirt.
He slowly makes his way home.
*** ***
Steven’s on the floor in the center of his room, playing with his Thomas the train set, when his father, Lionel, quietly slips into the room. Steven looks up, happily hooting. He makes a gesture at a vacant spot on the floor, but his father declines with short shake of his head. Instead, he kneels before him, elbows balanced on his knees.
“Son, I got a call from a woman today — she’s new to our neighborhood. She claims you stalked her child.”
Steven says something, his words slurred with spit, before he carefully places Thomas on the tracks near the dark cave.
Just as carefully, Lionel picks up the toy train and sets it behind him. “Son? This is the third time I’ve gotten a call like this. The police are…. They said something would have to be done if it continues. Understand what I’m telling you, big guy?”
Steven doesn’t, of course, but he’s smart enough to recognize tones, and he quiets down, avoiding his father’s eyes, when he hears the tone in his father’s sounds.
“The police also said another baby’s died in the neighborhood.” Lionel shakes his head, looking away, sighing.
Steven watches it all, and he’s now growing alarmed, feeling the faintest pinprick of alarm somewhere deep inside his insides.
“They think it’s SIDS,” father continues. “I know you don’t know what all this means, kiddo, but they won’t know for sure until the autopsy. Until then, they suspect you.”
Steven stares blankly at his father’s face.
“It means the police are suspicious of you, son. It means no more walks in the neighborhood without my supervision.”
Steven hoots sadly.
“I know, son, I know you don’t like the sound of that. Life hasn’t been fair to you — hasn’t been since the day you were born. I know going outside is one of the few simple pleasures in life that God’s granted you. I’m sorry, kiddo — I truly am — but at least for now, you’ll be staying inside.”
Lionel then leans forward and kisses his son on the forehead. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You understand that? We’ll get through this — like we always do.”
Steven slowly gives his daddy a tentative smile.
*** ***
The phone in the other room rings. Steven’s in bed, deep beneath the covers, the nearby nightlight spilling a rich blue light across the nearby wall. On the third ring, he can hear his daddy answering the phone, his voice a distant rumble through the walls. He can’t make out his daddy’s words, but he easily detects his tone. And it’s the bad tone — the voice daddy uses when he’s angry.
“Who the hell is this?”
Silence.
“Why would my boy do that? You go to hell. You ever touch my boy, I’ll kill you — you got that?”
Steven jumps beneath the covers at the sound of the phone smashing down atop its cradle.
*** ***
The police pay the two a visit a week later. They scare Steven badly, these two police officers. It’s partly the way they’re dressed, and partly because neither smile. Someone not smiling is always a scary thing for Steven to see. He can also sense his father is deeply distressed. That only puts Steven more on the edge.
“There was a break-in this time,” the officer was telling his father, eyeing Steven from the corner of his eye. “Nothing much left of the baby but blood.”
“My son’s been inside the house.”
“Your son has been known to approach mothers and their babies, Lionel. There was the incident last week. What’s to say that he didn’t break into a house, too?”
“Because my son was here inside the house!” Lionel says, his tone hard. “I told you guys I’d keep an eye on him and I have. Since last Tuesday he hasn’t been out of the house once by himself — not even out in the yard with the gates locked. You guys know Steven wouldn’t hurt a fly. Hell Jim I went to school with you. You’ve known Stevie since he was a baby. He used to go to school with your Emily for Christ’s sakes! He wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Listen Lionel, you—”
“This is bullshit!”
“What’s bullshit, Lionel,” Jim says hotly, “is that we have four dead infants in two months in roughly a four-block area of your house here. If it wasn’t for a lack of evidence, I figure your son would already be in custody…”
“Now just wait—”
“We know your son is known far and wide—”
“For what?”
“For liking small children.”
“What the hell are you implying? Steven’s a child himself. You make it out like it’s something dirty. You know he has a mind of a child. He was born that way — not enough Oxygen to the brain at birth. He’d never hurt a child. He loves them.”
Jim starts to speak, halfway up from the couch, before police chief Shaffer grabs the officer by the shoulders and gives him a slight shake of his head. “Be that as you say, Lionel, people here in the neighborhood are scared, and growing more scared by the minutes, and your son’s name keeps popping up when they come in to talk to us. It’s probably bullshit, like you say. I knew your momma, and I’ve known your Steven and I know he wouldn’t hurt a hair on a child’s head. But we have a job to do. When we get prints from the crime scene, and we will, we’ll want to print your son for a possible match.”
“Ridiculous…”
“I hope you’re right,” Shaffer says, rising to his feet, hat topping his baldhead. “I hope to hell you’re right.”
*** ***
More than a month after the visit from the police, a high school girl comes over to watch Steven because his daddy is working late on a proposal at the office. Lionel tells the girl about the outside locks, but either the girl doesn’t hear him or doesn’t care to hear him. Either way, she ignores Steven when he ambles past her, too busy with her cell phone to break her cadence or glance his way. For the first time in a month, Steven slips outdoors.
He sets off with a happy gurgle, pausing every so often for a few deep sniffs of some wayward flowers. He chases sunspots on the sidewalk until the sun dips and the stars bleed through the darkening sky-high overhead.
Two blocks over, Steven hears a baby’s cry. Turning, he climbs over a chain link fence into a stranger’s yard. A dog, tied to a nearby tree, is throwing a tantrum over Steven’s rather rude intrusion, yet Steven hardly gives him the time of day.
The man-child moves around back, a huge stalking shadow, to peep through a window. Inside, a woman is rocking a crying baby in the chair. Seeing the baby, Steven begins grinning and cooing to it. He taps the window with his finger, and the mother looks up, startled. Cooing loudly, he taps the window again, this time using his fist. The glass promptly shatters. By now the woman is screaming, clutching at her nightgown, before bolting through the door with infant in arms.
By now Steven’s crying. He’d cut himself on the glass, and blood is meandering down his wrist. He makes his way back to the front yard. Near the corner, a shadow steps in front of him.
“Stop,” the husband orders him. The man is dressed in a white T-shirt and sweats. He sounds scared, and he was pointing something in Steven’s direction.
Steven looks down at his cut hand. When he sees the blood, he makes a keening sound.
“I’ve called the police,” the husband says. Misinterpreting Steven’s high-pitched moan, he doesn’t like the sound of it at all. “Also have me a gun, so don’t do anything stupid.”
Steven makes a gurgling sound with his mouth, raising his hand so the man can better see his slashed wrist and all the blood dribbling from the tips of his fingers. His father always knew what those gurgling sounds meant — it was Steven’s unique plea for help. But the strange man in front of him knows nothing of his special “language.” He simply sees a huge shadowy man standing in his yard — a man who’d tried to break through a bedroom window to snatch his infant; a man who was even now raising a hand toward him.
The husband doesn’t hesitate. He fires the pistol once — just once. But once is enough.
The bullet punches through Steven’s left eye.
*** ***
Steven stirs from a long and rather dark and internally deep slumber.
He finds himself wrapped tightly inside his bed, sheets and a quilt snuggling his legs. He opens his eyes and spies the familiar colors of his bedroom walls. A quick glance to his left shows him his desk, his scattered toys and the dozen vases of flowers he’s selected from past neighborhood excursions.
Hooting happily, he rises from bed. Sitting there, he scratches his lumpy hair. He isn’t hungry, and he doesn’t need to pee. Of course, his mind’s too small to think of such things. Suspicion isn’t one of Steven’s strong suits.
He makes a low grunting sound, which is his call for daddy. But he receives no familiar reply. Worse, the house feels somehow empty to him. He shuffles his way into the living room. From there, he ducks his head into every room of the house.
All of them — empty.
He meanders into the garage and finds it empty, too. He touches the button his daddy doesn’t want him touching and the garage door yawns open with a grinding, metallic groan. Sunlight splashes his face, and he giggles at the touch. There’s a clear sky outside, and colored with the richest stain of blue he’d ever laid eyes on.
Lumbering down the driveway in his 3x-large adult pajamas, he turns left and trudges south on Rose Lane, stopping twice to poke at the flowers swaying in the summer breeze. He follows his familiar route over to the corner of Rose and Violet Streets, always stopping to tap Mrs. Wimsett’s metallic-green mailbox. Then he’s trudging up Violet Street, humming a happy tune. Not once does it dawn on him how strange it is that he sees no living people.
The first seed of doubt only blooms within him when he nears the corner of Chester and Blaylock, which is always the point where he turns around. On this day, busy Blaylock is unusually quite. There’s neither sound nor smell of the foul cars passing by with honks and roars. There’s only a wall of bubbling fog.
He stops, staring at it with large, wide eyes. He finds himself instinctively fearing the fog. A part of him — the inquisitive part of his nature — wants to reach out and touch it with the tip of his finger. But a more primitive emotion jerks control and promptly stays his hand.
The fog is not only deep but it seems to dampen noise. And it rises high into the air, so high it collides somewhere up there with the sky, gobbled up by the infinite blue.
Cooing, Seven takes a step back. He closes his eyes, screwing at them with the knuckles of his two forefingers. When he opens them, the wall of fog remains.
He turns his back to the fog, making a scared keening sound deep in his throat. Somehow, he hopes by not looking at it, it will simply disappear. He calms when he spies the top of his house down on Rose Street. But when he glances off to his left, down Sunflower Street, the keening sound ramps up again, because in the distance he spies more coiled ropes of foggy intestine.
Confused, he meanders back to a spot about two blocks or so from his house. He stops outside a house. He suddenly struggles with an urge to flee. He can feel the fear pulse deep within him, like a second beating heart. But when he tries to run, his body doesn’t obey. Instead, he finds himself climbing over a fence and moving over to the side of a strange house. There, at his feet, sits a patch of stained grass.
Steven begins to cry when he spies the stain, though he doesn’t know why he’s doing it — he just does. He knows this spot is the source of his fear, and he knows he’d rather be anywhere — even out in the middle of Blaylock Street — then inside this strange yard, standing next to this strange house, staring down at a spill of someone’s blood.
And then someone screams.
Steven falls into the grass, rolling up into a fetal ball, his eyes closed, arms clenched protectively around his head. Somewhere close by the scream continues. The sound of it prickles Steven’s spine. It sounds like a gurgled cry. Worse, it sounds a lot like Stevie’s own voice. Only when the voice ebbs into a barely discernable whimper does Steven’s paralysis shatter, and he’s able to roll to his feet and bolt back down the street as fast as his long legs will carry him.
The screaming — his screaming — follows him all the way home.
*** ***
It takes Steven more than a week to discover he can effortlessly float through the air with the greatest of ease. It’s strange how it happened. One moment he was standing outside, following a cloud and bathed with sunlight. The next, reaching up and jumping up at the cloud like he always does, his feet were off the ground and he was as high as the treetops themselves.
Screaming, Steven flails his arms and legs wildly. Eventually, his leap reaches its peak, and then he’s on his way down, but so ever slowly, until he ever so gently lands in the middle of Rosebud Street, south of his house.
Steven’s mental capacity isn’t large enough — certainly isn’t quick enough — to grasp what has just happened. But he soon swallows his fear, closes his eyes and leaps. Before, when he was floating well above the trees, he spied movement inside two or three neighborhood houses below his feet. This was another strange talent he suddenly possesses, able to peer down through roofs and walls, through brick and plywood, and see babies inside their cribs. He grins when he sees them. Seeing the children in their cribs is satisfaction enough for him.
By the time he lands as softly as he would inside a slowing elevator, he’s hooting and hollering and giggling spit in wet splatters.
And his laughter fills the silent neighborhood air.
*** ***
Sometimes Steven flies over each of the children’s houses, keeping an eye on them. Most of the times the children sleep. But on occasion they’re awake, eyes open, and they can see him way up here, way up in the clouds, and their eyes will follow his path across the sky, and they’ll giggle and kick out their stubby, fleshy legs with amused chuckles. No matter where he’s at, no matter how high he’s leapt, he can always hear those baby chuckles.
There are five infants inside his “neighborhood.” Other than him, they are the only humans he can see or come in contact with. Yeah, sometimes Steven doesn’t want to fly. He misses human contact, particularly the babies, and so he moves into the infants’ house. He can walk through walls as effortlessly as he can glide through air, and within seconds he’ll be at the baby’s side, cooing and stroking their downy hair with his oversized and calloused fingers. They’ll gurgle up a greeting, grinning and spitting, and he’ll usually answer with a gurgle and grin of his own. Then he’ll coo to them, talking to them, smiling and laughing as he strokes a rosy cheek. He loves it most when their tiny little hands make a firm fist around one of his fingers, and he’ll always give their arms a little handshake. When the babies laugh out loud, Stevie shivers with delirious glee, hooting out a chuckle of his own. Unlike before, no adult ever comes to investigate all the hooting and hollering.
In a way, Steven’s happy they never do.
*** ***
Steven is walking south on Rose when he comes up to the barrier. Though he’s seen this foggy wall dozens of times now, they still leave him feeling a bit queasy and more than a bit uneasy. Most times, he averts his eyes and turns his back on these foggy walls, leaping over the nearby rooftops to escape. It’s the same feeling of dread he suffers whenever he walks or flies near the stain on the grass at the house he fears.
This time, however, he doesn’t turn his back to the barrier. This time, he approaches it and, following a lengthy pause, swings a fist at it.
With a sucking sound, his fist vanishes inside the fog with an audible slurping sound.
Cooing, he tries to wrench his hand free.
But it won’t come free.
He jerks back his arm with a slobbery grunt, but still his arm’s held by something unseen. Deep within the fog, a black substance swirls. It’s as if a shadow within the bog is moving around in there, just a hint of black amidst the churning white of the bog.
The shadowy thing spooks Steven. Other than the babies and his own shadow, it’s the only intelligent movement he’s seen since he woke up from his long slumber.
Bending his knees, he launches himself back into the air. With a hissing pop, his arm and fist break free, covered in a foul-smelling black goop.
He pin wheels drunkenly through the air, landing on his backside two houses down from the barrier. On his back now, breathing hard, he spies the honey-like liquid covering his arm and he violently wipes most of the muck off onto the grass and wood panels of the nearby front porch. It takes him a few minutes before his clean of the stuff, which stinks so badly it nearly burns his nostrils.
Steven lies there for a moment or two, panting, before rolling over onto his side.
Which is when he sees the black thing.
It’s taller than Steven, a black mass impossibly thin — almost to the point of transparency. It has what looks to Steven like a head and limbs and legs, but it doesn’t — if that makes any sense at all, because this thing’s head and limbs and legs curl about themselves like squirming tentacles, giving the mass an almost spidery look and feel to it. The thing also hisses at it moves. One moment, it wasn’t there, and the next it simply was, materializing from the foggy mass with jerky movements. It’s connected to the barrier by thick, vein-like tendrils, each one snapping as it moves toward Steven.
By this time, the man-child crawls behind a bush and cowers in a familiar fetal ball. He’s never felt such fear before in his life. It’s so powerful that he feels like throwing up, and he dry heaves down into the bush’s roots. By this time, the hissing black thing has passed him by. Once it turns the corner and is out of sight, Steven bursts into tears.
He sits that for a while, crying and cowering, cowering and crying, until a sound brings him up short. He slowly climbs to his feet, the wet tears on his cheeks suddenly forgotten.
It’s the sound of a baby infant crying out in pain and fear.
*** ***
The sounds were a combination of the black thing’s hissing and the infant’s now terrified scream as Steven lands on the other side of the infant’s crib with an almost animalistic snarl of rage. Moments before, he’d taken to the air with a roaring bellow.
The black thing pulls back from the crib when it sees him. Snaking down from the thing’s face is a slimy black tendril that’s attached itself to the babe’s face. Because the baby is gasping for breath, Steven can see the thing is sucking the breath from the babe’s lungs.
The black mass rises up to its full height, silent, boring into Steven with sightless eyes, the limbs and legs sliding back and forth, its shadowy middle “breathing” in and out.
And then it’s gone.
Steven pauses for a pregnant second, before movement catches his eye, and he turns to his left just as a squirming limb snaps from the shadows and touches the side of his stomach. Everything there goes instantly numb, as if his flesh has chilled. It feels like this snake-like tendril is trying to burrow into his flesh. Screaming Steven grabs at the shadow with his hands. The inky blackness feels like a squishy pillow, and he squeezes the black with all his might. The black thing is no longer hissing — it’s now making a pained, keening sound.
Another black tendril slaps at his face, batting at his eyes like an inky whip. Where it touches, blood flows, and the warmth is sucked from the flesh, turning it bone white. He can hear the tendril sucking at him, and his chest constricts, his heart beating more quickly, and he’s having a difficult time drawing a breath.
Tears stinging his eyes, Steven lunges forward and uses both arms to “scoop” the black form into a bunch and hugging it against his chest. There, he begins to squeeze.
…Squeeze.
…Squeeze.
…And squeeze until something pops and foul-smelling liquid splashes and he’s covered with the same black gook from the wall. He staggers back through the house’s walls and out into the sunlit back yard, bathed by the warm and rich light.
In front of him, the baby continues to scream. It’s furious and frightened, but it’s alive. The sound of those screams is sweet music to Steven’s ears.
Rising to his feet, Steven approaches the baby. The baby’s eyes pop open when he coos to the baby, wiping his thumb along the cheeks to slick off the wet tears. At the sound of his voice, and at his touch, the babe calms. It sits there inside the crib, staring up at him with impossibly wide eyes. And then it beams a toothy grin up at Steven. Steven immediately returns it, giggling.
“Never again,” Steven says, or tries to say, though the words come out jumbled, spraying spit from his lips. On land or high above, he’ll protect his helpless charges from the demons stalking forth to claim them.
Giving the baby one last parting stroke to the cheek, he bends at the knees and launches himself into the sky.
Day 1
They could see the billowing waves of dust before they heard the unearthly screeching, and they heard those war cries long before they actually laid eyes on the enemy.
By then, the sand was nicely mucking up the muggy mid-morning air. Didn’t much matter, truth be told. The thin, crooked line of soldiers flopped in the sand atop their tummies knew good and well what was approaching them — wild Texans on horseback, hundreds of ‘em in bunches and clots of butternut tan, most of ‘em screaming loud enough to startle the dead.
Alexander Pearce lay on his stomach behind a small rock and defecated in his pants, even as his hands armed his flintlock musket, something he could reliably do now in his sleep. Behind him trudged a nameless sergeant, who kept reaching down and slapping asses as he bellowed out orders to “Belay shooting” ‘til they saw “the yeller in their eyes.”
Pearce chewed on grit, shying away from the New Mexico wind blowing in his face. Some said the super-heated gusts billowed up from Hell itself. Those damned gusts were now pushing steadily from the east, from behind the line of charging Confederate cavalry, giving them an extra boost down the rock-strewn ravine.
“Muster ‘em out boys!” the sergeant bellowed for encouragement. The gristled veteran was squatting behind the lines, grinning like a damned fool, his sword naked in his beefy fists. Overhead, the stars and stripes hissed and thrashed in the wind’s wake.
“Oh dear God pray thee look after me…” a sandy-haired boy next to Pearce began to mutter into the bubbling sand. Pearce could see the boy’s hands shaking like delicate leaves. The Model 1816 they both held was a bare bones weapon. You just pointed and pulled, like any fool could do when targeting squirrels or rabbits.
By now, the Confederate cavalry was in full charge, a thundering crash of fury as it splashed across the muddy Old Rio Grande, a dirty grin of water slitting the tanned landscape.
Somewhere behind the horse solders were up to five thousand infantry, the real meat of the invading army from neighboring Texas.
“Now boys,” a new voice cried, “they’re Texans — so give ‘em hell!” The voice was gritty and hoarse, and sounded like Canby. Canby was an honest-to-God colonel, a man some said had never lost a scuffle.
Canby’s voice was mixed in with the grinning sergeant’s urgent calls to “Let ‘er rip!” and “Let drive!” By then, ‘course, the rifles were barking and smoke was roiling up into the skies and little round balls of spat lead were tearing through flesh and bone and washing the scrub brush below with salty spray and spill. Horses screamed and rolled; Confederate soldiers screamed and slumped, and all along the line the charge faltered, came to a stop, and meandered back up the slope as quickly as they’d come.
Triumphant hoots from the Union soldiers washed across the arid plains. Lying on his stomach with his unfired rifle and his messy blue trousers, Pearce raised his arm to join the jubilant chorus.
“Well done well done well done you son’s-bitches,” Canby was screaming to his boys in blue. “You’ve sent ‘em a-scuttling.”
Off to their left, shooting began picking up steam again — slow as poured molasses at first, but then as steady as beating drums to arm. Pearce peered into the desert glaze and spied splashes of butternut.
“We’re being flanked,” the sergeant screamed. He was no longer grinning.
Off in that direction were the six Union cannons — key to their entire defense — and Canby leaped onto his horse and thundered off in that direction, bellowing for the soldiers to secure the priceless artillery at all cost.
A line of foot Confederate soldiers had by this point crested the top of the ravine. While some stooped and popped off shots, others ran hunched over, low to the ground, rifles in their hands as they reached the riverbed and splashed across the Rio.
Pearce kept his head flush with the gritty sand as enemy fire tore the air to scattered shreds. There were death shrieks around him, and he found himself fighting back a sudden urge to piss himself. When the sandy-haired kid next to him bellowed out a sobbing roar and pawed at the part of his face that was no longer there, Pearce let go and soiled the front of his trousers.
But even before the boy had died all the way, the rebels had crossed the river. They stopped there, at the riverbed, falling to one knee to aim and fire as their mates atop the hill came crashing down through the scrub to join them.
“Stand and fight,” the sergeant screamed. He’d received a bullet graze or ricochet into the mouth, which had pulverized his front teeth and made a gurgled mess of his words. He spat blood like tobacco. Even if he had been able to speak normal, it wouldn’t have mattered. Up and down the line, blue-garbed soldiers high-tailed it away from the mass of frenzied Texans.
Pearce was among them.
He tossed aside his weapon inside the first ten steps. Within the first few yards, off went his leather haversack, least it continue to unbalance his headlong plunge. Running, he dreaded the stabbing eternity of an enemy bayonet he knew as coming.
All he could do was run.
There were more explosions behind him, but Pearce was too consumed with panic to give it much through. His wind was long gone, reserves nearing their end, as he dashed for a horizon where blue kissed tan in a lover’s embrace.
The Battle of Valverde had been lost.
Day 2 Pearce held the rock in his hands and croaked out a challenge. His words barely passed his parched lips.
The two men stopped on a dime, spinning toward the sound of his voice. One of the men, the larger one, held a small woodcutting axe in his left fist. He now flexed that fist.
“Who’re you?”
Both men wore the grimy shade of Union blue.
“Never you mind,” Pearce answered, stepping out from behind the rock. He was cautious, though.
The man who’d spoken was huge, fatty at the stomach but big-boned throughout, with a flaming mane of red hair and matching beard. His companion was almost a comical opposite, string-beaned and hairless, with small hands and a girlish face, though pimpled and scarred about the chin.
Both were stripped down to just their trousers and boots. Their wadded up shirts were wrapped around their necks. Their hats were slanted to keep as much heat off their flesh as possible. Both were sweating and giving off a stink.
The big man scowled down at Pearce, noting his uniform and the lack of chicken guts — slang for officer’s stripes — on his torn sleeves. Pearce had done the same when he’d first eyeballed the two men.
“I know’s you.” He finally said, pointing the axe at Pearce’s chest. “You’s Pearce, ain’t ‘ya? One of them Colorado volunteers.”
Pearce nodded. “I am. What of it?”
“We’re friends,” the big man said. He stated it as fact. The way he held the axe didn’t indicate that, however.
“You Colorado born?” Pearce didn’t recognize either of them. But then again, Canby’s outfit had nearly three thousand men under arms. As it was, he’d mostly stuck with his fellow Colorado volunteers.
Now the little man was shagging his greasy locks, slipping his way into the conversation. “Nope. We be from Utah. Joined a New Mexican outfit so’s to kill us some Rebs.” His face split into an ugly grin, gesturing over at the red-haired soldier beside him. “Me’n Greenhill.”
Pearce nodded, dropping the rock. He walked over to the two men and extended his hand.
“Alexander Pearce. From Boulder.”
“Robert Greenhill,” the giant said, his fist easily blanketing Pearce’s offered hand with strength and shadow. Both palms were slicked with a salty sheen. “Salt Lake City. This here’s Travers—”
“—Matthew Travers,” the little guy added.
“—from Scotts County,” Greenhill finished.
Greenhill spat at the dusty ground.
Waste of moisture, Pearce thought absently.
“We’re headed home,” Greenhill continued. He glanced up at the burning ball in the sky. “Headed north. Then home by way of Colorado.”
“I reckon we’re goin’ in the same direction then,” Pearce said, mopping off his forehead with a rag.
“Wanta tag along with us? The more the merrier.”
“There are others. Others with me, I mean — on the other side of the hill.”
“Others?”
“From my company, sure.” Pearce spied the sweaty man’s guarded look. “No officers. They’re all Colorado men — we all came down here together, first on horseback, later by train.”
“Got food wit ‘ya?”
“Some,” Pearce said, motioning for them to follow. “Not heaps, but yer’ welcome to it.”
Greenhill nodded. Travers trudged behind obediently in the big man’s shadow.
They ducked beneath a low overhang and slowly wound their way up a steep incline.
“Any news ‘bout the war?” Pearce asked. He hissed with each step. He’d slept on rocky sand for good portions of the last two nights, half-awake for poisonous spiders or scorpions. He’d never been so happy to see the pinkish glow of the rising sun.
“Got choked off,” Greenhill said with a shrug and another saliva spit. “Humped feet when the line collapsed. Is that when you high-tailed it out?”
Pearce managed a nod.
“Well, reckoned things turned ugly after that. Johnny Reb’s already north of here, did’ja know that? Stumping for Santa Fe.”
“The bastards took the fort?”
Greenhill shrugged. “The white flag’s a-flutterin’ now, so yeah, our boys turned coward. They’re gathering up the dead now — both sides are. There was lotsa dead all along the riverbed. But Matty here’s already seen ‘Federate cavalry dashing north.”
“Sure have,” the little man spoke up. “As if Satan himself’s snappin’ at their heels.”
“That’ll make things a tad bit more hard for us.” Pearce kicked at a nearby rock.
Greenhill glanced over at him with a look of contempt. “You have an art of statin’ the obvious, don’t ‘ya?”
Gagging down a momentary pulse of rage, Pearce ignored the comments.
The three men rounded a bend and stepped into a stone-covered opening surrounded on three sides by sweeping walls of limestone. It was still hot as hell here, but at least corners of the overhang deflected the worst of the heat.
Several men stood at their approach. One man clutched a shattered rifle stock in his hands.
“Pearce?” the man with the improvise weapons called out, his voice tense.
“Stand down, y’ll. Two more Union blue’s here,” Pearce said. “These boys’ve been run through the mill. Give ‘em some of the salted horse.”
The men watched Greenhill and Travers tear into the tasteless canned meat, using their fingers and teeth; the slop supplemented with toothy chunks of hardtack.
“Who’re y’ll?” Travers asked, sticky bits of food clinging to the corners of his mouth.
Pearce lapped at some stale tasteless coffee from his tin cup. “That small son-of-a-bitch over there’s Alexander Dalton. Man sittin’ next to him is Thomas — Thomas Bodenham. Standin’ there with the busted rifle is William Kennerly. Little Edward Brown’s atop the rock — he’s the bastard that brewed this fine batch of sludge here in my hands — and over there’s doc Mathers. Boys, meet Greenhill and Travers. They’re Utah boys, headed home by way of the Rockies – just like we are. They’re gonna tag along with us ‘til we cross the border.”
Subsequent handshakes and slaps on the back were passed around like sips of alcohol.
“Are they searchin’ for us yet?” That was Dalton. He was a tiny man, with strong Greek features, and eyes that shown like glowing cigarette ends. Most of the men hated Dalton because he’d volunteered to be a flogger – the one who whipped soldiers who went astray with their fists or alcohol flasks. To most, being a flogger was about as bad as being a snitch or turncoat.
Greenhill took a long, noisy pull from a borrowed canteen. Some of it was wasted in the tangles of his beard. “Nah. Too busy licking wounds to go beatin’ the bushes for the likes of us. But the Rebs might be searching fer us. Wouldn’t put it past ‘em. After all, those sons-of-whore Texans like to scalp ‘bout as much as the Injuns do.”
The others just nodded.
“You got weapons?” Greenhill now asked the Colorado natives.
“Nothing. We all lost our rifles and pistols. Not even a knife among us. Just your axe there.” He gestured at the hatchet, “your axe and that broken musket yonder.”
Greenhill risked a glance at the silent Travers before spitting and nodding. “Well hell, so much for hunting.”
“Just lizards and shit ‘round here anyways,” Kennerly said, “with beady little eyes and forked tongues. None of us have much of an appetite for that.” He’d been a petty thief before volunteering for war, and still slaved to a rough Scottish accent.
Greenhill chuckled. “You will.”
“How long will it take to git home?” This was from the kid, Edward Brown. Brown was seventeen-years-old, though he looked thirteen and had lied to the Army saying he was eighteen.
His papa owned an ironworks mill in Denver, so his kin had money. His squeaky voice often grew irritating after just several spoken words.
Pearce shrugged. “On foot? That depends.”
“Gotta stay away from Santa Fe and any of the other known trails,” Thomas Bodenham spoke up. While Bodenham had worked as a former florist before volunteering for duty, he’d long been an expert on the southwest. He was also a devout Christian. “It’s the Navajo we gotta watch out for. They know this country like their wife’s holies of holes.”
“How long?” Brown repeated in his urgent, squeaking voice, peering hard at the faces around him. “How long to get back to ‘Rado?”
“A month?” Bodenham said after a moment, “maybe a month-and-a-half.”
Pearce nodded. Greenhill did too.
“So,” the latter said, “got any bark juice or red eye?”
Pearce chuckled at the mention of alcohol. “Nope. Just warm water and cold coffee.”
“Jesus save me…” Greenhill growled before grinning.
Howls from the men echoed across the sandblasted plains.
Day 7 “A steak,” Brown was whispering to Mathers, “on a platter as wide as a milk bucket. Then three rolls with butter melting into the grains, and buttered peas or cut-length beans with—”
“—I’d trade all in a spit for a glass of water,” Mathers said.
They hadn’t had water in two days.
“To hell with water,” Brown said, “I’d insist on instead a big sloppy mug of Irish beer – you know, with foam runnin’ over the sides — and two glass shots of whiskey on either side. I reckon beer and whiskey makes a steak go down a helluva lot easier than-”
“Just shut your fuckin’ piehole,” Greenhill suddenly roared from atop a nearby rock.
Brown shrank back at the rage in the man’s eyes. The others were looking up now, weary. All were exhausted after a hard day’s laboring across a series of baked mesas linked only by slanted walls of crumbling clayish sand.
Twice already, Greenhill had threatened the boy. Once, he’s even slapped him around a couple of times before Pearce and Bodenham managed to separate the two. Pearce had tried to stay between the two men for most of the walk, but sometimes more pressing matters pulled him away – like cries of an oasis on the horizon that never turned out to be, or Bodenham’s gimpy leg.
Still, they were all weary of Greenhill’s temper for blood and, more importantly, the axe he carried on his person. When the red-haired Utah man really gave in to his mean side, he’s grasp at the axe. Pearce was concerned he might someday use it.
Travers, perched on the rock next to Greenhill, was giggling at Brown’s red-blotched face.
“Hey Green, little Brown over there’s so mean, he’d fight a rattler and give it the first bite.”
Greenhill grinned. “Yep. Brown’s so spittin’ mad he’d likely swallow a horned-toad backwards.”
More giggling from Travers. “Yep, and his teeth’s so crooked, he’d liable to eat corn on the cob through a picket fence.”
“Brown’s so ugly,” Greenhill added without pause, “he’ll have to sneak up on a dipper just to get a drink of water.”
It went on like that for a while, before Brown chucked a rock at the pair and stalked off into the darkness. The two Utah men just laughed and giggled.
Before long, Pearce’s voice broke a long stretch of silence.
“We ain’t gonna make it.”
He was exhausted, his flesh stretched like dried jerky. A headache pulsed nonstop behind his right eye, and he was half blinded by sun glare.
All heads swiveled his way.
“What you mean by that?” Greenhill asked. The Mormon still had his big round belly, but everything else about him was sagging, like melted cheese.
Pearce ignored the man and the question, instead turning to stare at Bodenham. “You’re the expert on deserts and such. What are we doin’ wrong?”
“Haven’t been rationin’ our water like we should’ve been doin’ all ‘long,” Bodenham said after a moment of contemplation. “That’s one, see. Two, none of us know where to look for it. Three, there’s no food, ‘cept hardtack, and that just makes us all thirstier.”
“We need to go back to the river,” Mathers said. “It’s as simple as that. The dang thing’s only ten miles that way.” He pointed off into the darkness.
Some of the men nodded.
“If we do that,” Greenhill said with a husky growl, “then they’ll nab us for sure. You don’t think those fuckin’ Rebs aren’t lining the riverbed right now, or our own boys pursuin’ the bastards north, or the Goddamned Injuns? They’ll all stay close to the water — mark my words.”
“Mind your tongue instead,” Bodenham said, who was easily offended by cursing talk.
Greenhill grinned down at him, while Travers just giggled.
Ignoring the two, Mathers just shrugged off Greenhill’s speech. “Then we die.”
“No,” Greenhill said with a shake of his head. “We keep going north, like we’ve been doing — at night — followin’ the North Star. That’ll lead us up into Colorado. We just make sure the sun’s always risin’ and settin’ on both sides of us — east and west. I was a sailor once, y’ know, before I came west and became a landlubber. I know navigation. We keep doin’ what we be doin’.”
“What about water?” Mathers asked him.
“It’ll storm. It’s gotta storm sometime, don’t it? Even storms brew up here occasionally — seen the big bastard clouds on the horizon yonder. Or there are plants. You know — plants with dew collected on ‘em? We can scrape the morning dew from the leaves. Or suck water from plants.”
“Which plants?” Mathers again wanted to know.
“How the fuck am I s’posed to know that?” Greenhill’s face was red now, as red as his arms and chest, and his fist clenched the axe sitting in his lap. “Bodenham’s the Goddamn desert expert here. Why not ‘terrogate him ‘stead?”
Bodenham simply shrugged his thin shoulders. “There are plants where we could do those things Greenhill’s talkin’ ‘bout, but we’d need a native to show us which one’s which, and we obviously don’t have that,” he said.
“We could steal us an injun,” someone suggested.
The others chuckled into the dying flames at their feet. But Pearce quickly sobered them up. “With no water, we die. Two days tops. We’ll start falling aside one by one. It’s that simple.”
The only sound heard inside their sheltered box canyon was the howling wind and the crackling of their small fire.
Pearce nodded. “Then we let Greenhill lead us on, like he’s been doing. But we do it close to the Rio, so as to lap up water when we need it. It’s fresh water. It’s worth the risk.”
Greenhill snorted out of spite. While Brown was an easy target for his threats, Pearce was something else entirely. And besides, Greenhill looked pleased at his continued prominent role in the group. He gave his buddy Travers a visible nod and wink.
“Okay,” Mathers said, nodding, “fine. That’s our most immediate problem solved. Good. But lack of food will eventually do us in, too. Y’ll know that.”
Silence greeted his words.
“We’ve got his axe,” Dalton said, gesturing toward Greenhill’s lap.
Silence greeted his words.
The eight men moved in close to the Rio and managed to slate their thirst that next night. But as their thirst dwindled, so did their hunger rage. In a fit quickly chewed through the last of their food reserves — crunchy hardtack and beef jerky. They tried to trap and eat fish, but failed.
They tried to hunt lizards, but the reptiles were much too fast for them. None of the eight possessed even rudimentary survival skills. Sure, they could load and fire a musket, fieldstrip a pistol or neatly fold an American flag. Yet they didn’t realize they had to stick to valleys or gullies for collected morning water, to follow animals or search for their droppings to find water holes, to manufacture a water still using several hats and two of their drinking tins.
Instead, they meandered about the sands in disjointed, broken groups. Without a compass, desert navigation proved problematic; since there were so few land features to follow and distances could easily be distorted by shimmering, faraway hazes on the horizon. It’s likely the Colorado men would have slipped away until their rotting bodies covered by the blowing sands if it wasn’t for the fire Greenhill built on a high mesa. It was dangerous and stupid, Greenhill’s fire, with the enemy so near to see it. Still, the black smoke drawing Pearce and the others in, one by one by one.
Except for one…
Day 10 “How?” Pearce asked, his voice a grated, croaking sound. He fell to his knees in the sand, staring at the fire and several large hunks of meat turning black from the crackling heat below.
The meat was like one of those shimmering visions they’d seen in the last two days, of trees and shrubs, of glistening pools of water, of purple-smeared mountaintops saturated with snow. All of them illusions as they stumbled toward them, bellowing out praise of thanks to God high above.
Now, Pearce half-expected the meat on the spit before him to disappear, too. Yet it didn’t.
Greenhill just grinned. “Buffalo carcass. Mile or so back.” He and Travers were already tearing off sizeable portions and chewing on them. Saliva dripped unchecked from their lips like syrup.
“Help yourself. Plenty for everyone.”
“Buffalo?” Pearce turned to Bondenman, who was sweaty and red-faced and sickly. “Are there even buffalo in these parts?”
But the man just grunted, licking grease from his trembling fingers. “Could be. Perhaps. I don’t know. Don’t really care.”
“Why does it matter?” Greenhill added, spitting the words through the meat in his mouth. This was his second feed. He was on his back, there in the sand, exhausted, growing sleepy as his body worked to convert the food into energy. “Just eat.”
Pearce stared at the big man for a second or two before nodding. He reached out and tore a chunk of meat from the stick and bit down into it. His mouth came to life, like a band revving up its instruments after a dormant pause, and the muscles of his jaws ached as he chewed and chewed and then chewed some more. It seemed like ages since he’d last tasted something this solid. He swallowed this taste in drips, smearing the juices over his cracked and crusted lips; pausing periodically to inhale the fragrance from the tips of his fingers.
“This is the best I’ve ever eaten,” whispered Kennerly. He was making pig sounds as he chewed.
All of the Colorado men had made it back to the fire from the desert depths except one: the young kid — Edward Brown.
Days ago, when the rebel cavalry of more than one hundred popped over a distant hill, Pearce and the others had immediately broken to escape — Pearce and Mathers and Dalton in one group; Bodenham and Kennerly in another; the inseparable Greenhill and Travers in a third. But none of them had even sniffed a lonesome whiff of young Brown, who had apparently struck out into the desert at a dead run, fearful of what the approaching Confederate cavalry would do to him if apprehended.
“That’s the last I saw him,” Greenhill said, running a nail through the bits between his teeth. “He was heading south at a dead run.”
“Me, too,” said Travers. “We just saw the yeller back of ‘em.”
“We all ran,” Bondenham reminded the pair from Utah.
But Pearce was shaking his head. “Cain’t just leave him out there to die. Don’t seem right not to—”
“He’s gone, Pearce” Greenhill said, his voice hard. “We gotta think of ourselves now. Gotta be thinkin’ of Colorado.”
Some of the others, Pearce noted, were nodding at Greenhill’s words.
“The kid was a bad egg anyway,” the big man said, directing a flame-sputtering belch at the fire.
His words tweaked Pearce’s temper. “Better a bad egg than a blow hard, way I see it.”
Greenhill struggled to his feet. “Say that to my face.”
Pearce stayed silent. Instead, he shoved Greenhill hard at the chest. The big man flopped back across the fire and onto his back, his head just missing a pointed spear of rock.
By now, the others had risen from their sandy spots to intervene, keeping the two men separated.
Supporting his friend, Travers spat at Pearce, but missed.
Over the flames now, the two men glared at one another.
“Mind your axe,” Mathers warned, watching Greenhill’s hand dip toward the wooden shaft.
“Where’s this buffalo?” Pearce asked Greenhill directly.
He looked around at the others. “Did Pearce fall of the mental reservation here?”
“Just answer the question.”
“South of here,” Greenhill said with a shrug, “but animals were already having their way with it when me and Matty took off with the best parts for the fire here.”
“Sure was,” Travers piped up, his little eyes reflecting the sputtering firelight.
Pearce just stared at the two men.
Greenhill finally laid down, his eyes never straying from Pearce. Eventually, Pearce did the same, his eyes never leaving Greenhill.
“Mind how much y’ll eat now,” Mathers spoke up, hoping to ease the air’s tension. He patiently licked each of his blackened fingertips with cracked lips. “Our bodies haven’t had nuthin’ solid in ‘em for days. Might give ‘ya the runs if you keep eatin’ this stuff out like some cheap whore. You lose your water that way.”
“Don’ matter a shitpoke to me, doc,” Dalton whispered, practically inhaling the meaty chunks without chewing. “See’s as it’ll be the first decent shit I’ve had since before the fight.”
For a while, there was nothing but the sounds of eating and sucking and chewing from the men. Those sounds were soon overshadowed by even noisier burping and farting. After that, as the moon rose, only snores could be heard.
The next morning, Pearce was already a mile from the group, slowly walking south. It took nearly an hour for Greenhill to catch up with the lanky soldier.
“What the hell you doin’?” the big man wanted to know. He seemed fidgety; nervous almost.
“Looking for your kilt buffalo.”
Greenhill just stared at him. The axe, normally stuffed down into his pants, was missing. He’d given it to Travers before heading out after Pearce.
“Why do a fool think like that?”
Pearce risked a glance over his shoulder. “We can use it. Use the other parts. The horns for hunting; the skins to help cover our heads during the day’s heat; the jaws — lower jaws and its teeth, I reckon — to scrape clean any…” he dismissed Greenhill with a wave of his sunburned hand. “We’ll need it. Cain’t let anything go to waste out here. We’ve let too much go to waste as it is.”
Greenhill glared at his back.
Pearce shifted so Greenhill never strayed from his sight. “Now where the hell’s the carcass?”
“Over yonder that next hill there.”
“The one up ahead of us?”
Greenhill chuckled. “You studying to be a half-wit or somethin’? Isn’t that what I just implied.”
“Those type ‘o words don’t work on me,” Pearce said with a shake of his head. “C’mon.”
The two men spent the next twenty minutes scrambling up the side of a sandy dune covered with drooping, dried cactus.
“Where?” Pearce asked Greenhill when they scrambled up to the dune’s crest.
“Down there.”
“Point it out to me. My eyes are hell on me.”
“By the large rock yonder. Cain’t miss it.”
Pearce squinted. “Don’t see no buffalo corpse.”
“And you said your eyes’ve gone all to hell. Look closer.”
They slowly made their way down the dune’s opposing side. Pearce lost his balance near the bottom, still desperately weak from their days in the desert. He ended up at the bottom with two bruised shins and a nasty scrape across the stomach.
“How you holdin’ up, Pearce?” Greenhill sounded amused.
“Fit as a fiddle,” Pearce retorted. Slapping away the sand before donning his hat to help slice away the glare, Pearce stumbled his way over to the rock.
There were several dark-colored blotches scattered about the rock’s base. Pearce thought it was water at first, and his heart naturally leapt like a dancing saloon girl’s legs naturally spread. But then it dawned on him what the substance really was, and his heart went cold.
He squatted down and stuck his index finger into the stained sand, swirling it before bringing it up and sniffing it. Salty, it seemed to him, with a bit of a metallic smell to it.
That’s blood.
“This is where the carcass lay?” Pearce asked Greenhill.
Greenhill didn’t reply.
“Greenhill?” he asked again, turning.
A silent nod.
Pearce smelled the finger again, and then tasted it. “Well, it’s blood all right.”
“No shit?”
“Guess animals dragged the rest of it away from here.”
“Wasn’t much left when me’n Travers stumbled onto it.”
Pearce noticed the tip of a large bone poking up from the sand. Greenhill saw it too. He spoke quickly. Too quickly.
“Heat’s getting right terrible here, Pearce. We should be headin’ on back.”
Pearce ignored him. Instead, he reached for the bone. A thick buffalo bone could be useful to the group. Thick and hard, it could be used as a digging or hammering tool, even help prop up a shade. Or…
Or even be used as a weapon.
Pearce wiped some of the sand away. Strangely, it didn’t look like a buffalo bone. It was too short and skinny and weak. Truthfully, it looked like a—
At that precise moment, Greenhill spat a single string of cottony saliva atop his fist. Eyes flashing, Pearce looked up. He noted Greenhill had moved several steps closer to him.
“Why would I lie ‘bout the meat?” he asked. His voice sounded menacing.
“Never said you had, Greenhill.”
“But you implied it.” The big man took another step toward him. His hands, Pearce saw, had fallen near his belt — toward the worn handle of his axe. “You implied it, which is just like sayin’ it aloud, and I don’t take too kindly to people implying ‘bout me behind my back.”
Pearce sighed and climbed heavily to his feet. “Do we have a problem here?”
“Maybe we do.”
“‘Cause the way I’m thinkin’, Greenhill, is this ain’t gonna help nobody — our little feud here. Ain’t gonna help you, ain’t gonna help me, ain’t gonna help the rest of the boys. All it’s gonna do is take energy away from gittin’ our asses collectively back to Colorado.”
Greenhill stared at him.
“Am I makin’ myself clear?”
Greenhill spat at his feet. “Then best we be gittin’ back to camp, shouldn’t we?”
Pearce watched the big man’s eyes stray behind him as he spoke; down to bone buried in the sand at their feet.
“The buffalo’s gone,” Greenhill continued. “It was a grand idea, but it’s gone.”
“Fine,” Pearce said. “Let’s head back.”
Another silent spit of precious water. “Yep. But let’s get a thing or two clear ‘tween us, Pearce. You don’t rule me. We’re equal, see — you’n me. We’re pardners in this… uh — enterprise we got goin’ on here. If we work together, if we watch each other’s backs, then we should get along all cozy like.”
Pearce grinned up at him. His eyes remained frosty, however. “And if I don’t?”
Greenhill shrugged his huge, sunburned shoulders. “Just ‘member which one of us has the axe.”
Pearce gave him a grin. “But you don’t have your axe, do you?”
Greenhill frowned.
“Just you remember who outnumbers who,” Pearce continued. He then grinned.
The two held each other’s gaze for nearly a minute before Pearce broke away to push past him and back up the steep slope.
Greenhill watched him until the soldier had disappeared from view before walking over to the dried bloodstains and covering the exposed human femur bone with kicked sprays of sand. Done, he hefted his britches and used Pearce’s sandy footprints to match footsteps back up the hill.
Day 17 Greenhill and Travers approached Pearce, who was busy ripping up his soiled undershirt to wrap around his cracked and bleeding feet. He didn’t even look up at their approach.
“Hey Pearce. Need to talk to you?”
Pearce continued to tear and tie; tear and tie. “The both of you?”
Greenhill glanced over at Travers. “Scat back to camp, will ‘ya? And keep an eye on the others?”
Travers opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it. He turned without a word and stalked back to camp.
“Now it’s just me. We need to talk — you and me.”
“I don’t think so.”
Greenhill moved around and squatted down before Pearce. Starvation had by now given him a gaunt, skull-like look, as the body consumed its own fatty reserves for energy. They all had the same starving look now. Greenhill just looked a tad bit more absurd than the others, due to his scraggly swath of beard.
“Oh, I think we do, Pearce. Think we’ve avoided this conversation long enough.”
Pearce had to concentrate to keep his hands doing what they were presently doing. It was becoming more difficult to focus on tasks these days. His head felt like a wagon wheel, all hard and bouncy, with spoke bones and brains serving as a greasy mush that kept the entire contraption moving.
“Pearce? You listening?”
Particles of sand danced in front of Pearce’s eyes. They looked clean and polished somehow, catching the glaze of the sun in such a way, like tiny diamonds. Sometimes those reflections were so bright that he had to close his eyes and look away.
Greenhill saw the closed eyes and look away and nodded. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement, Pearce.”
Pearce opened his eyes. “We didn’t do anything. Didn’t say nuthin’, and you Goddamn well know it.”
He closed his eyes again. He hoped it would help fend off the heat beating against his face in constant, glassy waves.
“Pearce. All the others have agreed.”
Now Pearce chuckled.
“What’s so damned funny?”
“Wonderin’ what Dalton has to say ‘bout all this?”
Greenhill looked away, spitting. Even now, it amazed Pearce the big man would keep up the habit, substituting his own precious spit for his long-forgotten tobacco.
“Travers wants to do it,” Greenhill finally said.
“Now there’s a revelation,” Pearce said with an eye-roll. It was common knowledge that Greenhill and Travers were lovers. In the beginning they’d worked to hide their nightly couplings. But now, they were as bold about it as sunrises.
“Bodenham said do it, too,” Greenhill added, pausing to peel away a white strip of dead skin. “So did your boy Kennerly.”
Pearce’s chuckling abruptly ceased. He slowly shook his head. “What ‘bout Mathers?”
“Well, Mathers’ is a special case, it seems. Says he’ll give his affirmation based on what you say, Pearce.” Before, Greenhill’s face had looked absurd. Now, just minutes later, it looked downright frightening.
“So that’s why I’m out here in the heat wit’ you, Pearce. I need your affirmation on this matter.”
Pearce really wasn’t surprised by Kennerly’s vote. Kennerly was weak, the type of guy Canby called a follower, not a leader. He was prone to obey strong personalities, like Greenhill. Like himself. Yet he was a bit more concerned about Bodenham’s thumb’s up, he being a Christian man and all.
And Mathers? Mathers even contemplating the matter absolutely pierced him to the core.
Mathers was, after all, a doctor. He’d given oaths — with right hand atop the Good Book — against such acts of brutality discussed around the fire the night before and being discussed right now. It simply flew in the face of decency.
But decency didn’t mean much out here in this sun-baked hell.
“Won’t allow it,” Pearce whispered.
Greenhill sighed. “I figured as much from you.”
“And Mathers’ won’t condone it, either.” Pearce was now staring down at his feet.
“Don’t matter,” Greenhill said, spitting out a cotton wad of spit before turning away. “Still four-to-two vote in favor of.”
“Why Dalton, Greenhill?”
The big man stopped and turned. “Why not Dalton? ‘Cause it is Dalton.”
Pearce thought about that. Dalton the flogger; the hated; the one who purposely sat himself away from the rest of ‘em; the one who barely lifted a finger for the common good of the group; the one who didn’t make any sort of valuable contribution to the well-being of the fold.
He’ll make a contribution now.
Pearce had a sudden, thirsting urge for watermelon. It was his most cherished food. He’d loved it since a child. Once he’d even won a watermelon seed spittin’ contest when he’d been a tyke. It’d taken place at the foot of Pike’s Peak, on a cloudy day when mists covered its snow-covered peak. He and a dozen others had lined up on a chalk line and were asked to spit seeds across—
“Greenhill,” he said, his voice a barking moan. A dozen steps away now, Greenhill again stopped and turned to face him.
“There’d been no buffalo, had there? The meat we ate last week…” he couldn’t bring himself to say aloud what he now knew in his heart was true. “There hadn’t been no buffalo, had there?”
Greenhill grinned. Nodded. Spat.
“And the bone?”
“What about the fuckin’ bone?”
“Was Ed Brown’s bone, wasn’t it?”
More grins. More nods. More spats of precious saliva.
“There’s gonna be a reckoning comin’ for you, Greenhill. What you done to Wood. What you’re about to do to Dalton.” He squinted up him. “You hearin’ me?”
Greenhill simply grinned at him.
Pearce closed his eyes and thought once again of watermelon growing in the heart of the desert.
Minutes later, Greenhill and Travers walked down into the nearby ravine, where Alexander Dalton was reportedly searching for firewood. Not surprisingly, they found the imported Greek shirking his duties, slumped on his stomach, his head covered with his hat, his body slowly rising and slumping with sleep.
Without pause, Greenhill took out his axe and chopped it across the back of Dalton’s head. It wasn’t a killing blow, though, because Dalton belted out a horrific scream that Pearce, more than a mile away, could clearly hear.
Blood squirted across Greenhill’s beard as he placed the bottom of his boot against Dalton’s struggling skull and pulled free the bleeding axe. It came back down again seconds later. It was this second chopping blow that did the Greek-American in.
Later, Greenhill stumbled back to camp, the cleaned axe shoved down the front of his pants. Behind him, Travers pulling along Dalton’s blood encrusted blue tunic weighed down with seven assorted chunks of meat, limbs and severed organs.
Bodenham had the fire spitting by then, with the others were seated in the sand, their hands atop their laps like boarding-school students.
Not once did any of the men’s eyes stray toward the still-warm remains inside the shirt.
“We took him and we bled him,” Travers said later, giggling as he ate Dalton using his bare hands and teeth. “Cut off all his clothes and scooped out all his insides and cut off his Greek head. Dalton never talked much, the yeller — but he surely as hell won’t be talkin’ now.” The others saw bits and pieces of dead Dalton were wormed into the cracks of his teeth as he spoke.
Greenhill and Travers placed Dalton’s heart and liver on the spit first, roasting it before tearing off chunks, sampling it, grunting at the taste, and noisily consuming. The two Utah men offered choice pieces to the others, but they initially rebuffed.
Greenhill shrugged. “You eat or you die.”
Travers giggled. “And should ‘ya die, then we’ll eat ‘ya.”
For more than hour, only Greenhill and Travers ate. They shared pieces with each other, urging one to eat a piece of the heart, the other recommending the lower kidney. Then Dalton’s left thigh was added.
“Now that’s just like Ohio beef, by God,” Greenhill said with a liquid belch. “Try some thigh, Travers.”
To some the roasted meat smelled like steak. To others, maybe a bit like chicken. Soon, their eyes were straying to the meat, and they prayed to go deaf so they couldn’t hear the enthusiastic smacking sounds from Greenhill and Travers. But there was nothing they could about the smells. And it was these smells that eventually pushed the Colorado men over the edge. To everyone’s shock, it was Pearce who first rose up and tore off a chunk of smoking thigh; the first to chew and swallow a piece of Dalton.
For Pearce, it was a simple matter. Instinctively, he knew he’d be dead by sunrise if he didn’t get something – anything — inside his stomach. Reminiscing about watermelon was fine for the mind, but it did little for a pleading gut. So Pearce closed his eyes and stuffed a half-cooked lump of Dalton into his mouth, working not to vomit the remains in the sands for scorpions to sample.
It worked. So he took a second piece; a third; a fourth. And an overwhelming exhaustion then flooded his system, and he curled up near the fire and immediately fell into a slumber, his first full stomach in weeks.
One by one, the other men tentatively approached the fire. There, they tore off bits and pieces, chewing and swallowing; swallowing and chewing.
“God forgive me for this sacrilege,” Bondenham whispered, crossing himself twice before tearing off a chunk from Dalton’s roasting rump and popping it whole into his mouth like a puff of cotton circus candy.
Mathers eyed the Christian’s theatrical antics — the soft prayer, the sloppy eating — and stalked away from the fire with a curse, the only member of the seven who didn’t partake of the meal.
Greenhill stared after the doctor for quite some time — long after Mathers’ bone-thin shape had been broken up and scattered by the descending curtain of night. Many minutes after, a bruised frown played across Greenhill’s lips, his fingers lightly playing with the sharp edge of the axe nestled in his lap.
Day 26 Just as the eastern sky oozed pink, Pearce’s vision beneath his eyelids dimmed, the temperature dropping a degree or two, while a looming shadow moved above him.
He opened his eyes.
And Greenhill stood over him — Greenhill, with axe in hand.
For a moment — probably less than a second, in all likelihood — a numbing chill flooded his limbs.
Was he next?
He and Greenhill were the two dominant members of the group, after all; both vying for the others’ allegiance. It made sense that Greenhill would take out his rival; to help bring the rest completely into his favor.
But it wasn’t his time. At least, Pearce couldn’t see murder in Greenhill’s eyes. Instead, his close-set eyes seemed dead; little carcasses sunk deep into their sockets. Yet the man’s clothes and face were nonetheless spattered with blood, and he had the smell of the butchered about him.
Pearce kicked away from Greenhill, scrambling across the sand and up to his feet. Greenhill just shook his head.
“Kennerly’s dead.”
Pearce climbed drunkenly to his feet.
“Kennerly’s dead,” Greenhill repeated. “I kilt him. We needed food, so I kilt him.”
On the other side of the fire sprawled Kennerly’s emancipated body, and what was left of his face. Greenhill’s axe had erased with three or four meaty whacks nearly every visible feature there.
“Good lord,” Pearce said, breathing hard. He instinctively stumbled back a step or two, tripping over Mathers, who came awake with a startled scream. Bodenham was already standing, shaken, his face as pale as morning mist. As for Travers, he was presently kneeling over the bleeding corpse, using his fingers to rip Kennerly’s clothes into tatters.
Bodenham bellowed something unrecognizable, while Mathers swore to God in heaven.
“Everybody needs to calm the hell down,” Greenhill was saying, tucking the axe down into his pants before wiping some of the bloody excess from his eyes and beard. “We needed meat. This will last us until we can reach Santa Fe.”
Pearce felt the world around him narrow into a pinprick, and he damn near fainted. But just as quickly, everything expanded into a brightly-colored panoramic view. He then took a couple steps toward Greenhill.
“We ain’t anywhere near Santa Fe,” Pearce said. “We’ve been circling like dumb cattle ov’r the last couple of weeks. We ain’t any closer to Colorado than we were the day we decided to tuck tail and run.”
Greenhill’s eyes mooned wide. “You stand down, Pearce. I kill you too if you force my hand.”
Travers was on his feet and moving toward Pearce, too, but low to the ground. Mathers, who had ducked down to feel for a pulse along Kennerly’s mutilated neck, grimaced. Rising quickly to his feet, he tackled Travers from behind. Mathers was a small man, but he easily had twenty pounds on the even tinier Travers.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Greenhill said with a snarl, turning toward the struggling pair. And that’s when Bodenham struck, flinging a hammy fist at the back of Greenhill’s skull. Knuckles cracked for all around the fire to hear, and Bodenham let out a bellow. That gave Greenhill enough time to plant the blade in Bodenham’s face.
“NO!” Pearce screamed, slipping on the sand as he struggled after Greenhill.
Greenhill stumbled back half-dozen steps, wiping sprayed blood from his eyes as he searched left and right for new attackers. Mathers punched Travers twice across the face and kicked past him, reaching Bodenham’s body and checking for a pulse.
“Is he alive?” Pearce asked, sliding down next to him and trying not to stare at the spurting wound in the center of his face.
Mathers pressed his ear against Bodenham’s ruined face, listening as faint sounds whistled out from between his lips. At first both Colorado men thought Bodenham lived. But such hopes were fleeting. They were simply the sounds of a body taking its time to expire.
“He’s gone,” Mathers said. He stared at Pearce with sad, wet eyes. “Dead.”
Greenhill had used this long pause to catch his breath and circle the crouching pair, dripping axe still in his fist. He helped the bleeding Travers to his feet.
Travers was giggling, his grin a bloody smear of spit and teeth.
“Don’t do nuthin’ stupid,” Greenhill warned, watching as Pearce and Mathers rose to their feet. His eyes were wild, his gestures exaggerated. “I — I didn’t mean for this’ll to happen like this. We all just need to calm down.”
“I can take Travers,” Mathers said, his voice a husky growl. “I can take him.” He paused to root a fist-sized rock from the sand. “I can use this. To brain him.”
Pearce nodded.
“I’ve got the axe,” Greenhill said.
“Two can overcome one,” Pearce reminded him. “Mathers?”
“Yeah?”
“We kill Travers first. Then we go after Greenhill together. He cain’t kill the both of us at the same time.”
Travers’ giggling stopped at the mention of his name.
“Nuthin’s gonna happen,” Greenhill whispered. He shoved the axe through the seam of his pants, raising his hands immediately afterwards, palms out. “Nuthin’s gonna happen ‘cause we’re all gonna sit down and converse like civilized men.”
“Talk,” Pearce said, the word explosively barked.
“Talk — just like I said. We’ll come to some kind of agreement.”
“I don’t make ‘greements with the devil,” Mathers whispered.
Travers looked at Greenhill, looked at Pearce and Mathers, and began to giggle.
Day 27 “We’ve got meat now,” Greenhill said, listening as Travers methodically worked over Bodenham’s stiffening corpse beyond the dim glow of the fire. “’Nough to get us safely through to the border, ‘least. That’s our pressing need, seems to me — stayin’ close to the Rio, within eyesight of her wash, and followin’ the North Star ‘til we get to where we be needin’ to be.”
Only Pearce was shaking his head no.
“What?” Greenhill sounded tired.
Pearce chuckled.
“You got somethin’ to say?”
“I’m still waiting for the part where you say you’re giving up your claim on that axe right there in your hands.” Like Greenhill’s, Pearce’s voice sounded dead from sheer exhaustion.
“Ain’t gonna happen,” Greenhill said quietly, his hand unconsciously moving to touch the weapon.
“Then no deal,” Pearce said. He started to rise from the ground.
“But— But… just hear me out on this one, Pearce. What I can guarantee is there’ll be no more killings. We ration what we have here — this meat — and it should be ‘nough. Right Mathers? You’re keen on such things.”
Mathers nodded. But his face was like stone, his eyes little flicks of flint. He still looked shocked from all the previous bloodshed. “Should be ‘nough.”
“There you go,” Greenhill said matter-of-factly, as if wrapping up a back-room business transaction.
Mathers nodded.
A few moments later, an exhausted Pearce did the same.
From out of the darkness floated Travers’ maddened giggle.
After that, the four men ate bits and pieces of William Kennerly.
At one point, Travers served Greenhill as if the latter were royalty, handing over a chunk of still-weeping meat, much like a lowly serf might do. Along with the meat, Greenhill was handed a piece of torn uniform sopped with blood. Later, Greenhill twisted this rag to bleed the liquid over his chunk of meat, tenderizing it with blood. He flashed rust-stained teeth.
“Beginning to like the flavor,” he remarked casually.
After a few bites, Mathers rose, walked three steps, and promptly vomited into the sand.
Greenhill caught Pearce’s attention.
“Damn waste of food there,” he said, flashing him another bloody grin.
Day 33 Pearce heard a crunching sound, and instantly — almost instinctively — knew what it was. A sound he’d take to the grave with him.
“Mathers!”
He went stumbling down the dune. Travers moved to intercept him, but Pearce had little trouble pushing the emancipated man from his path. Travers yelped as he went down. Pearce hoped he’d break a bone.
He moved at a run around the round base of the dune, screaming, the sun moving behind the dune and his world filled with cool shadows. That’s when he spied the blood spatter. And moments later, heard voices behind a large rocky outcropping.
When he reached it, he nearly bumped into Mathers.
Pearce almost didn’t recognize him. Blood covered his face, and the doctor was gasping for breath.
“Mathers? Mathers? It’s me — Pearce.”
“Hit head,” the man said, his words slurred. “My head.”
Greenhill suddenly appeared, bloody axe in hand. He pulled up short when he sped Pearce, surprised, the ugly snarl he wore on his face fading a bit.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” Pearce whispered at the red-bearded man. “What about the pact?”
Greenhill took a step back from Pearce’s bubbling fury. “Fuck the pact. We need meat.”
Pearce ignored him. Instead, he inspected Mathers’ wound. Greenhill had cut into the man’s head, but the blow had been a glancing one, and not the intended killing swipe he’d hoped for.
Still, blood leaked from the wound in spurting rivulets.
Pearce peeled off a strip of torn sleeve and dabbed at the wound. He couldn’t see any exposed brain down in there, which was a good sign. Regardless, Mathers seemed woozy; almost drunk, as if he’d drained a bottle of Irish whiskey. Twice he asked Pearce to sit him down on the sand.
When obliged, he immediately wanted back up to his feet.
By the time they reached the warmth of the fire, Mathers was having trouble seeing. He stoked the flames, then slid off his shirt and wrapped it around Mathers’ thin shoulders. He was shivering so uncontrollably now that his teeth chattered and he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
As he tended to Mathers, Pearce kept an eye on the others. They were circling Mathers, like vultures — Greenhill with his axe, and Travers with his damned tainted giggle.
Minutes later, as Pearce busied himself nearby, Mathers’ burst into tears.
“John?” Pearce called out to him, before reaching over and gently shaking him. “Can you hear me, John?”
“Margie?” the man asked, freezing and staring off into the darkening desert. “Margie, that you? How are the boys, Margie?”
“It’s me, John. Alexander.”
“Dad?”
Pearce just shook his head. There’d been brain damage, after all. He quickly inspected him. The wound was still bleeding. Bits and pieces of sand had encrusted the lips of the wound. He tried to wipe it clean, but Mathers hissed from the pain, and so he let it go.
It was plain to see that Mathers was in agony. It was also plain to see the doctor was dying — but slowly.
Too damn slowly.
As the sun slid down below the horizon, Mathers slumped over without a sound or word. Pearce stared at him for a second or two before reaching out to wake him. He thought he was dead. But no. Just like that, Mathers popped back up into a sitting position, his eyes opened and focused on Pearce’s face. Even the pain lines had eased a bit around his eyes.
“Pearce?” It was a strong voice.
Maybe he’s coming around?
“I’m here, John. What can I do for you?”
“I can’t see you.”
Pearce just shook his head. “I—”
“It’s the wound,” Mathers interrupted, answering his own spoken question. “Bastard got me good. The son-of-a-bitch chopped into my brain, didn’t he?”
Mathers then closed his eyes. Opened them. Closed them back up.
“I’m dying, Pearce.”
Jesus Christ Almighty.
Of all the men he’d traveled with, the tiny, quiet doctor had been his favorite since arriving here.
“Don’t say that, John. You’ll pull through. I—”
“Don’t think you… you can imagine the pain I’m in right now.” As he spoke, he worried at his lower lip until it cracked and bled. His hands shook. “It’ll only get worse, Alex. I want you to end it for me.”
“Bill… I—”
“End it now.” His wrinkled brown hands clenched at Pearce’s arms, the nails digging. Nails drawing blood.
They sat there together, as Travers moved in and silently struck up a fire whose light and heat was beginning to wane. Greenhill stood back at the edge of the glow, watching and listening. The light of the fire glistened off the metal blade of the axe.
Mathers began to sing to himself, but the words were interrupted by a bout of weeping. He eventually made it back to his crooning, but then he cried out in a shrill voice for his beloved ‘Margie.’
He was bleeding. He was confused. And yeah, he was dying. Dying right there before Pearce’s eyes.
The Colorado man walked away from Mathers a dozen steps before dropping to his knees. There, he dug at the sand, his face grim. He then walked back over to his friend.
“Mathers?”
But Mathers was beyond hearing comprehension at this point. He was in a happier place, it seemed, whispering aloud to Margie about the new calves born last night; about how beautiful she’d looked as they’d made love at dawn earlier that morning. He had a smile on his face.
And died with that smile on his face.
Pearce brought down the rock with his remaining might, easily caving Mathers’ skull. Thankfully, he died instantly. He stood there for nearly a minute, breathing hard, staring down at Mathers’ crumpled body before looking up and catching Greenhill’s eye. Something unspoken exchanged between the two men. As Pearce rose to his feet and walked out into the gathering gloom,
Greenhill moved in with his axe.
And then there were three…
Day 37 Greenhill and Travers walked side-by-side in the dark, though the full moon kept their vision clean and clear. Pearce stumbled along roughly twenty paces back, keeping a constant eye on the two murderers in front of him.
Travers suddenly stopped, even as Greenhill continued forward, head down but axe in hand.
Behind them, Pearce stopped as well, wary now of the two men’s movements and intentions.
Travers looked behind him and grinned. Up front, Greenhill slowly looped back around. It looked to Pearce like the big man was trying to flank him, though he was doing it in a casual sort of way — almost as if he was strolling through a grassy park.
Grunting to himself, Pearce wearily walked to his right, the two rotating around the still but giggling Travers. Before long, he and Greenhill had swapped positions, with Pearce now in front of Travers, and Greenhill serving as the caboose. Wherever Pearce went, Travers would pivot to face him, that damn crooked smile splashed across his face.
Travers and Greenhill chuckled together, loudly.
“Doin’ okay, Pearce?” the big man ask.
“Drop your axe and find out, Greenhill.”
The big man just grinned at Pearce. He turned his attention toward Travers. “We’ll stop here. I’m hungry.”
A fire was sputtering within minutes, and Travers had Mathers’ bruised and severed right arm flayed on a stick, and roasting now above the flames. He whistled to himself as he rotated the stick every few minutes. But Greenhill couldn’t wait. A trail of saliva worming its way into his lice-encrusted beard, he grabbed the axe and dinked off a few fingers. Picking up the thumb and gnarled index finger, he fell onto his rump in an exhausted heap, chewing at the digits with his back teeth. Moments later, he spat out the chewed thumbnail.
“That’s raw,” Pearce said.
“I know. Like the taste.”
Sickened, Pearce glanced away.
Greenhill looked particularly pleased now. He gestured at the fire. “Help yourself.”
“Go to hell.”
“You gotta be starving, Pearce.” His voice oozed concern. “I can see it in yo’ face.”
Pearce just ignored him.
“I know he was a friend of yours’ and all, but you’ll need your energy if we be gettin’ to Colorado. Less, ‘course, we stumble ‘cross more buffalo on our way in.” He winked at Travers, who giggled.
The small man tore off a strip of meat from the soft underside of the arm, worrying off a hunk with his front teeth.
“Tastes like chicken,” Greenhill said, staring at Pearce as he smacked his lips.
Travers pointed across the fire at Pearce. “Bet he’ll taste like chicken too.”
Greenhill howled, as half-chewed bits of Mathers fell from his mouth and was tangled in the depths of his beard. “I do believe that Travers wants a taste of you, Pearce.”
Pearce continued ignoring them, staring into the fire.
“You’re thinnin’ all over, but I always thought you had some meaty biceps there.” Greenhill winked again at Travers.
“Yum,” Travers replied, winking back.
“You know,” Greenhill said, leaning back, still worrying at the raw finger, “I think we oughta eat the hip. He still has some meat there.”
“Good choice,” Travers said, nodding rapidly.
“Yep. Always liked the human hip. Best parts on the woman, ‘least, so assume it’s the best part on the man. Good combination of bone and muscle and fat in there. Not like the butt or even the teat. When we kill him, we’ll need to roast Pearce’s bony little hip, so we can then burrow right into the center of the abundant, bouncing part.”
“I can see the teeth marks on his little white hip.”
“Yes,” Travers lisped.
“Take a bite, probe it a bit with the tongue. It’ll have no smell. No taste. But it’ll melt in my mouth. Like raw tuna.”
“Mmmm…”
“Then we’ll move to the thigh come Tuesday…”
The two men bedded down, side by side. Pearce did the same, but he was awake, and would remain awake. If he fell asleep, it would be the end of him. All three of them knew that. The other two could sleep. If Pearce attacked one, the other would come to aid.
At one point during the night, as anxiety inside him churned like the storm-tossed Colorado River, Pearce brought up his two fingers for a second, his mind lapsing, trying to take comfort from a tobacco stick that didn’t exist. He chuckled to himself when there was nothing between his fingers but cold air.
On the other side of the fire, Greenhill instantly raised his head at the sound. He’d been lying there awake, waiting, hoping to hear sounds of sleep from Pearce.
“You got a reckoning’ coming,” Pearce whispered.
“Fuck you,” he said.
Later, the two Utah men made love, whooping it up as their cries echoed out across the moon-splashed plains. They did it to make Pearce feel uncomfortable. But they also did it for pleasure and maybe even for warmth, since the nights here were cold as hell At one point, Travers even mockingly called out Pearce’s name, giggling between the grunts of pleasure.
When day broke, Pearce went off for about a mile, bedding down inside the sand for a quick sleep. He made sure to cover up his footstep, and to bed down in shadow and beneath rock where he could be hidden from prying eyes. When he awoke later that evening, he discovered Greenhill’s footprints.
They’d been hunting for him.
At this point, Pearce found a thick stick, naturally sharpened at one end. He hefted it, grunting.
The perfect standoff weapon.
He took a rock and began to sharpen the point until he deemed it worthy of punching through a man’s chest or guts.
He grinned. Now he was on a more even keel with the other two men, particularly Greenhill.
Spying a new fire as later afternoon moved into evening, he made his way back to the Utah pair.
The two men, chewing on more human remains, watched his approach without words. They both noted his weapon, and neither said a word.
Pearce chewed on some thigh meat, and then used the rock to further sharpen the point, right there in front of them. At one point, Pearce even looked up at the two and grinned. He stayed up all night. And thanks to his new weapon, so did Greenhill and Travers.
Day 41 It took him a silent twenty minutes, but he was able to move up directly behind Travers to poke him hard in the ass with his spear, hard enough, in fact, to spill red, watching as it bruised the tan sand at their feet.
The small man spooked, screaming, falling in his haste to scramble away. Greenhill turned, but he was too far away to immediately do anything about it.
Pearce followed him. Moments later, he managed to pin him with his worn boot, savagely kicking him twice in the head. Woozy, Travers slumped.
Pearce hefted the spear, hesitating until he caught Greenhill’s panicked look, and then shoved the spear through Travers’ left eye. Travers didn’t make a sound, likely too overwhelmed with shock and agony to utter any comprehensible words. The little man did hump his back, though, while his legs kicked at the sand and his mouth silently gaped with little gagging sounds.
Pearce leaned into the shaft until it penetrated the brain and ended forever the evil little man’s agony. He grimly stared down at the weakening convulsions, though he did shy away as the man voided his loins in death.
Greenhill was moving up on him now, huffing and puffing, the axe in his hands, his churning feet creating miniature dust clouds with each footfall.
Pearce stepped back, spear at the ready, and backed slowly away as Greenhill fell to his knees in front of Travers and tried to shake him awake, checking for a pulse and bellowing at Pearce in Spanish.
Finally, Greenhill looked up to give Pearce a wild-eyed stare.
That was for Mathers and Wood.
Pearce simply shrugged away the look.
“Figured we needed more meat.”
And then there were two. Here at last, out here on the great plains of the future state of New Mexico, only Pearce and Greenhill remained.
Together this odd couple dragged their wasted bodies through an unbelievably pleasant landscape of undulating fields and copses of green. But they no longer walked together, either side-by-side or in single file.
Now that each was armed, now that each wanted nothing more than to see the other dead, they kept a constant, fixed apart. When one stopped, so would the other; vice versa, when one started, so would the other. Spear and axe were constantly out in the open and held in a grim fist.
Still, neither parted ways and struck out into the desert on their own. This was simply done out of necessity. While Greenhill dragged behind him the collected meat, now including fresh pieces from Travers’ corpse, Pearce held firm to the fire-making tools he’d stolen from the little man’s corpse. Despite their hatred for one another, each held something the other could not live without — meat and fire. Despite the fact that their distance apart never strayed inside a mile, one could always eyeball the other in the distance.
Only when it was time to eat or share heat did the two men face each other from across the flames. Though neither spoke; only glared.
In this way, life existed, with day and night bleeding into a grayish smear.
Day 50 They trudged through the thick desert soup; walking skeletons in the clutching sands. It was now nearing dawn. They both were nearing their end.
Yards ahead of him, Greenhill began to croon at the Moon and stars high above his heads.
“In the battle front we stood, when their fiercest charge they made,
And they swept us off a hundred men or more,
But before we reached their lines, they were beaten back dismayed,
And we heard the cry of vict’ry o’er and o’er.
“Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,
Cheer up, comrades, they will come.
And beneath the starry flag we shall breathe the air again,
Of the free land in our own beloved home.
“So within the prison cell we are waiting for the day,
That shall come to open wide the iron door.
And the hollow eye grows bright, and the poor heart almost gay,
As we think of seeing home and friends once more.
“Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching…”
Silence.
The two continued to trudge their way up and down the dunes, as the cold wind dulled their senses.
“Still with me, Pearce?” Greenhill cried out.
“Still here, you son-of-a-bitch,” Pearce answered.
The trudge continued.
Day 51 In silence, Pearce fell to his knees in the morning light, carefully setting down his spear within easy reach and using the flint he’d stolen from Travers to strike up a fire on two crossed pieces of dead wood.
While he labored, from the corner of his eye he watched Greenhill rummage through one of Kennerly’s old shirts — stiffened from blood.
He took his axe and sliced off two ragged chunks. Both watched the pieces spill atop the sand. Not bothering to wipe away the clinging sand, he poked them through their spit stick and wedged it over the flames, using a rock as a balance.
They sat back, opposite sides of the flames now, staring and daring the other to nod off.
When the thigh and shoulder meat blackened, and the smell awoke their taste buds, the two men reached for their pieces. In their hands, they worried at the meat with their teeth, tearing off chunks and swallowing them practically whole.
When the meat was gone and bellies distended, they sat back, still opposite sides of the flame, and stared at each other some more, once again daring the other to close their eyes for sleep.
Neither did, in the end.
Day 52 Pearce was a pro at this by now.
As the sun rose above the distant lip of the desert, he walked a good mile away from Greenhill’s position. There, he fell to his knees and used his hands to dig out a coffin-sized hole in the sand, which was thankfully shadowed by a dune. He then placed his coat and tied-together shreds of cloth to form a sort of cover from the sun, particularly when the ball of fire would reach its high noon position in a few hours.
Finished, but winded, he grabbed the spear and crawled away to a point opposite the hole.
There, he waited.
One hour passed; a second hour; a third sixty minutes.
Just as Pearce was nodding off, he heard the sand shifting. Peering up, he spied Greenhill’s bearded above the dune; staring intently at the covered hole.
With axe in hand, Greenhill slowly moved down the dune, creeping, careful with each silent step.
There, his eyes grew large.
“Is this it, Greenhill?” Pearce asked, motioning the man and his axe forward. “Is it time?”
Spear held tightly in shaking hands, standing slightly slumped from the pain of their shared ordeal, Pearce waited for the final confrontation. He hoped he had the strength to run Greenhill through with his weapon.
Instead of charging, Greenhill simply turned and made his way back to his own hole, somewhere in the sand more than a mile away. A third of the way there, the big wasted man stopped, turning back to him.
“I’m gonna kill you, Pearce. Then I’m gonna eat you.”
A strained chuckle — “Not if I kill you first.”
Day 53
The wind was fierce, and it took Pearce nearly an hour to get the fire and feed into something large enough to cook meat. But he managed it, and soon bits and pieces of Travers and Mathers and Kennerly was on the spit stick, and roasting.
Pearce lay across from Greenhill and the fire.
He closed his eyes.
Bliss.
Opened them back up.
Focused on Greenhill.
Greenhill was looking back at him with a similar look. The fire almost seemed to make his eyes glow.
Pearce stared at the flames some more.
In them, Pearce saw moon and stars; faces he recognized; flowers and houses; bars of chocolate.
He closed his eyes.
He felt like he was outside his body — his burned, beaten body. The dizziness was pronounced, almost to the point of nauseous. He was so weak he couldn’t lift his arms. He’d never fainted, but he assumed this is—
He opened his eyes.
Checked his surroundings.
Greenhill had just risen from his perch in the sand, intently looking at him, axe in hand — poised.
Pearce reached out and touched the spear. Spying the movement, Greenhill stopped, stooped and sat back down in the sand, the axe back on his lap and acting as if nothing had happened.
Pearce looked out over the shadowed dunes. Up at the stars. Sought out the moon and looked at the black patches up there that sometimes made it resemble a human face. Then it was back to the flames, staring into them for long minutes.
Stared at them.
Stared at them.
Closed his eyes.
Heartbeat was doubled. Didn’t hurt, just a steady beat, like the drill drum back at camp, his skin clammy but cool, like a damp wash rag and even though his eyes were closed and he was feeling rather relaxed now his breath was coming in and out in rapid spurts, seemingly in concert with the dramatic increase in pulse and—
He opened his eyes.
Greenhill lay slumped against the rock he’d been leaning against.
Pearce closed his eyes. Opened them.
Greenhill hadn’t moved. In fact, he looked asleep.
Asleep.
He looked asleep.
Go!
Pearce just sat there, staring for minutes on end, convinced it was some elaborate trick.
GO MAN GO!
He rose drunkenly to his feet, the spear in his hand.
He moved around the fire.
Watch your shadow! No shadow on him or it’ll wake him up!
Crawled up to him. Stopped. Sniffed.
Before him, Greenhill was breathing heavy. Sleep heavy, his eyes closed and his grip relaxed on the hilt of the axe.
Pearce placed the point of the spear on Greenhill’s chest.
Greenhill’s eyes winked open. For a split second, they were pools of fear, as wide and white as the Moon high above them.
Pearce shoved the spear between the big men’s ribs, pushing and grunting until the shaft snapped and the big man fell back onto himself with a bubbling groan, blood staining his blackened teeth.
Leaving the shaft quivering in the air, Pearce picked up the axe, which had fallen from the man’s lap. He hefted it. Stared at it. Watched as the light danced up and down the steel blade. On that blade, he could see traces of blood from all the others: Mathers and Wood and Bodenham and Kennerly.
He looked down at the dying man. Saw that his eyes were opened and staring at him. So he used the axe on Greenhill until those eyes closed again.
For good, this time.
Three days later, his life sustained from Greenhill’s fresh meat, Alexander Pearce, the last survivor of eight, stumbled onto the south Colorado homestead of shepherd Amos Macquarie.
Delirious and feverish, Pearce was unconscious near the chicken coop when Macquarie picked up the wasted body and set it down into a bed. There, he and his wife saved his life, slowly nursing him back to health.
When he awoke, he found his arms and legs tied to the bed, and a county Marshall with a six-shooter sitting on a chair opposite him. When asked why he was tied, the lawman spat out a stream of tobacco and pointed to the tied shirt he’d brought out of the desert with him.
Inside was Greenhill’s left buttock, four fingers, left arm and severed, staring head.
Interlude 1
When the invasion of Khent was initiated on a rather beautiful, autumn morning, it was sudden, brutal and — similar to armed excursions of past centuries — entirely without mercy.
The scouts crossed the border first, in the deep of the dark. They were skilled but ruthless men, trained to seed panic along the border’s fertile soil. And they did their job well — too well, in fact. Within the first hour alone, these black-clad scouts seized numerous granite Watchtowers dimpling the shared border. Sitting within bowshot of the five planned invasion routes, a good majority of the towers were either set aflame or pulverized to rubble.
There were no survivors among the defenders.
It took weeks for whispers of this attack to meander their way back to the Yurrd, Khent’s capital city. There, the Senatorial bureaucrats and the good King himself huddled together inside the famous ivory white halls of the congressional hall, mulling the situation over. That first week slowly grew into two, though both were filled with long hours of bitter debate. Were these border attacks mere excursions — the latest among dozens of armed raids of the past? Or was it something far worse?
It was far worse, they soon discovered.
A dozen cities and villages fell to the invaders in that first week alone. Two scores more were trampled beneath the invader’s steady tread over the next seven cycles. Already, close to a million Khent citizens, mostly women and children had been put to the sword. Additional thousands were locked together in chains and sent in long, shuffling lines back to the border. Those who resisted or attempted to flee were lined up and dropped into hastily dug burial plots. These gigantic buried tombs smelled of sick for tens and dozens of miles.
By the third week, more than half of Khent’s bountiful lands were under Scythian rule. Left behind in the invasion’s wake were sooty tendrils of destruction, as well as the sweetly rot of decomposing bodies.
Only into the invasion’s fourth week did this united mass of invaders suddenly split into four distinct directions.
The first prong, the largest, plunged like a dagger toward the heart of Khent. Its sole task was to breach and pacify ivory-white Yurrd. There, they would either push the king to his knees, or send back to Scyth his severed head.
A second prong veered north, toward Khent’s prized tri-lake region. Aside from hundreds of miles of fertile farming land, the lakes overflowed with varied fish life.
A third prong turned on its heels and stomped right back across the hundreds of miles it had just covered. Methodically, these troops snuffed out what little pockets of resistance still smoldered inside burnt villages, or distant border towers, or cliff caves near the Azog Sea.
But the fourth and final prong veered south — crossing sixty-some miles in three hard days. Its goal was a single city, the country’s largest. It was an industrial town of burning foundries, smelting caves and blacksmith pits — located along the banks of the mile-wide Velga River. Named Koldkgrad, the city produced nearly half of the nation’s entire armaments. Should this great city fall, the rest of proud Khent would quickly crumble like a battered tin shield.
It’s here, on the steep banks of the Velga, and beneath the muddied skies of dirty Koldkgrad, where the fate of a nation now desperately clung.
Part 1
The seven men made their way up the knotted rope from the dank sewers below.
On the men’s backs hugged lumpy, covered bags, trussed up in rope and sopped in sewer. With neither sound nor word, each man shrugged off a pack and carefully removed weapons: narrow short bows and quivers of arrows, a sheathed sword and dagger, as well as two heavy and chained flails, their ends topped with smelted lumps of iron. The weapons were handed out in turn, passing from one gloved hand to the next.
Four of the men took up the bow and quivers, the former held in their hands; the latter looped sideways over their shoulders, the feathered ends hanging beneath their armpits. The iron sword and needle-thin dagger were handed to the fifth man. The last two men — the largest of the seven — heaved up their flails, carefully looping the chained lumps of iron over a shoulder, so the weapons wouldn’t splash noise. Neither of the last two men wore armor, slathered instead with spore as black as churned mud.
The man with sword and dagger, group leader Sulbano, drew his sword, fingering its keen edge with a chipped thumbnail. Because speaking was forbidden here behind enemy lines, he instead spoke with his fingers, flashing signals to the others. He glanced at Detrius, the tallest of the four bowmen. The archer was lithe, with a cold and terrible appearance, a strong and aquiline nose, swollen nostrils, and a thin and reddish face in which the very long eyelashes framed large wide-open green eyes — the bushy black eyebrows making his eyes threatening.
Nodding, Detrius notched his bow and moved to a smudged window. Outside, dawn was roughly scraping away the last traces of darkness, splashing the eastern horizon with colors of a flowered pasture. It was almost peaceful.
Almost… because the brightening sky was slowly revealing the grim results of the previous night’s fight. Long gone was the clashing of steel, the zipping of loosed arrows, splashing of blood from torn bodies atop the muddy wash, the screaming of the fighting and dying. In the quiet, only the dead remained. The Scythian shock troops had been too many; their heavy artillery of boulder, muddy brick and flame too overbearing.
With no movement outside, Detrius raised his hand and quickly extended all five fingers. Behind him, the others tensed. Pausing for a few seconds as he eased open the door with a boot, the archer made a first — and was on the move. Behind him, the other bowmen followed, the four morphing into a diamond-shaped wedge. The two shirtless flail men moved next, staying on the outer flanks of the four archers. Sulbano moved last, dull blade naked in his fists.
The aftermath of the nighttime battle was more visible out here in the streets. Dozens of corpses lay crumpled along the avenue. Some lay in individual sprawls; others were collected together in a rather bloody and smelly mass. The morning birds, in fact, were already investigating the feast. The cloud of insects, sadly, had descended long ago. Shattered boulders from the catapults on the outskirts of the city had rained down so thick it was ankle deep in some places. Ashy and sooty piles were grim reminders of the so-called “Grease” flame that had erupted amidst their comrades. Bits and pieces of war debris — a splintered sword blade, a long and torn strip of leather, even a loaf of bread — shared space with the dead.
The seven snaked around these ashy remains upon padded boots, to help muffle footsteps. Sometimes a burning cart or wall of dead would force the seven to break apart their formation. Otherwise, the seven stayed as one — the four-man diamond wedge in front, the three-man inverted triangle in back.
A Scythian, framed as a smoky, translucent outline within a darkened building to Detrius’ left, hadn’t noticed the group’s padded approach. Certainly, the poor bastard never saw the arrow, which snagged him flush in the throat. He stumbled forward, gagging on the bone shaft. Seconds later, a flail exploded the back of the man’s skull.
Detrius didn’t flinch when an arrow whistled past his left ear, seeking a target, tickling the hairs there. That one was from Finosa, one of his fellow archers. In the distance, a Scythian slumped with a hiss.
A man came stumbling out from another doorway, tightening on his sword belt. Detrius immediately launched an arrow into his stomach. He efficiently grabbed a mate from his quiver and sent a second into the man’s face. The man staggered forward, coughing, the arrow piercing his right cheek. Detrius watched the man paw at the arrow in agony. He contemplated wasting a third arrow on him, but Sulbano’s sword erased the head from shoulders.
Things had gone well so far. No alarm, no warning screams. And to their left was their destination. Over the past two nights, the invaders had claimed key bits and pieces of Koldkgrad — particularly a smelting factory, a storage grain silo and a rock-rimmed quarry. They’d been ordered to wrench back the smelting factory — or die trying.
Pulling back the bow’s string of sinew, Detrius darted through the factor’s opened doorway.
And there, inside that doorway, they killed.
A dozen Scythian warriors dozed inside the featureless room, doing the simple things warriors did when they weren’t fighting or dying. Several were wounded, but a good majority of them sprawled immobile against a wall or atop the floor, exhausted from the long night’s fight. Asleep on mats, coaxing fires, writing letters or preparing quick meals of potato soup or salted grits, none were expecting a fight — particularly here, on their very own doorstep.
When Detrius entered, his short bow extended, he focused on just one man, the nearest. This man, Detrius’ target, was spooning grits slathered with goat’s blood into his mouth. But he froze when he spied him — eyes wide, his ugly and bony face set with a stony stare of utter disbelief, spoon wavering in mid-air. And he died with that look of absurd dismay shadowing his features, Detrius’ arrow sinking into his left eye.
Detrius calmly whipped out another arrow, set it into his bow, pulled back the sinew and let it fly. This time, the target was a sleeping Scythian, snoring facedown atop a thin mat. The arrow sunk through the back of the man’s skull with a sharp and neat crack.
By now, the three other bowmen — Finosa, Kassim and Ilanis — were letting loose their own salvos of arrows. So expert was each shot — sunk as they were into an eye, a throat, up into the skull or through the heart — that no follow-up flights were necessary.
Vefban and Umarde, the two flail men, were now pushing past Detrius and the others, their flails swinging in short but precise strokes down atop the skulls of the sleeping — or stirring —enemy. Even Sulbano got involved in this confined death dance. Under most circumstances he would have hung back behind the others, either protecting the troupe’s back or ensuring none of the enemy escaped the arrows and flails.
A dozen dead or dying — in less than a minute.
Sulbano withdrew his dagger with a grunt, and then went around to each of the enemy, slitting throats as a necessary precaution.
As the three bow men formed up into another diamond assault, Detrius hurried around the room, removing arrows and wrapping them up inside a stretched cow stomach. He would later clean the arrows, reapplying any bent heads and saving them for future raids.
“We’re not alone,” Sulbano flashed to the others. He then pointed up at the room’s ceiling.
They were calling this the “rat war.” Fighting often took place for days inside buildings. Sometimes they or the Scyth invaders would make it across a courtyard, push their way into a kitchen, but stall at the doorway leading into a heavily fortified living room. So, as absurd as it sounded, and following hours of bloody fighting, the invaders would “own” a kitchen, yet the defenders would control the adjacent room, as well as the stairwell and the levels above. This is what war had ultimately been reduced to, here inside the smoking corpse of Koldkgrad.
Notching a new arrow, Detrius eased up to the edge of the stairway, which snaked up to the second floor. He peered around it.
Movement.
He yanked back his head.
Inches away, an arrow hissed past, shattering against the far wall.
Rage claimed Sulbano’s men like a virus. It was a collective fury, intravenously fueled by anxiety, exhaustion and fear — fear of a war inside the skeletal remains of Koldkgrad that simply would not, could not, cease.
As Vefban rushed forward with a rumbling shriek, Kassim and Finosa flashed past him, loosing arrows of their own. And then Sulbano and Umarde scampered past them, weapons in hand.
A brute of a Symthian stormed forward, howling, but Sulbano stepped aside and sunk his blade up to its hilt into the man’s stomach, grimly pushing until the bastard’s slid himself off the smeared steel.
Detrius spied movement behind Sulbano and instinctively fired an arrow. The shaft sliced beneath the crook of Umarde’s arm and into the neck of a Smyt fighter prepping to ram a dagger into the small of Sulbano’s back. When he heard the man’s grunting scream, Sulbano whirled and took off most of the bastard’s face off with his sword.
A crouched Finosa spied movement and lofted an arrow. It flashed past Umarde’s face to sink into a waiting Scythian warrior. They could hear Umarde’s flail crunching bone as the archers, flanking Sulbano, followed the two maddened flail men up the stairs. On the landing there, they killed.
As for Detrius, it was a rather bloody and bitter blur from then on out. Throwing aside his bow, he grabbed a fistful of arrows from his quiver and followed the others into various rooms, darting in and around heated clashes, shoving into exposed flesh the pointed ends of his arrows. Detrius even managed to take out one of the bastards, too, with a swift shove of an arrow through the side of the neck, releasing a bloody geyser that sprayed a nearby wall.
In the room at the end of the upstairs hallway, four Scythians were on their knees, weapons discarded and pleading for mercy in their own guttural language. But Detrius’s comrades fell on them without pause, slashing and slicing and beating and bludgeoning. Even Detrius kicked one of warrior’s repeatedly in the face until his features melted into mush.
When the six cleared out the bread mill, they kicked down a thin brick wall using the heavy ends of the two flails to bring death to the invaders cowering there. They cleared out the main floor, then flowed upstairs, staining the walls red, before circling back and breaking down a barricaded cellar door and slaughtering at least another dirty dozen more. Of course, no quarter was ever given.
During the raid in that adjacent building, Detrius kicked open a door and confronted a sniveling Scythian commander. He screamed when he spied the archer — and the blood smearing his tunic. The bearded man quickly kneeled down on hands and knees until the tip of his pointed nose touched the edge of the archer’s bloodied left boot.
“Let me… live,” he pleaded in rough Khentan, working with a dry mouth to form the correct Khentan words. “Let me… live after this war. Please. Please. Please. Pleas—”
Detrius pulled back the protesting sinew string and killed the kneeling man with an arrow through the back of the skull…
Interlude 2 When the few remaining trees inside Koldkgrad began to shed their colorless leaves, and the winds blew hard from the north, the wary defenders visibly cheered.
Winter was approaching. And winter was a good, good friend, for the long cold months were legendary in Khent. More than once in the nation’s long history had the harsh blizzards and the blood-freezing temperatures disoriented and systematically dismantled an invading host. Scores ago, a spore of spearmen from the Wild Lands crossed into Khent, when the leaves were still green atop the trees. By the time those same leaves yellowed and withered, the warm-bred invaders were smothered within the howling cough of freezing winter winds. And there, they died by the hundreds. Within a month, an army of more than six hundred thousand was nearly halved. A hasty retreat for warmer climates downed another hundred thousand, the rotting corpses serving as fertilizer for the next spring crops.
Part 2 Normally, Sulbano and his boys launched their raids at the break of dawn, or just before the early splash of light. Dawn was, after all, the time when the human body was at its most lethargic; when the morning fog still stubbornly clung low to the ground and even the animals and insects — if such things still thrived within Koldkgrad — snuggled into forgotten holes for sleep. But not today.
“Up, up, up,” Sulbano was hissing to the others, drawing his scarred blade and rapping it hard against the wall.
Detrius cut off a stream of urine atop Finosa’s armor, the scarred-faced archer flinching as bits of foul-smelling liquid splattered the cloth he was using to cover his face and mouth.
“Detrius!”
Nodding, the archer laced his breeches, tying on his urine-wet armor. He tried not to gag at the acrid smell. Within moments, the others were atop their feet, with nearby weapons stashed to their legs, hips or shoulders.
“Attack’s early,” Sulbano breathed. But the others could clearly see and hear that for themselves. The familiar swish of flying boulders, catapulted from the edges of the city and whistling overhead, and the terrific and terrifying rumbling groan of a nearby building collapsing.
Sulbano pointed at his veteran archer. “Move us out, Detrius.”
And for the seventeenth time since the Scythian host had poured across the outer edges of Kolkdgrad, Detrius waded into danger, prized wood bow held low; notched arrow set at its center.
As they formed up into their now familiar formation, there were already hundreds of Khentan infantry milling about in front of them. They slogged through the muddy lane, leather boots and metal greaves stained by the dark mud.
Falling like rain around them, flaming boulders and crystal Grease fire containers continued to splatter the landscape. Both were being catapulted by enemy artillery leagues away. The former would burst into thousands of tiny, razor-thin bits of death. But the latter? They would explode, too, like the boulders did, but Grease fire was highly flammable, a gelatinous terror weapon that would stick to any surface and burn, even ignoring the touch of water thrown atop it.
Running hunched over now — eyes wide and arrow at the ready — Sulbano flinched as the catapulted bombs thudded around him like footfalls. He ducked as bits and pieces of debris sizzled past his ears and face. He then leaped aside as a spitting ball of flame skittered past, igniting boots and loin clothes, or melting flesh in the short span it took a soldier to heave a single, shallow breath of acrid air.
Steel-encased soldiers were spinning away, screaming, slumping quietly aside from the hissing debris or rolling from the flame soaking through armored joints and laying bare the flesh beneath. Hundreds dropped in a matter of seconds, and more fell stumbling into the burning mud.
Still in the lead, darting as he did around the corpses of his fellow countrymen, Sulbano splashed through knee-high Grease flames. It didn’t stick. They’d found the only way to ward off its kiss was to splash their bodies with warm human urine.
“Go! Go!” Sulbano urged from behind, his eyes wide from the slaughter. There were still about a hundred armored survivors standing in the wake of the artillery attack. Melee weapons clutched in their fists, these remaining infantry fighters were clashing with a line of Scythian shock troops spilling up from a trench line.
Yards back, Detrius received a detailed eyeful of the brutal spillage. His eyes darted from one group of fighting men to the next. He was too far away for his arrows to do any good.
Sadly, he wasn’t too far away not to drink in the sights and sounds of the carnage.
One soldier died, collapsing in the middle of the road, and atop a second dying comrade. There, the two gave the other a final embrace. Another soldier nearby was deprived a foot, a second his eyes, a third his ear. One fell with gushing entrails, another with his throat sloppily cut. Over there, a thigh was shattered from a staff. And over here, brains were scattered by a club. One man’s hand was shorn off with a sword; another forfeited both knees to an axe swing. A young boy groaned as he breathed his last breath from a sword stroke to the face.
And still no man drew back from the fight…
Detrius moved swiftly to the left side of the road, hoping to avoid the thick of the battle. Their objective was a three-story tower lying beyond the contested trenchwork. In earlier times, this stone-blocked monstrosity helped navigate congested traffic up and down the Velga. Now its sloped peak and various windows lining the curved shaft were strategic observational advantages neither side could afford to lose.
Kassim fired an arrow from Detrius’ left, and a distant Scythian took a few drunken steps before flopping heavily to the ground. The pair leaped over two wounded invaders, listening as Vefban and Umardes’ flails swung down atop the hapless men.
All three fired arrows into a tiny cluster. Of the five men, three fell. The two standing survivors wore the dark gray colors of Khent. Turning, the two saluted the archers with their scarred blades before wading back into the thick of the battle.
Detrius was the first to reach their objective. The others quickly gathered around him like moths to a flame.
“Up,” a panting Sulbano hissed, and Vefban and Umarde crept over to the stair’s landing. He tapped Detrius on the shoulder. “You go.”
Detrius notched a new arrow and entered the tower’s cool interior, shivering as the hot sweat instantly cooled on his back and shoulders. Vefban went first, then Detrius, followed by Sulbano and Umarde. The wooden panels covering the various windows were bolted shut. They soon found themselves blanketed by a sooty darkness following a dozen steps.
And there in the dark, Vefban began to make strange noises — a sort of grunting way down, deep in the throat. There were ripping sounds.
Sulbano made a snapping noise with his fingers, trying to silence his large warrior.
“Looking for some flint-n-steel,” the tall man hissed down at them. There were more ripping sounds.
“No light!” Sulbano hissed up into the darkness, emphasizing the second word.
Vefban stumbled, and then cursed. “Dast… I can’t see—” But he stopped himself in mid-sentence.
Silence.
“Vefban?” Detrius whispered, reaching out for him.
The big man suddenly whispered a curse.
“What is it?”
“Some… thing’s in front of me.” Vefban sounded frightened.
Some thing?
“Where?”
“On the approaching steps or… or the next landing up.”
Detrius strained his eyes pierce the blackened blindness hooding them all. His eyes were adjusting just enough to see fuzzy outline traces of “shapes” around him — to all sides. But smoke from the burning flames outside had fingered their way inside the tower. Visibility was impossibility.
“I’m not alone…” Vefban whispered. “Listen.”
A stunned silence followed. Standing there, eyes impossibly wide in the dark, they all heard sounds could be heard above them now. Sounds of breathing…
At least that’s what it sounded like to Detrius — breathing. By now, he’d identified the black blobs in front of him as Vefban and Sulbano. So the third blob up ahead, ducked down in the corner… Dast! That had to be… who?
Detrius fired his arrow.
The sound of its passing made them all jump. But their surprise was choked off by a raw scream from the blob, and of liquid splattering the stone steps. With a hiss, the blob was moving rapidly back up the steps.
Vefban bellowed something about an “ambush” and charged ahead. So did Sulbano. And there were fresh screams now — in foreign, Smyt tongues, which spilled like liquid from the landing above.
Thanks to the smothering darkness, Detrius would never know who actually put his weapon into play first. Whether it was or not, it really didn’t matter. Swords and daggers and spears and two flails whirled and slashed or poked at moving blobs of black along the narrow, curved stairway. Bellows and cries of war at times morphed into high keening screams of agony. Steel sliced and rang aloud, sliding across the inner stone wall or occasionally sounding the ugly thwack of steel striking flesh, accompanied by that familiar splattering of sprayed, arterial blood and the muscle-straining, vein-popping scream of death.
Detrius shouldered his bow and drew forth a worn dagger from his left boot. He waited for Umarde to push past him before following, the dagger in his hand ready to jab the featureless faces of the enemy. What followed was hard to tell in the form of a tale. It was a blind melee, really. Naked violence. Where weapons sought out flesh at every angle. And when weapons weren’t readily available, legs and fists and nails and even teeth were employed there in the dark. Anything making a sound in the darkness, or bumping physically up against another there on the narrow landing, was a potential target. Screams were sounding throughout, followed or preceded by gasps and grunts and long, drawn-out groans. Steel kissed steel. Sparks erupted from contact like lava spewing from a volcanic maw. Periodic flashes of blinding light haloed the struggling figures in the darkness for the very briefest of seconds.
For Detrius, a nearby spark outlined a huge Scythian to his left, and he thrust his dagger out at what he hoped was the man’s head. When the tip struck, there was a brief resistance, and then a sliding, sucking sound followed, until rent bone bled out his powered thrust. The move threw Detrius against his target, and he caught a whiff of the bastard’s rancid breath.
Moment later, Detrius was bumped from behind, and the stumbling which ensued quickly disintegrated into a falling, with legs and hands tipping flailing arms struggling to cease an uncontrollable fall. Coming to a bloody stop meters below, he looked up with throbbing, red-hazed eyes to watch the tiny lights winking here and there atop the landing.
A wink of light and a gurgle as a throat was ripped out.
A wink of light, and Detrius could see something dark spinning down from the heavens, brokenly smashing across stone steps…
A wink of light, as swords clashed, and an almost inhuman scream…
A wink of light —
— The silence that ensued was typical in the immediate moments following a bloodletting.
Detrius rose to his feet, hissing, and checked himself for broken bones.
Nothing, thank Dast.
He was bruised as hell, but he could live with bruises. As quietly as he could, he began climbing steps. Above his head, there came sounds of shuffling feet, muffled voices and the first cries for help.
“Over here — Dast!”
Detrius hurried — gingerly at first, because the steps were slick with slush. He did slip once, and his right hand came down atop the melted features of a severed head, which had dropped and rolled from the landing above. Wiping the gore on his jerkin, he continued up the steps — faster now — until he reached the landing. Moments later, he stumbled aside with a cursed hiss as a torch flared suddenly to life. It took his eyes nearly a minute to adjust to the carnage around him.
Bodies lay everywhere, or pieces, at least. Some were recognizable — heads and limbs and fingers — but some “chunks” weren’t so identifiable. All were soaked atop soupy blood. And the blood. Good God was there blood — everywhere the eye looked, across the landing and stone-chipped stairs.
There were near dead here, too. They were sighing and cursing, or calling out for help.
“Over here…”
“I’m cut — bleeding…”
“Get this… this fuckin’ thing off me.”
“My… my arm!”
“Detrius!”
The archer shook his head to clear it of sticky cobwebs.
Vefban was dead, disemboweled and slumped across his own slosh. Urmarde was nearing death as well — all squished up against the wall. Finosa, too, was found dying in the dark, gasping for life through a torn chest and punctured lung. Little could be done for him, and he slowly expired there on the steps, curled up inside Sulbano’s arms. Kassim was up here, too, bending and slicing the throats of the few Scythian soldiers who were down but not completely out.
“Detrius…!”
It was Umarde. Pushing down his gorge, he slinked over to the man. But the big warrior had already slipped away to a much better place, head lolling to one side. Detrius picked him up, ignoring the blood leaking from his extensive wound. He heaved the body against the wall, folding his hands in front of him and placing his beloved flail in his lap. And after some extensive searching, he was able to find the poor man’s severed, mangled arm.
And what was left of his hand…
“Dast,” he whispered to himself.
“Finosa has passed on.” Sulbano whispered. He and Kassim both cursed aloud. Soft-spoken Finosa had been a troupe favorite.
Silence.
“Gather equipment,” Sulbano quietly ordered the two men, gently laying Finosa’s head on the blood-caked landing and gently closed the dead archer’s staring eyes. His fingers left twin crimson smears on the eyelids. Sulbano then sheathed his sword, grabbed Finosa’s quiver of arrows and tossed them over to Kassim.
By now, Detrius was cursing beneath his breath, kicking aside scattered weapons and even rolling bodies over for a quick peer beneath. Sulbano cocked his head at the man’s actions.
“Can’t find my bow,” he answered in a heated whisper. “Threw it down during the attack.”
“Did it fall off the staircase?”
“Dast! Must have… I took a nasty spill there at the end.”
“Grab Finosa’s bow.”
Nearby, Kassim reached for it, but paused. “It’s shattered.”
“What?” Sulbano now looked angry.
“It’s snapped in three pieces, sir.”
“Erlak,” Sulbano cursed.
The entire tower vibrated. Kassim lost his balance, while both Sulbano and Detrius reached out to balance themselves against the wall.
“What the fuck was that?” Kassim hissed moments later.
There were yells from the Khentan forces below.
A second rumble sounded, more violent than the first. The tower’s stones around them creaked and vomited torrents of dust and clay mortar.
“Catapults?” Detrius hissed, wiping grime from his eyes as he coughed into a curved fist.
“Up top, now,” Sulbano hissed. He pointed at Detrius. “Find a bow.”
Problem was, there wasn’t another bow. He hoped there’d been an archer among the enemy dead — but no, they were all heavy infantry. He wasted frantic seconds patting down the corpses or rummaging through their equipment bags. He overturned corpses, reached beneath bodies, even kicked at the scattered clumps of equipment. At the very least, he hoped to stumble across a sling and pouch of polished stones.
A sword.
A dagger.
Another dagger.
A broken axe.
A spear… or wooden shaft of a spear.
And—
Detrius paused. He moved back to the spear. Picking it up, he immediately grunted at its unexpected heaviness. It had solidness to it — barely budging from the floor. It was also connected to something lying beneath a blood-spattered equipment pack.
This was no spear.
Detrius thought at first it was a wooden shield. Useless things — shields — but the invaders seemed to adore them. But he quickly discovered it wasn’t a shield. It took several moments to figure out what the hell it was.
“Oh Dast!” he whispered, eyes lighting up.
It was something far better.
He picked it up, worked it over in his hands, and then hastily threw it over his shoulder.
“Found something?” It was Kassim, standing over him now.
“I have.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Arbalest.”
“A what?”
An arbalest. He hadn’t seen one, or held one, since his childhood days. His father, while tromping about the deserts of the neighboring Wild Lands during the religious Crusades, had brought one back as war booty. And he taught his only son how to use it; master it. But it hadn’t been easy, and his father had known that. Detrius had been instructed to train on just one target — the Mottle. The movement was a small bird that, when in flight, was full of sudden, erratic bursts of whirring feathers and wings. It made the animal most difficult to hit. Hunting this agile little game bird with a bow, let alone the much heavier arbalest, was a tremendous challenge to any archer. The hunter had to account for the delay in time between aiming up on the target, releasing the string and when the bolt itself actually left the weapon. Not only did the archer have to aim along the flight path of the bird, but he was also forced to decide where the bird would be when the shot finally reached its target. He’d mastered it, of course, taking down his first bird in flight at the crack of dawn on a blistering-cold winter morning. But that famous day had occurred after eight long and frustrating years of trial and error.
“Like our short bows, but… different.” He ran loving fingers over the wooden stock. “It’s a weapon.”
“We need to move,” Kassim said.
Nodding, Detrius began patting about the floor.
“Now what?”
“Bolts. A quiver of bolts. It’s what they — here they are!” He shouldered the quiver and followed Kassim up the stairs.
They ascended forty steps — thankfully devoid of hiding enemy, save a hungry rat that disappeared into a nearby niche. Detrius used his dagger pommel to shatter a lock on the bottom of a trap door straddling the low ceiling. He pushed it open with a shoulder and immediately winced as daylight bleached the room a burning white.
The tower wobbled again atop its crumbling foundation. Up here, at its peak, they all could visibly see the structure sway from left to right and back again. It wept stony flakes in all directions.
“That’s no catapult,” Kassim said.
“Hurry,” Sulbano hissed.
Detrius pushed up through the opening, scanning the roof in all directions for the enemy. There were none.
“We’re clear,” he hissed.
The roof offered a magnificent view of the surrounding city, particularly the great Velga to the south.
“Dast,” Sulbano sighed heavily, wiping the still warm blood from his face. His hands were trembling now, and his face was white from fatigue and hunger. For the first time, Detrius noticed his commander was wounded. Blood had stained his cloak on his right side, where something had either slashed or poked him there.
“It’s nothing,” he hissed, spying Detrius’ concerned look. He gestured toward the edges of the tower’s roof. “Scout our position.”
Nodding, Kassim slinked one way, Detrius the other.
The aftermath of the clash on the outskirts of the tower was crystal clear from their new vantage point from on high — twisted bodies everywhere, particularly around the trench works dug in like ringworm around the tower’s base. The Khentan banner now fluttered lazily in the breeze, and hundreds of infantry were digging in, extending the trench line’s edges. But already there was sporadic fighting erupting on the edges. Detrius could see long lines of Scythian infantry on the march.
“Catapults,” Kassim hissed. He pointed. Detrius and Sulbano followed his finger south, toward the residential area of the city. In the hazy distance they could see at least twenty huge catapults lining the city’s edge. The size of tiny insects, they sat in a straight line — pampered by swarming shapes that could only be enemy artillerymen.
“Are they firing?” Sulbano was prepared to leap back down inside the tower if the catapults were indeed targeting the tower. It was, after all, the city’s tallest structure.
Following a brief pause, Kassim slowly shook his head no. “They’re prepping, but…” he was squinting hard, shielding his eyes from the sun, “but nothing’s in the air.”
“So what in Erlak’s name hit us?”
“Magic,” came the answer.
The two turned to Detrius. The archer had wandered back over to the tower’s edge, gazing in the direction of the Velga and the chunks of real estate — few as they were — still under Khentan control. A horrified look had washed across his haggard features.
“Magic?” Sulbano hissed. He was instantly at Detrius’ side, a steady hand on his back. “Where? Point.”
It would have been easy enough for Detrius, using his sharp eyes, to pinpoint the man wrapped in silver. But he didn’t need to. He pointed instead to the ground. Nearly a half-acre of stone, clay, mud and dirt was mysteriously bubbling, like water set too long atop a wood fire. As they watched, they noticed things popping up with each “burst” of a mysterious bubble. Those things, they recognized moments later, were men.
Magic. Like the Grease flame, this was yet another terror weapon imported to Khent by the Scythians and their engineers. Because the nation of Smyt was blessed with fine farming soil, magic had been discovered and honed by farmers there to aid in crop production. It had been used for generations to coax water from the skies, or help germinate newly planted fields, or burn away layers of scrub brush. But soon this innate blessing had been grotesquely manipulated into a battlefield weapon. Now, clouds were induced to dump flood water atop defending armies; or lightning bolts to lash ranks of men into flaming soot; or freshly-planted seeds to grab and fling bodies in all directions; or columns of flame to brew up like torches to quickly engulf entire companies.
Magic was rare, God knows. But just a single user could sway the course of an entire battle. Like now. The trio was watching it happen, the gray-cloaked user manipulating the earth to weaken the tower’s foundation in hopes of toppling it.
“They can summon lightning from the skies,” Kassim said, now joining the pair at the edge of the roof. He watched the long and snaking lines of Scythian reinforcements converging on the tower.
“This isn’t the best place for us,” Sulbano whispered. He was a deeply passionate hater of both magic and their users. But he feared lightning even more.
“I’ll send him to hell,” Kassim grimly announced. The archer shrugged off his bow, notched an arrow, spent a few seconds pulling back and aiming, before releasing with an audible grunt. But Detrius was already shaking his head no. “You’re wasting your time, comrade. Distance is too great, and the wind’s much too strong up here.”
And sure enough, they watched the wind grab the arrow and toss it against a distant building like a child’s play thing.
“Then we move,” Sulbano snarled. “We go down to the bottom. We’ll convince the captain below of the dangers. You two’ll flank the initial charge, targeting the mage. If we’re lucky—”
Again, Detrius was shaking his head no.
“Then what?” Sulbano hissed, staring at him, growing angry again.
Silently, Detrius unlimbered the strange weapon from his back.
His comrades watched him lean the weapon up against his leg. There, he grabbed the sinew string with both fists, snaking his padded right boot through a leather stirrup drooping from the edge of the weapon.
“What the nine hells are you doing?” Sulbano hissed.
“Hunting…” Detrius whispered, then flexed his powerful leg muscle and heaved the sinew toward him, until it caught and locked inside a wooden clasp. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Detrius gingerly set the weapon down and snaked a hand into the nearby quiver.
“What is that thing?” their commander asked.
“A weapon,” Kassim said.
“I can see that, comrade.” Sulbano had nearly lost all patience.
Detrius stopped, sighed, and wiped at a single trail of sweat on his forehead. “A Smyt weapon. More powerful than a bow. More accurate.”
“Impossible.”
“Watch,” Detrius whispered. He thumbed out a straight, black bolt — shorter and stouter than a traditional arrow, with a heavier head and fletched with thin leather flights — and fitted it atop the firing platform.
“Arrows don’t go this far,” Kassim was whispering into Detrius’ ear. “Sulbano’s right. We must head back. Maybe from one of the windows below we can target the bastards and—”
“Silence, comrade — please,” Detrius whispered. He was on his hands and knees now, crawling up to the edge of the tower. He next pushed the weapon out in front of him, cradling it with both hands, tucking the wood stock beneath his arm. He then grew still, index finger flexing against a wooden firing knob, a squinted left eye sighted along the bolt’s black length.
The others shadowed him.
“Can he work this beast?” Sulbano asked Kassim.
Detrius grinned. “Watch…”
And without dramatics, he pulled the trigger.
The sound of the bolt leaving the weapon was horrifying, to say the least. There was no gentle swishing like one would normally hear from the string of a wooden bow. This one made a chopping, fart-like sound; an ugly belch, a ripping of the air — an almost palpable thud.
Far below, the man in gray silently crumpled to the ground. Almost immediately, the thundering magic waves against the foundation of the tower ceased.
“That’s a kill,” Sulbano hissed. “Dast…”
Armed men scattered around the dead mage, frantically scanning their surroundings. It wasn’t long before they began pointing up toward the sky, toward the top of the tower.
Detrius rolled over, smiling. Prone on his side, he again snaked his foot through the stirrup, again grabbed the sinew, and kicked out — locking the firing bolt into place. He then fitted another bolt onto the wooden frame rolled back over into position, and scanned the milling army below for new targets.
“Did you see that?” Kassim asked Sulbano, who simply nodded. They both leaned forward in time to see Detrius’ second bolt punch through a frantically gesturing commander, wearing the symbolic three crimson rings on the left sleeve. The bolt, hissing almost vertically straight down, damn near tore the poor bastard into two.
“Erlak…” Kassim whispered, moving to his left as Detrius rolled over and prepped the huge weapon in his hands for a third kill.
“You are death,” Sulbano whispered to Detrius. His eyes gleamed.
Below, enemy archers peppered the tower with arrows, but none of the hissing projectiles were reaching even halfway up the tower’s length. Sulbano chuckled as he watched their antics grow more frantic. By this time, Detrius had rolled back over into his firing position, scanning the masses. Hovering nearby, Kassim slapped him on the back. “A target! Below us!”
Detrius paused, then grunted. “Not a target.”
He gave the archer an incredulous look. “I see hundreds spilled out before us.”
Detrius, patient as ever, continued to shake his head no. “Need a meaningful target, comrade. Regular infantry is a waste of ammunition.”
“Oh Erlak…”
“You have better eyes than me. Help me scan.”
Grunting and nodding, Kassim studied the ground for suitable targets. Following several long moments, Kassim pointed.
“To your left, Detrius. Just up from the burning wagon, near the lip of the trench. Do you see—”?
Following his finger, Detrius grunted and grinned. Seconds later, the bolt was on its way. The distant target was punched through and thrown feet back.
“A weapon of the Gods,” Sulbano whispered.
But Kassim was looking westward. There was thunder from the edges of the city.
“Catapults,” Sulbano hissed. He could see the distant artillery pieces lobbing their heavy boulders into the sky, twinkling as the rotating bodies caught the light. They slowly, almost lazily, flew toward them. Most of them bled out their humped trajectories amidst courtyards, or atop roofs, or by barreling down muddy streets.
“Close…” Sulbano whispered.
They watched the tiny ant-like figures hurry over the catapults, preparing the heavy weapons for a new strike.
“Gauging our distance,” Detrius whispered. He threw the arbalest over his shoulder and grabbed for his quiver of bolts. “They won’t miss us again.”
“Time to go,” Sulbano agreed.
Kassim unlimbered his light bow and taking the lead, slinking over to the closed trap door and swinging it open with his foot.
There were more thundering grunts from the distant catapults.
“Clear,” he fingered silently to Sulbano. He then dropped down into the gloom.
A catapulted rock smashed into a nearby building, shearing off its entire northern wall. A second boulder sailed over their heads with a thundering hiss.
Sulbano drew his sword and jumped through, with Detrius shadowing his every move. He swung closed the wooden trap door as a half-dozen boulders — one by one by one — began to systematically disintegrate the roof they’d stood upon just moments before…
Interlude 3 The mighty Velga iced into a clogged vein, which told both invader and defender alike that winter was finally here. When snow began to spit lightly from the bruised clouds above, when icy winds howled out of the north and when bare flesh began to freeze to naked steel, that’s when most of the fighting inside Koldkgrad ground painfully to a halt.
While neither side wanted to cease fighting, Mother Nature simply made that decision for them. Both sides hunkered down to fortify their gains. In Smyt’s case, it was nearly the entire city. For the besieged Khentans, it was a few depressing pockets and one spotty river crossing.
But now a new weapon had suddenly reared its head above the scarred war zone, and a new kind of battle was soon raging.
It began during a storming of an old grain-holding tower. This lone counterattack, in fact, had been the largest seen from the Khentan army in more than two months. There, the Scythians had lost their only war mage to a sniper, using a foreign-made crossbow from the tower’s roof. Over the following week, more than fourteen commanders and lieutenants had fallen with bolts punched through their bodies. The defenders quickly reversed-engineered this new weapon, and more archers each day were crawling out with the dawn, weapons cradled in their arms. There, they used them to hunt. But they didn’t indiscriminately target and shoot any poor Scythian grunt with a blade. Instead, these trained men were lying in wait — sometimes for days on end — or hunting specific targets, usually high-ranking officers.
Suddenly, the Scythians had more to fear than just the long, cold winter…
The slaughter continued, until the Scythians grew smart. It first began as a rumor — nothing more than whispers among exhausted troops. But when the Khentan dead were collected and catalogued, they saw for themselves how heavy, steel bolts punched through the bodies. And when a popular second-in-command fell with a perfectly placed bolt through a left eye, they knew.
Days later, a Scythian prisoner tipped the scales. Tortured all night with heated chutes shoved beneath the fingernails, the man finally muttered aloud two words.
“Sorril Caerron.”
Only when an arm was severed and the other broken into eight places did the dying Scythian prisoner elaborate on those two spoken words.
Sorril Caerron was a sniper — “the best the world’s ever seen.” He was brought in from the Wild Lands, where sniping was an honored tradition — to hunt down the man who had started it all — Detrius Kurakam.
So now the Scythians had a sniper of their own somewhere out there, somewhere in the rubble.
Part 3 The pair — Detrius and Kassim — scampered out from the barracks, whose veined tunnels had been carved to the very edge of the Velga’s riverbanks. The sniper team made their way over small “mountains” of rubble, then descended below the city and slunk through the smelly sewers before reaching an intersection, climbing a wooden ladder back out into daylight.
Then, Detrius began to hunt. He could do something no other Khentan sniper could do — moving silently through the rubble, using the skills he’d developed while hunting for long years through the dark mold of the Elininski woods. It was inside those woods where Detrius had learned the hardships of nature, courage, the power of observation, as well as an overwhelming patience. This is why he could turn into a moss-covered stone, or morph quietly into a sheaf of wheat. It’s why he could pretend to be a sturdy stump, or the chimney of a burnt-down house.
It took the pair half the day to find the spot where Sulbano had been cut down. They carefully threaded their way to it, atop their padded boots. Both studied the dried bloodstain — tasting it. Smelling it. Detrius studied the trajectory of the kill and how Sulbano’s body had crumpled before the crypt crew came for him.
They knew the sniper’s nest was somewhere inside this courtyard. Silently and methodically, they found their own nest behind the remains of a crumbled, wooden shack. They settled there for a long game of cat and mouse.
The sun had bled off the latest snowfall, and yellowed grass rose in dirty clumps. They scanned the ruins in search of their quarry. Together they examined every detail of the landscape, remembering all the streets, ruined buildings, and demolished carts — all the thousands of places where a single man could hide himself. On a smaller scale, there was also a hunk of metal, a mound of caked mud, a shattered, wheeled infantry shield and other scattered odds and ends dimpling the ground in front of them. Occasionally, one of them would wave a helmet or glove, attempting to trick the enemy sniper into firing — and thus disclosing — his hidden position.
But the Caerron bastard didn’t bite the bait.
The sun fell and night rapidly descended. Still the duo did not budge. Sniping was as much a waiting game as it was skilled marksmanship. So they waited. One would catch a catnap while the other member kept watch, constantly scanning the horizon and the bits and pieces of rubble becoming familiar to them. When they got hungry, they ate beef jerky. When they got thirsty, they sipped from a leather pouch. When they had to shit, they dug holes into the hard ground with their daggers, then rolled over and did their thing; covering it before the enemy could smell the stale stench on the lazily-blowing winter wind.
The sun rose. A light snow soon fell. A small skirmish broke out inside the courtyard, when two armed probes unrepentantly clashed against one another. When the two sides quickly broke away, there were seventeen corpses littering the field.
But no enemy sniper.
No Sorril Caerron.
Finally, before dawn, something was seen moving off to the left, near a mound of rubble.
Kassim nudged Detrius with an elbow, but the master sniper was already focused on it, the sights of his arbalest moving with the unknown object in front of them.
“What is it?” Kassim hand gestured.
Detrius shrugged.
The object stopped, and then slowly lifted itself into the air. It was a Scythian war helmet.
Kassim jerked, as if shot with an arrow in the ass. He stayed silent, thank Dast, but he pounded Detrius roughly on the back, gesturing out across the light scattering of snow and drops of ice. His eyes were wide, his face eager.
He wanted the kill.
But Detrius hesitated, and then grinned. He eased his finger off the arbalest’s firing bolt. Kassim jerked again, his face clouded.
“A trick,” Detrius hand gestured to his Spotter. Frowning, Kassim stared at the helmet for several long, hard moments. The steel helmet dipped, and then came back up again. There was a slight bobble to it.
Kassim eventually nodded.
The helmet moved unevenly — unnaturally even. Most likely the sniper, or Spotter, was using a spear butt or sword blade to prop up the helmet. Besides, nobody in their sane mind — even an idiotic infantry soldier — would expose his head above cover for that long of time.
Unless…
“Tricky bastard,” Detrius whispered.
The sun was sinking like a leaking vessel. Another long day of patient waiting was passing into night — and exhaustion.
Whose nerves would be stronger?
Who would blink first?
“Get sleep,” Detrius fingered to Kassim, who nodded, silently adjusting his position beneath a pile of rubble so he could lay his head atop his hands. He was out in moments.
Rolling onto his side, he used his dagger to scrape out a small hole, then hefted out his penis and pissed a steady stream into the hole, making slight adjustments when the splashing stream made noise. He quickly covered up the smelly patch with a collection of moist dirt, snow and mud.
Done, he laid his cheek atop the smooth wood grains of the arbalest and willed himself to stay awake and alert. He listened to the distant sounds of another Scythian attack on the northern part of the city, and tried not to think about death or destruction.
It would be another long and exhausting night.
–/–
The day dawned cloudy and cold — as usual. As the light slowly increased minute by minute, the courtyard became more distinguished to various sets of probing human eyes.
The bastard was out there. Detrius knew it. Could feel it — even taste it. Right now, Sorril Caerron was cocooned inside his own carefully-selected hidey-hole — lying there, surrounded by little covered holes of piss and shit — and waiting for he or Kassim to make the first, and last, mistake.
But where was he? Just in the courtyard alone, there were hundreds of places a sniper could fold up inside. More importantly, had the bastard already pinpointed their location? Detrius’ forehead crawled when he thought about the sharp end of a black, heavy bolt focused on the thick of his face. Just one sound; one hesitation; one moment of distraction, and it would be over.
He eased his left hand from his weapon, picked up a strand of beef jerky and placed it carefully into his mouth — sucking and chewing it like a cow’s soggy cud. He tried to be economical with every movement he initiated — reaching out with his hand, for example, or grabbing something, or resting his numb hands atop the arbalest. Limiting the body’s various incursions was paramount. It really took training and discipline, no matter how easy it seemed to most commoners. And it was particularly important here, with a hunt underway.
A hunt.
A strange word to describe what was going on here. Several armed men lying in their own feces for days on end, without moving or firing their weapons. But it was a hunt, and far deadlier than the version he’d initiated time and time again throughout the forested hills of his home. But he had to keep his movements muted. Movement was the enemy, nearly as much as Sorril Caerron or the invading Scythians. Stupid, sudden movements could throw off a sniper’s careful aim. A thudding heartbeat could make his eyes jump. A sound could accidentally trigger his weapon prematurely. More than a stalking enemy, it was the human body that often got in the way of an arbalest’s accuracy.
Kassim stirred beside him — then immediately stilled. Even in sleep, Kassim was disciplined enough to smother sudden movements. Detrius, too, had long mastered this art. And the cloth shields they wore over their faces effectively smothered snores or belches or even mumblings of the mouth.
He scanned the courtyard. There were twenty-two mounds of rubble alone inside this cursed spat of land. A broken wagon — recipient of a direct catapult hit, most likely — lay scattered to his right. Beyond that was a nicely sized boulder. To his left lay the shattered remains of a stonewall. In front of him lay the rotting corpse of a Scythian warrior, sheathed in nearly full-sized plate armor, complete with a giant horse-mounted shield. All of these places could be hiding Sorril and his deadly black bolts. Or maybe none of them. Maybe Sorril was hiding in another location. Or perhaps he wasn’t even here. Perhaps they’d wasted three days in the mud and snow for nothing?
Detrius took a deep breath and exhaled the breath and its foggy cloud into the sleeve of his padded jerkin.
Patience. Patience. Patience.
He scanned the courtyard again. The piles of rubble were out of the question. Only the greenest sniper would wiggle his way into that, and risk an avalanche or sliding pile to give away his position.
No, Sorril had to be hiding beneath the wagon debris, or maybe deeply buried in the sand lining the boulder’s base. There were so-called “snake holes” scattered about the hole that could either be breathing tubes, or worse, the hiding place for an armed arbalest and an ugly, black bolt. Either way, both were ideal holes for a sniper.
He nudged Kassim awake. When he looked over to the sniper with blurry eyes, Detrius signaled for his Spotter to be ready.
“It’s time,” he finger-flashed.
Kassim took off his leather-skinned glove and, with minimal movement, slipped it onto his dagger. He then pushed the tip of the blade through the fabric of the middle finger.
Hunkered behind the arbalest, Detrius slowly nodded.
Kassim raised the glove above their position.
And all hell broke loose…
There was the grunting bang of an arbalest in action. A hissing sound, somewhere above their heads. The dagger and glove was ripped from Kassim’s hand — and sent spinning somewhere behind them. When it clattered noisily to a stop, both could see an ugly black bolt sticking up from the glove’s tattered palm.
Shaken, Kassim inspected his hand, though he instinctively knew it was unfazed. Nonetheless, he wiggled the fingers to push the sting out.
Detrius, meanwhile, was working to pinpoint Sorril’s position. By analyzing in his head the bolt’s direction, its general flight path and the fact that the bolt had punched through the front of the glove, he quickly discovered the bolt’s origin.
Not the rocks or rubble. Nor the crumbled wagon or tiny snake holes. It was the armored plate mail and dented, dusty shield — damn near lying in front of him.
“Find him?” Kassim fingered.
Detrius nodded. “Sword and shield,” he faintly whispered.
Kassim studied the courtyard. Nodded.
It was a wonderful spot. It had been innocently lying there for a long time now, just a discarded heap of dull armor and a rotting corpse, one among millions decaying throughout the devastated city. Sitting atop a stretch of scrubbed ground, the two snipers had grown accustomed to it; had even dismissed it as an adequate spot. But Detrius was now putting himself in the ground and behind the spot; the arbalest nestled into a tiny triangle of darkness created where the shield leaned heavily atop this steel mound. Where better for a sniper to lie than that?
Over his astonishment that Sorril had exposed his carefully prepared hidey-hole, seethed a deep-set rage that the bastard’s clever spot was just out-of-range of his own arbalest’s range.
He spent the next hour searching for a new spot, since he and Kassim’s hole had clearly been compromised. He doubted Sorril knew who he was. Doubted the bastard even knew who faced him here inside this opened courtyard. He hoped Sorril believed the mitten had been a fairly careless gesture from a passing Khentan scout or warrior on patrol.
But he couldn’t take that chance. Wouldn’t take that chance.
He would now have to find a new hiding place. More importantly, it would have to be a place where he would be within biting range of Sorril and his armored shell. A place where Detrius could first trick him — then spit him.
But the setting sun wasn’t cooperating in the search for a new hiding hole. Out in front of him now, its shining brilliance was made even more damning by the layer of snow.
In the end, he and Kassim were forced to wait yet another long night, in the mud and cold.
They began speaking in hand tongue.
“Where go?”
“Around south.”
“Broken wagon?”
“Boulder.”
“Boulder?”
“Sorril won’t expect it.”
“Why?”
“Tricks.”
“Can both fit?”
“Not both. Just me.”
“Just you?”
“Just me. You stay.”
“Why here?”
Here, Detrius grinned at his friend. “More tricks.”
By the time the moon peaked in the sky, Detrius was already halfway to the spider-holed boulder, methodically crawling on his stomach, as soundless as a snow hare.
He made it behind the rock, had burrowed into its icy depths, and had his loaded arbalest pointed toward the much closer hunk of armor when dawn split the sky. Both Khentan sniper and spotter were ready.
Just around noon, Kassim took a careful aim at the shield and fired. The bang of the discharging arbalest was echoed moments later by a shrill clang where the bolt thunked wetly against the shield.
It was planned, of course. Detrius hoped Sorril would still think he was still cowering behind his original sheltered spot, and would continue to focus his attention on that spot.
But there was no panicked movement, not that either of them expected there to be any.
Nothing happened. Not even when the shield sagged at an odd angle due to the violence of the bolt’s impact against it. It didn’t cover Sorril’s firing port, like Kassim hoped it might, but it lightly woke him up and set his ears ringing.
Instead, Sorril ignored the invitation.
It was hard for Detrius to scrutinize two places at once, but so far he’d succeeded. It was a matter of switching locations in second-spurts — scrutinizing Sorril’s spot ahead of them, and then glancing over at his old location, where Kassim lay. Then it was back to Sorril’s spot, before glancing to the first spot again.
For the last several minutes, he was barking under his breath for Kassim to raise the glove. It was a risk. He doubted Sorril would fall for the same trick twice, but it was worth the try.
He spied movement to his left, and saw Kassim’s helmet — just the barest tip of the top — peak above the destroyed wooden structure they’d cowered under for the past four days.
It ducked out of sight.
Detrius studied the armor and shield, zeroing in on the black space beneath.
The helm appeared again. Detrius could see it again out of the corner of his eye, nodding with approval. It didn’t look fake. Looked real, in fact, as if a fleshy head was propelling it.
There was a bang, followed by a blackish streak, and then a dull thud, and Detrius saw the helmet flying.
A fraction of a second later, a form behind the wood rose up and stumbled, and the air was filled with an agonized scream.
Kassim.
The scream sounded genuine. Exactly like something a man thumped through the head by a barbed steel rod might make. It rose in volume, than rapidly lost steam, trailing off to a whimpering croak.
Detrius hunkered down atop his weapon, waiting. Praying.
Please Dast! Please Dast! Please Dast!
Moments later, his prayers were rewarded. The ruse swiftly bore sweet fruit. Sorril Caerron lifted his head — a splash of crimson hair shifting up and through a gap in the scarred breastplate. He was peering out toward Kassim and his scream — hoping to confirm his kill.
Wait… wait… wait — Dast wait!
Sorril paused. More armor shifted about, a few pieces tumbling to the ground.
Wait… wait… wait!
Sorril looked up again, higher this time, his neck straining. He seemed to be sniffing the air.
Now… now… now!
Detrius stroked the arbalest’s trigger, and the same black bolt used to kill Sulbano was flung forward by the sinew string with a chest-rattling boom less than a second later to smacking wetly against the back of the sniper’s skull. There was a pop; a mist of red, and Sorril fell forward without a sound, bonelessly twitching in the rubble and mud.
Detrius slumped forward, exhausted. He fired off a string of prayers to Dast and Erlak.
“Detrius?”
The shouted voice floated over from the wooden structure. Detrius fired off a silent prayer to Dast, and then kissed the wooden arbalest with dry lips.
“Detrius?” Kassim called again, a bit more urgently than before.
“He’d dead,” Detrius called out.
He slowly raised his head and flashed Kassim a blood-smeared grin.
