Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  She sat down and wrapped her arms around her shins, knees below her face. She seemed sad and depressed as she stared out, and finally spoke. “Thanks for talking to me last night. I was scared.”

  He smiled, “Any time, kid.”

  He let her enjoy what she could while his eyes roamed, scanning without focusing, searching for distant movement because he knew he would discern movement before form. It was a technique he’d learned so long ago, in another life, but there was nothing there. And finally he sniffed, rubbing sweat from his eyes.

  “Do you know karate?” she asked.

  Soloman laughed. “I pretend to.”

  “It looks like you do.” She paused. “I know kids at school who say they do, but I don’t think they really do. I think they just like to say that.” She stared seriously. “I’d like to learn karate one day. Would you teach me?”

  Soloman suppressed a smile. “Well, maybe when this is over I can show you a few things. It’s easy, really. You’ll probably pick it up in no time.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Pick it up in no time?”

  “Well, I probably didn’t pick it up as fast as you will. But then you’re a lot smarter than I was at your age.”

  She paused. “Really? ‘Cause I think you’re real smart. You don’t treat me like a kid. Not like everyone else. And Mommy says you’re smart. She says that we can trust you.”

  Soloman hesitated, searching for the proper answer. “Well, your mom’s a real good person, Amy.” Then he sensed the direction of everything and sought to change it. “But yeah, I’ll teach you some karate when this is over. If you start studying when you’re young, you’ll be a lot better than I am when you reach my old, decrepit age.”

  She smiled, and then it faded as she stared into his face. It was a disturbing moment for Soloman, and he blinked as his mind reached back. Then he looked away, searching the woods, concentrating. He had hoped that this wouldn’t happen but it had. And, in the moment, he felt something within him reaching out.

  “Why did you save me in the tunnel?” she asked. “I mean, why was it you and not somebody else?”

  A slow breath left Soloman.

  “I just happened to reach you first, Amy.”

  “My mom says it’s because it was just meant to be.”

  Wind carried the sounds of birds rising to the sun. Soloman wasn’t sure if he could still see the forest or not. “Well,” he replied more calmly than he believed possible, “like I said, your mother’s a smart woman. But you never really know about those things.”

  “I’m glad it was you.”

  Soloman laughed. “Well, it’s almost over. Pretty soon you’ll be able to go back home. Back to school and your friends”

  “Are you my friend?” she asked.

  Soloman was amazed at how the conversation kept getting out of hand. Every time he tried to put the lid on emotions, Amy effortlessly took it off again. “Yeah,” he nodded, surrendering. “We’re friends. I think you’re a great kid.”

  “Did you ever have kids?”

  Soloman was silent so long that he didn’t even realize time anymore. Then he looked out, settling forward. “Yeah, I had a child. She was about your age, and smart – like you. She was ... a good little girl.”

  Amy was silent a moment. “Did she die?”

  Soloman didn’t blink, at the same time knowing it was remarkable. He looked down and spoke in his gentlest tone. “What do you ask?”

  “Because you said ‘was.’” She leaned forward, alongside him. “You said she was my age. That made me think she died.”

  After a time, Soloman nodded. “Yeah, Amy. She died. She died ... in an accident.” And she seemed to know she’d approached something that hurt. Her voice had compassion.

  “Do you miss her?”

  Soloman smiled gently.

  “Every moment.”

  ***

  Making arrangements for the trip to New York, Soloman finished off a late breakfast and walked into the living room to find Maggie resting in a recliner, emotionally fatigued from the ordeal.

  Mother Superior Mary Francis and Amy were sitting knee to knee in the middle of the floor, playing a game that Soloman couldn’t identify. He stared a moment, an MP5 hanging loosely in his hand.

  The old nun was weaving a web of string before Amy’s mesmerized eyes, crossing finger over finger to build something complex and beautiful. And then after another moment she was finished, the loop crossed and recrossed to make an amazing architectural image.

  Amy laughed. “Is that Jacob’s Ladder?”

  “Yes!” the Mother Superior answered to Maggie’s grateful smile; the real mother was finally resting. Sister Mary Francis continued, “Do you think you can do it?”

  “No!” Amy shook her head. “I need to see it again!”

  Mary Francis smiled as she stretched out the string, almost two feet of it tied in a circle, and began to cross her fingers again. Then in a few moments she’d wielded it, explaining it step by step. When she finished she held Jacob’s Ladder and Soloman stared with fascination at what, indeed, resembled a long ladder.

  She handed the string to Amy. “Now you do it. I want you to show me.”

  “But I don’t think I can do it.”

  “None of us know what we can do until we try,” the old nun responded with a shade of severity. “Remember what you’ve learned, and go by it. Don’t be afraid of failing.”

  Soloman stared with a strange nervousness as Amy studied the string. Then she reached out and grasped it, folding fingers carefully through the loop, beginning. He saw Amy glance at Mary Francis again and again, her blue eyes searching, and he began to worry.

  Amy worked at it longer and longer, twisting the string only to fail. But she began again at the Mother Superior’s patient instruction. And finally she pulled her hands sharply apart and it was there, a twisting maze of a ladder. With a soft laugh Soloman stood away from the wall, toward the Loach.

  He didn’t turn his head, but he felt Amy’s smile.

  ***

  Ten hours later the Lear landed at Fort Bragg and Soloman was first off the jet, instructing Ben to obtain some decent food, if possible, for Amy and Maggie and Mary Francis. Then he was in a Humvee that delivered him to the Armory. He went hard through the door to see Chatwell waiting.

  “You got it, Sergeant?”

  “Yes sir!” Chatwell responded. “Got everything you asked for!”

  Instantly Soloman lifted a cut-down M79. The weapon, normally used as a grenade launcher, had been sawed off to sport a seven-inch barrel and pistol-grip to be, altogether, no more than eighteen inches long. A makeshift holster fashioned out of a canteen holder with the bottom cut out was beside it. Soloman saw a row of forty-millimeter buckshot rounds, twenty of them, already inserted in a bandolier.

  The buckshot rounds, fired from the cut-down weapon, had been one of the least-known and most lethal weapons ever utilized in the Vietnam conflict. It had been developed by Special Forces long-range reconnaissance teams that needed a weapon that could provide an instantly devastating response to ambush in thick foliage.

  Discharged at an unseen enemy in a point-blank firefight, the eight-inch barrel spread the buckshot round into a twenty-foot pattern within a distance of fifteen yards hurling two hundred double-ought rounds downrange at once. It could vaporize undergrowth, simultaneously kill a dozen men in close formation and be reloaded as quickly as a sawed-off shotgun. The only drawback was that it could fire only one round before reloading. But with that kind of impact, one round was usually enough.

  Soloman smiled. “Just like old times.”

  “And I got that other thing you asked for, sir.” Chatwell lowered his voice conspiratorially as he reached into a bag and removed a large handgun. Soloman took it and broke it open
. It was a Desert Eagle fifty-caliber automatic with a six-inch barrel and an overall length of ten inches. Ten fully loaded clips were beside it, each shell over an inch long.

  “I hand-loaded the brass with Winchester 296 grain bullets and fast-burning Hodgdon 1110.” Chatwell was openly pleased with his work. “Since that beast is gas-operated you need fast-burning powder or it won’t chamber. It’ll stovepipe on you. But with that Hodgdon you’ve got velocity of two thousand feet a second leaving the barrel and an impact of eighteen hundred pounds per square inch at twenty-five yards. I shot five hundred rounds through it yesterday, and it chambered like a champ, so it’s broke in real good.”

  “You did good, Sergeant.” Soloman clapped him on the shoulder. “You got the Loach rigged?”

  “Yes sir. You’ve got an M134 mini-gun on the port side, and I’ve set the electric drive at four thousand rounds a minute just like you said. It’s got one of the new T67 engines and an external fuel rack. Top speed is two-forty, range is two thousand nonstop. She’s already fueled and on the deck.”

  Soloman glanced up from reassembling the Desert Eagle and smiled. “Chatwell, if I had a hundred men like you we might have made the military worth something.”

  “Somebody should have, sir.”

  “Are the Apaches on standby?”

  “Yes, sir. Malo has got them at a covert site somewhere up north. He didn’t say where they were going.”

  “Okay.” Soloman loaded everything in a small duffle. “We’re airborne in an hour. Tell ‘em to heat up the Loach in forty minutes. Is there anything Malo told you to relay?”

  “No, sir.” Chatwell’s eyes gleamed. “He seemed in a hurry to get out there with that load of C-4. Said he had a hard tour before night. They was loaded down, sir. And I wish I coulda gone with ‘em.” He paused. “Colonel, you think that maybe I could—”

  “No, Sergeant.” Soloman looked up. “You’ve done your job and then some. And that leg of yours won’t hold up in the field. I’m sorry. You’re a good man, and there’s nobody I’d rather have beside me, but you’re not in shape for this tour.”

  Chatwell’s fists clenched.

  “Tell you what.” Soloman lifted his chin. “Howsabout I bring you one of Cain’s ears – a souvenir?”

  Chatwell’s grizzled face beamed.

  “That’d do just fine, sir.”

  ***

  Agitation, or vivid fear, was etched on the face of the attendant as she opened the rear door of the cockpit. She stood in silence a moment, staring, until the captain, an older man with trimly cut, white hair and a handsomely tanned face, turned.

  The expansive display of instruments on the panel of the 757 glowed impressively in an array of yellow and green, every needle steady as they cruised from Los Angeles to New York.

  “Yes, Vicki?” he asked.

  “There’s a ...” she began.

  Fell silent.

  The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Yes? Is there a problem, Vicki? Are you all right?”

  “There’s …” She faltered. “I think that there’s something on the plane, sir.”

  “Something?” he repeated with a bark of laughter. “You mean we have a stowaway? Somebody doesn’t have a boarding pass?”

  Her mouth tightened.

  Years of proficiency training had prepared the captain for almost any adverse dilemma, and he had already unbuckled his seat, rising with a glance at the console, ensuring course and altitude and speed. He placed a finger on the autopilot to ensure that it was locked and glanced at the co-pilot, who was following the conversation with interest.

  “Watch the console, Sam,” he said as he moved to the attendant.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain bent in front of the shorter flight attendant, speaking low. “What is it, Vicki?” His tone indicated there was no room on a flight for a panic attack of any kind.

  Remain calm. Always remain calm and go by procedure.

  “I sent Bennington below to see if he could find another meal for a first-class passenger,” she said, trembling. “And he ... he went down there. But when he came up . . . well, there was something wrong with him, sir. We’ve had to lay him down.”

  The captain turned to the co-pilot: “I’m going below.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He moved out the door and was in the attendant area within three minutes, where he saw Bennington, a male flight veteran of five years, lying on a makeshift cot. His eyes were wide and staring. Although attendants were speaking to him in soothing tones, he was uncommunicative.

  “Here.” The captain moved the rest aside to bend over him, shaking him lightly. “Bennington! What’s wrong with you, son?”

  No answer.

  “Bennington! What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”

  Vicki’s voice trembled. “Captain, he said something about an ... an animal in the cargo hold. He used the word . . . ‘monster.’”

  The captain frowned. “I see,” he said quietly. “Has anyone been below to investigate?”

  “No, sir.” The reply was quick. “We didn’t know what it could have been because we weren’t sure what was inventoried. But I think we have a lion down there that we’re transporting for the Bronx Zoo. We thought that maybe ... maybe it could have escaped from the cage, and maybe it’s loose in the cargo hold.”

  The captain glanced at the elevator.

  “Yes.” He paused and concentrated. “Ensure that the elevator is locked. I’ll check the manifest. And no one else goes below for the rest of the flight. We’ll let security deal with it when we land at Kennedy. Keep Bennington warm.” He moved to the cabin. “And make sure to advise me if there’s any change in his status.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  Deep in darkness, submerged in cold, he stared at the door that had just opened, the door where the man had stood. He should have remained silently submerged in shadow, he knew, but he could not resist the glorious expression of galactic rage that thundered from within.

  Now, though, he regretted the act because it might lead others here and then he would be forced to abort his plan of stealth. He would have to kill them all – so many of them – and he didn’t have time for that.

  Five days ...

  Five days—it was all he could remember about the incantation—until he must sacrifice the girl, opening the door that would allow him to recreate the full scope of his true glory. But fortunately, he also knew the place where it must be done; the Castle of Calistro. And he knew he must still obtain a Grimorium Verum for it would reveal the specific ritual, the ritual that could not be violated if he was to regain all that he had lost in this merging.

  Yes, the cosmic ritual was complex and could not be violated.

  And he could remember only one member of this continent’s High Council – Archette was his name – who must be found, so he might consummate his plan. But there were other High Councils, he sensed, unknown even to this one, and he had to find them, also.

  Then there were principalities and powers that served him in this world – empires already established that would eagerly deliver to him their wealth and influence as soon as they realized he had finally come. And he had to find their names, places.

  So he must follow the ritual specified in the book. He must use the spell contained in the Grimorium Verum to cross the void and regain what he had possessed before he assumed this base form of atoms. And for that, he knew, he needed the child. He could use no other flesh because she alone held the keys of this blood. Her blood was the life of his blood.

  Although he was strong, he was only flesh and not the same as these ... these sheep. For they possessed what he could never possess – a soul, something that had never been created within him. Yet he could still claim what he would claim. He could still forge this world into his throne by the power that was his
and his alone. It only required the knowledge that he had somehow lost in the chaotic merging.

  Yes, only the child remained. Then he would once again be what he had been – Lord of the Earth.

  He did not want this virus to destroy this world for he did not want a ravaged, ruined planet as his footstool. He did not want to inhabit a world as dead as a hated Gehenna, a graveyard of broken stones and bleached bones. No, he wanted the living to produce their living, for the more that were living, the more dead he could gather.

  The loss of the child pained him, rising in volcanic frustration that flamed to another dimension poisonous with stars that burned as black as those endless clouds of color had once burned, clouds that ran with blood from his righteous rebellion ...

  No, he snarled …

  Never again ...

  He stood, glaring down to examine the extent of his healing. Slowly, clenching his fists, he raised them before glowing red eyes, teeth bared in a bestial exultation of strength.

  Yes, he was perfect – as perfect as he had ever been. And then behind him there was the growl, as had so often been there during the flight.

  Without fear he turned, staring into the eyes of the lion.

  Caged, it regarded him with distended fangs and a shuddering, guttural, instinctive hate. Muscles, thick and coiling, bunched within the great shoulders and rolled along the flanks. Its hind legs tensed as if it would attack him through the bars, and he lowered taloned hands to his sides.

  “You think to challenge me?” He smiled. “Yes ... Of course you do. Because you are a creature of this hardened world that cannot even remember the glory of what I ruled.” The smile faded as he saw something. “You are nothing, beast. You are less than nothing. Not even your instincts can remember those that once trembled this world. You cannot remember the leviathans that rose above the crests of the cedars, or even your own ancestors ... who would have easily feasted on your bones.” With the words, he felt a savage thirst. “Yes, who would have feasted ... as I will.”

  The lion struck, and he lashed out to grab the clawed foreleg, hauling the beast into the bars, defying the animal strength that surged wildly against him.