by Mark Tufo
“Going by what I’ve seen so far, I imagine you just kissed his boo-boo.”
He gave me a look that, if vocalized, would have sounded something like, “You’ve survived this long how?”
“I can see you’re going to be a great patient. Anyway, I figured what the hell, he might as well go out with a smile. I jabbed him with a more human friendly-sized needle, and at first I thought I’d made a huge mistake. His skin turned a bright red, and instead of quietly slipping into the night, he started screaming bloody murder. Started swearing about my ‘whore of a mother’ bringing me into the world, and if not for her, he wouldn’t be in so much pain.”
“Shit.” I started scooting my ass away from Reaper.
“I couldn’t undo what I’d done. Felt bad about it.”
“Yeah, I can tell, seems like it’s eating you up inside.”
“His body was twisting so violently in differing positions that I thought he was going to start snapping bones. We restrained him and even debated about putting a bullet in his head to stop his suffering.”
“Humanitarian is what you are,” I told him.
“It was about an hour later when he calmed down. Actually started to improve. He shouldn’t have lived twenty minutes after that firefight, and yet three hours later, he was showing vast improvement and that was without any help from me.”
“Yeah, apparently.” I don’t know if he was just too wrapped up in his own story to hear me or if he was just ignoring my words. He just kept reciting.
“The next morning, he wasn’t completely healed, but he was definitely on the road to recovery. That was when I figured out what must be in the vials. The tough bastard probably should have died with how much I’d given him.”
“Probably wanted to live long enough to kick your ass for putting him through that.”
Reaper stopped and finally seemed to acknowledge my words. “You might be right.” He laughed.
“I’ll be honest, Reaper. I don’t remember going through any mind-numbing pain when they injected me.”
“That’s curious, I wonder if they changed something to make it more compatible for humans.” He held up the vial with his left hand. I don’t know how the hell he did it, but I felt the sting of the needle as his right hand stuck my thigh with the hypodermic.
“That doesn’t feel too…wait that’s really starting to burn!” My leg started to bounce around on its own volition.
“That happens sometimes,” Reaper said, sitting on my shin.
It felt as if a hive of wasps had been let go inside of my body and were traveling within me, stinging various areas in a desperate bid to get out of my body.
“What have you done to me?” I put my head back against the truck and clamped my eyes shut, tears of pain involuntarily finding fissures big enough to escape through.
“It’ll pass,” he said as if he were talking about a little gas. He lit up a cigarette, paying absolutely no attention to me, as I not so silently suffered through his ministrations.
“He’s trying to kill me,” I told Tracy when she came over to investigate.
“Gave him this,” Reaper said, handing the vial to my wife. “Helps speed up the healing process.”
“Yeah, by killing the host. Shoot him,” I told her. “Fuck, this hurts.”
He pulled out another syringe.
“No, man, no more! I swear I won’t light any more cop cars on fire!”
“Funny what extreme pain does to a person,” Reaper said. He plunged another needle into my leg. Within a few moments the rising surge of pain began to subside. My leg relaxed and he finally got off of it. “Feeling a little better?”
“Whoa, man, why is the world spinning?”
“Dilaudid,” he told Tracy, who told me later. I don’t think I could have remembered my own name at that point.
I asked him later why he hadn’t given me that first and then the shot.
“Never thought to do that,” was his reply.
I was out that day and most of the next two days, as a matter of fact. All was almost for naught when I awoke the morning of the third day to see a giant Devastator staring down at me. The screams that were pulled from my throat resembled something I am not altogether too proud of. Luckily, Chance was too engrossed in his Mute to take much notice, and I had no other audience except my shame, and that was sitting in the corner shaking its head at me.
“Sorry, sorry!” Chance was trying to calm me down. “The rest of the group went out on a scavenging and hunting run. They wanted me to watch you and I wanted to work on this so I wheeled your bed down here.”
My slamming heart began to calm as I started to realize where and what was going on.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked him. My bed was directly under the Mute; it appeared as if he were going to deliver me his own special brand of bedside manner.
“Want some water?”
“Yeah, water will be fine. Could you maybe wheel me a little away from your creation, Dr. Frankenstein?”
He smiled. “I can take care of that.” I drank a healthy amount of the cooling liquid.
“How long have they been gone?” I asked when I’d had my fill.
“Couple of hours, I think. Most of the day, maybe. What day is it?”
“You realize I just woke up, right? You’re supposed to be the responsible one in this relationship.” He’d already forgotten I was there.
Reaper had put an IV in me. I yanked it out, bled like a stuck pig for a couple of minutes before I could find some bandages to wrap around the opening. If I’d been a little smarter I would have found those first. I felt pretty good, my leg had a crazy itch, but other than that, the wound itself had closed and the scar looked like something I had obtained in my childhood, like from maybe falling off my bike.
“Not bad.” I was slowly bending and straightening my legs to see how much weight I could place on them without discomfort.
“We’re out there busting our ass looking for supplies and you’re doing Pilates?” BT dropped a heavy sack on the countertop.
“I like to stay in shape.”
“Good to see you up.”
“How’d it go?”
Tracy came in and gave me a kiss. “It went good, I need you to sit down,” she said.
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“Just do it, man. I had to listen to her the whole way back, if she doesn’t tell you soon I think she might explode.”
Tracy shot him a glance but I could see the excitement in her eyes. “You sitting?”
“You’re looking at me, woman.” I was sitting back down on my bed.
She reached into her backpack, I almost fell over when I saw the familiar colors of a box I’d known my whole childhood and had professed my adoring love for to anyone who would listen.
“Devil Dogs! Where the hell did you get these?” I stood up, not even acknowledging the twinge in my leg.
“Root cellar a few miles out of town.”
“I don’t know what you’re so excited about. The things expired over three years ago. Probably going to be hard, green, fungus nuggets when you open that thing,” BT said.
I’d already thanked Tracy, grabbed the box from her hands, tore through it and the cellophane packaging the delicious cakes came in, and had half of one shoved in my mouth. It couldn’t have tasted any better if I had grabbed one off the factory line.
“Besides the birth of my child, I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier in my life,” I said with my mouth full.
“Never? Not once? Ever?” Tracy asked.
“Um…well…” I was trying to swallow the chocolaty goodness down as I suddenly found my mouth and throat extremely dry. “Of course except for my wedding day, nothing is more special than that.”
“Can’t save the Titanic with a bailing bucket, my friend.” BT clasped my shoulder before he began to place the contents of his pack on the counter.
“Good to see you doing better.” Kaplan had come in.
“Your wife told me what your plans are.” I looked up to her to confirm this. She nodded. “We’d like to go with you.”
“Why?” I asked him suspiciously.
“There’s a lot of reasons, son, some selfish and some just to satisfy my curiosity.”
“That’s not really a reason.” I wiped my face. It’s hard to be taken seriously if you have chocolate on your face.
“Well, I guess I’d like to see you reunited with your son, for one. Then I would like to see this Indian Hill place.”
I turned to Tracy.
“I didn’t say anything. He already knew.”
Kaplan laughed. “It’s a secret I can assure you of that, but people have heard about it. Especially military folks like myself. I have a general idea of where it is located, but I think I’d get a bullet in my ass before I ever got inside, so now you’re my ticket. On top of that, kid, I have got to see you in action. I’ve heard story after story of your exploits, and given your size and demeanor, I’m having a hard time believing any of them.”
BT stopped from sorting out his canned food. “Listen here,” he said with a palpable force, “I don’t give a rat’s shit what you do and don’t believe. I’ve known this man a little over a month, and I’ve never met a more brave or loyal friend in my entire life. The stories you’ve heard do not even begin to scratch the surface of what he’s accomplished. So I suggest you apologize to my friend or you and your little stuffed buddy over there can go fuck yourselves. You two look like you’ll have a good old time.”
Kaplan, instead of getting angry, only laughed. “See, that is what I want to experience. Some say the fate of the Earth revolves around you, Michael Talbot, and I would much rather be a part of that than a distant spectator.”
“You maybe should have led with that,” I told him as I grabbed another Devil Dog.
“Want me to kill him?” BT asked.
“I think we’re good, BT, thank you, man. Okay, Kotter?”
“Kaplan.”
“One slight deserves another. I’ll accept your offer of help because my wife and I desperately want to get back to our son. Maybe I live long enough to prove myself in your eyes, but honestly, man, I don’t really give a shit. Whatever you heard may or may not be true. I’m not going to try and convince you one way or the other.”
“I knew I was going to like you. We’ll be ready to leave in a half an hour,” he said. “Chance, are you coming with us?”
“Of course not,” he answered without turning away from the Mute.
“Chance, you can’t stay here alone,” Tracy said after Kaplan left.
“Of course I can. I was alone before you guys got here, and this place is no more or less dangerous now than it was before. I would think that a military installation like Indian Hill might be among one of the most dangerous places on the planet to be.”
How could you argue with that logic? If the Progs ever got wind of the Hill’s existence, there would be little we could do to stop the incoming barrage.
I thanked Chance profusely for saving my life. Tracy kissed him on the cheek, which immediately garnered a reddening of his face and neck. BT gave him a hug that threatened to explode his innards throughout the household.
“I’ll be back for the alien,” Kaplan told him. “Reaper, Trunks, we ready?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Trunks told him.
“Car is topped off and ready to roll.”
“You have got to be shitting me,” I said when we got outside.
“I like to ride in the finest as I head off to battle,” Kaplan said.
“How many times have you taken a limo into combat?”
“Twice,” he answered without batting an eye.
I waved to Chance from the rear window as we pulled away. Trunks was driving, and I hoped he was a better sniper than driver. He kept turning around to add his own thoughts to our conversations. Even Kaplan must have noticed, because he eventually slid the privacy window up.
Night was beginning to descend. The rear of the limo was big, but not that big as we struggled to find positions comfortable enough to rest. Kaplan had gone up front to relieve Trunks, who moved to the passenger seat. From the vibrations on the privacy window he apparently was fast asleep and snoring loudly.
It was now Tracy, BT, Reaper, and me.
“How’s the leg?”
“Good. I wanted to thank you for that. And about the punching you in the head thing, I only meant it at the time.”
“Not a problem,” he laughed.
The next day when I awoke, we were underneath an overpass. It appeared I was the last to awaken.
“Where are we?” I asked Tracy, as I got out of the car and stretched.
Reaper had a small propane stove going and what looked like bacon frying in a pan.
“Tennessee,” she said. I could literally hear the lilt of excitement in her voice.
“Wow.”
“Don’t get too happy. I got some news that there are drones and shuttles up all over this region of the country. I think we’re going to have to go further south and then east,” Kap intoned.
“Where are you getting that information?” I asked.
“Shortwave radio. Got a friend who has access to radar, and radios what’s going on at specific times.”
“He has radar access to the entire country?” BT asked.
“There are some holes in his net, but yes, to a large majority. We just need to stay in his zones and we should be alright, even if it means we have to wait out some activity.”
It was agonizing, as we stayed under that overpass nearly three days. Even the usually upbeat Trunks was beginning to mope around. We stayed here for much longer and I was going to start walking. We all huddled around the radio waiting for our daily update. The news sounded more like a weather report, but it was easy enough to decipher.
“Southern skies are clear tonight. There will be heavy precipitation in the northern and western skies. Flurries up and down the East Coast, hail is expected in Texas.”
Heavy precipitation was shuttles, meaning troop activity. Flurries were the dreaded infrared-detecting drones and hail meant potential bombings. Something big was going down in Texas. Kaplan told me that the term hail was used when the Progs brought in heavy gunships, so someone was waging a battle in the Lone Star state. I silently sent a prayer their way; lord knew they were going to need it.
“You never know how big these windows of opportunity are going to be, we should get going.” Kaplan stood up.
There wasn’t a one of us who protested. I’d rather be on the road potentially getting into trouble rather than sitting under a damn bridge. I used to wonder at the saying, “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” As a kid I remember wondering, “Why wouldn’t you be thrilled your wish came true? Adults are strange.” That was my take on it back then, stupid kid.
The first shot was so violent that it tore the engine from the limo. I vaguely remember rising up from my seat, my upper torso pressed firmly against the roof of the car as we were sent skyward. BT had a death-grip on the armrest and an arm bar across Tracy’s chest, keeping her locked in position. Kaplan must have the gift of foresight because he had his seatbelt on. Reaper was rapidly getting ready to join me on our maiden voyage of the USS Limousine. We were canting to the side when I saw the smoldering husk of the engine lying in the middle of the road as we sailed past. I mean, it literally looked like someone had pulled a car engine and deposited it right there in the middle of the roadway like a median divider.
The car flipped, BT and Tracy were now staring down at Reaper and me. They might as well have been Super-Glued in place. Kaplan’s seatbelt was trying to saw him in two. Reaper grunted as my elbow ended up in his mid-section. Glass was shattering, and metal was crushing in on itself as we once a
gain found ourselves in movement, this time traveling down the roadway on the side of the car. We were a human sandwich—BT against the window, Tracy about in his lap, then Reaper and myself. I had the unenviable position of being able to see the roadway skidding by over BT’s shoulder. Sparks were showering past the opening, which had shattered during the first flip. BT was straining to keep our accumulated weight from pushing him down onto the streaking roadway where he would be worn away like a limestone cliff to an unrelenting sea.
The roof of the car hit up against the guardrail and we once again found ourselves on what was left of the wheels. We rolled to a stop, our minds struggling to come to terms with what had just happened. Funny thing—if such a thing existed right now—was that the only one with the seat belt on seemed to be in the worst shape; there was a heavy smack of blood on the side of his door where Kaplan had, at some point, smashed his head. He was out cold. Nobody said anything, nobody needed to, as we were scrambling to get out of the car. Whatever or whoever had shot at us was still out there. BT helped Tracy get out. She looked like she’d just downed three beers, which for her was a lot. She was about the only Marine I knew that didn’t drink much. Reaper and I helped a groggy Kaplan out.
“Come on, man,” BT was urging us from the other side of the guardrail where a small hill slid down into a drainage culvert.
“We gotta get Trunks,” Reaper said.
BT shook his head. “He’s dead.”
I unfortunately had already been going around to the front to get him when I saw that he’d almost been cut in half. Something had torn through his middle all the way to the spine, his upper half lying on the passenger seat while his lower half was still firmly seated in the driver’s seat, a snapped in half glistening red spine sticking up like an errant steering column. If I’d had a little more time, I would have been able to get righteously sick. That would have to wait until later.