Monsters

by Daniel Greenwell

  “Are you going to allow them to take you alive because I am not?”

  Jace nodded.

  “Death before dishonor,” Jace said.

  Mal wasn’t very hot on that whole saying.

  If I die, I can’t do anything about the problem in question, Mal thought.

  “We need to be careful here,” Jace said, “This could get real ugly, real quick if they send a large force for Dana.”

  “Yeah, that’s why we are going in the back door,” Mal said as he pulled up on the heavily congested driveway.

  Mal and Jace’s eyes met. There were no BANS vehicles in the driveway and they had not communicated to anyone at the Evansville branch that they were coming. Mal drove by slowly before doing a U-turn. Three men at the front door with AK rifles.

  “Sons,” Jace mouthed.

  “Well, they can’t move her,” Mal said, “Not yet.”

  Mal drove down the street and parked. Mal grabbed his XM-24 out of the back of the car as Mal got out of the car before he turned to Jace.

  “We are going in on the Lakeside,” Mal said, “I need you to park the car up the lake a bit then I am guessing they will have a guy on the lake. We will need to do the punt and have you meet me at the back.”

  “I will wait for the fair catch signal,” Jace said as she drove away.

  Mal swung his rifle to the side and approached the Lake’s mouth and entered the water.

  Okay Mal, you got this, you haven’t been in the water in eight years but you can handle this. All you have to do is swim close to the bank and hold your breath for about three minutes.

  Mal turned his rifle and pressed the amphibious button so all holes in the rifle would close, for his pistol it was a bit simpler. He grabbed a condom and pulled it down across the barrel, while wrapping a rubber band around it. Then he put his ear piece inside a ziploc bag in his pocket. Mal dived under the water and swam forward to the dock. The water was like an old friend that Mal hadn’t seen in years, welcoming but trying to figure each other out. Mal swam along the lake bed as he saw the guards shadow on the bottom of the lake. Mal raised his hands up on the opposite side of the lake from where Jace was positioned. This was the “Fair Catch signal” Jace took the shot and hit the guard square in the head. He fell over, directly into Mal’s hands. Cradling the man into the water, before putting a couple of rocks on top of him. Mal came out of the water slowly and peered around, luckily to find nothing of consequence. Mal pulled his Ziploc bag out and pulled his Ear-piece out and re-attached it to his radio.

  “Still got it, old man,” Jace whispered to him, “I was kind of worried that you wouldn’t be able to do that anymore.”

  “You weren’t the only one,” Mal said, “you got a flash bang?”

  Jace tossed one straight to Mal.

  “Always be prepared,” Jace chimed back Mal’s theory of war.

  Mal had seen in Jace, the same things other people saw in Mal when he was younger. She was special, she knew things that were going to happen in battle before they happened. She could sense an opponent’s moves before they made them. Mal wasn’t going to take a flash bang in the water and possibly get it rusted out.

  “Good stuff,” Mal said.

  “I kept my rifle but I have my pistol if you-” She said, as Mal scrunched his face.

  Jace always wanted to prove her value, in Malcolm’s estimation it was because how awful men in the military were towards her. Even more than Mal, Jace was one of a kind. A world class level warrior who would be excellent in close-quarters but: she’s once in a generation from distance.

  “Yeah, about that,” Mal said, “I need you to swing around to the other side of the road and cover us from one of the other houses.”

  Mal grabbed his rifle and took it out of Amphibious mode.

  “Good idea,” Jace said, “You know, you have fallen right back into your old groove in some ways but if someone really wants to be mad at you for not killing your own son: fuck those people.”

  “Don’t go soft on me now,” Mal said as he smirked at Jace. “Thanks for pinning him down by the way.”

  “Oh? Well, I didn’t have any family when I met you guys,” Jace said, “I was very close to your son.”

  Mal grabbed his hat from Jace’s hand and then looked at her quizzically.

  “Like, how close?”

  “We hung out,” Jace said, “Why do you ask?”

  “And did what?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Mal shrugged.

  “We were just friends asshole,” Jace said as she punched his arm, “he just told me things that he didn’t tell you. He told me about Quinn, that he thought he was dangerous. We should talk about this later, there’s a lot of them in there.”

  Mal walked up to the house from the Lake-side as Jace swung back around the other side of the house, the house was on a hill. This allowed her to swing around the bottom of the hill where the Sons wouldn’t be able to see her. Mal stuck to the basement floor of the house and walked with his back to the wall. Mal reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out his snake camera to look around the door. Two guys were there which meant that there was at least two guys inside.

  “I am laying down on the top floor of the house across the street,” Jace said into Mal’s ear, “I have the guy furthest from you scoped up.”

  Mal pulled his suppressed pistol from his leg holster and removed the condom.

  “You know that gun was made to be amphibious right? People haven’t had to do that since, Vietnam maybe?”

  “I am not a gunsmith but it’s also just a habit,” Mal said, “When I shoot: drop him.”

  Taking a knee Mal and putting the pistol grip in his left hand, he didn’t expose himself to the possibility of getting shot back.

  Wall. Body. Weapon,Mal recalled from his time in the Kill House.

  The Kill House is the Navy SEAL’s elite shooting training course, it’s basically three months of just learning how to effectively kill people and make sure they don’t kill you. Mal would take the younger SEALs in there to train them regularly not to make them better Killers but to make them better at protecting themselves. Help them learn when to shoot and when not to shoot. That was the most difficult lesson.

  Just breathe, Mal thought as he squeezed the trigger and the man’s head jolted to the side from a round from Mal’s suppressed Berretta struck him.

  The second guard turned as if he was going to shoot Mal. Expecting to see the Man’s head jolt to the side and fall dead, Mal turned his pistol to fire, then the slap of a Sniper round struck the head of the second guard.

  “Sorry,” Jace said, “I had a jam. Pretty weird actually, I had to eject it and re-rack.”

  This girl went through all of the Jamming protocols on a Sniper rifle, then ejected the round and re-racked a new one in less than two seconds, Mal thought.

  “And they say there’s no way Oswald shot JFK,” Mal said.

  Mal motioned to Jace to hold her position.

  “No, no, no, no,” She said, “I am not staying out here to wait for someone to roll up while you get to go inside and kill some bad guys.”

  “If we come back out here and are met by a set of twenty Reds troops, how are we going to get away?” Mal asked, “Because there’s no chance we make it out in that situation.”

  “Mal, there are three hostiles in the house,” Jace said, “there’s one over the staircase, one guy trying to weld through what looks like a wall and I am guessing someone behind him. The guy behind the welder is really big, Mal.”

  No back talk, that has to be a record.

  Walking in the open door, Mal sees the first man in the stairs. The clip of a bullet shot through as the bullet took the top half of the man’s skull at the stairwell, he had turned around right as Mal entered the doorway. He put his hands up and in an “Okay” signal and squatted next to the stairwell.

  “Solomon Grundy is on his way to you,” She said, “Want me to take him?”

  “N
o,” Mal said, “I am going to get some intel.”

  Mal put his pistol away, and in a moment of pure over-confidence, drew out his Kurambait, The curved blade was a favorite among the Kurds he served with in Syria and Afghanistan, the general of the Northern Alliance had given this to him for saving his men. Mal took a look down at the inscription on the blade.

  There are no easy days, Mal thought smiling at the literal translation of the SEALs motto of The only easy day was Yesterday.

  The thumping of the man’s feet was the first thing that Mal heard.

  “Keep cutting,” The giant yelled to the man with the welding torch downstairs, “I will take care of this.”

  Slipping inside the closet next to the stairwell, Mal had a good idea of how a Green Beret would clear this room. Mal figured this was going to be the large man from the video tape at Rickett’s house and he was intrigued.

  With that much muscle, my survival is dependent on being able to withstand the first set of blows, Mal thought as he stood and saw the man carrying his M-4 up and out to the living room, Damn he really is big. He’s so big that he makes that M-4 look like a toy,

  As the Green Beret passed by, Mal slipped out the door to the closet and stabbed the giant in the upper shoulder . Directly through the strap of his M-4, removing it. Mal wrapped his legs around him as the blood started to pour out of the man’s shoulder, pressing his legs out as Mal threw the M-4 out of the front door of the house. The man then reached back and grabbed Mal by his head, with one hand and pulled him off his shoulders. Mal flipped his feet around and landed in the middle of the doorway with one leg back and a knee down. The large man reached back and touched his shoulder, with the brick red blood all over his hands.

  “Well, your reputation is accurate,” The man said, “you are pretty impressive. You can call me Karl.”

  “I have a shot,” Jace said.

  Mal put his fist together behind his back, telling her not to take it.

  “Your son, he said that most of the stories weren’t exactly true but,” Karl said, “I am impressed. A Kurambait being used by a white guy, why aren’t you on our side?”

  Mal slipped his head to the side and looked at Karl.

  “I don’t think you have been in many fights, there usually isn’t all of this exposition. Also, I don’t even know what your side is called and I don’t fly with the whole ‘White Supremacy’ shit as you can tell by my Son’s stories about me.”

  I don’t want to tell these guys that my son is actually a Person of Color, just in case they are as crazy as I think they are, Mal thought.

  “We, are going to Make America Great Again.”

  Kind of done with the bullshit here, that’s more than I expected to get from this drone, Mal thought.

  I want to see his insides, see if he is superior as he thinks! The voice inside of Mal screamed

  Mal rolled forward and stabbed into Karl’s leg with his right hand, as a stiff right hand came down towards Mal’s face. Mal turned his left arm up to protect his head as the fist hit and pushed him back a few feet. Mal felt his shoulder slip out of socket and back into socket.

  Damn, hell of a punch, Mal thought.

  Mal looked up as Karl attempted to close the distance between the two by running straight at him like a linebacker running down a Running back. Mal sidestepped but not quite far enough as the large wingspan of Karl wrapped him up like wrestler and slammed him through a wall as they were back outside now, the plastic siding of the house and wooden structure shattered, as Karl slammed Mal into the ground.

  Fuck, that hurt, Mal thought as he got his breath back from the slam into the ground.

  Mal slammed his knife back into Karl’s shoulder as he popped up and yelped in pain. Mal took the opportunity to slip his leg around Karl’s head and wrap it across his shoulder, hooking it around Mal’s other leg and pulling down on his right arm. The triangle choke was Mal’s best offense on the ground and he started to apply the pressure on the carotid artery in Karl’s head. Mal started pulling down on Karl’s head, hoping that he can cut off the large man’s blood supply before the man could escape.

  “That’s a bad strategy Mal,” Jace said, “Look how big that guys neck muscles are.”

  Karl started standing up and pulled Mal with him before leaning Mal’s weight against the part of the wall that wasn’t tiny pieces now. Pulling his right arm back, Mal dropped his elbow down on the top of Karl’s head, then did it again,again and again until Mal saw the slick of blood dripping down into Karl’s eyes. Mal knew what the response would be to this and he was prepared to take it. Karl pulled him off the wall and slammed his body onto the ground, onto what would be his head if he wasn’t tucking his chin for the inevitable drop. Karl struggled back to his feet as Mal laid on the ground and stared up in the sky, trying to recover from what was effectively…a powerbomb. Karl stumbled back blinded by blood and ran in the opposite direction.

  “I have a shot,” Jace said, “but I am pretty sure you don’t want me to take it, do you? You slick motherfucker.”

  Mal put his thump up in the air.

  “Is it working?”

  While Mal was stabbing through Karl’s strap on his M-4, he had slipped a high-burst transmitter onto him that operated on a separate frequency from his radio, as long as he was in the continental US: that transmitter on his clothes would ping as they got closer to him.

  “I am tracking him,” Jace said.

  “Moving west,” Mal could hear from the radio on his hip.

  Big and strong but not very smart, seems familiar, Mal thought.

  Mal got back to a knee and stood up.

  “Good work old man,” Jace said as she cackled from the house across the street, Mal scrambled back to his feet.

  Mal grabbed his pistol and walked back into the house, setting down the stairs. Mal took a look at the man welding the blast door open on the safe room, they were never in any danger because that door was probably Five feet thick, it belonged in a nuclear fallout shelter: not a suburban house in Evansville, Indiana.

  “Hey asshole,” Mal said as he turned around and turned off the welding torch, then flipped up his mask.

  Two bullets entered and exited his skull at almost the exact same time.

  “Jace, A. That was my kill and B. Keep a close eye outside. Our new asset is going to call for help.”

  “It was a tie at best, Mal,” She said grabbing her rifle and walking to the other side of the house.

  Mal walked over to a panel in the wall, he had seen security systems like this overseas where the police could communicate with the person if they arrived. Mal picked up the phone.

  “Ms. Raynor, this is Malcolm Daniels, SEAL team 7 retired. I am here to get you to safety.”

  “What’s your DOD ID number?”

  This was a common challenge for those in the military to someone with a computer, with her connections to DARPPA, this wasn’t a surprise.

  “1454803988,” Mal said waiting for a response in the quiet.

  “What are your intentions with the weapon?”

  “Me? I want to destroy it,” Mal said.

  The door to the panic room opened slowly and Dana Raynor came out.

  “Good,” Dana said with her fourteen year old daughter in tow, “No one should have that kind of power.”

  “I concur,” Mal said, “but we need to get you to a safe spot. Immediately. Grab your daughter, shield her eyes and get upstairs.”

  Mal turned and followed them upstairs as he saw Jace jumped through a window, landing on her feet as bullets clashed outside as the familiar sound of sniper fire hitting the ground crashed outside of the house.

  “Can’t go out the back door,” Jace said, “I can’t hit him when I can’t get a zero on him, especially with the forest in the way.”

  “Got to go out the front door,” Mal said.

  “Miss Raynor and young lady,” Jace said jokingly like she was a carnival operator, “you will walk between the two of us. Dana you
will put your hands on Mal’s shoulders, young lady your hands will stay on your mom wherever you can. Mal’s going to be our point guy, if he says jump: you ask how high? Everything clear?”

  They both nodded.

  “I just don’t want to die,” Raynor’s daughter said.

  Mal bent over so he was her height.

  “What’s your name?” Mal asked.

  “Lisa,” she said, “My name is Lisa.”

  Lisa…of all the names this girl could have, she had to have my wife’s name.

  “Sarah, you can call me Mal, do you know how I got so old even though my job is incredibly dangerous?”

  She shook her head.

  “Because I am really good at my job,” Mal said, “I am one of the best to ever do my job and Jace here: she’s for sure the best at her job I have ever seen. She can do stuff that I didn’t even think was possible with a rifle.”

  Mal popped outside and kicked the dead bodies off the front door.

  The tricky part about this is the spacing between the three houses between us and the wall that will get us to the car, Mal thought.

  “Jace, we need to pop some smoke far enough up the tree line where we can use it for multiple houses,” Mal said handing the smoke grenade to the former Collegiate Softball player who earned an award for having a cannon for an arm.

  “I got this,” Jace said as she backed up into the driveway and let the smoke grenade loose.

  The grenade carried over the lake and into woods. Splashing the entire forest with smoke.

  “Nice throw,” Mal said walking back into the door, “Okay, I would cover her eyes and we need to move quickly.”

  They began to move down the road from the house with Mal in front, Mal could tell that the sniper would reposition after the smoke but more than likely, he would send in any ground assets they had locally. Mal saw the first to pop up and start running from the house directly in front of their car. Mal shot the first guy in the knee and the next one in the head. As they came up on the car Mal heard the buzz of a bullet flying by his head, so he fell over on top of the Dana and Lisa.

  “Everyone okay?” Mal asked as he climbed off the two of them they both nodded