by A. Anders
Staring at them all, I could have explained my reasoning, but what good would that do? I couldn’t avoid where this was headed. Frankly, I was feeling a little tense and needed to do a little shit-kicking.
I looked at Gray, not giving him an inch. “If you’re considering doing something about it, I suggest you do it now,” I said, feeling the blade’s cold handle under my fingertips.
Gray raised his gun and pointed it at me. I sized him up. I would have only one shot to do what needed to be done. The blade had to hit him in the larynx, immobilizing him at once, and I had to get it out of my hand before he could pull the trigger.
The only thing I had on him was the element of surprise. He didn’t know I had the knife, but that was about to change.
“Gray! Don’t!” Rose yelled.
Neither of us broke our stare.
“If you shoot him in cold blood, I’ll never look at you the same.”
Her words rattled him. Gray was still playing the game.
“Don’t you see? He’s trying to take over,” Gray shouted. “We voted. Everyone agreed.”
Maybe he heard how ridiculous he sounded, because after he said it, he flinched. In a moment, he would turn his eyes and that would be my window to attack.
I wrapped my fingers around the hilt of my blade. I squinted my eyes as the window opened. Subtly holding my breath, I steadied my aim. It was then that he flicked his eyes towards Rose.
“I can’t help it,” Rose said. “I wouldn’t be able to see you the same.”
With my hand still clutching the hilt, I realized that I hadn’t moved. Had her words affected me as well? Even knowing that she had been with Brad, did she still have the power to stop me from doing what needed to be done?
She did, and I wasn’t the only one affected. Again staring at me, Gray bounced his hand in indecision.
“Yeah, I don’t need to shoot you to take care of this,” Gray announced.
Still stone-faced, I smiled on the inside, knowing that he really did.
“It’s four against one,” he said. “And I think we need to teach you a little lesson.”
I snapped my icy stare around to scan the other men.
“I’m not involved with this. I’ll do whatever,” Thorin conceded. “I just want to get to the compound, so I can take the chips out.”
I next looked at Brad, wondering whose side he would choose today.
“Sorry,” he said, moving to a spot beside Gray.
I released a smile. I would have been disappointed if this stand-off had gone down any other way.
“Really? Only three of you?” I taunted. “And I thought this might be hard.”
I released the hilt of my blade and again thought about Rose. Didn’t she like watching guys fight over her? How would she feel watching me beat three guys at once?
I hated that that was where my mind went. But such is love.
Stepping forward, I planted my foot squarely into Gray’s chest. He bounced back five feet, landing hard on his ass. He never saw it coming. These guys had no idea who they were up against.
Without warning, Bob attacked from the right. He moved like a mixed martial arts fighter; his arms were up, his fingers loose, and his head down. He knew what he was doing, but so did I.
Shifting my weight, my foot caught his hip. It was meant to rattle him. I did it to give me time to take two steps and get clocked by Brad.
Here’s a little note if you ever find yourself in a situation like this one. When you enter a brawl, you should expect to get hit. Revel in it. Learn to love it. But use it.
Get yourself into a position, so that when you strike back… Well, let’s just say that I used the thought of him and Rose having sex as motivation.
I hit him, once, twice. With a third blow to the side of his head, Brad dropped. He was clearly not expecting to get hit. Brad fought like… well, like a botanist, actually.
I gotta say, I felt so much better as I stared at him wriggling on the ground. That’s all I had really needed. I could have ended it there, satisfied, if not for a problem; apparently, the others hadn’t realized that this fight was actually about Brad screwing Rose. It’s too bad that they didn’t, because if they had, they could have saved themselves a lot of pain.
Bob caught me in my kidney. It was a good punch. He was trained. I would have to respect that.
I stepped toward Bob and swung at him with a right hook. He dodged, moving left. I missed, but his eyes tightened as he moved. Split seconds, that’s what each move created.
He wouldn’t have the time to react. Knowing that, I continued spinning around. Springing off of my right leg, I hugged his rounded back with my left leg. With him confused, I shifted again, completing the leg lock. Throwing my weight under him, I made him roll forward like an eight-year-old gymnast.
In a second, I was over his face as he lay helpless on his back. I hit him pretty hard a couple of times. I wouldn’t recommend that with an eight-year-old, yet it sure would stop a tantrum.
Speaking of tantrums, there was someone I couldn’t forget about. I found him back on his feet, watching me with his mouth hanging open. He stood flat-footed in a partial boxer’s stance.
Nothing was protected. His chin was up. His guard was down. His feet were aligned and his groin was just right there. Can you guess where I aimed my attack?
As I dropped him, I had to wonder what the hell he was thinking. I hate to bring this up again, but didn’t any of them realize that I was the hero in this show? Hadn’t they seen any kung fu movie, ever?
Many things flashed through my mind as I stared down at the men. So many things had happened in the past few years. I had been running from so much.
Yes, perhaps I had forgotten who I was, and perhaps my lapse had led to deaths. I would have to figure out how to live with that. I was starting to realize that I would have to learn to live with a lot of things.
My thoughts immediately shifted when a wave of panic washed over me. I had seen something out of the corner of my eye. I was about to turn towards it when Rose screamed.
I looked at her. The motion robbed me of the seconds I would have needed to save everyone. So, finally seeing what was descending upon us, I knew I had to make a choice.
Hyenas hunted in packs. Their yelping could be mistaken for laughs, or if you didn’t know what you were listening for, nighttime predatory birds. I had missed so much, but I was awake now.
I immediately made my choice. Knowing that I could only save Rose, I sprinted over, drawing my knife. Placing myself between her and the two beasts headed for her, I thought of Bob. He hadn’t moved. My chest hurt as I realized what I had done.
The first beast launched at me teeth-first. It really was an ugly thing. I caught it across the face with the edge of my blade, but when you entered a brawl, you had to expect to get hit. The hyenas did.
Fending off the first one, I felt the second one sink its teeth into my right leg. The pain rippled through me like a bolt of electricity. It wasn’t intended to be just a bite; the animal was attempting to snap my bone.
The power in its jaw was shocking. I had never encountered one of them before. The only thing I knew about them was that a pack could bring down an elephant.
I moved quickly, catching the leg-biter hilt deep in the neck. I would have thought that it would pull away in response. It didn’t. It coughed up blood, using its convulsions to do as much damage as it could. Like I said, hyenas were brawlers. They expected to be hit.
As its partner died still clamped to my leg, the first hyena sprung at me again. It lunged at my other leg. Breaking flesh, it backed off whenever I took a swing. It knew that if you took out its legs, the elephant would fall.
The first kept attacking, never allowing me to get the second one off of me. The raspy rattle of its pant taunted me. I could feel myself about to panic, unsure of what to do, until I had a realization; these two animals had fought better against me than the three men had. I had to respect them. I couldn’t tre
at them like stupid beasts. I had to use tactics to beat them.
Changing my mindset, I quickly figured out what they were doing. Although the first hyena was lunging at me, we were at a standoff. Like I had, the lunging hyena was waiting for its opening. Turning my attention to the dying animal clamped onto my leg, I lifted my blade high. If the first hyena wanted an opening, I was going to give it one.
It worked. As soon as the window opened, the hyena jumped through. As it did, I drove the blade into it. The beast twisted its head in surprise. The blade missed the meat of its neck, instead slicing the beast under its jaw.
With it shaken, I lifted my knife and struck again. Like a cricket, it launched itself to my right, running away. Then finally with all I had, I threw my knife downwards, slicing into the dying animal’s mouth. Prying its teeth apart, I felt the dead beast slump and fall limp.
When I looked up again, it was just in time to see it start all over. Two more were charging us. How many waves would they send at us? My chest clenched watching them approach, when suddenly bang!
It was a gun shot. Every hyena froze, and like that, I had my window.
I grabbed Rose’s arm and pulled her as I moved. Looking up, I saw Brad. Spotted with blood, he held a smoking gun in his hand. Seated with an arm braced behind him, he was doing his best to aim.
When he fired again, I scanned the ground for Gray’s gun. I found it buried in the grass. I raced towards it to grab it, but not knowing if I had time to shoot it, I looked around.
What I saw in front of me made my face burn in terror. At least twenty of them were swarming towards us. Who knew how many more stood waiting beyond the tree line?
Brad fired again and like a flock of birds, the pack changed direction. It gave me the time I needed to retrieve Gray’s gun from the grass and fire. I shot at the one closest to me. I hit it, but it didn’t fall.
Their dozens of eyes were now focused on Brad and me. I looked around. Aiming, I fired at the one backing Thorin towards the cliff. It sprinted off.
Brad aimed at the one that snapped at Gray. It sprinted off. Finally, when I shot the one that refused to stop ripping at Bob’s lifeless flesh, the pack scattered.
I looked back at Rose, searching her body for blood.
“I’m fine,” she said still scared and out of breath.
I turned to the guys again. Brad was hurt, but he’d be fine. He was probably still shaken up from the blows I gave him. Gray rolled to his side and was probably catching his breath. Thorin had fallen to his knees and was crying in his hands.
Bob, however, looked bad. I moved to him, examining his wounds. A bit of blood dripped from his neck. My guess was that he had protected it in sacrifice of his legs because parts of his thighs were nothing but exposed meat.
“You’re gonna be alright,” I assured him. “Thorin, come here!”
Thorin came with tears still rolling down his cheeks. I tried not to judge him. Some people were built for situations like this one. Thorin was not one of them.
“Patch him up,” I ordered.
“With what?”
“Be creative!” I demanded.
My eyes shifted between the three fallen men. I examined their bloodied bodies, wondering how much of it I was responsible for. If I hadn’t been so damned quick to prove myself, they would have been able to protect themselves. Instead, they were grounded and half-conscious when the first hyena attacked.
I threw the gun down and roared in frustration. When I looked back at everyone, I realized that I had their attention. Staring back at them, I knew that I had to say the right thing.
“And this is why you don’t travel with your backs against a cliff!” I yelled.
It was a juvenile thing to say. After all, you can’t blame the kid if they don’t know how to read. You blame the adult who was supposed to teach them.
Still holding the butcher’s knife, I marched back to the hyena that died biting my leg. Standing over it, I kicked it onto its back. Getting onto my knees, I grabbed one of its hind legs and plunged the knife.
Sawing back and forth, I cut through bones and muscles forcing its release. As the limb fell into my hand, I looked at its face.
“You had my leg. Now I have yours.”
I stood up and turned around. Again, they were all staring at me. Okay, maybe I was acting a little crazy. Allowing them to get a better look at the leg, I explained myself.
“Dinner,” I said.
We hung around the area for about an hour longer. Then when Bob was strong enough to be more than dead weight on our shoulders, we took turns carrying him. Thorin and Brad were first, followed by Gray and myself. Rose offered to take a turn, but she was not a big woman and Bob was a big man.
By the end of the day, we hadn’t covered as much ground as I had hoped. Even beelining through the jungle, it would have taken us another two days with Bob on our shoulders.
Gray didn’t have to say what he was thinking. I could see it I his eyes. Brad and Thorin were probably thinking the same thing, but I had sworn to do everything I could to get everyone to the compound. I wasn’t about to leave Bob behind to die.
Finding a clearing, we settled in for the night. Smelling the soapy odor as the hyena thigh roasted, I wasn’t sure that it would be edible. It ended up being fine. It tasted tangy like all carnivores did.
“I like it,” Thorin offered, perhaps trying to get us talking. It didn’t work.
After another long silence, I was the next one to speak. I had been trying to find the right time. It was amazing how I could fall from a cliff face or fight off wild animals, yet being alone with Rose was what I was the most afraid of.
I swallowed hard and forced the words out as casually as I could. “Guys, I’m gonna take Rose for some alone time.”
“If you get it, then we do, too,” Gray said, lacking his previous conviction.
“Not this time,” I explained.
I stood, offering Rose my hand. She took it, and I wondered if she could feel my pounding heart through my palm. I hoped not.
Once we entered the woods and it was just the two of us, things became very simple. I was just a boy holding a girl’s hand while walking in the moonlight. All things considered, it was a nice night for a walk.
“Can we sit?” I asked, finding a spot where we could see the full moon through the canopy.
For a while, we lay there separately, staring at the sky, but when I lifted my arm, she accepted the invitation and snuggled in. She settled once she rested her head on my chest.
“I can hear your heartbeat,” she said.
I was sure that she could. It was beating hard, but as she caressed my chest with her fingertips, I couldn’t help but relax.
“I was in the military,” I finally said.
“I guessed you were. Why didn’t you want anyone to know?”
“There were things that I’m not proud of.”
“Did you kill anybody?” she asked casually.
“Yeah.”
The sounds of the jungle night filled the silence until I was ready to speak again.
“I had a fiancé. She was in the military too. She outranked me. Usually dating below your rank was against the rules, but I was in the Special Forces, which is its own branch of the military. It was a mobile infantry division. We ran the Tods.”
“What’s that?”
“The semi-itods?”
Rose looked up, still not sure.
“Semi-autonomous robots. They’re like the pawns here, but they’re bigger. They also have a lot more firepower… and you can make them explode.”
“So, what you’re saying is that they’re nothing like the pawns?” she teased, offering me a gentle smile.
I smiled back. “I guess not.”
I paused, allowing my mind to wonder.
“Jill had a brother.”
“Jill?”
“My fiancé. They were very close. She definitely loved him more than she loved me. I would tease her by telling her th
at, and she would say that she loved us equally in different ways. But it wasn’t even close.
“Jill didn’t want him in the military. But she couldn’t stop him. They came from a military family. He thought of it as his birthright.
“Josh made it into Special Forces. She was very proud of him. She pulled some strings and got him under my command. She told me to protect him with my life. And she wasn’t kidding.
“But once I met him, I could see why she was so protective of him. It wasn’t just because he was her brother.
“You ever met a person who was so purely good that you tried to be better around them just so you didn’t ruin their goodness? That was Josh. He was the type of man that people wanted to follow. He was the type of person who could make general or be president.
“But once Josh came under my command, Jill didn’t have to ask me to protect him. He was one of my men, and we were all brothers. I would have laid down my life for any of them. That what we were there for.
“Our platoon’s specialty was tribal areas in wartime hotspots. It’s what our Tods were wired for. The routine was that we would identify a suspicious building, the Tods would break down the doors, lay down gun fire, and then scan the room for combatants and explosives.
“If they were successful and any threat was neutralized, they gave us the all-clear, and the boots went in to mop up. If they couldn’t secure the area, then we could set the Tods to explode.
“Well, one day we got an assignment. It was a multi-room one story in a tribal town. Nothing unusual. A suspected bomber. No problem. We moved in with our mobile base, released the Tods, and waited.
“The visuals indicated that the rooms were empty, and no explosives were detected. That was the all-clear.
“Josh took point. Manny and Phil covered the flanks, and I had the rear. But as soon as I stepped in, I knew something didn’t feel right. I ordered a search. We scanned the rooms. Still nothing.
“The last thing I heard was someone yelling my name. It was Josh trying to get my attention. After that, I felt a force hurl me to the ground, and I knew a bomb had gone off.
“I couldn’t hear anything, just a high-pitched tone. And the air was nothing but dust, and you could smell that chemical smell from after an explosion.”