by William Oday
This was the reality that would never arrive.
Mankind had turned down a dark alley and there were no more corners ahead holding the promise of a brighter future.
77
BETH stepped into the small room. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Clyde chittered in agitation.
A box framework of metal poles surrounded Jack’s six and a half foot frame. Restraints bound the ape to the poles at the ankles, knees, wrists, and elbows. Poles encircled his waist and chest, leaving no room to move. Two plates of metal came together around his neck. The plates had been raised so that his neck was stretched tight. A half-sphere of tightened screws surrounded and pinned his head in place.
A truss work of torture.
IV lines trailed out of his body in several places. Red fluid coursed through the tubes. Beth didn’t know the details, but clearly his blood had something to do with the cure.
That’s why Anton wanted all the Bili chimps. He was harvesting them for the serum.
Jack blinked and hooted. He jerked against the restraints but they held him fast.
Disgust, pity, and rage filled Beth’s heart.
Jack had never liked her. He’d even tried to kill her. Worse, he’d played a part in Jane’s death. That said, he didn’t deserve such torture, such cruelty. And Beth wasn’t the type to sit by while an animal suffered.
Clyde climbed down and ran over to his father. They’d never met after the birth, but the little chimp seemed to sense the connection. He scrambled up the bars and sat on the plate stretching Jack’s neck. He chittered and hooted, stroking his father’s face.
Jack licked him and softly hooted in return. They knew the truth about each other. Beth saw it clear as day. Anyone would have.
She set about unbuckling the restraints, unscrewing the poles and screws, and pulling out the IV needles. He held still, seemingly understanding that she was trying to help. She got the last arm free and stepped back.
Jack stepped out of the hideous box framework with Clyde in his arms. He held the little chimp at arm’s length turning him over and over examining every square inch.
Hanging upside down, Clyde screeched his discomfort and Jack quickly flipped him right side up.
A terrible and familiar shriek seized their attention. Another answered it and many more joined in the chorus.
Deltas in pursuit of prey.
The noise wasn’t necessarily close, but it wasn’t far away either.
It was time to go.
Beth tentatively reached for Jack’s hand. Part of her mind screamed to run away. This ape was far larger, stronger, and faster than she was. And he had already tried to kill her once.
Was she crazy?
Her fingers slipped into his hand. He trembled at her touch, but made no aggressive moves.
“Jack, we have to leave,” she said hoping the tone of her voice would convey as much as the words. “Those things are dangerous. We can’t let them catch us.”
He stared at her while Clyde chewed on his chin.
“We have to keep the baby safe,” she said.
She gingerly pulled his hand and he followed. They walked hand in hand into the larger Immunology lab and Jack spotted the display cases filled with his dead and preserved family.
He dropped Beth’s hand and dashed directly to the cylinder holding Jane. He tapped the glass but she, of course, didn’t respond. He moaned softly while trying to touch her fingers through the thick glass. He turned Clyde around and held him up to the glass.
Beth walked over and softly touched the glass. She’d raised Jane from an infant. The Bili chimp was as much a daughter as Theresa. “I’m so sorry,” she said as a tear slid down her cheek. “I didn’t know. I swear.”
Jack turned to Beth and tilted his head. He curled a thick, black finger and scooped the tear from her cheek.
The shrieking deltas echoed through again.
“Follow me!” Beth said. She hurried back to Theresa in the wheelchair and led them out of the room and began tracing her way back to the main entrance of the basement laboratory.
The echoes of the deltas seemed to be getting louder and closer, but their luck held and they didn’t run into any as they went.
Luck could be a fickle mistress.
Beth swiped them through the final glass door and saw no sign of Iridia or the knocked-out guard. That wasn’t a good sign.
She hurried to the elevators thinking that maybe, just maybe, they were going to make it.
And that’s when their luck changed.
Several deltas rounded a corner and stopped in their tracks some twenty feet away. They howled and shrieked but didn’t come closer.
Jack jumped to the front and roared, beating his chest with one hand while holding Clyde in the other.
The deltas melted back, clearly aware of the alpha in their presence. Clearly aware of the damage he could do.
Beth smacked the elevator button and looked up at the digital display above the door.
73
It slowly began ticking down. It had a long way to go to get to the basement.
Come on.
Come on!
More deltas began arriving behind the first few. Their numbers began to swell.
Beth checked the elevator’s progress.
48
As more piled in behind the first few, the group grew more aggressive. They crept closer, growling and swiping the air at Jack. Testing his resolve to defy their superior numbers.
Jack brought Clyde to his face and touched their foreheads together. Their eyes blinked in unison. He turned and passed his son to Beth. Clyde climbed up and settled around Beth’s neck. Jack extended a finger and touched Clyde’s chin.
He then turned back to the deltas. He opened his mouth wide revealing huge canine teeth. Four sharp daggers. Each several inches long. He roared and leaped ten feet through the air crashing into the mass of bodies.
His teeth sliced through flesh. His hands and feet tore limbs from bodies. He snapped through bones like toothpicks. The first few fell like wheat to the scythe. But there were too many.
The elevator dinged and opened.
Beth swiped the card.
As the doors closed, Jack disappeared under a blanket of bodies clawing and tearing at him.
Beth wanted to scream. She wanted to hurt something. Or someone. Someone in particular.
Anton Reshenko.
A darkness in her heart longed to kill the man that had caused so much suffering to so many.
78
November 2004
Fallujah, Iraq
MASON limped along with Miro’s help. They did their best to move from cover to cover. A pile of rubble here. The burned out entryway of a building there. Every move through open space filled with tension, waiting for the first bullet to snap by. The one that would signal the start of the ambush. The ambush that would undoubtedly end their escape.
They didn’t have to wait long.
They’d made it a block and a half south from where the IED had taken out Ramirez and the Humvee. He was beginning to think maybe, just maybe, they’d get down to Phase Line Fran without running into further contact.
Yeah, right.
The first bullet pinged off the pavement inches from Mason’s right foot. A tiny cloud of dust poofed up. The first round didn’t come to the dance alone. Gunfire echoed down the narrow street as multiple assailants hidden in windows fired on them.
Mason sprinted for the nearest doorway. It was dark inside and he had no idea if he might be running right into a nest of bad guys. But in this case, the unknown was better than the known because the known was them getting shot to pieces.
He flew through the doorway as bullets pinged the face of the building. They entered a dark hallway of what appeared to be an apartment building. Closed doors lined the hall on both sides. Night had descended on the city outside and the unlit interior offered even less visibility. Exactly the right situation for NVGs. Thank Uncle Sam for te
chnology.
He dropped the goggles over his eyes and powered them on. Tried to power them on. No luck.
“Miro,” he whispered, “try your NVGs. Mine are dead.”
“Already did. Same here.”
“Wonderful.”
Miro tapped his shoulder to let Mason know he was ready to move. “Unflappable optimism. That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Sarge.”
“That’s me,” Mason said as he flicked on the Surefire flashlight attached to his rifle. Two narrow beams of light pierced the length of the corridor. They moved down the hall as fast as they could, waiting for a door to open and an AK to unload on them.
He tried not to think about how exposed they were. How stranded and outnumbered. Thinking about things too much in a life or death situation wasn’t always an advantage. The clarity could paralyze you.
They got to the end and found a back door that exited to an alley. Mason chose left, hoping to continue south toward their intended destination. Gunfire echoed through the alley. From where exactly was impossible to tell.
The alley curved to the right and came to an intersection. Mason knelt at the corner and caught his breath. Tried to, at least.
More gunfire echoed down the alley. This time louder, closer.
“Move out!” Mason whispered. They dashed across the tight intersection and into the alley on the far side just as tracer rounds zipped behind their heads. A torrent of fire ripped through the intersection.
“Almawt la’amrika!”
“Sa’aqtalk!”
Numerous voices shouted threats and promises from around the corner. The volume of voices and volume of fire indicated a large enemy force. A dozen or more men. Not the kind of odds Mason wanted to face in their current condition.
They followed the alley curving to the left, skipping the first couple of doors they passed. They entered the third one and plunged into darkness. The voices of their pursuers grew louder. Mason tried a closed door on the right and found it unlocked. He and Miro spilled through it and came face to face with a middle-aged bearded man holding a child in his arms.
The child appeared to be a year old or so. A beautiful little girl with large, dark eyes. She reminded Mason of his own daughter back home. Not that they looked much alike. It was just the age. The innocence. Theresa was now four-years-old but she still retained some of the round features of her younger self. The girl stared at Mason with a curiosity that only a child could have in that situation.
The man turned to shield the baby with his body. “Please, no hurt,” he said over and over in heavily accented, broken English.
“Quiet!” Mason whisper-shouted as he locked the door.
“No hurt! Please!” the man continued on babbling in terror.
Mason closed the door and took up a position beside it. “Shut him up!”
Miro marched over and cupped a large hand over the smaller man’s mouth. “Shhh!”
The muffled words stopped.
“Sit,” Miro said in his ear as he grabbed the man’s shoulder and shoved him down onto a couch covered with a wild assortment of cushions.
“I do. No hurt!”
Miro grabbed his mouth again. “Quiet.”
The man finally got the message and stopped talking. He hugged the little girl to his chest.
Mason watched him to make sure he wasn’t going to pull a gun or start yakking again. Instead, the man glanced nervously at a doorway to his left. Mason flashed his light in that direction and saw a sink and five gallon water bottles in the next room. The kitchen.
He tried to remember the rudimentary Arabic they’d been taught back at Camp Fallujah while working up to the assault. He wasn’t exactly the tower of Babel with languages, but he knew enough for rudimentary communication.
“Shakhs akhr?”
He was pretty sure that meant “Someone else?”
The man quickly shook his head. “No. No. No.” He continued shaking it.
Too quickly.
“Miro, check it out,” he said as he pointed to the kitchen.
Miro nodded and sliced the pie into the room. He entered and reemerged a moment later with a woman struggling and shouting at them both. Miro wrapped a hand over her mouth and pinned her to his chest. Her muffled screams dipped and rose in volume as her wild movements intermittently broke the seal over her mouth.
She was going to get them all killed if she didn’t shut up.
She bit down on Miro’s hand and he yelped with pain. She slipped free and cowered on the couch next to her husband. Miro raised his clenched hand to crack the woman a good one.
“No!” Mason shouted as he stumbled over to intervene. They weren’t here to beat up on innocent people. But they did need to keep her quiet. He slapped a hand over her mouth and put his mouth next to her ear.
“Nahn In yadurr bik,” Mason said. It was as close to “We won’t hurt you” as he knew how to say.
She seemed to finally get the message as her piercing wail quieted to a sobbing murmur.
A hard pounding at the door made Mason jump. He whirled around with his rifle ready to go.
“Aftah!” a harsh voice yelled from outside. “Aftah albab!”
79
The man outside pounded on the door again. Someone yelled from farther away and the man gave a gruff reply. His footsteps receded. Perhaps they’d decided the door was locked and their quarry must’ve gone elsewhere.
The voices faded and it sounded like the search had moved on down the alley.
That’s when the little girl shrieked. Whatever curiosity she had minutes ago had finally settled on the side of fear. Now committed, she wailed and sobbed like an alarm bell going off.
Mason turned to quiet her when bullets blew holes through the middle panel of the door. The bullets peppered the wall next to the couch. He stepped back and dropped to a knee ready to fill whoever entered full of holes. Miro dove into the kitchen and rolled into cover behind the wall.
The husband pulled his wife to the floor while still holding his daughter in one arm. The child curled into his chest bawling like a banshee.
No use in trying to quiet her now.
Men gathered outside the door. They spoke in harsh, clipped tones. Mason didn’t catch the words but he understood them well enough anyway.
The Americans are inside. Good. Let’s kill them.
That was the conversation, or near enough.
The wife screamed and clutched her chest. She struggled to her feet while her husband tried to hold her down. She shook him free and yelled something Mason didn’t catch before dashing into the kitchen.
“What the hell are you doing?” Miro shouted. “Get down!”
Mason ran into the kitchen and saw the woman digging through a deep drawer on the far side.
Miro had his sidearm drawn and pointed at her. “I said get on the ground!”
“Lower your weapon, Corporal Pike!” Mason shouted.
He didn’t. “She’s digging for a weapon! Get on the ground or I will shoot you!”
More gunfire blasted through the front door from the hallway. The muj knew they had the right door now. The husband shouted something. The wife frantically shoveled through the drawer. She latched onto something and whirled around with something black in her hand.
BANG. BANG.
Smoke wafted from the muzzle of Miro’s M9.
The woman collapsed with two holes in her chest. The black thing in her hands tumbled to the ground.
“Goddammit, Corporal!” Mason said as he wrenched the pistol out of Miro’s hand.
The husband appeared around the corner. He stared at his wife and then at Mason holding the smoking gun.
“Nalasif! Nalasif! No!”
He sobbed and screamed at the same time. He rushed to his wife’s side and set the girl on the floor next to her. The girl dipped a finger in the blood pooling beside her mother.
The enraged man picked up the thing she’d dropped and showed it to them while screaming wildly.
A small black, zipped bag.
He yanked open the zipper and pulled out a bottle of prescription medication.
“Heart! Heart!” he shouted. He lunged forward and began beating on Mason’s chest armor.
Miro had just killed a woman for trying to get her medication. But Mason couldn’t blame him, no matter how messed up the situation was because they’d both heard countless accounts of Marines that had been killed by someone who claimed to be an innocent civilian.
Nothing made sense in Fallujah. That was all there was to it.
The husband climbed Mason like a tree as he beat his fists and clawed at him.
The shock kept Mason from responding. Or maybe it was the horror. He blocked the ineffectual swings with one arm while his mind reeled. The horror of busting into this man’s life and killing his wife a few minutes later. And all the while claiming to be the good guys and being there to help the very people whose lives they had just destroyed.
Mason shoved the man aside and stooped to check on his wife. She was dead.
The report of AK-47s turning the front door into toothpicks went quiet and the voices of their pursuers came through loud and clear.
“Sarge, we have to get outta here!”
Miro pulled him to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” Mason said to the raving husband. “I’m so sorry.”
The daughter’s hands were covered with her mother’s blood. She’d streaked it across her own face. She grabbed a golden pendant hanging from her mother’s neck. It looked like a bird symbol of some kind. She sobbed while pulling on the pendant as if that might make her mother wake up.
The husband lunged forward and wrapped his hands around Mason’s throat. His nails dug furrows into Mason’s skin.
Mason’s black revery snapped. He slammed a fist into the man’s stomach, doubling him over. The clenched fingers hooked on the chain of his dog tags and it snapped as the man fell away.
Mason’s dog tags slipped out and fell to the floor as Miro dragged him toward the open doorway at the back of the kitchen. Their flashlights bobbed and weaved as they sprinted through a plain back room with only a bed and another door. They smashed through that door and entered a small open air courtyard.