Tumultus

by D. W. Ulsterman

  Imran was about to comment again, but Mac cut him off.

  “Let’s do it. Get as many of us on that front bumper as we can. Bear, you just let us know when you’re ready. Imran, you wait for Bear to tell you when, and take it slow. We want these tires spinning as little as possible.”

  Imran was shaking his head as he returned to the driver’s seat. Mac and the others walked to the front of the transport truck and looked at the front bumper. Made entirely of steel and nearly a foot wide, it provided more than enough room and stability for several people to safely stand on top of it. Mac was already lifting himself onto the bumper.

  “We can get four of us shoulder to shoulder on this thing, Reese, Cooper, Dublin and me. I want Reese and Coop on the outside. You’re heavier than Dublin and me and we want the most weight around those front tires.”

  The four of them positioned themselves on the top of the truck bumper as Mac had instructed. Reese was on the far left side, Cooper was on the far right, and Dublin and Mac stood in the middle. Mac called out to Bear.

  “Ready up here, Bear – your turn now!”

  Bear stood glowering at the back right corner of the truck bed. Taking very slow, deep breaths, he found himself without thinking of it, reverting to an old weight training routine from his NFL playing days that helped him to fully focus on moving as much weight as his body was capable of. His mind repeated a mantra he had not used in many years – one his father had taught him when Bear was an up and coming high school football star.

  See it. Believe it. Achieve it.

  Bear kept repeating the words in his head as he grasped the corner of the truck bed with both of his hands, bending his knees and digging his boots into the ice and snow to provide as wide and stable a base as possible.

  See it. Believe it. Achieve it.

  It was his father’s voice that spoke the words to Bear at that moment, not his own. The man who had pushed his son to use the physical talents God had blessed him with so that he might achieve to the best of his abilities both on and off the football field. Those were better days between father and son – before the madness of the New United Nations and the eventual killing of his dad and thousands of others by the drone bombings in Texas many years ago.

  See it. Believe it. Achieve it.

  Bear’s jaw clenched down and he tightened his grip on the corner of the truck bed, bending his knees even further. The faces of his wife and two children flashed in his mind, followed by the face of his mother, and again, the voice of his father.

  See it. Believe it. Achieve it.

  Imran placed the truck in gear, waiting to hear Bear’s signal. Mac and the others were peering through the windshield from the front of the truck, barely able to see Bear’s head and shoulders as he continued to prepare himself. Cooper whispered to Mac.

  “You really think he’s strong enough to do this?”

  Keeping his gaze on Bear, and fighting the urge to cough, Mac replied to Cooper.

  “If it can be done, that man there will do it, or rip his arms from his body trying.”

  Dublin was even more direct in her faith regarding Bear’s determination.

  “He’ll do it.”

  Bear dug his boots into the icy ground below his feet one last time, re-gripped the truck bed, and pulled upward. His eyes were shut tight as his lips pulled back from tightly clenched teeth. He let out a low growl as his body strained against the weight of the truck bed. Imran let out the clutch and gently tapped the accelerator. The truck inched forward slightly as the right rear wheel Bear stood next to began to spin within the ice it was buried in, causing more chunks to be broken off under the tire’s motion.

  Sensing the truck was about to settle backwards again, the veins in Bear’s neck and forehead popped out with such force it appeared they would rip through his skin as the big man redoubled his effort to lift the back corner of the vehicle. The muscles in his back and shoulders felt as if they were tearing apart as he let out a scream and for a brief few seconds, Bear feared he was going to pass out. Inhaling as much air as he could, and letting out another scream, Bear pulled upward even further, his legs shaking violently as the truck bed noticeably lifted a few inches.

  See it! Believe it! Achieve it!

  The large tread of the front tires dug into the ice and the vehicle lurched forward several feet. Bear let go of the truck bed, his body hunched over with his hands on his knees to keep himself from falling over. Imran cheered excitedly from the vehicle’s cabin as Dublin looked over at Cooper Wyse with a small smile on her face.

  “Told you.”

  And then Bear disappeared…

  XIX.

  Brando leaped from the truck bed and landed next to the spot Bear had been standing. The Doberman’s head and shoulders disappeared into the ice and then re-emerged as the dog’s four clawed paws frantically dug into the ice attempting to pull itself backward. Reese was the first to reach the dog and grab onto the same coat sleeve that Brando now had firmly clutched between his powerful jaws. Within seconds Cooper and Dublin were also next to Reese and Brando, pulling up on Bear’s arm as well.

  The river’s current below the ice was incredibly strong, grabbing at Bear’s legs, wanting to pull him completely under. Bear knew if those above the ice let go of him, he would be dead, trapped and buried beneath the ice and carried off to whatever larger body of water the river eventually emptied into. Having expended so much energy lifting the truck bed, Bear actually considered simply letting himself go. He was so tired. Used up. And the water, though incredibly cold, offered some strange comfort to him. It would be so easy to simply close his eyes and quite literally…drift away.

  A sharp pain in his left wrist cut through Bear’s quickly receding consciousness, like a life line pulling him back from the beckoning darkness below the ice. He could hear voices shouting from what seemed like a vast distance away, but his mind was telling him they were just above his head and that if he was to see his wife and children again, it was time to once again gather his considerable strength and fight.

  Cooper and Reese were able to each grab a part of Bear’s coat collar and pull his head above the near-freezing water that was rushing past him as Brando continued to keep hold of Bear’s wrist. Mac leaned down and attempted to place a loop of rope under each of Bear’s arms, but the distance was too far.

  “Got to pull him up a little more! Pull goddammit!”

  Reese and Cooper strained to keep hold of Bear’s coat as they yanked upward. It was just enough for Mac to secure the rope around Bear’s chest. Mac noted the big man was barely moving, his skin was an odd grey-blue, and the pupils of his half-open eyes appeared to be nearly fully dilated. Mac had seen enough of human death to know Bear was quickly nearing a threshold he may never come back from.

  Imran and Dublin both grabbed the rope Mac had just secured around Bear’s body and began pulling. Mac, his lungs whistling painfully with each breath he took, quickly grabbed onto the rope as well while Reese and Cooper continued to hold onto Bear’s coat collar.

  Bear’s shoulders and upper body emerged from the ice, and after a few more attempts, the others pulled the rest of him back onto the surface as the sound of the river’s water could be heard rushing past them from the hole he had just moments ago fallen through. The ice appeared to be less than a foot thick in the spot where the truck tire had collapsed into.

  “Imran! Crank up the heat! All the way up! Everyone else, help get him inside the truck. Hurry!”

  Everyone reacted immediately to Mac’s instructions. Reese and Dublin grabbed Bear’s right side while Cooper and Mac held onto his left side and dragged him toward the open passenger door of Imran’s transport vehicle.

  Bear was attempting to move his legs to help the others carry him, but each time his knees would buckle and his body would collapse back onto their shoulders. Getting him into the truck’s cabin proved almost as difficult as getting him out of the ice, with Cooper and Imran pulling on him from the driver’s sid
e, while Mac and Reese pushed him up from the opposite side. Finally having secured Bear into the seat, Imran tightly wrapped the safety blanket around him.

  Bear’s eyes opened and he looked down at his left wrist, noting several teeth marks that had almost broken the skin.

  “Damn dog finally got around to biting me.”

  Bear attempted a smile but the effort proved too much and he instead simply put his head back and let sleep begin to overtake him. Mac’s hand struck Bear hard across his right cheek, causing him to re-awaken, his eyes flashing with anger as he growled a warning to Mac.

  “That’ll be enough of that shit.”

  Mac ignored the threat and looked at Bear intensely, particularly the big man’s eyes.

  “I want you to lean your head down for a while, ok? We want as much blood flowing to that mush bowl of yours as possible. Got it?”

  Mac didn’t wait for Bear to reply, instead pushing on Bear’s upper back to move his chest down until his head was nearly touching the dashboard.

  “Imran, get this thing moving. Keep the heat on high for at least the next hour. How long until we are out of these ice fields?

  Imran looked ahead and then back behind them from where they had just travelled.

  “No more than thirty, maybe forty minutes. Then we hit an almost road, so we’ll be able to go much faster. I will have to put more air into the tires then, and some fuel too. Won’t take me more than a few minutes to do that though. Another hour after that, and we will be on a real road heading to Fort Wilfrid.”

  Mac nodded and motioned for Dublin to join Imran and Bear in the truck cabin.

  “You keep talking to Bear, keep him awake for at least the next twenty minutes or so. He’s past the cold shock period, and he should be ok from hypothermia, but I want you to keep him as alert as possible for a while, ok?”

  Dublin simply nodded before going to the other side of the truck to slide past the driver’s seat to sit next to Bear. He moved his head to the left and was this time able to manage a brief smile.

  “Hey, Dublin. Thanks for keeping me company. Sorry for all the trouble back there.”

  Dublin attempted to put her right arm around Bear’s shoulders but only made it a little over halfway across his broad back.

  “No trouble at all, Bear. You did it – you lifted the truck up. You got us back on the road, big man.”

  “See it. Believe it. Achieve it.”

  Dublin didn’t understand the meaning of Bear’s words.

  “What’s that, Bear?”

  “Just something my dad taught me. A long, long time ago…”

  Mac gently closed the passenger door as Imran was climbing into the driver’s seat. Imran looked back to see the others sitting down in the truck bed, trying to fit under Cooper’s horse blanket. Without the safety blanket that was now wrapped around Bear, it was going to be a cold ride for them back there.

  The transport truck once again moved forward across the frozen river, until some fifty yards ahead, it began to make a slow climb up the bank on the other side. True to his recent words to Mac, it was less than thirty minutes later that they reached what Imran had described as an “almost road” – a narrow path through a dense mixture of grass and shrubs, just wide enough for the transport truck to travel through.

  Stopping the vehicle, Imran opened his door and removed a small plastic box from behind his seat. It was the air compressor he had spoken of earlier. The sound of him fully inflating the tires echoed in the otherwise silent and still late afternoon air around them. Once the tires were inflated, Imran took a metallic, reddish colored ten gallon can of diesel and began emptying it into the truck’s fuel tank.

  As he watched Imran pouring the last of the diesel, Mac asked him where he was able to obtain the fuel. Imran smiled back as he screwed the truck’s fuel cap back on and returned the fuel can to its corner in the back of the truck.

  “At the station in Wilfrid!”

  Mac’s eyes betrayed his surprise.

  “You have an actual fuel station?”

  Imran nodded.

  “Oh, yes, we have many things there you probably have not seen in a long time. The fuel station is just one. We have a movie theatre, a library, a school, a diner…everything a typical American town would have had years ago. The kind of town the godfather says he grew up in. As I said before – it’s similar to what you were doing in Dominatus, just…bigger.”

  Mac remained silent for a moment and then peeked through the rear window to look at Bear.

  “How’s Bear doing?”

  Imran smiled again.

  “The big man is doing fine. Tired, but fine.”

  Imran then pointed to the back of his truck, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  “He lifted it! I’m still…I can’t believe he was able to do such thing!”

  Mac looked again through the back window at Bear, and then Dublin.

  “Yeah, that’s one thing that really made Dominatus so special – the people. That said, Imran, I’m looking forward to seeing this Fort Wilfrid of yours. So let’s get to going. If you have a hot shower and a cold beer waiting to greet me there, I’ll be a happier man for it.”

  Imran clapped both of his hands together and nodded.

  “The first round is on me, Mr. Mac Walker. The beer – not the shower.”

  Soon the transport truck was travelling down Imran’s “almost road” again, making its way to Fort Wilfrid just as night began to overtake the day. Back at the ice hole Bear had so recently fallen through, a swirling dark mass of seekers gathered, each taking its turn sniffing the area. The largest of the group, the first to arrive days ago at the Wyse ranch, rose to its full height and sniffed the air, its head moving up and down excitedly as it did so. Having confirmed the presence of those they continued to hunt, the seeker opened its freakishly wide mouth, revealing the double-row of jagged teeth. A high pitched whine crept out from that mouth before transforming into a low, gurgling hiss as it extended a lean, well muscled, leathery arm outward where one of its long, claw-like fingers pointed in the direction Imran’s vehicle was now travelling.

  The twenty or so other seekers raised their heads together and shrieked as one, the unnervingly almost human sound rising up into the sky. The noise of their cries carried all the way to the back of Imran’s transport truck, not so loud that human ears could hear, but loud enough that Brando raised his head and issued a single, low growl.

  Cooper Wyse opened his right eye from under the brim of his hat to peer down at his dog, as he gently scratched under the Doberman’s chin. While he couldn’t hear the seekers’ cries himself, Cooper knew what Brando was warning of.

  “Yep – still coming for us aren’t they? Gonna have to tangle with those things sooner rather than later I suppose. Quite a little adventure we got ourselves in, huh? Rather be back at the ranch in front of the fire wouldn’t you?”

  Brando growled again.

  “Me too, boy. Me too…”

  XX.

  The Great Consulate sat staring at the data image inside of his personal office high above the streets of Manhattan at the very top of the New United Nations building. Outside, his drones continued their slow and continuous path across the New York skyline.

  “They would cast you aside. Cast you out! After all that you have done for them! All of these years! You allowed them to create this world! You! No one else could do it! These impudent, ungrateful fools! Destroy them! Destroy them all!”

  Despite the voice’s insistence, the Great Consulate knew such a thing would not be so simple. The Saudis were too powerful to simply go after. They controlled much of the power structure within the New United Nations. They were the majority vote on the Consulate. Despite his title, the Great Consulate had come to realize years ago that there were limits to his power. If the Saudis determined something was not in their own interests, he had little choice but to comply with their request. His personal assistant had told that to him often, even in the earliest years of h
is rise to power. You can go against the American people, you can destroy the free market, the media, Congress, the Supreme Court, any and all of your political enemies, but you cannot refuse the Saudis.

  So she had told him. His assistant. His adviser. The one who to this day was allowed to enter his private residence. The only one allowed to do so.

  The Great Consulate’s mind wandered back to the time of the Boston bombing. How the Saudis demanded she personally make certain one of their own was released from custody and allowed to return to Saudi Arabia. Some within the administration had warned it would prove a political disaster to do so. The personal assistant bypassed those concerns and took over the situation herself. The young man was released, the profiles were constructed to distract attention onto the other two, those idiotic Russians, and the task was accomplished within days of its inception. Most importantly, the Saudis were both pleased and impressed.