Absolution River

by Aaron Mach

  Arch walked out of the meth lab and turned before he walked out the door with a big eerie smile, “Keep an eye out fellas, the boogie man is out there.” With a flare of his eyes and a spin as if dancing to a tune in his head, he headed to the shed that held Marie. Even to his men Arch’s behavior seemed erratic and out of control, each looking at each other, unsure of what to do. One of the guards spoke up, “The boogie man? What the hell is the boss talking about?”

  “Guess this guy who’s coming is some kind of war hero or something.”

  “Shit, really? Who cares we got three dozen guys throughout this camp, what’s he gonna do?”

  Arch walked up to the shed holding Marie. “Hello?” Arch said creepily as he banged on the tin walls from the outside. “Marie? Are you still in there?” He walked inside of the shed and Marie sat there with her head down, nearly passed out from the exhaustion and lack of water. Arch took a seat in the dark corner of the shed and pulled out the glass containing his special drug. Marie raised her head and barely acknowledged his presence. All she could see was the flash of his lighter and the smoke rising to the room’s ceiling. “Your boy is coming for you, did you know that? Your little hero is coming for you. Do you know why I haven’t killed you yet?”

  Marie just sat there, still and lifeless.

  “I want him to watch. I want him to watch me kill you, okay? He killed four of my guys!” Arch screamed and changed tones so quickly that it startled Marie awake.

  “Wait, he’s alive?” Marie said with a voice that was weak and soft and all she could muster.

  “Oh, didn’t I say that! Yes that asshole is alive and I’m going to gut him after I gut you, got it!?” Arch’s mood was like a roller coaster between pure rage and peaceful bliss. His psychotic behavior was increasing the more he used his special drug and the more the exhaustion was attempting to take over. Arch slowly got up and walked over to Marie. He held her head up and whispered into her ear and whatever he spoke was so horrible and degrading that it snapped Marie alive.

  “He’s a man of honor and he’s going to save me Grimes, you don’t stand a chance, you filthy piece of shit!” she yelled right in his face and spit directly in his eye.

  That was the last of her energy, her eyes rolled in the back of her head and she passed out. Arch immediately arose and slapped her in the face, but there was no reaction, as she was in a deep state of unconsciousness. He sat upright and stood there dazed for a moment in a kind of shock, even what little that got through his drug-induced haze had an impact on him. A man of honor, what the fuck does that even mean, he thought to himself. He laughed under his breath, “Honor, it’s a lost ideal, bitch, pain is all there is. You’ll see honor alright, in a dead heap at your feet.”

  Arch left the outbuilding and walked into his office. He lit a cigarette and set his glass pipe down next to the machine gun. The phone rang and he lazily walked around the desk and picked up the receiver. Squinting his eyes as the sun began to bleed through the blinds, he answered the call. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “You kill him yet?”

  “You calling again, damn!”

  “Is it done?”

  “No, but it will be soon. He’s coming to get the girl.”

  “Just kill her and get it over with!”

  “Don’t tell me how to deal with this, I’m going to deal with it my way. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

  “I need him dead, I need him dead now.” The congressman said desperately. “I don’t know what he knows, but he could get me put away, with all that stuff with the girl all those years ago.”

  “I said I’d call when it’s done.”

  “There’s a million in it for you if you do it before nightfall.”

  “Deal.”

  …

  Jack looked through Anders’ scope.

  “How many do you see?”

  “At least thirty.”

  “Piece of cake, reminds me of that time on the Mekong, what a day.”

  “Those were highly trained Vietcong, we have hillbillies. I don’t want to kill any more than we have to.”

  “That’s not the old Jack I remember, you used to be a maniac.”

  “That was another time, and I was another person.”

  “So like I said, what’s the plan?”

  “There is a building a good distance from here on the other side of the compound, it looks deserted for the most part from the outside. They might be keeping her there.”

  “It’s worth a shot, we can skirt the woods and move around the compound to avoid the sharpshooters on the towers and we can handle anyone we may see in the woods easier than being out in the open.”

  “We need to hurry, they have her and if they see us coming they may decide just to kill her, have to be careful.”

  “You got it man.”

  “No, we got it, just like old times.”

  “Just like old times.”

  The two gathered their weapons and moved on the far side of the hill they had used for a vantage point and remained concealed from the compound. The hill was steep and it continued down to a cliff. Over the cliff was a several hundred foot fall into crashing river rapids. Jack and Anders looked down and got a glimpse of the drop. “That would hurt,” whispered Anders, and Jack gave a look of concern as they continually lost their footing along the hillside. Jack put his fist up as a silent means of telling Anders to stop and freeze. He held up three fingers, and then pointed to his eyes. Anders understood immediately, this meant Jack identified three individuals and could see them now. One of the guards sat against a tree looking out over the cliff to the other side of the river. He was slouching and trying to light a cigarette while holding a rifle at the same time. The other two were above him on the hill and talking quietly amongst themselves. The slightest noise would give away their position and it would be their last and worst mistake.

  “Try to keep it silent, and just knock them out if you can.” Jack whispered.

  Anders nodded and pointed to the man against the tree then to himself. Jack grinned and gave a look of concern, then pointed to the two guys on the high side of the hill then pointed to himself.

  “Guess I’ll get the two,” Jack whispered, and Anders grinned, putting his arm out in an ‘after you’ gesture. Jack began to backtrack and navigate up the hill. He was on his haunches and using his hands to keep as low as possible. Jack needed to get the two men first so they didn’t see Anders take out the guy on the bottom of the hill. There was a direct line of sight and if Anders got spotted, it would all be over. Anders sat watching Jack and waited for his moment, keeping an eye on the guy near the cliff in case he turned in his direction.

  Jack slowly crept along the top of the hill, now twenty feet above where the men stood. He was low behind a tree and there were only a few feet of hill behind him where the hill crested and he would be visible to the rest of the compound. He began to move down to the men, when one of them turned, he froze.

  “You hear that, man?”

  “Nah,” replied the other guard.

  One of the guards began walking up the hill towards Jack and was only feet way. Fifteen feet away from the guards there was the sound of something rustling that diverted their attention. Anders had thrown a rock to distract the men and there was only a moment for Jack to react. With shotgun in hand, he moved slowly behind the men who were walking over to investigate the sound. With two smooth cracks, Jack hit each of the men right at the base of the spine, knocking them out instantly. Jack grabbed loose leaves and brush from the ground and covered their bodies as quickly as he could. The mound of leaves that had the bodies under them created a place where Jack dove behind and remained as still as he could. The guard next to the cliff heard the noise and looked up a moment after Jack landed behind the leafy mound of guards. Anders took this chance and snuck up behind the man’s position. He came within feet and tapped the man on the back, he turned, and Anders threw a punch. The guard was a far better fighter than Anders had
anticipated and he threw up his forearms to block. They were now in a fierce hand-to-hand fight that was rarely a sure thing. Jack could see what was happening and moved to help. He had over a hundred feet to close and the outcome was going to be over long before he reached them. Anders and the guard were rolling on the rock hanging over the edge of the cliff. The guard and Anders were the same size, each attempting to throw the other over into the jagged rocks below. Just before Jack could render aid, the two men fell over the cliff’s edge and Jack landed on the rock a moment too late to grab his friend. A look of shock and fear filled Jack’s face as he thought in that moment he could not lose another friend. Silence.

  “You just gonna lay there on your ass or are you going to help me up?”

  Jack crawled to the cliff’s edge and looked over. He could see Anders hanging onto a small rock outcropping a few feet below him. With a sigh of relief, Jack maneuvered himself over the edge and could just barely reach him. The two grasped each other’s hands, and after a moment of struggle found each other laying on the cliff’s edge, gasping for breath.

  “Don’t do that again.”

  “You got it,” replied Anders with a smile of relief.

  Just above the ridge there were three more men who had discovered the bodies at the top of the hill.

  “Damn,” Anders whispered. The two scrambled to hide behind the tree where the guard was posted. Jack looked down over the cliff.

  “We gotta climb.”

  “What, you mean back down there? I was just there, it’s not fun,” Anders whispered.

  “They’re coming down, they’ll be here in less than a minute to check on their friend.”

  Anders rolled his eyes and the two began to crawl over the cliff’s edge looking for whatever rocks would hold them. As they were positioned a few feet below the cliffs edge, they began to hear the voices of the other guards. Jack and Anders looked at each other as they hung there with white-knuckle grips and sweat pouring down their faces. The view of the river and the jagged rocks below seemed as they were pulling at their feet, and soon the guards were just above their head.

  One of the guards was on the radio as the other two began to spread out along the hill to find their friend.

  “Not sure how much longer I can hold on, man.”

  “Keep moving,” Jack whispered with quiet intensity.

  The two continued to skirt along the cliff face suspended above the rocky gorge. After they moved several yards across the jagged rock, Jack peeked up over the edge of the cliff to determine where the guards went.

  “You see ‘em?”

  “No.”

  Jack started to climb over the edge of the cliff and a guard ran up to him and grabbed Jack’s shirt. Dragging him over, the guard stood with his back to the edge. “Where you think you’re going, pal!?”

  Anders thrust himself up, grabbed the jacket of the guard, and pulled him over the edge. The man screamed as he fell and his head cracked on a large rock. The river took him and dragged him to the bottom. Anders peered over his shoulder and cringed when he saw the result. Jack stuck his hand down to Anders and pulled him up. The two looked over at the guards alerted to their presence, “Stop!” yelled one of them. They were about two hundred feet from their position. Jack and Anders looked at each other, unsure of what to do. They bolted. Running along the edge of the cliff, the shots rang out, skipping along the rock and striking the trees only inches from their heads. The raging of the river masked much of the noise but the compound was like a beehive after being poked by a band of curious children.

  “Shit shit!” yelled Anders as they were sprinting. “Where are we going!?”

  “Just run!” screamed Jack as he returned fire over his shoulder, shooting wildly in the hope to stop the guards’ onslaught of lead.

  “Cliff. Cliff!”

  “I see it, just jump!”

  “JUMP?” The drop was over twenty feet into the muddy ground below. They landed hard and tried to roll away their momentum. Lying there breathing heavy, “Gotta move!”

  “Here, in here!” said Anders, pointing to a cave inside the cliff face.

  “We’ll be trapped,” Jack said.

  “Just do it!”

  They both ran inside the dark cavern. Fifty feet in they could hear the faint voices of the guards on the top of the cliff.

  “They just jump?”

  “Shit, I think they did.”

  “Hot damn that was easy.”

  “Get down there, see where they are.”

  “No way they made it.”

  “You heard me!” yelled one of the many guards swarming the top of the cliff.

  “They’re gonna come down here and we’re trapped.”

  “You got a light, flashlight or something?” said Jack.

  Anders shuffled through his pockets and pulled out an old zippo. The insignia on it was their old army unit. “You still have that thing?”

  “Hey, call me sentimental.” As Anders flicked the zippo, the light flooded the dark cavern, revealing a much more complex cave structure than they had imagined.

  “We have to keep moving in,” Jack said, out of breath.

  “And if it dead ends?”

  “Then we make our last stand here. It’s a good position, lots of cover and they can only come one way, but we have to get to Marie. She doesn’t have much time.”

  “You think this cave meets up somewhere?”

  “No way of knowing, we just gotta try it. It’s all we have right now.”

  The small flame from the zippo barely shed enough light and they used their hands to feel their way through the cave. There was a foot of water on the bottom and the ceiling of the cave was dripping. Some of the drops would extinguish the flame and leave them in utter darkness. The echo of their voices reverberated through the wet rock.

  “Damn, this goes for awhile.”

  “Do you smell that?” Jack said, holding his shirt to his nose.

  “Yeah, like chemicals or something. It’s starting to burn my eyes.”

  “Careful with that flame, Anders.” Jack looked at him with concern, and Anders looked to the water. Through the light of the flame they could see the pearlescent colors in the water much like the look of gasoline.

  “Could be flammable.”

  “Ah, yeah, that would not be good.”

  The cave was tall enough for them to crouch and walk without having to get on their hands and knees. After a few hundred feet they came to two different cave paths, one left and one right.

  “So, which one?” said Anders, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Don’t know how much more fuel I got in this thing.”

  The two sat silent contemplating the right move. “You hear that? Sounds like voices.” said Jack.

  “You mean the guards outside, I don’t think they followed us.”

  “No, up ahead, be real quiet.” Jack and Anders put their heads down and closed their eyes. They opened their mouths and became very still, a technique they perfect in the jungle in order to hear the enemy coming. “I do, it’s on the right path.”

  “You sure?” said Jack.

  “Positive.”

  “Let’s do it, maybe it connects somewhere.”

  Moving slowly and now only by touch, not wanting to give away their position, they heard the voices get louder and more distinct.

  “Hey Sammy! We are stopping operations until we get this guy or what?”

  “Yeah, dump what you have, and the boss said everyone has to get to their post!”

  Jack and Anders could hear the sloshing of liquid being poured into the water of the cavern and the mystery of the chemical smell was solved.

  “What the hell are they doing?” whispered Anders.

  “You see that? Up ahead, there is some light coming from the top of the cave, looks like hatch or something,” Jack said as quietly as he could.

  “They must have dug a hole through here to hide whatever they are doing,” replied Anders.

  Jack squin
ted and could see a couple hundred feet down the cavern. The light from the hatch illuminated the area just below it and he could see a grate platform and a ladder leading to the cave floor. He could just barely make out a man in a black uniform with a machine pistol strapped around his shoulder dumping liquid out of a large blue drum.

  “We have to get to that hatch.”

  “We have no idea where it leads, could go straight into a room full of guards playing poker.”

  “Exactly, the last thing they’ll expect,” replied Jack.

  “In case you can’t see, I’m shaking my head in disapproval.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  Anders began to move forward and after a few feet the light from the hatch was gone. When they reached the grate, the hatch began to open and a guard stood above it, talking to someone above ground while he held the hatch. Jack and Anders ran under the grate and knelt down into the pool of chemicals. A guard looked down and saw the other guard had left the barrel sitting there. He came down the ladder and was only a few feet above Jack and Anders.

  “We need these drums you asshole!” the guard yelled to the topside. “Son of a bitch, I swear.” He mumbled to himself as he grabbed the drum and popped it over his head through the hatch and onto the ground above them. He climbed the ladder and slammed the hatch shut, filling the cavern with pure darkness once again.

  “That was close.”

  Jack nodded and began to move to climb over the grate. In a pull-up motion he got himself onto the platform and held his hand out for Anders.

  “If that hatch opens, we’re screwed.”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Give them a minute to move away from the hatch and get to their posts like the guard said. Maybe it comes up into a store room or something,” said Jack quietly.

  After ten excruciating minutes Jack went to the ladder and climbed to the top just underneath the hatch. Taking in deep breaths and getting himself ready for whatever might be on the other side, he held his breath. He pushed the hatch up a couple of inches and peered in to see what they had got themselves into. It was only darkness with no sound.