Against the Fading of the Light (Action of Purpose, 3)

by Stu Jones

  It had been over a year since she had enjoyed a long, hot shower. She’d really believed in her heart that she would never have another, and yet here she was, moaning and swishing her hips like a girl in the embrace of this most perfect respite. She wouldn’t waste a single drop.

  19

  WINSTON SLIPPED AROUND the farthest building and into the edge of the woods as the evening grew long and the dimness of the day began to fade. He produced the two-way radio the woman, Shana, had given him and turned it on. It gave a loud bleep, and the chubby man jumped, jerking his head about guiltily as though someone had heard it.

  What he was doing was treasonous. He was going to sacrifice these good people, his family, so he could live—so the darkness could win. Why? Why was he doing this? He didn’t want to do it. These were people he had lived with, fought with, and survived with, and here he was ready to offer them all up as a sacrifice on the altar of his own selfishness. The thought made him sick to his stomach. Why hadn’t he just let the woman and her thugs kill him? He could be lying facedown in a ditch right now, and his pain would be over, and these people could live. They didn’t deserve what the Coyotes were going to do to them. No one would be spared—not those who surrendered, not the women, not the children. It was going to be a massacre, and their blood would be on his hands.

  Winston felt his guts twist with the thought of it. He wished he was dead. There was no hope for him. He dialed the channel to six and waited, listening to the static. Hesitantly he keyed the radio and spoke.

  “Winston to Shana, do you copy?”

  The radio was supposed to have a ten-mile range under good conditions. Winston waited. The radio crackled.

  Shana’s voice slid over the radio. “Well, well, if it isn’t my best buddy, Winston.”

  “Uh, yeah. Look—”

  “What’s taking so long, Winston? Where are you?” Shana snapped.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “What the hell do you mean it’s complicated? Where are you?”

  Winston swallowed. “An army base called Camp Navajo in Farmington.”

  Shana practically screamed. “What the fuck are you doing on an army base, Winston? This isn’t looking good for you!”

  “I know. I know. Look, it’s just temporary. It was a fluke thing. I had no control over it!”

  “Winston, I swear to God, if you don’t produce those people, I’m going to have these savages turn you inside out and hang you by your guts. Do you hear me!” Shana fumed.

  “OK, alright.” Winston motioned for her to calm down as though she could see him. “Are you close?”

  “I’m talking to you on this radio, so what do you think, fatso? We looked for you up and down the highway and wasted our fucking time. Now my boys are getting restless, so you’d better speed things along, dipshit.”

  “I will. I will! Look, just wait close by. We can’t be staying long. Kane wants to get his kids something fierce.”

  “You let me know, fat boy. I don’t want any more surprises.”

  “OK,” Winston managed and then snapped the radio off and vomited the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

  As the light faded, the last rays stretching across the darkening sky, the bonfire in the courtyard began to grow, its flames licking into the air. They had decided to rest and recover for twenty-four hours before resuming their journey toward the dam. Kane had initially been resistant, restless to secure his dear children, but ultimately consented, given his own exhaustion. They were on the final leg of this crazy journey, and they would need their rest for what was sure to come next.

  Happily full with Courtland’s stew, the bulk of the group was now sitting around the fire, drinking hot coffee, telling stories, and laughing like a bunch of old, carefree friends on a retreat.

  Kane sat, staring into the fire, his body the most relaxed it had been in months. Amazing what a shower, a belly full of food, and a cup of steaming, fresh coffee could do for a person’s spirits.

  The others were enjoying themselves. The older gentleman, Sam, was telling some funny prewar story about a dog he’d once taught to sit at the table and eat like a person.

  Kane smiled faintly, the others laughing and talking cheerily. His fingers thumbed the pages of Courtland’s old Bible, his mind entangled in rapturous thoughts of his beautiful children—not the terror they must now be enduring but the memories he had of better times. All together with him and their mother, Susan.

  Susan.

  Kane furrowed his brow.

  Save them, Kane. Everything I’ve done has been to save our children, to spare them. Don’t let it be for nothing.

  He looked down at his hands and touched the rope-scarred flesh of his palms, the skin still tender to the touch. It was a wound that was as much in his heart as it was deep in his flesh. He didn’t know what the next few days had in store for all of them; he didn’t know how the will of God would align with the course of his life. What he did know was he had a promise to keep.

  “I’ll save them, baby,” Kane said only to himself. “I won’t stop until they’re safe and this evil has witnessed the glory of the Lord.” He nodded to himself and wiped the moisture from the corner of his eyes. “I’ll be the man you believed I could be. I’ll be the man God needs me to be to finish this. That’s a promise. ”

  Jenna now watched everyone around the fire from the window next to her cot. She wiped the tears from her face and placed the small silver cross and chain back around her neck. The shower had been a wonderful detour from her pain, but now it was pursuing her heart again with a fearful hunger.

  Though she had been able to go on after her loss, the pain never seemed to get easier for her to carry. The loss of her husband, Charlie, and baby girl, Lynn, had devastated her. But she hadn’t lost them. They had both been murdered by Dagen—the same Dagen who had ruthlessly tortured her, looking on as she was brutally beaten and mercilessly raped. She remembered some of the very first words he had ever said to her.

  Maybe it’s fate or karma, or maybe God just hates you. Maybe that’s it…Making sense of it doesn’t change a thing.

  Jenna stifled a sob and begged God to take her sorrow from her, to carry her burden and stifle the resentment that swelled inside her. There was nothing that could change any of that now. She would have to make the best of the worst, however difficult that might be.

  Dagen had single-handedly caused her so much pain, yet she had devoted herself to helping him, to showing him how he could be restored. But she hadn’t considered the cost to herself. Even after he had made so much progress, even after he had risked his own life to save her from the Coyotes, she still struggled with hating him—even as she hoped for his redemption. Her heart felt so clouded, twisting with pain, grief, and hope.

  As if in answer to her inner torment, a knock came at the door. She turned to see the very object of her thoughts, crutches under his arms as he leaned against the doorframe.

  “Hey. You going to come join everybody out here?”

  Jenna wiped her face and stood, busying herself about her cot. “Uh, sure, maybe in a minute.” She turned away from him.

  Dagen furrowed his brow. “OK, well, we’re actually having a good old time out here. You should come.”

  Jenna said nothing but continued working on some imaginary task.

  Dagen smiled again, a strange, almost-foreign, new expression on his worn face. “You’re not going to believe this, but Courtland and I have really kind of hit it off. I never in a million years would have thought I’d like hanging out with a Baptist preacher, but the guy is something else. And after all that mess with the Sicks and fighting to save the station and you, we’ve kind of bonded. Weird, huh?” Dagen rubbed his head nervously.

  Jenna said nothing and wiped her face again.

  “Are you alright?” Dagen paused. “Is there something I can do?”

  Jenna spun. “You’ve done enough, don’t you think?”

  Dagen’s face went slack.


  “I don’t even know what I’ve been doing.” She shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. Did I miss something?” Dagen spoke cautiously.

  “No, Dagen, you didn’t miss it. You were there for all of it. I can’t fill the black hole inside me—that empty space in my life where my husband and daughter used to live. You took them from me!”

  “I thought we…You said you forgave me…” Dagen lowered his head, his eyes half-closed.

  “I know I did. I know. But I don’t think I can survive this. My heart is broken. Why? Why, Dagen? Why did you have to murder my Charlie and my baby?”

  Dagen had no words. He simply stood and took it.

  “You’ve got nothing to say—after all this? After I break my own heart every day just being around you?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything I can say,” Dagen whispered.

  “You said you loved me. In so many words, you said it. But I have to tell you something. I hope the best for you—I really do. But I can’t love you, not like that. I can’t. It’s too much.”

  Dagen swallowed. “I didn’t expect—”

  “But you did. You thought there was some version of this where we could live happily ever after. I’m telling you that we can’t. Not us. Not after what you’ve done.”

  Dagen nodded silently.

  “I’m not sure I can even be around you anymore. I don’t know how to continue dealing with this, over and over again, every time I see you.“

  Dagen was speechless.

  “I think I need some time alone now,” Jenna said with a huff, keeping her composure as best she could.

  “I’ll go,” Dagen said weakly as he turned and hobbled from the room, his new grip on life and all the hope in his world slipping from him in a single instant.

  And in the lonely silence of the barracks, Jenna wept.

  20

  “OPEN IT.” MALAK smiled as his goons brought forth a huge duffel bag and unzipped it. Large, silver aluminum-foil-wrapped bricks slid from the unzipped opening.

  “Oh yeah, that’s the stuff!” one of the thugs called out, crooning with pleasure.

  “What are your orders, Lord Malak?” Saxon added.

  “Take ten bricks. Keep one for yourself. Begin distributing the twenty for the men to share. Tell them they’ve done well and that my orders are for them to enjoy themselves for a while.” Malak smiled greedily. “The rest is for me.” He motioned to a nearby goon. “Prepare me a dose.”

  He looked over the last remaining stash of Z, a lethal and hyper-addictive narcotic developed at the beginning of the twenty-first century: a potent and destructive blend of PCP, methamphetamine, ecstasy, steroids, and several other choice drugs some fool had created in his basement quite by accident. What had followed next was what the papers referred to as the “Z-Pocalypse.” It spread like wildfire, killing thousands and causing severe addiction in the rest with just a single use. It became highly valuable to criminals, who used it for its beneficial properties, such as numbness to pain, prolonged adrenaline surges, and heightened awareness, among other things. But if a user were also mentally unbalanced or unstable to begin with, the effects could be catastrophic. It was well-known for either killing a person outright or enslaving them to it forevermore. There was no middle ground.

  Malak liked to use it as a proving ground for his men. Some would inevitably die upon their first use, and the rest would become unstoppable. It was a purging of weakness for his Coyotes. Malak had saved this final duffel for the right moment. This was the last of the mother lode he had stumbled across months ago in the basement of the DEA headquarters on his way to the East Coast. He himself had forced his men to wean off of the drug in order to conserve it. This had only made them crazier and more desperate. He had, for a time, felt that the darkness was enough, that he didn’t need the drug anymore. Now he wasn’t so sure, and he was going to exploit every possible advantage at his disposal.

  Recently the darkness had been uneasy, volatile, almost as if it wanted complete control of him. He needed to take the edge off.

  “Here, boss.” The thug handed him the loaded syringe, and Malak without hesitation gave himself the direct injection.

  Grunting, Malak gasped and opened his eyes wide. In moments, the tremors started to cascade through him, rippling through his body and setting his nerves on fire. His Coyotes watched on with anticipation as their leader shook and frothed at the mouth, growling like an animal.

  You’re weak.

  “No, Voice. I am in control. You may live here, but I will control my destiny!”

  You just keep thinking that.

  “I am in control!” Malak raged.

  The Coyotes tossed glances at each other as Malak screamed at himself. The Voice was not for them to hear. They loaded their own syringes and began to get high.

  Malak took a deep breath, and as the thickness of the smothering yellow fog began to clear from his mind, his desperation began to calm. He was all-powerful. He was in control. He looked around the interior station room, and everything sparkled and shone with a golden hue. The glow had returned to him once again, and with the strength of the drug and the fearsome dark power he now possessed, he would rule the remains of this feeble world, unchallenged.

  After a few moments, most of his men had recovered. The ones who didn’t make it were carried out and unceremoniously thrown over the wall of the dam.

  “What is the status of the search?” Malak growled to Saxon, who still appeared dizzy after the initial trip.

  “We…uh…” Saxon steadied himself. “Boss, we have searched everywhere that I know to search.”

  “And you haven’t found anything yet?”

  “We will search again, Lord Malak.”

  Before Malak could answer, a bandit interrupted from the far side of the room as he entered, dragging a skinny, nerdy character, a man who appeared to be reasonably terrified at what was about to happen to him.

  “Lord Malak, I found this scared little shit hiding in one of the conference rooms. He said he works here.”

  “Doing what?”

  Nick Corvaleski licked his lips. “Electrical engineer.”

  “Yeah,” the thug continued, “says he can run this place.”

  Malak grinned malevolently. “Of course he can.” The warlord pointed at the cowering engineer. “And for his next feat of shock and awe, he’s going to find what I’m looking for, or he’s going to experience pain and fear like he’s never imagined.”

  Nick could do little more than swallow and nod his head. “I’ll do anything.”

  “Yes,” Malak intoned, “I know you will.”

  She remembered it like it was yesterday. The dream, now more like reality than nearly anything else she knew. She turned on her shallow cot, her mind recounting every moment in excruciating detail.

  Groaning, Ari hung from the pull-up bar, her hands aching with fresh blisters. It was the first day of boot camp, and she couldn’t do a pull-up. So she hung there, embarrassed, as the instructor screamed at her and someone in her squad snickered—a poor soul who was immediately snatched from formation and made to run.

  Ari swallowed and tried again, her arms screaming, her will forcing her onward. She raised a few inches, and then a few more, till her arms bent past forty-five degrees.

  You can do this.

  “Get up! Get your chin over that bar! We will stay here until you do!” the instructor screamed at her.

  Her momentum stalled, progress thwarted. Ari groaned, kicking her legs.

  “What is that? That’s not a pull-up!” the instructor screamed.

  She dropped from the bar and fell to the ground, exhausted.

  “Get up! Why are you so weak? You will never make it here! Get up and run until I’m tired! Get up, Princess! Go, go, go!”

  Princess—the nickname had stuck. For two weeks she was berated, challenged, and forced to spend mealtimes at the pull-up rack.

  “Let’s go, Princess!”

  “Any day n
ow, Princess!”

  “Get your chin over that bar, Princess!”

  The taunts were incessant, the drills punishing, and the nickname infuriating. But Ari was not one to be beaten. She never had been. For as long as she could remember, she had wanted to be a soldier. This pull-up rack was not going to stop her.

  Twelve weeks later, she could do twenty without stopping. The proud, strong Israeli woman graduated from IDF boot camp as a squad leader and went on to be an exemplary soldier in the famed Caracal Battalion—though, much to her chagrin, the nickname Princess would stick with her throughout her military career.

  After three years and multiple engagements with terrorist cells along the Egyptian border, she finally received the coveted letter from Mossad, one of the most elite intelligence agencies in the world. She knew they recruited straight out of the military and that they targeted females; she just never thought it would be her. The choice had been easy.

  It had been the most intense journey of her life. All the training in hand-to-hand combat, special weapons, survival, surveillance and countersurveillance, counterterrorism operations, and espionage—it now seemed like a distant trial by fire, one that culminated in her being black bagged, transported in restraints, and illegally inserted into a hostile Arab nation with only the clothes on her back.

  She had run, hidden, fought, been captured and tortured by the corrupt national police, subdued the guards, broken out, and disappeared into thin air. They never determined her identity. While a manhunt raged for “the foreign spy who was surely still in the country,” she slipped across the border back into Israel and was immediately picked back up, black bagged again, and taken back to Mossad. She had passed her training.

  The next few years had been filled with mission after mission of cloak-and-dagger tactics, espionage, high-profile assassinations, and all sorts of other things she could never speak to any other living soul about. She was a warrior, a tactician, and a survivor. She was indomitable.