Mykal's Deadly Perambulation

by Dave Hazel

  Mykal watched the tree like creature and hoped the hundred plus rounds of 7.62mm slugs would kill the thing, but the tree looking beast continued to wail and scream while flailing it’s python like limbs. All the eyes darted in different directions. It was then Mykal notice the men who were in a zombie like state were actually transfixed on an object behind the carnivorous tree stump.

  Behind the wailing, screaming monster sat another creature that seemed to be floating in air. It was a large round orb that gave off an orange glow as streams of red and yellow light shot forth from it in all directions. The orb was perfectly round like that of a bowling ball without the finger holes. It looked larger than a medicine ball but appeared to be clear like a crystal ball. The sphere like object projected the low tone hum that led the men to this underground cavern.

  “Cover me, I’m gonna smash that friggin thing,” Mykal yelled but most of them didn’t see what he referred to. “That giant orange crystal ball back there,” he pointed. “Boris, come with me. I don’t want any surprises.”

  They circled around the men standing in the trance and they stayed well out of range of the flailing tentacles. The two of them neared the orange crystal ball cautiously and the hum seemed to grow louder. The strange hum vibrated through their bodies with more intensity. Mykal felt his eyes were being drawn to the center of the orange sphere. He knew in his mind he had to avoid looking at it, but it seemed so difficult. It wasn’t that the orange ball object was beautiful to look upon, but it felt beautiful to behold.

  “Don’t stare at it Boris,” Mykal warned and tried to pinch his eyes closed.

  “Why Myk? It’s beautiful. It’s really friggin beautiful,” Boris gawked breathlessly.

  “Boris, don’t stare at it!” Mykal yelled. “It’s sucking you in. It’ll make you a zombie like the others,” he said to frighten Boris. He wasn’t sure what would happen, but he knew it wouldn’t be good if they succumbed to the desire to gaze upon the center of the strange being.

  “Myk, I feel like I’m catching a buzz, man. I’m getting’ high,” Boris chuckled as if they were out having a couple of beers.

  “Don’t look at the damn thing,” Mykal yelled again and grabbed Boris’s shirt by the shoulder and shook him roughly. Mykal stopped shaking Boris and something inside him prevented him from striking or attacking the glowing orb. When he neared the globe he felt warmth in waves roll across his being. Little red and yellow beams of light escaped, producing waves of joy and pleasure that cascaded over him. It felt as if he received a complete massage. His massage seemed physical, mental and emotional. He wanted to lie down on the floor to relax and curl up beside the humming orb.

  “Mykal, what are you doing?” He heard the faint and distant voice of Diaz yelling at him. The voice of Captain Diaz sounded far away and annoying. Mykal had been lulled into a sleepy state and he knew he had to fight it.

  When he averted his eyes from the globe he caught sight of other beings farther back into the cavern. It startled Mykal that there were other humanoid creatures just several feet away from the orange sphere. They too stood motionless as if in a trance and they too stared at the orange ball. They were short, dark and evil looking. These beings looked just like the Goblins who had joined forces with the Sosos. They looked just like the same dark green humanoids he encountered for the first time behind Soso lines. During his first encounter with the Goblins on the river, he went on the offensive and mowed them down with the machine gun from the helicopter without provocation.

  The Goblins were dark green, almost black. Their faces resembled the faces of bulldogs though they were hairless, and most had severe under bites. All of the zombified Goblins seemed to be transfixed on the same object, the orange glowing ball that gave off the low hum. Their hands and feet were out of proportion to their diminutive bodies. They all stood about four feet tall and their hands and feet were noticeably three times larger than an average man’s hands and feet.

  The zoned out Goblins were armed with swords, clubs, axes and short spears. Mykal saw at least twenty of them, but they weren’t moving. They clearly were in a trance like state as were his men. They too stared at the orange glow of the globe. Mykal felt tremendous fear but he couldn’t stop moving closer to the large ball. He tried to force his eyelids closed but he couldn’t win the battle.

  Mykal noticed that behind the tree creature with the shark like mouth, there were bones and remains in little piles throughout the cavern. He guessed the tree monster had feasted on Goblins just as it had feasted on his men. The more he took his focus from the orange nerve center, the more he realized the stench in the cave was disabling. The nauseous sensations nearly dropped him to the dirty cavern floor, but he knew he had to act to save his men.

  “Boris, we got company. There are some freaks from this world here. Be ready,” he warned. Mykal’s body and mind felt great. He didn’t want to do what he knew had to be done. He heard his men yelling and shooting at the screaming tree trunk. “Danger, we’re in danger,” he scolded himself. “We gotta stop this thing.”

  Mykal reached out and touched the orb with his free hand. The shock to his flesh woke him from his sleepy enjoyment. It felt like touching frozen metal in sub-zero temperature. The touch felt so cold that it hurt. He quickly retracted his hand but his mind wanted to continue. A sudden craving overpowered his entire being that wanted to grab hold of the ball and allow it to take over his mind and body and soul. Mykal wanted to become one with the orb, but he knew that would mean death.

  Out of the corner of his eye Mykal saw Boris reaching for the orange glow. A sudden hostile jealousy took over. Mykal knew those emotions came from the orb that tried to control him. “Nooooo!” He yelled and raised his rifle and fired a shot. To his horror nothing happened. He knew the round didn’t penetrate the orb. He heard the round ricochet off the perfectly round orange ball. Mykal feared he would endanger all his men if he fired more rounds. He didn’t want to kill his men with wild ricocheting lead.

  Mykal pushed Boris to prevent him from touching the orb. “Pay attention. We’re in danger.” He grabbed Boris’s shirt again and shook him like Boris was drunk and needed to focus on the task at hand.

  “But Myk, it’s beautiful,” Boris replied sadly while his hand still reached for the orange glow like a stubborn child.

  Mykal pulled Boris closer by his shirt. “It’s going to kill us,” he snarled into his friend’s face. They both looked like two drunks getting into a heated confrontation.

  “Mykal, you must move aside,” Leeno yelled from where the others were. Leeno aimed his bow and arrow at the ball.

  “I’ll do it,” Boris moaned and pulled his .44 magnum from his waistband.

  “I don’t think it’ll work,” Mykal tried to stop him but Boris cocked the hammer back. “I shot my rifle and I think it bounced off.”

  “Not this baby,” Boris snarled and squeezed the trigger at point blank range.

  The explosion in the cave felt like a bomb going off. The slug punctured the crystal ball but didn’t shatter it as Mykal had expected it to. A small hole bore into the sphere and an orangey yellow jelly substance oozed from within. The ball began to jiggle and shake violently like a large water balloon. The tree trunk like creature continued to scream and flail its limbs. The intensity increased. The gun shot obviously triggered more pain.

  Boris fired another shot and another hole punched into the orange glowing orb. Thick gooey slime flung out of the ball and landed on Mykal’s arm. It felt cold against his flesh but not as icy as when he deliberately touched the sphere. Another explosion from Boris’s mini-cannon shook the cavern walls and more orange jelly like slime spurted out of the orb. The tree creature flailed and screamed more violently.

  It seemed clear the two were connected in some way. The ball received the damage and suffered pain but the tree trunk creature expressed the suffering. The jelly like goop pumped out of the three holes in a rhythmic fashion as blood would pump to a heartbeat.

  “
It’s working,” Diaz yelled.

  Mykal looked over to see some of the men staggering around like they were coming out of a drunken stupor. Whatever hold the creature had on the minds of the men, it lost the power to hold them. Mykal drew his magic sword from its scabbard and began hacking and slicing at the orb.

  The blade illuminated with a bright red flame and it easily sliced into what looked like crystal. With each chop and slash he flung the jelly like innards in all directions. From the corner of his eye Mykal saw the little dark Goblins were starting to come out of their trance as well. Mykal feared they would turn and attack him and his men.

  “Boris, take those things out,” he yelled while slashing away to finish the creature off once and for all.

  “What are they? Goblins?”

  “Just kill them before they turn on us,” Mykal yelled and sliced into the orange glowing ball.

  Suddenly the ground below his feet ripped open and dirt flew up. It was as if someone had pulled up a buried cable, but this looked more like a very thick branch root. There were hundreds of tiny roots protruding from the underground vine. All the roots twisted and twitched. It moved in all directions as if they felt the pain. This had to be the umbilical cord that connected the two creatures. The ball didn’t actually float in the air as Mykal thought. The orb had been suspended off the ground by the massive root connected to the rear of the ball.

  Boris’s M-16 rifle fired off round after round taking down each one of the humanoid creatures before they had a chance to react or attack them. Mykal wondered if they would have been friendly for rescuing them. ‘Too late now.’ Mykal chopped on the exposed root until he severed the connection. Suddenly the orange glow died and the ball fell to the ground. The high pitched screaming ceased and the flailing limbs of the tree dropped motionless. Each needle dripped out its final venom. The tree like thing stopped moving and just stood still. All the eyes seemed to die and lose their light. There didn’t appear to be any eye lids to close.

  “Let’s get outta here,” Mykal pushed Boris who inspected his handy work. “They’re all back to normal,” Mykal yelled with joyful excitement to see Jake walking around looking confused. All the men who came out of the trance looked stunned and surprised. Diaz rallied the men.

  “What the hell happened? Where are—how did we get here? What’s going on here?” Jake asked when Mykal and Boris approached him. “I don’t understand,” Jake yelled and reached to plug his nose with his fingers.

  “It’s a long story,” Mykal said. He wanted to hug his close friend now that he looked fine and back to normal. “We’ll talk about it after we get outta here. There’s a bunch of bad guys in this area so they may end up coming back to see what happened to their buddies.”

  “Oh it freakin’ reeks around here,” Jake coughed and gagged. “It’s nasty. I think,” (gag) “I think I’m gonna puke.”

  “What’s the plan Myk?” Diaz asked while Lieutenant Finley tried to explain to the others what had happened.

  “I think we better get going. When me and Boris were over there,” he pointed his thumb behind him. “There were a bunch of Goblins back there and they were frozen like our guys. I knew they were going to come to so I had Boris eliminate them before they could be a problem. But, they came in from that side over there so there is no telling how many more may be back that way. I don’t think we should stick around.”

  There was mass confusion for the men who had been mindless in the trance. They all asked questions and tried to get an understanding of what happened. All of them remembered walking in the tunnel through the mountain as a group. They realized they must have blacked out and then all of a sudden they are surrounded by bloody horrors and grotesque foul smells. The dead tree creature in the middle of a cavern, with numerous bodies and pieces of bodies littering the base of its trunk made some of them believe they remained trapped in a nightmare.

  “We’re being attacked!” Boris yelled. The back area of the cavern filled with Goblins. Immediately the Goblins hurled axes, war hammers and a couple of short spears at them.

  Mykal watched a small crude axe fly by him. It missed him, but he heard the crunching thud of an axe hitting Green Beret Sergeant Bentley in the back of the head. Bentley fell heavy to the dirt floor. He never saw it coming and lay there lifelessly. Bentley was getting answers as to how he and so many others could have blanked out. This time he blanked out permanently.

  Mykal spun around, dropped to one knee and began shooting with his rifle as did many others. A chorus of foreign voices came from the dark side of the cavern. Another wave of the evil little dark humanoid creatures charged out of the black of the tunnel connected to the cave.

  A volley of spears, axes and hammers were hurled at them. No one was struck, but there were many that were too close for comfort. After letting loose their weapons the attacking Goblins were shot dead before they could retreat. Two of the grenadiers fired off their M-203s lobbing 40mm grenades into the tunnel. The explosions were massive in the underground warren. There were three Goblins who had not been killed. They writhed on the ground yelling in pain and called for help in their own language.

  “Do you speak the common language?” Mykal yelled. “I want to call a truce. We only want to get out of here,” he said while his men slowly exited the opening of the wall.

  “I do not think they will make a truce,” Starling said.

  “It’s worth a try,” Mykal replied. “Damn,” he groaned when several blasts of horns rang out from the dark side of the cavern. “That can’t be good.” He watched the flicker of torches light the tunnel into the dark cavern.

  “I would venture to say they are calling for assistance,” Blair said. “They will not make a truce.”

  “Especially since we killed a bunch of the ugly little bastards,” Boris chuckled. “I was the one who drew first blood.”

  “Does anyone now remember how to get us back to the main passage way?” Mykal asked once all the men were out of the cavern. “Cuz I’m lost.”

  “I tried to take notes Myk,” Finley replied. “But we were going quickly, so please don’t hold me to the accuracy of this little map I drew.”

  “Sir, if you get us outta here, I’ll give you a big wet sloppy kiss right on the mouth,” Boris offered playfully.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Finley chuckled while most of the men laughed at his surprised expression.

  Nordad, his men and the three Elves looked at Boris as if they didn’t comprehend the value of such a strange offer. They didn’t understand or see the humor Boris used to lighten the fearful situation.

  “Finley, you’re the best hope we have to getting outta here,” Mykal said when no one else spoke up. “You lead the way. Listen up men,” Mykal paused for a moment. “I don’t need to tell you we’re in trouble. They know we’re here and they’re coming after us. We have to hustle. I don’t want any stragglers. We do everything in pairs. You point men keep your eyes open and go where ever Lieutenant Finley suggests. Rear guards, you’re our eyes and ears for these little creeps. Don’t hesitate to open fire.”

  Mykal wanted to complain how sick to his stomach he felt due to the unbearable stench, but he knew escaping was the top priority at the moment. He feared the gruesome reek would cling to every thread in his uniform and stick to every fiber of his being. He imagined stench particles adhering to the inside of his nostrils so that he would never be able to escape the death funk.

  “Hey Jake and the rest of you who were zoned out,” Boris called out to the group. “Do you know where we are or where to go? Do you remember how you got here?”

  “No. I’m completely lost. The last thing I remember,” Jake paused. “We were going through the mountain. After that, there is nothing. I am totally blank about what happened,” he shrugged and looked to the others who were in the trance. All agreed.

  “Men, trust me when I tell you,” Diaz spoke after Jake’s words. “We’ll get out of here. I truly believe we’ll escape from this place.
I have faith in my LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. This will not be our end. Let’s move!”

  The non-believers would not argue with Captain Diaz about his belief because of his rank and the respect they had for him as a professional warrior. As professional warriors every aspect of their training had been “to adapt and overcome”. They knew the situation wasn’t hopeless. They all knew that while they still had breath in their lungs and blood pumping through their veins there was a chance to escape, be it luck or Captain Diaz’s God.

  They filed out quickly and anxiety levels rose. In the Forrest of Death they were in wide open spaces and could travel in any direction. Under the mountain they were in confined spaces with limited options that would only help them to become more lost. Now the added threat of a pursuing hostile enemy with unknown numbers made it almost unbearable.

  After only twenty-five minutes of wandering around in the maze of stone block passages, Finley stopped Mykal. “Myk and Captain Diaz, I regret ever saying that I tried to make a map. I think I’m leading us in circles,” he said and looked like he had the pressure of the world on his shoulders. “I’m truly sorry, but I don’t know which way to go.”

  “Okay, well, we’ll just--oh shit. Shhh, shhh, everyone quiet,” Mykal held up his hand for silence. His increased hearing picked up some sounds. “Oh no.”

  “What is it?” Boris and others asked.

  “We hear it too Mykal,” Starling announced to confirm what Mykal detected.

  “It’s an army of the Goblins coming after us. We gotta get outta here and fast,” Mykal said. His facial expression showed his concern.

  “What are we going to do?” William asked. He finally broke his self-imposed silence.

  “We’re gonna find a way outta here,” Mykal barked quietly as if William asked a dumb question. “We wanna be careful not to allow these little bastards to chase us outta this area. Our exit is somewhere around here. If they chase us away from here and deeper inside the mountain then there’s no telling where we’ll end up. We have to stay in this general area. We gotta find that damn door so keep your eyes open for the passage that will take us to it,” he added. He knew that didn’t help.