Mykal's Deadly Perambulation

by Dave Hazel

  “No Sir, I was just--I’m sorry Sir,” he said as he massaged his forearm and cradled his injury.

  “Yes,” Jill returned to the fancy radio. “Dogstar One needs to report we have had a mechanical failure with the vehicle and are not traveling the route that was planned,” he spoke slowly. “There has been serious damage to the vehicle, so much so that it is damaged beyond repair. The hitchhiker is walking with valuables and should be picked up as soon as possible…”

  Mykal knew Jill was speaking in code and assumed he was the hitchhiker. He tried to come up with a plan, but wasn’t sure how this would play out. He allowed Jill to pass the message along.

  “…A tow truck and cleanup crew needs to be dispatched immediately because the vehicle is broke down in a high traffic area. There are eight pieces of debris and oil spills. I will be traveling by aircraft and will be seated for takeoff in twenty-five minutes. Does any part of the message need to be repeated?”

  “This is going to be ugly,” Ronny whispered. He seemed to be getting better control over the pain.

  “Correct. Correct. Correct,” Jill said into the mouthpiece while he nodded enthusiastically. “Correct, yes twenty-five minutes. Out,” he finished and hung up the handset. “We have to move fast.”

  “What if they’re still out there?”

  “Then we have to move even faster. I don’t know how the hell this blew up on us. Someone must have tipped Mykal off, but I don’t know who or how. Whoever they are must be working with him. I don’t understand why. No one knew.” Jill said more to himself than to Ronny. “Who could have tipped him off?”

  “You did, you back-stabbin’ scumbag,” Mykal said aloud and made himself visible. His Glock 17 was pointed toward Jill’s head. The heart stopping facial expressions on both of them was enough to make Mykal laugh. “What? Whadda ya got to say to that?” Mykal taunted as Jill’s lower jaw kept twitching downward as if he was trying to speak, but no sound emitted.

  “Ha, ha, how di’, how did you get in here?” He squeaked with his hands raised in the air.

  “Don’t worry about that. You,” Mykal swiveled the Glock 17 to Ronny. “What’s your name? I heard you called asshole, stupid bastard, sonovabitch. What’s your real name?”

  “Ronald Bailey, but I go by Ronny,” he answered with nervous terror.

  “Among other things,” Mykal snickered cruelly. “I’m this close to putting a couple of bullets in both your friggin brains,” Mykal said while showing his thumb and index finger almost touching. “So don’t screw with me. Ronny, with your bad hand, reach over and take that pistol from his waistband. I swear if you try anything, you’ll make me finish what I started.”

  Ronny tried a couple of times to grab the weapon with his broken fingers but it wouldn’t work. With every attempt he moaned and groaned. He finally managed to grab the trigger guard with his pinky and ring finger. Responding to the pain, Ronny sounded like he was going to have a heart attack.

  “Slowly put it on this bed,” Mykal directed with a wave of his weapon. “Now step back.”

  “Myk, how did you get in here?” Jill asked again.

  “Shut up,” Mykal said as he retrieved Jill’s pistol and tucked it into his waistband in his back. He backed up and slowly squatted down to pick up the bloodied bat. “Just so you know… all your Untouchables, your baddest bad asses in allllll the world, have been touched,” Mykal said in a mocking tone. “By me!” Mykal snarled with a jerking motion of the crimson covered aluminum. “And I did it all by myself.”

  “How? How could you do that on your own?”

  Suddenly Mykal disappeared and stepped closer to Jill.

  “How the hell did he do that?” Jill gasped. “Did you see that? Am I seeing things?” He turned to Ronny.

  Ronny stood motionless but scanned the room with his confused and terrified eyes. Jill looked to be afraid to make any movements.

  As suddenly as Mykal disappeared he re-appeared standing to the side of Jill and placed the end of the cold aluminum bat against Jill’s jaw and cheek and applied a little pressure. “Just like that, mother--”

  “Don’t, please, please, please,” Jill begged and closed his eyes as he breathed rapidly. “I’ll do whatever you want Myk, I’ll do anything.”

  Mykal pulled the bat back slightly and left a smudge of blood smeared on Jill’s face. “You lied to me. I put my friggin life on the line for you scumbag pieces of shit. I nearly died several times to do your bidding. Many good men died, and I come back to a set up? All I wanted was to be left alone with my family and you wanted to start a friggin war. No! Let me correct that. You wanted to kill me, so I turned it into a friggin war. Well, you got it scumbag, cuz now I can destroy you, and that worthless lying piece of shit President, and the whole friggin government. I can do it all just like this,” he growled between clenched teeth and turned himself invisible and pushed Jill’s head with the baseball bat.

  Jill stumbled backward and fell against the table. He wasn’t hurt but more blood smeared on his face, transferred from the aluminum club. “Please, please, please, Myk,” Jill begged and bent over onto the table with his hands out in a submissive manner. “Please let’s talk Myk.”

  Mykal re-appeared and dropped the baseball bat, but held the Glock 17 toward Jill’s face. “I like this with the silencer on it. It is sweet,” he said as if talking to close friends. “I could do a lot with this thing.”

  “Mykal, please we have to work something out. There is so much we could do together,” Jill begged. “Can I please get up?”

  “Get up, but I wouldn’t work with you. I heard every friggin lie you said including you don’t have children. I do appreciate that you didn’t want some of them to put me through a slow death, but that means nothing now. I took care of all the Untouchables, and I’m gonna have to take care of you two just to protect myself cuz I don’t wanna take a chance of being embarrassed,” he said with a mocking snarky tone in reference to the President being embarrassed. “It’s not personal, it’s business. No! It’s friggin personal in a big damn way. I’m gonna be your worst friggin nightmare you lying piece of shit.”

  “Myk, you’ll never get away with it, so--”

  “Oh I’ll get away with it,” he cut Jill off. “And I’ll take care of whoever else wants to play games with me, or maybe I’ll just go on the offensive and destroy this whole damn administration without even firing a shot. I could be the best spy ever. These friggin politicians and all their damn lies could be exposed to the entire world. I could easily show what they really are. And for the sake of argument, if I don’t do all that, I’ll definitely get away with wasting you two friggin scumbags.”

  Jill swallowed hard. “Myk, let’s take a look at your options, before you squander a great opportunity,” Jill suggested.

  Mykal turned himself invisible and quietly moved to the other side of Jill and then re-appeared with the Glock 17 pointed to the other side of Jill’s face. “There’s my options bitch, and you got nothing to say about it.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about Myk,” Jill gasped. His hands were pressed together as if he was praying. “Do you know what we could do with your ability?” He asked and a look of terrified greed glowed as if Mykal was holding a secret treasure map.

  “I can’t trust you, you lied to me several friggin times,” Mykal growled and jammed the silencer into Jill’s face. “I didn’t want to do you guys any harm. I just wanted to be left alone. But no! You had to screw me over,” he snarled his words and raised his Glock 17 but stopped before he brought it down on Jill’s head.

  Jill breathed heavy, and when there was a pause he spoke. “I know words mean nothing right now Myk, but I’m sorry. I was just doing my job. Let’s work something out, because I had no idea we were dealing with a, ah, um--”

  “A superhero,” Ronny offered at Jill’s loss for words. “A super warrior.”

  “Great choice of words,” Jill responded. “A superhero. I’ve never seen anyone do that before. How
do you do that?”

  “Do you really think I’d tell you?”

  “Can you teach it?”

  “Oh yeah, but I wouldn’t teach you. I couldn’t trust you to have this knowledge,” he said to lead Jill to believe it was something that could be taught. “It’s all right here,” he pointed to his temple.

  “Myk, I don’t want to do anything wrong here,” Jill raised his hands closer to his face. “But we’re running out of time. A crew will be showing up to clean up the mess, and we must hurry because if someone gets up and sees the bodies, you know they will call the police. We must leave before we’re trapped.”

  “Alright, do either of you have any handcuffs?”

  Jill and Ronny both looked at each other and both shook their heads.

  “Is that a special radio?” Mykal pointed to the suitcase on the bed.

  “Yes, and I must take it with me,” Jill answered.

  “Alright, pack it up. We’re going to go down the stairs and I’ll be invisible. I swear, one little false step from either of you and I will kill you and walk away if you try anything and then I’ll go on my rampage and finish what I started,” he threatened.

  “I give you my word,” Jill said as he zipped up the special suitcase. “By the way, call me Percy. That’s my real name.”

  “I know. And the same goes for you,” Mykal swung the barrel toward Ronny.

  “Mykal, I’m injured and in pain. I wouldn’t try anything even if I was told to.”

  They walked down to the stairs that had four dead bodies. Mykal forced them to move Dominick’s partner, Randy. Randy’s dead frame blocked the stairwell door open. Anyone stepping out of their room would see the man’s legs and the authorities would be alerted. Mykal allowed Percy and Ronny to move the body onto the landing with the other three bodies. The expressions on their faces told Mykal they were impressed with his work. The Untouchables had been a mighty force at one time.

  Mykal walked behind them as they walked through the front doors, and he remained unseen. Julie and her assistant thanked them for their stay, but didn’t bother to look up at them as they walked out the front door. They would have preferred not to have been noticed anyway. While being invisible, wrath swirled through Mykal’s brain. He fought the temptation to shoot them both in the back of the head and just leave them to wallow in their own blood on the freezing ground. He fought the violent thoughts of pulling his bloody knife or bloody bat to go ‘whacko’ on them. The urge was strong but he fought back and remained in control of his hostile thoughts.

  Mykal couldn’t understand why his hatred was so strong. He feared it had something to do with the ring. He believed an evil power was attached to the ring. He felt confident he had control over it for the time being. But he couldn’t get Diaz’s warnings from his mind that the evil powers associated with magic would turn on him one day.

  He sat in the back of his own car and forced Percy to drive. Ronny sat in the passenger seat and resigned himself to the fact that he was going to do what he was told. He needed medical attention and he wasn’t going to upset the apple cart.

  “…but Myk, I have a plane on the runway waiting for us to show up. They’ll send people looking for us.”

  “I’m not gonna argue with you, you’re going to do what I say and that’s it. Or they can come looking for you and find what’s left of the two of you,” Mykal said flatly and tapped the end of his pistol to the back of Percy’s head.

  4.

  They drove to Mykal’s house and exchanged vehicles. Percy drove the Jeep and Ronny sat on the passenger side. “Now where are we going?” Percy asked. He had complained while following Mykal’s directions. “My plane and my people are waiting for me. You must understand, Myk, we can’t keep the President waiting.”

  “Shut up and follow my directions or I will shoot you both right now. Besides, our dear President wanted me dead. What do I care if he is kept waiting? You have the friggin nerve to tell me that we can’t keep him waiting? You don’t have a damn clue what I’ve been through, and you’re gonna talk to me like that after you planned to kill me?”

  “I’m sorry,” Percy said and sounded like he kept control over his anger. “Can you at least tell me where we are going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Can you at least tell me why you handcuffed me to the steering wheel?”

  “Because right now I don’t trust you,” Mykal answered calmly as if they were talking about the weather.

  “Where the hell did you get these old handcuffs anyway? They look as if they need to be cleaned and oiled.”

  “They’re the handcuffs I had when I was in the Air Force.”

  “Why didn’t you handcuff Ronny?”

  “Percy, you’re getting on my nerves with all the questions. But to answer you, he’s injured and I don’t think he would be foolish enough to try anything. He saw what happened to all your friends and I wouldn’t hesitate to--”

  “I’m not going to try anything,” Ronny answered and looked at his swollen hand. “But I really do need to get medical attention right away. Are we going to get to medical soon? I’m hurting more now than before,” he added with a whine.

  “Soon enough. Stop here,” Mykal ordered. They were on a deserted road somewhere in the state of North Dakota.

  “You’re not going to kill us out here, are you?” Ronny whimpered. He held his injured hand closer to his chest.

  “No, and if I wanted to kill you, I would have killed you back at the room.”

  “Well, what’s out here?” Percy asked. They both looked down the highway and there was nothing to see.

  There was a light blowing of snow across the black pavement. The temperature was well below zero and they could hear the wind howl louder than the vehicle’s dashboard vents which blew warm air on the windshield. The side windows were frosted solid.

  “Turn it off and hand me the keys,” Mykal demanded.

  “What? We’re going to freeze,” Percy said and hesitated.

  “No you’re not. I’m only going to be a minute. I’m not taking any chances.”

  “Are you getting the Package?” Percy asked. “Is this where you hid it?”

  “Gimme the damn keys!” He repeated in a more forceful tone.

  “Please Percy. Give him the keys. I need to get to a hospital.”

  Percy’s left hand was handcuffed to the steering wheel. Using his right hand he turned off the headlights and switched the ignition to off. Percy then reached back over the seat and dropped the keys into Mykal’s hand.

  Mykal opened the door and disappeared, literally. He stood in the blowing cold for a couple of seconds to watch the two men scratch at the cold glass with their fingernails to make an opening to see through. He knew they were trying to find where he would retrieve the Package from, but that wasn’t his plan. Mykal moved into the front of the vehicle and knew they couldn’t see him and they couldn’t do anything to stop him.

  Rage and hate thumped inside his head and he was tempted so strongly to force both of them out of the vehicle so he could shoot both Percy and Ronny in both their kneecaps to watch them die by freezing to death. ‘It would take too friggin long,’ he hissed his thoughts. He remembered all the times he felt fearful of Percy or rather Jill at the time, but he was no longer fearful of anyone or anything.

  He was still tempted to watch them freeze to death. “It would take too long to watch them freeze to death,” Mykal argued with himself as the freezing wind sliced through his face bringing back so many memories from his days of missile field duty. The thoughts of rage and hate were hugged with thoughts of longing and loss. Most of his friends from the missile field days were dead and gone.

  A mawkish lump grew in his throat. He felt his eyes water but that could be from the blistering cold. Boris, Kurt, Denny, Rich and all the other friends from his missile field days flooded his mind. “If only I could turn back the clock,” he moaned as he reached into his pocket.

  When Mykal completed his ta
sk he rushed into the middle of the back seat of the Jeep and gave the keys back to Percy. “Do not, and I repeat, do not turn the headlights on,” he ordered and placed the barrel of the silencer against Percy’s skull behind his left ear to keep his right hand hidden. “Drive forward slowly until I say different,” he added. He hid the fact that his right hand, now green in color, shook and trembled demonstrably.

  “Where are we going?”

  Mykal jammed the pistol harder and cocked the hammer back. “I’m not gonna say everything twice,” he growled with teeth clenched tight.

  “Okay Myk, I’m sorry. Do you have the Package?” Percy asked as he rolled the vehicle forward. “Oh damn, what’s happening?” Jill/Percy shouted. “Oh no, what is this?”

  “What the hell?” Ronny howled.

  Mykal tried to force his eyes open during the dizziness, but it was extremely difficult. His fear was they would try to take his weapon from him, but then it occurred to him, if he was dizzy, they were dizzy also.

  “Shut up and relax,” Mykal raised his voice. He tried to sound calm and in control, though he was neither. “This will pass. Give it a minute.”

  “What did you do? Where are you taking us?” Percy shouted. His voice carried desperation and fear, something he rarely expressed.

  Mykal ignored their questions and waited for the green fog to disappear. After the green slime vanished from the windshield it was clear that they were in another place. There was no snow on the ground, there was no howling wind pushing sub-zero temperatures at them. The frost on the windows melted away in minutes.

  Mykal closed and opened his hand helping the feeling to return to normal. After all these trips he still wasn’t accustomed to the effects of traveling between worlds.

  He made Percy stop the Jeep, and he un-cuffed his hand from the steering wheel. He stepped out of the vehicle and told them to do the same. It was like a breath of fresh air, not just because the air was clean and pure, but because he was back in Towbar’s world and something inside told him this was home.