Project Cain (Project Cain)

by Geoffrey Girard

  We meet for the first time.

  The dark man and I.

  This is only a memory.

  But I somehow knew he was close again.

  • • •

  The dark man found the house on the third day.

  I saw none of it. I don’t remember much of that time.

  I’m told he killed Al and Ted and Jeff Williford.

  I can almost picture him doing this, but these are images I chase away quickly.

  I can tell you that when he was done killing them, he came for me.

  • • •

  I think I’d been tied or taped again or something to a chair. It’s all . . . I don’t know.

  I remember the sounds of screaming.

  I could almost hear his thoughts again. The REAL killer.

  The dark man.

  Pictured him chopping into Albert, ripping away that muscle and weird fatty stuff inside. Almost as if I were doing it myself. I imagined David and heard gulls screaming. I imagined my father being torn in half. I welcomed the enclosing darkness.

  Soon, I prayed, I would see nothing else.

  I remember feeling the thing/man standing right behind me. Breath hot and wet against my shoulder blades. The warmth off his body. Several jagged nails moving slowly under my chin.

  Stuck in the chair, this killer behind me.

  It seemed sort of silly now. All of it. I’d been wrong.

  There was no real Jeff Jacobson. Or Jeff Williford.

  Or Jeff Dahmer for that matter either.

  There was only Cain.

  Death manufactured in laboratories, mined from physical evil.

  I waited to die.

  Then, what I thought was warm water splashed over my back and soaked the top of my head. It wasn’t water.

  Because the table beneath me turned red. Like a magic trick. Like a sorcerer’s spell. And the red on the table was blood, I realized, and my silhouette—my own head and shoulders—instantly appeared on the table between the spatter.

  All sound vanished. Then something like thunder filled the room, pierced my ears.

  THIS is Death, I thought. Not squished birds or frozen boys or graveyards.

  I felt great weight fall against his body and then slide away again.

  I heard more thunder.

  Gunshots.

  Something touched my face, lifted my head.

  The light above burned my eyes, and I crept back into the darkness again. The burn from the ropes slackened suddenly. Then nothing.

  I felt myself being lifted from the chair.

  Like flying.

  I forced one eye open.

  It was Castillo.

  • • •

  castillo (noun)

  Spanish word for “castle”

  (1) a fortified stronghold; (2) a place of security or refuge

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I woke. For all I knew I was back in my own house in Haddonfield. Or maybe, at worst, it was still the night my dad left. The night Castillo had arrived. And all the rest, all of it, the most terrible of it, had been a nightmare. I had imagined the whole thing.

  But my entire body ached a thousand different ways. And a man stood at the end of the bed. Fading like another ghost. It was not Castillo or my father. Maybe the world was nothing anymore but half-formed ghosts. Maybe that’s all I was now too.

  Coming into focus again, a small black man. A face I knew. A real face.

  You’re safe.

  It was Ox I was looking at. But Ox hadn’t spoken.

  The voice had been Castillo’s and I tried turning to it.

  Take it easy, his voice said.

  I slowly took in the rest of the room. Sparse. Bare walls, a cot, rusted metal desk.

  You’re safe, Castillo said again and then tried to get me to focus. I tried concentrating on his face. He looked totally exhausted, sorrowful. I didn’t need a mirror to see what Castillo was looking at. As well as Castillo was trying to hide it, I could see in his eyes.

  I was broken. I’d been messed up pretty bad.

  Castillo told me we were at Ox’s place. Somewhere we’d be safe for a little while.

  Castillo confirmed that my father was dead, and I didn’t let him know I somehow already knew that. That I’d seen/felt it happen in my own mind/body. It still hadn’t sunk in yet, and I stayed quiet as Castillo recounted what had happened.

  How he’d found my dad at Winter Quarters and was bringing him out when the same man from the motel showed up. The dark man. He’s the one who killed my father. Who stabbed Castillo, too. (All of this familiar in the back of my mind as some sort of half-formed dream-memory.)

  When he finally returned to his own car and found it all busted up and me gone, Castillo called his bosses finally. Told them Dr. Jacobson was dead and that he’d found one of the canisters.

  Then he told them to let out more of these supersoldier things. These men who could somehow find the boys so easily. He understood this now too, I think. The link between us all. Something in our blood. Synthetic or whatever. Told them he’d now “vanish forever” if they’d find the boys and tell him where. Otherwise he was going to the press with everything.

  His bosses accepted, and when the dark men found Al and Ted and two Jeffs, they called Castillo as promised and he was ready. Castillo was too late to save three of the boys. (By choice or not, I still don’t know. Don’t want to.) But he killed his second dark man.

  Castillo told me there was now just one more thing to take care of, and then it’d all be over.

  I knew then he was going back to DSTI.

  • • •

  I said: They’ll just kill you, too.

  Castillo figured they were going to try soon anyway. This way maybe it was on his own timetable. His terms. He thought it’d help.

  I told him I wanted to go too, but he wanted none of that. He told me I needed time in a real hospital with real people who could help start putting me back together again.

  But it was more than just the cuts and punches and other stuff. More than whatever psychological damage I had to carry now. Castillo let me know it was something else.

  His eyes led down to a bandage on my arm. The bandage was not for cuts or anything.

  It was, it turned out, for the black stuff on my arm.

  The same stuff Henry had been covered in.

  The same stuff Ted and Jeff had too, according to Castillo.

  Turns out my “allergy medications” were not for allergies.

  They were for something else.

  • • •

  Dolly, the famous cloned sheep. Remember her? He lab name was 6LL3. She died at only six years old. Most sheep live to twelve. But there were giant black tumors growing inside 6LL3’s chest. And her legs already had arthritis. She couldn’t stop coughing blood.

  So they euthanized her.

  In the biopsy they found surprisingly shortened telomeres, the parts of the cell connected to age. The scientists figured these midget telomeres had been passed on from the “parent,” who’d been six years old when the DNA was taken.

  So, genetically, Dolly was already six years old the day she was born.

  Weird, huh?

  • • •

  To officially get all the numbers straight.

  I developed in a vat at DSTI for close to two years.

  I have the physical appearance and development of a sixteen-year-old.

  The chromosomes I was made from were thirty-three years old. (The age Dahmer was when they took tissue samples from his brain and made me and Jeff Williford and others.)

  I was born eight years ago.

  So, best I can figure I’m forty-one years old. (In clone years, I mean.)

  Whatever.

  I try not to think about any of this.

  I will avoid celebrating future birthdays.

  • • •

  The original plan was that Castillo was going back to DSTI to get rid of DSTI’s scientists and his own bosses once and for
all. Also, to get me the medications I needed.

  I asked about the other kids, those who might still be at Massey or DSTI, and Castillo told me they weren’t my problem but promised if there were any kids left, he’d get as many as he could.

  I didn’t think that was a good enough answer. I wasn’t the only one who needed to be saved and protected from these people. I was, however, the only one who could really help do something about it. So I told Castillo I could help.

  Castillo said I’d already done more than anyone else (I suppose I was getting credit for helping to find most of the missing clones), and even Ox piped in about how he and Castillo could handle things now. I was supposed to just hide out with Ox until Castillo got everything taken care of.

  I lifted my hand. It was shaking. The nails worn to nubs. But I got it up there all the same. I said: It’ll be easier to handle it with this.

  What’s that? Castillo asked. He leaned back, curious. Half smiling, even.

  I wiggled my fingers. Five keys, I said.

  DSTI’s security system.

  Ox looked at Castillo with excited eyes.

  Castillo said no. Said I was done. No more.

  He said: Those monsters will never harm you again.

  I needed to let Castillo know I was ready. That I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t afraid of monsters anymore. I was “Extreme for Life.” I didn’t think he’d get that skate park mantra the way I’d hoped. I’m not sure how well it was really working for me, either.

  So instead I quoted a line from The Odyssey. Something Odysseus’s son says to him right before that huge battle at the end.

  In short, the quote meant I could handle it.

  Castillo obviously knew the line. Took it pretty hard, in fact. He, like, cried and stuff.

  I told him I wasn’t gonna hide anymore from the monsters.

  No, Castillo agreed, looking up. We’re not.

  I asked about the dark man, but I called him a “thing.”

  I killed him, Castillo said. But . . .

  But there’s more, I said, and pictured rows of liquid-filled tanks.

  He admitted this was true and asked how I knew.

  I explained I just did and that I kinda thought they were looking for me even now.

  I said: And I think they’re getting close.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  C     astillo’s plan-number-one of taking care of things himself and leaving me safely behind was done. There was no more “safely behind.” DSTI and the government knew where I was and they were coming for me. They knew because the “dark men” knew, and I could literally feel them looking for me.

  So plan-number-two became to not get caught in the open but maybe fight it out there at Ox’s place.

  The “Good Guys”

  Castillo and Ox and a handful of Ox’s pals. Who were all pretty hard-core rogue prepper/survivalist types. Hated the federal government. Most of them were vets like Ox and Castillo. One was just a guy who was angry about some “New World Order.” He told me I was just a pawn in all of that now. There were four of them. McLaughlin. Wilke. Rosfeld. Some other guy. Added up, they had more guns than God.

  The “Bad Guys”

  Castillo predicted his government boss, Colonel Stanforth, would send a couple of Special Forces–trained mercenaries (like Castillo) and a group of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. And probably a bunch of local cops. Small-town sheriffs and such. Castillo figured the locals would be brought in to make a mess of things and make the cover-up even easier. Afterward, Castillo said, the press would simply report that the ATF had conducted a raid on terrorists or right-wing extremists. No one would ever know what really had happened.

  Also. The dark men. Castillo agreed with me that there’d been several.

  DSTI didn’t make just ONE of anything.

  So they’d be coming also.

  For me.

  • • •

  There were, like, a hundred acres at Ox’s place. Wooded. Uninhabited. Middle of nowhere up on some mountain somewhere in South Dakota. There were half a dozen different trailers and sheds spread among the trees. Solar panels, generators. Kitchens, storage. Paddocks for livestock, chicken coops, a small dog kennel. Barns for a couple of horses. Underground bunkers for when the bombs or sun flares ever started falling someday. Ox and his pals had spent all sorts of money and time on this stuff.

  And they were pretty damn serious about two things: (1) bad days were coming, and (2) they were gonna survive.

  Everyone now knew Part 1 was true.

  They spent all day planning what would happen when the Bad Guys found us again.

  Still, I got the feeling not even Castillo was so sure about Part 2.

  • • •

  All that whole day, Castillo and Ox and the other guys prepared.

  A lot of it involved explosives. Mines and stuff.

  Consequently I was asked to stay in my room.

  A room surrounded by concrete that was a hundred feet below the ground.

  They took turns guarding my door.

  I tried to sleep. To heal.

  All that whole day, I could feel the dark men in my head.

  Listening for me. For my blood.

  All that whole day, I could feel them getting ever closer.

  I closed my eyes.

  Come and get me, I said to the dark.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Castillo had been in the military since he was eighteen years old.

  He told me that the key to every successful operation was the same and quite simple: Everyone just had to do the job they’d been given.

  I didn’t have to think about the traps and tricks and escapes and whatnot.

  I only had one job: stay near Castillo.

  And IF something happened to Castillo, stay near Ox.

  And IF something happened to Ox, it wouldn’t matter.

  • • •

  Ox had these special suits we wore that would help conceal our body temperature. Standard US Army stuff he’d bought from some German company. Apparently this was a good thing because all the guns that’d be aimed at us would have thermal imaging. We also had gas masks.

  Castillo told me to expect smoke grenades or worse. And again to just stay close.

  I wasn’t walking so good yet. One of Ox’s guys had stitched up my feet in a couple of places from when Ted cut them looking for the nonexistent transmitter. They were still pretty swollen and sore. And I was still sore. Everywhere. Muscles and tendons I didn’t even know about a week before. I still felt half-dead.

  But even half-dead I was ready to end all of this as much as Castillo was. My father was all-dead, killed by something he’d made at DSTI years before. (Ironic, yes. And sad too.)

  And now those same things, this same organization, was coming for us.

  It WAS gonna end soon one way or the other.

  The gas mask felt funny on my face. I could hardly see a thing through the bug-eyed lenses. It didn’t help any that my glasses had been smashed back at Winter Quarters.

  We were stuck in this long ditch that ran along the front of one of the concrete buildings.

  I could hardly stand, but I was doing my job—Castillo was next to me. The other guys were in their spots. On roofs, in the woods. In the next trench.

  We waited like that for hours.

  I started to get really cold around eleven at night. And understood exactly what that meant. They were close. I told Castillo, and each passing hour, the cold got deeper and deeper inside me.

  I could feel other thoughts poking around my own. Like tiny fingers moving and scratching under my skin. Bubbling though my blood.

  I sat down at Castillo’s feet. Tired. So very tired.

  I could picture them clearly moving through the woods. The trees and bushes blurring by as shadows. Unnatural speed. Drifting . . .

  It was probably two in the morning.

  I sprang awake. Like an electric shock, a blast of co
ld had detonated up and down my spine. I thought my eyes were gonna burst out.

  I thought I was gonna die.

  Castillo, I said. They’re here.

  About ten seconds later guns started shooting.

  Let me tell you, it was loud as shit.

  Just like Castillo had said war was.

  • • •

  So all these guns shooting. I don’t even know from where.

  People shouting directions at each other over these walkie-talkie things. Smoke bombs flying. I honestly had/have no idea what was happening. The whole thing was a total blur of noise and smoke and getting dragged around and people shouting.

  Castillo kept lifting me and pulling me this way and that, then shoving me down again. I just kept trying to do my one job. It wasn’t easy. My thoughts were just as confused as all the crap going on around me.

  I could swear I saw something jumping past us from the smoke, scaling the wall of the building behind us.

  I mean a man. A dark man. And I literally just watched him shinny up.

  I reached for Castillo, but he was shooting his rifle and yelling at Ox about something.

  One of Ox’s guys was above us with a sniper rifle or something.

  I stumbled back against the trench to support myself. My head was suddenly so light. Could hardly stand.

  I suddenly imagined slitting a man’s throat. It was terrible. But all the same and all of a sudden I could see that knife going in and the blood and everything. My head filled with such terrible thoughts.

  I grabbed out for Castillo. Tried to warn him . . .

  Of what, I had no idea. I just . . . I don’t know. I could see it like it was happening.

  Then it started raining. Felt it hit my shoulders and back.