Project Cain (Project Cain)

by Geoffrey Girard

  I looked up.

  My goggles splattered with huge drops.

  Of red rain.

  • • •

  I could visualize two men above me. One dying. The other, a shadow.

  I held my hands in front of my face. They were now speckled with blood. I reached out again for Castillo, tried telling him what was going on above us. But the words came out jumbled, confused. It was like trying to talk in a nightmare.

  Castillo stared in confusion.

  The drops of blood just kept raining down on us. The next drops hit him.

  He finally looked up, and I found the courage to look with him.

  Above us the wall was dripping blood. An arm dangled off the rooftop. Braced by the elbow, the wrist and fingers sagging and lifeless.

  The blood dribbled steadily from the dangling hand.

  Then the arm slid backward. Something slowly dragging the body back from the edge.

  Castillo gave some kind of signal and everything kinda exploded.

  • • •

  I mean the woods and ground were shaking and everything. The boom, a long series of quick and succeeding detonations, lit the woods like it was noon. A hundred detonations, I figure, each following hard on the last.

  All through this total chaos Castillo acted like nothing was going on. Like he was walking into the kitchen to get something to drink. He just dragged me back into the underground bunker. My feet hardly touched the ground.

  We followed this long narrow hallway down into the ground where some of the living quarters and storage rooms were. Ox and one other guy came with us.

  I didn’t know Castillo’s true intentions yet.

  I didn’t know that he wanted the dark man to follow us.

  That I was bait.

  • • •

  We were all at the end of the hall. Me and Castillo on one side and Ox and this guy McLaughlin on the other. McLaughlin had a flamethrower. I mean, these guys!

  All three of them had special night-vision sights and stuff.

  I, however, couldn’t see a thing.

  I could feel it, though. That cold. Just when I thought I was used to it, it’d grabbed hold again. I let it sink in a bit. Tried to focus. Listened. If it could hear blood . . . If this thing could hear MY blood, maybe I could hear its.

  I had this image of it moving down the hall toward us, and I told Castillo. He checked. Said it was “nothing,” trying to assure me (and himself also, I think).

  Getting closer. Crouched in the dark, listening for the blood pumping though my veins. Blood they’d partly used to give this thing life. My whole body was shaking again. I was practically having a seizure there in the dark. I wasn’t even looking down the hall, but I saw it just the same. Feet away from us.

  I tried calling out again to Castillo for, like, the third time. To warn him.

  He just told me there was nothing there again. To hush, to wait—

  I wouldn’t quit. I told him: It’s right there.

  There must have been something in the way I said it. Something that suggested these were my last words, maybe.

  Because next thing I know, the whole hallway burst into flame.

  The guy with the flamethrower just torched everything in front of us.

  I heard screaming now. I heard blood boiling.

  • • •

  The thing was on fire, screaming in agony as it slammed into the concrete wall and then crumpled to the ground, twitching and flailing. The fire burning it lit up the whole hall.

  Its mind somehow in mine, its thoughts my thoughts. Thoughts of rage and hatred and fire. Get out of my head! I screamed, but not out loud.

  Killing. Pain. Death.

  Even through the gas mask I could smell the man’s, the dark man’s, burning flesh, couldn’t avoid looking at it, the man, as we stepped around—and it was a man now, not a thing anymore. A man with open, staring eyes and a gaping, terrified mouth.

  A man that could have been me, as we were made, more or less, from the same stuff.

  Made by my father.

  • • •

  Castillo dragged me away and outside again. Sporadic gunfire filled the woods. The more-human troops moving in for the kill now.

  Castillo said something, but I couldn’t hear. My ears were still ringing, my head crowded still with too many strange thoughts and feelings. I could feel this guy still burning at my very core.

  Next thing I know, all this smoke detonated from a dozen different places, filled the whole trench. I couldn’t see six inches in front of me. Then someone shouting about grenades and Castillo was throwing me into the trench.

  A tremendous boom filled the whole world. I slammed against the bottom of the trench almost as a relief, the feel of the ground the only thing that kept me pinned to the earth. Arms flailing, hugging the ground and praying that the wet cold earth would stop spinning beneath me.

  Where was Castillo?

  Around me were curses, orders, and the sound of more guns firing and bodies moving, but my own blood was pounding so loud in my ears that everything seemed like just an echo of the initial boom. I scrambled farther along the trench, seeking cover, seeking safety. I had to find Castillo. Or Ox. My one job was simple.

  I lifted my head to find him. Pointless. There was still smoke absolutely everywhere, bodies rushing around like ghosts.

  No Castillo. No Ox.

  I spun back around. Called out for Castillo, but in the rain of gunfire my voice was completely lost. I whirled around again, scrambling down the trench back toward where I thought Castillo was, had been, should be, must be. Bullets zinged over my head, and shouts, voices I didn’t recognize, rang through the air.

  Up ahead the smoke cleared just enough.

  I saw Castillo.

  Crouched ahead, not twenty feet away.

  I waved at him—his face obscured by his gas mask and his body tight and coiled, as if he were ready to spring.

  I shouted Castillo’s name and pushed myself forward, relief washing through me for the first time in what seemed like hours.

  Castillo looked up as I approached and smiled at me.

  Except you can’t smile through a mask.

  I stumbled to a complete stop.

  It wasn’t Castillo.

  And the face I’d seen wasn’t really a face at all anymore.

  Just an open gaping maw, dripping, leering at me with glee.

  I’d seen that same non-face look a hundred times before. The same that had reigned over my nightmares and stared out of dark shadows for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t really a face anymore because it was every face.

  Another dark man.

  With the face of the man I’d seen in the tank so many years before.

  The face of the man with knives at the foot of my bed.

  The face of the man who’d murdered my father.

  And it was Ted’s and Henry’s. And Al’s and David’s, too. All of them.

  Even the one painted like a clown.

  Each and every copy of them too.

  All the killers DSTI and my father had brought together blended into one.

  And so it was my face too.

  • • •

  I ran.

  Away from the second dark man. Away from the trench, the bunker. From my whole life.

  Where was Castillo? I had to find Castillo!

  But Castillo could be anywhere—probably was fighting for his life too. And I had no idea where Ox was either. I’d failed in my one task.

  I spun around, eyes skimming buildings, forest, men. Flashing bursts of gunfire. The smoke had cleared enough that I could see the line of trees not thirty feet away. I’d never make it to Castillo or Ox. I just needed to get away and hide. Just had to make it into the woods.

  I could hear the dark man behind me. Its sounds. Following.

  My lungs burned as I reached the deep black trees, as I stumbled over roots and fallen branches, my breathing coming so fast and hard that it steamed up
the inside of my mask until it was dripping with condensation and my vision was entirely blurred again. It was like running in every nightmare I’d ever run in. I ripped the gas mask off, dropped it, and picked up my pace, the sudden rush of oxygen all I needed to keep going. But I couldn’t just keep running. Soon it would catch me.

  I broke free so quickly from the trees that I stumbled. Three buildings in this clearing, and barns beyond. I hid in the second building.

  It was a storeroom. Mostly filled with food.

  My hope was to hide. Hide. Survive. Wait for Castillo.

  Behind me, the door opened at the front of the building.

  I felt the breath die in my throat. The footsteps that came into the room were a man’s footsteps, but it wasn’t Castillo. Slow. Measured. And coming my way.

  I tried to make my next breath more quiet.

  The steps came just close enough, and I knew completely now.

  The dark man.

  Thoughts flooded through me again, incoherent but eerily familiar. Rage again, and death. Extreme focused purpose. Hunting, always hunting. For something that seemed never to be found. It was him again. It. The thing. Just another copy.

  And coming ever closer.

  • • •

  Past the strongboxes of canned food and the MREs. Past the stockpiled oats and bags of flour and rice. I could almost feel it in my bones as it passed the first row of water drums. Knew it was there just like the other one had been.

  I thought, I’m dead. A thought so clear and simple. It was going to get me. Castillo wouldn’t come. Castillo shouldn’t come.

  This man was just me, who I would eventually be, who I was destined to be.

  I deserve this.

  This terrible thought came swift and hard, and I gasped for air. I’d been invented in a lab just like this thing had been. They’d maybe used me to make the toxins, these things, all of it. I’d also been created from some terrible killer.

  The dark man walked down the aisle toward me. Knew exactly where I was hiding. Almost as if it knew the truth I was only now coming to see.

  I was the monster here as much as it was. I deserved to die too.

  It stopped not five feet away. Stopped, and waited.

  Waited for me.

  To be a man? To accept my deserved fate?

  The same fate of the real Jeffrey Dahmer.

  I deserve to die. I deserve to burn in hell forever.

  He was right. My father was right about me.

  I crawled free from my hiding place and stood in front of myself.

  The monster I would become. The monster I already was.

  I looked up at it.

  And the monster looked right back.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  A man made partially from my own blood.

  A brother. A cousin? A son even, maybe. I don’t know.

  I knew only that he had a long knife.

  And I had the realization that—whether I “deserved” to or not—I didn’t want to die.

  And also that I was going to anyway.

  • • •

  I was shoved to the ground. Thought my head had been knocked clear off. Slammed against the concrete floor.

  Castillo was there. For real this time. He’d sprung from the darkness like one of the room’s shadows had come to life.

  He and the other man fought directly above me as I writhed on the ground in agony. I honestly couldn’t tell them apart. The whole room was growing dark at the edges. My head burning.

  I struggled to pull myself away. Rolled to my hands and knees. Blood dripped onto the floor in front of my face. I touched the side of my head, felt the wet hot gash there. But kept moving.

  I could hear them struggling behind me. And I could hear the dark man’s thoughts.

  How much he wanted to kill. To kill Castillo.

  I kept moving away. Looked back.

  Castillo’s gun was on the floor, but I would have to get past the two men to reach it. There was no way. I dragged myself up to my feet, looked around for a weapon of some kind. Anything at all. To somehow help Castillo.

  I could hear the other man’s thoughts more clearly. He was torturing Castillo. Punishing.

  And I could feel the man’s fingers and nails digging into Castillo’s throat.

  I could feel the man enjoying it. Watching Castillo die, I mean. Knowing that when he was done with Castillo, he’d then find and kill me, too. Knowing that Castillo understood this also. Castillo’s helplessness like a drug rushing through the dark man’s whole body.

  Looking around, all I found was a warehouse of food. Crates, boxes. Rows of giant cans.

  I grabbed hold of one of the cans.

  I stepped free from an aisle of shelves and could see them again. The man was choking Castillo, Castillo’s feet kicking off the ground, his hand up under the man’s jaw, tearing. Struggling to free the two dark hands from his throat.

  There was blood all over the floor at their feet.

  I could hear the man’s blood pumping wildly, hotly. Filled with life.

  And I could hear Castillo’s blood fading.

  I swung that tin can as hard as I could.

  Again and again and again.

  • • •

  The man was on the floor. His head split open pretty good.

  He wasn’t dead.

  Castillo had collapsed also. Was gasping for air. Fighting to get back to his feet. Leaving a smear of blood on the floor every time he moved.

  I picked up Castillo’s gun.

  Moved back across the room to where the dark man was.

  I could barely stand. Or walk.

  But I could aim.

  • • •

  Castillo stopped me. Told me NO.

  I told him I could do it. That I even wanted to do it.

  He just took the gun from me.

  He said: No, you don’t.

  He said: And you never will.

  Then Castillo shot three times.

  And then he collapsed back onto the ground.

  • • •

  In all the different ways Castillo ever saved me, this was, I think, the one that mattered most.

  • • •

  Castillo had been cut pretty bad. He used special glue to fill in the wound for a bit, but even I knew it wasn’t anything that’d last. I kept expecting him to pass out for good.

  He got on his walkie-talkie and checked in with Ox. The whole compound was overrun with cops and ATF guys now, fighting for the Bad Guys. Castillo and Ox argued some over what to do next.

  Castillo and I were too far away from the others for the original plan. (Something about sneaking down the back of the mountain with special parachutes.) Castillo told Ox to proceed anyway. Which he did.

  They wished each other luck and then signed off.

  It was now every man for himself.

  I hoped it was not every boy for himself. It wasn’t.

  Castillo pulled me close. His shirt was wet with blood.

  The whole world started shaking again. An even bigger explosion than before. A huge distraction of explosives that’d confuse the advancing cops and soldiers just enough. Long enough for Ox and the others to get down the back of the property as planned.

  As for me and Castillo . . .

  Castillo could hardly stand. I wasn’t much better. I followed him to the door, the current plan to sneak through the woods and back down the hill. Past a dozen or more armed men.

  Even if Castillo had been in perfect shape, it would have been a terrible plan.

  At the door I had a better one. Not much, but better.

  I’d noticed the stables across the way. Three horses.

  I reminded Castillo of that time in Afghanistan. When he and the other soldiers had ridden across the open field on horses. Kinda suggested it’d be cool to do again.

  Castillo agreed.

  • • •

  And the next thing I know, we were in the stables. The horses were all freaked out. �
�Spooked,” I guess, is the word. It took a couple of minutes for Castillo to get one of them calmed down enough. But he did. Tossed on the bit and bridle. But didn’t even put on a saddle or anything else as he led it to the open door. Just kinda jumped on. No time, he said. He held out a hand. He pulled me up onto the horse behind him. The animal jerked and shuddered beneath us.

  Castillo turned to me, told me the real key to every successful operation was the same and quite simple: When the first plan goes to shit, which it almost always does, quickly invent another.

  • • •

  Hang on, he said. So I grabbed on to his waist. The shirt sticky in my fingers. In the near distance, the glow of raging fires lit the whole woods. The horse charged forward away from the fire into the darkness. Racing through the night between unseen trees, as if it could see perfectly. Castillo urged it to go faster with soft forceful words. The horse went faster.

  Gunfire racked from the left. I pressed close against Castillo’s hunched back, my arms around his waist now. I don’t know how fast that horse was going, and don’t want to.

  Lights ahead. Castillo banked left, more gunfire followed. Castillo’s pistol cracked back in response. Tree branches whipped past, tearing into my arms and back. Above, a helicopter with a searchlight swept over the forest. The beam of light cutting through the darkness behind us, to the left. Castillo always twenty yards out of reach of the spotlight.

  And every gallop, every turn, felt like it would be the last. Like I would just bounce off the back of the horse. But I didn’t. The helicopter pulled away, moved back up the hill again, away from us. The horse continued straight down the hill. Breathing fiercely as if it wanted to get as far away from the place as it could. Probably did.

  We hit a stream and Castillo turned against it, heading north of the hill. He’d slowed some. The helicopter was a faint echo in the distance now. He looked back. You OK, he asked.

  Told him I was. I wasn’t sure how much longer he had, though.

  His face was pale. His lips trembling when he spoke to me.

  Now what? I asked.

  He said he needed real stitches. And fast. After that, he said, he’d find Ox again and it was back to the original plan.

  I nodded. Smiled even.

  I was finally going back to DSTI and its monster labs.

  I was going home.