He broke free so quickly from the trees that he stumbled, eyes quickly scanning the three buildings in this clearing and barns beyond. Which one to choose? He picked the smallest, farthest away, before the barns. Jeff rushed ahead and slipped inside the unlocked door, resisting the urge to barricade it shut. Nothing would scream out Hello I am sitting inside this building faster than some lame-ass chair stuck up against the doorknob.
The small storehouse held enough food to last well through an Armageddon or two. Jeff’s eyes widened as he raced past row upon row of canned foods, foil-packaged MREs, and enormous drums of water. The drums were almost as large as he, and he skirted sideways halfway down one of the rows, stealing behind the first level of containers. The space wasn’t large, but he could crouch here and wait. Wait for Castillo.
Hide. Survive.
The door opened at the front of the building.
Jeff felt the breath die in his throat. The footsteps that came into the room were a man’s footsteps, but they weren’t Castillo’s.
Slow. Measured.
And coming his way.
Jeff tried to make his breathing more quiet. Wouldn’t Castillo call out?
I got you, pal. I got you, pal. I got . . .
The steps came close enough, he knew. Past the strongboxes of canned food and the MREs. Past the stockpiled oats and bags of flour and rice. Jeff could almost feel it viscerally as it passed the first row of water. Knew it was there as it had been before.
And coming closer.
Thoughts flooded through him, incoherent, but weirdly, terribly recognizable. 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. Another copy.
I’m dead. The thought so clear and simple.
It was going to get him. Castillo wouldn’t come. Castillo shouldn’t come. It was just Him now, the dark shape who he would become, who he was destined to be. I deserve this. The thought came swift and hard, and he felt himself gasp. It felt it, too.
Jeff held his breath again, even though he was dead. Even though he was responsible for all of the people who had died already—how many were there, by now? He couldn’t count. Didn’t want to know. He’d been invented in a lab exactly like this thing had been.
It stepped into his aisle.
All those people who’d already been killed. All of those people who were still going to die. All of this is my fault. They used me, the blood inside me, to make those toxins, these things, all of it . . .
It walked down the aisle toward him. Almost as if it could smell him in his hiding place. Almost as if it knew the truth that Jeff was only now ready to see.
I’m the monster here. I deserve to die.
Without taking another breath, Jeff crawled free from his hiding place and stood in front of himself. The monster he would become. The monster he already, and always, was.
Jeff looked up at it.
And the monster looked right back.
HUMAN AFTER ALL . . .
JUNE 15, WEDNESDAY—NEAR ROUTE 47, SD
Castillo froze in the storeroom as Jeff took position in front of the dark man. The way they were standing, they almost looked like father and son.
Except this father carried two long knives.
Jeff’s gas mask hung from Castillo’s belt like a talisman, the only way he’d known which way the kid had gone when the smoke had finally cleared enough for him to see the dark man barreling off into the woods. Castillo had known who he’d been after, but by the time he’d hit the tree line it had been a maze of possibilities. And then there had been the mask. And then there was here.
He took another step closer, but Jeff and the other man’s stares seemed locked in an unholy embrace. Or reflection. And, they were too close. From this angle, Castillo couldn’t get a clear shot. This one had the ballistic armor on again anyway.
Slowly, silently, Castillo laid his rifle aside and freed his own knife from his belt. The blade in his hand, he tried to think of something Odysseus might say, were he here instead . . . nothing. Not one damn thing came to mind.
He sprang forward. Felt it turn away even as he flung himself forward, his arm reaching out in a slashing arc that was meant for a jugular and ended up grazing a thickly clad arm. The fucking body armor again, U.S.A. approved and equipped.
Jeff fell back, out of the way, as the man came up screeching like some wild animal, rushing at Castillo. Knives in both of its hands.
Castillo grasped for his pistol, but it had closed the distance between them before Castillo had even gotten his hand around the grip. They slammed together, fire plunging into Castillo’s back and belly. He knew what it was, knew he’d been cut open again. Gutted. He faintly heard the dismaying sound of his pistol skittering away across the floor.
Driven against an aisle of water barrels, liquid splashed out freely over the concrete and made the surface slick as ice. He shunted the insistent weight and blazing pain away. Rolled from it reflexively to his right, his own knife still clenched tight in his fist.
They both charged again. Too close, too fast! One swipe and it was on him again, pinning him to the ground. Leering as a black hand came down and encircled Castillo’s throat. Clawed fingers digging into Castillo’s skin. Ripping. Squeezing. The other hand brought up the blade. Lifted its arm high.
Castillo’s eyes and face bulged from the lack of oxygen as he fought the hands, desperate to pry him off. Still, he could see it swing down at him; could see the sudden sharp, sideways lurch of the dark head.
Something striking that head. Blood splashing Castillo’s face.
The hand let go of his throat and the man crumpled sideways, howling.
Jeff.
Swinging his arm again. Holding something thick and metal.
Another crashing blow upon its head and the man collapsed to the ground.
Still alive, Castillo knew, but stunned. Human after all, in the end. Of course. Dear God, what fucking else could it have been?
He hazily watched as Jeff, staggering, dropped the weapon he’d just used and, instead, retrieved the pistol from the floor.
“Jeff . . .”
The boy leveled the 9mm at the dark man’s head.
“No.” Castillo was up.
“I can do it!” Jeff shouted at him, his voice unnaturally loud in the dim, dusty storage room, loud and full of pain and self-loathing and fear. Castillo knew the sound. He’d made it himself many times before. Too many times. “I want to . . .”
And then pulling the pistol away gently from Jeff’s hands. “No, you don’t,” Castillo said, and he looked hard into Jeff’s eyes. “And you never will.”
He watched as Jeff considered that, even as the man began to stir at their feet.
This same man, or more likely a brother, had probably saved his ass back in Iran. They’d been on the same team. Castillo aimed.
“You will never do this,” Castillo said.
Then he fired three times.
“Enough,” he murmured, securing the gun against his waist. He didn’t know if he was talking to it, himself, the whole rotten world. He collapsed to one knee.
Jeff grabbed his shoulder. “Castillo . . .”
“What the hell you use, anyways?”
“I think it’s a can of wheat berries.”
Castillo shook his head. Holstered the pistol. “What the fuck is a wheat berry?”
“No clue,” Jeff said. “But Ox has a shitload.”
Castillo reached for the communicator at his hip. “Ox,” he said.
“My friend, we got us one troubling shitstorm out here,” Ox crackled back. His words were light, but the tone filled with genuine alarm. “Bad guys closing in fast. Two minutes, tops.”
“Copy.”
“How close are—”
“Negative.”
“Castillo, we could—”
“Negative.” Castillo closed his eyes. “Last Call.”
“Castillo . . .�
��
According to the original plan, all of them would be escaping together under the impending commotion. But Castillo and Jeff were clearly cut off from that path. Best to at least get the other guys out. A start.
“Take it as an order if you’ll still take one,” Castillo said. “In the next life, pal. Over and out.”
He hobbled across the storehouse and retrieved the automatic rifle he’d placed there. Jeff watched him. Somehow, the kid seemed older still, his light blue eyes quieter. Darker even. More aware. Too aware. They looked like eyes that’d seen a thousand years. How could they not? “Come here,” Castillo said.
“What now?” the thousand-year-old boy asked. “Are we going back to—”
Castillo grabbed Jeff by the chest as, a quarter mile away, Ox’s fortress went up in an explosion that seemed to take off the entire top of the mountain. The night outside lit like noon and the floor shook beneath their feet, cartons spilling from the shelving around them. Jeff was still screaming and their eyes joined again, Jeff’s alight in shock and wonder at the enormous explosion that marked the total destruction of “Last Call.” The amazed and horrified eyes of a child once more. Thank God, Castillo thought.
“There goes our way out,” he said dryly, letting Jeff go. “Now we just gotta get off this damn hill ourselves. Somehow meet back up with these guys at the rendezvous spot.”
“If they make it.”
“It’s not them I’m so worried about, man.”
“Oh . . . So what do we do?”
“I don’t know yet.” Castillo’d pulled his own suit off, working at the warm, wet shirt beneath. Really had quite enough of getting stabbed by these fuckers. . . .
“Can you . . .” Jeff shuddered at all the blood, looked away. “I mean . . . what is that stuff ?”
“Medical glue. Think Super Glue for skin.”
“Will it work?”
“Nope. But, fuck, it’s . . . it’s better than nothing.” He did what he could. There was no glue for what’d been inside. He had a couple hours, tops. It was the full boundary of his life now. “Maybe enough to get off this mountain,” he lied and wondered who he was lying to most. He’d done as much as he could. In five, maybe ten more minutes, the ATF ass-clowns would figure out what had happened and move in. “Come on.” He made it as far as the door, but each step proved harder to take than the last. He tried to figure out a way for Jeff to sneak by or fight through twenty ATF agents. He . . . His thoughts were already growing darker at the edges.
He turned to the boy.
Jeff was looking off to the west, beyond the storage sheds. “Castillo . . .”
“What?” he said and followed his gaze to the barn. His brow lifted when he saw what Jeff had in mind.
“The horses,” Jeff said.
“Horses.”
Jeff nodded.
Castillo’s next step was easier. Not much. But enough. “That’d be cool,” he said.
Jeff glanced back at him. “Yeah,” he said. “It would.”
WELCOME HOME
JUNE 16, THURSDAY—RADNOR, PA
A Sunday morning. Early. They’d stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way to DSTI and the Massey Institute. The car smelled like coffee and fresh aftershave. The whole complex had been empty, and he’d wandered the rec room while his dad took care of some work in his office. He’d played Xbox on the big TV, tried playing himself in foosball. Otherwise, it was still and quiet for miles in every direction, like the whole world was still asleep, or had disappeared, except for the two of them.
What’s this? he’d asked.
Security system, his father replied.
How’s it work?
His father had smiled, checked his watch. I’ll show you, he’d said.
This memory was one of the few real ones.
• • •
Jeff held his hand to the touch pad. A back gate opened.
Held his hand to another touch pad. A door opened.
DSTI opened.
Castillo and Jeff stood in the doorway.
Ox and two of the men from the night before waited just behind them. Their prearranged escape strategy, rappelling down the sheer back side of the hill amidst the confusion of the demolition, had gone as planned.
The horse, too. Castillo had gotten them both down the hill, Jeff holding tight to his back as they’d snuck past the helicopter and escaped along the river.
The rendezvous location had been at a farm near Rosbys Rock, West Virginia. Jeff had never seen so many guns in his whole life.
“You’re with Ox now,” Castillo said. “First thing is find those drugs you need. There’s bound to be a supply in there somewhere. Then keep using those fingers, get into the places you think they might still be keeping some of the kids. You’ve got ten minutes to find as many as you can. Ten minutes.”
“All of them,” Jeff said.
Castillo nodded in agreement.
There was no “good” or “bad” anymore. They were just boys.
“Wait.” Jeff grabbed hold of Castillo’s arm. “Where are you going?”
“I’m using the front door. They’re already waiting for me anyway.”
“No! They’ll . . . I don’t want you—”
Castillo put his hand on Jeff’s shoulder. Stopped whatever words Jeff would have gotten out next. “It’s gonna be OK, pal. Everything’s good now.” He slid his hand to Jeff’s neck and pulled him closer for a hug.
“Castillo?”
“Focus on the job.” The embrace was quick. Castillo pulled back, releasing him. “Take care of this. Then take care of the others.”
“What others?”
“From your father’s list. A friend of mine has all the files. Everything. You’ll get it all again soon. There are still some other names, other families. Other boys who are going to be hunted ongoing as liabilities. Already out there, maybe.”
“And we’ll find them together.”
Castillo smiled. “Hope so. Look, Jeff, I’m not sure what happens next and don’t really even understand everything that’s gone down. But I know one thing, and I don’t need these scientist assholes or any of their damned tests to prove it either. There are good guys and bad guys. This I know. And I also know what you are.”
“Castillo. Don’t—”
“Go,” Castillo said and then left before Jeff could say anything else.
• • •
Castillo lowered his head.
He’d only expected Stanforth and Erdman and some security. Instead, he counted nine in the room. Stanforth, of course; Doctors Erdman and Mohlenbrock and three other DSTI staff he didn’t know. One of them was an older woman. Then there was Kapellas and Neff, two guys from Delta he’d met once before. Private security now.
And then one of the freaks: Dark Man. Shadow. Son of Cain. Man? Thing? Nightmare?
Did it even matter anymore?
How many more of them? Castillo wondered. How difficult to make thousands?
“Welcome home, soldier,” Colonel Stanforth said. “Mission accomplished.”
• • •
Jeff held his hand to another touch pad. Another door opened. Five boys were sleeping on cots inside this room. IVs dripping into their arms. Ox and another moved to collect them.
Another hallway, another room.
Three boys propped up in chairs. Metal held their arms and heads in place. Tubes fed them. Wires connected computers to their heads. Each skull opened at the top so that a dozen-plus wires connected directly to their exposed brains.
“It’s OK,” Jeff told them. “You’re safe now.”
• • •
The whole room grew comically still when Castillo entered. He noticed the look Stanforth gave the two mercenaries to lower their rifles, and took in each face slowly.
“We really gonna do this here?” Castillo asked.
Stanforth smiled. “No secrets here, Captain. We’re all on the same team, remember? Always were. Only want to fix things up again. Are we
good?”
“After you tried to kill me last night? Yeah, we’re good.”
“When you didn’t wait for us at the house in Utah, as you’d promised, we didn’t know what you were planning to do. One of my men had been executed. And something dangerous we’d expected to find was missing with you. My superiors got nervous. Should have contacted me right away, kiddo.”
“Nervous about this?” Castillo withdrew the third and final vial of IRAX11. The one he’d lifted off Ted’s corpse.
“Didn’t say I was nervous. Curious, maybe. But then I’m curious about a lot of things, Castillo.”
“As am I.”
“No doubt. I told you the first day you would be. And that there was no going back.”
“You did, you did. So you know they’re all dead, then? Ted. Al. Jeff. All of them killed by your . . .” He looked at the dark man in the room. “In that regard, we’re good.”
“All of them?” Stanforth got up from his chair.
“Those I was contracted to find.” Castillo watched one of Stanforth’s henchmen fan out steadily to his right. “And the other Dahmer clone, Jacobson’s boy. Killed last night.”
“Was he?” Stanforth nodded, but Castillo could tell the colonel didn’t believe him. “Did our other man also do that job, too?”
“He did.” Castillo looked directly at Erdman. “Of course, looked like the kid was gonna die from some kind of cancer soon anyway. He’d gone bad. Like Henry had. All of them, really. Rotting like old fruit.”
“It is not yet an exact science,” Erdman interjected. “Certain test groups have—”
“That’s fine, Castillo.” The colonel held up a hand for Erdman to be quiet. “The biggest concern was always the biotoxin.” He stepped toward it, then froze when he saw Castillo’s warning stare. “We found the second in the trunk of Jacobson’s car at Winter Quarters. Just as you suspected.”
“The biotoxin used at SharDhara,” said Castillo.
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