by Ted Minkinow
Leland Graves intended to accompany Hattie and the young man, but something inside warned him away. That bothered him. He wondered if the Masters divined a way into his thoughts, but that was not like them. New powers always stood ready for discovery, but the Masters conducted themselves in a manner as conservative as it was predictable.
They never probed the boundaries. Golden nuggets lay glowing and within sight…still they refused touch them. He was not one for corporate limits.
Them and their Great Unsigned Contract. Ludicrous.
No, not thought intervention, he decided. Besides, the Employee Tablets did not authorize such and the Masters worshipped authority.
So why the hesitation? Prolonged exposure to Hattie Jackson’s aura? Leland Graves considered. Auras never caused problems before, though he did admit a deficiency in his study…something he worked to overcome in the last century and a half.
Ridiculous.
Leland Graves tabled the curiosity and looked to his second vassal sitting in the seat beside him.
A spotless animation. So proficient was he at demi-creation that he felt certain even the creditor might fawn over his resume. Two vassals for Hattie Jackson’s capture—one white, one black. Perfect symmetry, if one considered the geography. Attention to such details made him the perennial MVP…when not in exile.
The janitor provided a trial run for his vassal. Leland Graves thought providence directed him to ride along, though his sort often rode undetected in cars to the point common night drives for a hamburger were universally crowded affairs. The thing, that’s how he thought of vassals before testing—no need to become attached ahead of proof—wanted to attack at first thought. Leland Graves almost let it happen. But the porous aura allowed direct connection with the janitor’s mind and Leland Graves delayed a moment for investigation.
Details.
A Gordian’s knot sat between the janitor’s ears. So many dirt roads and oh, the bridges…impassable or in severe need of repair. Leland Graves hated doing favors and could not see how ending this man’s confusion could be considered anything else. He would let the vassal handle it.
But Hattie Jackson walked through the deep-fried mind of Marlin Tilbury and Leland Graves took new notice. He untied more threads…read ahead a few pages—No courage in this one—and made two decisions. First he stayed the vassal’s hand and second, he would remain in concealment…for the moment.
A third for my stable?
That would push limits…probe gray areas of the Employee Tablets. Leland Graves smiled…and made a third decision.
3
Marlin took another glance into the backseat. The Man was not there…not this time.
Nearly killed myself.
Marlin knew that given the same set of circumstances, he would do it all again. Even though he once more evaded The Man though Marlin knew his luck would eventually run dry.
Although Marlin’s stomach sent an urgent hurl signal, he did not dare vomit because he wanted to get home without further delay. But his limbs refused to move.
I'll just close my eyes for a second.
Marlin did…and the staccato heartbeat showed signs of easing…but only for a few seconds. Somewhere in his immutable subconscious alarm bells tinkled once more.
Open.
Exposed.
Dark.
Remote.
Alone.
Dread buzzed around him like gnats. Marlin noticed the keys dangling from the ignition.
Start the car, moron.
His eyes found the road…now the ribbon of pavement meant safety. Panicky Marlin, the one that controlled his psyches, overloaded the brain with conflicting instructions.
Run.
Wait.
Footsteps?
Danger!
Footsteps!
Faint sounds of someone slogging through damp vegetation penetrated the membrane separating Marlin’s contrivances from the here and now…and hit his nerves like an uppercut to the groin.
His mind’s first reaction was to deny. But the sound grew louder, clearer, more discernable and Marlin’s heart sped from idle to terminal velocity like Richard Petty leaving pit row. He gritted his teeth and pressed his head into the steering wheel.
A dark shape completed its trip from somewhere else to right outside the driver’s window, mere inches from Marlin. The Man? The figure bent toward Marlin, its features resolving into a beefy face partially covered by a dark beard.
Marlin tensed.
“You okay, buddy?"
The voice had an immediate and visceral effect on Marlin. He bolted upright and smacked his head on the sagging ceiling. His tired heart threatened to implode. More in an act of automation than courage, Marlin faced the voice.
It belonged to an average-looking man in bermudas and a T-shirt whose tail ended several inches above the overstretched waistband. A pickup truck idled in the grass about twenty feet away.
Reluctantly, Marlin’s brain admitted that this man could not possibly be The Man. He gulped his heart back down into his chest and stumbled out an answer.
“Yeah, I guess I'm a bit tired.”
The man took a cursory look at Marlin’s car.
“Looks like your car ain’t been banged up hardly at all,” the Samaritan said, then added after a pause, “at least as much as I can see in the darkness. You know, you’re pretty danged lucky."
Tilbury did not care what this person thought about luck, he just wanted the man gone.
"Thanks...I think I'll survive...just shaken up a bit."
"Be careful. You best stay awake. If you'd gone off the road half a mile earlier we’d be scraping you off the trees.” The Samaritan raised both eyebrows for emphasis. “I’m a rescue squad volunteer. The sight ain’t pretty, no sir." He spit tobacco juice for emphasis.
"Thanks again for stopping."
The man stood in silence for a few seconds. Evidently sensing Marlin’s hesitancy for conversation and satisfied he could offer no further help, the stranger walked back to his truck.
Marlin inspected the confines of his vehicle for the third time. Empty. All traces of The Man—stench included—vanished.
Probably a skunk all along.
Marlin thought how close he came to causing his own injury or death for no better reason than fear of an imaginary monster-person in his back seat.
"Not the first time." He spoke to himself, and remembered the same panic gripping him during his first week in Vietnam…the night he caused his comrades to cook several thousand rounds into an empty jungle.
Tonight he had replayed the story, except this time it almost cost him dearer. Over the years, he grew accustomed to a cowardice that engendered no more shame than popping gas in his own bathroom. He pulled the car back onto the road and covered the last two miles.
Marlin scampered from his car to his apartment. The duplex sat on a one-acre plot located just off the highway. Acres of thick woodland surrounded the remaining sides and the other unit sat vacant.
The apartment possessed a bedroom and another room serving as a kitchen, den, and dining room. Dust enjoyed free-range privileges from the day Marlin moved in. The faded tan motel-drapes were installed several tenants past. Aunt Hattie loaned the furniture: sweat-stained sofa, scarred coffee table, and single end table supporting a bare-bulb lamp.
Marlin opened a can of corn, dumped the contents in a pitted aluminum pot, and heated it on the working burner. He hoped exhaustion would stave off the dream…the one that made an alcoholic of him years before.
While he waited for his food to cook, Marlin completed the daily ritual of inspecting every inch of the small apartment for signs of disturbance. Tonight, he took special care. Only after performing the audit could he muster sufficient courage to later turn off some of the lights.
Marlin poured the corn into his bowl and went to the bedroom. He sat down on the bed and the meal took less time to eat than it did to prepare. He put the bowl on the floor beside his mattress, took off
his clothes and arranged them on the floor at his feet, then slid nude between the sheets.
Snoring started and Marlin Tilbury found himself in dreamland.
As he lay there, exposed and unaware, stained drapery panels beside the bed swayed. First they rippled, and then blossomed as if caught in an air current produced by brisk walking. Just as suddenly as they began moving the drapes hung limp.
Odor wafted in on the breeze, the same rot Marlin experienced earlier, inside his car. It hovered over him, and then spread to every square foot in the tiny bedroom. The odor brought perils of a nature that even the janitor, with his overworked paranoia, could not imagine.
4
Outside, in the darkness just beyond the bedroom window, two visitors arrived per orders. Moving without noise, they stopped inches from the glass. Marlin did not perceive the stench or sense the eyes staring at him from a few feet away. He also knew nothing about a third presence floating above.
CHAPTER 17
Saturday, July 14, 00:55 am, Vienna, Alabama
1
The dream began as always.
Marlin is in the Southeast Asian jungle about forty years earlier. His unit will clear acres of vegetation and set up camp on a hill overlooking the intersection of two valleys. Later, combatants will remember the A Sau Valley with the same reverence that Civil War veterans recounted the Wilderness Campaign.
It is early in 1968. The Viet Cong launched an offensive during the Tet holiday truce and succeed in capturing Hue, an ancient provisional capitol. It takes a month of bitter fighting to dislodge them. Fresh from that fight, combat-weary American troops are redeployed to break the siege of brave marines near Khe Sanh.
Through dream-blurred eyes, Tilbury sees the grim look on his captain’s face as the officer returns the field phone to the radioman.
Choppers arrive to transport Marlin’s unit and Sarge's voice booms in the background…above the whop-whop of blades. He barks orders; always alert, always yelling words that hit the brain but then fade with other sounds in the war’s fog of motion.
They board the choppers and, feet hanging from open doorways, fly away. Later, about four feet above the terrain, Sarge gives the visual signal and the unit’s lead squad, Marlin’s team, jumps to the ground.
Soldiers deploy. “Move with a purpose", Sarge says. They do…and secure a perimeter around the landing zone. No sign of the enemy. Helicopters arrive in a ten-minute parade, touching down and taking off every few seconds…hauling in the rest of the air cavalry troopers.
Private Tilbury blossomed into quite a soldier since his first night in country. He discovered a knack for shooting…shooting accurately. Marlin rushes through the perimeter and into the jungle beyond, where he will cover the unit with a perfect aim and his XM21 sniper rifle.
Victor C and his North Vietnamese pals wait; the Captain’s briefing said that much. Combat-tested Tilbury requires no intelligence reports to know the score. He senses Charlie all around…and smiles. In the last four months, his personal body count exceeded the number of burial plots at his church back home. Marlin welcomes the opportunity to add to the total.
Constant sounds. "Whop! Whop! Whop! Whop." Turbine engines envelop the hill with the sweet perfume of modern warfare. Armed with his toothy grin and protected by olive drab crosses sewn to his jungle camouflage, the brigade chaplain leaps from the Huey and rushes for cover. Blades cut through air—tips travel at supersonic speeds—compressing aerodynamic eddies into small explosions. Choppers arrive; choppers departed in constant, beating rhythm that rumbles through Marlin’s bones.
Whop! Whop! Whop!
No matter how hard he tries, Marlin moves with the speed of a slow-motion replay. His arms and legs hang limp and unresponsive…weighted. Is it sand or blood that fills his veins? He fights to quicken his pace, but subconscious levels in his brain know that he sleeps and bind his limbs. Marlin senses enemy eyes peering…piercing…plotting. He glances down to his weapon, and his heart stutters.
Dirty. No, not dirty, he could recover from dirty. “Encased in mud.” Useless. Something else to…it feels light…like a plastic toy rifle.
He manages to clear mud from his high-powered scope and scan his unit. Private Garcia—who jokes that he enjoys the adventure, travel, and steady paycheck—smiles and waves.
How can he possibly see me?
And then it hits Marlin. His face…Under his skin…Freakin’ skull is flashing!
Tilbury wipes his scope…recalibrates it. There it is again…the death grin…gaping eye sockets and cranium visible under Garcia’s paper-thin skin.
Sleeping janitor-Tilbury understood the portent.
The unit strings concertina wire. They rig explosive booby traps and claymore mines outside and within the defensive line, and dig and man foxholes situated to provide crossing lines of fire…killing zones.
The dream resolved into vivid focus.
Elusiveness is the enemy’s strength…and the ability to attack from the bush and disappear with ease. The Man—that’s what Sarge calls them—seems satisfied to trade appalling losses for a chance at killing one or two of Marlin’s comrades. This gruesome strategy will win the war. All that will come later; sleeping Marlin knew. Back in The Nam, Marlin’s unit make crucial preparations. Losing the firebase means death. Helicopters return at daybreak…the unit is isolated.
Marlin settles into his sniper’s nest and checks communications with command post. Night vision goggles and starlight scopes remain in the future; but no matter. Enemy attack and American defensive flares provide ample illumination to ply his trade.
The Captain visits each position…encouraging the men and rechecking preparations for night defenses. Tomorrow Americans sweep into the valley. The waiting begins.
For the sleeping Marlin, dormant combat senses sharpened. The young, vibrant Marlin Tilbury claimed temporary supremacy over the timid, introverted and aging man snoring on his sweat-soaked bed in Vienna, Alabama.
Sentries remain alert while comrades sleep. An extra dozer could cost them all. Marlin’s heart strengthens, output doubles…triples. In the jungle, he has the ears of a wolf…could process any disturbance. He is a killing machine.
Private Tilbury controls his own destiny courtesy of his weapons and his lethality. The long-forgotten truth brings a euphoria the young soldier turned janitor could never experience in waking hours.
"Ker BOOM!" A blinding flash detonates and darkness disappears for an instant.
The concussion rocks Marlin and he lifts his rifle as the first defensive flare ignites over the American position.
Somehow, his scope zooms in on Garcia. This never happened in the actual battle but Marlin’s exuberance dismisses the inconsistency. He had a unit to defend and Chuck to kill.
He lingers a moment with Garcia in his sight. His friend's head appears soft and wet, malformed. Marlin’s brain understands.
Garcia’s hit!
Garcia’s arms and legs twitch as the nervous system shuts down.
Gunfire fills the air with multitudes of tracers—green for The Man, red for the Americans—that sear the air like supersonic fireflies. More explosions light the night.
Marlin zooms in on the black pajama-clad, AK-47 carrying figures attacking the unit’s perimeter. Somehow, the mud encasing his rifle sublimated. He drops one…then another…and yet another.
Hunting’s great tonight.
It turns out too good; so good he could not possibly wax all the Cong before they overwhelm the sapling base camp. His unit is losing…his friends are dying.
Marlin drops his sniper rifle; he can retrieve it later. It’s no good to him anymore…no more flares…no more light…the battle degenerates into a close-range, hand-to-hand struggle. The young private pulls the 45 automatic from its holster. He charges the 200 meters or so between his position and that of his comrades.
Janitor-Marlin's body shivered as sweat glands deluged sheets, pillow, and mattress. The scene shifted to a perspective hov
ering several feet above the destroyed base camp. He saw himself departing the realm of consciousness as debris from the rain shower of hand grenades enveloped the American lines. An explosion buried him. Marlin’s mind quiets.
2
The visitor’s eyes foraged into Marlin's thoughts like a hyena sniffing a carcass. Such morsels…but where to take the first bite? The Man—Leland Graves—adored the war theme. He decided to wear it—literally. That sort of shifting would make this transaction a Leland Graves signature acquisition.
Corporate best practices advised closing the deal and delivering the product. But authors of those documents never produced as prodigiously as he did. Triangles held power on his side, and Leland Graves needed one more vassal for perfect geometry. Besides, insufficient confusion existed—no war, nothing sinking or exploding, no coup-de-tats underway—to allow his recent pack—Two imbeciles—free among the local population. Someone would notice…likely more than one someone, too. And then Leland Graves would find himself west of policy…again. So many reasons, so many justifications, and Leland Graves decided.
Two animated, one living.
The Masters would shudder at the audacity. But if the larger acquisition went according to plans, the Masters would soon cease to matter.
CHAPTER 18
Saturday, July 14, 01:33 am, Vienna, Alabama
1
The dream continued.
Private Tilbury regains his senses. Darkness recedes, as do the sounds of a battle. Acrid odors stab his lungs…foreign voices surround him. His brain reboots. Marlin recognizes the language—Vietnamese—and his heart pumps terror instead of blood.
The explosion that claimed his consciousness also buried him with mud and branches. Through a peephole he sees North Vietnamese Army soldiers, NVA, walking around the base camp. They rifle through American dead for souvenirs and cigarettes.
Anger and shame conspire to overcome him…survivor’s guilt. The same shell that killed a kid from Arkansas conceals Marlin…provides shelter for continued life. He hears faint groans; so do the NVA.