by J. L. Harden
For some reason I take a deep breath. And then I realize I had been holding my breath. And then I exhale slowly, and I feel relief. I don’t know why I feel this way.
I scan the scene before me. I take it all in.
The dead pilots.
The dead Evo Agents.
I look closer. Their necks have been pierced and sliced open, torn open, ripped open.
This chopper is brand new. State of the art.
Why did it crash?
How did it crash?
Relief quickly gives way to fear…
Doctor Hunter was a prisoner. The Evo Agents came for him. They told us, lied to us, that they had no room in their chopper, in this chopper, that they couldn’t extract the rest of us. They told us to stay put, that a rescue was coming.
Their other prisoner was the man in the gas mask.
Doctor Kumar Singh.
Where is Doctor Kumar Sing?
Where is the man in the gas mask?
Our primary objectives are still at large…
The recon team, the extraction team, they never made it back.
My exhausted brain finally catches on. We are standing around the wreckage of a state of the art Blackhawk helicopter. We are standing over five dead bodies. Four soldiers. One doctor, a prisoner.
We are one prisoner short.
We are shocked into silence.
Where is Doctor Kumar Singh?
“This is the rescue team,” I whisper.
Kenji looks at me. “What?”
“This is the rescue team. They came for the man in the gas mask. And Doctor Hunter.”
I point to the body, to the passenger with a spear sized piece of shrapnel sticking out of his stomach. “Jack is right. That’s Doctor Hunter.”
“No way,” Kim says. “How did this happen?”
The recon team never returned. They never made it back to base.
“He did this,” I say. “The man in the gas mask. He escaped. He crashed this chopper. He killed the Evo Agents. He killed the pilots. He’s still out there.”
“Who are you talking about?” Sarah asks.
Jack fills Sarah in on the man in the gas mask. On everything that he has done. On all the chaos and death he has caused. He tells her that despite all the killing, despite the fact that he had caused the outbreak, caused an Extinction Level Event, the company still considered him a high priority, they still considered him a very valuable target. This is why the company had sent in a special team to rescue him. YoshidaCorp wanted him alive, they wanted to capture him, they wanted to imprison, instead of kill.
Or maybe they still wanted to use him.
But the man in the gas mask is a ghost. He is a demon. And he cannot be caught.
He cannot be caged.
And I’m starting to believe he cannot be killed.
“There’s no way the man in the gas mask killed two Evo Agents,” Maria says. “He was handcuffed. He was dying. There’s no way.”
“Look at their necks,” I say. “Their throats have been cut. I don’t know how he did it, but he got the jump on them. He strangled them, slit their throats.”
“These soldiers,” Sarah says, looking at their protective NBC suits. “They’re not regular soldiers, are they?”
Kenji shakes his head. “No. They’re Evo Agents.”
“From the company,” Sarah says, catching on, piecing bits of a puzzle together. She must’ve heard the rumors.
“Not even a super soldier can survive a helicopter crash,” Jack says. “I wonder how high up they were when they came down.”
“I don’t think the crash killed them,” Kim says.
“What do you mean?”
She points to their necks, their suits. “Rebecca is right. Look. Their throats have been slit. That’s not from the crash. Someone did that to them. Someone bled them out.”
I notice what appear to be black scorch marks on their NBC suits. Kenji notices as well. He then looks over his shoulder at the ground surrounding the chopper. Scattered all over the place are bullet casings.
“There was a struggle here,” Kenji says. “The soldiers, or the pilots, they’ve been shot at. Close range. They were shot with a high powered assault rifle.”
“That wouldn’t have killed them,” I say, remembering the time I was shot square in the chest while wearing an NBC suit. The force of the bullet knocked me off my feet, it crushed the air from my lungs. But it did not kill me. The suit saved my life.
“No, the suits are bullet proof,” Kenji says. “But at this range, the shot would’ve stunned them. It would’ve knocked them off their feet. Assuming they were shot with an assault rifle.”
“And then he would’ve slit their throats,” I say. “Or maybe he slit their throats mid-air. Shot the pilots. Crashed the chopper on purpose.” I’m talking to myself, picturing in my mind the sequence of events carried out by the mad man.
Jack moves towards the cockpit. “The pilots have been shot,” he says. “They’ve been shot in the back several times.”
“So, wait a minute,” Maria says. “The man in the gas mask… he’s still alive? He’s still out there?”
I nod my head slowly. “Yes. He escaped. He was waiting to be rescued from the Fortress. He was waiting for the perfect time…”
Again, I’m thinking out loud.
I remember back to the Fortress. The man in the gas mask was handcuffed. He was a prisoner. But he was calm. Like a psychotic Zen Master. He didn’t care that he was handcuffed. Or blindfolded. He didn’t care that he had been stabbed.
He didn’t care that he was slowly bleeding to death.
He knew they would come for him.
He knew they would underestimate him.
He was waiting for the perfect time to strike.
He waited until he was out, until he was free from the Fortress.
He waited until he was back in the desert, until he was mid-air.
He waited for the Evo Agents to drop their guards… just a little.
And then he made his move.
He crashed the chopper. He took his chances.
He rolled the dice.
And he survived.
He got his hands on a weapon.
A rifle.
A knife.
He slaughtered the Evo Agents. Executed the pilots.
And now he has disappeared into the desert, like a ghost.
I turn to the horizon and my heart beats just a little bit faster knowing that he is out there somewhere.
The architect of the apocalypse.
Creator and destroyer of worlds, of life.
“I can’t believe Doctor Hunter is dead,” Maria says. “He survived so much. He got out of North Sydney…”
“Who is Doctor Hunter?” Sarah asks.
“He’s one of the people responsible for… for everything,” I answer. “He helped create the Oz virus.”
Maria motions towards the body with her head. “Are we even sure that’s him?”
I point to his severed hand. “Yeah. That’s him.”
Kenji reaches forward and removes the hood just to make sure the one armed man is Doctor Hunter, to make sure that he is actually dead.
And I am right.
It is Doctor Hunter.
But I am wrong.
Because he is not dead.
He opens his eyes slightly.
His lips move.
And he speaks.
He says, “I was wrong. I was so wrong. You should’ve killed him. You should’ve put a bullet in his brain.”
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Copyright © 2019 by J. L. Harden
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events locales o
r organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author.