RB 01 Through Flesh & Bone

by Frederick S dela Cruz

  Then, light appears and starts to invade the dark space and illuminate a door directly in front of him. Just below eye-level is the number on the door: L1. But in fact the number hangs upside-down from a single nail. When he turns it upright, he reads it as 17.

  With the sound of a fist solidly striking a jaw, his mind restores one more memory, through a second dream.

  The World War II Nazi SS Major seeks the assassin. He earlier tortures a jeweler for the name of the Colonel who knows this very assassin. Now at that Colonel’s estate, the estate of Colonel Friedrich von Tiechler, the SS Major starts to torture him for information.

  The chair von Tiechler is tied down upon has been removed from his dining room, and then dragged to the center of the house’s foyer. Steps away, the heavy, wooden front double doors are broken and flung open, letting in the setting sun.

  At one side of the foyer, von Tiechler’s wife, little son, and little daughter cower together in fear.

  Underneath an ornate, brightly lit chandelier, the Major stands directly in front of von Tiechler. With his right hand opening and tightly closing into an eager fist, the Major says in a dispassionate voice, “As you see Colonel, I quite enjoy this ‘one on one’ contact. Notice that I prefer not to involve my men, and they do not get their hands dirty with your filthy traitorous blood. You see, I adore wallowing in the dirt of the deep red blood of my enemies.”

  Immediately, the Major cocks back his fist, and then launches it once again onto von Tiechler’s jaw.

  The Colonel’s head snaps back, with rapid, cracking sounds from the joints of his whipping neck. As the Colonel groans in agony, a grin almost appears on the Major’s otherwise unaffected face.

  Von Tiechler’s wife screams for the Major to stop, but he does not acknowledge her presence and does not yield.

  After beating the Colonel further, the Major pauses and calmly wipes the blood from his glove. His eyes glance over the thick, black electrical wire tied around von Tiechler’s chest that prevents his teetering body from falling to the ground. Around each of his wrists, black wire wraps and digs deep into his skin, securing them on the chair’s armrests.

  The Major waits a moment for von Tiechler to regain his consciousness. Almost with a hint of impatience, he says, “Now, dear Colonel, I do not usually ask questions a second time, because before that happens, the one I am interrogating has already painfully faded from this world. And before you fade away to where I cannot follow, and since this is a matter of such gravity, I will ask the two questions, and then will nevermore repeat them.”

  The Major violently strikes the Colonel once more.

  Von Tiechler’s little daughter begins to cry a pitiful cry, and her mother pulls her in tightly.

  The Major breathes in slowly and deeply. Crouching down directly in front of von Tiechler’s swollen, bruised, and bloodied face, the Major whispers his questions, “Oh where, my virtuous and honorable man, is your friend, the assassin? And when is this atrocity against our illustrious Fuhrer planned to happen?”

  Through the piercing, ringing sounds in his ears, von Tiechler hears the words. Tilting his head slightly upward, he opens his eyes but cannot focus them. If he had the strength, he would have spat on the SS Major’s face. Instead, he can only feebly shake his head.

  The Major turns his disappointed glance to the side, and then stands still, in thought. A moment later, he steps to a soldier and holds out his hand. The soldier sets a switchblade atop the Major’s opened palm.

  Without warning or hesitation, the Major quickly raises the blade into the air, and then swings it down into the Colonel’s hand. The shiny silver metal slices through the bones of the hand, and lodges into the wooden chair. The Major then twists and wriggles the blade, letting it chisel away at the bones and flesh.

  Von Tiechler howls and cries in utter agony, as his fingers flex and tremble under the pain.

  Escaping his mother’s arms, von Tiechler’s ten-year-old son runs forward, and then halts when he reaches the Major. Courageously, he yells in unadulterated anger, “Stop!” His furious, piercing eyes look up at the object of his disdain.

  Frightened for her child, his mother screams, “Friedrich, no!”

  Without turning around, the Major glances down from the corner of his eye. He retracts the blade from the Colonel’s bleeding hand. A rare, amused smile appears on his face. “Ah,” he says, as he finally turns, “This boy, Colonel, you named him after yourself?” The Major cleans his blade. “What joy he must give the two of you.”

  Finally, words come from von Tiechler’s mouth. He commands firmly, “Leave him alone!”

  The Major slowly bends down and kneels on one knee, in front of the boy. With the blade in his right hand, he grasps the boy’s upper arm with other hand. The Major’s ears are now dead to the Colonel’s voice.

  With a slight tilt of his head, the Major patiently and calmly asks von Tiechler’s son, “Little boy, do you play with sharp and shiny objects?”

  The dream ends.

  As the goateed man fades in and out of the twilight of his consciousness, he feels the pinching of the mantis on his arm.

  The mantis triggers the last dream, the final foundational memory.

  It was five years ago.

  He reclines in the passenger’s seat of their car, as his wife drives on a mountain road. They are on their way to the Ghetri Museum, to see newly discovered ancient Babylonian artifacts.

  After an unsuccessful attempt at explaining a life lesson to his son, he gives up, leans back on his seat, and tilts his head to side to watch the trees glide across his window. A moment later, he notices two military transport trucks stopped at the side of the road. He raises himself in the seat, as his wife slows their car to cautiously pass by.

  The backs of the trucks are completely open, and underneath the large camo-green canvas roof coverings, he can see ten to twenty soldiers patiently sitting and waiting. Four armed soldiers stand at the perimeter of both trucks, while two others work to remove the front tire of the first truck.

  He rolls down his window. The warm outside air flows in to softly brush his face and slowly replace the cool air within. He smiles and waves at the soldiers.

  They wave back.

  “Looks like a flat tire,” he says, turning to his wife.

  “Should we stop and help?”

  “I think those big boys got it covered, babe.” He rolls up his window and leans back once more.

  Closing his eyes, he shuffles in his seat to get comfortable. The sound from the car’s speakers is so low that he doesn’t notice the stereo system is actually on. Only when the next song begins to play does he realize it. His ears hear the slow, rhythmic, and echoing rap of a wooden drumstick against the metal rim of the drum. Then, a single note from a bass guitar joins the echoes. The song is quiet, slow, and eerie: Bauhaus’ Bela Lugosi’s Dead.

  The cool air from the air conditioner begins to overcome the warmth encroached from outside. Almost three minutes into the song, the lyrics begin, and soon after, he hears the faint, unsettling words of the eerie melody, speaking to him in echoing messages about the dead, yet undead.

  It is one of a handful of old tunes he used to play late at night, with his headphones on, in his college dorm room, to slow his thoughts and allow himself to drift into sleep. Strangely, the song eases his mind with its soft peculiar sounds and with its hushed echoes of words and beats. It is the same song that oddly played in his head, over and over, during a solo trip around France, after graduating from college.

  With his eyes still closed and the cool air enclosing him, his body temperature begins to noticeably lower. His breathing becomes slow and shallow, while his heart eases its pumping. Then, his blood stunts its circulation throughout his body, and his skin cools to a tingling and shriveling cold of an undead.

  In his dulling senses, the song triggers a memory from his post-college trip in France.

  An autumn scene materializes in his thoughts.

  T
he small backpack he carries has just enough clothes and supplies for a two-day, side trip he wants to make. He has just entered a train in the small city of Pau, in the southwest of France, bound for Lourdes, the city of miracles. The Pyrenees Mountains, further south of the cities, create the scenic backdrop of his jaunt.

  He is a beginner in the French language, but he believes he knows just enough to survive in the country - enough to ask for directions and order food at least. Before boarding the train, he studied the ticket, le billet, very carefully, reading every word in order to know the car number to board, the aisle number, and the seat number. Now, as he moves slowly through the narrow walkway, his head is down, staring at the words and numbers on the ticket once again.

  At his periphery, he can see people take their seats. Finally, he turns to the pair of seats on his right and glances up to look at the numbers imprinted at eye-level, above the seats.

  This is mine, he thinks, and it looks like mine’s an aisle seat. His eyes move down. There is a gray-haired couple already sitting in both seats. A bit flustered, he thinks uncomfortably, Great, now I’ve gotta try to speak the language.

  Struggling to connect his English thoughts with the French words, he says, “Uh…uh, pardon madame, monsieur…mais je croie que cette place est pour moi.” A faint, humble, sheepish smile appears on his face. He doesn’t know whether he is understood or whether he is able to give enough respect and courtesy in his words. Then, slowly bending down towards the woman, he shows her his ticket and seat number, trying to convey that the seat is his. From the corner of his eye, he can see a man in a black suit approach from his left, searching for his own place.

  The woman reads the ticket.

  He hopes the exchange will be brief, and the couple will agreeably move. This is the best scenario for the sake of his broken French.

  The woman lifts her curly, gray-haired head and states something in a manner to explain that he is incorrect. His brain doesn’t register all her words, but he essentially understands what she says, “Sir, this train is going to Toulouse, but your ticket is for Lourdes.”

  Struggling in his thoughts to both translate her words and formulate an answer, his mind seems to come to a screeching halt. He becomes significantly flustered. He knows the facts of what she says are true, but the conclusion she alludes to - that the seat is not his - is incorrect. With his heart growing faint, he asks himself, How am I gonna tell her this?

  The woman looks straight ahead once again, believing she has clearly explained the circumstances. Three very long seconds passed. His body freezes, his heart sinks, and his brain becomes numb.

  The man at his left has stopped his search and now stands listening to their conversation. Attempting to help, the man says to the woman, with a smile and in a gentle French voice, “Yes, ma’am, this train goes to Toulouse, but it first stops at Lourdes. This is his assigned seat.”

  His mind jump-starts. Dude, you took the words right out of my brain! he thinks with relief.

  Kindly accepting the man’s explanation, the woman replies, “Ah, oui. Pardon.” She nudges her husband, and the two stand up and offer the seat to him. As they walk away, he turns to the man in the black suit and says, with many nods and a relieved and grateful smile, “Merci.”

  The man nods back, with his own friendly smile, and then he turns away and to begin searching for his own seat once more.

  Now at ease, he takes off his backpack, sets it down on the aisle seat, and sits on the seat next to the window. Quickly, he turns around to look at the man now walking away. Somehow, he feels he has to remember him. He notices that the man’s head is completely shaved, and he has a slim, closely trimmed, black mustache. He is possibly in his early thirties, but his shaved head makes him look a little older. The man stands perhaps an inch or two taller than he and has a build just as slim as he. A black briefcase hangs by a strap over his shoulder, bumping against some seats as he walks by.

  As the longhaired man slowly turns back around, he asks himself in amusement, Who was that masked man? He came just when I needed him…

  That man, though not a man, is named Pouvoir. In English, his name means Power.

  Just before settling into his seat, he turns around again, still curious. Pouvoir is not to be seen. He stands to see if Pouvoir has found his seat and is maybe already sitting down, but he finds no shaved head among bodies.

  Weird…maybe he went through the doors to the other car. Turning and sitting back down, he reaches for his pocket, retrieves his MP3 player, and yanks the earbuds up into his ears. Turning it on, he closes his eyes. The same eerie Bauhaus song continues to play where it previously stopped.

  He thinks, Just when I needed him, the guy shows up. Seconds later, he begins to fall asleep.

  The memory of the train ride fades like a pixilated image. Quiet moments pass in the car, as his wife patiently drives.

  Finally, sensing the cold overcoming him, he gently rubs the paling skin of his arms. As his eyes wearily open, life reclaims his body by the quickening flow of blood through his veins, allowing himself to warm.

  From the back seat come the sounds of shuffling and shifting of the sides of his son’s Rubik’s Cube.

  Then, he hears the song forebodingly end, with one final echoing word. Through the dull of his senses, he strangely understands it to caution him from becoming, in some way, a thing about which it speaks: an undead.

  Suddenly, up ahead, something startles his wife. Frightened, she jerks the wheel.

  From the corner of his eye, he sees her surprise. With a sudden flex of all the muscles in his body, he immediately lifts himself up.

  Abruptly, the dream ends.

  His recovery is swift, and his dreams take only mere moments.

  On his forearm, the mantis continues its rhythmic squeezing and pinching.

  With the dreams fading far back into his mind, he sluggishly awakens and slowly opens his eyes. Soon, he realizes that the side of his face is resting over the mud. Next to his open mouth is a tiny stream of water making its way down past his neck, and under his chest.

  He blinks once, and blinks again. Peering through the strands of his watery hair, he focuses on the green insect on his arm. Without any movement from his open mouth, he speaks through it in a tone just above a whisper, “Lassie. Hey, boy.”

  Soon, his body regains its strength. Gradually lifting himself from the ground, he kneels on the mud.

  The mantis hops from his arm, down to the ground in front of him, and tilts its head to gaze up at him.

  “How long was I out?” he asks in a moan. After his hands wipe the hair from his face, he crouches down and takes a few deep breaths, to further gain his strength. Then, quickly, he remembers the fifth missile. Leaping to his feet, he urgently asks, “Whoa, what’s next?! What’s the next city?”

  The fifth missile is just under three minutes from its destination.

  Remembering that Paige is the next victim, he says, “Paige is there now! Next city is San Fran…” Unexpectedly, his words stop. Dropping his head to look down at the muddied ground, he winces as he thinks.

  Strangely losing his sense of urgency, he finally mumbles, “Hmm…San Francisco.” He breathes in deep, and then tilts his head to the side, with his lips pursed.

  There’s something not right in his brain.

  Suddenly, disgusted, he exclaims, “San Francisco 49ers!?”

  Protesting, he raises his hands in the air and complains, “These guys beat us on Thanksgiving Day! In front of the whole country! I shouldn’t even be thinking about saving those guys!”

  His hands fall and slap his drenched jeans.

  Sarcastically and still complaining, he adds, “Great. And like with the other bombs, I’ve got all the time in the world to get there and save everyone.”

  As he shakes his head, time passes quickly, and he knows it. In a peculiar way, he is ambivalent, and the ardent football fan in him is exerting its undue influence.

  Delaying, he glances do
wn at the mantis, and asks in a bit of a feigned protest, “And, dude, where have you been?! I’ve missed ya for the past several hundred years or so while I was back in that time-loop-hell! You could-a called, man!”

  The shimmering green mantis remains in its upward stare, motionless and emotionless.

  A moment later, his tone turns somber. “Well, actually,” he says, “I knew you were there. You helped me realize something…something pretty profound. When you flashed that green on the blue sky, it told me that world - that timeline - was a deception.” Then, beginning to grin, he adds, “So, I’m glad you’re here now.”

  Looking around, he sees the lightning has moved out a short distance further inland. Above him, the storm cloud continues to grow in breadth, shadowing the earth in darkness.

  With his thoughts going back to the missile, he has no doubt of his responsibility, and soon he cedes to the notion of saving San Francisco. The football fan reconciles and comments reluctantly to the mantis, “Well, Paige is there after all - a fellow San Diegan.”

  Taking a look at the blisters on his arms and the shredded patches of his skin, he thinks, First, I better make myself presentable. After feeling the wounds on his face and hands, he says out loud, “I probably look hideous.”

  Inside and out - concentrating on his damaged bones, muscles, organs, and skin - he heals himself with a thought. Instantly, his wounds vanish.

  Next, he turns and gazes north, sensing the position of fifth missile.

  Momentarily, he asks, “Did you know, Lassie, I’m my own DJ now?”

  He looks down at the mantis, knowing he is still delaying, but delighting in the tactic. The influence of the football fan still lingers. “Yeah,” he nods. “You got a request for the next song to send me off with?”

  He pretends to receive an answer.

  Nodding, he says, “This Corrosion by The Sisters of Mercy it is, my friend. But I never would have pegged ya for a goth fan.”