by Milt Mays
So he turned away, pulled inside, and stopped. In an instant, the whirling pastels and primes died. Nothing remained but dark. “Space, the final frontier”: words from his favorite show, Star Trek. But the only frontier here, in this space, was nothing, an emptiness so vast, so deep, it pulled at his stomach like a black hole eating the universe. That old feeling, a feeling he’d hoped would never come back, iced his heart, tightened around his head and punctured his eyes. He could not open them. He had to stay still. It would go away, eventually. Wait. It would go away.
Somehow he got into the back seat of a car. Sam was there. Sam was a good guy. He wouldn’t leave Dan. Dan warmed up. Sam punched him. He warmed some more. Sam punched harder. His arm ached. Quit punching me, Sam. Sam’s voice droned. The car stopped.
“There’s Mom,” she said. Her voice was like a lute. Her name was Alexis. She loved Jeff. Her mom was Rachel. Rachel had great legs. She was nice, too.
Alexis held his hands and he felt warmth spread like he’d sunk into a hot bath. His muscles relaxed. The dark space began to brighten to a weak twilight. Two prime numbers floated around like balloons: 2 and 3. 2 and 3. Him and Marci. Him and Marci and Adam. Adam was as clear as if he was standing in front of him, smiling, holding onto a string tied to the balloon with a 3 inside. The balloon was green, the color of aspen leaves. Dan wanted to open his eyes and run to Adam, grab him and tickle him and hear him giggle. Adam said, Do it again, Pappas. Do it again.
Dan opened his eyes and the aspen-green color was still there, in her eyes. Alexis was staring at him. His hands were warm in hers.
“He loves you as much as Adam does.” It was the coolest sound Dan had ever heard, as soft as Adam’s baby breath and more soothing than any prime number, even 18181, his favorite of all time, a combination fiddle and flute, as wonderful as Lisette’s Cajun lilt, but more powerful. He had avoided thinking about Lisette for so many years since the swamp, and now, thinking about her beautiful voice and that her photo might be lost forever in the wet computer . . . he felt his eyes water. But that was better than the black hole. Much better. At least he felt something.
“I know,” he said. The prime tornado palette of colored numbers returned and swallowed up the darkness in his head. He was awake.
She let go of his hands; he smiled at Jeff; Jeff smiled at him. He let go of the computer and reached over and grabbed his son around the neck. The computer bumped to the floorboards. But Dan didn’t care. Jeff wrapped his arms around Dan’s neck. They pulled each other close over the seat, butting foreheads firmly enough to hurt. But Dan felt no pain. Jeff was really there, his son, the one he loved and had not killed after all.
“I love you, son.”
There was a sound of car doors opening, but neither he nor Jeff broke their embrace, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, arms locked around each other’s heads.
Outside the car, Alexis said in a worried tone, “Why were you yelling for me to leave. Are you all right?”
A distant answer from Rachel, “Jabril is close. We have to leave. Now!”
“Where is he?” Alexis said, alarm in her words.
Dan did not want to move, wanted to stay with Jeff, feel Jeff’s sweat on his forehead, the pulse of Jeff’s heart in his arms. But Jeff broke his embrace, kissed Dan on the forehead and said, “She needs me, Dad. I love you, too. But Jabril is a bad guy and she needs me.”
Everything came back to Dan: Rachel, Jabril, Sam, the werewolf mice, GMO foods, Ambrosia. He had to help Rachel, too.
He patted Jeff’s shoulder and released his hold. “Go.”
Jeff cocked his gun and got out. Then he stuck his head back in. “Hey, we brought you another laptop. It’s on the seat beside you. Not yours, but I heard yours was wet. Anyway, it has something Lorna called 5G, if you know what that is?”
Jeff left. Dan looked around the car. Where was Sam? The back seat was empty. He looked outside. Sam was with Alexis hurrying toward a huge guy and a monster truck. Rachel was leaning out of the passenger’s side, her face gray, her eyes haggard. Maybe she got some of that bad GMO food. Jeff ran to Alexis. She turned and hugged him, while Sam went up to the mountain man and shook his hand.
A large guy wearing a black hoodie rushed in; Jeff’s gun went off; the huge man and Sam were on the ground.
Jeff and Alexis were gone.
Dan stared at the empty space where they’d been. He reached down to the floor, grabbed the fallen white laptop and hugged it to his chest.
Outside, Rachel screamed. He knew that howl: exactly like the sound Marci made when she found out Jeff was dead. He wished he was like Sam so he could run and help her.
Dan closed his eyes and lay down on the seat, squeezed his eyes tight. The colors left. Empty. Dark. The void sucked out his breath.
Chapter 49
Jabril had been lying in the small gulley after the shotgun blast got him. He wanted to tear at the earth with his claws, he was so frustrated at having left his prized Rachel. Yet there was compensation. He had killed one of those huge goons so easily. And he was getting stronger every minute. Soon he would have Rachel back. Though, he glanced at the big man carrying the other man to the truck, he may have to chase down the truck.
The burning of his flank subsided; the stings in his scalp disappeared. He breathed without pain. There was a strong wet-earth smell. The bright sun warmed his back. There were no sounds but the gentle tapping of the distant truck’s open door, the breeze pushing it back and forth against the door frame. The spring breeze brought back fond memories of his childhood in Iraq, tending the goats and cattle with his father, before his father had changed, before Jabril had given up his mother’s teachings. A surge of sorrow washed over him, bringing tears he thought were over, floods of tears when he’d held her body, thin and light as cornhusks, her last breaths torturous gasps.
He ground a fist into the wet ground and wanted to scream. It was the infidels that changed his father from a caring farmer to an angry fanatic. It was the infidels who killed his mother, with their embargo of foods and antibiotics. They had a wealth of food and technology. They had bred that oaf in the big truck who had taken Jabril’s prize. They had caused the wars that led to his mutation. They must pay. They will pay.
The door banging stopped. There should have been noise of the big truck starting and leaving. Why had the man and Rachel not left?
He wiped his eyes and ventured a peek. His van stood where it had been, but the side door gaped open. The bed of the huge truck held the body of the man he’d killed. Rachel stood on the passenger side, hands waving. The other big man stood on the driver’s side of the truck and pointed a shotgun at a very strangely colored car, an iridescence that mirrored the ground. Jabril had not heard this car drive up. Where had it come from? A feeling stirred him: someone inside the car.
Rachel yelled, “No. Go back! Leave! Turn around!” She looked through the open doors at the big guy pointing his shotgun at the new car. “That’s my daughter. Don’t shoot.”
Oh, this was too good. Too wonderful. The daughter was here. Rachel was here. And Alex? He was near. The feeling was strong. The ultimate prize was within reach. He wanted to kiss the earth, offer supplication to Allah. His will be done.
The driver’s door to the car opened and the daughter jumped out. Sam got out of the back and followed her.
She said to Rachel, “Why were you yelling for me to leave. Are you all right?”
“Jabril is close. We have to leave. Now!” Rachel’s words were weak.
“Where is he?” The daughter said.
Jabril wanted to yell, “Here I am,” and run and kill them all. But he watched, waiting for the right time.
Rachel fell back into the truck as if she were too weak to stand. Her face was gray. Probably lost some blood. Probably in pain. Poor woman. Yes, so terrible that she should suffer. One side of Jabril’s mouth ticked up. Had she and Sam mourned over Rocca’s death? So sad. Jabril felt a smile widen. At one time, he would have cared abo
ut a woman and her child. His own mother died in his arms, frail, starved and unable to get antibiotics because of the American blockade. She had wanted him to be a doctor, to cure people, not kill them. Yet how can you cure starvation and poor sanitation with mere antibiotics? His father had been right: The Americans had to pay.
The front passenger door of the mirrored car opened. A mere boy. Her lover. Young and thin, he ran to the daughter. She turned to him. Sam had already moved off, walking toward the muscle-bound idiot who had lowered the shotgun.
It was time. Jabril covered the fifty yards in less than five seconds. The daughter and the boy were fully embraced; Sam was shaking the big man’s hand and saying, “How are you? I’m Sam.”
Jabril charged through Sam and the big man, swiping with a clawed hand, leaving them clutching at their gut and chest wounds. He grabbed the daughter and the lover, knocked their heads together, carried and dropped their limp bodies inside the van and closed the door.
He ran and sliced the tires of the pickup and took a step toward Rachel.
Pock, pock. Sam was firing at him. Hit him in the shoulder twice.
Jabril winced and smiled at Rachel through the windshield of the pickup, enjoying the panic in her face. He ran and jumped in the van, slammed the door, started it, jammed it into reverse, then forward around the truck and onto the road between the cornfields. There were not more bullets. Of course not. Sam would not want to hit the two children in the back.
He drove a few miles, then stopped and punched out the rest of the broken windshield on the left. He hunched and walked inside the van to his hostages.
He bound their legs and arms and mouths with the same roll of duct tape he’d used on Rachel. The boy was thin and lightweight. He had a camouflaged hoodie on and something thicker underneath. Rachel’s daughter was young, beautiful, and, Allah-be-thanked, blond. Though she was loosely dressed in a dark brown pullover and jeans, he could feel her firm body as he bound her. He was hard and could easily take her now, an apt punishment to Rachel and Alex, and a timely reward for him.
No! This is wrong! His mind reeled. He wanted to drive back and give Rachel her child. What a monster he’d become. A filthy, dirty pig. He started to reach his hands to the sky, the beginnings of his supplication before Allah, but stopped and clenched his fists and brought them to his chest and squeezed the muscles in his hand, his arms, his jaw and his tightly shut eyes, until he shook with the exertion. He wanted to scream, I do not need Allah!
His head pounded; a pain raged as bright as the sun behind his left ear. The control was there, and though he hated it, it felt right. It helped him focus. Yes, he would rape her, but not in private. Alex and Rachel must see, must feel, must suffer.
For now, he needed the focus. But soon he would remove that thing behind his left ear and do whatever he pleased. Soon.
Her eyes started to flutter. He slapped her hard and she was unconscious again. The boy did not move. Jabril got back behind the wheel and drove.
Over the next rise he saw it: The Ambrosia field laboratory looked nothing like he had envisioned. It was more like an iconic Midwestern farm sitting in the middle of plowed dark brown earth and some fields with foot-high green sprigs. To the left, east, was a large barn, rust red with a black-shingled roof and pale yellow doors. Directly ahead were two long tin houses about forty feet deep and each as long as a city block. The walls shimmered as if a mirage. The roof looked like Plexiglas. To the right was a sprawling ranch house, tan brick and gradually sloping shingled roof the same black color as the barn’s roof. A six-foot high, chain-link fence ran around the perimeter of the ranch house. Yet the barn and outbuildings were in the open. Another odd thing: The windows and shutters on the ranch house were narrow and infrequent, though the rust red shutters seemed normal, at first glance, their color like the barn. Everything seemed very cozy and country, like any other ranch a casual observer might expect to see out here.
But Jabril was not a casual observer. Not now. His mind saw every detail, his purpose to finish. Finish it! He focused on the windows. The shutters were only six inches wide, if that, and no taller than two feet. Several of the windows reflected the sun in a duller sheen. And then he realized they were shams, painted wood or metal with glass over that. There were only a total of four real windows in the whole house, one per wall. There should have been two or three per wall, as the walls were at least fifty feet long.
He opened his window so he could see better and drove slowly, his side closest to the house, outside the fence, peering closely at the ranch house. The tires bumped over a perimeter two-track dirt road. The door was also strange. It was painted the same pale yellow as the barn doors, another symbiotic coziness. But it had no texture, no paneling. It was too smooth, like painted metal. And though there was a door knob, nice shiny brass, there was no keyhole, no doorjamb. No one used that door to come or go. Another sham. He began to wonder if the whole building was made of the same metal as the door and the bricks were merely a veneer. If so, this place was a fortress. He had to find an entrance.
He stopped the van two-thirds of the way around the perimeter of the house. The tin outbuildings were directly ahead. What was in them? Could this be where they raised farm animals and plants for the GMO experimentations? Yet this was unlike the farms of his youth. There were no smells of livestock or manure, no rattle of working men, no rumble of tractors. The only sound was the wind through his open window, the only smell a faint aroma of something odd: disinfectant. He tried to tune out the wind and listen closer. There were faint sounds, perhaps of rustling animals.
Another feeling started inside him, like an intruder was sniffing inside his brain. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, in through his nose and out through his mouth. Once. Twice. On the third time, he knew: Alex was coming. This was not the feminine daughter feeling, but the strong, angry Alex coming to rescue his daughter. Come, Alex. Come and try.
Jabril had to hurry now, had to get inside this lab and set his trap.
He started driving again, inspecting the ranch house. At the rear was a garage door, corrugated like the tops of the tin outbuildings. Muddy tire tracks ran from under the door, onto the cement drive, and formed ruts in the dirt road that ran out of the gate where Jabril’s van sat. This entrance must be well used.
The gate started opening. The garage door opened and a desert-camouflaged military Humvee drove out. A helmeted man wearing green fatigues was in the turret. The turret rotated, and the man pointed an M50 directly at Jabril. Jabril slammed his foot on the accelerator and aimed the van at one of the tin outbuildings. Three shots thumped into the back of the van.
Chapter 50
Rachel beat her right fist on the steering wheel of the monster truck over and over. Then she put her face in her hands and wept. Jabril had Alexis. It was all her fault, too. How could she have let that happen? Sure, Alexis was strong, she was unusual and would give Jabril a difficult time. But he was Jabril. He’d bested Alex at one time, and Alex was much stronger than Alexis. She stared at the spot where the van had been. Jabril would rape Alexis; she was sure of it. Everything would be lost: her daughter, her peaceful genes, the hope of the world.
She gritted her teeth and wiped her eyes with one brusque push of her palms. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. Act. Do. Move. Get Alexis back. Get help.
“Sam!” she yelled.
There was no answer.
“Sam, damn it, you better be alive.”
“Okay. If I must be. But it ain’t pretty.” His voice was faint.
She leaned out the driver’s door trying to see him. He was sitting, one hand holding his lower abdomen, another feeling the carotid pulse of the big guy . . . his name was on the tip of her tongue. “How is he?”
“He’s dead. Jabril skewered him in the heart. Seemed like a nice guy. Never got his name though.” Sam sounded disappointed.
“Tony.” She could barely get it out. “His name was Tony.” It was almost a whisper. She had never heard S
am sound weak. If he couldn’t help her . . . ? She tried to stand but her legs gave out. She fell back and tears welled up again.
Sam started chuckling, then looked up at her and frowned. “Didn’t know you and the big guy were that attached.”
“He was a nice guy. But I wasn’t crying about him.”
“Oh, yeah. Alexis. Sorry about that.”
“You should be.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes again. “What kind of field agent are you, anyway?”
“An old one,” he said loudly. Then much softer, “Though, I might not be getting much older.”
She started to climb down from the truck and her shoulder screamed at her. She missed a step and fell, but managed to grab the rail at the last moment, twisting her into more pain. She sat on the running board and took a few deep breaths then stood and started walking toward him. “Oh right. You’ve been through worse. Or were all those stories just bullshit?”
“You’re right. I got nothing that two good surgeons, an anesthesiologist and three nurses in a sparkling operating room couldn’t fix in two or three hours. Why don’t you give the choppers a call and I’ll be with you in a few hours.”
She stopped and stood over him. He smiled up at her, not his usual, but it would do. She felt nausea roil at the sight of his hands pushing on what looked like raw Italian sausages. He was holding his own bowels. His clothes were soaked in blood from the waist to his thighs.
“Don’t worry. That’s mostly Tony’s blood. A guy I knew once survived a gut wound like this for days. I don’t smell any shit, so he probably didn’t cut into any bowel.” He nodded at her left shoulder. “Got you, too, huh? Looks like we need reinforcements.”