by Andrew Yake
I make it to the bunker in record time. I see a very beautiful and very young woman, not more than 17 or 18 years old. She has long red hair and a very fair complexion. She is tall, but well-muscled for a girl. I get out of my jeep and approach her. She is standing with John outside of the old air traffic control building. She studies me and extends her hand.
“JJ. You must be Alex.” I take her hand. “I hear you are the man with all the stuff.”
I raise an eyebrow and look over at John. “Oh? And what stuff would that be?”
“Special weapons for fighting monsters of course.” JJ smiles pleasantly at me and I am taken back by her bluntness. She is not being coy or snarky. She is not even acting like any teen that I have ever met. Although, in truth, I don’t spend much time with teens.
“She’s got some special abilities.” John speaks, interrupting my stunned silence. “It seems that she’s got some magical inclinations like those things we hunted in The Big Easy a few years back.”
I cringe and pull my hand back involuntarily. I walk over to John and put my right hand on his shoulder to gently guide him away from JJ so that I can talk in private with him. “Are you out of your mind?” I whisper angrily. “Those things nearly killed all of us. Matt went crazy and we ended up losing him because of what we saw. He has never been the same and you know we didn’t get all of them.”
I am angry and concerned that John would even consider working with one of them so closely. “I know we have worked with non-humans before and even taken out worse threats because of intel that we have gotten that way, but this…” I make a slight motion toward JJ, “This is nuts!”
“It’s not and if this doesn’t pan out I will put a bullet in her myself.” This makes me feel slightly better, but I am still uneasy. “Look, she has some training already. I will work with her a bit to get her skills up before we do anything. She knows of what’s out there and I think she could be a really good resource. Especially seeing that Matt is out of the game for right now. It would be good to use her connections to get information and yes, I want to see what else she can tell me about Val.” John’s tone is low and commanding. I have followed him into battle many times before against very bad odds with all manner of otherworldly things set on taking our lives. He never let me down in the past. I decide to trust him again.
“Fine, I will be back when you tell me she is ready.” I walk away and get back in my jeep.
A few weeks later, my phone rings. It’s John. “She’s ready. We are attacking a nest of ferals tonight. JJ said that they are being controlled and used as a small nuke attack squad. It is at 34876 Midway Street. Meet us there and bring the gear.”
“Kill or capture?”
“Both.” John hangs up.
I gather a few blades that I have specially made for occasions like this. I don’t like the prospect of running into a feral, let alone actually going into a nest of them. These are like wild untrainable werewolves with silver teeth and a powerful dislike for civilization. The fact that there is a group of them being controlled somehow inside the city is not good news. I also gather some netting laced with silver and special herbs and a gun that can shoot these nets out to capture a variety of creatures, ferals included. I load up my jeep and head out.
I arrive and park a distance away from the warehouse in the industrial part of the city. I start walking with my bag of gear slung over my shoulder. This is the wrong neighborhood for anything like what John suggested. This is the area where night walkers rule and it is not a good place to be unless you are looking for trouble. It just so happens that I/we are looking for trouble tonight. Yay us.
“You ready?” I hear a female voice. JJ steps from the shadows. Her hair is much shorter and she looks leaner and more like a member of our crew now. Her features seem harder and as if she has aged a few years in the past few weeks. The muscle definition in her arms is more pronounced and I find that I am unwillingly enamored by her beauty. JJ smiles at me and takes out a .45, checks and chambers a round before turning from me and heading toward the building.
“Where’s John?” I ask as I follow her.
“He’s on his way.” She lowers her voice and turns to me. “Look I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I don’t blame you for being suspicious, but if you blow this I will chop you up and feed you to those mongrels myself!” Her voice is almost a hiss by this point. “Here,” JJ hands me a small leather pouch attached to a long leather hoop. “Put this on so they won’t be able to tell we are coming.” I notice that she is already wearing one. I know that this pouch must contain some magical properties because I have yet to find anything that would mask anyone from a feral’s senses. I resist the urge to knock JJ out and wait for John myself. I cannot help disliking those that wield this kind of power.
We climb the outside of the building to a ledge with a set of open windows. We are not detected. I can see about twelve ferals below us. They each have a device with a glowing red light attached to the side of their skull. We sit for a time in silence and I finally see John out of the corner of my eye climbing up to the ledge where we are.
I make eye contact with him. The message is clear, “it’s about damn time”. We all move one at a time silently through the window. I, the largest of our small group, am able to barely squeeze through, but manage not to make any noise doing so. John raises his hand and gives us hand signals for maneuvering ourselves into position. I ready my net gun. It will be easiest to take one or two out before they know what has happened.
We are almost in position around the different areas of the building. JJ has scaled along one of the beams so that she is over the group of ferals. John is positioned toward the front left side of the group. I am toward the rear.
Simultaneously, all of the lights on the ferals turn green and they begin to growl. I do not believe that they have been made aware of our presence in the building, but I am not willing to chance it. I ready my net gun and prepare to take my shot.
“I don’t think so.” I hear the voice of a man behind me, but I have no idea how he could have gotten there without my knowledge. I feel a strong push from behind before I can turn to see who it is. I fall.
I feel the floor hit me with incredible force. I hear gunshots and yelling. I feel something clamp down on my right arm and start tearing my flesh and bone with its powerful jaws. I feel claws strike my back. The pain is terrible. The bones in my right arm break under the immense pressure of the jaw that is on me. My vision blurs from the pain. Then I see her. JJ has jumped down into the middle of the room. She fires off shots and picks up the blade that must have come off of me. I see her wielding the blade like an expert and slicing through one feral after another as she makes her way quickly to my side.
The feral that has me is not letting go and is dragging me to a large hole in the concrete. We had supposed that they had a point of entry and exit so that they could be moved through the city by means of the sewers, but I had not seen it before. I know that my life is over if I get taken down there. I struggle.
I reach out toward the feral that had been clawing at me and catch it with my left hand. I am still being pulled backwards by the other one that has my right arm. I use every ounce of strength I have and I am able to snap the neck of the feral that had been clawing at my back moments before. It is of no use. I hear the bones crack and the feral simply shake off the pain of me breaking its neck. The feral that is dragging me now is at the edge of the hole. The one that I just attacked is upon me. Then I see the point of my blade slice through its neck. It falls next to me. JJ is standing there. I have no strength left and blood is flowing into my eyes. I see John in the background fighting and taking down several of the beasts. I feel jerked backwards again, viciously this time. The pain is unbearable. I hear a clicking from a gun trying to fire. I look up to what I believe will be my last sight. I see JJ release the grip on her gun and swing the blade down on my right arm. I feel the sharp bite of my blade passing through the bone and sinew. I h
ave made this blade so sharp that it has no problem cutting through my flesh and bone. It strikes the concrete floor and I feel released from the tugging and hear the feral drop down the hole. I am no longer moving. I can feel my life fading away. JJ is next to me.
“Not today, you sorry sack of crap…” She continues to speak to me, but I am only vaguely aware of her voice. I feel the pressure of a belt on the stump of my arm. I feel movement as I am being dragged somewhere and then I feel nothing.
Alex looks at me and then behind me to a monitor that hangs in the corner of the office. He has stopped telling me the story, but I know there is more to it. I do not bother looking over my shoulder, instead I get his attention. “Alex! That tells me very little about who I am and how I got here.”
Alex turns his attention back to me. “It tells you enough and it should tell you why I am even willing to talk to you now.” I think on this for a moment and he continues. “I don’t like you JJ. I never have, but I do trust you now. You cost me my arm and gave me my life.”
“Now, I suppose, it is time to repay me.” I say to him defiantly. “Give me back my life. Tell me who I am.”
“You are JJ.” Alex drums his metal fingers on his leg. “I don’t know what got you involved with us other than what I told you. You would have to ask John about that.”
“Well, where’s John.” I am getting highly annoyed now.
“Last I heard you were with him at the hospital. All he told me was that you were alive.”
“Right, well I guess I better go ask him myself.” Alex looked up at the monitor and did not respond to me, but rather something that he was seeing on the monitor.
“We have to go.”
I turn to look at the monitor. The bottom corner shows the next room where Allison is sitting motionless, but the man that she had been working on is writhing in pain. Allison seems to be staring at him and watching as his legs start to bend upward. I see blood spraying from the joints of his knees. It is disturbing. “What the hell?” I speak softly to myself.
Alex looks at me and then back to the screen following my gaze. “Yeah, that’s weird, but you should be used to that. No, that is bad.” He points at the top left of the screen. I see a man in a black suit enter and look around the store. He steps over the body on the ground. I realize that the other man with the broken arm must have left and told someone what happened. The man in the suit bends down and removes the mask from the man I had hit with the bat. He then pushes something against the masked man’s temple and looks at a small device in his hand. The suited man then stands up and seems to speak into the same device that he was just looking at.
I glance over at Alex. Alex looks concerned. “Who is he?”
“Don’t know who he is, but I am sure that we don’t want to find out why he’s here. You once described the guy you were trying to hide from as having an army of suits at his disposal. I thought you were kidding until we ran into a few one day. I will tell you all about it if we live.”
I feel cold as Alex speaks. There is something in his voice that suggests what he told me was not the end of the story that I needed to hear from him. I wanted to find out more, but trusted that now was not the time. “I’ll get Allison.”
“No time. Just leave her.” Alex seems to spit the words as he turns toward his desk. He places his metal hand into a recess in the wall behind the desk and I hear a series of clicks followed by another airlock opening. The entire wall begins to move backward and open to a much larger room. I turn to the metal door and open it. I am not leaving Allison to whoever or whatever is coming. Especially if they can use her to get to me. I run into the room and shake her violently. I get no response. She is clutching a book in her hands and seems to be in some sort of trance. I grab her by the shoulders and pull her to her feet. Her grip on the book is like a vice and her arms are ridged. I feel the pain in my hip, but my adrenalin kicks in and I pull Allison into the next room. Alex seems to be less than pleased by my actions. He shuts the door behind me and I put Allison on the couch where I had been.
I shake her again, more violently. “ALLISON!” I get no reaction out of her. Alex comes over, clearly frustrated by the turn of events. He picks her up with his human arm easily and carries her through to the next room that has appeared. I follow him. He stops on the other side of the opening and places his hand in another recess in the wall. The same set of sounds occurs and the opening closes. I hear the hiss of the lock as the wall stops moving. This room is more like a cave. Alex walks over to a dimly lit desk area with computer monitors lining the wall and types in some command or code. The room lights up. The area is huge.
To Alex’s right from where he is at the computer monitors, I see four rows of racks approximately thirty feet long stocked with weaponry. I see another section further down that seems to be a library of sorts. There are couches and tables in that area. I see several more heavy-looking metal doors along the walls. Alex starts walking toward a hallway behind one of the last racks of weapons. I follow him into an area that is more like a living room. The floor plan for this area is completely open. There is a kitchen and large round table. There are also bunks for sleeping at the far end of the room. Alex places Allison on the edge of one of the bunks and turns to me. “I know you know what you are doing with her. From what I saw, she could be the end of us if she is working with the suits.” His eyes narrow.
“I highly doubt that she is.” I move to Allison and again attempt to rouse her. I shake her shoulders. “ALLISON! SNAP OUT OF IT!” Her eyes blink and she seems to start coming out of her catatonic state.
“Well, if you are right then we should be safe here for a bit.” Alex turns and starts heading back down the hall. “I will keep watch you should get some shuteye.”
I turn my attention back to Allison who is now blinking her eyes furiously and trying to wrap her mind around something.
“What…” She seems to be trying to focus as she closes her eyes tightly and shakes her head. “What happened?”
“We’re safe, for now.” I look at Allison. She seems disoriented.
“What happened to my patient?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“What? Why? I fixed him. I am sure of it.” Allison looks at me with a pained expression.
“I think,” I look at her and consider my words, “I think you killed him. I saw you staring at him and his legs break. Blood was everywhere.”
Allison looks horrified. She looks down at her hands that are still grasping the book. Her eyes fill with tears. “No! It wasn’t real.” She starts to panic and drops to book to grab a hold of my shoulders. “It wasn’t real! Tell me this isn’t real.” Her eyes roll back and she collapses onto the bunk. She is unconscious. I am unnerved by the realization that she was not even aware of what she has done.
I slowly pick up the book that Allison has dropped. I look at it, but I cannot make out anything as far as the language is concerned. I close it and put it next to her on the bed. I decide that Alex is right. We need sleep. It is late and I am having a hard time functioning. I move to a different bunk. This one has a small end-table next to it. I take the revolver from my belt and place it on the table where I will be able to access it quickly. I doubt there will be any need for that, but I do not feel like taking any risks right now.
I take off my jacket and drape it over a nearby chair. I look for and easily find a bathroom and relieve myself before I retire for the evening. I look at my bandages. They are secure, but I can tell that I have been bleeding through them more of late. I am sure that I have popped a stitch now. I sigh and put my clothes back on. I return to my bunk and unlace my boots and put them at the foot of the bed. I lay down and close my eyes seeking the sweet release of sleep.
14
Labyrinth
The sounds of twisting metal and glass breaking. I can feel the all too familiar dreamscape coming back. My nightmare of a memory replays in my mind. I desire to change it. I close my eyes as tight as I can and I push
my mind to place me outside of the car. I feel the world stop tumbling around me and I feel the ground beneath me become solid.
I am no longer in the car. I am standing in the rain watching my nightmare playout as a bystander. I find that this is a strange sensation and I am both horrified by what I see and totally mesmerized by it. In all of my previous memories of this awful event, I have always been the age that I was when it happened. I could never influence the outcome nor could I deviate from the events in any way except for simply knowing what would happen next. I always knew when the pain of my legs breaking would occur. I knew when and how my mother would die and I knew when my mother’s face would come to rest so that I would be able to see her one dead eye looking at me.
Now I am my current age and I am standing outside of the car as it careens past me tumbling and twisting. I slow the time down as it nears where I stand and the vehicle continues on its path of destruction, only slower. I can see the glass exploding outward and inward with each hit. I see one of my dolls ejected from the back of the car as it flips in a violent slow roll.
Even the rain has slowed its decent. The car makes a hop as the right front tire strikes the ground, bursts, and acts as a pole vault for the vehicle to flip again. The car lands on its roof and I see that this is the moment that my mother’s neck snapped from the impact and weight of the car. I also notice that I should have been killed in this moment, but the back of the car did not crumple so that I would be hit. Instead, I see it crumple around where I am sitting as if there is a protective bubble. The car is now past me I see it moving, rolling, crashing down the street in slow motion. It is headed toward the side of a bridge. I know that if it goes over my mother and I will both die. This is not how it happened. I know this. I have changed something. It is now worse. I will the car to stop moving. It does.