“That’ll be enough of that shit.”
Mac ignored the threat and looked at Bear intensely, particularly the big man’s eyes.
“I want you to lean your head down for a while, ok? We want as much blood flowing to that mush bowl of yours as possible. Got it?”
Mac didn’t wait for Bear to reply, instead pushing on Bear’s upper back to move his chest down until his head was nearly touching the dashboard.
“Imran, get this thing moving. Keep the heat on high for at least the next hour. How long until we are out of these ice fields?
Imran looked ahead and then back behind them from where they had just travelled.
“No more than thirty, maybe forty minutes. Then we hit an almost road, so we’ll be able to go much faster. I will have to put more air into the tires then, and some fuel too. Won’t take me more than a few minutes to do that though. Another hour after that, and we will be on a real road heading to Fort Wilfrid.”
Mac nodded and motioned for Dublin to join Imran and Bear in the truck cabin.
“You keep talking to Bear, keep him awake for at least the next twenty minutes or so. He’s past the cold shock period, and he should be ok from hypothermia, but I want you to keep him as alert as possible for a while, ok?”
Dublin simply nodded before going to the other side of the truck to slide past the driver’s seat to sit next to Bear. He moved his head to the left and was this time able to manage a brief smile.
“Hey, Dublin. Thanks for keeping me company. Sorry for all the trouble back there.”
Dublin attempted to put her right arm around Bear’s shoulders but only made it a little over halfway across his broad back.
“No trouble at all, Bear. You did it – you lifted the truck up. You got us back on the road, big man.”
“See it. Believe it. Achieve it.”
Dublin didn’t understand the meaning of Bear’s words.
“What’s that, Bear?”
“Just something my dad taught me. A long, long time ago…”
Mac gently closed the passenger door as Imran was climbing into the driver’s seat. Imran looked back to see the others sitting down in the truck bed, trying to fit under Cooper’s horse blanket. Without the safety blanket that was now wrapped around Bear, it was going to be a cold ride for them back there.
The transport truck once again moved forward across the frozen river, until some fifty yards ahead, it began to make a slow climb up the bank on the other side. True to his recent words to Mac, it was less than thirty minutes later that they reached what Imran had described as an “almost road” – a narrow path through a dense mixture of grass and shrubs, just wide enough for the transport truck to travel through.
Stopping the vehicle, Imran opened his door and removed a small plastic box from behind his seat. It was the air compressor he had spoken of earlier. The sound of him fully inflating the tires echoed in the otherwise silent and still late afternoon air around them. Once the tires were inflated, Imran took a metallic, reddish colored ten gallon can of diesel and began emptying it into the truck’s fuel tank.
As he watched Imran pouring the last of the diesel, Mac asked him where he was able to obtain the fuel. Imran smiled back as he screwed the truck’s fuel cap back on and returned the fuel can to its corner in the back of the truck.
“At the station in Wilfrid!”
Mac’s eyes betrayed his surprise.
“You have an actual fuel station?”
Imran nodded.
“Oh, yes, we have many things there you probably have not seen in a long time. The fuel station is just one. We have a movie theatre, a library, a school, a diner…everything a typical American town would have had years ago. The kind of town the godfather says he grew up in. As I said before – it’s similar to what you were doing in Dominatus, just…bigger.”
Mac remained silent for a moment and then peeked through the rear window to look at Bear.
“How’s Bear doing?”
Imran smiled again.
“The big man is doing fine. Tired, but fine.”
Imran then pointed to the back of his truck, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“He lifted it! I’m still…I can’t believe he was able to do such thing!”
Mac looked again through the back window at Bear, and then Dublin.
“Yeah, that’s one thing that really made Dominatus so special – the people. That said, Imran, I’m looking forward to seeing this Fort Wilfrid of yours. So let’s get to going. If you have a hot shower and a cold beer waiting to greet me there, I’ll be a happier man for it.”
Imran clapped both of his hands together and nodded.
“The first round is on me, Mr. Mac Walker. The beer – not the shower.”
Soon the transport truck was travelling down Imran’s “almost road” again, making its way to Fort Wilfrid just as night began to overtake the day. Back at the ice hole Bear had so recently fallen through, a swirling dark mass of seekers gathered, each taking its turn sniffing the area. The largest of the group, the first to arrive days ago at the Wyse ranch, rose to its full height and sniffed the air, its head moving up and down excitedly as it did so. Having confirmed the presence of those they continued to hunt, the seeker opened its freakishly wide mouth, revealing the double-row of jagged teeth. A high pitched whine crept out from that mouth before transforming into a low, gurgling hiss as it extended a lean, well muscled, leathery arm outward where one of its long, claw-like fingers pointed in the direction Imran’s vehicle was now travelling.
The twenty or so other seekers raised their heads together and shrieked as one, the unnervingly almost human sound rising up into the sky. The noise of their cries carried all the way to the back of Imran’s transport truck, not so loud that human ears could hear, but loud enough that Brando raised his head and issued a single, low growl.
Cooper Wyse opened his right eye from under the brim of his hat to peer down at his dog, as he gently scratched under the Doberman’s chin. While he couldn’t hear the seekers’ cries himself, Cooper knew what Brando was warning of.
“Yep – still coming for us aren’t they? Gonna have to tangle with those things sooner rather than later I suppose. Quite a little adventure we got ourselves in, huh? Rather be back at the ranch in front of the fire wouldn’t you?”
Brando growled again.
“Me too, boy. Me too…”
XX.
The Great Consulate sat staring at the data image inside of his personal office high above the streets of Manhattan at the very top of the New United Nations building. Outside, his drones continued their slow and continuous path across the New York skyline.
“They would cast you aside. Cast you out! After all that you have done for them! All of these years! You allowed them to create this world! You! No one else could do it! These impudent, ungrateful fools! Destroy them! Destroy them all!”
Despite the voice’s insistence, the Great Consulate knew such a thing would not be so simple. The Saudis were too powerful to simply go after. They controlled much of the power structure within the New United Nations. They were the majority vote on the Consulate. Despite his title, the Great Consulate had come to realize years ago that there were limits to his power. If the Saudis determined something was not in their own interests, he had little choice but to comply with their request. His personal assistant had told that to him often, even in the earliest years of his rise to power. You can go against the American people, you can destroy the free market, the media, Congress, the Supreme Court, any and all of your political enemies, but you cannot refuse the Saudis.
So she had told him. His assistant. His adviser. The one who to this day was allowed to enter his private residence. The only one allowed to do so.
The Great Consulate’s mind wandered back to the time of the Boston bombing. How the Saudis demanded she personally make certain one of their own was released from custody and allowed to return to Saudi Arabia. Some within the administration had warned it would
prove a political disaster to do so. The personal assistant bypassed those concerns and took over the situation herself. The young man was released, the profiles were constructed to distract attention onto the other two, those idiotic Russians, and the task was accomplished within days of its inception. Most importantly, the Saudis were both pleased and impressed.
Today though, the Saudi Royals appeared on the verge of removing the last of his authority from him, and the Great Consulate could not help but wonder if his personal assistant had played an integral part in that process. The data on the wall sized imaging screen made clear the plan. There would be a vote next month to afford him the honorary title of Great Consulate Emeritus. Those Saudi bastards, he gave them the world, and they would now in return, take it all from him.
He knew of the rumors. The whispers within this very building that his mental capacities had diminished. That he had gone mad.
“Who are they to even attempt to understand a god?”
The voice was right of course. It so often was. The Great Consulate was beyond anything the simplistic humans could understand. As he had believed for so long, it was his great privilege and purpose to take care of the billions who were simply unable to do so for themselves. Such privilege demanded the fundamental transformation of what was then, the old United States, and eventually, the entire world. But now all those who he had helped, all those who continued to live in the safety and security of his drone protected world, would have their benefactor removed from them by the Saudi animals. Look at their words, their betrayal. Their foolish and preposterous arrogance!
By order of the New United Nations Consulate Majority, we do hereby approve the honorary title of Great Consulate Emeritus effective thirty days from this notice.
The notice had arrived today. The Great Consulate had spent the last two hours reading it and re-reading it. A pile of burnt ash had collected at his feet from the nearly thirty cigarettes he had smoked while doing so.
“Their fear is making them foolish. They blame you for what happened in Dominatus and Alaska, and what is now happening in Texas and elsewhere throughout the former states. You must kill the Dominatus survivors. Kill them before they reach wherever they are going. Prove to the Consulate that you are still capable of decisive and effective action!”
The Great Consulate shouted back at the voice, reminding it he had already attempted to do so.
“I am trying to kill them! You know that! They keep getting away! And the Muslims are already complaining of the drones, so it is up to my seekers now to do what the drones cannot! I’m doing what can be done! Stop telling me what I already know!”
The voice was silent. The Great Consulate felt panic tighten what muscle was left around his wasted, sunken chest. What if the voice, like the Saudis and his assistant, was to betray him too? What if he was finally left truly alone? What if they came for him? Would they do that? Perhaps they have already decided on it – found him, after so many years of service, to be expendable? Or just as likely, they all feared his power. His divinity over them.
“I will not betray you. Not ever. We must trust each other, you and I.”
The Great Consulate fell to his knees as each of his hands flew to the sides of his head.
“Tell me what to do! What must I do?”
The voice did not respond as the Great Consulate’s words echoed against the walls of his residence.
“Tell me! Tell me!”
The voice’s reply whispered within the Great Consulate’s mind with calm assurance.
“Kill them. All of them. Every single pathetic creature. Make this world in your own image, as any god should rightfully do. Release the fire, the ones you hid away all those years ago. You have the codes. They remain active. Do what only you can do. Destroy every living thing that is no longer worthy of you. Embrace and use the power of the god you are and have always been.”
The Great Consulate wept, so grateful he was of the voice’s advice. Everything would be fine now, and everyone who ever opposed him would be dealt their deserved punishment. His eyes looked over to the hallway that would lead to his killing room. He needed some time in there with his child seeker. He deserved that time. He wouldn’t kill it today. Not just yet. But he would hurt it, and that hurt would feel so very good to him. And after the time in his killing room, which always helped to relax and clear his mind, he would turn his attention back to those Dominatus devils. While the Great Consulate intended to destroy everyone and everything in this world – he very much wanted to make certain to bring that destruction to them first.
XXI.
The “almost road” finally transformed into a real road. Though broken and cracked in parts from decades without being maintained, it was a real road nevertheless, and everyone inside of Imran’s transport vehicle were grateful to now be traveling upon it.
Imran’s ever present smile remained, as he nudged Dublin to look down at the speedometer.
“Doing almost sixty miles an hour now! Very good time! Very fast!”
Bear shifted in his seat, his right hand rubbing his left shoulder.
“Hey, Imran, you wouldn’t happen to have something for pain would you? This shoulder is killing me. Don’t think lifting the back of this truck up did it any good.”
Without taking his eyes off the road, Imran motioned for Bear to look under the seat.
“Inside the red box. Under where Dublin is sitting. Bottle of Ibuprofen. Take as many as you want.”
Dublin reached down under her seat and removed the small red box Imran referred to. She opened it up and found the Ibuprofen.
“How many of these you want, Bear?”
“Give me five of them, Dublin. Five now, and another five in a few hours.”
Bear swallowed the pills dry, even crunching some of them between his teeth, his face grimacing at the taste.
“Helps to absorb them faster if I break them up. I used to go through these things like candy back in my football days. Probably didn’t help my liver much, but we didn’t worry about shit like that back then.”
Both Bear and Dublin looked through the windshield at the road illuminated by the headlights. Dublin noted how intensely Imran was looking ahead as well.
“Everything ok, Imran?”
The small man glanced to his right at Dublin before returning his focus on the road.
“Yes! Just watching for bandits. They are not common so close to Wilfrid, but, always best to be alert just in case. Especially given the reports they are preparing some kind of invasion into Alaska.”
Bear sat up and looked toward Imran.
“Bandits? You mean Muslims?”
Imran nodded.
“Yes. They like to travel the better roads. Steal supplies.”
Dublin felt a small knot of worry begin to form in her stomach.
“Have you encountered them on this road before, Imran?”
The smile fell off of Imran’s face as he answered.
“A few times. They are not well organized, but…can be dangerous. I am under the godfather’s protection though, so normally, that is enough to deter them from harming me. Normally.”
Bear was now focusing on the road in front of them as intently as Imran.
“Normally? What’s that mean?”
Imran tilted his head slightly to the left.
“Well…as I said. With the rumors of the Muslims planning something…who knows? Perhaps they are willing to challenge the old rules? Agreements? I would not worry too much though – I am being overly cautious here. Don’t allow my concern to worsen your own. We will most likely be just fine and arrive at Wilfrid without seeing anyone on this road.”
The sound of the truck’s large tires moving over the rough pavement of the road reverberated inside the cabin. Bear eased himself back down into the seat and placed his head against the cool glass of the side window. He was growing tired again, and found himself unable to fight off his body’s demand for sleep.
When Imran stomped down
on the brake pedal, both Bear and Dublin fell forward against the truck’s console. In the back of the truck bed, the shouts from the other three men could be heard as well as they too were propelled forward.
Imran shut off the headlights but left the truck idling as it sat in the middle of the road.
In the distance, perhaps no more than ten miles away, the glow of multiple lights could be seen cutting through the night’s darkness.
Mac had already jumped down from the truck bed with his gun drawn, his instincts for impending trouble already kicking in. The other two were somewhat slower to react, but soon Reese and Cooper were standing near the truck with their own weapons out as well. Imran opened the driver’s door and stepped out to stand next Cooper as both Bear and Dublin made their way down from the truck cabin.
Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection... Page 110