Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection...

by D. W. Ulsterman

  “Seems like the older I get, it’s those little memories that grow bigger and bigger in my heart. I’ve done a hell of a lot of wrong in my life, but it’s those memories that keep reminding me of the right I’ve done too. Maybe some of you can relate.”

  Mac began to pluck more forcefully at the guitar strings, the chords soon enveloping the nightclub. His eyes closed as he raised his head just slightly, his mind focusing on the lyrics of a song that was much more memory than music to him, his roughened whisper voice reaching back to the people and places of many decades ago as he struggled to inhale enough breath from cancer-laden lungs to sing into the microphone.

  There is… a house… in New Orleans,

  They call the Rising Sun.

  And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy,

  And God… I know… I'm one.

  My mother was a tailor.

  She sewed my new blue jeans.

  My father was a gamblin' man,

  Down… in New… Orleans.

  Now the only thing a gambler needs,

  Is a suitcase and trunk.

  And the only time he's satisfied,

  Is when he's on a drunk.

  Oh mother, tell your children,

  Not to do what I have done.

  Spend your lives in sin and misery,

  In the House… of the Rising… Sun.

  Well, I got one foot on the platform,

  The other foot on the train.

  I'm goin' back to New Orleans,

  To wear… that ball… and chain.

  Well, there is… a house… in New Orleans,

  They call… the Rising… Sun.

  And it's been… the ruin… of many a poor boy,

  And God… I know… I'm one…

  And God…I know…I’m one…

  XXVIII.

  Imran arrived at the guest house to take Mac and the others to meet the Russian whose train they hoped would transport them across the many miles of difficult terrain and Muslim-controlled territories of Canada.

  All but Cooper were inside the house when Imran arrived. The rancher had taken Brando to the backyard area so the dog could relieve himself before getting into Imran’s transport vehicle.

  “Good morning again! I hope you all slept well after last night!”

  Mac gave Imran a short nod as he walked into the kitchen for a drink of water. His throat was sore from the several bouts of coughing when he awoke in the morning. He had enjoyed several hours of uninterrupted sleep though, which he was very thankful for.

  Bear was eating the last of an apple, while Dublin and Reese were sitting together on a couch in the home’s main room. Dublin rose to greet Imran, giving the small man a hug.

  “Good morning to you, Imran. Cooper is in the back, but we are all ready to go.”

  Imran nodded as he began to help the others bring their packs and equipment to his truck. When Reese stepped outside and felt the sting of cold air, his body involuntarily shivered as the temperature bit through his winter coat.

  “Wow, a lot colder than yesterday.”

  Bear, who was only wearing an off-white sweatshirt and jeans, clapped Reese on the back as he walked toward Imran’s transport truck.

  “Toughen up, pansy, just a little cold.”

  Brando ran past Reese to the driveway where he watched Mac place one of the backpacks onto the truck bed. Cooper soon joined them as well.

  “No godfather this morning, huh?”

  Imran shook his head at Cooper.

  “No – he has other business. There was some kind of incident very early this morning. I was told to stop off at the medical center before heading out to the Russian. He wanted to show us something.”

  Cooper’s mouth curled down into a frown as he looked back at Imran.

  “Any idea what it is?”

  Imran said no, but that they needed to be there soon. He didn’t like to keep the godfather waiting.

  Mac and Dublin again joined Imran in the front of the truck while Reese, Bear, and Cooper Wyse, along with Brando, sat down in the back. Imran pulled slowly away from the guest house and made his way back onto Wilfrid’s Main Street, where he turned right and drove for another half mile before turning left into an alley that ended in front of a small building sheathed in silver metal siding. A sign was placed over the entrance door that read “Wilfrid Medical Center”.

  Imran exited the truck with the rest of the group following him into the medical center building. Cooper paused to tell Brando to stay before hopping down from the truck bed. The first room Imran entered was a small reception area where a friendly woman in her forties, with short black hair and bangs that hung just above her dark eyes, smiled warmly at Imran and the others as they walked through the door.

  “Good morning, Imran! I was told to expect some guests today. Quite a bit of activity going on downstairs. Go ahead and let yourself in – there’s security that’s been posted, but they know you’re coming. Last door at the end of the hall on the left, in case you didn’t remember.”

  Imran smiled back at the woman and told her thank you, before motioning for the group to follow him through a second door that opened up into a long, narrow, well lit hallway.

  “This is what we use as a hospital here in Wilfrid. The first door here is an examination room. The second door on my left opens up into the procedures room. The door to my right here is a trauma room. Where we are going though is downstairs – the morgue.”

  Mac’s face winced.

  “Lovely.”

  Imran and the others reached the end of the hall where a tall, uniformed man stood holding an M-16. Imran simply nodded to the man and walked past him through another door that revealed concrete steps downward to yet another door constructed entirely of plated steel, at least three inches thick, and painted white. There was a code box on the door’s right side which Imran quickly pushed four numbers into. A loud buzzing noise filled the confines of the stairwell followed by the door opening inward.

  “Not only is this our morgue, but it can be used as a bomb shelter if needed. We are nearly thirty feet underground now.”

  Imran led the group down another narrow hallway before stopping at another door on his left. That door too had an armed man standing outside of it. He nodded down at Imran and then looked at the others before indicating they could open the door.

  The small room was just above freezing. In the middle was a single, stainless steel autopsy table that was surrounded by three men. The godfather was the first to turn around as Imran and the others walked in.

  “Good! Glad to see you made it on time. Hello, everyone. Hope you don’t get squeamish easily, because what you’re about to see is the stuff of nightmares. Gonna keep me awake at nights for months.”

  The godfather tapped the shoulder of the man to his left who was wearing a white medical jacket. He was about six foot, mid-fifties, with neatly combed grey hair, and a white goatee.

  Dr. Michaels, these are Imran and his friends. They’ve been visiting us the last couple days. Maybe they might know something about this… thing we got laid up in here.”

  The man introduced as Dr. Michaels nodded his head in greeting while offering a thin smile, but said nothing. The godfather then turned to the uniformed man on his right, who was not much taller than the godfather, though much heavier – almost fat. A round, red face sat atop a very thick neck while a pair of almost coal black eyes peered back at Imran and the others.

  “And this is Cap, my head of security. Spent, what was it, Cap – twenty years as a Canadian Mountie?”

  Cap nodded once.

  “Twenty one years, yeah.”

  The godfather motioned for the group to come forward to look at what lay atop the autopsy table.

  “C’mon, then, you have to take a look at this. One of our patrols shot it dead this morning. Actually, shot at about thirty of them running across the road into Wilfrid. They were making a hell of a racket apparently. Giving off these high pitched, shrieking screams
. This was the only one they hit. Blew the top of its head right off.”

  Mac was the first to look down at the table as Imran, Reese, and the others gathered around either side of him.

  The seeker’s hairless skin was a mottled, darkish grey color. Its chest had already been cut open and examined, and not yet stitched back up. As the godfather said, the top of its head was a disfigured mass of bone and brain. The mouth was grotesquely wide, and even though partially closed, its many teeth could be seen gleaming from behind its almost non-existent lips.

  It was indeed, the thing of nightmares.

  Cooper Wyse pointed to where its genitals should have been.

  “What sex is this thing supposed to be?”

  Dr. Michaels gave a thin smile at Cooper’s question.

  “I wondered the same thing. It is neither male or female. No sexual organs of any kind. No way for any food to be taken in or waste evacuated from the body except one – its mouth.”

  Bear’s face contorted into a look of disgust.

  “You saying that thing eats and shits from the same place – its mouth?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “Basically, yes. Note the large hump on its back. It’s actually an energy reserve, similar to a camel storing water. These things can go for extended periods without food or drink by simply accessing the reserves in that hump. According to the patrol that shot this…creature, they move exceedingly fast. The hands and feet are designed to grasp the ground and propel the body forward, similar to a monkey. The musculature suggests that for their size, they are very strong. Given the teeth, and the clawed appendages, I think it is safe to assume one of us would not wish to face even one of these things alone.”

  Mac’s eyes narrowed as he looked more closely at an area just below the back of the seeker’s head.

  “What is that there? Looks like a little…like a box.”

  The doctor reached a surgical gloved hand and removed from the area Mac had just referred to, something that did in fact look like a small, black metallic box.

  “This thing was attached to the creature’s brain stem. It is, I believe, some kind of transmitting device. I’m not a geneticist, but I am almost certain these things were created in a lab. I did run a very basic DNA test of the thing’s tissue and confirmed significant human factors involved.”

  Reese looked at the doctor, his eyes widening for a moment.

  “Human? These things are part human?”

  The doctor again nodded.

  “Oh yes, very much so. And the human factors are a mixture of single adult’s DNA, and several fetal DNA structures. I can’t test beyond that because I have neither the training or equipment, but this creature was definitely a manufactured product from somewhere. I would have to assume it is connected to a New United Nations program, because I don’t know of anyone else who would have the resources to pull something like this off. It is quite a scientific accomplishment.”

  Cooper turned away from the autopsy table shaking his head.

  “That’s no accomplishment, doctor. That there is the work of evil. That thing was never intended for this earth. We are truly spitting in the eye of God now, and there’s gonna be hell to pay for the people who did this.”

  The godfather looked at Mac, and then back to the dead seeker.

  “None of you seem that surprised at seeing this thing, so I’m guessing you know something about it. These things were following you from Alaska, right?”

  Mac nodded, then tilted his head at Imran.

  “He knew about them too, called them seekers. So I’m guessing you and your people knew about them before we did.”

  The godfather looked at Cap, who in turn responded to Mac’s statement.

  “We heard reports of people spotting them. The Russian was one of the witnesses. Said he saw some man-monster dart across the tracks a few weeks ago. Some Muslim bandits were apparently attacked to the south last year, maybe a hundred miles from here. That’s when we first heard the term seekers. It’s what the Muslims call them. And one of our own patrols said they saw something a few months ago, thought maybe it was a bear, but weren’t sure. It was dark, and the thing moved fast.”

  The doctor pointed to the thing’s face.

  “The term seeker is actually quite appropriate given the creature’s ability to smell. It has large olfactory receptors, larger even than a dog’s.”

  Cooper had turned back around and looked down at the seeker.

  ‘So that thing is part bloodhound, huh?”

  The doctor gave Cooper a thin smile.

  “Yes, you could put it that way. These things are likely capable of tracking someone at least as well as a bloodhound – probably better. Certainly faster.”

  The godfather placed a medical blanket over the seeker’s corpse and turned to Mac.

  “I need to show you all something else before you go to see the Russian. These things running around out there aren’t the only monsters you need to worry about. I need you to see something that convinces you there’s other monsters waiting for you. As deadly and disgusting as this thing laying on the table right here.”

  Mac looked down at the godfather, sensing the urgency coming from the smaller man’s tone of voice.

  “What is it you need to show us?”

  The godfather pointed to the stairwell behind them, wanting to take the group back upstairs.

  “A video.”

  XXIX.

  The group followed the godfather upstairs, through the examination room, and into the private office of Dr. Michaels. There they found a large wall monitor and six chairs for them to sit in.

  “Please have a seat. What I am about to show you was footage taken six months ago by a group of Muslims who had encountered some former residents of Wilfrid. These residents were just a small family. A father, a mother, and three children – a young boy of ten, and two daughters aged nine and seven. They had resided here with us for about five years, but had decided they wanted to live in an abandoned cabin they had found during an earlier camping trip that was to the east of Wilfrid alongside a small lake about seventy miles from here. They thought they’d be far enough from the road, and certainly any urban areas, that it would be nearly as safe as living here.

  “They were wrong. I had tried to convince them not to go. The husband, a young man named Gerald Wilkinson, ignored my warnings. They had friends here who warned them as well, but those warnings too were ignored. So they left here one morning, much like you are planning to do today, and set off to that lake that was just over the hill. That’s how Gerald put it to me personally – they were just going over the hill.

  “They made it to the cabin apparently. Our patrol report indicated it appeared they had been there for about a week, and were in the middle of fixing the place up. At some point around that time, they were paid a visit by a group of Muslim bandits who likely had been watching them since they left Wilfrid. What you will see is all too common behavior by these Muslims. They are animals and will not think twice about killing you if given the opportunity. There were likely ten or so of them, and…well, I’m going to let the footage speak for itself.”

  The wall monitor came to life, revealing dark, grainy video of the inside of what was likely the lake cabin the godfather had just referenced. The voices of several men could be heard speaking Arabic as the image finally rested on a man and woman bound and gagged and placed next to one another on their knees.

  The godfather pointed to the two figures.

  “As you likely already realized, that is Gerald Wilkinson and his wife Kate. The children are off camera.”

  One of the Muslim bandits stood behind Gerald Wilkinson and placed a small knife at his throat as two other bandits held him down by the shoulders to limit his ability to struggle. Even with the poor quality of the video one could see Kate Wilkinson’s eyes grow wide with horror as her muffled screams momentarily drowned out the shouts of the bandits.

  The man standing behind Kate’s husban
d was repeating the same line over and over again, shouting it louder each time.

  As his eyes were fixated on the screen, Mac let the others know what was being said.

  “He’s shouting death to all infidels and god is great.”

  The bandit pressed his knife down into the flesh of Gerald Wilkinson’s neck and then rapidly jerked the blade from left to right several times. Kate Wilkinson attempted to move toward her husband and stop the man from cutting him, but another bandit came into the camera’s view and violently grabbed her by her hair until she fell onto her back where he then placed the heel of his boot on top of her chest to hold her down.