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

by D. W. Ulsterman

“Hey, now, no need for this to go real bad real quick. Emotions are running a bit high for everyone. I’m gonna just keep on sitting here and wait for all you to do the same so we can have a more reasonable conversation with one another. That sound ok with you, Father Riel?”

  Bear was helping Mac to his feet, while the Russian appeared ready to try and charge the priest again. Dublin and Reese were already returning to their own seats. Yakov turned to Mac while pointing back to Khalid and Father Riel.

  “You want me to kill them now? Break that damn stick up your ass, priest.”

  Mac waved the Russian away, as he slowly returned to his chair, his breath still coming in short, rattling, gasps.

  “No…I wasn’t acting right. I apologize, Father Riel and Khalid. My head, I’m not myself, letting my own fear and frustration take the place of good manners. That said, goddamn if that walking stick of yours don’t pack a hell of a punch! Everyone, please, let’s sit back down here and think this through. I’m sorry again for my…outburst. It was disrespectful. Please, accept my apologies.”

  The priest allowed a small smile to sneak across his face, as he looked over at Mac with a newfound respect. To witness a man as proud as Mac Walker be so quickly willing to seek forgiveness for their actions, was something increasingly rare in a world gone empty of nearly all moral responsibility.

  “I shall count that as your first confessional, Mac. Welcome to the Church!”

  Father Riel’s attempt at humor was met with stony silence until finally the Russian slapped his hands together and threw back his head and laughed.

  “You make joke!”

  Mac smiled back at the priest, glad to see the mood so quickly lightened following his outburst. Fatigue was again overtaking him, but he did not want to sleep, wanting instead to remain awake to experience whatever small moments remained in his life. Sleep was too much like death, and he had finally accepted he would be getting plenty of that soon enough.

  L.

  Early the following morning, before he thought any of the others were yet awake, Mac quietly moved into the chapel room, taking one of the portable short wave units with him. He hoped to contact the Texas Resistance for an update.

  Though his breathing remained more a wheezing back and forth of air coming and going in his lungs, interrupted by periods of increasingly painful coughing, Mac found that not having laid down to sleep left him actually feeling somewhat more refreshed. He remained dead tired to be sure – but not dead, and he found that an acceptable alternative.

  The interior of the chapel was still a murky dark, the sun not yet risen enough to provide light through the large stained glass windows. Mac sat down in one of the wooden benches and powered up the short wave, adjusting the frequency to the same one he had last spoken with Royce Calhoun on.

  “This is Walker for Calhoun. Copy.”

  Mac waited a full minute for a response that did not come before repeating the message.

  “This is Walker for Calhoun. Copy.”

  Again the shortwave remained silent.

  Mac left the device on and placed it next to him on the bench, and then found himself staring up at the life sized carving of Jesus Christ on the cross that hung directly over the altar area. As an example of artwork, Mac found the details and coloring of the carving impressive. The eyes of Christ looked back at Mac with the same weariness Mac had been feeling for days. The carving depicted an expression in Jesus of a man who knew his end was very near, and that it was his own people who had so willingly put him there.

  “So, why didn’t you just come on down from that cross? Smite all the bastards who did that to you? Son of God, right? Well if you had that kind of power, why didn’t you use it?”

  Mac’s voice echoed inside of the empty chapel, before fading to silence and leaving him to sit alone again in his own thoughts as a hint of daylight from outside began to creep across the floor.

  “It is not for us to judge God, Mac. To attempt understanding of something as vast and unending as the mind of God is the epitome of human arrogance, the very arrogance and pride that has been our downfall as human beings from inception.”

  The voice startled Mac as he moved to jump up from the bench. The priest was already beside him, lowering himself slowly next to Mac, leaning heavily against his staff as he did so.

  Father Riel looked up to the Christ statue for a moment, and then closed his eyes.

  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

  Mac’s response to the priest’s quoted Bible verse was immediate.

  “You don’t give up, do you? I’m not interested in hearing that shit, Father. I don’t want to be disrespectful here, I did enough of that last night, and I apologize for that again, but those words mean absolutely nothing to me.”

  Father Riel turned toward Mac, his words slow and deliberate, in the deep tones of a voice that seemed to originate from another time.

  “You loved and respected Alexander Meyer, did you not? And was he not a man of great faith, Mac? Despite all that had been taken from him, including his own daughter, his faith in God remained to the very end, correct?”

  Mac focused on his breathing, and remaining calm under the weight of the priest’s persistence in trying to save his non-existent soul. It was then Mac again heard the voice of the Old Man from his dream the night before.

  I need you to be right when your moment comes, Mac…

  Turning to look at the priest, Mac nodded in agreement at Father Riel’s description of Alexander Meyer’s faith.

  “Sure – he believed in God, a higher power…whatever.”

  “And that belief never entered your own mind, Mac? You were never willing to consider the possibility of such a thing? That there could be something far greater than our own incredibly brief and small lives?”

  Mac’s hands were gripping the lip of the bench tightly as another wave of pain ran down his spine.

  “No, Mr. Meyer was an honorable man. Yeah – I loved him and respected him. Did everything I could to protect him. The thing is though, we were all stuck in that cave, as the drone bombs dropped over our heads, because of how messed up this world has become. So where is God’s hand in all of that priest? When Dominatus was being attacked, I saw a woman, a mother of a young child, have an ice pick pushed through her skull. I had friends killed because a government wanted to silence them for what they may or may not have known. After years of service to that same government, I was put in prison for doing nothing more than saving the life of a woman who was getting the shit beat out of her by a drugged up loser. And now I’m dying of this cancer that was injected into me by the same sadistic son-of-a-bitch who ran that ice pick through that poor woman’s head. Where is your so-called God when all of that is happening?”

  Father Riel slowly nodded his head, as he repositioned himself on the bench to allow his legs to more easily stretch out into the aisle of the church.

  “You have very valid questions, Mac, questions I have in my own life asked of God. You’re in pain, both physically and spiritually. That is understandable. I too, know pain, Mac. This body of mine…poses not insignificant challenge.”

  The priest held up his hands to better show his grotesquely bent and arthritic fingers.

  “I was diagnosed with a form of acromegaly at the age of ten. By fifteen I was nearly seven feet tall, and living in constant pain. My joints were terribly inflamed from the accelerated growth. At eighteen I had an operation to remove a tumor that was growing within my pituitary gland, causing my body to produce much higher levels of growth hormone. For nearly two years following that operation, I was able to live relatively pain free. It was then I joined the Church. It was my belief the experience of knowing great physical pain would allow me insights into helping others going through similar pain.

  “Shortly after my twenty first birthday, I awoke sweating terribly, racked again with that same, all too f
amiliar pain in my joints. The doctors confirmed another tumor, but by then, the war on the Catholic Church was fully underway by the globalists, and access to medical services was denied me due to my affiliation with what the new government deemed a ‘business of false faith’. So, I lived my life as God had made it. I took the pain, the affliction, and grew stronger…spiritually stronger, from it. My hands, as you can see, pose my greatest challenge. Attempting to move my fingers even slightly feels as if I am immersing them in fire, so great is the discomfort.”

  Mac interrupted the priest, his eyes staring at the just referenced abnormally long and disfigured fingers.

  “And where is God in your suffering? If you have been forced to live your life in such pain, and to see all of those churches burned, and all of those people of faith persecuted by the globalists – why would God allow those things to happen?”

  Father Riel looked back to the carved depiction of Christ’s suffering.

  “Those examples are not of God. They are of us. We are responsible for them. God cannot provide absolute safety and security for the human race anymore than a parent can for a child. There are dangers inherent in all forms of existence. Is that not one of the fundamental evils of the New United Nations? It has empowered itself with the promise of removing the dangers of existence. Tell people they need not worry over security, for that security will be provided them. Those people then give up freedom and liberty for that false sense of security. God grants each of us choice. If society has chosen to forsake God, to forsake freedom, to forsake liberty – who are we to judge God for our own mistake?”

  Mac sat silently, considering the priest’s words carefully, before finally whispering two brief words.

  “I’m afraid.”

  Father Riel placed his right hand on Mac’s shoulder.

  “What do you fear, Mac?”

  Mac’s eyes locked with those of the Christ statue.

  “Dying, I don’t want it. Death, I don’t want to go through it. I don’t want to leave these people behind. Thought I was brave. Thought I would…shit it sounds so stupid when I say it…thought I’d go out in some big, guns-a-blazing moment of glory. The truth is, I’m scared shitless. My body is dying, and I don’t have control of that situation, and it pisses me off. And I’m afraid. I mean, really, really afraid right now. I think maybe that’s why I took this mission. If I’m being honest with myself, and I’m starting to realize I haven’t been honest for a while now…I took this mission because I was running away from dying. Some stupid part of me figured as long as I was doing what I was trained to do, my body wouldn’t give up. I’d keep living. I wouldn’t have to…to face my own death.”

  The daylight coming through the chapel windows filled the room, rising up to illuminate the figure of Christ that hung from the wall. Father Riel gently squeezed Mac’s shoulder.

  “Fear is part of being human, Mac. For as tough a life as you’ve led, for as many missions you have accomplished, in the end, you remain a human being – weak, fallible, and always capable of dying. And while you may not wish to hear me say it, I know in my heart, Mac, I feel it in every fiber of my being. Death is but a threshold across which you will walk. But you must be prepared to make that journey. You must be willing to accept that gift of life after life.”

  Mac’s eyes remained looking upon the depiction of Jesus, as he silently noted a shadow moving across both the statue and the wall behind it. Turning his head to look toward the windows on the other side of the church, Mac found himself staring into the black eyes of a seeker, the space between them separated only by the thin layer of stained glass.

  The creature’s mouth opened wide, erupting in a screeching howl, likely signaling others of its location, before crashing its head through the church window as it prepared to launch itself toward Mac and Father Riel.

  LI.

  The Great Consulate giggled as he watched through the seeker’s eyes the horror in the faces of the two men sitting inside the church as the seeker shattered the glass. In the corner of his killing room, the seeker the Great Consulate had strapped to the floor many days ago, sat looking back at him, making no sound or movement.

  He was amazed at the clarity through which the sensory link transmitted the signal of the sights and sounds and smells being communicated directly from the seeker’s brain all the way from that pathetic outpost in Manitoba. Why the Dominatus survivors had made their way there remained a mystery to the Great Consulate, but the chase to follow and find them had proven extremely entertaining, even if it came at some cost.

  The seekers that had survived the attack against the moving train were pushed to the limits of their genetically enhanced physical capabilities to catch the traveling Dominatus interlopers. This required that during the hunt, some seekers attacked and ate the weaker seekers in order to ensure the chase would continue. This killing of their own kind resulted in just ten seekers being left alive by the time the group reached Churchill.

  Watching the two men scramble away from the window as his seeker plunged through it assured the Great Consulate that ten would be more than enough. They no longer were on the train, so escape on foot was impossible. The seekers were too fast, and were now motivated by starvation as well. They would kill the humans, and feast on their flesh. The Great Consulate licked his own cracked and diseased lips with a pus-filled, blackened tongue, anticipating the joy he would feel in sharing that experience from inside of the seeker’s mind.

  The Great Consulate watched as the much shorter and older of the two men pushed the other behind him, in some kind of silly attempt at protection. That taller man wore a long dark robe. Could he possibly be a priest? Did such things still exist? Oh, how marvelous it would be to watch, feel and taste the life of a priest bleeding out in front of him!

  A metallic glint flashed from across the room. The older man carried a knife in his right hand, holding it out in front of him as he walked slowly backwards toward another door, still positioning himself between the seeker and the much taller, dark-robed man.

  Not wanting to give them yet another opportunity to escape, the seeker crouched low against the wooden floors of the chapel and opened its mouth to expose its many jagged teeth before propelling its body toward the humans, closing the gap between them in a mere half second. The seeker hit the chest of the shorter man, knocking him off his feet and allowing the creature to clamp its jaws over the human’s right shoulder. The seeker’s excitement grew as it heard the man scream out, though at the same time feeling repeated jabs of pain from its side. It was the knife the man held in his hand being plunged repeatedly into the seeker’s body.

  Screeching its outrage, the seeker’s jaws bit down harder on the man’s shoulder. The talon-tipped fingers of its left hand dug into the human’s right forearm, ripping away the flesh, causing him to drop the knife. Feeling the man quickly getting weaker underneath him, the seeker opened its jaws again so it could close them over the human’s exposed neck.

  The Great Consulate was lost in a wave of excitement and pleasure. He heard, felt and tasted everything the seeker did. He sensed how the creature was now preparing to rip out the man’s throat, a sensation that caused the him to squeal with delight. This pleasure was soon replaced though by a crashing pain in his head as he found himself looking up at the church ceiling, a wave of confusion and fear overcoming the seeker.

  The creature scrambled to regain its feet, hissing a warning against the incredibly tall human that stood over him waving some kind of stick – the same stick this same man had just used to bash the top of the seeker’s head. The man was tall, but the seeker sensed he was slow and struggling to maintain his balance.

  Again the creature launched itself forward, its mouth closing on the tall man’s upper right thigh, ripping through the woolen cloth of his robe and finding the predictably soft and pliant human skin beneath. Already the tall man’s blood filled the seeker’s mouth as it hungrily ripped deeper into the flesh of his thigh.

  The human
fell to the floor, allowing the seeker to scramble onto his chest, digging its claws into the man’s arms to hold them down. Still clutching the large stick, the priest held it in front of him, using it as a protective barrier between the seeker’s snapping jaws and his own body.

  Again and again the seeker closed its jaws over the stick, growing more enraged as its presence. Finally the man’s grip loosened, and the stick fell to the floor, eliciting a hungry and triumphant shriek from the seeker, a shriek cut short by the jaws of an attacking dog as it bit into the seeker’s face.

  The Great Consulate screamed in frustration and shared pain as he felt the dog’s long canine teeth plunge into the seeker’s chin and upper throat. Despite digging its claws into the dog’s exposed belly, the seeker was unable to free itself from the animal’s jaws. If anything, the dog’s efforts became even more determined as it shook its head violently from side to side, its teeth working more deeply into the seeker’s face and neck.