by Ts Alan
“Yes, Caitlin. Elty go, too. But he may not be in the truck with you. Chief Wiese may watch you and Michael. Okay?”
“Why no Elty watch me? Not fair.”
“Ryan has many responsibilities. He’s going to be in charge of everyone.”
Caitlin grew anxious at her father’s evasive responses. “Not dawd? Dawd is boss. Dawd has to go!”
He gently took hold of her on her upper arms.
“Caitlin. You need to be a good cat, okay?” He tried to relieve her anxiety with reassurance. “Everything will be fine. Dawd is going to look one more time for the children. You remember our talk about the children. Right?”
“Yes, dawd,” she answered, understanding its importance to her father.
“Then you know how important it is to find them. So be a good cat for me. Go with Chief Wiese when he comes to get you. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, reluctantly conceding.
He offered her a consolation prize to help ease the pain of their pending separation.
“I’ll tell you what. When it’s time to leave, I’ll make sure Marisol and Max ride in the truck with you and Barkley. How about that?”
She was ecstatic at the prospect. She shouted, “Monster!” with great enthusiasm and joy.
He pulled his daughter in and held her tight for a moment, not wanting to let her go, but knowing he had to. There were matters that needed his attention. He kissed her good night.
***
After having met with Chief Wiese and Major Duncan to go over final preparations, and after enjoying brief playtime with Max, J.D. retired to his room. It was nearly 1800 hours when he lay down upon his bed. He knew that sleep, if it came, would be brief, which was perfectly fine this night, for later he would have to bid farewell to his men and make sure that they departed on schedule.
J.D.’s furry companion lay at the edge of the bed, content to be in his master’s presence once again. Lying silently, J.D. stared up at the dirty off-white ceiling thinking and reflecting. His mind wandered from his upcoming farewell to his men to Stone, and then to his dog, and finally to Marisol.
Marisol had kept Max’s obedience reinforcement up, and even made sure he always had on his doggie pack filled with everything J.D. had taught her to put in it. She was a good woman, a loving and attentive woman, and though strong headed and foul-mouthed at times, he had loved her for who she was and how she made him feel. But that was long ago, a time before hate and revenge devoured his soul and left him empty.
What lay in the darkness of his mind when he shut his eyes had now become reality. He felt he had lost his humanity, fallen too far into the pit to find it again. His hate for himself and his enemy devoured him.
Now his friends had returned and he should have felt happy. However, this was not the case. There was no place in his life for them now. There was no place in his life for anyone, not even his daughter. He had become something unspeakable—a raging monster—and there was no way of going back. He needed to remain behind so that Caitlin would not be stigmatized with the sins of the father.
Ryan had been partially correct, but only partly. J.D. did indeed still care about his friends, and he was concerned about how well he could protect them, but there was more to it, a more selfish reason. He cared what they thought about him and he was afraid that the memories they held of him and what they had shared together would be wiped away if they saw him transform into his true self—the predatorial transhuman. David once had quoted Andre Gide, ‘It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.’ At the time he had agreed, but now all he wanted was to be loved and remembered for whom he had been. So he had given them just a glimpse of what he was capable of, let the demons loose enough to reinforce his cold exterior, enough to show them they were no longer welcome and he was not the person they had known.
He was stirred from his tossing and turning by a knock on the door.
“One moment,” he spoke, as he sat up in his bed and picked up his shirt. “Come,” he said as he began to button it. He stopped; it was Marisol.
Max sat up as Marisol entered.
“Why are you here?” he asked, but she didn’t respond. She approached him; there was anger in her eyes. He knew he was about to get slapped.
She raised her hand, but he was quick. He grabbed onto her wrist, “Not this time,” he warned her, having remembered a time long ago when she had slapped him in anger. Nevertheless, she too was quick and it was not his face she was interested in. She kneed him hard in the groin and began to swear at him in Spanish.
“¡Cabron! ¿Cómo se atreve usted a tratar nos de esta manera! ¡Usted Pendajo!”
J.D. had not heard what she had been screaming at him. He had been caught off-guard. It was apparent to him she had continued with her self-defense studies, for he knew he hadn’t taught her that move. He was in pain, severe testicular agony, pain which radiated up into his guts.
From his pain grew anger, anger at her but even more with himself for letting her get the better of him.
“Almeja,” he gasped. He had called her a name that no man should ever call a woman, especially a Columbian girl with a quick temper.
“¡Vete al carajo!” she yelled, and then punched him square in the solar plexus.
The punch had not affected him, but it had further roused his anger. It burst forth. “You want it rough, is that what you want?” he yelled, and then grabbed her by the throat and lifted her into the air, his talons digging into the soft flesh of her neck. “I’ll give it to you like you’ve never had it.”
She held onto his arm to stop him from choking her. He turned around and tossed her on the bed like a crumpled piece of notebook paper into a wastebasket. Max fled to the corner of the room and cowered. It was the first time that his fearless canine retreated without an order.
He immobilized her before she could rise, sitting on top her pelvis, pinning her to the bed. He removed his shirt and tossed it to the floor. She hadn’t seen the cross around his neck when she had kicked him, but there it was—the platinum polished cross pendant with its round shaped diamond accent. She had received it from her grandmother as a Quinceanera gift, and in turn she had given it to him as a token of her love. Though J.D. had been hesitant in accepting it, partly because he thought it “sappy,” he took the gift and promised to leave it around his neck from that moment on. But this was not the man who had pledged his love to her. That man, the one of gentleness and understanding, the one that made her “first time” special was gone.
J.D. was fierce. His cold, frightful eyes scared her as he tore at her vest, fumbling chaotically to release it. She repeatedly struck at him, first slapping, and then punching his face, drawing blood, trying to get free. He ripped open her BDU shirt, and then tore away her army issued green A-shirt to expose her full, ripe brown breasts. He grabbed her hands and forced them to her side.
J.D. sniffed her neck, and then released her hands and grabbed onto her head. He began to lick the small trickles of blood that ran from the small puncture wounds he had inflicted upon her. He had often drawn blood in his mating rituals with Luci. The sweet taste of Marisol’s blood sexually excited him.
She could feel his manhood rising up as it pressed against her body. She wanted him, she had longed for him and burned for him to be inside her again—but not this way! He was vicious and brutal, and he was hurting her. She still loved him, with heart and soul, but without the tenderness it was too much to bear. His rage and aggression deeply frightened her, enough that she feared for her own life.
He appeared blind in his blood tasting, and he did not notice when she slipped her knife out of its quick release military holster that was strapped to her hip. She closed her eyes as she raised it above his back; she ached inside at the thought of hurting the only man she had ever given herself to. She plunged it into his back with all her strength.
The b
lade struck him to the left of his mid-thoracic vertebra, barely penetrating his thick transmute skin. He felt the sensation of something strike him, but that area of his back was highly desensitized. She struck him again; this time the knife went deeper, striking him along the delineation of where his transmute flesh met his human. He reared up and spun his head around. The knife was lodged in his back. There had not been too much pain where she had stuck him, but it still hurt. He pulled the embedded knife from his flesh and placed it against Marisol’s throat, pressing the razor-sharp military blade just above her larynx.
“You’re pathetic and weak,” he told her, then grabbed her hands and put the knife into them, squeezing them tight around the textured grip. “Try it now!” He held onto her hands and forced the tip into his chest, just below the tattoo of a dragon in flight, the one Peter had given him to cover up a youthful injury. A trickle of blood began to run.
“¡Te odio!” she screamed at him. “¡Te odio!”
“Do it.” Do it or I’ll kill you!” he warned.
“I’ll hate you forever,” she now screamed at him in English. “Forever! Do you hear me?!”
He told her again, “Pathetic and weak,” and then added. “How did I ever love you?” He grabbed the knife from her and raised it up. His arm came crashing down. The knife plunged into the mattress next to her head. “Get out. Get out before I change my mind,” he warned, and then released her.
She ran from the room crying, clutching her torn shirt closed as she did, and nearly ran into Kermit as he approached the doorway. She bolted passed him, not saying a word.
Kermit burst in and angrily shouted, “What the hell is going on? Did you just—?” he began to ask.
“Never,” he told Kermit before he could complete his sentence.
Kermit saw the knife protruding from the mattress. “Then what—?”
J.D. cut him off again. “Just a lesson in reality. She’ll understand eventually. What is it that you want, Chief?” he asked as he buttoned his shirt.
“I know you, son; you’re planning something. So you want to tell me?”
“Just a strategic withdrawal, that’s all,” he said as he extracted the knife from the bed, and then handed it to his old comrade.
“Cut the crap and tell me what I need to know. I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be, Chief. There’s—”
Kermit cut him off. “That’s exactly what I mean. You’re addressing me as a soldier. You rarely used my rank, and here you are using it every sentence.”
“Chief Brown. Strange,” he commented, and then sat at his desk to put on his boots. “You used to be a master sergeant. Didn’t know they made cooks warrant officers.”
“I’m not a cook anymore. I’m a Tactical Commander.”
“Ah well, their loss.”
“Now I know something’s wrong. You used to make fun of my cooking. Whatever you got planned I hope it’s not something reckless that will endanger others.”
J.D. was hurt and angered at the notion that Kermit could think ill of him in such a way. He slammed his fist on his desk in protest.
“No, no I was never reckless! Never with anyone’s life but my own! You know that. Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare accuse me—I have always put the good of the group first. My life always before the lives of my men. If anything you put the lives of your team in danger,” he angrily chastised Kermit. “You came looking for me. You got captured. What if those hadn’t been my men? What if they had been Stone’s? You and the others should have gotten on that chopper when my men took you back. It was your responsibility to keep your people safe.”
“I know why you stayed, Kermit told him. “I knew how hard it was for you. And you were right. You made the right choice. It was hard on us all not having you around. We missed your smart-ass and your obsession to outdo David with all those damn movie quotes. But mostly we just missed you. Son, you’re family. And our family was torn apart. It affected us all, but it nearly tore the heart out of Marisol. Whatever it is you got planned, whatever you’re scheming, all I ask is you don’t break that little girl’s heart again. You’ll never know how hard it was for her to survive without you. I just thank God we were there for her; I shudder to think what would have happened if we weren’t.”
“Well, I shudder to think what Stone would have done to all of you, especially Marisol. You foolishly came looking for me, when the odds were I was dead. And don’t give me some cock ‘n’ bull story that Marisol needed closure.”
“It wasn’t just for Marisol. It was for all of us. Though I can see I’m just wasting my breath on you.”
Kermit moved to exit; as he did J.D. called to him.
“Kermit. None of you should be here. You’re continued presence will jeopardize the mission objective. You’re to go with my men. You can live that life I wanted for all of us.”
“That’s the other reason we came looking for you. Some of the civilians wanted to make a fresh start away from the military. Command granted their request. I’d like to have those civilians relocate with you, but I’d need your assistance. The military is pulling out and heading to Colorado Springs the day after tomorrow. That doesn’t give those staying behind a lot of time, and they can’t be left unprotected, they just don’t have the training. Will you help?”
“What makes you think I would welcome them with open arms when you just told me they’re untrained. I need warfighters or people with special skills who can help our community prosper and thrive.”
“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” Kermit asked of his callous comment.
J.D. did not want to turn any survivor away, but the harsh reality was that taking in more unskilled people would not be for the betterment of the survival group. The uneducated that had been part of the armory had been tasked with doing menial labor, such as laundry and facility cleaning. Upon arrival in Mechanicville they were put to task in helping to construct security barricades and fencing, along with cleaning out buildings and homes, sorting the useless from the items that could be used in their survival. J.D. truly did not need any more unskilled laborers.
“Is it?” J.D. snapped. “Perhaps in England you had unlimited resources to feed the masses, but here—here we’ll barely have enough to get through the winter. Taking on more mouths to feed, more people to protect, will jeopardize our community’s survival. That’s just the unforgiving truth.”
“How about I clarify? These civilians may not be able to protect themselves very well, but they weren’t required too. Many civilians learned farming. There are also two doctors, a gynecologist and a surgeon, an electrical engineer, a carpenter and a plumber. And how about Master Sergeant McDaniels? He and a few others want to make a new start, too. Are they suitable for your community now?”
“It’s also a matter of transportation. I’ll give you an answer later, after mission briefing. Now if you will excuse yourself, I have other affairs to attend to.”
As Kermit neared the door, J.D. asked, “Why Colorado Springs? What’s the significance?”
“A heat signature,” Kermit replied. A heat signature on a satellite photo. They think there may be someone still at Cheyenne Mountain.” As Kermit stepped out the door, he spoke, “Sometimes if you chase the dragon too long, you become the dragon.”
J.D. went to the corner of the bedroom and picked up a dusty guitar case and a large bottle of Jack Daniels that stood next to it. He knew it was just a matter of time before David would pay him a visit. He went to the roof with Max.
J.D. knew it was unsafe for any of his men to stay at the armory. After nearly a year of searching he had given up hope of finding any of Stone’s captives. By now, he believed, they were dead.
It was time to leave. Except to leave and let Stone have what he had desired for so long was unacceptable. Edward Stone and his band of killers and rapists would have to earn the prize; they would have
to survive him.
J.D. dismissed Michael Panton from roof sentry duty. With walkie-talkie in hand, he stood at the edge of the building and taunted his nemesis.
“Stone. Stone. Are you listening? I know you’re out there. I have a final riddle.
‘This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers,
Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,
Slays king, destroys town,
And beats the highest mountain down.’
What am I?” There was a long silence. J.D. was uncertain that anyone, especially Stone, was listening. “Give up, Stone? The answer is time… It’s time, Stone. It’s time to put an end to this conflict. Your little Peter Pumpkin Spy is dead. We hung him on the perimeter fence, as we did Barlow. But here’s some good news for you. My men are leaving in the morning. They’re leaving me all alone, Stone. Just me and this big armory. You can have it, Stone. That is if you and your half-wits have enough balls to take it from me… I’ll be waiting. I’ll even leave the front door open for you.”
J.D. pitched the walkie-talkie across the street toward the Baruch College building and then retreated to the center of the roof and sat down on the large covered trunk. He thought about what he had purposely done to Marisol, but he knew it was necessary. He needed for her to hate him. For her to hate him enough that there would be no reason for her to try and stay behind. After a moment, the scuffle of footsteps came from behind him. He knew it was David, he recognized the sound of his footfall. Even Max knew who was approaching, barely raising his head in recognition.
J.D. asked, “No gun this time, David?” as he neared.
“You left the lights on,” David commented as he neared. “I thought you liked to do your thinking the dark?”
“I still do, but just not here. Besides, tonight’s a special occasion. I wanted the tower lights on.”
“Where’s the beer?” David asked, referring to the last time he and J.D. had spent time on the roof sharing camaraderie and friendship, as he joined his old comrade.