by Ts Alan
“Drinking has no appeal anymore, since my metabolism won’t let me get piss-assed, but what kind of host would I be if I didn’t offer you something.” He handed David the bottle of Jack Daniels. I have something else for you,” he said, handing him a guitar case that had been sitting to his left.
David unlatched the case and opened its lid. He removed the soft cloth that lay on top and revealed a new guitar. He was astounded.
“Holy shit! Where the hell did you get this?”
J.D. responded, but didn’t answer his question. “It’s a Yamaha Wes Borland Signature Semi-Hollow Electric Guitar. It has a Takumi-Kezuri constructed body carved from one block of Alder with a three-piece Maple neck, and Rosewood fingerboard with 24 frets. The bridge is a Finger Clamp Quick Change Tremolo System and the pickups are YASH-designed Custom33 Split-field Humbuckers. So the brochure says.”
“Where the hell did you get it?” he asked again.
“Picked it up on one of my visits to the Guitar Center on 14th Street. Saw it in a glass showcase and it reminded me of you, so I took it.”
“This is—I mean. WOW… How can I thank you?”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” J.D. replied, waiting for a moment before he put his plan into motion. It was a favor and the guitar was just a prelude.
David began to tune the guitar. “Seriously, J.D. This means a lot to me. I was really disappointed not being able to take any of my guitars with me. Took me six months to get one when I got to England, then that was just a cheap piece of crap.”
“Funny you should mention your guitars.”
“Yeah, I see my room is completely empty. So go ahead and give it to me.”
J.D. trusted David explicitly. Theirs was a mutual bond of friendship that had been forged in survival and he trusted him with his life. He had no reservations in revealing the location of David’s personal affects.
“All your personal belongings were shipped out. They’re in Mechanicville.”
“What? Mechanicville? Our Mechanicville?”
“Yes. I couldn’t bear to throw out anyone’s stuff. Therefore when the first convoy left, I made sure they took your personal effects up. Even some of what you didn’t get from your Gramercy apartment.”
“I don’t even know what to say. I mean, we weren’t supposed to come back.”
“I know. I did it for me. Just wanted something to remember you by. My own personal DD Dominion museum… So what happened to Julie?”
“I did exactly what you told me to do. ‘Make babies, grow old, tell our grandkids stories about what we did to survive.’ At least we started.”
“You had a kid?”
“Yeah, The other day in fact, in mid-air. Right after we took off. Named her after you. Of course we had to make a slight adjustment since she is a girl. Named her Janna Davida Pei Chen DiMinni.”
“Why would you want to go and name your kid after me?” J.D. asked, with a tone of disappointment, shaking his head with disbelief.
“What’s wrong with that? You saved my life—twice! Saved Julie’s, too. We’re grateful. You’re one of the good guys. Our friend. Hell, family.”
“No… I’m not one of the good guys. I’ve tortured and murdered people, all to get to Stone. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for me. To do what I do, David, takes conviction. But more often than not, it is the resolve to do what is ugly and necessary. You say I’m one of the good guys, a friend, family, and I say you’re wrong. There’s nothing left of that J.D. Nichols, not even what was a paramedic.”
“And I say you’re full of shit. You’ve convinced yourself that everything you’ve done has taken away your humanity, and France is right there backing you up on what a monster you’ve become.” J.D. gave David a look of surprise. “Yeah,” David continued, “I had a chat with Doctor Evil—and he’s still a douche. From what I’ve heard most of those people you helped save wouldn’t have survived much less followed you, if you hadn’t the conviction to do what was ugly and necessary. Maybe you’re trying to convince yourself that killing doesn’t bother you, so you could do what needs to be done.”
“I’m not telling you it bothers me,” J.D. responded. “I’m telling you it doesn’t. I’ve had this anger inside me for a very long time, far longer than I realized, before we even met. Meditation, martial arts, it barely quelled the repressed darkness… When Stone’s men slaughtered Luci in front of me, I let that demon out, the true me, my transhuman me.”
For a moment neither spoke, it was an awkward silence, a silence that David decided to break. “So what happened?” he asked.
J.D. stood up and walked to the edge of the building and looked down onto the brightly lit compound, peering down at the corpses of Private Schumacher and Richard Barlow that had been indignantly stripped, bound and left hanging on the perimeter gates. He stood in silence for a moment, and then turned back to David.
“January 9. Luci, Caitlin and I were here, on the roof, just… being in the darkness, watching the stars. A light began to glow from the west. Dimly at first, but then the sky lit with a great dance of light. You could smell it, too—thick, pungent. Like burning diesel.
Then came the screeches. Loud, pained—echoing—filling the night air. Caitlin began to cry, telling us we needed to go help.
I took a few men with me. Luci insisted on coming. I wanted her to stay with Caitlin. I always made her stay, no matter how much the night called. But this night she insisted. She wanted… She wanted to feel useful, to be a soldier again.”
He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, trying not to choke on his words.
“There were five of us. It wasn’t too difficult to locate the fire. It was a raging beacon. When we drove up, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. None of us could believe it. It was worse for Luci and I.
There were transmutes. Three, maybe more.” J.D.’s tone grew sad and pained. “The smell, God the smell—I thought they had all gone, sought warmer climate.” His lament grew more anguished, the sound of his ache trembled in his words as he recounted the event. “But there they were, tied up, on top of that structure, that big pile of debris… It was ablaze, like a giant wicker man. They burned—they burned them alive—the child… I puked. I ran to the curb and puked. Then I got shot. Shot with some kind of tranq dart.
When I awoke, I could barely see—my face had been pummeled, my ribs shattered. Four men held me, pulling my arms taught with rope, holding me up. Then I saw them, Stutters, Barlow and eight or nine others. Some of them had Luci. She was trying to get free, trying to get to me. But she couldn’t. Several others had one of the Dunphy twins. I couldn’t tell which one. They picked him up and tossed him onto the pyre. I heard him scream when he began to burn. I looked around for the rest of the team, but I didn’t see them.
Then they turned on Luci. I struggled. I couldn’t get enough strength. They were all laughing. Laughing this sick drunken laugh. Then Barlow said something to me. Something about being a freak. About my eyes, my hands. Then he struck me with a pipe. Smashed me in the face. I remember the blood running down my cheek, the taste of it on my lips.
They held my head up. Those sons-a-bitches, they… they—they had my machetes. They butchered her. Butchered her and made me watch! Then something inside me—something wanted out. It was the darkness, the rage.
For a moment I shook violently. They dropped me. They dropped me and laughed. Laughter sick and perverse. Then I exploded. I remember letting out this scream… then blackness. I must have passed out, because when I awoke I was lying next to Luci, soaked in blood. My clothes, my hands—all stained red, thick with flesh and entrails. But it wasn’t hers. It was theirs.
I had killed them, five of them. I had ripped out their throats, ripped out their guts. And I did it with my hands.” J.D. held up his claws and looked at them almost with admiration. “I don’t remember doing it. I
just remember looking at the corpses, feeling nothing. No regret, no satisfaction, just numb… and a driving need to hunt the ones who got away, Barlow and Stutters. And I have—most of them—hunted them down. And tomorrow. Tomorrow it ends.”
David was horrified by the story J.D. relayed, but he refused to believe that the man who just moments ago had given him a guitar as a gift had become the self-proclaimed monster.
“That kid you were going to gut,” David asked, “you really would have done it right there?”
“It wasn’t his entrails falling out around his feet I wanted to see, it was him choking on his own blood and spittle after I cut out his betraying tongue… All the time it was little Peter,” J.D. continued, “not his father. I should have known, should have seen,” he told David with a tone of regret and anger in his voice toward himself. He paused briefly, reflecting, then continued. “The little bastard. He was the cause of a lot of good people dying… Just showed up on Christmas morning. Came right up to the gates and started calling out for his father. Everyone thought it a Christmas miracle, the only child to escape from Stone. It was no miracle, just a bullshit fairy tale.
Except today, today everything fell into place, everything was clear. I understood I was looking at the wrong person. For all the murders he had a hand in—for Luci, for the Dunphys, and all the others—he earned a death that should have been slow and agonizing. But his father saw it differently. Didn’t he?”
“Ryan told us you never found the children, never found Stone.”
“The children. I don’t believe they’re alive. As for Stone, I don’t have to look for him anymore. He’ll be coming to me. So that brings me to you, to all of you. You should have gotten on that chopper. There’s no place here for any of you.”
“Sorry that the people who truly love you came back to see if you were still alive,” David told him.
“And the argument Kermit had with those two Navy Seals?”
David took another swig from the bottle. “So you heard? Well, it was about you from what I gathered over the helicopter noise. Kermit was saying something about being a warrior and a guardian of freedom, and protecting the American way of life. All the Navy guys could do was point a finger, ordering him to get us on the chopper. Then Collins pulled a gun. Then I heard Kermit say something about being loyal to his first team and resigning from the military. Then he walked away. Collins kept yelling at him, telling Kermit he would be shot for desertion even after we all got back in the Humvee.”
“If he cut off ties with the military, how you going to get Julie back?”
“Yeah. I was kinda shittin’ myself on that one, but Kermit told me that’s why Drukker went back. To oversee all the civilians that didn’t want to continue on, and she’d be safe. Julie was already pissed at my leaving. Don’t want to even think what she’d do if I abandoned her.”
“Your failure to do what I requested has complicated the situation. For this, I’ll need a favor.”
David quickly responded with, “Oh, hell, no. The last time I did you a favor I got a punch in the face from Marisol—and she refused to talk to me for two months. If it involves her, I’m not going down that route again.”
“It does and you will.”
David shook his head with disbelief. He knew J.D. was going to ask him the same thing he had asked the last time they had a talk on the roof, and that was to make sure he watched out for Marisol when J.D. could not. This also told him that J.D. had no intention of going to Mechanicville, like he had not gone to England. However, England had been a place he could not have gone and David had understood, but not this time.
“No. You ask too much of me. Forget whatever you’re planning. Take Marisol and Max, and let’s all go to Mechanicville like we had planned.”
“Even if I had found the children. Even if I believed that those who I helped eventually wouldn’t turn on me for what I’ve done in the name of survival, there is one thing that will never allow me to find a place, and that is that one day the sickness inside of me will take over. I won’t put my daughter’s life or anyone else’s in jeopardy because of it.”
“So, I’m right. You are full of shit. You still care. It’s that you’re afraid. You’re afraid of failing and afraid of falling off that pedestal that so many have placed you on. Afraid that someone else you care about will die under your watch. You alienate yourself under the guise of being a monster, telling yourself that it is in everyone’s best interest because you’re afraid of being hurt. That’s so deceitful, selfish and disrespectful. You’re a coward.”
David’s comment had cut him deep. For it was the truth. He had once told Joseph Young, a member of his original team, to take responsibility for actions that caused the death of Joseph’s younger brother at the outbreak of the plague and to atone for the cowardice. Although David had never been privy to that conversation, the statement was still painful. Nevertheless, J.D. blocked out the voice that told him David was right that he should follow what he moralized and take responsibility. However his obsession with punishing Stone had consumed him, blinding him.
“Whatever your scheming. Whatever this plan is of yours, it’s going to get you killed,” David warned him. “And how do you think Marisol is going to react to that?”
“What I’m planning is to finish what I started, what Stone started. He will answer for what he’s done.”
“With his life? Will that help? Give you closure?”
“For every life he took, for every family he destroyed, I will see to it he suffers a hundred fold—in the most unnatural way possible!”
“In this delusional game you’re playing is there a chance you’ll win?”
J.D. remained silent.
“Well…? You don’t even care, do you? As long as you get your revenge.”
“All I need is for you to watch over Marisol,” he told David. “Take her, get in the Stryker and go to Mechanicville with my men. Will you do this for me?”
“Damn you to hell. I’ll keep her safe, but not for you, for her. She’s my friend, my family. And you never hurt family.”
“Then we’re done here.” J.D. looked at his wristwatch. “I have an assembly to go to and your presence is required. “Kommen,” he called to Max, and they departed.
6
Good Night New York
J.D. reflected on those restless nights when he had gone out alone, he often wandered the once familiar streets of his neighborhood and its boundaries. His mind was never far from easy, and in those streets he felt shadows, ghosts of his past. On one such night his journeys took him past Union Square, west on 14th Street, and past 5th Avenue to the place where he had purchased his electronic keyboard. As he entered the store he was greeted by a large banner, which hung from the ceiling that read, ‘The World of Yamaha Artist Week, April 7th – 13th.’
This would be a place where he would come often to clear his mind and play the Yamaha grand piano that was on display. The shop was also where he would find the guitar for David, and all the accordions he would acquire. He thought about the first time he sat at the store’s piano and began to play probably the world’s most known piano tune, “Chopsticks.” He played it the way the piece should be played in 3/4 (waltz) meter, not as most people played it with the stresses as in 6/8 time. The piano was out of tune, but not too badly.
He paused for a moment to think, and then chose to play the instrumental “Le Depart” by the Style Council. However, it quickly turned into another one of their songs, “The Paris Match.” When he was midway through the verse sung in French, he stopped again. It still hadn’t felt right to him. When all else failed, J.D. defaulted to what he considered to be one of the greatest contemporary piano songs ever written: “Life on Mars” by David Bowie.
***
He stood in silence in the back of the hall waiting for the arrival of Ryan. As he reflected back to that first night’s visit to t
he Guitar Center, a slight smile, as fleeting as it was, came to his face. Even though the post-apocalypse world had a lot of suck to it, there were still moments that had become memorable for the better. However tomorrow it would all be put right. He was about to address his men for the last time.
“Attention in the hall. Commander on the floor,” Ryan declared.
The men snapped to attention.
“You may be seated, please,” Colonel Nichols told them. “First, I would like you to welcome Chief Warrant Officer Brown, David DiMinni, and Marisol De La Garza, who will be joining us in the trip to our new home. I fought along side these men and woman during and after the time of the living dead and the rise of the half-mutes. They have been in England for the past year, until the British decided to throw them out. I won’t go into the details of how they got there or how they returned; however, let me assure you that the folks that sit here with you are as good and as honorable as any amongst you. I will also tell you I trust them with my life, and they have earned the right for a place at our safe haven.
Your mission tonight is vital and simple. You go to your new home and join the other team members and your families. Our struggle here is over. The children are lost to us. There is nothing left to do, but live our lives in a safe place with those who love us.
I know it has been hard on you all, being separated from family and friends, not knowing their location, not having any contact with them. You have all shown great fortitude and courage in this. I assure you this was done to protect them. But tonight that ends.
Men. It has been a privilege and an honor serving with all of you. You have all done me proud. God bless you and God bless the 69th Infantry Regiment… Major, you have the floor.” J.D. stood at attention and saluted his troops one last time. “Carry on,” he spoke, as he snapped off the salute to everyone in the hall.
They rose and returned the commander’s respect.
J.D. went to his office and had Kermit sent for. The meeting was brief. He agreed to let his civilians join the new community, with one stipulation.