by Rockow, B.
Wimpy was always the joker, the one who never took much seriously. But he stood strong now and put Jones in his place. There was too much at stake to be flirting with defeat.
Wimpy let go of Jones, and went to check on Casper. He wasn’t well.
“I’m dying,” Casper choked out. A look of surprise had swept across his face. His eyes were bulged out and his mouth wide open. “I’m gonna die in these mountains. I’m gonna die, Wimpy. Right here in these mountains.”
“Quit repeating yourself,” Wimpy said. “You’ve got some broken bones. That’s it.”
Wimpy took off his shirt and tore it into strips. He tightly wound them around Casper’s broken bones to set them in place.
Casper was sweating buckets. He was ten shades paler than a ghost. “I’m gonna die right here. Just tell my kids I loved them. Watch… watch… me die.”
Wimpy slapped Casper across the face. “You’re being a little bitch,” he said. The whole situation reminded him of what went down back in Afghanistan. He didn’t save Big Boy, but Casper was going to be just fine. “Just buck up and swallow the pain. Shit, I thought you were a warrior.”
Jones snapped out of his melancholy. He was checking out the captive zombie as Wimpy tended to Casper. “Let’s get these two down the mountain,” the Sarge said. “We’ll drop Casper off at the hospital. Then it’s straight to El Sagrado’s.” Jones was shaky. He lit up a cigarette. “First we need to see what was in that cabin.”
Wimpy nodded. “Ay ay captain, my captain.”
Jones and Wimpy walked into the blown out front door of the cabin. The place was spartan. The giants must not have spent too much time at their base. Jones expected to come across human remains. He feared that he’d stumble on the bones of Emma Jo and Vanessa. Luckily, they didn’t find a single drop of human blood.
But what they did find was extremely helpful. Jones picked through a filing cabinet and came across a manilla folder with the words “Eugene Action” scrolled across its front with a black marker. He flipped the folder open and rifled through the documents inside. He stopped when his eyes caught the words Emma Jo and Vanessa printed on the page.
“Damn it, Wimpy,” Jones said. “I’ve found them.”
Wimpy rushed over to Jones and knelt down to take a look. “China?” Wimpy said. “Why China?”
“I don’t know,” Jones said. “But they were shipped to Beijing on the night of the kidnapping. They didn’t waste any time in getting them over there. And we’re not going to waste any more time, either.”
Wimpy nodded and patted Jones on the back. “We’re on the trail,” he said. “Next stop, Beijing.”
The two soldiers headed back outside. A sharp, cold wind rushed through the pines. The air was clear and crisp up in these mountains. The sky was big and bold. The moon hung in the sky as a brilliant white orb. Its light radiated out through the black sky, giving it a soft grey hue, and blanking out the full majesty of the Milky Way.
Jones looked up at the moon and cursed it. Poets, lovers, men throughout all times and places had looked up to the moon and given it praise. But Jones looked at that big, pocked rock as a blemish that rudely asserted itself in the open sky. There was nothing unique or beautiful about the moon. Not in comparison to the manifold wonder of the rest of the universe: the trillions of stars spread across trillions of galaxies. What wonder could really be found in this universe? More than what any human could ever dream possible.
Even his own feelings were lambasted. He stood above Casper’s body, readying his legs to scoop the fallen comrade up from the ground, and he second guessed this whole operation. What if he never came down to Los Angeles? Would Casper have come up here? Maybe, maybe not. What Jones knew for sure was that he led Casper and Wimpy on this mission. And he would lead them out.
They were safe, even with Casper being roughed up.
“We’re killers, and we’re meant to be killed,” Casper said.
Jones lifted Casper up and looked his comrade in the eyes. “That’s the damn truth.”
For a moment, Jones questioned his own motivation. What if he gave up the search for Emma Jo and Vanessa? He figured that he could disappear into some backwater town in the desert, or maybe someplace out in the Great Plains, and become a carpenter or auto mechanic. He could change his name, rent an apartment above a barber’s shop, and just wash away his pain with hooch and chicks with low self-esteem.
Jones was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Something about those worms caught him off guard and completely overtook his rational mind. He realized that he wasn’t really mourning the loss of his family anymore. Jones was struggling with himself. He was becoming conscious of the fact that this journey to find his family was much more than that. It was a quest that would transform him.
He wasn’t too worried about death or dismemberment. Casper’s fate seemed to have already been written long ago. He deserved what he got, Jones realized upon further inspection. Casper probably put a hundred men through the same thing. Casper would survive, but the healing process would be long.
And although Jones had killed, he always did so honorably. Or at least that’s what he believed. He wasn’t sure what, or who, his own demons were. He never felt the need for a shrink’s services. His upbringing was solid. Jones recognized that the war had scarred him, but through the years he had been able to compartmentalize his experiences by locking them in various chambers of his brain, and throwing away the keys.
Jones carried Casper’s body to the Jeep, and propped him up in the front seat. Jones hopped in the Jeep and pulled it up to where the zombie’s giant body was. Wimpy estimated that the monster weighed in at least eight hundred pounds, based on his height.
Jones hopped out of the Jeep and dug his hands beneath the giant’s body. Hundreds of worms covered his body now. Jones did everything in his power to ignore the crawlers. But he couldn’t. As the two soldiers attempted to lift and heave the sleeping giant into the back of the Jeep, Jones started to sweat and shake. His symptoms weren’t just physical, though. He was aware of a shift in his consciousness.
In the presence of the worms, the world seemed to open up to another dimension full of strange, horrific creatures. Jones couldn’t see them, but he could sense them. Whatever crept around in that other dimension wanted to consume Jones, to make him theirs, to eat him up and never spit him back to the world he knew. It was a world that expanded out into the far reaches of the universe, both seen and unseen.
It was frightening. Whatever these worms were doing to his mind felt inevitable. As if there was no escaping them. No turning back from this weird portal that he was stepping into. This was the demon that Jones was up against. At the same time Jones felt intimately connected to the worms, and to the world that they were opening up to him.
Wimpy picked up on the Sarge’s shift. “Hey, snap out of it,” Wimpy said. The two soldiers almost had the zombie in the Jeep. “Sarge, wake up.”
Jones didn’t pay any attention. He looked like a space cadet, but he had displayed incredible amount of strength. Jones hoisted the giant zombie into the Jeep almost single handedly. He didn’t snap out of his trance until the giant was secure in the back seat.
“You good?” Wimpy said.
Jones acted like nothing had happened, as if the roar of the worms had absolutely no effect on him. He pretended like he didn’t see that other world. “Yeah Wimps,” Jones said. He lit up a cigarette, and gave his grunt a wry smile. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
The ride down the mountain was rough. Wimpy sat in the back with the giant. Casper couldn’t stop moaning from pain. He cursed every god, enemy, devil, demon, and angel in the books. He begged Wimpy to put him out of his misery. Wimpy persistently talked him out of wanting to die.
The giant was out cold. The ketamine did the trick.
Jones was shaky from everything that had went down on the mountain. He chain smoked as he sped down the mountain as fast as he could. He couldn’t purge the wor
ms from his brain, though. Their effect was still with him. Casper’s groans and pain were also starting to get on his nerves.
“What’s up with Casper?” Jones asked. “How’s he holding up?”
Wimpy shook his head and groaned. “He’s stable,” Wimpy said. “But his pain levels are high. He needs painkillers ASAP.”
“GPS a hospital,” Jones said. “We’re gonna drop Casper off, and head straight to this El Sagrado character.”
“But we don’t even know where he lives.”
“I’ve got a note with directions here that Casper scribbled down before we left.” Jones took out another cigarette and lit up. “Just GPS a hospital.”
Wimpy climbed over the giant’s body, which was packed tight in the Jeep’s back seat. Wimpy found his civilian jacket, pulled out his phone, and searched for the nearest hospital.
Casper had been gurgling for the last five minutes. Wimpy had to keep wrapping his arms around Casper’s chest and squeezing tight to get his breathing back to a regular pattern. Casper tried to speak, but couldn’t formulate a coherent sentence. Wimpy leaned in and turned Casper’s head to the side so that he could clear his throat.
“El Sagrado’s a big man,” Casper said. “He’ll pay you guys back big time.” More gurgling, and some bile surfaced. He coughed it out. “He loved me like his son.”
Wimpy nodded and held Casper’s head in his hands. He had lost too many comrades in combat. Ten years over there in those damn hellish lands, and what did he have to show for it? Nothing, besides the ability to cope with holding death right in his own hands. Luckily Casper wasn’t going anywhere.
“You got those directions?” Jones said impatiently. “Homeboy doesn’t look too good.”
Wimpy fiddled with his iPhone. “Yeah, I got ‘em,” he said. “Keep going down this road for another half mile. It turns right into the 210. Take that east and we’ll hit Pasadena.”
Casper kept coughing. There wasn’t anything they could do to stop that.
The zombie was sufficiently zonked out with the ketamine, and wasn’t going anywhere.
Jones put the pedal to the metal. He wasn’t going to let Casper suffer in this Jeep. He didn’t have some great attachment to Casper, but he respected the man. He was sure that if they had met in different circumstances, Jones would have appreciated the gangster’s company. Casper was a man of principle, even if that principle bristled against the confines of the law, and the outer limits of morality.
The traffic wasn’t bad once they hit the 210. Jones cruised along at ninety m.p.h. The hospital was just a couple minutes down the road.
Jones caught a glimpse of something dreadful in his rearview mirror. It was the police. They hit their lights and were on his tail. Jones knew that Casper’s old Jeep couldn’t outrun the sirens. There was only one thing that he could do.
“I’m gonna pull over,” Jones said. “So listen carefully.”
“We’re French toast,” Wimpy said. “We can’t pull over.” He looked at the two bodies, the suffering human and the sedated giant, and shook his head. “You’re not pulling over, Sarge. It ain’t gonna happen.”
Jones was already pulling his foot off the gas. He switched lanes and worked his way to the right shoulder. He was pulling over. “Listen up, grunt,” Jones said. “I didn’t train you to think for yourself. Shit, we’d both be long dead by now if that was the case.”
Wimpy laughed. “Damn, Sarge,” he said. “I was wondering where you were hiding.”
“When I pull over, you act cool as a cucumber. Just stay back there. Don’t make any sudden movements. Don’t look at the cop. Don’t do nothing. Don’t even let that pathetic little ball of gray matter between your ears shit out a deformed thought.” Jones snuffed out his cigarette, and followed that by lighting another. He patted his belt to make sure he had his pistol strapped to him. “I want the cop to come to you. I want him to open that door, lean in, and take in everything that’s going on there in the backseat. For a split second he’s not gonna know what to do. That’s when I step in.”
“Hooah, Sarge,” Wimpy said. “I’m turning all dials to dumb and dumber. I won’t do a damn thing back here.”
Jones flicked his blinker and pulled over onto the shoulder. He puffed his cigarette and took a glance in the rearview mirror. The CHP officer pulled up right behind him on cue. The officer, a stocky woman with a blonde ponytail pulled tightly back, stepped out of her vehicle. She wasn’t much taller than Wimpy.
“She’s kinda cute,” Jones said. “Too bad she had to pull us over.”
She slowly sauntered to the driver’s side window and tapped on the glass. Jones rolled down his window obediently.
“Can I help you officer?” he said. He put on the most ridiculous charming smile that he could muster. “What seems to be the problem?”
The CHP officer wasn’t buying it. She squinted at Jones and took one look at the passenger seat. Seeing Casper in his condition was all she needed. “Put your hands where I can see them,” she said with authority. She withdrew her weapon. “Don’t make any sudden movements with your hands.”
Jones nodded slowly. He put up his hands and kept his eyes trained on the officer. The plan was on track. Jones always kept a trick up his sleeve. “You’re gonna find a giant and a smoked gangbanger in there,” Jones said with a chuckle. He kept his hands up and steady. His cigarette dangled from his lips.
The officer steadied her pistol on Jones. “No sudden movements,” she said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.” She reached her hand and jiggled the door handle. The driver’s side door swung open. She slowly backed away from the vehicle. “Step out of the Jeep. Now,” she barked. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Jones swung his legs out of the Jeep. He kept his hands up and his body faced the officer. “You ever see a giant, officer? I know you’ve seen a gangbanger or two. If you wanna take a peak, the giant’s right back there.”
The officer slid her walkie from her belt. “Dispatch, this is Officer Shields. I’m on seventeenth mile of I-210 East. Requesting--.”
Jones didn’t give her the chance to request anything. In a rapid motion that he learned in hand to hand combat training with the Army, he threw himself with all his weight straight in the air, legs first, towards to officer. His feet slammed straight into her gut. She fired two shots and missed. Jones fired one shot and that’s all she wrote for Officer Shields. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and her tongue lolled out.
Jones wasn’t proud of this moment. But it was incredibly satisfying. Watching the blood pool out from her fractured skull stopped Jones right in his tracks. He slowed down long enough to kneel down, stick the tip of his finger in the carnage, and lift it up to his mouth for a taste.
It was beautiful. The flavors danced on his tongue, and the salty, metallic finish fueled his appetite. He knelt down a little closer to the officer’s busted skull. He peered into the gaping hole, and caught a glimpse of her grey matter. The sudden urge to thrust his hand inside, take a scoop, and stuff it into his mouth was overpowering.
If it wasn’t for Wimpy, Jones would have done just that.
“Come on, Sarge!” Wimpy hollered. “We’re fugitives now. It’s official. Let’s vamonos!”
Jones didn’t waste much more time with the dead officer. He hopped back into the Jeep and sped away from the scene. The thrill of the kill, and the exhilaration of tasting her blood, was utterly intoxicating. And simultaneously revolting. His conscious mind struggled to accept the fact that this transformation was turning him into what he was fighting against.
For a split second, just as the urge to cannibalize faded away, Jones could feel a little tickle on the inside of his skull. It was a worm, he thought. They had gotten inside him.
Jones got off at the next exit and took side streets the rest of the way to the hospital.
Wimpy was getting paranoid. “Damnit, Sarge,” he said. “You didn’t have to kill her.”
Jones wasn�
�t thinking about all that. Now that he had recovered his senses, Jones was overwhelmed with his own anxiety. On one hand, he was frightened by the prospect of turning into one of them. With every passing hour he felt more and more like a zombie. And on the other hand, he was still absolutely devoted to finding Emma Jo. There would be casualties along the way. He accepted that fact long ago. Hopefully he could minimize this new appetite that was growing inside him as he rescued his family.
Jones looked up in the rearview mirror and stared Wimpy down. His entire look meant business. His brow scrunched up and he lit up a cigarette.
“We’re gonna have to kill again,” Jones said. “One way or another. Kill or be killed.”
“This kind of shit has consequences,” Wimpy said.
“So did the war, damn it,” Jones said. “How many did we have to kill over there?”
Wimpy was somber now. “That was different, Sarge,” he said. “Those were orders.”
They finally arrived at the hospital. Jones peeled around the back and came to a screeching halt. “Your orders are to toss Casper out of the Jeep. And whatever the hell else I tell you to do.”
Wimpy kicked his door open and hopped out. He grabbed Casper by the ends of his legs, one of which was in severe shape, and dragged his body out. He was still alive, but wasn’t responding to conversation. “Take care brother,” Wimpy said. “You’re a true soldier.”
Wimpy hopped back in the Jeep, and Jones sped away. In his rearview mirror he saw a nurse stumble upon the limp body on the sidewalk. “He’ll be taken care of.”
Maybe they’d meet up with Casper again. But now that fallen soldier’s fate was in the hands of the nurse.
There were bigger fish to fry. First they’d have to meet up with El Sagrado. Then they’d have to figure out a way to China.
Jones lit up a cigarette, and imagined what monsters he’d have to face there.
Chapter Thirteen