by Vossen, Doug
“I love you too, Callie. No one understands our love.”
In one quick flick of her wrist, Callie dropped the knife, reversed it and unleashed a flurry of stabs into O’Hara’s lower abdomen.
O’Hara fell to the floor in a puddle of his own blood, dumbfounded. “I don’t understa ...” His voice trailed off.
Weird, why is his dick still hard?
Callie felt nothing but rage. She withdrew the knife and cut off her rapist’s penis. It took longer than she imagined. “Hungry, baby?” Callie took a knee next to his head, gripping the small, bloody, uncircumcised dick.
“Callie, no! Please!”
“What’s that, Jim? You want me to stop?” Callie felt that scratchy wool blanket rubbing against her back, over and over. She had only been a child.
He was sobbing uncontrollably. “I’m a sick man! I’ll stop! I’m so sorry! Please! CALLIE!”
“Oh, James. You don’t understand. If I don’t do this, it will never end. You’re a cunt. A fucking faggot cunt who needs to not only die, but die ugly. Die slowly. My name is Callie Kennedy and I’m the angel of fucking death you piece of human garbage.” With that, she shoved his severed penis into his mouth.
He mumbled something unintelligible. He was dying quickly; maybe he had five minutes. One minute before loss of consciousness.
Did I win? It doesn’t feel like I won. I’ve wanted this my entire life and it feels so fucking empty.
“Callie, you OK?” Trent asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You just tripped.”
Callie glanced down at her watch and realized only seconds had passed. “Yeah, I am. And hey, thanks for that.”
“Huh?” He didn’t seem to know what she meant.
“For what you said back there about telling the situation to go fuck itself.”
“I didn’t say shit.”
“WHAT?” Callie was astounded.
“I didn’t say anything. Come on, we’re all tired. Let’s keep going.”
The sounds of scurrying and clanging outside the train started up again. A unidentifiable silhouette whizzed past the window on Callie’s left, then another on her right, followed by a massive boom at the front of the tunnel.
“Am I going crazy? Are you guys hearing this?” Callie asked.
“You are NOT going crazy. I definitely heard that!” said Harrison in his thick Georgia drawl.
“Yeah, that was real,” Trent said.
“Hey sir, ya’ll got wild boars in the New York subway system?” said Harrison.
“No, we don’t have fucking wild boars in the subway, Harrison. You and I both know what the sounds are. Get ready, guys. Shit’s about to get stupid again.”
HUGHES
Trent’s mind was preoccupied with thoughts of Jessica. This lull in the fighting was the first time since her bird went down he’d had a few moments to dwell on it. Jessie, I’m so sorry. Miranda, I didn’t keep my promise to you or to her. I’m so fucking sorry. The scurrying noise at the opposite end of the train was replaced by a metallic screech coming from outside the front of the first car. Accompanying the screech were a succession of loud, deliberate, staccato thumps, and a voice that sounded as if it were passing through a distortion pedal. “FOOUUUNNNNDDD YOUU…”
It’s that thing from when I blacked out yesterday. The thumping returned, accompanied by the voice. “HUGHESSSS. WE FOUUUNNND YOUUU. WHAT NOW SSSSIR?” The voice was oddly melodic. It was low-pitched, metallic, and had the same cadence as a child’s voice teasing kids in the school yard. The low-pitched hum returned as well. Trent was on edge. My stomach is doing somersaults. Am I the only one hearing this?
“Guys, I need to address this elephant in the room,” Trent said. “Can everyone hear that? Am I going insane?”
“Hughes, you are definitely NOT going insane,” said Jack. “That scratching has to be more people outside, right?”
“Yeah, but what about the voice and the thumping and the low-pitched hum? Can no one else hear that?”
“Trent, I hear the hum a lot now, on and off,” said Callie. “What is it?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
Trent suddenly felt suffocated, a feeling all too familiar from his days of learning how to grapple in the Army. He grabbed a subway pole to stabilize himself, but his field of vision closed rapidly, as if a sparring partner had just caught him in a very deep rear naked choke. Fuck. The elevator doors are closing. Tapping ain’t gonna do shit this time. His knees were weak. Next thing he knew, he was awakened. What just happened? Why the fuck am I in uniform? Where am I?
The voice echoed in Trent’s head. “Hyoooo-oooos. Ready or nahhhh-ottt, Here I come!”
Trent soon realized he had just walked out the back of the building from the previous blackout experience. The sky was a deep red. A thick, dusty fog shrouded what appeared to be snowflakes lightly falling to the ground. How the fuck is it snowing? It’s hot as fuck! There appeared to be orange-tinted street lamps in the distance. In the immediate vicinity were two halogen lamps fastened to ten-foot concrete walls by flimsy chains. The walls surrounded a barren backyard where Trent stood, alone. The yard was covered by a mixture of dirt and gravel; piles of garbage lay everywhere. A few unhealthy looking goats were sticking their snouts in the trash, searching for anything edible to add substance to their emaciated frames. The yard stank. An overpowering aroma of kerosene permeated the atmosphere. There was an isolated concrete room with a metal door secured by a padlock close to the two horizontal light bulbs.
“HA HA HA. You’re going to die in here!” The child-like, melodic tone clawed at Trent’s sanity.
“Shut up! SHUT THE FUCK UP! LEAVE ME ALONE!” I just want a drink.
The voice turned raspy, angry. “Of course, have an entire ocean of it you fucking scumbag!”
The unmistakable smell of Jameson Irish whiskey filled Trent’s nostrils. He salivated with anticipation, hating himself for it. Brown liquid bubbled up through four rusted lattice-work drainage pipes along the perimeter of the compound. Trent noticed two things. First, the flakes falling from the sky had nothing to do with the weather. They were ash, falling elegantly down to earth, more beautiful than any snowstorm. Second, he was now thigh-deep in whiskey. How the fuck? He was in a familiar neighborhood on the western outskirts of Baghdad. The area had been named “The First of March,” after an important day in Iraq’s history. But something was very wrong.
The teasing voice continued. “You profess to be so strong! YOU’RE A FUCKING FAGGOT. Go ahead, take a sip. Just a little sip. It can’t hurt, buddy. You know, just to calm the nerves and make you forget the bad stuff. You deserve it. You worked super hard today! You’re a West Pointer with a successful career and an MBA! People love you! Who cares if you rip shots of Jame-O from time to time? It’s better than 99% of society on the things-people-seem-to-give-a-shit-about scale.”
But Emma hates when I get shitfaced. Things are so good with our marriage. I don’t want to fuck it up.
“She’ll always love you. Just do it, man. It’s OK. I won’t let you do anything stupid or black out. Come on, dude! You’re working like a slave! Look at all the work you did!”
I did work pretty fucking hard, didn’t I? I can have one or two, right?
The goats eating the trash were terrified by the rising liquid. They began thrashing around and bleating uncontrollably. Their death throes as the whiskey filled their lungs and stomachs made Trent sick. I read that Perfect Storm book 15 years ago. The guy said drowning is supposed to be a peaceful death. He was wrong. You know what a peaceful death would be? A fucking head shot. Give me a head shot over any cancer, terminal illness, or other nonsense... Fuck, give me that now! I am a pussy. I’m too weak to do it myself.
“You know what else, man? Remember that girl you tried so hard to protect?”
“Yes.”
“SHE IS THE REASON THE HELICOPTER CRASHED. YOU KILLED FIFTEEN OTHER PEOPLE. YOU! IT ALWAYS FALLS BACK ON YOU! ISN’T
THAT AWESOME? HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
No!
“Awww, poor baby! Just grab your canteen and dip in! It’ll all be OK when you dip in! We can binge watch Star Trek: The Next Generation! It’ll be awesome! Think of all the fun we’ve had together! Come on, buddy!”
Trent vomited in his mouth at the thought of having added more notches to his death belt. The goats were drowning all around him. He ran to the closest one, grabbed it by the torso. He rotated it on its side, allowed it to float in the waist-deep whiskey as he placed his hands on the animal’s fore and rear ankle joints. He slowly moved the animal to his shoulders, attempting a fireman’s carry.
“Ahhh, ahhh, ahhhhhhh!”
A mysterious force ripped the animal from his grasp, slamming it next to the small concrete shack in the back of the yard. The force of the slam was so intense that there was a plume of blood and a dent left in the concrete perimeter wall. The animal slid downward, back into the pool of brown liquid. Its eyes were glossy. The beast welcomed death.
Trent loved animals more than people; with animals, you always knew what to expect. An animal was always just an animal, loyal to its nature, never intentionally going out of its way to deceive. In Iraq, Trent had felt more remorse when a humvee in his convoy hit a stray dog than when he’d stood over one of many dead human bodies. Objectively, he knew this was insane, but he couldn’t help the way he felt. When he stood over a dead Arab, he always felt the need to joke, something like “I can’t wait to get to the chow hall for breakfast to have oatmeal covered in cherry sauce!” His insensitivity to human life got to the point that when a suicide bomber took out a marketplace, he would ask “How many casualties? Twenty-four? Local nationals? Any real people?” It was absolutely despicable. I can’t believe I let it get to that. What happened to me? I used to be a nice person. Monsters are real. The scariest part of monsters is that they disguise themselves as nice people 99% of the time. I hate myself. Trent’s self-loathing returned. He was in a tailspin. He just wanted to dip his plastic one-quart canteen into the brown liquid, forget his existence and go numb for a few hours.
“Hey! Listen!”
Baby? Is that you? Nothing made sense but this particular voice. It had the same tone, manner of speech, and New Zealand-born accent of his wife, Emma. I miss you so much. I’m still looking for you. I can’t not help people I run into. I love you so much. I promise I’m coming to find you.
“Focus, baby, I know you can focus. I’ve seen it. I know the circus in your brain is in town, but I need you to go into that shack. Forget about the goats and everything else. You are amazing. It’s why I married you. You are not a piece of shit. I wouldn’t have said yes to our first date at the Chart House if I thought you were.”
“Jesus, what the fuck?” Trent blurted into the ashy red darkness.
“Baby, you haven’t believed in Jesus since you were a teenager. Aren’t you the one who always joked that math proved God wasn’t a thing in the 70s?”
“Where are you? I want to see you! Emma! Just tell me where you are! I’ll leave right now, come get you and we can go home and wait this out together, just me and you! Fuck the shack, fuck the goats, and fuck this uniform! Why am I wearing this fucking thing?”
“Go into the shack, baby. You’re a fighter. You don’t quit. That’s why I married you. I know you’ve struggled with drinking. Shit, every single one of the idiot blokes I let fuck me in the last 10 years was the biggest piece of shit on the planet. You fight daily. They don’t. That’s the difference. Everyone else is a victim. You have flaws, but you work to remedy them every day, even if it’s an uphill battle. That’s why I love you, baby. I trust you. You can do this. You subconsciously think you’re just a consolation prize - you’re not. You’re IT.”
“Baby, I’m bullshit. All my military stuff was complete bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit! It’s all very real! You have a binder in the fireproof safe in the closet to prove it all. I even saw the paper that said you’re a Ranger.”
“I’m not a Ranger. I just got lucky enough to finish the school. I never went to a unit that had all Rangers. Just 10th Mountain.”
“Trent, I’ve Googled 10th Mountain. You’ve done some amazing things. Just look at that wall of Army stuff over the bar at our apartment.”
“They are not deserved. None of that shit. I was peered during Ranger School twice and I took five months to finish it when it should have taken two. I was a pussy with a horrible attitude. It wasn’t until I fixed it that I BARELY slid by. Those other war awards? They were all political bullshit based on rank and job description. None of it’s real! The irony of that stupid wall over the bar is that it’s little more than a monument to my naiveté.”
“Don’t you see what’s happening right now? Remember when we went to Mohegan Sun for your informal Triple Deuce reunion in early 2014?”
“I didn’t want to go. I was nervous,” Trent said.
“Why?”
“Because people respect me for how I was as an officer, but I don’t feel like any of it is warranted.” Tears streamed down Trent’s face. He struggled to keep his balance during this fit of blubbering self-hatred.
“Why wouldn’t it be warranted?”
“Because anything I ever did is because of the sergeants and soldiers I had under me. All I had to do during a firefight was say “enter and clear that building” and there was a gang of pit bulls waiting to lock their jaws around any little fuck-faced Arab who gave me a problem. All I had to do was call back to my friend Steve at the base and ask for helicopters, reinforcing my role as an international bully. I was no better than those fucks who beat me up all the time as a kid.”
“My love, one day I hope you will release yourself of this guilt and shame. You have so much to be proud of, even if your country’s government used you to disreputable ends. I love you. To me you will forever be a good person. There’s people who need you right now. And if you keep acting like this, I am definitely not going to want to fuck you later!” Trent felt oddly comforted by this.
The reality of the ash, gore, dead goats, blood, and the mysterious shack began getting shaky. It deteriorated around him with the same appearance of the dark figures that evaded Trent during his first blackout one day prior.
“Baby, don’t!” Trent yelled. “I can’t lose you again! I didn’t go into the shack! I didn’t go into the cock-sucking, mother-fucking shack! The answer is in the shack, right?”
“I love you, Trent.”
“Where are you going? Just tell me where the fuck you are! I’ll come get you right now!”
There was nothing but silence.
“Emma!”
Callie saw Trent wasn’t coping well with his bout of what appeared to be nausea. She knew what was really going on. “Hey dude, where’d it take you?” she whispered as she helped him up.
“To a place where every insecurity I’ve ever had and everything I hate about my past is ever-present,” Trent said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “I went straight to hell.” I don’t care how crazy I sound. I can’t be the only one experiencing this. Fuck, what if this is how everything starts? What if I end up like those people back at the firebase?
“Are you OK?” Callie asked.
“I’m pretty fucking far from OK, but I need to figure out how to go back there.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where the answers are.” He locked eyes with Callie. “If I start acting like the people attacking us, I don’t want you to think twice about shooting me in the face.”
Callie was silent.
“Promise me.”
“Fine, but you do the same for me.”
“Deal,” said Trent.
“Ya’ll okay?” asked Harrison, who was bringing up the rear.
“Fine, man,” replied Callie.
The tunnels were silent. The group proceeded through each train carefully and quietly. Ronak signaled to Karl, who halted the movement. “Major McMullin,” said Rona
k, “we seem to be in a position where the unknown lies before us.” He stopped for a moment and held up his finger, indicating he wanted everyone to wait before exiting the train through the opening connecting the final two cars. He looked ahead with a blank expression. The bright orb illuminating their path darkened and shot north through the tunnel, fast as a bullet. It returned thirty seconds later.
What is he doing?
Ronak lowered his finger and motioned for Karl to come over. “Major, we have four individuals touched by the phenomenon in the immediate vicinity of the subway station, with a crowd of undetermined size approximately 300 meters further down the tunnel. We need to make it through these obstacles and into the facility before the crowd overwhelms us. I strongly suggest we attempt to do this as quietly as possible.”
“Shit, Ron. I’ve got to get me one of those things.” Karl’s face lit up with child-like enthusiasm. He pulled everyone in and explained the situation.
God, let’s do some dumb half-assed shit. We’re soldiers, not ninjas. Ah well, I guess we’ll do the old “stay quiet as long as we can and then it’s a shit-show” method.
“We’ll keep the same order of movement exiting the train and take a knee quietly, just shy of the platform,” Karl continued. “I’ll take a quick peek to see what’s what and come back to figure out who’s taking out who.” With that, Karl slithered out of the small space between the second to last car and the lead car. His path was restricted by the old, rusted springs stretched far beyond their capacity due to one train having rolled halfway on its side. Karl’s jungle boots hit the dirt and gravel of the subway tunnel. The smell of stagnant puddle water and steam filled his nostrils. It was a lot warmer than one would expect for an autumn night.
Down we go. Everyone switched off their rifle-mounted flashlights prior to exiting the derailed train. Trent followed Karl, followed by Jack, Callie and Harrison.
They each took a knee on alternate sides of the tunnel, focusing their attention on any gaps in the trains and any position that offered advantageous fields of fire in both directions. Harrison was on his belly under the lead train, facing toward the crowd Ronak had mentioned. Karl peeked around the corner and turned back to his cover spot, behind the wall adjacent to the platform. He seemed to be calculating something in his head. He peeked around the corner once more and made his way back to the group. He went around to each person, informing them what lay ahead. “Trent, there’s two dudes to the right. You take the one on the left, I’ll get the one on the right. You know the deal, no shooting until the last possible second.”