No one is more covered in sweat than he, and he feels the sheen on his skin soak his clothing all over again. He sets down the black rifle and pack and strips off his web belt. From the pack's loose flap he withdraws a Colt .38 snub-nose revolver and checks the cylinder.
Sweat droplets gather on his chin and dribble in a line to his chest, where the olive drab fabric has turned black. His hand shakes as he methodically inserts six fat cartridges into the Smith's cylinder. The brass slips between his damp fingers but he gently seats each round in its nacelle and snaps the cylinder shut. Full. Six rounds.
"Loot," drawls Sarge. "Let me lob a couple grenades in there. We got plenty."
"You know that's not good enough, Sarge. Grenades don't do shit in Charlie's tunnels. There's only one way to flush 'im, and that's this old fashioned way. Keep an eye out for other exits, and don't shoot my fuckin' head off if I come squirtin' back."
"Kay. Smitty, Digger, fan out and watch for moving bushes."
Sarge pulls back the bolt of his M-16 and lets it snap quietly forward. The others follow suit.
Loot — Lieutenant Richard Brant — shrugs out of his pack and extra gear, unsnaps his webbed belt and holster, and taps both boot knives down so they can't slide out on their own.
He checks the opening carefully. Charlie's been known to booby-trap everything. Coke cans. C-ration tins. Fallen logs. Trapdoors are a likely booby trap, but Loot traces the edge with a finger and senses this one's clear. He can't see any wires, there's no sign of a hasty set-up or glob of plastique. His sweat trickles into his eyes and he blinks hard. Charlie might be crouching just on the other side of the square door, AK in hand, bayonet fixed, ready to make a suicide strike on the first GI to face him. Maybe there's a squad past the second trapdoor, or maybe there's a hollowed out side chamber behind which Charlie lies, clutching a spear and just waiting for a pink-skinned target to ease into the square hole. Maybe—
Loot senses he's psyched himself out. If he had just opened the trapdoor and climbed in, it would have been fine. But instead he started to play the scenarios in his head. Remembering other holes, other tunnels. He squirms as if the giant spiders were crawling on him again, as in the last tunnel, yesterday, the one that nearly reduced him to tears. He cocks the trigger of the Smith, quietly.
"Fuck this," he mutters under his breath and in one swift motion he pushes the trapdoor into the hole with one hand and reaches into the darkness with the .38 ahead of himself.
The blast blinds him and the pain is an intense lance to the brain and heart, and then to his hands. He sees his bloody hands writhing on the tunnel's dirt floor, one still gripping the pistol, and he screams long and hard even as he realizes that the blast wasn't all, the booby-trap wired to the back of the trapdoor also includes a small container of home-made napalm, and then he blacks out, his eyeballs melting into the skin of his face and his lips liquefying over his teeth like runny glue. His scream turns to a gurgle and then it's blessed nightfall—
—blessed cool nightfall and his eyes blast open but there's no light (yes there is, there it is, the nightlight) and he realizes that he can see after all and his skin feels rough but it's all there and his hands are, where are his hands? In front of his eyes, twitching and clenching, but most certainly still attached to his wrists. He can feel the pain in his wrists, but it's not his pain, it's someone else's.
Fuck, it's Strachowski. That's what happened to him. Not me.
Not me.
Jesus.
He remembered Strach's ravaged face, the blood, the stench. Then, for a second, Strach's face seemed to morph into someone else's. A girl's.
He shook his head violently to erase the image.
The familiar sharp twitch below his neck began to throb and he twirled his head until he felt a tender snap, somewhere deep inside his upper chest near his shoulder blade.
He rolled on his side and checked the ghostly blue display.
Another night shot to hell. It was 3:19 and he wouldn't be able to sleep until light filtered through his drapes.
He flicked on the lamp and slid the book onto his chest. The latest Peter Straub thriller. Glasses or no glasses? He hated his bifocals. Still not quite needing them, but already beyond the point where he definitely did not need them, he always debated. He thought his sight was better without the glasses, whenever he read in bed. He could squint a little with his left eye and the words were almost crystal clear.
He sighed. The king-size bed was too empty for him. Too empty since Abby had gone away.
Who was he kidding? Abby hadn't gone away. She had died, and there was no mind-fuck he could give himself to change that fact. She'd been almost a decade younger than he, and that still hadn't kept her by his side for the rest of his miserable life. Jesus, he'd been over this so often it was almost like rehearsing a comedy act in his head, except that it wasn't humorous and if he allowed it to continue he'd just cry. What was the point of that?
He sighed again and opened his book. Sometimes the only escape was to lose himself in someone else's words, someone else's crisis, at least for a while, until the charade wore thin.
Today, it took fifteen minutes. Then he set the book aside and closed his eyes. It wasn't immediate, but the jungle's dark treeline was always there, taunting. Hiding something gruesome. He was accustomed to scanning that treeline in his mind's eye, hoping to recognize the danger in time. There was always a new place to look, a new venue to consider. A new sound to process.
In his nightmares, Loot always saw the others have their hands, their legs, blasted off, or their bloody intestines uncurled like blood-slippery ropes. Sometimes it was him instead of them, in stark representation of the way he wore his guilt like a coat. Guilt for having survived, he assumed. Guilt for what he had done. He had spent considerable time analyzing his feelings, his dreams, and his own thought processes. The analysis kept him sane, for the most part.
But altogether too often his clear thinking clashed with the realistic visuals that accompanied his nightmares. The dark jungle, the treeline, the intense redness of arterial blood. Bone fragments and stripped skulls. Each of these imposed itself on the inerasable tablet contained in his brain like an eternal hard drive and replayed in front of his eyes when open, even in the dark, or seemingly projected onto the insides of his eyelids when he attempted to seek sleep. Almost like the Zapruder film, it unreeled over and over again, proving too much and yet leaving too many questions unanswered.
The phone's shrill ringing jabbed through his muddled thoughts and the menacing dark treeline disappeared when he opened his eyes. He reached for the receiver blindly and pressed the Talk button, already dreading the voice at the other end.
"Yeah?"
The caller was crying. Sobbing, almost. There was a wet snort as if he'd been surprised at the fact that anyone had answered.
"Rich?"
His brother Ralph, once again victim of some sort of attack on his pampered life.
"Yeah," he said quietly, trying to sound non-judgmental. The relationship had soured years ago, but for one element. "What's wrong?" He wasn't sure he wanted to hear his brother's problems at this time of the night, but he steeled himself for one of the usual selfish whining sessions that had driven him away in the first place.
"They—" Ralph's voice stopped, suddenly interrupted by another sudden snort. "I think they've got Kit, Rich. Somebody's got Kit!"
Brant's eyes snapped open. "What? Say that again, Ralph. Who's got Kit?"
The other end of the line went silent for a second and Brant could hear sniffling, as if his brother was wiping snot from his nose with tissue and trying to clear the nasal passages so he could continue.
"Tell me!" Brant winced when he realized that he sounded imperious, commanding. He felt his heart racing, but tried to calm his voice. "What's going on, Ralph?"
"I'm not sure," Ralph stammered. "I — I got a call a couple hours ago, and I can't... I don't know what to do. I've been debating... I don't know."
<
br /> "Damn it, Ralph. Who called you? What's going on with Kit?"
Ralph audibly wiped his nose again and seemed to compose himself. "First I got a call from Kit's roommate, a strange call that I almost didn't believe. She sounded — weird, you know. Said Kit had disappeared. Maybe she was snatched. She used the word snatched. Does anybody use that word except TV news guys? Anyway, I didn't know what to do. I told her I would call the police and she said no, that she would do it. But then I called them anyway. I couldn't get them to transfer me to anyone, so I left a message for some chief of detectives, I was told to do that. This guy, he called me back and wants me to go in. Rich, he says nobody there got a call from Kit's roommate. I'm not sure exactly who or how it happened, but somebody kidnapped Kit. That's all I know. But I think there's more, this cop didn't seem to believe me though, but I don't think — it doesn't sound good. She's all I've got, Rich, you know that. She's the only thing left after... After everything and all that... I don't know what to do, Rich. Rich?"
Brant had cut off his brother years before, for many reasons, but he had kept one line of communication open. Kit, Ralph's daughter. Miraculously intelligent, beautiful, level-headed, everything that Ralph was not, and he had found ways to help her, to be more than a distant uncle to her. He had become a friend and almost a father. Ralph had remained a weak link in the family chain, someone they were forced to tolerate.
Now Ralph was begging him to do something, and telling him that something had happened to Kit.
Kit was the only good thing in Brant's life, too.
"Damn it, Ralph. Pull it together and give me facts." He heard his voice barking at his brother — his weak brother — but he couldn't help himself.
"I can't. I don't know much. I just... Can't you come over and we'll go there together?"
"Go where?"
"They want us — me — at the police building downtown, central precinct, whatever. Zimm — Zimmerman or something. I can't face this alone, Rich. You love her as much as I do. You —"
Christ.
"Give me a half hour," Brant said, interrupting.
"Okay, Rich. Please—"
Brant hung up.
The shower was necessary, the heat bringing blood singing back to his veins. He knew men who swore by cold showers, but ever since he couldn't take hot showers in the military, he'd wanted nothing but. Sometimes so hot the water threatened to cook and strip the flesh off his bones. Beyond cleansing. Perhaps he sought the ultimate cleansing. So his last therapist had suggested.
Fucking weasel was probably right. Overcharged me, but I guess he was on the right track.
Brant toweled off vigorously and watched his red skin finally return to its normal color. The scars visible in the mirror he ignored, as usual. He finished his bathroom routine in half the normal time, and in five more minutes he was dressing. A black turtleneck over dark jeans, and a leather jacket over that. Running shoes, as if he'd be running. He'd been running since the jungle.
Maybe the jungle was catching up.
KIT
She awoke to a strange succession of sounds.
And pain.
Hissing, whispered conversations punctuated by pauses and an occasional curse. Then a loud slap, knuckle on skin. Gasping, then a scream of excruciating pain, bit off suddenly.
She heard the sounds long before opening her eyes, but the back and sides of her head throbbed and her throat felt as if it were coated in smelly glue, so she tried to let herself come out of whatever she was under without starting awake. What she could hear was happening somewhere nearly out of earshot — to someone else. Maybe the other side of the room, or maybe in a room next door. She sensed she was alone right then, ignored. Her ribs ached. She'd been kicked. She remembered when she breathed.
Kit felt alertness return to her brain rapidly, and even through the throbbing she could remember clearly what had happened to her. Well, maybe not exactly, but certainly that something had happened while she lurked in the back hall of that damn mall Irina had dragged her off to for her brand of self-involved Christmas shopping.
Irina.
What about her?
Irina had disappeared.
She had been in the hall, and then — and then she was gone.
Or she was in the bathroom, or in the security office. Kit had gone to investigate. Then she'd been grabbed, wrestled down, drugged. Something. Kit had fought hard for herself, yet here she was, laid out somewhere. Suddenly she realized she sensed an audience who apparently watched her as she slept, someone quiet enough that she hadn't noticed any movement or breathing.
Those other sounds from wherever intensified. She heard another gasp, then squeaking. Hard, repetitive squeaking. Muffled gasps.
Like the sounds emanating from Irina's room late at night, whenever one of her visitors came calling. Her friends, she called them, though the sounds they made together were not always friendly. This was like that, but somehow worse. She sensed (again sensed) that something awful was happening to someone, but her mind was currently occupied on herself, and she somehow was able to relegate the sounds to background noise.
Trying not to alter her breathing, Kit tested her arm and leg muscles slowly, sending out messages and flexing each in turn just enough to know that there were responses. By the time she'd finished her inventory, she knew that she was relatively intact except for some bruising on her abdomen and the damnable headache, which now seemed to roar through the veins in her head like an overfilled sewer tunnel after a summer storm.
She felt cold wetness around her groin. She'd pissed herself. Disgusting.
If there was someone watching her, he was very quiet.
The squeaking next door — was it next door? — intensified and someone groaned. The squeaking slowed, then stopped. Someone sniffled and cried out in a tiny voice, muffled again. Silence followed, then shuffling. Soon there was more gasping, another slap, and the squeaking began in earnest once again, but the rhythm had changed.
Kit wanted to cover her ears. She forced her mind to muffle the sounds, as if the air outside her ears were somehow in a vacuum.
God, what had she gotten into? Who watched her, almost not breathing? What was happening next door, and to whom?
And was she next?
She continued to pretend sleep while the assault...
(what else could it be?)
... continued nearby.
Kit moved her arm to start standing.
And felt a thick metal bracelet encircling her right wrist.
Dear God, she was chained to the bed, bunk, whatever it was.
Nausea stabbed her, bouncing from stomach to throat.
A doorknob rattled. She tensed, waiting for what would come next.
A door opened, swinging wide. A shuffling pair of boots, heavy on the concrete flooring. Dragging sounds. A sack of clothing dumped on a cot. Kit tried to breathe regularly, keep pretending.
"Hi Jill," she heard someone say. A female voice, from another corner of the room. Someone else whimpered, sniffled. Breathed shallowly.
There was no answer, and the boots walked back toward the door. Kit wanted to spring up and leap for the exit, make good her escape from — from wherever she was. But the manacle on her right wrist stopped her. She sensed the chain. She would never make it.
She concentrated on the other voice, but now it was quiet, back to barely breathing.
Another whimper from where the clothing had been dumped on the empty cot. Clothing? No, it was a person. Kit was sure of it. The whimpering turned to soft mewling, like a scared kitten.
Jill?
Suddenly the nausea rose up and she gargled up a thin, arid stream that filled her mouth and jetted past her lips in a disgusting shower of stomach juices and whatever the hell she'd eaten last. She managed to aim for the floor. The spasms seemed to go on forever, until her head pounded and her belly felt as if she's ingested liquid fire.
Kit shivered. She cried dry tears, tasting her fear in the puke that line
d the inside of her throat.
Much later she awoke and realized she had, indeed, fallen asleep. And that someone had cleaned her, and wiped up the vomit. She smelled disinfectant instead of vomit and urine and her nose twitched, almost bringing up more from her belly.
She sensed someone in a cot, but not the person who had watched her sleep. That person was gone.
"Jill?" she whispered. "Jill?"
The mewling continued in monotone.
When they came and took Jill away, screaming, they turned on the lights, and then Kit saw more than she wanted to. Pervy Man was here, his nose bloated where she'd smacked him. By then, she understood that her situation had become hopeless.
Kit screamed right along with Jill.
No one paid any attention. The door slammed. Kit continued screaming until her throat felt raw.
THREE
He nosed his car onto the deserted street. The underground garage door of his building clanked shut behind him with a strange finality. He forced himself to ignore the thought. Ten minutes later he was climbing the stairs to Ralph's apartment, the place his brother had run to after his marriage had dissolved and his money had disappeared down the black hole of gambling debts and divorce and drugs.
Brant couldn't forgive Ralph for all that, but he also couldn't help feeling some small slice of sympathy. The apartment was little more than a gutted hole in a rapidly deteriorating building of a neighborhood on the edge. At least the hall lights still worked, the jagged graffiti held at bay on the outside brick-work.
The door stood slightly open and Brant barged in. He surveyed the room from where he stood, hands on hips. Worn second-hand furniture stained a once-tan carpet lined by cheap bookcases devoid of books and two threadbare cloth armchairs, all aimed at a scratched and dented TV cabinet surrounded by a litter mound of cracked videotapes and empty tape containers. Ralph had become a TV junkie after giving up the ponies and most of the booze. Stale frying oil smells wafted in from the kitchen, a segregated corner enclosed by a lopsided swinging door. Another door, also ajar, led to the tiny bedroom.
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