Of Blood and Stone

by Howard Upton

  There was one thing that no one had taken into account, no one, that was, except him. It was that one little thing that would be the game changer and make him the most powerful man in the world, and it was that one thing he would keep to himself a while longer.

  The gate attendant announced that his American Airlines flight would begin boarding those passengers flying first class, uniformed military and those requiring special assistance. Also, those flying with small children were invited to board at that time. Dugan shook his head at the feigned politeness of the gesture, knowing the airlines didn’t give two shits about anyone they were now asking to board the aircraft; they only cared about their money. He laughed as he thought, hell, that’s what I care about too. Maybe after I make this score I’ll start my own airline. Nah, after this score, people will be asking ME if they can start an airline.

  Somewhere Between Reality and Death

  July 21, 2013 5:17 P.M.

  A half-moon hung in the night sky. In the distance smoke wafted from the center of a building. Warm wind pushed its way around and over the building forcing the smoke to undulate like a spineless exotic dancer. A few other buildings sported similar smoke pillars from their rooftops, but no flame could be seen. The roar of an air assault squadron could be heard in the distance.

  No light escaped any of the windows of the buildings and homes. Only the moon offered any illumination. The Watcher could hear no sound accept that of the wind whipping around the buildings and across his face. Scattered about the area he saw the remains from what appeared to be a war time attack.

  A young boy lay on his back, his body contorted and awkward, and his backpack hanging loosely from his torso. Blood seeped from his chest, nose and mouth, yet his hand twitched as though clawing for something, possibly clinging to a life now lost, or perhaps a can of food he wanted to take to his family. From the backpack a “tic-tic-tic” could be heard.

  To the boy’s right a lone black man lay face down. His chest wasn’t moving, his breath non-existent. One leg, however, still moved also clinging to life like the child’s hand. The leg crept back and forth, its knee trying to lift the flaccid body. Had the Watcher not known the man was dead, the scene would have been comical.

  On her side, just a few feet from the twitchy-legged black man lay a woman with a black burka covering her entire body. No breath passed from her nose or mouth, but her eyes fluttered open and shut, the repetition very strange. The Watcher looked at her in silent wonder, the confusion mounting in his brain.

  All around lay bodies, some recognizable, some not, but all had two things in common, death and movement of sorts. The amount of death was beyond The Watcher’s comprehension. One such body, a middle aged man, sat propped against a shack of a building, a shoe on one foot, the other foot missing altogether. Jagged bone protruded from the stump just above where an ankle used to be. Remarkably, there was just a small pool of blood beneath the destroyed appendage. The man’s jaw worked up and down; the white of his eyes was the only color visible in their sockets.

  The Watcher looked down at his own feet and saw empty shell casings everywhere. On his back he could feel the weight of a grenade launcher, its feel giving him a gratifying sense of security. There was no heat he could feel from the barrel of the launcher, so he was certain the destruction of the buildings had nothing to do with him specifically. In fact, he was struggling to understand where he was and what he was doing there. It was apparent to him that he had been engaged in mortal combat, but he had no memory of doing so.

  Utter silence and a clear sense of being alone struck him, as did a sudden urge to run. He realized he didn’t know where to go or how to remove himself from the macabre scene. Confusion began to seep into his mind and desperation forced his heartbeat to quicken.

  Somewhere behind him he heard a low, gurgling moan. The Watcher turned to see where the sound had come from, but he couldn’t find the source. His feet came alive as his brain screamed at him to leave, but each time he took a step a body blocked his way. For as far as he could see in every direction human remains littered the roads and sidewalks. And no matter what direction he turned, behind him he would hear that low, gurgling moan.

  His heart sped up even more and his breathing accelerated. He couldn’t scream for help because his vocal chords had tightened. For a moment he thought he would hyperventilate, so sure was he that the sound behind him was getting a little closer. He spun on his heel to check his six but nothing moved. On shaky legs he raised his M16A4 and looked down the scope mounted to the modified receiver. He depressed the infrared sights as he spun his body three hundred sixty degrees, but the red dot couldn’t find a target. A tense finger rested on the trigger that would deliver a burst of death so fast nothing would have time to react. At least that was The Watcher’s hope.

  He closed his eyes for a few seconds in order to calm himself. He dropped to one knee, making himself smaller in the event that he was in the line of a sniper’s target. Being on one knee made him uncomfortable; the street had become a crypt and he an unwelcomed visitor. He wasn’t a superstitious man, but there was something about the sight and smell of death that always made him anxious, even if he was the one creating it.

  A shuffling sound from his left forced him to spin on his knee, his rifle leveled and his eye focused on the lens of his Nikon scope. Its six-time zoom eye box technology enabled him to see a target over a mile away, but this night he saw nothing save dead bodies and the night’s shadows. His desert BDU’s stuck to his skin as the sweat seeped from every pore. As his mind raced he could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

  Given his battle dress uniform and the architecture of the smoldering buildings, The Watcher figured he was in the Middle East, although the more he looked around, the more he questioned his location. He had zero recollection of arriving at the scene and no memory of the attack that had taken the life of so many. Further still, he presumed his locale to be Iraq, but some of the dead didn’t fit the area. The black man and topless black woman with a fruit basket replete with spilled jackfruit and papaya didn’t compute in his brain.

  Directly behind him he heard another shuffle followed by an unnatural raspy breath. He turned as quickly as he heard the sound but something collapsed on his shoulder and intertwined itself in the strap holding his grenade launcher. His eyes locked onto the source of the sound and the ‘thing’ on his shoulder. A hand! A hand connected to the body of the young Islamic boy wearing the backpack. Something stuck in his throat as the corpse’s lips pulled back into a demonic grin, blood slowly dripping from his mouth. In a split second he recognized the face as the young boy he’d shot in Mosul. “This can’t be real,” he tried to tell himself. “I must be dreaming!”

  The corpse exhibited inhuman strength. He slung The Watcher some twenty feet and watched with passing interest as his body fell hard to the road, the wind knocked out of him. His teeth rattled in his head. Black dots sparkled across his field of vision – those dots that form when a person takes a hard shot to the head.

  The Watcher shook his head trying to regain his senses. In the silence of the evening he could hear more shuffling and movement all around him. His throat was parched as adrenaline coursed through his veins. He could feel his hand trembling and legs stiffen even as his brain screamed “GET UP!” With considerable effort he stood.

  Everywhere around him he heard whispers, “Evers... Evers... Evers.” Each time he turned to pinpoint where the sounds were coming from, they would stop. A few seconds would pass before they would start again, “Evers... Evers... Evers.”

  “Where’s my team?” he asked, finally able to speak. “Where the hell are all the people? What the fuck is going on here?” His brain swam in confusion as his heart continued to pound blood through his body. For a few moments he thought he would pass out. Never before in his life had he been so frightened. Never had he been in an area so filled with death. And never in his life had he feared what the dead would do to him. The Watcher had been th
e bringer of death; now he was death’s hunted.

  “Evers... Evers... Evers.” The whispers called out again. He wanted to slap both hands over his ears but he knew that act of contrition would do little to stop him from hearing the voices. As he looked around at the slain, he noticed something intimately familiar with each of them. Finally, it dawned on him who all these people were. Each had been one of his victims. Each had died by his hands.

  From his right came more shuffling. This time the black man with the ruptured larynx he’d killed in Uganda walked toward him. The man’s eye sockets were empty, but their blackness was fixed on him. Like the youngster before him, his mouth peeled back to reveal a hideous smile. Something about the smile told The Watcher the corpse was hungry, but for what he couldn’t say.

  “What the hell is going on?” he asked no one in particular. He fought to control the panting pressuring his lungs as he again leveled his assault rifle. Touching the laser sights on the trigger activated the beam. A red dot rested on the corpse’s forehead. As hard as The Watcher was breathing the dot held steady, just between the intended target’s eyes.

  A grossly disturbing cackle came from the black man’s mouth. It was throaty and forced because his larynx had been crushed. Popping sounds followed the laugh, the result of crushed cartilage and bone. The Watcher felt a chill run up his spine as the sound drifted across the hot desert breeze.

  One more deep breath and an exhale followed by a squeezing of the trigger and the corpse’s head exploded. Pieces of skull and gray brain matter sprayed in a one hundred eighty degree arc. There was little blood after the burst of 5.56mm rounds traveling at twenty-eight hundred feet per second hit him. A disgustingly noticeable “V” formed where the top of his head used to be. So sudden had the rounds hit him that his head didn’t snap backward, but held steadfast on his neck. The body made a resounding thud as it hit the pavement.

  “Evers... Evers... Evers,” he heard again. The sound of his name whispered over and over made him want to scream. He spun in time to see a Sunni Arab man, his turban askew, reach for him. The Watcher recognized him as a man he’d shot several years prior. He was purported to be a rebel leader with direct ties to AQI, Al Qaida in Iraq. A double tap to the man’s chest had brought about an abrupt end to his reign of terror. But now The Watcher stared at a dead man’s hand reaching for him.

  The corpse’s raised arm slammed down on The Watcher’s head followed by a fist to his ribs. Air was driven from The Watcher’s lungs and a new blanket of stars clouded his vision. His head was pulled back as the dead Sunni’s fingers wrapped under his chin. The corpse’s fiendish smile was similar to those of the others. It opened its mouth and a murky hiss streamed, “Evers.”

  Somehow he managed to escape the grip the Sunni had on him. He rolled to his back and frantically began looking around. From every direction bodies walked or crawled toward him. Each of the corpses called out, “Evers” in unison. The “ssssss” slithered across their tongues like that of a serpent.

  His hand found the Colt .45 he kept strapped to his leg. With machine-like precision he pulled it from the holster and pointed it at the Sunni. Without any thought he double tapped the Arab in the chest, the two holes appearing next to the two he had planted in him the first time he had shot him. The corpse dropped to both knees, looking down at his chest with glassy eyes. No blood trickled from the new wounds as he rose to his feet again.

  The Watcher was aghast. He felt a hand grab his neck and clamp down. A flowing black burka stood next to him, bare feet protruding under the hem. The woman’s free hand reached for her veil and pulled it down displaying a gray face and sharp teeth. On his right he felt another hand grasp his wrist with an ungodly strength.

  Sheer terror ravaged his body and brain. Another cold, steel-like hand grasped the other wrist and he dropped the .45. All around him the corpses closed, their feet shuffling across the pavement. Sharp teeth from the Muslim woman bit into his arm and warm blood flowed from a vein onto her chin.

  At long last The Watcher managed a throaty shriek. He began thrashing about attempting to escape the hold the walking dead had on him. More teeth sank into the other arm and a fresh scream filled the air. Blood began pooling on either side of him as other corpses closed the distance, the smell of iron-rich plasma drawing them.

  “Evers... Evers... Evers,” the dead called. The Watcher kicked his boot clad feet as hard as he could but it did no good. He felt another dead hand grasp his ankle. The frigid fingers dug into his skin through his BDU pants and his body began to convulse from shock and the adrenaline rush.

  As the dead feasted on his limbs, he saw a man approaching him. This man looked to be of the living, his color good, his hair white and his face somber. In his hand he held a silver jewel. A shimmer of moonlight reflected off its surface. Strange, foreign words rolled off his tongue. He seemed to be in command of the cadavers. And it was then that The Watcher recognized the man: Dugan.

  He screamed again as teeth sank into his neck.

  Arlington, Virginia, USA

  Ronald Reagan Airport

  July 21, 2013 5:32 P.M.

  Buddy sat at a Starbuck’s table sipping an ice Frappuccino while replaying the events of the last week in his mind. Communication between he and Dugan had been intermittent, but he’d finally received word that Young Buck hadn’t been killed. That news lifted a huge weight from his shoulders and gave him at least one good night’s rest.

  It was more than obvious to him that Dugan wanted to eliminate anyone and everyone associated, directly or loosely, with this mission. What was vague was how, and most importantly when, he planned on the process of elimination. Dugan was an evil bastard, and had no qualms when it came to killing, but he wasn’t stupid. He would have a plan he would execute, and he would do so carefully and systematically.

  He knew when he arrived in Mexico he would have to be wary in his dealings with the seasoned veteran. Not only was he a dangerous man, he was also connected. His contacts in D.C. alone rivaled those of Buddy’s, and that made him terrifying.

  Smith’s problem with Evers was an even bigger one. If both of them got out of this situation alive his role as double-crosser was going to be hard to explain. Sometimes doing the right thing hurts good people. At least this was how he reasoned his actions in his own head. But he knew Buck wouldn’t take this lying down. He didn’t want to have to be part and parcel to Evers’ murder, but he’d made those hard choices before and lived another day to talk about them.

  Still, he had dragged Young Buck into this shit storm and he felt like he owed him some allegiance. Hell, truth be known, he owed him a lot more than just allegiance, and at the end of the day, Evers was probably his one and only real friend in the world.

  He put the Frappuccino to his mouth and sipped. “This stuff would be so much better with some smoky Agave dropped over the side. I’ve got to send my resume to the folks in Seattle. I’d be a heck of a gourmet coffee chef, or whatever the hell they call themselves, if they’d give me a shot. Shit, I’d have every drunk in a ten thousand mile radius lined up to spend six dollars on a pick-me-up at these fucking stores,” he laughed and said aloud.

  A mature lady in her late fifties, who wore her beauty in a way young women could not, sat at a table across from him. Her white slacks, silk, flower patterned blouse and a hat befitting a woman at Club Med rather than an airport, gave an air of class and societal status. His foul diction had gotten her attention. Buddy winked and blew her a kiss. She rolled her eyes, sighed and pretended to read her paper, but he caught her looking his way two or three times.

  “Ma’am, I don’t usually apologize for the things I say, but I’d like to afford you that today. I beg your forgiveness for my language. Furthermore, I’d like to ask you your name and for a phone number, if you’re not spoken for that is. If you are spoken for then just make up a name; I’m okay with that,” he drawled in his north Georgia accent.

  “Sir, I find your appearance, your language and
your accent offensive. I wouldn’t give you the time of day, much less my name or telephone number. It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if you never addressed me again,” she replied, her notably thick New England dialect annunciating every syllable.

  “Oh, I don’t believe that for a minute, lady. As a matter of fact, I think you kind of like this ole country boy’s accent and appearance. You know what else? I think you desire a little adventure in your life, and I’m just the excitement you need,” Buddy finished with an enormously toothy smile on his face.

  “Well, I've never,” her New England accent pronouncing the word ‘ne-vah,’ “been spoken to in such a manner. You, sir, are boorish, crude and rash. Personally, I think you should spend time learning some manners before you speak to another person. Furthermore, your dress is of one that I would expect to find on the streets of a major metropolitan city. I’m really quite surprised that you don’t have a cup in your hand begging for change. THAT’S what I think,” she sniffed and raised an eyebrow, obviously happy with her impromptu rejoinder.

  Buddy guffawed as he reached behind his head and pulled his long hair off his neck. He eased forward over the table, his arms folded in front of him. “You want to know what else I think, ma’am? I believe you’d like me to meet you at some point and time, take you out on the town and show you some fun. Ole Buddy knows a woman looking for amusement when he sees her, and you’ve got that look in your eyes. You are one hell of a lovely lady and if you go the rest of this day without someone telling you that, well, that would just be a goddam shame.”

  Blood rushed to the lady’s prim face. A reticent glow crossed over her and a perceptible relaxing of her shoulders made her seem at least a little vulnerable. She licked her lips then smiled. “You certainly have a way with words...Buddy...that’s indisputable. I’m inclined to believe you have a way with women despite your hard outer shell, vile language and ruddy dress.” She pulled a pen from her purse and scrawled down a number and a name on a piece of paper then handed to him. “I live in Woburn, Massachusetts, sir. Should you find yourself in New England please give me a call and perhaps I will show you around my lovely city and provide you with some culture. And just so you are aware, I’m no longer spoken for. I’m a widow.”