FUCK!!!
“What are you talking about, cuz?” asked Jacob, his tone, his inflection – everything changing in a flash.
Naw, this dude wasn’t fucked up. Not at all.
I recovered in seconds. “Forget it, man; I was talking out of my ass. Jus-just go ahead and tell me what you found out, ok?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said immediately. “Ok, well, you remember that dealer I was talking with earlier?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, well that dude, being the cool fucker I always knew he was, did some searching on his own. You know, damned well, he did it out of respect for our uncles than us, right?”
“Probably,” was all I said, hoping he would get to the point.
“Anyway, bro, he’s got an acquaintance - no more like a colleague - in the organization he’s belongs to. This guy… well, this guy is a little more connected, you know? He has bigger clients, more contacts… let’s just say he’s a bigger fish in the pond, ok?”
I nodded to myself, but stayed otherwise silent.
“This dude tells my guy that it might be a good idea to stop dealing for a while, at least, until things calm down. This of course made my guy curious, so he asks the dude, why?” Jacob paused to take a breath and cleared his throat. “The dude says one of his clients actually works for the NIA. He’s a soldier in one of the Shock Units they’ve been secretly shipping to this part of town since the beginning of spring. This trooper tells my friend’s friend something big is about to go down. Curious himself, the dude offers the trooper a free hit of some new shit he’d recently acquired, hoping to pump him for more info.
“After a few hits, the trooper – out of fucking nowhere – says, ‘you ever heard of Inhaler Software?’ Of course, the dude has no fucken idea what he’s talking about and says so. The trooper takes another monster hit, keeps the smoke in his chest for a minute or so, then explodes with it with a big grin on his face. He says to the dude, ‘Inhaler is some real crazy shit, my man. It can tell who’s a Muto and who’s not. It can even back track data all the way to the point of origin. Soon, it’ll have tracked the Muto Taint all the way back to the fucking explosion itself. Once it’s done that, the techs will have the ability to fast forward the software in order to predict where the highest probable Muto outbreaks will occur.’
“The dude asks, ‘what explosion?’
“And the trooper says, ‘the explosion of the comet that was on its way to destroying all life on earth last year, you stupid fuck!’
“This confuses the dude even more and he says what does that have to do with Muto’s?
“The trooper takes another hit and says, ‘that’s where it all came from, man. The comet wasn’t just ice and rock and your occasional hunk of metal. There was something else on it, something that affects humans in a very adverse way. This something – whatever it is - has the potential to turn anyone into a full blown Muto in a matter of months.’
“The dude is like totally shocked and kinda puts two and two together, and after a few seconds or so, asks the trooper why are there so many of his homies hanging around Highland Park. The trooper looks at the dude with glossy eyes and says, ‘the Inhaler Software predicted an inordinate probability of Muto manifestation in the whole northeastern section of Los Angeles. Apparently the program tracked a unique strain of the shit coming out of the comet. This is a very strong, a very potent strain, and the NIA is dead set on wiping out entirely – no questions asked just pure eradication.’ The trooper stops right then, you know, seems to catch himself. He looks over at the dude and says, ‘it’s going to happen soon and it’s going to be a clusterfuck for the civilian population around here. You should think about clearing out.’ Then the bastard takes another hit of whatever the dude had given him and walks the fuck out of the room.
“My guy is listening to the dude as he tells his story and suddenly it hits him square in the cajones what the dude is talking about. He realizes, it might be related to the request I had made earlier. So, he hits me up on my cell. He starts talking like crazy about how something fucked up is about to go down. I should get my family out of Dodge, like now.
“Eff, he sounded a little spooked, you know, and this guy is usually as calm as dried up shit. So, I said I’d seriously take his advice and he cut out. About an hour after the call, I started seeing motherfuckers in suits and ties off in the distance, just fucken standing there, staring at me and nothing else. It’s been hours now, Eff, and these guys aren’t letting up, they’re all over me, cuz.” He stopped then, mumbled something unintelligible and then a high burst of static sounded through the earpiece. I was forced to pull the cell from my ear.
“Jake, you still there?!” I asked loudly, once the shrill noises ceased.
A heartbeat or two later, he came back on, but I could barely hear him, so I repeated myself a few more times to no avail.
Then, as clear as a bell, “Eff, you still there,” said my cousin.
“Yeah man, I’m still here,” I answered him calmly, though my head was running a mile a minute.
“Whadaya think we should do?” asked Jacob. His voice was just above a whisper.
I heard him, but there was one thing, one item that he had mentioned that made everything else seem inconsequential. “You said, the trooper had said, the Muto shit had come from the comet?”
“Yeah, man, isn’t that crazy,” he replied after a short delay. Again, it sounded like he was moving quickly, as though he were running and hiding - moving fast, then slow. It was erratic, weird in my ears, but I could picture it clearly in my mind’s eye.
“That’s pretty fucked up, if you ask me,” I voiced my opinion with heart. “I mean, here we are saved from mass destruction only to be cursed with something else. Doesn’t that seem kinda Wrath of God to you?”
“I don’t know what it sounds like, Eff. All I know is these motherfuckers are after me and we gotta figure out what the hell we are going to do,” retorted my cousin, raggedly. He was laboring now. I could tell.
“Where are you, Jacob? What the fuck is going on?” I asked suddenly, realizing he just might be telling the truth instead of acting like an ass.
“I’m not gonna say right now, cuz. I have a bad feeling about all of this - .”
“Hey you!” It was another voice in the background, male and resonated with authority. “Stop where you are, right now!”
“Oh shit, Eff, they fucking found me. Fuck! Fuck!!”
All at once, there were scratching sounds of jostling and fervent movement through the cell. I squinted against it, but kept the device plastered to my ear. I wasn’t about to miss a single detail now, just in case.
“Shit, these motherfuckers - . Fuck! Oh, SHIT!” was all Jacob managed.
“Halt! We have you in our sights, young man. Stop now or we will use lethal force!” It was the same voice from before only amplified and metallic in tone.
“Fuck you!” I heard Jacob yell at the top of his lungs, more distortion and garbled noises followed.
“Jake, are you ok?!?” I bellowed into the microphone of the cell. “Jake! Answer me, Jake!”
That was when I heard the first shot. It sounded like a hollow snap through the connection. I could hear Jacob breathing heavily. There were more indiscernible pops and squeals, and then came the words, sending a chill up my spine.
“Shoot for effect! Bring him down!”
I closed my eyes as ten, twenty, then thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred shots rang out –again and again, so many it seemed they would never stop.
A second later, the Jacob’s cell hit something, or maybe something had hit it. I would never know. A blink of an eye later, the signal dropped and I lost him. I had lost my cousin to some faceless enemy, some adversary I hadn’t even understood.
Jacob was dead. He had to be.
I looked at my cell with stark unbelief, my face a rictus of horror. I let me gaze fall to the others in the kitchen with me. All of them stared back, dread plain in each of th
eir eyes.
All I could say was, “They got him. They got him. They got him…”
Katie rushed forward and crushed me with her embrace, attempting to force strength and courage back into me. Yet, when my gaze found my brother’s, it drained away all the same. I was a ragdoll in my cousin’s arms.
Jacob was dead.
The NIA had killed him. And for what? Information? The fucking truth?
It was the first step of many, down the path I’ve trudged, taking me to where I am today, all these years later. A path lined with all the vile titles I’ve been called over the decades – assassin, extortionist, pimp, sexual predator, terrorist, Muto, bigamist… fuck, the list goes on and on. Some of which is truth, though most is just the persona that has evolved around me and my associates.
[He slips to the surface like an alligator in water. Just eyes and nostrils break the surface.]
What did you expect? A Hero? A righteous vigilante? Fuck all that, we went from frighten refugees to become the Aegis Synod. I never really cared what people thought about me. I still don’t give a shit. This was about survival, protecting what I loved. I know it started that evening when I thought my cousin had been gunned down by the government. I know now, they made me a criminal that night. They forged my will. I would never be one of the good guys. Naw, I was going to be something else, something… feared…
…And, I was going to kill them all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Chapter 36 ~
(Summer – 2018)
A Desperate Intrusion
[He plunges into year’s agone like a stone in a river.]
I couldn’t stop thinking about Jacob lying on the ground, riddled with bullets; his brains splashed this way and that, his limbs akimbo, his eyes vacant. I could imagine them, glossed over with huge irises, no longer holding the spark, the countless annoying aspects that – together – comprised him.
After Jacob’s call, I had run from the kitchen as fast I could manage. I bolted for the Loft, trying not to alert my parents anything was amiss. I hadn’t even cleared the first landing when the tears had come, blurring my vision. I tried to negotiate the stairs, but stumbled, cracking my knee on the edge of a stair. I felt no pain. I hadn’t heard her come up behind me. But, when I tripped, Katie’s small, delicate hands had been there to steady me. Despite my utter despondency, I was never more grateful for her than in that moment. Without so much as a word, she had been there. She was a strong, sturdy rock; I could lean into for support. She held me up, as I cried as quietly as I could, tripping up to my bedroom - my sanctuary.
I must’ve cried for some time, because there was little daylight outside my windows when I had finally picked up head from Katie’s warm lap. I hadn’t been aware my brother and my step-sister had come up sometime after Katie and me. They had been talking with my cousin over my grieving form, wondering what was going on, why I was so distraught. I believe Katie had filled them in on everything, because when I opened my bloodshot eyes and gazed into Flavia’s, then Johan’s there was no curiosity or questions written about either of their faces. There was only sympathy and mourning. Their own eyes pink with the aftermath of tears. Flavia’s long, slender nose was still rosy at its end, always a telltale sign that she had been crying.
I was surprised to see, she had sat on the bed as well. She had draped my legs across hers at the knee. Her long, thin fingers rubbed my calves in a sisterly, but very soothing fashion. Flavia hardly ever touched me, not that she was repelled or grossed out by me. She was merely not a touchy-feely person.
Johan had sat upon the floor, one knee up. His other leg angled through the V-shaped space, his left hand supporting his leaning form. His large, light brown eyes looked into mine. His thick brow was knitted in the middle, wary and slightly befuddled. Times of intense emotion always made Johan squirm. He wasn’t built to show what he felt, and usually kept his innermost thoughts to himself.
I had given him a horrific version of a half-hearted smile, laying my head, once more, into Katie’s lap. I was so relieved to have her there in my room. I couldn’t imagine what I would have done if she hadn’t been there... Back then, I was a little more dramatic when it came to people I loved getting hurt or dying. I was young and unschooled in the harshness of life, how it could bite you in the ass without notice. Therefore, the thought of not having Jacob around - no matter how much of a pain in the sphincter he had been - was close to unbearable for me.
I had closed my eyes. I must’ve fallen asleep, because it was entirely dark outside when I opened them again. The TV was turned on only very low. Both of my siblings had vanished. There was a pillow under my head now.
Katie had changed into a set of cute, silky pajamas with a spaghetti-strapped top and loose fitting shorts covered in pink and red hearts. I had sat up. The angle of the light altered and I could tell she wore nothing else underneath her night clothes. She was sitting against the head board, her eyes upon the TV, her legs crossed, her narrow feet bare. Even though I felt like I had been hit over the head with a sledgehammer, I stretched toward her and kissed her gently on one of her big toes.
She giggled, but kept her foot there.
“I love you, Katie,” I had murmured, kissing her toe once again for good measure.
“I love you too, Estefan.”
Being as easily distracted by a beautiful pair of feet, I had to force myself from them. Otherwise, I would’ve lost myself in her toes and arches and heels. I would’ve wanted to lick them and bite them and taste every bit of flesh.
Instead, I got up and I walked over to my dresser and stripped down, taking everything off, no longer worried about propriety when it came to my cousin. We were lovers now.
“I love your ass too,” said Katie from the bed, unmoving, though I could feel her gaze boring into my nether cheeks.
I had smiled into my drawer and pulled out a pair of loose fitting cotton shorts with an elastic waist band and a thin knot cord for tightening the fit, should I choose to do so. I did not. I had wanted to be as comfortable as possible. I put them on, hearing Katie protest playfully and scooped up my clothes and put them in the hamper. I walked back over to the bed and settled beside Katie. I wanted nothing more than to kiss her, but she spoke, forestalling me.
“I hope you don’t mind, but Ramona and I have been texting through your cell.” She didn’t sound all that remorseful. She smirked instead.
My eyebrows had gone up of their own accord. “Oh yeah, what about?” I asked. My voice was raw and strained from my lengthy lamentation.
“About you, of course,” she said. Her tone was infused with saccharine.
“Trading notes,” I remarked offhandedly.
“We already did that, Estefan – days ago,” she reposted, tilting her head to one side as if she were reliving the event. Then, abruptly, “Ramona is going to sneak out and come over tonight.”
My wry grin dissolved when I stared into her eyes that had suddenly gone serious. “What time?”
“She said she’d be here around midnight,” Katie answered. “She was worried about you and texted she was coming over no matter what her mother did to prevent her. She wants to be with you tonight, keep you safe…” Her expression warmed. “She was worried.”
I had let that sink in, then reached over and grabbed ahold of her hand. “What about you?”
She gave my palm a squeeze. “Oh, I’ll be taking care of you too, about that she was adamant.”
“Really?” I felt my eyebrows rise at that. I knew Ramona had agreed to our ménage à trois, but to see proof of her decision, and so quickly, was something else entirely, especially since she had battled with bouts of jealousy earlier in the day.
Katie had nodded slowly, in an exaggerated fashion.
“So, we’re just supposed to wait, then?” I asked still unable to get my head completely around the notion that in a few hours I might be sleeping with not one, but two girls! And you know, we weren’t going to be doing any sleeping�
��
…Except, for some reason that reminded me of Jacob. My mood darkened in an instant. He had always been the one to say, between the two of us, he would be the first to have two girls sucking on his dick at the same time. He had said it so many times, I had tuned it out of my mind. It was like him calling me a “Deeeeck!” all the damned time. I just ignored it.
Until now. Oh, how I’d have loved for him to say it to me one more time, so I could laugh and call him an asshole for old time’s sake.
I had sat back against the headboard of the bed and just watched the images on the TV screen before me, not really following what sort of show was on. I was somewhere between cognizance and oblivion. After a while, Katie’s head came to rest upon my shoulder. I let my head rest atop hers, watching the LCD, our hands still clasped in between us.
She had stirred minutes later when my tears began to drip onto the top of her head. She reached around to touch my wet cheeks, coming to gaze at me. When her suspicions were confirmed – I was crying and she came forward. I sat up just enough, so her arms could encircle me, her head against my collarbone as she hugged me tightly.
“It’ll be ok, Effy, I promise,” she stated sounding many years older than her sixteen.
“I don’t know…,” was all I could think to say.
“You should eat,” she prompted. She wanted to be practical over broken-hearted, steer her mind – and mine – from thoughts of Jacob’s death. “You haven’t eaten in a day, my love.”
I wondered at the emptiness in my stomach, thinking it a by-product of my grief. With definition, I realized I was hungry. My belly wasn’t just in knots, because of anguish, it required sustenance.
“Are there leftovers from dinner?” I asked.
Katie shook her head, but smiled sweetly. “Your parents bought Jack-in-the-Box¹.”
“Oh.”
“Your Double Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger and Curly Fries² are right over there.” She pointed at my desk.
Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten Page 43