* * *
The Bell Huey hovered overhead, its giant blades slicing the air and sending a cool wash over Dominic lying in the triage basket. He still lived, but not by much. He performed a mental checklist of his situation. Two bullets had passed through his flesh, one in the upper chest and one through the meaty portion of his left thigh. A scattered pattern of shrapnel peppered his skin and he’d suffered a stab wound to his left shoulder. He didn’t think the bullets, or shrapnel or even the knife, had damaged a vital organ. Although badly concussed, his brain seemed intact. He could see, smell, taste, feel and hear. In fact his visual acuity seemed heightened, making everything look brighter, sharper — clear as crystal in the center — growing darker and blurring at the outer edges. His hearing was muted and ringed with echo. It was like hearing underwater. Dominic figured this was probably due to a combination of the trauma-induced concussion to his brain and, hopefully, short-term damage to the drum and anvil mechanisms of his inner ears from the grenade blasts. Ordinarily adrenalin would have cleared his system shortly after the action ceased, but fear kept him pumped. Fear of death.
Many battlefield deaths resulted from blood loss and shock. Dominic judged he’d bled out more than half his body’s supply back on the rooftop and still his heart pumped it into and through the bandages. He’d seen the expression on the medic’s face as he loaded Dominic into the basket. The soldier tried to hide it, but soldiers aren’t actors.
Staring up at the helicopter as it lifted off, he thought it looked like a giant dragonfly with its fat belly, thin tail, and wide blades. Scary, like one of those old time monster movies; Them, The Deadly Mantis, Tarantula, Earth vs. the Spider. He loved those old movies, the giant monster bugs attacking the valiant but doomed soldiers. His first taste of what a hero could be. And the bravest of the brave were always the Marines.
So he joined at eighteen and he’d tried to be brave, and although he hadn’t fought any giant bugs, he battled plenty of monsters.
He’d been in the service for three and a half years; already making the rank of Staff Sergeant. Five promotions, all meritorious, meaning for merit rather than time in service, and three had been battlefield promotions that had later been certified and made permanent. He’d acquired a lot of medals; they didn’t mean much too him really, he thought others deserved them more than he did, but the brass needed a way to show their appreciation and keep their men motivated. So he said thanks and dropped them in his foot locker and went back to work. The work and his men were all that mattered. But that was over now.
He would die or he wouldn’t, either way it was over.
For as long as Dominic could remember he’d wanted to be a United States Marine. He trained for it all through his school years; sports, weights, running, shooting, nutrition, scholastics. He’d been offered full scholarships to five colleges for both sports and academics. He declined, deciding he wanted to start from the ground level and move on to OCS (Officer Cadet School) later so he would have a better understanding of warfare and how the troops thought, acted and felt. He thought of himself as a basic 0311 Marine Corps grunt; a ground pounder, a knuckle dragger, a gyrine, a jarhead, a devil dog, a leatherneck. He was a lean mean fighting machine.
A stab of pain from the thigh wound flashed through him like an electric charge. The chest wound hurt worse; a dull ache in the core of his being, so different from any past experience that he couldn’t put the pain into an articulable category. With the pain came a feeling of invasion — of violation — of being penetrated by a hard metal object that radiated a cold so cold it burned.
Behind the ‘copter the sky blazed such an intense blue it looked like pool cue chalk. There were no clouds — none — the sky sucked completely dry of moisture. The sight of it made him sleepy and sad. The adrenaline, finally depleted, left him so tired he had to fight to keep his eyes open, and somehow he knew that he must keep his eyes open. That if he allowed himself to sleep he would never wake up. Oh but what an impossible task. All his energy and most of his blood, gone. He had nothing left. Never before in his life had he felt so drained, so feeble, so fragile. The song of sleep sang sweetly to him, luring him with its seductive promise of rest, of release from pain and combat and strife. Just close his eyes and slip into sleep — sleep — was there ever a greater word than that? To sleep — for all eternity. To see nothing — know nothing — feel nothing — to be nothing.
But Dominic knew better. He believed in God, had since the age of fifteen. He read the Good Book, cover to cover, once a year, every year. Read it, studied it, devoured it. Amazed at how much he gleaned from each reading. So he knew that death and sleep were not the same, that death did not equate to eternal rest, but rather just a new beginning and that work waited in Heaven. Will I even see Heaven? Fatigue overwhelmed him — so tired — he wanted no more work. Just rest.
The war had been hard, far worse than he ever could have thought when he first joined the Corps. Back then it seemed all excitement and adventure, and oh, there had been plenty of both, but he hadn’t expected the horror, the terror, the smell of death, the sheer inhumanity of what man could do to man.
Neither Al-Qaeda nor the Taliban were respecters of the flesh or the soul. He had seen firsthand what they would do to men, women, whole villages, even children — oftentimes specifically the children. It made it easier to kill them, and he killed a lot of them, but so many of his friends also died. Americans, Brits, Germans, French, Canadians, Italians, Spaniards, Australians, Afghans.
Death felt close now; its cold fingers sweeping up his feet past his ankles to his knees — cold — so cold — as though the blood was freezing to ice crystals in his veins.
The start of the year began his third tour in the pit, at his own request. When rotation time came Dominic declined; volunteering to stay. He wasn’t trying to be a hero. He wanted to win; for the war to be over and for it not to have been in vain. And because he wanted to make a career in the Marines, he understood war would be his life. He only wished that once war started that it be fought as war. No holds barred. Because war is bloody, painful, Hell on Earth and it should be fought only to stop something worse; and then it should be fought without mercy and without end until it was over. That’s why he stayed, why he fought. To prevent what he witnessed in the villages. To prevent what happened at the Towers. He made the decision to kill men who would murder others. He loved life — loved it with such fervor that he would do whatever proved necessary to stop those committed to ending it. He saw no contradiction in this — instead he saw it as reality. God said “You shall not murder,” and if you did, your blood would be required. Righteous authorized execution—not murder — just killing; a type of societal self-defense. It seemed simple to Dominic, black and white.
He did his duty. He completed his mission and he saved his men. Above all — he had saved his men — most of them. His only regret the cost. Not his own death, he could accept that, but murder, could he be forgiven even that? He knew the Marine Corps would never forgive him, nor the United States Government, but would God? Intellectually he knew the Bible said that once accepted all was forgiven. That Jesus Christ’s death paid the full price. But his conscience — his mind — his heart screamed murderer. God writes His law on each man’s heart, and the flesh, even after being saved, clings to the law. Accusing — condemning.
Well, he would know soon enough, he thought to himself, as the blades above whapped at the air and rushed him through the hot dry sky. The blood had seeped through the hastily applied bandages and left a pinkish vapor trailing the ‘copter’s passage. He saw it, dimly, and thought blood the only moisture this land had seen in a long time.
After boot camp, he’d hopped a flight to Hawaii to scuba dive off Hanauma Bay. Hammerhead sharks mated just beyond the shoals, their fins cresting the waves like scimitars searching for blood. The shark — the ocean’s version of The Angel of Death. Dominic wondered if death hunted like a shark, sniffing after blood, zigging and zagging, cutting t
hrough the contrails, searching him out, following the trail of his life’s essence as it rained out behind him. He thought of the movie Jaws — a monster fish that ate everything in its path — and saw it swimming toward him like a launched torpedo.
Almost over now; Dominic could feel the cold creeping its way past his chest, taking him a little at a time, feeding on him with sharp, white teeth. He remembered the look on the lieutenant’s face at that last second. The shock — the disbelief — the fear.
In all the war he regretted only that — only that.
And then the feeling of forward movement stopped. He felt the weird butterflies in the stomach sensation of dropping — down — down — down, and he tried to stay awake — to stay alive — because suddenly he felt he should and that maybe he could, but then the cold swept over him, covering his eyes with a sheet of ice as hard and cold as steel — as cold as the grave.
Death coming for him, sweeping up from beneath with the unstoppable mass and speed and power of the great white. Not as some giant Sci-Fi movie bug as he’d envisioned as a child. No, death came with the swift, silent frenzy of a shark.
7
Sarah Hampton
* * *
Insanity
* * *
The ice baths were bad — the electric shock worse. Very strange, because a part of her couldn’t remember the actual experience; as if a hole had been burned into that part of her memory. It created scars though — horribly painful scars that left her psyche disfigured and grotesque so that she could hardly bear to look or think back on it.
She’d been in the rubber room when they came for her, tightly restrained in a white straightjacket just like the ones she’d seen in movies. Her hands and arms were completely immobilized, not that it mattered. She hid away, somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind; lost in memories of the past. Long ago days, when, as a little girl she played in her bedroom, with her Barbie dolls. She played princess and pretended to be the doll with the long blond hair. Beautiful, with a prince on his way to save her from the evil queen who had her trapped in the high tower, surrounded by dragons and soldiers and moats.
Back in those days, her knight in shining armor had been her father. Sweet and kind he had loved her with an extra special love since her mother died. She remembered the feel of his fingers as he stroked her hair, telling her how much she looked like her mother. The low, gentle timber of his voice soothed her to sleep, safe and secure in his strong arms. But that was then and this was now. It seemed strange and unfair to her that all her adult life she had devoted herself to saving others — to stopping the bad people from hurting the good people, but now, when she needed to be saved, there was no one. Her father was dead — her mother too — even her dog was dead. She had no family — no one that loved her. She felt so alone.
Sarah, who used to think of herself as a police officer, but now thought of herself as the crazy broad in the loony bin, had been diagnosed with extreme catatonia, a form of schizophrenia characterized by a tendency to remain in a fixed stuporous state for long periods; giving way to short periods of extreme excitement; which meant, basically, that the majority of her time she spent sitting or standing with a dull look on her face and a line of drool streaming slowly from her bottom lip, past her chin and down to the floor. No talking, no response to external stimuli, no facial expression, no emotion. The majority of the time Sarah simply existed. There were however — other times. Those short periods of — extreme excitement — when she went stark raving mad and attacked anyone and everyone within distance. And because she had been a police officer, and a very competent one at that, she was adept at attacking.
She had been strapped to the table with thick leather bands; both wrists, both ankles, thighs, chest and head. The doctor, nurses and orderlies stood around her, using their combined weight to keep her flat while they applied the conductor lubricant to Sarah’s temples.
She fought — hard. But she’d already been fatigued by a long stint in the ice bath, and three 20 mg doses of Droperidol, twelve times the normal dosage required to knock a person completely out.
One of the orderlies, trying to get the rubber brace between her teeth, got a little careless and Sarah chomped down on the edge of his hand by his pinky — the meaty part. He was a big man who spent a lot of time hefting big weights, she could see it in his shoulders and chest, but he screamed high and loud as her teeth touched together inside his flesh.
She tasted blood and it gave her strength. She tried to pull the chunk completely off, but someone dug a hard knuckle into the common peroneal nerve in the side of her thigh and another hit her a good clout on the side of the head at the same time. The combined effort, performed very professionally she thought, broke her grip.
The orderly fell back, holding his bleeding hand, his face draining of blood. He looked like he was going to throw up. Sarah screamed and howled and shrieked. She bucked and twisted and tried to wrap her wrists around so she could sink her nails into any nearby skin. But the others were wary, now that one of them had been hurt. They pushed forward and down with all their vigor. Two sets of hands grabbed her head and face, gripping the sides of her head and her lower jaw below the chin.
She went mad with panic and began to spit and growl and gnash her teeth at them. She’d heard the term “gnashing your teeth” before and always wondered what it meant — now she understood perfectly. It was a snapping of the teeth, trying for meat and finding only air, combined with a mashing, grinding of the molars in complete and utter frustration and helplessness. There were no words, only inarticulate, unintelligible shouts and screams and growls; uncivilized and guttural — primal. They came from the core of her being; the place where the terror of death, shared by all animals, hides and sulks and hopes never to be found.
They shoved a rubber stopper into her mouth, blocking her back molars from closing and holding her tongue in place, which in turn made it impossible for her to use her teeth as weapons. The taste of rubber soured her tongue and the thick stopper made her gag. She thought she would puke, she thought she would choke, she thought she would die.
They touched the wet electrodes to her temples and yelled for everyone to back off. All the hands and all the weight suddenly abandoned her. The lightning snapped and crackled and her legs shot out straight, her toes curling inward and her fingers knotting into white knuckled fists. Her wrists bent in, making her forearm muscles bulge out. Her teeth crushed against the rubber stopper. Her eyes squeezed tight. The veins stood out on her neck. She bucked, she groaned, she vibrated. A wash of white power flashed through her mind, cramped her muscles, stretched her ligaments, threatened to snap her tendons.
She wet herself.
She could feel her hair float out, comically standing on end. The inside of her mouth tasted like copper. Her fillings buzzed. The smell of burning ozone filled the room. Her back curved — bowed — arched. Her eyes rolled up behind her lids, showing only white. Her lips pulled back from her teeth. Bubbly froth spilled from the sides of her mouth like molten lava.
She didn’t want to fight anymore. She didn’t want anything except for it to stop, and even that wasn’t a conscious thought, but rather surfaced from that primal place that was never supposed to show its light in the civilized world.
The feeling wasn’t pain — not in the conventional sense — it was beyond pain, beyond anything the human nervous system had been designed to experience. It was an assault, an invasion. It was overwhelming and unstoppable and complete. There was no job, no hospital, no country or world or universe. There was only the white — the blanking — the everything that surged through her body, mind and soul. The power blinded her, robbed her of speech, hearing and feeling. The burning that pumped through her veins like wildfire, surged through her heart at the speed of light, melting her organs like Napalm. She ceased being human — reverted to less than mammal — less than animal. She became a thing, devoid of sentience, of self-awareness, of being. She became one with the white; a h
orror beyond comprehension.
It went on forever — for eternity — for longer than that.
It ended in seconds.
Her first conscious knowledge was the feeling of the stopper being pulled from her mouth. Her jaw ached. Her arms, legs, fingers and toes ached. She felt like one big swollen bruise.
She didn’t know who or what she was. No memory, no understanding; everything blank and new — but not exactly — no — not exactly.
One thing she did remember — she remembered the power — the white.
And she never wanted to know it again.
Part II
8
Dominic Elkins
* * *
Rookie
* * *
Dominic Elkins ran full out, the thirty plus pounds of duty belt plus accessories plus another fifteen pounds worth of weight, complements of a bullet proof vest calf high leather boots and standard issue police uniform, feeling almost light compared to the gear he used to have to lug around in Afghanistan.
The suspect ran, maybe thirty yards ahead of him, losing ground fast. Dominic could feel his heart beating in his temples, slow and steady even at this pace. The parking lot lights were all dark, but the pale disc of the moon cast its eerie glow down on the black asphalt highlighting the running man.
Behind him, Dominic heard screams; not yells or shouts, but horrible shrieking screams like the hopeless cries of some dying animal.
Dominic’s swift, smooth stride made the outcome obvious. In the war he always cautioned his men to save something for the fight after the chase, but he wasn’t worried; his muscles were loose and fluid, feeling strong. He had plenty left. The suspect might have a gun or knife; he might be a Golden Gloves boxer, or a black belt or even one of those MMA fighters.
Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set Page 71