Reprobates (The Bohica Chronicles Book 1)
Page 27
“Should we get the mule and use it to transport the wounded?” Charles asked.
Booker shook his head. “These men need medical attention ASAP. It would take too long to go get the mule, unload the animal, return here, then load the men on it and take off. Better to carry them.”
The American rolled his shoulders. “Right. Fireman’s carry it is.” He leaned down and prepared to pick up the one-footed man. “This isn’t going to be comfortable. Just prepare yourself. We’re going to get you out of here, though.”
The man gave a small nod. Charles lifted him, draping him over his shoulder. Roo followed his example with the other severely injured man.
“Let’s move out,” Booker said, his mouth pressed into a grim line.
The men limped along, leaving a trail of blood behind them. They kept their guard up and moved as quickly as possible through the Zoo. The jungle around them was alive with angry hisses. The trees above kept reaching down, trying to punish the men for killing another of them. The men fought off the flora with wide-bladed machetes. Farther off, they could hear the sounds of another firefight taking place.
“That must be what’s keeping most of the animals away,” the Brit muttered. He looked over his shoulder at the bedraggled group. “We need to take advantage of that. Let’s keep the pace up, gents!”
The two teammates tried their best not to jar the injured men as they marched. They were covered in mud and blood and coated in sweat.
As they closed in on the gate, howls erupted around them.
Booker and the American exchanged a look. Charles and Roo couldn’t easily put the injured men down, so the Brit and the others would have to keep them protected.
A group of five wolf creatures crept out of the jungle.
Booker heaved a grenade, and the explosion took out two of the animals. Other men from the group they’d rescued fired, dispatching the other three.
They started on their way again.
The man Charles was carrying took a shuddering breath. He could feel the man’s body shutting down—it became heavier as his muscles stopped engaging.
“Hang on, buddy,” he grunted. “We’re almost there. You’re going to make it out of this.”
The man groaned in reply. He renewed his efforts, hauling him higher on his shoulders.
Their destination loomed ahead of them. The ragged group picked up speed, hope giving them the extra push.
The gate opened and they stumbled through. The guard called for a medevac and a passing Humvee halted and helped take the injured men to the infirmary.
The team watched the men go. Charles and Roo panted and tried to work blood back into their arms.
“I hate to say this, but we have to go back,” the Brit said.
The others merely nodded and followed him back into the Zoo. They hoped their prize was still where they’d left it.
“Fuck!” Roo kicked a clod of dirt into the jungle.
The mule and their prize were gone.
“Guess it really is true that no good deed goes unpunished,” Charles said with a sigh. He sat on the ground and stared at the vacant area.
“Do you think we can track them?” Booker asked, trying to determine which direction the mule had been driven off in.
“Do you think whoever did this waited for us to go rescue those other men?” Roo asked.
The Brit shrugged. “I can’t think about that right now. I just want to try and find our catch.”
Charles heaved himself off the ground. “I’m going to strangle the sons of bitches when we find them.”
They tracked the mule until the ruts in the road muddled their progress.
“I think it’s a lost cause, gents,” Booker said.
“This is fucking bullshit,” Roo muttered.
The American grunted his agreement. “I need a drink.”
They trudged back through the gate and toward the bar.
“We did the right thing, right?” Charles asked.
“Of course we did,” Roo agreed.
“We couldn’t just let others die like that,” Booker confirmed. “Money and a little glory aren’t worth that. We still have our humanity intact.”
Charles pulled the Wateringhole’s door open and held it for his teammates. They stepped through and the crowded bar erupted in cheers and applause.
The three stood in shock. They looked around, expecting to see someone important or famous. But the bar patrons were clapping for them.
Men pulled them forward and sat them at their usual table. Beers were thrust into their hands. A waitress put a heaping plate of nachos in front of them. She then kissed each of them on the cheek.
“What the hell is going on?” Booker asked.
“We heard what you did,” one of the men said.
“It was a real fine thing to do,” another added.
“Your drinks are on the house tonight,” the bartender called.
The team looked at one another and clinked their pint glasses together.
The alcohol flowed freely, and the waitress kept them supplied with nachos. Patrons streamed past their table. They were congratulated on a job well done and heralded as heroes.
“That crew would’ve been completely wiped out if it weren’t for you three. Most people don’t survive a meeting with that animal.”
“Some wouldn’t have done what you did.”
“It’s quite the feat that you aren’t all dead.”
They told the story of the rescue to each man who stopped at the table to congratulate them.
“That’s killer-bad,” one man said after Booker told him how Charles used his flamethrower on the beast.
After delivering the third pitcher of beer to their table, the waitress sat in Charles’ lap and kissed him. Roo wolf whistled and Booker rolled his eyes.
“This is great and all,” the Aussie said to the others, “but I wish we’d been able to bring Franco that three-headed beasty too.”
“That would’ve been the icing on the cake. But we shouldn’t have any regrets about this,” the Brit said.
Roo shrugged. “I don’t have any regrets. I just wish we’d been able to save those men and our payday.”
Charles snorted. “That’s a regret.”
His teammate flipped him off.
A man pulled a chair up to their table.
“You want to hear the tall tale too?” Roo asked.
He smiled. “I’ve already heard it. Thanks.” He passed a chipcard to Booker. “This is for you.”
“What exactly do you want, then?” The Aussie swayed in his seat.
“What the fuck is this?” Booker asked. He stared at his reader, scrubbed his eyes, and looked at it again. “I’m either way more shit-faced than I thought or that’s a lot of money.”
He showed the screen to Charles.
The American blinked. “That’s a crap ton of money.”
They looked at the stranger sitting with them.
He smiled. “That’s for you.”
“Okay,” Roo said after he, too, had looked at the amount. “Who the fuck are you and what do you want?”
“My name is Noah Bellantine.”
They looked at Noah expectantly. He smiled again.
“My sister is Christine Cattaneo.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Cattaneo? Where have I heard that before?” Roo pinched the bridge of his nose and then his eyes went wide. “Holy fuck, Cattaneo? As in—”
“As in Harry Cattaneo. He was my brother-in-law,” Noah said. “I’m actually the reason he was at the Zoo. He was trying to make money for his little girls.”
The three men stared at him.
He shook himself from his reverie. “My sister told me about the Gerber that was returned to her. She read me the letter and wanted me to find out who you three were since you didn’t sign it.” He held his hand up before any of them could say anything. “For the record, I also wanted to find you. I needed to know who gave my sister her husband’s knife back and let her
know what had happened.”
Roo shrugged. His neck had gone splotchy with a blush that matched his hair. “It was nothing.”
Noah shook his head. “No. It wasn’t nothing. I saw you guys leaving earlier on the mule and I wondered if you were the three who’d returned it. My team and I were also in the Zoo today. We found the mule abandoned with the three-headed animal strapped to it. We thought you were dead.”
“So you’re the ones who stole our stuff?” Booker asked, frowning.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Sorry about that. When I realized you weren’t dead, I convinced my team to return the mule and give the money to you. You three are the ones who earned it.”
He stood from the table.
Charles got up too and shook his hand. “Thank you. You didn’t need to do that and we’re grateful.”
Noah nodded and walked away.
The American sat again and the teammates looked at one another and grinned.
Roo raised his glass.
“Oh, God, please spare us the speeches,” Booker said, but he raised his glass too.
The other man followed suit.
“Gentleman,” Roo said, “here’s to us and everything going right.”
“Here’s to the Bohica Warriors,” Charles added.
“May we always kick ass and take names,” Booker finished.
“Cheers!” they chorused and downed the contents of their glasses.
Epilogue
Dan had left Thor alone in the three men’s container. The animal had hopped onto Charles’ cot and was half-asleep when he heard something.
The faint noise of howls reached him. They were a long way off, but something about them called to him.
He padded across the empty container, reared onto his hind legs, and pressed down on the door handle like he’d seen the humans do. The door opened and he trotted out into the night.
Thor scented the cool desert air. Even at this distance from the wall and the jungle itself, he could smell the Zoo. The scent was intoxicating and it excited him. Beneath the vibrant smell of the plants and small prey animals was something else. It smelled like…him.
Something clicked in Thor’s mind. He readied himself to sprint toward the jungle. His paws already anticipated the feel of the spongy earth.
But then he heard something else—laughter. His ears perked up. That sound was familiar to him. It belonged to the three humans he spent his time with. One voice floated over the others and Thor’s tail automatically started wagging. It was the sound of the big black man, the one the others called Charles. He was Thor’s favorite of the humans.
The howling started again and the animal whined. He felt confused. The others in the Zoo were calling to him, but then there were the three humans who’d taken care of him. They fed him and threw the tire for him. What had the Zoo done for him?
Thor let out a low howl in reply. The breeze picked up and he could smell the three men. They filled his senses, crowding out the intoxicating pull of the jungle.
He backed into the container. His eyes glowed red in the darkness as he pulled the door shut behind him. No one was there to see.
Semper Lycanus
If you liked Reprobates, you might also like the Werewolf of Marines series, from Jonathan Brazee. Book one is Semper Lycanus and it’s available now at Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited.
Private First Class Aiden Kaas has enlisted in the Marines for all the wrong reasons.
Now deployed to Iraq at the age of 19, he just wants to put in his time and serve out his enlistment.
However, after being bitten by a seemingly rabid mujahideen, he finds himself suffering from a strange illness, one with consequences beyond his wildest imaginings. As the disease ravages his body and exposes him to dangers far darker than active combat, Aiden discovers what it means to come of age, and how he must come to grips with what it is he has become…
Available at Amazon
Author Notes - Jonathan Brazee
June 26, 2019
Hi,
I’m Jonathan Brazee, a retired Marine infantry colonel and full-time writer. Michael Anderle is a good friend of mine, and while eating tacos at Sabor in North Las Vegas one afternoon, he told me about a new project: the Zoo. It sounded like a lot of fun, and after another dinner a few months later, I asked if I could play in his sandbox. Luckily for me, he agreed.
We hashed out a Zoo story with an emphasis on military characters. I knew a fellow former Marine from when I worked in Thailand who had written a novel, and he was anxious to write another, so I recruited him for this project. Michael and I came up with the concept, I wrote the beats, and CJ did most of the heavy lifting with me editing and rewriting some passages.
I write military, military science fiction, and military paranormal, and this was a fun departure for me. I hope you had just as good a time reading it as I had in the writing of it.
If you liked Reprobates, you might like my Werewolf of Marines series. It is an accurate and realistic depiction of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (realistic if you accept that pesky part about becoming a werewolf, that is). The first book is Semper Lycanus, which is available at here at Amazon.
For more about me, my family (my wife and I just had twin girls in January), and my books, you can find my website at
http://jonathanbrazee.com.
Or, you can see my author FB page at
https://www.facebook.com/jonathanbrazeeauthor/ .
If you’d like to join my mailing list, you can sign up at http://eepurl.com/bnFSHH.
Thanks for giving Reprobates a read.
Jonathan
North Las Vegas, 2019
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