by Jeff DeMarco
“Lemme see.” He reached over the edge of truck bed.
Collin lunged, snatching the bag up.
“Damnit all, boy.” Bob’s eyes narrowed on him as he surged forward, grapping a strap on the bag, using his weight to drag it, and Collin, down to the pavement. He wrenched the bag from Collin and unzipped it – tan bricks, wrapped in clear plastic film, smaller gallon size bags, the distinct smell of marijuana. He pulled a knife from his pocket, pierced the brick; a tan powder inside. “The hell is this, Collin? Cocaine? Heroin?”
Collin stared at the ground. “It’s heroine… a little bit of weed.”
“A little? Boy, you must be outside your mind… Gonna flood the place with drugs. Thought you were better than this.”
“Bullshit!” Collin looked up and down Bob’s overweight frame. “Lay a guilt trip on me? You know damn well most of that food isn’t making it to the public.” He slapped Bob’s gut.
Bob’s eyes narrowed on him. “You don’t know that.”
“I keep inventory.” Collin pulled a notebook from his pocket and flipped through the pages. “Hope your books are straight.”
Bob’s teeth grit into an angry stare, like a brahma bull ready to charge. “You little-“
“Hi, boys!” Faye yelled in her overly upbeat tone. “How’d scavenging go today?”
Collin grabbed the bag and cleared his throat. “Umm… good.”
“You look a little red, Bob.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “You feeling ok?”
Collin thumbed through pages of his notebook, knowingly. Bob’s eye twitched as he glared at Collin. “Fine,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I’m looking for one of the children,” Faye said. “His name’s Taylor, 13 or 14 maybe, brown hair, green eyes.”
“Nope,” Bob muttered, happy to be off the subject.
“And what about you?” she motioned to the duffle bag. “Pick me up something special?”
“Ha,” He laughed nervously, clutching the bag tighter. “Picked you up a couple cans of dog food.”
Bob laughed silently to himself.
“That’s it!” She whipped her bouncy blonde hair to the side. “I’m done.” She stormed off in a huff.
Collin started off in her direction. “Faye!”
Bob grabbed his arm. “Not worth it,” he whispered. “Now go hide that junk.”
Faye wandered her way through the hospital. “Have you seen Taylor?”
“He’s down in surgery.” An annoyed look on Ellen’s face at the disruption, she asked, “Why?”
“Oh my God!” Faye put her hands over her mouth. “What hap-“
“Relax… He’s observing. Training in medicine.”
Faye’s eyes lit up. “I need to get him back to our area. Some new thing they’re pushing. Keeping all the minors in one area, 12 hour shifts, half rations, contraband inspections.”
Ellen looked at her sideways.
“Well, I don’t want to get in trouble,” she squeaked.
Ellen squinted at Faye, as though she had a hand growing out of her forehead.
Faye turned her head to the side, with a dumb look. “Can I see him?”
Ellen sighed. “Come with me.” She set down her chart and walked quickly to the surgery ward.
Ellen looked through a small viewing window; three people garbed in green scrubs were hovering over a table. A fourth one, smaller, stood to the side. “See.” She pointed. “That’s him.”
“Great!” She smiled and pushed her way through the doors.
“Wait!” She grabbed Faye’s shirt.
“It’s fine.” Faye spun, breaking Ellen’s grip. “I can take it from here.”
“The hell are you doing!” The Doctor yelled, as Faye fought Ellen inside of the room. “Get out! You’ll contaminate the room!”
Ellen grabbed her by the hair and ripped her back, throwing her out through the doorway. “What is wrong with you?! You don’t go waltzing into an active operating room!”
Faye’s eyes started to tear up, as Taylor came running out.
Ellen yelled, “You have got to be one of the dumbest-“
Taylor ran out and pulled the surgical mask from his face. “What is it?”
Faye stood. “We need to go.” She grabbed Taylor’s hand and started off.
“Listen, bitch…” Ellen broke her grip and shoved Faye into the wall. “I don’t give a shit about your orders; you leave my kid out of this!”
Faye squared off with her. “I’ll tell.”
“Tell?” Ellen recoiled, a revolted condescending tone. “What are you, 5 years old? Go tell whoever the hell you want.”
Faye huffed, flipping her hair back, then spun towards the exit.
Taylor looked up at Ellen with a hesitant smile. “Your kid?”
She looked down at him and smiled back.
He put his arm around her.
CHAPTER 29
The sound of jet engines intruded on an unpleasant dream; Jacob shot up, a sharp pain at the base of his skull. He looked around, dazed; seated inside a long hollow cargo hold, mesh benches pulled out along the sides, red and yellow warning signs, written in Russian. “We’re in the air?”
Sacha nodded, her hand clutching the grip of her AK-47.
He felt along an irritation on the back of his head.
“An implant,” Sacha yelled over the roar of the plane’s engines. “Mimicks the collar. Don’t try ripping it out, or you die.”
“It’s funny!” Jacob yelled. “You spend your childhood imprisoned, serving others; spend a decade serving the people and yet, you’re so willing to imprison anyone you can use for your advantage. What about me? I’m people too.” He laughed to himself. “Not funny, so much as it is infuriating.”
“We’re not people!” Sacha yelled. “But tools. You were born in a lab, no?”
“I was.” A flood of memories rushed in; a shudder went through him, for the words he was about to speak. “I had a mother though.” How stupid he had been… impulsive and stupid. The one who would care for him, protect him, die for him. A newborn baby, drunk on its own power of being, without a sense of right and wrong. ‘No,’ he thought. ‘I knew right from wrong then. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t care. I forced her to death, just to use my power.’ He felt evil creep within him, like a sickness, cloistered within the depth of his heart; something had changed, the crushing guilt he felt. He wondered whether it was the abandonment of his brothers and sisters, his pilgrimage, or his dream of the prophets. Odd that he would be granted a gift, only to be captured by the ones he sought to join forces with.
“I had a mother once.” A hateful grimace on her face. “She was weak. She abandoned me.”
“Bet she didn’t want to.”
Sacha was silent, staring off at the other side of the plane.
He sat there a moment and stared alongside her. “Sorry about your dog.”
She mumbled something, inaudible.
“Come again?” He leaned in closer.
“Sorry about your face!” she yelled into his ear.
He felt along his forehead, a pain he hadn’t noticed until now. A gash, stitched nearly seamlessly together. He turned to her, a confused look on his face.
“Yes,” she said. “I stitched your wound… Didn’t want it to scar. I’ve said I’m sorry, now leave it alone.”
Jacob laughed out loud, his own irritating behavior reflected back on him.
“What?” she looked at him wide eyed.
“It’s nothing…” He continued to chuckle. “Just that I never realized how annoying that is.”
She looked at him, as though he were crazy.
He leaned back, lifted his head towards the ceiling and and let out an almost jovial sigh, “Ahhh, what a complete asshole I’ve been.”
A combative look swept over Sacha’s face. “Are you calling me an-“
“Get ready!” Pavel yelled through the cargo hold. “Drop zone in 10.”
Sacha transitioned quickly,
making final checks of her ammunitions and supplies, put her helmet on and pulled Jacob to the rear hatch of the aircraft. She sat him down between her legs, harnessed to the same parachute, leaning up against her body.
“I could get used to this,” he said, amusing himself.
She smacked him upside the head.
He turned to see her smile and wink, before lowering her blacked out face shield.
The hatch lowered into a dark abyss, a blast of vacuum rushing, cold turbulence bending into the cargo hold. Sacha fixed the respirator over Jacob’s goggles, wrapped one arm around him, the other positioned behind her, pushing them further out onto the cargo ramp, further to the nothing below. In a moment, they were in freefall. He felt his hand clutching onto her legs, her arm wrapped around his chest.
The moment passed to seconds, seconds to a full minute and concern turned to terror as her arm left his chest. He felt her behind him, thrashing at the chute. His hands released their frigid grip on her legs, moved to the back of his head, digging at the incision.
Her thrashing stopped, as she saw him clawing at the back of his head. She pulled a knife from her boot, sliced into the back of his head. Unable to see the color of wire, she guessed and severed the connection with the small explosive charge.
Sharp pain, warm blood spraying out to the wind, as wires pulled from his head. He thought for a moment that this might paralyze him; he wiggled his toes. They joined hands above his shoulders; a torrent of water pulled in from the sky and the earth, hit them, slowing their descent. They were sinking, more water than sky in the column that surrounded their bodies. Bits of earth rose to meet them, rocks and dirt and sand pelting Jacob’s exposed body.
He could see it now, the glimmer of reflected moonlight on the fast approaching ground. A peak, sand and surf met them hard, head on; rapidly sinking to level ground.
She slammed into Jacob’s back, the smack of bone and flesh onto wet sand took the breath out of her. She rolled over, surprised to be alive. Surf washed onto them, over Jacob’s lifeless impression. She pulled his dead weight up, onto dry beach.
His ribs already broken, her chest compressions sounded a gurgle of air shifting in and out of the lungs, absent the jagged note of bone and sinew. She tore the respirator off to find a broken face, then lifted the chin, the shudder of bone grinding against itself.
She pulled her gloves off and ripped his shirt open, her hands placed one on his chest, the other near his ribcage. She closed her eyes as a bolt shocked its way through his heart, then again, and again, and again.
His chest twitched with each shock. At last, a pulse, then an incomprehensible screaming of agony.
She covered his mouth, muffling his screams. “Stop!” she whispered. “You’ll give up our position.”
“WHTHFKHPND?” he garbled.
She put her hand over his face, covering his mouth and the pain in his eyes from sight. “This is going to hurt,” she whispered. “A lot… I’m sorry.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” The scream was audible despite her best attempts, accompanied by the crunching of bone and sinew as it forced back into place, the red-hot piercing iron of bone fusing back together.
“We’re not done,” she whispered, stuffing her glove into his mouth. “Bite down.” Her hands shifted down to his ribcage.
His teeth bit into the leather, grinding and writhing in pain. She moved to his hips, his legs, then his back. By the end, he was a shell; his face washed sheet-white in the rain. He moved slowly, practically dragged to the rally point.
“What the hell happened to you?” Pavel whispered. He waited in the center of the formation, the others lying in the prone pulling security.
“Parachute malfunction,” Sacha said, dropping Jacob’s arm from around her neck. “Wound up head first in the sand.”
His legs weak, he crashed onto the ground.
Pavel looked her up and down. “You ok?”
“Little banged up.” She looked down at Jacob. “He’s been better.”
“Need to make it to checkpoint 1 by first light.” He pulled a map from his pocket and pointed to the city of Monterey, California. “Think he can make it?”
“Rest,” Jacob said, his eyelids half opened.
“We need to move.” Pavel grabbed him by the shirt, his body hung limp. “And you don’t have much of a choice.”
Jacob grabbed his collar, whipped forward and slammed his head into Pavel’s. Back in the sand, he hacked a painful laugh, his middle fingers aimed at Pavel. “No implant,” he strained.
Pavel stumbled back to the sand, holding the growing welt on his forehead.
The rest of the pack pressed in on him, one with a control collar out, ready.
Jacob raised his hands, his head rocked limp to the side nearly unconscious. “Don’t touch me,” he whispered.
They stepped back, the palpable force shifting the sand around their feet.
“Sacha.” He waited for her to lean in close. “Our mission is one in the same,” he whispered. “Protect me and I’m at your will.”
She looked out at her comrades and grabbed Jacob under the arm. One of them joined her side, poised to secure the collar to his neck. “No.” She took it from him. “He will follow.”
They moved quickly off the beach, to the cover of an oceanside hotel. “What makes you think you can trust him?” Pavel asked.
“I don’t know, exactly,” she said. “But when we were falling; he could have easily spun me, landed on top of me, but he didn’t. Something in him. A darkness and light, at war. I could see his thoughts, weighing the outcomes; He chose to take the full impact himself. Can’t fully explain it, but he needs us; without our help the darkness is in him. Whatever it is, will win and we’ll be left with another adversary.”
Pavel shook his head. “When the time comes, do what’s necessary.”
“If,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 30
“I know who it is,” Taylor said. He had gathered First Sergeant Hawk and Captain Colby in the Delta Battery operations tent, alone. “Before he gets here, you need to know his motives were good. Misguided, but good.”
“You don’t bring drugs onto a military installation, kid.” Colby popped his helmet off. “This guy must be one hell of a moron.”
“Correct,” Taylor nodded. “But think about all the people withdrawing off –“
“I know, I know.” Colby plopped down in a chair. “In all our ‘fighting a war,’ drug rehab hasn’t really been a priority.”
“Right,” Taylor nodded, sensing Colby’s cynicism. “With all the withdrawal and overdose deaths we’ve seen up at the hospital, the problem is clearly bigger than-“
“Hey little dude,” Collin poked his head into the tent. His eyes adjusted, until they focused on Colby and Hawk. “Oh!” He spun and started off at a run.
“Get him!” Hawk yelled, already at a sprint, as Colby darted from the chair. Hawk tackled him, pinned him to the ground, dragging him back inside. “Sit down!”
“Guys!” Collins tone panicked. “I don’t know what this is about, but-“
“Shut up,” Colby pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket. “I’m not even gonna ask. I don’t need to ask. You will write down the name of every other supplier you’re aware of, you will cease any further supply of illegal narcotics upon pain of death, and you will supply this installation with an adequate supply of methadone for drug treatment. Are we clear?”
Collin let out a nervous laugh. “You wouldn’t kill me, man.”
“Oh?” Colby pointed west. “Cause there’s an artillery impact area less than two miles from here, full of unexploded ordinance and outside the wire. You think anyone’s gonna risk a run in with the hunters or a blown off leg to search for a drug dealer’s dead body?”
“Alright man.” Collin held his hands out defensively. “I’ll pick some up on my next run.”
“No.” Hawk grabbed him under his arm, pulled him to his feet. “You’ll pick some up now.”
“It’s getting dark.” Collin sensed the severity of his actions, a newfound fear at his predicament. “I can’t go out there.”
“If you make it back,” Colby slapped a flashlight hard against his chest, “I will consider letting you live outside of prison walls.” They dragged him east to the entry control point, writing down names and locations of other dealers, then threw him outside an entry control point.
“You can’t do this, man.” He pressed himself to the razor wire, watching the two walk away in the fading light. “I won’t make it back before dark!”
“Better hurry!” Hawk yelled.
“You like that?” Colby asked. “I just thought of that.”
Hawk laughed. “Think we should have told him that the kid’s watching his back?”
“Nope.” He heard shots in the distance, a guard post to the north. “Let him sweat, fun’s about to start.”
“Hello?” Faye poked her head inside the doorway.
Gary’s eyes lit up when he saw her. “Come in.”
Faye threw her shoulders back and strutted into the office.
Gary shot up, a palpable beating in his chest. “What can I do for you?”
She sat gracefully and crossed her legs. “I’m having trouble with this ‘accountability’ thing.”
“Oh?” He leaned in with a smitten grin.
She shot him a coy glance, fluttered her eyelashes. “A child I’m responsible for, he refused to come with me. And a nurse assaulted me when I tried to take him.”
His eyes widened at the accusation. “I need a name.”
“The nurse is Ellen.” She smiled as though she’d already won. “The boy is Taylor.”
He scribbled the names on a piece of paper. “I’ll handle it.” He cleared his throat, his heart thumping out of his chest. “A little off topic… do you have plans for dinner?”
Her back arched, her voice light and airy. “I’m free.”
“Father, we thank you for this day…” Ellen bowed her head in prayer. “We thank you that our family is alive and well.” She looked around Dustin’s cramped travel trailer, at Bob eying the food, Ben and Joe shoving each other under the table, and Taylor, his head bowed, hands clasped silently in his lap. “We thank you for making us whole… Please bless this food to our body. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”