by Mark Tufo
***
“Mike, you there? Mike?”
Black shaded to gray, gray became muted light. “Heaven?” I asked, weakly.
“Um, not quite,” Paul responded. “You saved our asses out there.”
“Everything still where it’s supposed to be?” I croaked.
Paul stared down at me for a second before realization dawned on him. Ten fingers ten toes, and Tracy was here earlier, she was smiling, so I would imagine everything’s where it’s supposed to be.
"Yeah good.” I fell back to sleep.
***
“Fuckin’ guy, hero of the day,” Paul said to Dennis. “And he’s worried about where his pecker is.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Dennis answered.
Paul laughed. “Got me on that one. Let’s go grab a brew.
***
I awoke a few hours later, feeling infinitely better, which wasn’t saying much. I took stock of my body and couldn’t find a spot that didn’t have some sort of pain, from a dull ache to mind-numbing fire.
“That was pretty stupid, what you did,” Tracy said as she wiped a tear from her eye.
I tried to reach up to console her, but pain shot from the tips of my fingers down my right side. I winced.
“You know you promised me you’d never do anything stupid again. You didn’t even make it forty-eight hours,” she said.
“If I hadn’t of done it, I wouldn’t have made it. Which way was less stupid?” I asked
Tracy leaned down to hug me.
“Careful,” I said. “I’m fragile.” And I meant it. I awoke a few hours later, Tracy was fast asleep in a chair she had requisitioned. She fully intended on never leaving my side again. Not only while I was recuperating, but in every battle from here on out. If I was going to keep doing the insane stunts, she was going to be there to minimize the risk.
***
Paul noticed I was awake. “Hey buddy, came by to see how you were doing.”
“Well, aside from the excruciating pain in my back and the fact I’m partially deaf in my left ear, I’d say pretty good.”
“That’s good news then,” Paul quipped.
“Paul, I’ve been meaning to ask somebody, but I’m not usually up for more than a few minutes.”
“Go ahead, you seem pretty lucid at the moment. It’s amazing what drugs can do these days.”
“Thanks, I think. What the hell happened after I got the shit blown out of me?” I asked already feeling the fringes of fatigue fighting their way in.
“Well, buddy, up until the mortars struck you were right there with us. I still can’t figure out how you didn’t get shot. Those alien rounds were everywhere, it was like a blue light special out there. I mean, Mike, I really can’t figure out how you didn’t get blown away, you were a very viable target for a full five seconds. Hell, there were houseflies that wouldn’t have lasted half that long out there.” Paul scratched his head. “I can’t say I saw your rocket shot hit the target, I was in the process of ducking and covering from the mortar rounds, but the effect was instantaneous—Blackburn Hall rained down all over the place.”
“Could it have been a mortar round?” I asked.
“Could’ve been, but it wasn’t, the mortar rounds landed about midway between us and the uninvited guests. Besides, I said I hadn’t seen it, but I got firsthand accounts from troops who were a little farther back.”
“That’s good to know,” I answered, sleep already tugging at the corners of my eyes.
“But, Mikey, does it matter how it got destroyed as long as it got destroyed? You once told me ‘anyway to good is good’.”
“Yeah, Paul it really does,” I answered, seriously. “I promised that girl over there I wouldn’t do anything that needlessly put my life in danger.”
“You love her, Mike?” Paul asked.
“I do, Paul, and it scares the shit out of me. It’s not like this is the best of times.”
“Yeah, Mike, you’re right in that respect. But even so, isn’t it better to have it than not?”
“I’m just so scared I could lose her before we really had a chance,” I answered.
“That might also be true, Mike, but I guess I’d have to defer you back to your original quote.”
“I gotcha, bud. One more thing, Paul; what kind of causalities did we take?”
“We lost a hundred sixty-seven, and we have another eighty to eighty-five injured. I know it’s some steep numbers, but we estimate they lost somewhere in the neighborhood of eight hundred fifty.”
I echoed what Paul was already thinking. “Those numbers are great for the amount of kills but we can’t absorb those kinds of losses. We’re going to have to rethink our strategies. They recovered way too quickly from the initial attack. I thought we’d have them on the run up until the Wrentham town line.”
“You and me both, Mike. But your shot, besides saving our asses, taught us something very valuable.”
I fought off the vestiges of sleep as valiantly as I could to hear the new development.
“After you blew up the Hall, something pretty strange happened. Sure it took out a lot of the aliens around the base of it but by no means all of them. The ones that were still alive and kicking… for lack of a better term, became very hesitant… um, very unsure of themselves.”
I liked the news but I wanted to make sure all the angles were being covered. “Was it shellshock?”
“I thought that too, Mike, but even the ones farther away that weren’t directly affected by the blast had the same thing happen.”
“This could be huge, Paul. Cut off the head and the snake dies.”
“Exactly, but it was a temporary effect. Some of our soldiers stayed just a little too long and found out with the ultimate price. Their lives.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, as soon as those damned fighters showed up, any latency in the Genogerians disappeared. They picked up right where they had left off, as if they had never stopped in the first place.”
“We need to get a hold of a prisoner,” I said.
Paul laughed.
My expression didn’t change.
“You’re not kidding? Tell me you’re kidding?”
“Think about it, we need to know how to sever that connection; what if it’s just a matter of jamming a radio signal?”
“I didn’t even think of that. We could start routing them on every field of battle.” Paul was truly excited now. As was I. “We can’t send anybody just yet, they have two of their fighters parked at the town hall and they’ve trucked in at least a few hundred more soldiers from God knows where. And they’ve been having patrols fly over the whole town since the battle. I’m afraid if we send anybody out we’ll give our position away.”
“That’s alright. It doesn’t sound like they have the resources to keep up that pace. We’ll wait them out. Shouldn’t be more than three or four days. By then I should be good to go.”
“Whoa, wait a second. You just told me you weren’t going to do anything to needlessly endanger yourself.”
“I’m not, this is very needful. Now I’m going back to sleep.”
“Good night, my friend,” Paul said as he walked out of the room a lot happier than when he walked in. Hope had that effect.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Beth had spotted a few of the enemy fighters from a distance, but had crossed over into Walpole without the slightest hitch. Sampson padded alongside, stopping occasionally to mark his territory, partly for the sake of the aliens and partly for the sake of the crazy man following them. Sampson had caught the scent a couple of miles back and no matter how much he tried to urge his new friend on she just wasn’t having any of it. He knew she was tired and she was stopping more and more frequently even when he would muzzle her lap to urge her forward.
“I know, Sampson. I know you’re excited about getting there and so am I,” she said as she sat down on a large boulder looking over Bird River. “But then how would you know we’
re getting close? Huh, boy? You’re just picking up on my excitement… is that it?” she said as she scratched behind his ears. And whereas, he liked that sensation immensely that was not the reason he kept pushing at her. The crazy man was close and Sampson knew it. He turned and bristled. Beth stood in alarm. Sampson began to bark and growl. White foam poured from his mouth as if on cue. Beth began to shake, trouble had caught up. Pegged emerged from the woods fifteen yards from where she stood. Even from that distance, Beth could tell her pursuer was a long way from healthy. Red angry blotches covered his face, hair had begun to fall out of his scalp in bunches, he was coated in sweat, his eyes burned red like the coals of a still hot fire. His sanity, what remained anyway, was completely shredded and in tatters, pooled around the remnants of his conscience.
“Ah, so we meet again,” he said as casually as if they had bumped into each other at a mutual friend's dinner party. “I see you have a companion. No, matter it’s only one extra bullet.”
The dog lowered to the ground slowly inching his way toward him.
Pegged had known she had a dog with her, he had found some tracks a while back, but he was wholly unprepared for how immense the thing actually was. There were just enough wits about him to realize the danger.
“Make your little lap dog heal, or I’m going to put a bullet right between his eyes!” he said with vehemence.
“Sampson, come here!” Beth said hoping the dog would listen. She didn’t see a way out, but she wasn’t dead yet and neither was Sampson, so there was still a chance.
“Aptly named,” Pegged said as Sampson partly did as he was told. He stopped moving period; neither going forward or backwards.
“It’s good to see you again,” Pegged said, leering.
“I wish I could say the same,” Beth answered.
He moved a few feet closer, his gaze never wavering from Beth.
“Ummm, you look good. Maybe I’ll give you some before I kill you,” Pegged said as he ran his free hand over his groin.
Beth’s stomach turned. She would cut her own throat before she would ever let him touch her.
“I’ll kill myself long before you have the chance.”
“Hey, as long as you’re still warm, that suits me too.”
“You disgust me, you pathetic pig!” Beth shouted.
“Yeah, that’s right, bitch! Keep talking dirty.” He stepped a little closer.
“It’s Beth, you worthless piece of shit,” she said, her heart hammering in her throat.
“Well, since we’re going to be all civil and introduce ourselves, my name is Pegged.”
“Fitting.”
He smiled. Beth was torn. Pegged was increasingly cutting the distance between himself and Sampson, she feared for the safety of the big dog but wanted the death of the maddog.
Beth stalled for time. “Why have you followed me? What could I have possibly done to you to make you come across a whole state to try and kill me?”
“Bitch.” His eyes flared. “You killed my brother back there in that bathroom stall.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of person who would care about someone enough to put yourself out like this.”
“You’re right. I couldn’t stand the whiny little shit. But he was still family and I have to do what’s right.”
Beth laughed. “Oh great, a madman with morals and a code of honor,” she chortled.
“Fuck you, bitch,” Pegged said, taking another step closer, his pistol raised, the barrel of the .45 looking like a small cannon from that distance. “I’ll fucking drop you right here, right now.”
Beth froze, her breath caught in her throat. The world slowed as her mind raced.
Sampson had hoped the crazy man would get a little closer, but he could sense the man that had precariously been hanging on to the edge had finally slipped over. If he was to act, his only opportunity was now. Sampson bolted from a pure standstill to full speed in a fraction of a second. The only thing that gave his stealthy launch away was the rocks shooting out from his rear paws from the thrust of his powerful muscles. Pegged looked down as Sampson slammed into his lower legs, the locking of his left knee sent the bullet he had released slightly off mark. Beth felt the impact of the giant slug slam into her upper body, pain blistered throughout her as she was thrown to the ground. The force of the bullet crashing her onto the ground behind.
Before she lost consciousness, she heard three things, the first was the snapping of a bone, the second was the sharp report of another bullet and the third—the one that struck her the deepest—was the grunt and whine of Sampson as she realized he had been the recipient of that last round.
“So this is how it ends,” she said, looking up into the rapidly graying blue sky. Something flashed by on her right side but she had neither the strength nor the inclination to try to find out what it was.
Beth awoke for a few moments, blood rushing to her head, somewhat feeling like a sack of potatoes. She was unsure as to why consciousness eluded her and she blacked out once again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE - Mike Journal Entry 17
“Hey, buddy,” Dennis said as he walked into the room, the now familiar bottle of Jack accompanying him. He noticed me eyeing the bottle. “Want some?”
“Nah, I already feel like a train wreck; I don’t need a hangover on top of it,” I answered.
“You sure? This stuff cures just about everything.”
I waved my hand and Dennis nodded as he took another pull.
“Ah man, Mike, do you remember that time you, me, and Paulie came up to the Hill? That night after the Ozzy concert,” Dennis said looking off into the distance.
“In one aspect, bud, the memory of the event is crystal clear, however the details, well, they’re pretty fuzzy.”
“Ain’t that the truth? That was probably the best overall night of my life.”
I sat up in my bed, realizing that Dennis had something on his chest and this was just his preliminary way of leading into it. “You know when we got those hits of mescaline, I got to admit, I was scared shitless to take them. I know you and Paul had taken it before.”
“A couple of times,” I added.
“Yeah, a couple of times, and you weren’t any more fucked up after than you normally are.”
“Uh, thanks, I think.”
“You know what I mean,” Dennis said hastily.
“Only messing with you, Dennis.”
“It’s just that, you know we went to this awesome concert tripping our trees out and then somehow made it back to the Hill to look at the sky and talk about stuff I don’t even remember ever having thought about before.”
I smiled. It had been a pretty good night and hearing Dennis talk about it brought the memories to the forefront.
“I mean, we even talked about how there had to be life on other planets, just because of the sheer odds. And honestly, Mike, I think I was just agreeing with you to agree with you. I didn’t honestly think there were any such things as aliens. But now, looking back, I was just being ignorant.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Dennis. First off, we were blasted, I think at one point we were talking about alternate tangent realities.”
“Yeah, I vaguely remember that. My point, though, Mike, is I didn’t really believe in it. Hell, I didn’t want to believe in it. Just the thought of it scared the shit out of me.”
“Dennis, I definitely wanted to believe we weren’t the only ones out in the universe, but had I known we were going to run into a species hell bent on enslaving us and taking over our planet, I think I would have rethought my stance.”
“It’s not even that. It’s just that the night was truly the last peaceful, serene, content night I’ve had.”
I looked at him quizzically.
“After we left Indian Hill I went to Angela’s house and stayed the night with her. I mean, there I was, had a great night with my two best friends and then spent the rest of the evening with the only girl I’ve ever loved. And you know we broke up a
couple of months after that and then the following week, you and Paul headed out to Colorado. I was pretty f’ed up for a while, really got into some heavy drugs.”
I cocked my head. “Dennis, I never knew man. I’m sorry it went down like that.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Mike, and it’s not like I broadcast it, either. I guess I just wasn’t ready to grow up and move on. If it hadn’t of been for the project Paul put me in charge of I’d probably be sitting at the Kihei restaurant getting drunk.”
“Den, I think we’ve all done some growing up we weren’t quite ready for.”
“I’m not done yet.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I said placatingly.
“What I’m trying to get at in a roundabout way, is…” Dennis hesitated. “If all of this shit hadn’t gone down, would we have remained friends?”
“I’m not sure if I understand, bud?”
“If the Geno… whatever the fuck they’re called had never come, would you and Paul have stayed in touch? Would we have stayed friends?” he asked pleadingly.
“Dennis, just because Paul and I were up at college, didn’t change the friendship we have. Sure we were doing our own things, but I’ll never forget the times we shared growing up. Obviously, we weren’t going to see each other almost every day like we used to but, you’re a friend Dennis—a best friend—you don’t just discard those things when you move away, there’s way too much time and effort put in to make great friendships to so easily leave one behind so to speak. Can I say with absolute certainty we would have remained friends? No, I can’t, but I can answer definitively that you were in my thoughts a lot while I was up at school. I was always asking myself what would Dennis be thinking if he were here now? Or I bet Dennis would get a kick out of this. And I leaned on a lot of the memories we had shared to get me through some pretty tough times on that ship. Am I glad to see you now? You can bet your ass I am. I’m just not happy with why I am seeing you now. We’ve both lost a lot over these last couple of years and to still have you and Paulie around, well that just really helps to ease some of the pain, my brother.”