by Bonds, Javan
22
Suspicion
THE PHANTOMS WERE Indian NSG commandos accompanying Dr. Philip George on his mission in America. He had been sent to uncover and prevent a bioengineered virus from sweeping across the country and perhaps the world. This objective had been laid down without much hope of success. It was expected to fail, so the cardiologist wasn’t too downtrodden when the sickness struck hundreds of miles from his position.
Since unveiling himself as a Phantom HIT to the local Americans, he made contact with his team. The doctor had heard rumors of the location of a cure for this pandemic. He and two of The Phantoms, Kumar Jindal and Sanjay Patel, had begun a journey to the ocean. Mahatma Doshi and Rajesh Mattu remained on the island of Guntersville to protect and serve wherever they could.
They were backed up by a growing local police force and the former U.S. Army soldiers that swore allegiance to Guntersville the day The Villain was defeated. They were finally able to relax. Keeping their home country from being overtaken by the infection had been their top priority since before May Day. Once the government believed India was basically secure, the HITs had been tasked with joining their commander, Dr. George, in Alabama.
Once the team decided the supposed cure would have to be sought, they all agreed two commandos should remain on the island to provide support and keep order. Keeping it had not been difficult among orderly people working together to survive. A bright dawn was peeking over the horizon in this new world. Civilian law enforcement was capable of dealing with most every need of the Islanders. Mahatma and Rajesh were able to take a back seat.
With several kidnappings in recent months, The Phantoms had been part of the larger investigation. Though not trained detectives, they were more than happy to help find missing children. Today, as many days previous, they joined with Hirotoro Sako. The trio was to search coastal buildings on the mainland to look for clues on the whereabouts of the lost youngsters.
All The Phantoms wore Clone Trooper armor, accented on the helmet, shoulders, gauntlets, and greaves with a different color. They may have all appeared similar in and out of the suits, but at least the color gave them individuality. Kumar was accented with blue, Mahatma’s armor had a hint of black, Rajesh was identified by green, and Sanjay sported the color red. When first trying on the armor, Gene wanted to call them Billy, Zach, Tommy, and Jason respectively. He knew they wouldn’t catch the Power Rangers reference.
Though they did wear The Tech’s suits of armor, all four Clone Troopers carried traditional Asian Indian melee weapons they had brought from home. Unlike anything in Gene’s collection these strange looking blades made the HITS stand out and would make anyone think twice before attacking.
Mahatma, the black Ranger– Trooper, wielded a bhuj. The bhuj was a fixed blade on a long shaft. This is why it was commonly called an axe knife. Measuring 10 inches long, the recurved blade was single edged with a pointed, double-sided tip. The knob at the end of the metal haft was stylized as an elephant head. This knob could be unscrewed to reveal a small but deadly stiletto type blade.
Rajesh was equipped with his family’s trishula. It was a weapon similar to a trident, with three prongs, handed down through generations. One major difference was that each of the three points were bladed. This pain dealing tool was not only made to stab but was intended to slice its enemy to ribbons. With a shaft of six feet, Mattu would be able to eviscerate his adversaries from a distance.
☠☠☠
Standing behind the mounted .50 cal, Rajesh remained at ease and watched Islanders casually walking within their safe zone. His fellow Phantom, Mahatma, sat behind the wheel of the Humvee. They were accompanied by Hirotoro Sako. This local policeman was Okinawan by birth, though he had spent most of his life in America. Having lived in Marshall County for years, he was nearly native. The man instructed them to call him Toro, but the HITs would never be able to call him anything besides Staff Sergeant Sako.
The former Marine had been a survivalist before the diarrhea hit the blue fan. People told him his preparations were a fruitless waste of time and money. Being a prepper finally paid off. After those naysayers became naked monsters that ate raw meat and shit in the woods, Sako just smiled.
Hirotoro was outfitted in the garb of Rorschach. Some might not recognize the unwavering patriot that was a favorite from The Watchmen. Wearing a thick trench coat, leather gloves, a Fedora, and carrying the obligatory blotted mask in his pocket, he was an investigator. The fact that he was once a detective in the police force only fortified this embodiment. His goal was to find clues that would lead to the discovery of the displaced children. Or at least, Sako realized the discovery of what happened to them.
Just like The Phantoms, Toro chose not to wield a blade from The Tech’s cornucopia. He carried a samurai sword passed down through his family for generations. Ivory was the sword’s name. The pummel at the end of the hilt was intricately carved. Every inch of the hilt was white and was made from the tusks of elephants. Razor-sharp steel curved slightly to make Ivory nearly forty inches from the tip of the blade to the end of the haft. Blood had been spilled countless times by this weapon throughout the centuries.
Samurai carried a companion to their katana, a tanto. This short sword was the little sister to Ivory. At twenty inches, Ebony was a baby katana. With a blade of the same style, the only difference besides length was that the hilt was hewn from Black Onyx. A gleaming blade protruding from midnight stone, this tanto was just as deadly as her big sister.
☠☠☠
Staff Sergeant Sako instructed Doshi to drive across the southern causeway to the state park lodge. Having been well over a month since May Day, the safe zone had expanded past the boundaries of just the island. Most of the islands to the north of the main city had been reclaimed. Now, especially to the immediate south of the island, things were fairly human friendly. The pontoon bridge remained in place to make the connection of the causeway almost permanent.
Rajesh readied his hands on the mount, but didn’t plan to see enemies. The Humvee passed Little New York gas station to the right at the turn to the lodge. Two sisters had gone missing yesterday. Brother Brown had lead church groups into mostly secured areas to scavenge. Guntersville State Park was the location the group had been salvaging materials in before girls went missing.
Rain came down the day before yesterday, so they were hoping to see clues as to where the children had been before disappearing. They stopped in the parking lot. Hirotoro smiled. He noticed the place to start looking. “Playground!” He pointed to a small recess yard. The three were off.
When they got to the playground, Rorschach paced the area, looking for clues. Muddy scuffs marked the steps of the metal slide. Small feet had been pressed over and over into the ground on either end of the seesaw. The detective then discovered something that gave him pause. Larger footprints. An adult in slick bottomed boots with sharp pointed toes.
Sako wasn’t sure if he should be happy or sickened and terrified. Did he just find proof that these children weren’t simply missing but actually kidnapped by a human? He followed the footprints of the adult to take a seat at one of the benches. Two pairs of tiny sneakers came over to the bench. At some point, the adult stood to walk away with a pair of small footprints on either side.
Flanked by a pair of Clone Troopers, the investigator followed the footprints onto the sidewalk. This wasn’t their first rodeo; they had been doing these investigations since the beginning. But they finally had reason to suspect the missing children had actually been taken. Following the fading footprints down the sidewalk they came to stand in front of the main entrance to the Lodge.
Completely invisible were the footprints now. There was no way to know if they went into the building or perhaps a vehicle parked under the portico. Hirotoro Sako was aware that buildings on the mainland full of small rooms were not safe. The scavengers normally only took what they could from outside buildings and remained in the open.
While the main room in the large building was fairly open, and had remained mostly untouched. The smaller rooms had definitely not been looted. Cafeterias on the campgrounds had, being huge buildings. Back rooms of these lunch halls were easy to raid, vacuum sealed packages of food meant most of the salvage was safe from the infected. Fresh and frozen foods spoiled long ago, but canned goods were easy pickings.
At this point, reclamation teams had reached out miles past the lodge in all directions. First salvage runs stretched nearly to the point of surrounding counties. The pastor and his church group were only looking for anything initially left behind. It was so safe that scavengers in the groups were encouraged to bring their children.
The Rorschach dressed detective wasn’t worried about being safe. His Mask went over his head and katana slid out of the scabbard from over his shoulder. They were going in. Just outside the door laid a child’s sneaker. Investigation came first. Consequences be damned!
☠☠☠
“Sure is funny how all the doors to these abandoned buildings were never locked. Convenient.” Hirotoro’s smile could be heard through the mask when he spoke over his shoulder to the HITs.
One of the Mandalorions responded jokingly. “They wanted to make it easy for us to walk in to our deaths.”
All three chuckled. Sako continued the banter with one of Rorschach’s creepy lines. “Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.” Upon being met with silence, he realized the line might have been too disturbing. Either that, or Doshi and Mattu just weren’t secret geeks.
It would have been strange to most to see three grown men cracking jokes while searching for possibly dead children. After conducting such investigations for months, the situation didn’t seem striking to them. When the current job requires investigators to search through the madness and depravity of possible kidnappers, one had to keep his sanity. In a mad world, only the mad are sane, Staff Sergeant Sako thought grimly.
Dark and expansive, the main room echoed. Worthless computers and phones still sat on the long desk to the left. Sako scanned the immediate area for recent foot traffic. There! Bare, bloodied footprints led down the hallway to the smaller suites. The Phantoms and others told him stories of peevies caring living humans to their nests where they would slowly slaughter the victims. Maybe it wasn’t too late for these girls.
Charging ahead, the HITs began readying their blades. The detective outfitted as Rorschach already had his katana primed to let blood. Bare footprints doubtfully suggested a human kidnapper. Regardless, whatever type of enemy presented itself, cold justice will be its end.
Mahatma smacked the Haft of his bhuj against his left palm. Accented with green, Rajesh rotated the trishula, psyching himself up for battle. Staff Sergeant Hirotoro Sako led the surging protagonists to stand in front of the door; the only door that appeared to have been in recent use. Bloody fingerprints were smeared around the knob. He thrust his leg forward and kicked the door in.
So far down a darkened hall, natural light was dimly weak. Beams from the sun only allowed a gloomy hint of sight into the room. A torn and decomposing body could be smelled and eventually seen in the corner of the enclosure. All three heroes tensed and readied for an attack. For shame, Toro thought, the hood doesn’t provide de-sensitivity of smell.
Stepping further into the room, it was apparent this corpse was not human. They wouldn’t have been sorry to find that it was. But it wasn’t the body of a peevie. Stinky entrails dangled from strips of ripped hide. A maggot Infested deer carcass welcome them to a disgusting room of nightmares.
Just realizing the floor under their feet seemed tacky, the trio shuffled on thick, wet carpet with a sickly grayish green tone. Blood from what had to be every type of creature soaked the plush rug covering the floor. Manure turned the bloody carpet into a slimy sludge. Guts and feces mixed to give the air a tangy sweet scent.
Scattered around the suite, beneath the masses of flies, were bones from many kinds of woodland creature. Raccoon skulls, the remains of possums, and even a twelve point set of antlers from a white tail buck stared at them with empty eyes from across the room.
Hirotoro whistled from beneath his blotted hood. He pointed to the massive rack. “Damn! I wish I could’ve met that fella before May Day.”
Staff Sergeant Sako could detect no human bones with several sweeps of his eyes.
The children were not here.
Maybe they were in another room or maybe they never came into the lodge. The trio would have to check that portico. Perhaps there were clues showing they got into a vehicle.
The Phantoms turned to follow their leader out of the room. Mahatma decided he was going to slam his bhuj into the door after it closed. He wanted to break the knob, making this room inaccessible. The disgusting animals would not get what little meat remained on the bones of the poor deer. Just as they stepped out into the hall, a keening screech could be heard.
“Company!” Rajesh sounded as he turned his wrists over on the trishula. It would now be used to slam the blades down on enemies.
The first peevie came around the corner, accelerating as it took in the sight of three fresh humans. Spreading its arms, the beast let out a long screech. Mahatma could be heard cracking his neck. He and Doshi turned to watch for enemies coming from the other end of the hall. Ivory extended, Sako moved forward to the advancing enemy.
Hirotoro walked with shoulders forward; Ivory’s tip pointing at the blunatic in his sight. They drew within yards of each other and he raised his blade. Peevies obviously had a hard time understanding the gleaming sticks some humans carried were quite pointy and slashy. Before the day was through, any surviving revenant’s taking part in this battle would have a better understanding of just that.
The first reanimated corpse lunged at the hero with arms outstretched. It didn’t register the katana slicing cleanly through its torso below the belly button. Momentum carried the body forward as gravity began sliding it apart. Its rectum spontaneously drizzled its final farewell. Organs spilled out as the lower extremities came away from the upper half.
Arms became useless and lost their rigidity, after receiving damage to the spinal cord. No longer having control of its extremities, numb fingers crumpled against his leather trench coat. Yellow eyes grew wide, realizing all feeling vanished. The beast slammed into Rorschach and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Just before true death overtook it, Sako ran the razor-sharp katana across its neck.
Two more sexually aroused peevies charged the underdog hero of The Watchmen. He forced his blade between one’s legs and sliced up. He caught the inside of the thigh and tore open the femoral artery. The momentum of his swing forced the blade to slash back out into the ball sack, splitting the left testicle cleanly in two. Jism and blood ran out of the open scrotum and mixed with the arterial blood on the floor. The katana effortlessly chopped through its flaccid, blue penis and eventually lodged against pelvic bone. Hirotoro wrenched the blade free to watch pounds of guts slapping to the floor.
The mortally injured zombie fell back in shock and immense torture. Its companion continued forward, not realizing the fate that lay before it. The Staff Sergeant swung Ivory from right to left, slicing completely through the neck.
The monster couldn’t register that it had just been beheaded. Its body abruptly stopped while the head continued forward. Panic briefly crossed its features before the chin toppled over and the body collapsed. The bodiless head rolled, landing against the opposing wall with its yellow eyes still staring out in seeming disbelief. Blood rocketed from the still beating heart of the headless body as gallons of the crimson fluid, or so it seemed, poured onto the floor. Initial attackers down, only a hundred to go.
☠☠☠
“Six o’clock!” the HIT with green accents shouted to his brother as he turned. The enemy was charging down the stairs at the other end of the hall.
It was morbidly funny to watch the blunatics rush down the fligh
t of stairs. At least half a dozen made up the first wave. The three at the front were taking two or three steps with every stride, making it easily. Their clumsy nudist companion to the rear tripped from about halfway up the flight.
The male peevie toppled at a high rate of speed and was airborne for several feet. It impacted one step with the erect head of its penis. The unfortunate member doubled over, with the tip now laid over the top and touching the base. Testicles flattened and surely ruptured when they slammed against the wood. Now rolling, the re-animate bowled into the three unfortunate enough to be below it on the stairs.
Surprised, sprays of diarrhea squirted out and mostly onto the peevie taking their legs out from under them. Similarly tumbling their bones fractured and completely shattered with every crashing blow on the hardwood. Blackened hearts slowly stilled as destroyed bodies came to rest on solid ground.
Only two of the initial surge of infected remained and tried to come down the stairs at a calmer pace. The Phantoms stood with weapons ready and made their own charge at the beasts. Good and evil collided with devastating results.
Well, at least, devastating for evil. Rajesh slammed his trishula into the monster before him. It impacted the sternum and stabbed through the solar plexus. Bowels of the starving creature voided one last time when the cardiac muscle and airways were punctured. The Phantom drug the body along the floor to him until it came off his weapon.
Mahatma’s opponent didn’t receive the same quickness in death. The sharpened point of the axe knife penetrated just under the rib cage. Digging into vital organ before impacting bone, The Phantom tore the blue free, making a wide slice. A rainbow of colors poured out of the doomed peevie.
Driven by hunger, it still reached up, uselessly trying to get through the armor. Doshi brought his blade down repeatedly on the thing’s collarbone, causing a crimson spray with each smash. In a few swings, bones crack. Arteries ruptured by the time he ended the onslaught.
