by Mark Tufo
“You’re a sick bastard, Durgan, and don’t worry about me. I should have kicked your ass when I had the chance.” Durgan snarled at me as he walked out the door. I was hoping that my false bravado held up. Good thing for the restraints though; they kept me from shaking right off the friggin’ table. I fell back to sleep at some point, since there was really not a whole bunch to do when you’re strapped down. I was awakened later, by one of the Progerians whom I recognized, as crazy as that sounds. I definitely spent too much time on this ship.
“I know you, you helped me once.”
“Yes, yes I did. That might not have been the most prudent move, considering the outcome. The fact remains though you have made me rich. And although you destroyed a bunch of our ships and kidnapped our supreme commander, (may the great one live forever), my cousin was out on that dock! Did you know that?” His head bobbed up and down in an exaggerated tempo. It was something I noticed often happened when the Progerians got a little too agitated.
I wanted to tell him that I had nothing to do with the destruction of the ships, but it didn’t seem like it would have mattered, so why bother?
“I thought about killing you myself… Maybe just coming in here and shooting you with some poison. And I most likely would have, but when they posted the odds of your upcoming event, I couldn’t help but ponder the possibilities. You see, you are a hundred to one shot against beating Durgan and still the drakkar keeps pouring in on his side. The odds will just keep rising and that’s when I’m going to make my bet, when they are at their peak. I don’t know what it is about you, hu-man, but you seem to always ‘pull it out in the clutch,’ as your species says. No matter how bad it looks, you just win. And right now, from where I stand, it looks pretty bad. So instead of killing you, I’m going to give you some of my special concoction and free you up here so that you can begin your training.”
“I guess I don’t have any say in this?” I inquired as he raised up my shirt sleeve and revealed a hypodermic.
“Silly hu-man, you’ll never have another choice in your life.” I grimaced as he seemed to deliberately jab me with the needle. I guess I couldn’t blame him. He was wrong though if he thought I was going to be his little lap dog from here on. My blood began to boil; sweat came out of every pore. I thought I might combust on the spot.
“What did you give me?” I was concerned maybe he had changed his mind and decided to go with the poison.
“Just a little something to get you on your way. You look a little lighter than I remember; you had better start bulking up. A week is not that much time.” The Progerian left but not before he had completely freed me from my confines.
I sat up rubbing my wrists where the straps had been. I glanced around my room. It was my original room. A pang stirred in my belly. It was the same room all right, but there were none of the previous occupants. Images of Deb and Beth flashed before my eyes. I wanted to cry, right there and then. But what would that solve? If I ever wanted to see them again I was going to have to take care of business first.
I walked over to the weight bench. I felt like I could lift ten men, but in reality only if those ten men weighed twenty-seven pounds each. Right now, I wasn’t much weaker than when I left the ship, but how long would this doping last? That, however, wasn’t going to be a problem.
My greedy Progerian friend showed up every day to feed me food and my daily supply of “vitamins,” as he liked to call them. What this was doing to me internally, I had no clue. Physically though, it was unbelievable. Stamina, strength and sheer muscle mass, which had been lacking since my ‘surgery’, were now coming back in leaps in bounds. Progress that should have taken months was being reduced to days. It was almost hour-by-hour. I knew it couldn’t be good for me, but what was the alternative? Die at the hands of a madman?
Durgan also came to visit me on occasion. I felt like a toy to him, one which he had been waiting for some special holiday to unwrap. Somehow, I never got the feeling that I’d be one of those toys that stayed on a shelf as a souvenir. He meant to play hard and if he broke his 'toy'? Oops.
Chapter 46
Beth and Sergeant Grady O’Bannon made it across the state line, completely undetected. The going had been rough and slow, but for the most part uneventful. Beth’s surliness had only exasperated the sheer silence of their crossing. Had Grady known about his previous unit’s condition, they could have easily driven the truck across the border and into Walpole. A large group of bikers and hot rodders had tried to plunder the Guardsmen’s bounty.
The ensuing battle had nearly crippled Barracks Twenty-seven. The commanding officer recalled all units that were patrolling other ports of entry into the state. The Guard unit lost nearly a third of its men and just about half their equipment and munitions before thwarting the attempted takeover. The colonel was busy meeting with the wives of the newly departed while O’Bannon and Beth made their crossing.
Getting new wheels proved difficult but not nearly as dour as O’Bannon first speculated. While the National Guard had “acquired” a great many vehicles, the bulk of them had been pickup trucks or SUVs, things that were more suitable to carting around a lot of gear. When the two travelers came upon a Jeep, sitting by the side of the road, they could hardly believe their luck.
“Do you think it runs?” Beth asked as she pulled the briars out of her jacket sleeves. Whoa! She spoke, was his first reaction, but Grady knew that wouldn’t get him anywhere.
“A better question to ask is, whose is it and are they close by?” She gave him a sideways glance and then looked up from her sleeves as they both approached the Jeep cautiously. Most of the people they encountered didn’t take kindly to strangers, especially those that were trying to take stuff from them.
“Shhhh,” the sergeant said as he held out an arm to Beth to hold her back. Beth’s eyes grew wide.
“What? What is it?” she asked as she looked around nervously.
“Stay here. I think I see somebody in the passenger seat.”
Beth stopped short as she squinted her eyes to see what he saw. The glare coming off the hood made it nearly impossible, but she thought that she also saw a figure. And it didn’t look like it was moving. Beth felt like she was staring down the barrel of a gun.
The sergeant moved up the side of the Jeep while Beth stood like a statue in the middle of the street. The sergeant made it to the driver’s side window and peered in, his stomach muscles tensed. The passenger’s throat had been slit from ear to ear. The sergeant turned away as fast as he could; but the image of the maggots spilling out of the man’s jugular would be something that he would carry with him for the rest of his life. He felt that his baggage was becoming more cumbersome.
“What is it?” Beth asked as she saw Grady’s reaction. She started to run up to the Jeep. The sergeant caught her right before she made it.
“Wait! Wait! There’s nothing in there you need to see.” Her curiosity was piqued but if what was in that car turned him so pale, she thought, that was all the reason she needed not to argue.
“Well, what about the car?” she asked, trying to change the subject. Grady pointed to the gas tank. The top had been popped and was loosely hanging from its restraining cord.
“My guess is that it’s as dry as a bone."
The sun was temporarily obscured by a thick mass of clouds, leaving the dead stranger to gape, sightlessly, as the two rapidly departed. The pair preferred to walk down the center lane of the roadway except when they occasionally chanced to hear an oncoming vehicle. Then they would plunge into the woods like ten-year olds playing war games. Both times had been false alarms, but that wasn’t going to stop them from diving into the brush, no matter how many thorns had to be removed. The alternative could be much worse.
They had been walking for close to an hour when the sergeant finally felt that his stomach had calmed down enough. He was thinking about Beth and himself for the better part of the morning. Now he had built up enough courage to broach the matter.
He hoped this wouldn’t re-upset his churning gut, but not knowing seemed infinitely worse.
“Beth, I wanted to talk to you.” Beth turned to face him, knowing full well which way this conversation was headed. She knew it was coming. But knowing and preparing are two different things entirely. She nodded as if to say, 'Go ahead.' Grady took her lack of communication as a bad sign but he plodded forward anyway.
“Beth, I just need to know what yesterday morning meant to you. I mean, I feel…”
“Stop!” she exclaimed as she turned to face him. Her face blushed a few shades of red. “Please don’t go there. Can’t yesterday just be about yesterday? I was scared and lonely and you were there. I love another man, Grady.” Grady’s gut was not going to be let off the hook so easily, just yet.
“Listen, I was there too. You can’t be implying that I was just an available body. I may not be a genius when it comes to figuring out women, but I know you felt something too.”
Beth shied away from his insinuations. She knew he was right; she just didn’t want him to be. How could she do this to Mike? She should have died in that firefight. Debbie was much more worthy to be with him. Beth began to cry at the thought of her friend.
“Please,” she sobbed. “I did feel something, but I’m in love with Mike, and you’re married. What we did was beautiful and it meant a lot to me, but… but it was a mistake. Please, for my sake, just let it be what it was--a one night affair. Something we can cherish but something that can never happen again.”
Grady wanted to say something, no, he was dying to say something, nothing made any sense though. They stood there looking at each other long after they heard the dull roar of an approaching engine. Both had been so lost in their own thoughts that they nearly became road kill before they bolted for opposite sides of the roadway.
The sergeant kept his head bowed and listened to the car come to a stop, approximately right where they were standing moments before. He was angry at himself for letting Beth down like this. Maybe he could distract the driver long enough so that Beth could get away. His plan was cut short by a voice.
“You can come out now. We won’t bite,” the voice coaxed. The sergeant tried to place the voice with someone in his unit but no matches were being made. The voice sounded a little too frail.
“Hello?”
Beth? What was she doing? Could she make it any easier for them? The sergeant stood up to try to urge Beth to make a run for it, but the military two-tonner he expected to see was actually a ‘56 or ‘57 Desoto with an occupant that appeared to be double the age of the car he was driving. The man’s companion, who, they were soon to find out, was his wife, looked directly at the sergeant and waved.
Her gapped-toothed smile completely disarmed the sergeant, who found himself smiling right along with her. Her smile quickly faded as she produced a sawed-off shotgun from her lap. The sergeant was caught totally unawares. He stood frozen.
“Never can be too sure, sonny,” the old woman cackled. “Now, I want you to carefully open up your jacket and slowly remove anything that I might perceive as a threat to me or my husband.” As the sergeant slowly began to unzip his jacket, the woman continued.
“Now I want you to remember, son. That I have a twenty gauge shotgun leveled on your chest, and the barrel has been reduced, to increase my pellet spread. Now, I would imagine even if I hadn’t been last year’s senior Discus Downrange champion, I would still have a difficult time missing at this range with this weapon.” The sergeant nodded to her that he understood her perfectly.
“Ma’am, don’t go getting any bad thoughts. I’ve got a nine millimeter pistol that I am going to remove from my shoulder holster.” The old coot didn’t so much as flinch but he noticed she may have put an extra ounce or two of pressure on her trigger. My life is hanging by a thread with this old lady! I sure hope she doesn’t have palsy. He placed the weapon gingerly on the pavement.
“What else you got in those pockets, dearie?” the lady whistled through her missing teeth. The sergeant noticed that Beth was also woodenly going through the same routine as he. He felt angry at himself for being duped so thoroughly and putting Beth’s life in danger like this. Rage mounted in him as he stared at the rifle pointed at Beth.
“Sonny!” the lady shouted. “I said, what else you got in them pockets?”
“Just a small fishing knife,” he answered, not really paying her much attention. The old woman followed his gaze to see what was keeping him so transfixed.
“Listen, boy. Don’t go getting your dander in an uproar! When you do as I tell you, this will go a lot smoother.” The sergeant finally pulled himself away from the drama on the other side of the car long enough to listen to the lady.
“I said, get the knife out and be quick about it,” she repeated as she hefted the shotgun up for emphasis. The sergeant did as he was told and placed it next to his sidearm.
“Careful,” she said as she watched him hesitate for a millisecond near the pistol. “I don’t want to shoot you, but believe me, I will.” And he believed her as he pulled his hand back in. The sergeant heard, rather than saw, the sound of a metallic clanking before he heard the old man speak.
“Alright, Miss, you look like you know what these are and what they’re for. Now put them on.”
‘What is going on?’ The sergeant thought, but before he was able to come to a conclusion, the answer was quite literally thrown at him. Handcuffs twirled through the air, catching a glint of sunlight as they hit the ground and skidded to a stop a few inches from his feet. She even had a good arm to go with her marksmanship skills, thought the sergeant.
“We’ve done nothing to you. Why are you doing this to us?” the sergeant asked.
“You haven’t done anything to us, because we’re not going to let you. How’s that for an answer? Now put on them bracelets, or I’m going to make sure that you don’t need them.” He watched her finger tense ever so slightly. He thought, there can’t be much more play in the trigger.
He grabbed the handcuffs, hoping she would ease off, she never did, at least not until he had them on and she was shown that they were good and tight. Once the old lady felt it was safe to do so, she opened he car door, never taking her eyes off the sergeant. She opened up the rear of the car and motioned for him to get in. The handcuffs were one thing, but the sergeant had no desire whatsoever to get into the car.
“Boy, you had better stop stalling. I’m already an hour late for my afternoon tea and when that happens, I get cranky.”
“You had better listen, son. I’ve been married to her for the better part of fifty years and, without her tea, she can be rather difficult.” The old man ducked his head down so that he had a clear path of vision to the sergeant and flashed his matching, gap-toothed smile. “And plus, if you don’t hurry up, I’ll take out the missus' crankiness on your girlfriend, here.” Maliciousness oozed out of the old man. Grady didn’t doubt his intentions for a moment.
“It’ll be alright, Beth.”
“Yes, it will, Beth,” the old lady impersonated. Beth had flight written all over her face. Fear poured out of her body. He knew he had to calm her down before something truly bad happened.
“Beth! Look at me!” Grady shouted, trying his best to dissuade her suicidal thoughts. She recoiled at the intrusion but seemed to somewhat recover her senses. “Beth, get in the car. Everything will be alright,” he said in his most sincere tone. He hoped it was sufficient because it didn’t sound very convincing from his end. Beth moved hesitantly, almost jerkily, like a defective robot.
“That’s a good girl,” the old man said. His voice didn’t sound sincere at all, it was full of malevolence. For what? The sergeant didn’t know. Beth got into the car. The old man got out and fumbled with something in the back seat. The sergeant wasn’t sure what it was but he could hear the quiet sobbing of Beth. That asshole! What did he do? The sergeant thought.
“Hold your hosses there, boy! Your turn is coming,” the crone said as she halted
the sergeant with her weapon.
“You done in there, Lloyd?” the old lady asked without turning her head, keeping her full attention on the sergeant.
“Yeah, I’m done, Mary Helen.”
“Well then, get on over here! I don’t like the look this one has in his eyes.”
“I’ll be right there lickety-split, Mary Helen,” the man said as he began his shuffle to the other side of the car.
“That damned fool,” the lady said, almost kindly to the sergeant. “That man hasn’t been anywhere lickety-split in over twenty-five years.” Then she cackled.
The sergeant exhaled a precursory breath from his mouth. He couldn’t believe the mess they were in and he had no way of knowing how bad it might get. The old man stood on the other side of the open door, waving for the sergeant to get in.
“Well, let’s go, boy. I already told you the missus' gets a little edgy without her tea and you, standing there lookin’ all slack-jawed, isn’t helping the matter none.” The sergeant approached the car slowly, not wanting to give either of the geriatric lunatics a reason to cut his existence any shorter. Then he noticed what made Beth cry.
Bolted to the floor, in the back of the car was a chain, with three pairs of cuffs attached to it. One pair of links had been attached to the cuffs already around Beth’s wrists, thus restricting her movement. It was an ingenious technique. But why three? And not two or four? The back seat was definitely big enough to accommodate that many and easily. It was almost as if they were purposely looking for three people.
Maybe us three, thought the sergeant as he heard the floor restraints being attached to him. When the old man felt confident that Beth and the sergeant were adequately restrained, he stood up and cracked his back with an audible “pop.” He shaded his eyes as he looked up at the sun.
“Looks like we’ve got plenty o’ time to make it back, ‘fore it gets dark, Mary Helen.”
