Instinctively he pulled the coarse cloak close as insects tried to feast on his new flesh. The jungle moon revealed a thickly vegetated forest full of bamboo, palm trees and heavy fauna. But what time was this? And, where was Miguel, that miserable familiar who was supposed to guard his resting place with his life? His brain no longer spun madly now but exercised the full powers of a sophistication and cunning based on the cumulative knowledge and wisdom of his life of many millennia. He focused on remembering the time just before he entered the Deathsleep.
He had slaughtered a sizable portion of a small Central American village. Satisfied, he traveled for two days before finding another village where a pious priest ruled supreme from his small Catholic church. A monastery also sat near the village and each day monks would come to teach the village children or work alongside the villagers in fields laboriously carved from the jungle.
First he had found a place of safety for the days, deep in the cellar of an abandoned building well outside of the village. Satisfied with his lair, the first night he dined on a young man named Miguel and made him his own. Miguel would thereafter be his link to the happenings in the sun.
After that, each night he quietly bled the villagers as they slept. Sometimes he took but a little...sometimes too much. Panic had followed the discoveries of the mutilated dead, and more and more wounded, weakened and anemic villagers moaned of monsters in the night. Prayers were said by some, and sacrifices made by others to try to stop the mysterious killings. As usual, God ignored them and Adramelech continue to feed, his deeds fit only for the shadows.
Occasionally, when he captured a young woman and the urge took him, a mad, savage rape would follow battering the poor victim into insensibility. And when finished, Adramelech would tear her legs open and bite into the femoral artery of her groin for a sticky, sweet meal pumped into his mouth compliments of a heart frantically beating in terror. In less than two minutes, he would drain her dry, collapse her vessels and leave a bloodless, stiff husk of a corpse, huge dead eyes pleading for salvation while mirroring her final moments of naked despair.
For a time, Adramelech had been content to prey upon the peasants of the small Latin American community, but later, he had grown increasingly bold and stalked the holy man as he sat in meditation near a stream.
The priest had left his church that evening and come to pray in nature’s garden. Unmindful of the recent slaughters in other villages, or possibly believing his devotions protected him from the evils of the world, he barely noticed when the sun began to set. Night descended swiftly but his religious dedications continued to bind him in rapt and divine contemplation. His meditations were only interrupted when he heard something heavy land on the earth behind him. A chill, much colder than any night should be, caused him to shiver.
Slowly the priest had turned, his cowl pulled high against the coolness of the evening. He barely had time to gape, much less run, before the creature had sliced his throat wide with one quick swipe of a fingered nail. The hooded man’s eyes bugged and he collapsed to the ground thrashing aimlessly and trying to staunch the blood coming in great ripping bursts from his throat. Within seconds his eyes rolled up in his head as he drowned, sucking blood into his lungs.
Adramelech had sunk over him, fastened his mouth securely about the hemorrhaging wound and passionately inhaled the life-giving liquid. He held the holy man in an iron grip and sucked lovingly, rapturously on the throat, squirming against his victim and groaning in delicious ecstasy as the warm, sugary blood slipped into his belly. He had then returned to his tomb, fat and satiated.
But something had gone wrong.
Frightened over his Master’s increasing boldness, Miguel had found the strength to betray the Sacred Trust. Somehow that miserable piece of dog meat had led the heathen to where Adramelech rested in his vessel awaiting the night, a final, futile attempt to save his immortal soul through betrayal of his Master.
Slowly Adramelech allowed the rest of the bitter memories to return: the discovery of his resting place near the monastery; the screaming fury of the monks and the maddening slap of hundreds of sandals as they poured out of their monastery gate and burst into his crypt; the arousal and the chase by the holy men into the forest in the early dawn; being burned and weakened again and again with sacred water; and, the curdling effect of their unceasing monastic chanting of holy verses.
Finally, as the sun began to paint a pale, golden glow in the eastern sky, his strength gone, his fear intensifying by the second, the monks dragged him, like a bag of animal feces, back to the church. On the cold, stone floor, in front of the merciless stare of the Virgin Mary and under an intricately carved Crucifix hanging over the alter, they had surrounded his weakened, burned body. He remembered their bronze faces and frenzied onyx eyes gleaming like hundreds of black coals in the flickering firelight of their torches.
As Adramelech had snarled defiance, he saw with sudden dread the huge, sharpened and blessed wooden stake raised high above his heart.
He tried to rise up and fight but the prayers turned his arms to jelly, his resolve to confusion, and he sank back, weakened beyond redemption.
A fat monk, his robes billowing, eyes red with anger, swung the stake high in two beefy hands. Suddenly, with a whispered prayer, and in the name of Jesus, he drove it downward with all the strength and fury of his collectives’ fear and rage.
The Beast screamed at the memory of the pain....
~ 6 ~
“What the hell was that?!” It was Token, his voice edgy as the scream died away. It came from some distance but its tenor and strength made it seem much nearer.
Clay, his heart also racing, shrugged but said nothing. Something was wrong; he could feel it in his bones. There had been a ghostly, almost alien quality to the scream.
YOU’RE NOT ALONE....
He cursed the inner voice and listened intently to the night. Token sat up as they all reached for weapons and stared down the shadowy jungle path. Leafy tropical ferns and the crab-clawed shapes of the heliconias competed in the half-light of the moon to become ghostly squadrons of marching enemy soldiers.
Clay blinked, sweat running freely into his eyes; the salt stung and tears sprang to flush the hurt away. His men were already shrugging into back packs and ammo belts, snatching up their weapons and making ready to dive into the underbrush. Their nervousness was palatable.
“I don’t hear anything any more,” PFC Danny Osborne said, much too loudly, his voice innocent and full of hope. He barely had time to catch the patrol’s glares before Token had his hand over the boy’s mouth and his lips pressed against his ear.
“That’s the problem, kid, there ain’t no friggen sound,” Token whispered. “Something’s comin’!” He was right.
Suddenly the shriek of a shell arcing through the night air was followed by a muffled crump shaking the earth. It was quickly followed by a series of consecutive and multiple detonations racing towards the men. Mortar attack!
“Incoming,” Clay screamed, grabbing his weapon and rolling off the path. His men did the same. They pulled helmets tight and tried to burrow into the earth. A split second later Clay’s world erupted into a steaming orange fire mixed with flying dirt and vegetation.
For a second he was lifted skyward and then slammed heavily into a thick clump of cunna grass. Another nearby concussion immediately picked him up again. It flung him a full 20 feet sideways where he landed with a grunt and skidded madly into a grove of young saplings that bent and snapped.
Half-blinded, his ears ringing, he tried to scramble to his feet. Losing his balance, he pitched forward into a merciful black void. He was falling, tumbling madly, end-over-end. Somehow he knew it was useless to struggle so he relaxed. Accepting his fate served as a powerful narcotic, stripping away all cares and worries.
DYING ISN’T SO BAD...IT’S JUST YOUR TIME, the little voice whispered before finally fading into nothing.
~ 7 ~
Clay sat up and spat soil and leaf
s out of his mouth.
A black velvet night sky was brilliant with firecracker stars, whirling like a mad carousel above his head. He closed his eyes, held his breath and opened them a second time. The display in the sky gradually stopped its rotation; the stars changed from exploding pinwheels of color to twinkling points of light. Still, he continued to feel off balance.
Taking stock of himself and his surroundings, he realized his SAW and helmet were gone, and his skull was one massive ache. Instinctively he touched the back of his head. Finding it wet and sticky, he examined his fingers. A dark smear dripped slowly from them. Blood, thick, oily and partly-congealed, showed like black tar in the moonlight.
Tenderly he explored the wound and pricked his finger on a quarter-sized, jagged piece of sharp metal sticking straight out the back of his skull.
Shrapnel!
Jesus, it must be embedded in his brain! His breath exploded in quick gasps as the realities of his wound brought him to near panic. He fought to regain control.
Forget the shrapnel....
But cripes, it hurt!
Tenderly he explored the wound again.
A three-inch, partially crusted scab surrounded the large metallic protrusion. It was clotting up nicely. If he didn’t disturb it, he wouldn’t lose any more blood.
Reassured and grateful he was still able to think and function, his thoughts returned to his men. Where the hell were they? Grabbing a small tree, he dragged himself upward but immediately fell back on one knee. Finally he got his footing. A burst of pain shot through his head but he resisted the urge to touch the wound. His dizziness said he couldn’t afford to loose more blood. Nausea overwhelmed him momentarily; he fought to avoid throwing up as he looked at his surroundings.
Where the hell was his weapon? A quick search of the surrounding vegetation turned up nothing. How long had he been unconscious? Where were his men? What about the PDFs?
He crouched low and staggered deeper into the shadows of the trees. The stench of cordite still burned in his nostrils and his ears rang from the explosions. After a few minutes, he pushed the thick growth aside and found the spot on the trail where his patrol had rested.
Thanks to a break in the canopy, a full moon momentarily lit up the area quite well and he could make out at least ten smoking holes scarring the pathway; they’d suffered direct hits. How did the PDFs know their location? Was anyone else alive?
He scanned the trail.
No movement.
Clay moved on and stumbled over something glinting in the moonlight. Bending to retrieve the object he recoiled in horror. It was a stainless steel watchband on a bloody severed arm, the upper part still clothed in the remaining few inches of a shirt. The corporal’s stripes on the sleeve told him the arm belonged to Figaro. Beside the man, he found and donned a Night Vision Device.
As had become his habit in times of danger, Clay fingered the small, golden Crucifix which he kept hanging alongside his dog tags on a brass chain around his neck. He moved on. Moments later, he found the rest of Figaro’s body. Pausing only briefly, he felt tears stinging his eyes; he was supposed to bring his patrol home safe and sound. He adjusted his NVD and continued.
Next he found Token sprawled against a tree. His eyes were wide open, his chest a mass of oozing red meat through which a thick, broken branch and an accordion of shattered ribs protruded.
Clay looked closer. The man’s throat had also been slit from ear to ear. His neck gaped open exposing a pink, sinewy windpipe resembling a bloody sliced-off garden hose. Trapped air and latent bowel sounds gurgled up through the esophageal passageway. Little blood issued from the cavernous wound. Mercifully the moon slid behind another cloud again.
Clay remembered his Beretta M9 sidearm, drew the automatic and chambered a round. He hated the damn thing but it was the only weapon he had. Though, prior to adoption by the military the year before, the weapon had tested out at 35,000 MRBF – mean rounds between failure – Clay had personally had miss-feeds occur with its required round ball ammunition. It was also as heavy as sin despite its aluminum frame. This was something he noticed in particular in his weakened state. The main advantage was that he had 15 rounds in its clip and one in the chamber, if desired. At 41 ounces fully loaded, it also made a formidable club at close quarters.
Staying in the foliage and moving parallel to the path, he found other members of his patrol. Uniformly they consisted of bloodied bodies, some with only stumps where heads should have been. Strangely the bodies were well out of the kill range of the mortars. So what happened!?
He swiped at another mosquito whining about his ear and moved further through the jungle. After first checking to ensure it wasn’t a hanging snake, Clay pulled aside a vine and moved a huge palm leaf to find himself staring at a uniformed PDF soldier less than three feet away. The man looked back, wide-eyed in fright.
Heart pounding wildly, Clay yanked up his weapon and squeezed the trigger. The M9 bucked and the 9 mm slug took the man in the left shoulder jerking him backward. As the sharp report cracked through the jungle, Clay was astounded that the man didn’t fall. He instinctively crouched low, waiting for hidden weapons to open up on him.
Nothing happened!
He stared at the man he’d just shot. The soldier stared back, still wide-eyed in fright but not moving a muscle. Finally, Clay realized he was looking at another dead man. In fact, he had been dead before he fired.
He moved forward for closer scrutiny.
The enemy soldier was hanging a foot off the ground, impaled below the sternum on a savaged branch, his stare vacant. A mixture of blood and body sewage flowed slowly from the wound down along the errant branch and dripped from the end with a rhythmic slop. The stench of the man’s open bowels made Clay quickly cover his nose and mouth with his hand. He staggered on, now worried the shot might have alerted the enemy.
Moving forward in a half-crouch, his weapon at the ready, he soon discovered the scattered remains of an enemy patrol, all dead. The bodies of the PDF were strewn about as though some giant had taken them on, hand-to-hand, leaving behind a shadowy carnage of severed limbs and headless torsos. He checked a few more bodies; his blood chilled at what he didn’t find. There were no bullet holes or shrapnel wounds. What had killed these men?
They also weren’t within the kill range of the shell holes he’d found. He looked for hidden tell-tale craters.
Nothing.
At first he thought the sound was merely his imagination. Then he heard it a second time, a low moan wafting towards him on the night breeze. It came from his right. Clay froze and slowly sank to his haunches, ready to dive prone. He waited a few minutes and then, with all the stealth derived from his extensive training, he rose and melted into the jungle.
After carefully traveling a few feet, he stopped, held his breath and listened. Something rustled leaves nearby. Sweat dribbled freely into his eyes as he tried to calm his labored breathing and drumming heart. His palms were greasy with sweat. Fearing he’d lose his hold on the weapon, he gripped the M-9 with almost fanatical strength. His NVD chose that moment to quit. He shook it a few times and finally discarded it.
There it was again....
Another moan, slightly louder. Someone in pain...just ahead.
Pistol extended towards the sound, Clay moved cautiously forward, his dripping index finger curled tensely on the trigger, eyes probing the shadows.
He could make out a small field as the moon slipped from behind a cloud again; the area was now awash in a pale, milk-white light showing the grass in the clearing as being unnaturally short. Perhaps he was close to a village? That would make sense. By day, the local livestock likely grazed here where sparse grass had grown out of the shadow of the jungle canopy.
He took in the trees bordering the clearing and, at one end, the black bulk of a steep ridge. Almost directly in the center a solid-looking shadow seemed somehow out of place. It was too well defined, too dark to match the surroundings. Puzzled, he watched it for
a moment, then decided it was probably a rock.
LEAVE THIS PLACE - RUN! The voice was back.
The moon chose that moment to disappear, leaving only the wan light emanating from around a silver-bordered cloud behind which it vanished. The entire area was plunged back into semi-darkness again.
Another moan sounded and Clay knew it came from near – or maybe behind – the shadow in the field. He studied it more carefully this time.
It appeared to be solid, a curious half-round shape, but almost too rounded for a work of nature. As Clay watched, he was sure it moved...ever-so-slightly.
Sweat stung his eyes again. He silently cursed and hurriedly wiped it away with his fist. Had it moved, or was it his imagination?
Maybe his eyes were just playing tricks on him?
He watched the object for another minute.
What in the hell was it? He was no longer sure it was a rock.
Clay shook more droplets of water from his face and fought a continual urge to swallow; his mouth was dry, his tongue felt like a piece of sandpaper.
GODDAMN THE HEAT....
Clay faced a choice. Listen to the voice, withdraw and come back with reinforcements or stay and possibly be killed. But if there was a wounded man in the field, it could be one of his own. And despite the popular misconception that soldiers fought for country and honor, he and every other active soldier knew they fought for their buddies.
Still, he cursed his sense of honor, his sense of military ethics, his morality and his inbred sense of fair play; he cursed his coaches, his teachers, his military instructors and even inwardly regaled his parents for their teachings. All the personal codes and morality drilled into him throughout his life might very well be responsible for ending it in a few seconds. Though admirable in a perfect world, fair play and loyalty were definite liabilities in war.
Another weak sigh of agony drifted across the clearing. Clay took a deep breath and moved forward keeping his pistol trained on the shadow.
The Plan Page 3
