Forging the Nightmare

by J. J. Carlson

  The command was superfluous—Jarrod was as still as a tombstone.

  The guard at the rear whispered, “In position, ready to engage.”

  Jarrod could not hear the response, and guessed the earpiece worked by stimulating the auditory nerve directly. Jarrod could taste tension and fear in the air, but no one moved. Maintaining a rigid posture, he said, “I need to speak to Daron.”

  The guards gave no response. The circular black eyes of four rifle barrels stared back at him.

  “I will not harm anyone here,” Jarrod said, “but there are other lives at risk. It concerns Project Lateralis.”

  This elicited a twitch from one of the guards, who whispered, “Orders, sir?” After a pause, he said, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” and “Copy, standing by.”

  The guards lowered their weapons, aiming them instead at Jarrod’s pelvis.

  Ten more minutes passed in strained silence. The guards sighed in relief when footsteps finally echoed in the hallway.

  Daron came into view and pushed between the exo-suits. “Weapons down,” he said.

  The four rifles dropped and pointed toward the floor.

  “You were free, you know,” Daron said, folding his arms over his chest. “Wagner declared you officially dead.”

  “I know,” said Jarrod.

  “So why did you come back?”

  “The subject for Project Lateralis. She was my wife.”

  Daron’s mouth hung open. “Good Lord. Jarrod, I had no idea.”

  Jarrod nodded. “I don’t blame you, and I’m not here for revenge. I’m here to warn you. One of your head scientists is a traitor.”

  “Look, Jarrod,” Daron said, holding up his hands, “I don’t know how your wife ended up at Hillcrest, but that doesn’t mean Wagner’s a traitor. I’m sorry, but we can’t take your word on this. If you’ll allow us to hold you in one of our cells, we can…”

  “I’m not talking about Wagner,” said Jarrod. “Tell me, does Emily Roberts have access to the Lateralis testing site?”

  Daron frowned. “Yes, but—"

  “Then whoever is guarding it may be dead already,” Jarrod interrupted. “We need to leave, now.”

  Seagulls drifted overhead and ocean waves lapped gently against the nearby shore. The coarse gravel crunched beneath Marcus’s feet as he strode toward the warehouse. The secure location’s serenity contrasted starkly with the tension he felt in his chest. It had been nearly five minutes since Daron’s last update on the situation at Hillcrest.

  He punched a code into a terminal and pushed through the door. Two vehicles were running in the wide vehicle bay, each filled to capacity with armed guards.

  “No word yet,” Marcus called out. “If we don’t get another SITREP in five minutes, we’re rolling.”

  Marcus glanced anxiously at a storage room to his right. Billions of dollars in the shape of a dead woman lay inside, preserved in a steely coffin. It would mean his job to abandon his post, but he couldn’t leave Daron to face Jarrod alone. He hit a button on the wall, and the massive doors on the front of the building rolled open. They were only open a few feet when Marcus saw a woman in a white lab coat running toward the warehouse. She crossed the stony yard in a few seconds, and ducked inside.

  “Emily?” Marcus said. “What’s wrong?”

  She was bent over, gasping for breath. “They’re…they’re coming…”

  Marcus grasped her shoulders. “Who’s coming?”

  A thundering roar erupted outside. Inside the vehicle bay, glass shattered and metal clanged with hundreds of crashing impacts. The men inside the trucks shook violently, and blood escaped into the air as red mist.

  Emily was screaming. Marcus pulled a pistol from his belt and threw her to the ground. One of the surviving guards jumped out of the nearest truck and pitched violently as high-velocity bullets tore through him. Marcus abandoned any hope of a counter-attack and grabbed Emily by the arm.

  “C’mon!” he yelled. “Get inside, it’s the safest place!”

  He put his left eye up to a retinal scanner and pulled open the storage room’s steel door. The ear-splitting cracks dropped off as he pulled it shut behind him. Emily collapsed onto the floor and began to cry.

  “Are you hurt?” Marcus holstered his pistol and knelt beside her. She rolled over and sat up.

  “I’m okay, she said, wiping a tear from her face. “Are you?”

  He nodded. “We’ll be safe in here, but only for a few minutes. If you’re good, I’ve gotta call in back up.”

  Emily gave a brave nod, and Marcus pulled out his phone. He held it to his ear and glanced toward the door. The blaze of gunfire had diminished to sporadic pops. Marcus grit his teeth, knowing each pop was most likely a well-aimed kill shot as the unknown foe finished off his men. When he turned back toward Emily, he gasped and dropped his phone. Inches away from his right eye was the barrel of a 9mm pistol. Gunpowder, hot gas, and copper jacketed rounds left the weapon as it bucked three times in Emily’s hands.

  43

  The Airbus H155 helicopter streaked along the coastline. Jarrod Hawkins and Daron Keeler watched the blurred ground whip past as pewter streets gave way to emerald forests and brackish inlets.

  “Two minutes out,” the pilot said over the intercom.

  Daron gave a thumbs-up, then addressed the dark figure beside him. “I should have listened to you. I misjudged you, Jarrod, and I’m sorry. Thank you for doing this.”

  Jarrod nodded grimly, anticipating the violence that lay ahead.

  Marcus’s call had made it through to the Hillcrest Operations Center. Everyone in the room heard the gunfire that ended his life. Within minutes, Daron and Jarrod were airborne in Hillcrest’s fastest helicopter.

  Daron knew it was too late to save the guards stationed at the remote testing facility, but he deeply hoped for a chance to exact revenge on whoever took their lives.

  “Whoever attacked my men would’ve had to be well armed,” Daron said into his lip mic. “Are you sure you can manage? It’ll be at least ten minutes before we can back you up from the ground.”

  Jarrod shook his head. “They will have escaped by then. If I can’t stop them, they’re going to get away.”

  Daron’s eyes were sorrowful. He clapped a hand on Jarrod’s shoulder and said, “If anyone has a chance, it’s you.”

  Their headsets crackled, “Thirty seconds.”

  “Take a low approach, just above the trees,” Jarrod said. “Don’t set down, just bring it to a hover at thirty feet.”

  The pilot nodded. The rotors roared as the helicopter dropped, then leveled out, the smooth belly of the aircraft skimming the tops of the tallest trees. Jarrod unbuckled and knelt beside the door. With a great whoosh of air, the helicopter slid into a hover. Wind whipped through the cabin as Jarrod opened the door and dropped to the ground, rolling upon impact. The helicopter veered away, and Jarrod broke into a sprint, covering the remaining six hundred yards to the warehouse in less than thirty seconds.

  A man in street clothes stood alongside the structure’s concrete wall. His street clothes did not fully conceal the body armor he wore underneath, and he stood guard with a black shotgun in his hands. He didn’t even hear the intruder’s approach. Jarrod hit him at full speed, driving him into the unforgiving wall. If the man’s neck snapping from the impact hadn’t killed him, his head cracking open on the concrete would have.

  Closer to the rear of the building, another guard turned at the sound. His eyes widened at the sight the black figure abandoning the slumped corpse and sprinting toward him. He shouted a warning and started raising his weapon, but Jarrod was on him before he could bring it to bear. With one hand, Jarrod stripped the man’s weapon from his grip and tossed it aside. At the same time, he swung a black forearm, sharpened to a razor’s edge, at the man’s throat.

  Jarrod pivoted around the next corner before the man’s severed head hit the ground. In the distance, a group of sailors were hurriedly loading a metall
ic container onto a long, angular boat. A rusted pickup truck and eight armed mercenaries stood midway between. Mounted to the back of the truck, glinting in the sunlight, was a 7.62mm minigun. It’s six barrels turned in Jarrod’s direction and began to spin.

  With a burst of speed, Jarrod closed the distance and ducked into the crowd of mercenaries, assuming the machine gunner wouldn’t mow down his own men. Jarrod rushed straight through the cluster of stunned foot-soldiers, lowered a shoulder, and struck the side of the pickup. The truck jolted onto two wheels, then settled back onto the ground.

  The foot-soldiers didn’t show the same regard for their comrades in the truck. Raising their weapons, they opened fire on Jarrod. His body shook as projectiles hit their mark, but he didn’t let go of the truck. Squatting low, he pulled upwards, then shoved the truck onto its side.

  Jarrod turned, and a shotgun blast knocked him off his feet. He rolled as he hit the ground, dug his feet in, and leapt forward. The jump carried him into the nearest mercenary, whose shocked face received the full impact of Jarrod’s black, clawed hands.

  Jarrod’s feet barely touched the ground before launching him toward his next opponent. The man panicked, holding down the trigger on his automatic rifle. The shots missed wide to the left as Jarrod juked away. With another leap, Jarrod closed the distance and grabbed his victim by the shoulder. With the practiced ease of a discus thrower, he swung the man around and pitched him toward another attacker. The two men collided and fell backward.

  Jarrod caught up to them as they hit the ground. With a blurred motion, he reached down and snatched out their throats.

  The three men farthest from Jarrod turned and ran, abandoning the two remaining mercenaries to their fate. Jarrod closed the gap to the first with unpredictable, zig-zagging movements. He grabbed the man’s rifle and swung around, using the sling to pull his foe along with him. Then, ripping forward and down on the rifle, he pulled the man over his head, sending him face-first into the gravel.

  Releasing his grip on the rifle, Jarrod spun around in search of his next target. He was gone, fleeing with the others and shooting a pistol over his shoulder.

  Jarrod ignored the blindly fired rounds and turned his attention to the sleek boat. Several men were tying down the metal crate and a woman in a blood-stained lab coat stood at the aft of the vessel. Immediately to her right, a man with a scarred face was raising a hunting rifle.

  Vasile Kharkov raised the broad optic to his eye and centered the crosshairs over Jarrod’s chest. He feathered the trigger and exhaled.

  Before the rifle could launch its projectile, a fair-skinned hand blocked his view.

  “Don’t,” Emily said. “Just wait.”

  Vasile lowered the weapon and sneered, “Are you serious? Did you see what he just did to my men?”

  Emily smiled. She withdrew a small, glass vial from her pocket, removed the cap, and traced a circle in the air. Then, with a flick, she emptied the contents in front of them. A pungent, alien odor flooded Vasile’s nose. It was so strong and so completely unfamiliar that the men strapping down the crate stopped what they were doing to sniff the air.

  Vasile’s scarred face puckered with worry. “And you’re sure this will work?”

  Emily nodded toward Jarrod, who was less than one hundred feet away, and closing fast. Then, as if caught from behind by an invisible lasso, his feet flew out from him and he crashed into the dirt.

  The man shouldered his rifle and reached for his sidearm. He took a step toward the edge of the watercraft, and Emily placed a cautioning hand on his arm.

  “Not yet, Vasile,” she said. “Give it time to work.”

  He shrugged her off and jumped ashore.

  44

  The world around Jarrod was black, soundless, and tasteless. He tried to move his arm, then got the sense that he didn’t even have arms. He was a disembodied consciousness floating in an endless void. The tongue in his mouth had no sensation, and he could feel neither heat nor cold. Lists of psychotropic drugs that would cause hallucinations flashed through his mind, but nothing matched what he was feeling.

  Through the darkness, a familiar voice called out to him. “Jarrod. Jarrod! It’s alright, you’re just having a nightmare.”

  Suddenly he felt like he was back inside his body, and he began to struggle.

  “Jarrod, please, stop! You’re safe, everything is okay. Look at me, Jarrod.”

  The blackness vanished in an instant, and Jarrod was looking at the concerned face of Reggie, his old caretaker.

  He stopped fighting.

  “There he is,” Reggie said, breathing a sigh of relief. “You gave us a bit of a scare. It’s good to have you back, buddy.”

  Jarrod was in his room at Hillcrest. The ceiling was a dark blue. The familiar scent of lavender hung in the air, and gentle music reached his ears.

  “You were in a coma,” Reggie explained. “It was bad. Really bad. We were worried you might never come out of it.”

  Jarrod suddenly became aware of a feeding tube in his nose. He gripped it and pulled it from his face.

  “Easy,” Reggie said. “Take it slow.”

  Jarrod eyed the friendly face suspiciously, and realized his field of vision was narrower than it was before. He felt at his eyes, then at his chest. There were no thick bands, no tendrils of black armor giving him sight.

  “Just rest easy. I’m going to get Emily.” Reggie patted his arm and left the room.

  Jarrod sprung to his feet. It wasn’t possible that he hallucinated the past few months. Was it?

  As a test, Jarrod tried to recall the techniques for sabotaging a Russian Su-35 fighter-jet. Pain shot into his skull and his ears started ringing. The harder he tried to remember, the worse the pain became. Eventually, he relented.

  He ran his hand along the wall; it felt solid. He could even feel the tiny bumps and details in the dried paint.

  The door opened, and Emily burst in.

  “Jarrod! You’re awake!” She embraced him in an affectionate hug. “You really should be laying down,” she said. With a look of concern on her face, she lifted up on one of his eyelids and shined a light into it.

  Her face was no longer blurred and inscrutable. Jarrod felt as if he could plainly read her emotions, and it seemed that she cared deeply for him.

  But it couldn’t be. So many things had changed…he had seen and learned so much. Santiago had taken him in, he received treatment, he found out who killed his family. Emily was not his ally, she was his enemy. She had used him to get to Lateralis, and tried to use Melody to manipulate him.

  “I can see that you’re confused, Jarrod,” she said, clicking off the pen light. “Why don’t you sit down so we can talk about it?”

  Jarrod looked back at the bed and leaned toward it. Suddenly he stopped. Shaking his head, he said, “No.”

  “That’s alright,” Emily said. “You’ve been laid up for a long time. You can stand, but I’d still like to talk.”

  Jarrod thought of another test. It wouldn’t prove anything for certain, but it was worth a try. He imagined grabbing Emily by the throat and wrestling her to the ground.

  Nothing happened. There was no mental block, no pain shooting into his limbs. The image drifted from his mind, leaving in its wake a sense that everything was going to be okay.

  No. It was an illusion, it had to be. Taking it a step further, Jarrod raised a fist and thrust it at Emily’s face with all his might. It didn’t connect. A blinding pain tore into his arm. He felt as if the skin was being stripped from his hands and the bones were being pulverized from the inside out.

  He gripped his arm and looked up to see Emily smirking. The pain stopped, and she vanished. He turned around and the room was gone, replaced by a white hallway. The ceramic tiles on the floor and fluorescent lights overhead seem to extend to infinity in both directions. He closed his eyes and tried to remember details about where he was when the hallucinations started. He remembered the helicopter, and the view of the city
fading into forest. He pictured the warehouse, the truck with the minigun, and the boat.

  He recalled the smell of sea air and a thousand other scents. One stood out among the others. It was synthetic, unique, unrecognizable. It had overwhelmed his senses and triggered something in his brain.

  Jarrod tried to force himself back to reality and pain pulsed through his body. Accepting the pain as a necessity, he bent his will against the hallucination.

  His stomach turned as if he were falling. When he opened his eyes, he could only see the bright hallway. He closed them again and embraced the pain. His chest burned as if it were on fire and his limbs felt like they were submerged in ice water. Then it felt as if every inch of his skin was being cut, healed, and torn open again.

  Something was coming. An unknown, indescribable threat was right in front of him. He opened his mouth and screamed. His throat, head, and chest shook from the effort, but he heard no sound. He closed his mouth and lashed out.

  “Vasile, no!” Emily shouted. “Just wait, you idiot!”

  Vasile smiled, and the scars pulled the skin around his eyes so tight he could barely see.

  “What?” he shouted over his shoulder. “You worried I’m gonna hurt your little puppy? Don’t I get to have any fun?”

  Emily swore to herself and shook her head. A man to her right looked as if he wanted to join Vasile and she snapped, “Don’t you dare!”

  Vasile was halfway to the huddled, shaking figure on the ground. He tossed his pistol from one hand to the other.

  Suddenly, the black shape turned a bright shade of orange, then blue, then green. Small spikes appeared along its back, giving it the unmistakable appearance of a plot of grass.

  Vasile frowned, and looked back at Emily.

  “Move back!” Emily yelled.

  Treading more carefully, Vasile continued on. When he was just twenty feet away, the figure in front of him began to writhe and contort. It punched the ground and bent over backwards. Vasile aimed his pistol, and the creature froze. Its jaw dropped and a thunderous, piercing scream issued from its mouth.