by Jason Keizer
With a crack louder than the bullets being fired, the hatchet breaks through the man until the handle bounces back a little from a rib. James rips the hatchet out of the man faster than he lodged it in. Blood and a piece of spine erupt up from the wound like a fountain. The man starts to let out a scream but is quickly stopped by James’ knee slamming into his chin. Blood spews from his mouth as he flies backward, sending broken teeth in the air.
He slams down on the legs of the other Skullnik, who is lying there, dead, with his own intestines in his hands. The Skullnik tries to scream in pain, but can't. He tries to move, but his body just twitches.
James slowly walks to him and stands above him. For a second, he stares at the man before him. Watching as the man convulses with a jaw dangling from his face, only holding on by a small shred of skin, swings back and forth. Blood pours down the side of his face and neck. A small gurgle comes out as the man tries to breathe. James lifts his hatchet and with a swift blow, hits the Skullnik right between the eyes, splitting his head in two.
Oliver and Henry each run into buildings close to the gate, giving them a good line of sight beyond it. Down the tracks they see a small group running towards the town. Henry aims, trying to see through the smoke of the blown up guard tower that used to stand next to the gate. He takes his aim and waits for a shot to open up. When he sees one open, yells out, “Aww yeah,” and starts to shoot. BAM!
Oliver takes aim as well, looking past the gate at a few Skullniks running to the town. He looks down to the gate and sees a man on the left tower shooting frantically, missing every shot he takes. Sitting on the wall to the left, are two women, shooting fast and without aim as well, barely hitting their marks. He quickly moves his eyes back to his sight and takes aim to the Skullniks. He lines up a shot, takes a breath, and fires, hitting one in the chest. BAM! “One,” he whispers to himself as he readies for the next shot.
After a few minutes, the gunfire stops. Oliver looks through his sight, scanning the tracks.
“Good on left,” Oliver yells out of the window.
“Good on right,” comes from Henry.
They both stand up and stare out the windows, double checking that the coast is clear. No more Skullniks can be seen from their positions. The man in the tower stands up and waves his arm in the air, signaling to the others the coast is clear.
Then, the man in the tower screams as he falls backward, off the tower, on the inside of the gate, as a knife handle sticks out of his chest. Oliver, Henry, and the few others look to see where the rest of the Skullniks are.
They scan the area through their sights but see no signs of anyone. At the hole in the gate, in the settling dust and smoke, they see a figure. It's a large man. The man steps through the hole in the gate into the town.
“This one is mine,” yells James from the tracks. Oliver and Henry both train their weapons on the man. One of the men on the wall turns around and takes aim at the Skullnik walking into the town. James extends his arm and hatchet at the man and yells, “Don’t you dare shoot. I said this one is mine.” The man slowly lowers his weapon.
Standing about ten feet in front of James is the large Skullnik. He looks over at James and laughs. James gives the man a once over. He stands a good bit over six feet. His hair and beard both drop past his shoulders. Sitting at the base of his neck, just under his beard, lies a red, blood-soaked skull. His shoulders and chest are covered in ripped furs. His shorts are held up by a belt, holding small knives. In his hand, he is holding a small hunting knife with a blade length of maybe four inches. Seeing this, James sets his pistol in his holster.
The man stops laughing. “I have killed your kind before,” he says to James as he kicks his right foot back.
Both men run towards each other. As they come within arm’s reach, James tries to swing his hatchet. The man dodges it and replies with a punch to James in the face, landing on his jaw.
James stumbles a bit as he tries to catch his bearings. After a couple of steps, James turns back around to the man. “You are much faster than I thought. And stronger,” James says as he gets back into fighting stance.
The man lunges with his knife pointed at James. James drops to the ground, back first, to get under the man jumping at him. As the man leaps over James, he stomps his foot down on James' right shoulder. James grabs his shoulder and rolls to the left. The man lands and turns around towards James.
“Get up, Mr. Matheson,” He says.
James slowly gets up. “Have we met before? I’m pretty sure I would have remembered a giant prick such as yourself.”
“No, but we have a mutual friend, one who wants his hatchet back. And you back in your cage.”
James lets out a small laugh as he lifts the hatchet up and rests it on his shoulder. “I would say you can tell the Fatman he can come and get it himself, but I doubt you will get the chance.”
“Today, you die,” the man says with a grin as he starts to sprint towards James.
James gives a half smile as he swings his arm and let’s go of the hatchet. It flies through the air until it sinks into the man’s collarbone. He lets out a deep sounding scream as his sprint turns into a stumble.
James quickly ducks down and as hard as he can, throws his left fist straight up. The uppercut lands dead center on the man's chin causing him to flip backward and fall on the back of his neck.
He walks over to the man on the ground, still displaying his half smile. He reaches out and grabs his hatchet, puts his right foot on the man's chest, and pulls the hatchet out.
From the background, Henry yells out, “Just finish him already.”
The man screams in agony as blood pours from his wound and onto the ground.
James lifts the hatchet up and asks, “You know the problem with letting a wild animal out of a cage?”
The hatchet drops down into the man’s other collarbone. His screams echo down the tracks. James pulls it out and yells at the man beneath him, “They will do just about anything not to go back in.”
Whack! The hatchet slams into the man's chest. Blood flies out of his mouth as he gurgles out a small scream. James lifts his hatchet for one last blow. He swings in a circle down and through the man’s neck, beheading him. James drops to a knee above the man as the newly detached head bounces off the tracks.
“I will never go back there,” James whispers to himself.
Oliver and Henry run down to the tracks by James, stopping a few feet away from him. James stands up and turns his blood-covered body towards them. The two fall silent as they watch the blood drip from James’ chin and hands.
James puts his head down and takes a deep breath. He raises his head back up, walks in between the two men and says, “So, we should probably make ready to leave.”
He heads towards the hotel. Oliver and Henry look at each other after James passes them.
Henry shakes his head and says, “It always amazes me to see him fight. You’d think I would be used to it a bit by now, with what he is ‘n all. I guess I’m just happy he is keeping his shit in control, right?”
Oliver turns and blankly stares at the closing door behind James. He lets out a long sigh and says, “After what they did to him, how could you blame him? I would expect anyone to lose control after something like that, but he seems to be good enough for now.”
In the first truck, the radio starts to go off. Oliver runs over to it and talks to the person on the other side. Henry walks over to the broken gate to check on the damage. He takes a few steps and sees an elderly woman walk out from behind one of the buildings. Henry stops and stares at her as she slowly makes her way to the broken gate. He puts his head down and turns from her for a second as memories of his grandma jump around in his head.
SEVEN
4 Years ago:
“Thanks for coming up for a visit man. I figured you would just fly back home after Elli's birthday party instead of flying back here with me”, James says to Henry as they walk down a small hiking trail. To the righ
t of them are trees running up to the base of Mount Rainier. Just to the left is a small farm where people are tending to a field of corn. A few feet up ahead, the trail turns to run parallel to a river created by the melting snow of the volcano.
“No problem. Been wanting to check your new place out anyways. Which is sweet as hell by the way. Should have known you would live out in the middle of nowhere though. But, it was great to see Oliver and the family again. Man, we all need to get together more often. Kinda sucks we moved so far apart from each other. It seems like we are missing too much of each other’s lives. Like Ellie, she is fucking six now. It seems like yesterday we were teaching her to walk. We should be part of that more,” Henry says.
James looks over at Henry with a big smile. “Yeah, I remember. You had no clue how to handle a baby. She wasn't even yours, but you were more scared than Oliver, and he was a mess. You wouldn't even hold her unless you had a damn pillow under you somewhere in case your dumbass dropped her.”
They both start to laugh. “Man, Oliver really lucked out you know.” Henry slaps James on the shoulder, adding, “You got divorced after our first deployment and never even stayed with a chick for long after that. I never even had a relationship last more than a few months. But he has a wife and daughter. A job he loves. He really made something of himself.”
Just before they get to the bridge, over at the farm, a horn goes off. The two look over towards the noise and see a man on a tractor waving one arm and pressing the horn with the other. The blades in front of the tractor keep on spinning as the man yells, but can’t be heard.
“What you think that is about?” asks Henry.
“Beats me.”
A dark figure quickly comes into view as it jumps up from inside the cornfield and tackles the man off of the moving tractor.
“The fuck was that?” Henry asks as the two men start to run towards the man that was on the tractor.
James pulls out a concealed pistol from his waist. They only get a few steps before the top of the field starts to rustle around. They both stop as James takes aim at the field, waiting for someone, something to run out at them.
Three men run out of the field towards James and Henry. James quickly puts his pistol down, so as not to scare the men. They are screaming something, but neither of them knows how to speak Spanish. A loud screech comes from somewhere inside of the field as a geyser of blood shoots up from the still running tractor and slowly rains back down onto the field in front of them.
They start to move towards the field again but are stopped by the three fleeing from it. The three have blood on their clothes from whatever the tractor ripped apart, which has some sort of steam or fog coming from it. They pull on James and Henry, spinning them around from the field. James and Henry both try to shrug off the men. After a couple of tugs, the men let go and start running towards the river as fast as they can. James and Henry turn back around towards the field and James takes aim with his pistol again.
Before they can start moving forward again, two things burst from the edge of the crop. Their skin is dark, almost as if they have one giant bruise, and their eyes white as snow. One of them still has some hair on its head and has a missing ear. The other doesn't have any ears at all.
James quickly takes aim and shoots one in the right shoulder. The thing doesn't even slow down in its sprint, as it lets out a loud screech. James and Henry turn back around and run to the river. As they run to the river, the things giving chase are quickly catching up. The two men dive into the river and start to swim to the other side.
As they get almost halfway across before they bring their heads up for air. They turn to check behind them, just in time to see the two things jump in the river. James and Henry quickly swim to the other side. When they get out, James turns around and raises his pistol. He slowly lowers it back down as he stares at the two things in the river.
A few feet from the edge of the river, the things get stuck. The water around them seems to be turning into ice, freezing them in place. A white fog starts to appear from the water and ice around them, flowing above the water, making its way downstream. The things try to move but slow down as the ice builds up around them. After a couple of seconds, all the water about a foot around them is frozen.
One of them has just a little part of its head and its two arms sticking out of the water. The other has ice around it just over the waist. One of its arms is swinging around while the other is stuck at the elbow in ice. Its pure white eyes glaring at both of them, as it tries frantically to break free.
“What the fuck is that?” asks Henry.
James raises his pistol back up and pulls the trigger. BAM! The bullet hits the thing in the head, above its left eyes sending a small spray of mist into the air. The bloody mist seems to freeze as the wind blows the frozen flakes towards the men. They cough and wave their hands in front of their faces as their lungs start to burn a little.
The thing’s arm falls to the ice, and it stops moving. “How the fuck should I know? But it’s dead now,” says James as his cough subsides. He quickly shoots the other and puts his gun back in his holster.
Henry turns to James and in between coughs says, “You think this is the shit they were talking about on the news. You know, those crazy things they said about people turning into in Russia. Been hearing they pulled some shit out of some lake under Antarctica.”
“Could be. But that’s in Russia. How the hell would it have traveled here anyways? Most of the airports to and from Russia are either screening people for infections or are shut down.”
The two ice chunks in the water start to make a cracking sound. James and Henry turn back to look at the river. A loud crack is heard and the two things stuck in the ice start to gently flow down the river with the water.
As they both follow the things with their heads, Henry says, “I gotta get back home. I have to make sure Grammy is ok. If this shit is infecting people here, then she would need help.”
“Yeah, I think vacation is over for both of us. You wanna stick around for the cops or just head out? I'll cover for you.”
Henry turns to James, “I should probably go now.”
“No problem. You can take my car to the airport. I will get a ride to pick it up later. Call me when you get in and keep me updated on things and tell Grammy I said hi.”
Henry gives James a small pat on his shoulder. “Are you going to be ok here? You might want to leave with me, away from all of this.”
James shakes his head. “No, I’ll be okay once I get home. I have food to last months, plus I have enough of an arsenal to keep me safe from anything else like that. Just go make sure your family is safe.”
Henry holds out his hand and James gives it a good shake. “Be safe brother,” Henry says as he turns as starts to run back the way they came.
When Henry gets back to his house in Houston, Texas, he drives over to his grandmother's nursing home. He runs through the front door and turns past the reception.
A young man yells out, “Hey, visiting hours are over.”
Henry pays no attention to the young man as he runs down the hallway and opens one of the many doors on the left. He flips on the light switch. In her bed, his grandmother is fast asleep. Henry lets out a long sigh of relief and sits in a large recliner next to her bed.
The door opens up, and the young man from the front desk enters through it. He says, “Excuse me, but you can't...”
Henry cuts him off, “Shh.”
The young man stops talking and looks at Henry, confused. Henry whispers, “I just want to make sure she is fine. I think she would be happy to see me when she wakes in the morning. I promise I won't be a bother. I will just sleep in this chair and leave everything alone. Please.”
The young man puts a hand up and turns off the light switch. As he closes the door he hears, “Thank you.” from the darkness.
The next morning Henry wakes up to his grandmother giving him a bunch of soft pokes to his shoulder. He opens up his
eyes and sees her standing in front of him. Her face is almost as wrinkled as they come, but her long gray hair does a good job covering it up. Even though she looks so old, you would never be able to tell by the way she moves around.
“Hey sweetie, wake up. Why are you sleeping in my chair? Weren't you on vacation with James and Ollie? How are they? Oh, and how is that sweet little girl of Ollie’s?” She asks.
Henry quickly wakes up, startled. He shakes his head as he collects himself. “They are good Grammy. I came back early cause I missed you. I do have some pictures of everyone for you to see.”
His grandmother takes a seat in her bed as Henry pulls out his phone. He unlocks the screen and hands it to her. With a big smile on her face, she cycles through the pictures.
“Oh, she is getting so big. When do you think they will come and visit this way again?”
“Probably in a couple months. You know they always come out here before the fall.”
Henry’s grandmother keeps swiping through the pictures. “And he has such a beautiful wife. It’d be nice if you could get one you know.”
Henry shakes his head. “I know Grammy. When I meet someone that is worth keeping, then I will keep her.”
She swipes through a few more pictures and stops with one of Henry and James at the base of Mt. Rainier. “What about James? You tell him to stop spending so much time in the woods by himself and find himself a woman as well?”
She stands up, hands the phone back to Henry, and adds, “Sometimes I think the two of you just need a good ole kick in the ass to get your lives on track. I would like more great grandkids besides Ellie you know.”
Henry stands up, puts the phone in his pocket, and says, “Don’t worry Grammy. Everything will pan out in its due time.” As he sits back down, he lets out a couple short coughs.
