by C. C. Harris
‘Help your comrade, Carter. Squat down and place your comrade across your shoulders. Remember, give him praise.’
‘Good boy. You made it.’ I knelt and ducked my head under Buddy’s torso. I placed his bony body around my neck until his weary frame rested across my shoulders. Blood was spotting the forest floor. I wasn’t sure if it was Buddy’s or mine.
‘Move, fuckin’ move! They’ll follow the blood. You have no time!’
I pushed my way through the prickly thicket and coarse undergrowth. This place had no walking paths. There wasn’t a diner or public restroom waiting for me. This was private property, a haven for every plant species and creature. As I carried Buddy across my shoulders, I hoped I wouldn’t step on a snake.
‘Keep moving, keep moving!’ the sergeant yelled.
I knew that it would be easy for them to track me. Did they deliberately leave me in the barn knowing I would escape? Was this their killing mountain and I’m their game? A killing range where they got their kicks out of the hunt.
‘Stop your thoughts and focus! Move your ass, they’ll soon be on your trail. This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill!’
I could hear distant gunshots. I imagined the dictator’s rage as he stood in the empty barn.
Buddy whimpered. He seemed lifeless but still recognized the sound of danger.
‘Move, move, and keep your comrade balanced.’
The Fort Jackson drills had been grueling and now I knew why. I was done if I didn’t keep moving. My body screamed with pain. I had to keep going. I was sure a rib was broken. I retched sporadically. Sliding down an embankment, I kept my grip on Buddy. He was so light it was easy to forget he was on my shoulders.
The undergrowth clawed at my skin but helped keep me upright. Memories of skylarking at an army camp stabbed at my conscience. I wondered how I’d thought the army was a joke.
‘Don’t fuckin’ stop or you’re dead! Keep going! Move, move, move! At all costs, you must help your comrade. Focus, focus on your comrade. He needs your help!’
I was desperate to rest. My legs wobbled. The ground was wet and my arms were aching.
I could hear gushing water.
‘Push forward! Push forward! Keep going or you’ll be dead!’ the sergeant barked.
I realized the sergeant was right. It was life or death.
The ground was slippery. I knew if I twisted an ankle I was fucked and an easy hunt.
I made it to a creek, gazing at my only escape. The water gushed down a slope and looked more like a rapid than a gentle country creek.
The last time I was at a creek was when I was a kid fishing with my granddad. The water flowed gently, and we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon. My granddad used to listen to the football while I checked the lines. Now I was fighting for my life. As I stood on the bank, the blurred image of my granddad drifted in and out of sight. Had I just seen him, or was I going crazy? Maybe I will wake up from this nightmare, I thought.
As I strained to get a closer look, my granddad winked and pointed at a plank of wood.
I shivered. My hands trembled. The dog was still draped motionless across my shoulders. I didn’t know how long I’d been standing still.
The sergeant’s voice rang in my ears again. ‘Focus, focus! Move! Keep going!’
I stepped into the water, placing Buddy on the plank of wood. ‘It’s going to be ok, Buddy, you can do this.’ I held on, hoping it would stay afloat.
In seconds, the current pulled us downstream. Suddenly, I was swallowing water and gulping for air. Water crashed around us. It was like a beast, beating us, whipping our bodies and pulling us along. Now I was fighting for my life with Mother Nature while being hammered by rocks.
I lost my grip on Buddy and saw him taken by the current. I managed to grab some reeds and hang on long enough to pull myself up on the opposite bank. I crawled out of the water on all fours to catch my breath.
‘You cannot abandon your comrade. Move, move, move! Keep going! Save your comrade at all costs! You know the code! Save your comrade now!’
Jesus, I felt dead.
I turned around to see a glimpse of Buddy’s head. He was being pushed further and further downstream. I leaned forward to regain balance. I had to move, or he would be gone. Who would have thought a creek in the middle of nowhere could be so fuckin’ fierce?
The creek narrowed ahead as it swept around a corner. I saw a chance to grab Buddy. ‘Please, someone, give me a break!’
I noticed an eagle gliding overhead. It turned its head to look down, watching my desperation. I wish I had wings.
I squatted on the rocks waiting for Buddy. If I slipped, we would both die in a watery grave. I could see the New York headlines: Fisherman finds bodies of man and dog.
‘Focus and stretch out your arms. Get into position! Get in position!’ the sergeant yelled.
Buddy looked like he was in a wash cycle. I lunged forward, grabbed his fur, and scooped up his fragile body. He looked up at me with unconditional trust.
‘You’re a trooper, you made it, Buddy.’
I cradled him in my arms and carefully stepped from one boulder to the next. It was then I noticed my wounded leg. I realized that adrenalin was numbing the pain.
I couldn’t see the sergeant, but I could still hear her voice. ‘Move, move, move! The enemy is on your trail!’
TWENTY
Bad Seed
The man called Tony screamed in fury. Food and saliva sprayed from his mouth as he waddled from the barn. Broken blood vessels showed through his skin and his bulbous nose twitched with rage. He looked like a wild bull, ready to charge.
‘You bloody idiot! He and that fuckin’ dog have gone. You said you shot the dog.’
‘I di…di…did, the bullet must have only g…g…grazed him.’ Jonno was lying. He didn’t have the heart to kill the dog.
* * *
Tony’s fury commenced at birth. By the time he was five years old, he’d enjoyed drowning his family cat and setting alight his pet mice. His father used to laugh off his behavior and say, ‘boys will be boys.’
At seventeen years of age, he lured his eight-year-old cousin into an upstairs bedroom during a family Christmas party by promising her candy. Once she entered the bedroom, he turned the lock. He casually walked over to his DVD player and turned the Christmas carols on high volume. No one heard her screams. No one heard her cries for help. When he had finished, he told her to get dressed and then threatened to kill her family if she mentioned a word to anyone. This was his first taste of power and he’d dreamed of the day he could keep his own girl chained in a cage to satisfy his lustful brutality.
Despite his cousin’s terror, she found the courage to tell her mom. Her mom felt overwhelming guilt that she hadn’t protected her daughter. She marched to her sister’s home and knocked on the door. When her sister opened the door, she couldn’t control her anger. ‘Mary Jane says that Tony hurt her bad between the legs. He took her clothes off and said he would kill her family if she told anyone. I want to see Tony now! I want to ask him if this is true.’
Her sister screamed. ‘My Tony would never hurt Mary! She’s obviously lying. You’re crazy! My Tony’s a good Christian boy. He goes to church every Sunday. You’ve been drinking too much home brew. You know how liquor can mess with your head.’ Her sister then slammed the door in her face.
She was enraged by her sister’s response. She thought of their mom’s words, ‘be careful of those who protest too much, they’re fighting the truth.’ It was then she realized her sister was protecting her son.
Tony’s parents were committed churchgoers and had given their son a wholesome Christian upbringing. They were suspicious of their son’s behavior but couldn’t bring themselves to admit their son would do such a thing.
His parents forbade him from playing with other children in the neighborhood because they considered them to be a bad influence on his morals. His hatred festered behind his Christian upbringing and he felt mo
re and more isolated. During his pubescent years, he satisfied his sexual urges by lighting fires. He would sneak out at night and set alight anything that provided him with this ultimate primal pleasure. Watching the fury and destruction of the fires was sexually arousing. He rarely left the scene. If no one was around he’d hold his penis and pray to his God: ‘Thank you God for giving me such pleasures. Amen.’ Little did his parents know his prayers in church were to a fire god. He was nearly caught several times while masturbating. He pretended to be rescuing animals.
When his parents discovered matches under his bed and smelt the smoke on his clothes, they took him to their priest for demonizing.
One night when his parents were asleep, he snuck into the family den. There he unlocked the gun cabinet and took out his father’s pride and joy. It was a double-barrel hunting gun. A gun that had been handed down from his grandfather to his father. His father had taught him to hunt from the time he could walk. This night, he was going to hunt something different.
He smiled as he loaded the gun. At the base of the stairs, he glanced up at his parents’ bedroom door. He tiptoed up the stairs in a heightened state of arousal, savoring every moment. Each step took him closer, each step gave him another dose of excitement.
The lounge room cuckoo clock chimed 2.00 am. He stood still. When the wooden bird retreated into its clock tower, he moved again. He smiled to himself. He believed he was special and this was his special mission.
He was going to destroy his memories of the days at church, his life of isolation, his life of praying with his family. He knew he would inherit everything. A house and the freedom to do whatever he wanted. It would be easy. There would be no struggle. There would be no one alive to contradict his story. This was the solution to his problem.
He gently opened the door to their bedroom. He stepped forward until he could feel the edge of his parents’ bed against his leg. At point-blank range, he aimed the barrel at his mom’s head. As he pulled the trigger, his father wakened to see his wife’s head explode. He held up his hand and screamed. ‘No! No! Please don’t!’
‘Don’t worry…you won’t feel a thing.’
He pulled the trigger again. His father’s body shook with the force of the bullet. His eyes bulged with terror. Tony was thrilled. It was an easy job. He calmly rested the gun against the foot of the bed and dialed 911.
His police statement read: ‘I have been beaten and raped for years. I killed them in self-defense. I was scared. They said they would kill me if I told anyone.’
The jury didn’t buy his story and he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in the penitentiary.
Although Tony was no longer a child, a human rights group stated it was unconstitutional that he was sentenced to life in prison as an adolescent and demanded his case be reviewed. They stated he had been an innocent victim of the most horrendous abuse and the immaturity of his adolescent brain, impaired his decision-making on the night he murdered his parents.
During this time, Tony had undertaken a Psychopathy Checklist and come out with flying colors. Portraying empathy for others was his forte so manipulating a questionnaire was a piece of cake.
With the killer’s advocate group on his side, his high-test scores for empathy, his newfound love for God and his positive institutional behavior, he finally won over the parole board. The supreme manipulator was released after serving twenty-five years.
During Tony’s time in the pen, he met plenty of sex predators and associated with some of the worst serial killers in New York State. It didn’t take long to make useful connections with criminals on the outside. On his release, he started working for Mr X in New York.
His current assignment was to get rid of Curtis as quickly and cleanly as possible, but now things had fucked up. Now he was focused on a dumb-ass stutterer who couldn’t do his job.
‘You’re an absolute fuckwit. When I asked you to check on him, what the fuck did you think I meant?’
‘I…I…I did ch…ch…check on him,’ Jonno stuttered. ‘He was g…g…good as dead. No one has to know he g…g…g…got away, d…d…do they?’
‘You fuckin’ idiot! We tell Mr X we’ve completed our assignment and then the dead guy miraculously turns up? We’re in deep shit, you fuckin’ retard! Do you know how many clients we service? Once they find out we’ve lost this guy, we’re the ones who’re as good as dead! If the killers don’t get us the cops will. America still executes retards like you. Don’t think you’ll get off the butcher’s hook. We gotta get him.’
Jonno imagined killing the dictator but for now, he was careful not to enrage him further.
TWENTY-ONE
Lethal Displacement
Jonno followed Tony’s orders while enjoying the fantasy of killing his tormenter. They walked behind the barn where they could see a trail of blood.
Tony rang Mr X. ‘There’s a small problem.’
‘What do you mean, a small problem?’ the doctor asked.
‘Curtis’s gone missing.’
‘You mean he’s got away?’
‘Well, he hasn’t exactly got away. He’s taken off into the forest behind the cabin and he’s headed for Esopus Creek. He’s bleeding badly so he won’t last long.’
‘You better be right. I’ll give you one hour and then I’m making a call. If you fuck this up, one of my men will blow your fuckin’ head off, you got it?’
‘Yessir! Don’t worry, we’ll get him.’
The doctor wasn’t taking any chances. He called another of his thugs, a hitman who’d never failed him, and promised him a bonus to kill Curtis along with the two couriers.
Tony checked his handgun in its holster and grabbed his AK-47. He had assault knives, grenades, and homemade bombs, but the AK-47 with its telescopic sight was his baby. He hoped to spray enough bullets into Curtis to turn him into a million pieces. He also grabbed his ammunition pouch, which carried five fragmentation hand grenades. What he liked most about his grenades, was their lethal radius of sixteen feet.
Tony held out the grenade pouch to Jonno. ‘Here, strap this to your waist. I’m going to blow him to bits if I get close enough.’
Jonno decided he wasn’t going to be Tony’s pack mule for grenades. He would wear the pouch for a short time. Carrying grenades terrified him. As he strapped the belt to his waist, he looked down nervously at the grenades sitting snugly in the pouch. He felt the urge to lie down as a wave of nausea swept over him. It was the same fear he’d experienced as a child walking home from school knowing his father was waiting. He gripped the machete for comfort.
‘Why the fuck have you got a machete!’ Tony screamed.
‘We c…c…can clear the thick undergrowth. It’s pretty b…b…bad out there.’
Tony grunted and loaded his AK-47.
On the ground, two drag marks were clearly visible.
Tony looked up at Jonno. ‘The fuckin’ dog’s done an army crawl. You didn’t adopt a military dog, did you?’
‘You told me to g…g…g…get a vicious guard dog to protect the property.’
‘You fuckin’ retard. You got a dog trained for military combat. Now we have two escapees to kill. I want that dog’s head in a bag. If we don’t get them, you’ll be fuckin’ kneecapped, then try walkin’ out of here.’
Jonno could only manage a nod. He looked at the long sharp blade of the machete, resisting the urge to hack into Tony’s neck there and then. He walked ahead, cutting into the undergrowth.
* * *
Memories of Jonno’s childhood resurfaced. His father had beaten the crap out of his mom. He could hear his father punch into his mom during a drunken rage. Jonno would curl up under his blankets, hearing her cries through his bedroom wall. He had struggled at school. He’d been severely bullied, and his speech impediment worsened with stress. His father would whip him in his drunken stupor and call him a stuttering dumb-ass. The beatings didn’t stop there.
He was nine years old when he would hide in the clo
set trembling with fear until his father left for work. If his father found out he’d wet his bed, he wasn’t allowed food for the day. There were times when his father’s violent retributions left his butt raw with bloodied welts. To survive his childhood, he became submissive while fantasizing about the day he would kill his father.
During his early school years, he found the courage to tell his teacher why he couldn’t sit down, a teacher he thought he could trust. He remembered the horror on her face as he told his story of the beatings.
She pulled him aside out of earshot of the other children. At last, he thought, someone is going to listen to me. At last, someone is going to care enough to help me. His teacher knelt down and whispered forcefully in his ear, ‘That is a terrible thing to say about your daddy. I know your daddy and he is a God-fearing man. Don’t you go telling lies, Johnathan Brown.’
Little did he know his father and his teacher had been fuckin’ in the school gym since he’d started school.
That night, his father was waiting at the door. He got the worst beating of his life. His legs buckled with pain. It was the last time he trusted anyone. The last time he told the truth. He spent the rest of his adolescent years alone. The years of abuse stripped his self-worth. The days rolled into a feeling of nothingness. He wished the ground could swallow him and he would never have to face the world again.
Whenever he heard of a woman being tracked down and killed by her husband it terrified him. His mom had learned to stay. She’d learned to adapt. Running away was a death sentence.
When he turned fifteen, he grabbed his few possessions and escaped. He slept under a local bridge while sneaking back home to grab food on the days his parents worked.
He badly wanted to see his mom. He wanted to smell her perfume and feel her arms holding him. He was sure she knew he was sneaking into the house. There was always a meal wrapped in plastic with his favorite snacks. He wanted to leave her a note, but it was too risky. He fantasized about the day he would stand up to his father and reverse his brutality with a kitchen knife.
