by Lyle Howard
Xavier rotated on the beam, and looked at Lance who stood poised with his hands on his hips. “Wait, sports fans,” Xavier screamed delightedly, “the challenger wants more … let’s hear it for the ignorant pug!”
Lance’s eyes narrowed into angry slits, and he grabbed his crotch. “Pug you, Antoine! It’s time to party!”
Taking the distance between Xavier and himself in less than four strides, Lance charged across the hangar. He dove for the doctor’s leg, but Xavier jumped out of the way and caught hold of another catwalk that was swinging above his head at an awkward angle. Hand over hand, Xavier pulled himself upward until he reached what was left of the hangar’s second level. Lance squinted up into the darkness, his right eye completely closed now.
“What’s the matter, Antoine?” Lance yelled against the wind, “running scared?”
Xavier leaned over the railing, fifteen feet above Lance’s head. “I’m right here, Cutter … come and get me!”
Lance shook his head. “No, this time, you’re coming to me!” He jumped up and grabbed the same catwalk that Xavier had climbed up on. With an overwhelming sensation of incredible strength, Lance began pulling on the walkway. The sound of yawning metal filled the hangar. Xavier grabbed hold of the handrail as the grating beneath his feet began to wobble and then give way.
“What are you doing, Cutter?” he screamed, “you’re going to pull the entire hangar down on top of us!”
There was a peaceful expression of resignation on Lance’s face that simply petrified Xavier. “That’s the idea, Antoine! You said it yourself; we’re different than everyone else!”
Xavier slipped himself underneath the handrail and dropped to the hangar floor. “Ssstop it!”
Lance continued to pull on the catwalk. Between the battering it was taking from the hurricane, and the strain that Lance was putting on the buildings infrastructure, the hangar wouldn’t survive much longer.
Xavier grabbed Lance from behind. “Let go of it!”
With a quick spin in his arms that even took Xavier by surprise, Lance had a hold of the doctor’s tie.
“I’ve always felt strongly about the old adage, ‘It’s better to give, than it is to receive.’ How do you feel about it, Doc?” Lance added emphasis to the last syllable with a sharp jab to Xavier’s face. The blow would have sent Xavier reeling, had it not been for Lance holding him in place by his tie. Eight more straight punches to the face. “I … think… this … is … going … to … be … fun!”
Xavier’s face lurched from side to side, like he had a loose screw in his neck.
Lance smiled through purple and black lips. “Too easy, Doc. Much, much, too easy!”
Lance reared back to deliver the knockout blow, but as his fist screamed forward, Xavier caught the hand in his palm and stopped it dead. “You talk too much!” the doctor sneered.
A driving knee between Lance’s legs, and his surroundings began to blur. Lance was positive that if Xavier had caught him much cleaner, his testicles would have come rolling out of his mouth. He sank to the floor in unspeakable agony.
“Get up!” Xavier howled. Lance couldn’t move. “Get up, I said!” Lance didn’t move. Xavier stood over Lance and grabbed his hair, lifting his distorted face upward. “Now, Cutter, this is what I call a party!”
Lance didn’t know where he summoned the strength from, but with all of his energy concentrated into his left fist, he brought the clenched hand up a piledriver … and delivered a crushing uppercut to Xavier’s crotch. The doctor stumbled backward and tripped over the gas generator.
Lance tried to shake off the fire in his scrotum. His teeth were still gritted but he managed to stand up. “For a minute there, Antoine,” he moaned, “I was afraid you weren’t going to have any gonads! Do reptiles have balls?”
Xavier was doubled over like a fetus. Lance grabbed a loose piece of metal conduit and held it over the doctor’s head like a club, poised to crush his mutated skull. Xavier looked up at his younger brother, the human side of his face swollen and purple just like Lance’s. “Do it…” Xavier softly hissed, “I would have done it to you … do it.”
Lance’s hand trembled. With a swift downward arc of his arm, he heaved the pipe across the hangar. “I’m through fighting, Antoine … through fighting.” He turned his back and staggered away. “Through fighting … and running … and hiding…”
He was halfway across the hangar when he heard a monstrous roar behind him. Xavier was back on his feet, holding the gas generator above his head.
Lance raised his hands in submission. “You want to do it, Antoine, fine, then go ahead and do it! There’s probably enough gasoline in that tank to send this whole friggin’ hangar to Kingdom Come! Go ahead … I was beginning to think that this world would be a safer place without the two of us mucking it up, anyway!”
That monstrous roar again … but it wasn’t coming from Antoine Xavier! Lance looked up. Suspended just above the doctor’s position, a funnel cloud was dropping out of the heavens, like the gnarled finger of the devil himself. Xavier had no time to react … he was sucked skyward, his screams never penetrating the swirling vortex … pirouetting violently at hundreds of miles per hour. The gas tank hurtled free of the cyclone and crashed against the side wall of the hangar, exploding on impact, creating a blazing inferno that rapidly spread along the floor of the entire structure.
Lance tried to outrun the tornado, but it pulled him backward like a deadly magnet. His bare feet pawed at the wet pavement as he grasped for anything that might help anchor him, but everything in the burning structure was being ripped loose.
Within seconds, the scorched walls of hangar twelve buckled, and the battered structure finally collapsed in upon itself.
FORTY
Laramie, Wyoming
Friday, August 28th , 1992
Major Lee Wornell hated this duty. As he pulled up to the old farmhouse, he held up the telegram to read the name typed on the yellow envelope. It was only ten in the morning, and already the heat was rising from the dusty gravel road in rippling waves. The sun was hot. Too hot for a uniform jacket, but it was protocol.
He slipped the transmission into park and double-checked the name on the mailbox … “Cutter” … it matched the name on the telegram. This was the burden of his rank that he could never quite get used to.
An elongated rundown structure stood behind the house. He shook his head in regret. Poor old people, just trying to make ends meet. They don’t deserve news like this.
He got out of the car and stood for a moment, just soaking in the silence of the prairie. In the distance, the Laramie Mountains shimmered like diamonds against the cloudless blue sky. It sure was peaceful here. A person could get used to this.
The old wooden gate creaked open as Wornell walked up the dirt path to the front door. On the porch, a bench swing hung limp on rusting chains like a reminder of happier times. A small rock garden in the center of the parched lawn held a collection of withered orange flowers and thriving weeds. Just when you thought that a place couldn’t get any more depressing, I have to come along, Wornell thought to himself.
The screen door was torn in more than one place, and as the major prepared to knock on it, he could hear more than a few trapped flies buzzing between the dilapidated front door and the screens. The high-pitched sounds that the cornered insects made sent a shiver down his back.
“Is anybody home?” he called out instead of knocking. After a few seconds, he could hear footsteps inside the house, drawing closer. “Hello … anybody here?”
The front door opened and Wornell took a step back. Peering through the screen at him was an old man who looked as though he could have been chiseled out of one of the mountains from the Laramie Range. The old man’s face was tanned and leathery, and was fissured by more lines than a New York City road map. His smile was wary, yet friendly. “What can I do for you, Captain?”
Wornell straightened his tie. “Uh … Major, sir… Major Lee Wornell,
United States Air Force.”
The old man scratched at the gray stubble on his cheek. “What can I do for you … Major?”
Wornell fumbled with the telegram. “Are you Mr. Floyd Cutter?”
Cutter nodded. Wornell half-smiled. “May I come in?” Floyd Cutter raised an eyebrow as he quickly sized the major up. “I don’t usually take to strangers in my house, but seein’ as you’re a military man … I guess it’ll be okay … just for a minute though!”
Wornell swallowed hard. He didn’t want to stay any longer here than he had to. “That’s all the time it will take, Mr. Cutter.”
The old man opened the screen door and shoed the flies away. “Come on in.”
Wornell was immediately surprised by the cleanliness of the house. The exterior of the old building belied the charm and comfort of the home’s furnishings. The old man pointed the way into the living room. “So what’s this all about?”
Wornell walked over to a comfortable-looking chair that had lace doilies draped over the armrests. “May I sit down?”
The old man nodded. Wornell took a seat on the edge of the chair. The old man glared at him. “You don’t have to walk on eggshells, Major. Spit it out if you’ve got something to say to me!”
A feminine voice called out from upstairs. “Floyd? Who is it?”
Wornell frowned. “Your wife?”
The old man turned his head toward the hallway. “We’ve got company, Eva!”
Wornell sat back in the chair pensively. “Maybe we should wait until she joins us.”
The old man walked over to a couch on the opposite side of the room and sat down, crossing his legs. His working boots were old and worn down at the heels. Wornell turned to the hallway when he heard footsteps on the stairs. When Eva Cutter entered the room, he stood up and held out his hand. “Major Lester Wornell, ma’am, United States Air Force.”
Eva Cutter studied his uniform. “Yes, I can see that you’re Air Force, Major … but what do you want from us?”
Wornell smiled at the woman, who he couldn’t help think looked older than her age. “Perhaps you should take a seat next to your husband, ma’am.”
Eva Cutter wiped her hands on her apron and sat next to her husband while Wornell paced nervously across the throw rug in front of them. Floyd looked at Eva, and Eva looked at Floyd and shrugged.
“I’m here on behalf of the Air Force, Mr. and Mrs. Cutter. It’s about your son, Lance.”
Eva reached for Floyd’s hand. “You mean our grandson, Lance, don’t you?”
Wornell paused. Stupid mistake, he should have realized that it would have probably been their grandson. “Uh, yes … sorry … your grandson, Lance.”
Floyd sat upright on the couch. “What does my grandson have to do with the Air Force, Major? He’s an arson inspector in South Florida!”
Wornell bit on his bottom lip. “But he died on an Air Force base.”
Eva Cutter covered her mouth. “Oh my God!”
Wornell averted his eyes. “I’m sorry to be the one to bring you the news this way. I’m very sorry.”
Floyd Cutter pulled his wife’s head against his shoulder. “I … I don’t … understand. What was my grandson doing on an Air Force base?”
Wornell shrugged. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cutter, I don’t know all of the details. South Florida is still digging out from under the debris of Hurricane Andrew, and Homestead Air Force Base is pretty much a total loss. The specifics of what might have happened are sketchy at best, and might not ever be known.”
The old man’s lips quivered. “We want the body sent back here for burial.”
Wornell grimaced. “Well, Mr. Cutter … there’s a slight problem with that.”
Eva Cutter’s head snapped up. “I want my grandson brought back her so he can have a proper Christian burial … do you understand me?”
The major walked over to the fireplace and set the creased telegram upon the mantle next to a grouping of family photographs. The picture he leaned the message against showed a young woman with a tiny boy sitting on her shoulders. The rock garden behind them was in full bloom. Wornell took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to say this tactfully, ma’am, but there’s not much of your grandson left to bury.”
Eva Cutter burst into tears, and again, Wornell had to turn away. “Then how do they know it’s my grandson that’s dead, Major?”
Wornell touched the photo of the little boy and his mother. “Fingerprints … it was a positive identification … I’m very sorry.”
Floyd Cutter hung his head and cried. The first time he had done it since his daughter had died in the plane crash eleven years earlier. “Could you please leave us be now, Major?”
Wornell wanted to say something else that might ease their sorrow, but decided against it. “Yes, sir. I’m very sorry again, sir.”
The old man sniffled. “You know the way out, Major.”
Wornell backed out of the room. “Yes, sir, I do. My condolences to both of you, and the rest of your family.”
The major left the two old people rocking regretfully in each other’s arms. Floyd Cutter waited until he heard the car pull away before he walked over to the window. He watched the dirt-covered sedan until it was just a small dark dot on the horizon.
“He’s gone.” Eva looked up and sniffled. “How was I?”
Floyd gave her a thumbs-up. “A regular Meryl Streep!”
Together they sprinted up the stairs like a couple of teenagers to the last bedroom on the second floor. Throwing the door open, they both smiled at Julie Chapman who was sitting on the edge of the bed, applying a cold compress to Lance’s swollen face. “We did it!”
Julie grinned. “And you’re sure he believed you?”
Floyd Cutter sat down on the foot of the bed and began massaging his grandson’s bruised legs. “Took it hook, line, and sinker, just like a rainbow trout!”
Lance could still manage a partial smile. “Didn’t I tell you there was nothing to worry about?”
Julie leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Yes, you told me that!”
Eva Cutter waved her hands from the doorway. “Whoo-wee, you should have seen me and Floyd turn on the faucets! We should win ourselves a pair of them gold-plated Oscar statues!”
Julie giggled.
“So, you two gonna hang around here for a while?” Floyd asked. “I could sure use the extra hands.”
Lance glanced up at Julie with his one good crimson eye. “What do you think, Jules?”
Julie looked out the bedroom window at the prehistoric building barely standing in the backyard. “The place could sure could use some fixing up to make it into a going concern again.”
“Either of you know anything about raising fish?” Eva asked.
It hurt Lance to frown. “I can hardly remember the things you both taught me, Grandma.”
“Not the first thing,” Julie admitted.
Floyd Cutter stood up, walked over to his wife, and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Well seein’ as how you’re officially dead now, I think that you and Julie there got all the time in the world to learn!”
Lance stretched his hand up and tenderly touched Julie’s face. “You’re absolutely right, Grandpa. Now; Julie and I have all the time in the world!”
