by Bryan Alaspa
“I’m thinking that maybe we’re dealing with just one entity with vast power,” Mark said. “Maybe trapped in some pocket dimension or something like that. Something that can read our minds and take any shape it wants. It’s growing stronger but I think that last effort wore it out for a while. It could have finished us off right now if it wanted to.”
“Like you said before, maybe it just likes the sport of it.”
“True, but I still think if it had the energy it would have sent something else after us once Larry had been dealt with. I think creating that thing drained it. So, what is our next plan?”
J.D. sighed and shook his head. “I wish I knew. That thing out there took out most of the equipment. The storm isn’t going to let up enough for us to even attempt a repair. Even if the weather was perfect I can’t say we could fix the damn thing. I think we may just need to bring the whole fucking thing down and hope it all covers over the hole that they dug down there.”
“Are we taking the escape boats?” Mark asked.
“Unless you really want to hang around while this thing comes down, yeah.”
J.D. rested his head against the couch. Across the way Karmen had curled up on the floor and dozed. J.D. knew from experience that she could be fully awake and ready to fight in a fraction of a second. More than likely she would detect that something was wrong before he did. Her senses had always been sharper.
“I never did hear the story about you and Karmen,” Mark said. “I always figured you two met on one of your assignments somewhere.”
J.D. smiled. “That’s true. She was always able to kick my ass.”
* * *
He has been tramping through the jungle for five days before he finds the camp. By this time J.D. has established himself as a free agent. A network of informants and informal employees gets the word out to interested parties that he is available. Politics mean nothing to him. The only thing that matters is who has the right price. He is known for leading teams of men into impossible situations and then leading most of them back out again. He is also known for his expertise at training men to kill other men.
He is in South America. The exact country is irrelevant to him. Everyone speaks Spanish and not Portuguese so he knows he’s not in Brazil but beyond that borders don’t matter much to someone who has no political affiliation. He was given coordinates for a camp of ragtag rebels and he knows they have been patrolling this part of the jungle for months now. The rebels have been a bit of a nuisance to the reigning government but there are those in the world who would like to turn this patchwork army into a full-fledged fighting force. J.D. has been asked to do this and his price has not only been met but exceeded four times over.
He moves in the darkness afforded by the trees. He has a GPS device that shows him where he needs to go. He is about ten miles from the location of the camp when he hears enough noise to know he is on the right track. Shaking his head at the foolishness of the people he is going to have to train he begins sneaking through the jungle to spy on the rebel army for a while before he makes his descent. He toys with the idea of lobbing grenades down around the camp to scare them a bit so that perhaps they realize the stupidity of celebrating another raid so loudly and obviously.
He moves through the brush and his black clothing matches the blackness created by the overgrown vegetation perfectly. He is no more than a shadow. The lights and sounds are like a beacon. If he were a raiding army he could easily now start lobbing mortars on the camp. He rises on a small ridge and looks down at the camp which sits in a small valley below him. Their tents are scattered all over the floor of the valley and there are large lights strung from one tent to another. These lights turn the dark jungle into daylight and light the sky above. Fires burn everywhere, heedless of the potential for setting the vegetation on fire. Loud music is playing. Guns are fired into the air as if the corresponding bullets did not have to eventually come back to earth.
J.D. finds a nice spot beneath large leaves that provide shadow that will conceal him. He removes binoculars and make sure the night-vision has been shut off since this group has enough light shining on them already to be seen clearly from space. He watches as men and women, most them drunk, many of them in various stages of undress, parade around the camp. It appears as if a recent raid has brought them more food and more ammunition and they are consuming it so rapidly in celebration that another raid will be needed almost immediately. He wonders what he has agreed to and begins to think that things are hopeless. Then a blade is pressed to his throat and all of the blood drains from his face.
He reacts as he has been trained. His hand comes up and knocks the blade away and his feet spin him away from the attacker. He punches at a shadow behind him and feels his fist sink into the stomach of the knife-wielder. He is surprised when hands clamp down on his fist and pull him forward with the momentum of his punch and he is carried through the air and sent tumbling to the ground. A boot nearly smashes into his face before he has a chance to roll away from the figure. He is on his feet in a second with his knife ready.
Karmen stands before him in the jungle. She is dressed as darkly as he is plus she wears a black cap in her head. She holds the blade in her hand and as he watches, her other hand disappears behind her back and the blade’s twin appears. They ask no questions of each other. They launch into battle. Blades clash in the night. Feet and hands meet and block and strike again. J.D. is sent to the ground several times. Karmen is tripped by him only once. It is at this moment that J.D. attempts to pin her down and force his knife to her throat to get her to submit. He kneels on her chest and is bringing the blade down to her throat when she somehow manages to lift her feet up and get both of them around his neck. He is thrown forward and then back and suddenly he finds both of her blades at his throat and his arms pinned to his side.
“Are you Kartos?” She asks. “Blink once for yes and two for no.”
He blinks once.
“You’d better be able to prove it,” she hisses.
She gets off of him and he allowed to breath again. Coughing and sputtering he makes his way to his gear and finds his identification. He shows her the papers.
“Why are you hiding up here?” She asks.
“I wanted to scout the place out,” he says, “and see what I’m dealing with. These are the sloppiest bunch I’ve seen in a long time.”
She nods. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. I’m Karmen Etland, by the way. The same guys who sent you also sent me. I guess they figure these guys could use all the help they can get.”
“CIA?”
“At one time, yeah. I’m freelance now.”
“You can call me J.D.,” he says and extends his hand. After a moment of considering she takes it.
Over the next few months they two of them completely turn the group of partiers into a team of fighters. It is a long process and many are not up to the task. It takes the first month to weed out those who are only along for the adventure and not remotely serious about a cause. They train them together in military thought and action. Karmen teaches them how to work hand-to-hand. J.D. teaches them how to make their own knives and how to use them. He teaches them how to use swords. She teaches them how to stalk and hunt silently. He teaches them how to identify weapons by sound and how to disassemble, clean and reassemble nearly every piece of modern firearms he has the information on.
Eventually they join the group on a raid not only for food but to capture hostages that could be used for negotiation purposes. The team works like a machine as they descend upon a politician’s compound in the middle of the night. Few shots are fired but the politician is captured, his family slaughtered and the food in his home stolen. The brutality does not bother either J.D. or Karmen. They have long ago learned that in these situations it is the brutality that breeds fear and the fear that makes the larger enemy make mistakes.
That night J.D. is in his tent undressing and getting ready to sleep when the tent opens. Karmen stands there. Her fac
e is flushed, her hair down and she is breathing fast. The adrenaline from the raid is still pumping through their veins. Their relationship has been strictly professional throughout the past few months. No one that J.D. has seen has looked at Karmen as anything other than a soldier. Right now, though, her features are softened and there is definitely a woman standing in front of him. They stare at each other for what seems like an eternity. Without so much as a word they come together.
Their clothes are gone in a mass and pile near the door of the tent. Her body is smooth and muscular, but soft and curved in just the right places. She knows how to touch him in just the right ways without being asked or told. His fingers massage the tension out of her and the hardness that she has groomed within her self softens to his touch. Inside, she is very soft and he wants to stay inside her as long as she will let him. The passion is intense and as explosive as any of the munitions they carry. They lie in each others arms for that night and every night thereafter.
They are a team then. They spend two years in the jungles. J.D. prefers the jungles. He likes the humidity and the animals. He likes the close quarters. Karmen grows tired of the jungle and longs for open spaces. Eventually she takes a job in Africa and J.D. agrees to go with her. It does not go well.
He last sees her standing beneath the helicopter holding a machine gun. Blood is drying from a wound across her right cheek and her face is covered with dust and sand. She is shielding her eyes from the sun to watch the helicopter leave. He wants to take her with him but she refuses to leave. He watches her until he can no longer make out her form and the helicopter banks to the right and she is gone.
* * *
“I hadn’t spoken to her since then,” J.D. said, “she was really hard to find too. She was living in the desert. I guess she must like really dry lonely places.”
“Were her and Joe a thing?” Mark asked.
“I guess,” J.D. said. “The first I knew was about ten minutes ago.”
“Just what is the deal with you guys and swords, anyway?”
J.D. laughed. “Whenever I trained guys, I always trained them on firearms as well as working with blades. Swords were used for centuries and there is a good reason for it. They’re very effective and, used properly, can be pretty devastating. Karmen already knew how to handle her blades. I taught Joe. I taught myself.”
“Interesting sword you have, too.”
“Yeah, it was given to me by a friend who was in the Marines. It was the ceremonial one that came with his uniform. He had cancer and gave it to me just before he died. He had grown a little disillusioned with the Marines over the years and decided he didn’t want to be buried in his full uniform. I turned it into a fighting weapon with a few modifications.”
“You are some very strange dudes,” Mark said and yawned. “I can’t believe I actually feel like I could sleep.”
“You should try to catch whatever sleep you can,” J.D. said. “I’ll stay awake for a few hours and then wake Karmen up. We’ll keep someone on watch all night.”
“I should sleep,” Mark said, “but I can’t help feeling like I may not have much time left, so it would be a waste to sleep it away.”
J.D. nodded. “Try to sleep, Mark. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you get out of here alive.”
Mark smiled. “And that thing is going to do everything in its power to see that I don’t.”
He clapped J.D. on the shoulder and stood up. He found a spot across the room from J.D. against he wall. He laid down and closed his eyes.
J.D. wished he could close his, but he let his senses expand and listened. He sniffed the air. He let the old instincts that allowed him to survive in the jungle come out. The rig rocked ever-so-slightly with the wind and waves but there was no other sound or movement. Lazlo began to snore in the corner. J.D. smiled at the thought that the man could fall that deeply asleep in this situation.
He shifted beneath the blanket and got himself comfortable. He moved his legs to prevent them from going to sleep. He made sure the sword was near his hand and he let his eyes wander around the room and pierce the darkness of the hall beyond. It was going to be a long night.
10
Sometime about three in the morning Karmen shook J.D. awake. J.D. had managed to fall deeply asleep and went to full awake almost instantly. He shook off the last remnants of a dream he was having that he was back in the jungle. Bullets had been flying all around him and he had just turned to see Karmen’s head explode from the impact of a bullet. He was at first relieved to see Karmen sitting next to him and then immediately on alert.
“What?” He asked.
“Listen,” she said.
He listened. The sounds of the screams were dim but they were everywhere. The horrible sounds of millions of souls being tortured appeared to be coming out of the walls, the furniture, everything and anything in the rig. J.D. stood and gripped his sword. He found his clothes, mostly dry now, and put them on. The sound was not getting louder but it was steady. For a moment you could almost forget it was there, like white noise, and then a moments silence was enough of a reminder that it was still there.
“Any movement?” J.D. asked.
“I haven’t seen anything,” she replied.
Lazlo and Mark still slept. J.D. considered waking them up but since this did not seem like an imminent attack he decided against it. Karmen and J.D. had to find out what was going on but J.D. felt bad about leaving the two of them vulnerable like this.
“Which one of us should stay here with these guys?” J.D. asked.
“I already know what you’re thinking,” she said, “so I’ll stay in the doorway here. You go check things out.”
J.D. nodded and stepped into the hall. He debated which way to go and decided he wanted to head up to the control room and then down the hall to the living quarters. He climbed the stairs. The sounds did not grow louder as he moved. It was still the steady low sound of screams of agony and pain and beneath that the steady growling of something evil. It was like listening to thousands being tortured and beneath the screaming the sound of the torturers laughing with delight.
He reached the landing at the top of the stairs and turned to walk to the control room and he froze. The hallway was not empty. It teemed with movement. It teemed with people. People of all shapes and sizes and colors walked slowly from room to room down the hall. Their eyes were blank. Their bodies did not seem solid but appeared to glow a faint blue-green. Their mouths were open and their faces contorted in agony. Despite the contortions of their faces they moved slowly and steadily from room to room. They seemed to have no purpose and just wandered aimlessly. As he watched on form in the shape of a man wearing the GemCo logo on his shirt bumped into the wall and rebounded. There was no sign as to what had snuffed the life of this parade of the damned but their faces showed that whatever had killed them continued to torture them. J.D. saw the workers from the rig that he had watched on the video tape earlier. He watched women in petticoats and men in plumed hats walk by. It was like peering through a window and into the past.
J.D. walked down the hall. His heart thudded loudly in his chest and in his ears but he did not feel threatened. He realized he was looking at the manifestations of the countless souls whatever creature they were encountering had taken over the years. Men, women and children from all ages and times floated past him. This display was meant to be awe-inspiring he intuited and not entirely frightening. Their host was trying to show off how old and how powerful it was.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” A voice said to J.D.’s right.
J.D. turned his head and was not surprised at all to see the figure wearing Joe’s face and body. His arm was whole and undamaged. His face held a smile of pride.
“Look at them,” it said. “So many I’ve collected over the years. The beautiful sounds they make.”
“What are you?” J.D. heard himself ask. He hadn’t even been aware he was forming the question.
“I wa
s there before your kind decided to flop out of the primordial ooze,” it said. “I’ll be here long after you’ve destroyed yourself as well. I discovered, eons ago, that the fear your kind exuded was the greatest nutrient I could find. Your souls are so sweet and when they are combined with fear, the sweetness increases. The more they scream and the more souls I devour the stronger I become. I’ve been imprisoned for some time now. Thanks to you lovely people at GemCo I am now free.”
“If you’re so strong why don’t you just kill me now?” J.D. asked.
The smile faltered. “Do you think I couldn’t? I keep you alive because I wish you to be alive. I keep you alive because the longer I torture and torment you the sweeter your soul will be.”
“I think you’re just some kind of pathetic bully,” J.D. said, completely unaware where this bravado came from. “Whatever the hell you are or whatever the hell you came from you’re not nearly as powerful as you think you are. If you were you probably would have wiped humanity of the face of the globe a long time ago. You’re a thug. You’ve even been put in prison. You’re not even a good thug. Right now all you can do is a few fancy parlor tricks that get a few people killed. Killing people isn’t all that impressive to me. I’ve been doing it for a long time myself.”
He leaned in conspiratorially towards the thing wearing Joe’s face. “Now, you may have helped create this storm but as soon as you create the sun or the planet, then you’ll impress me. Until then, you’re just a thug and a coward. You won’t even show your true face.”
The look of mirth was long gone from the thing’s face. The ghostly forms vanished in a blink. The display was over although the faint sound of screams still rang from the walls.
“I’m thinking,” J.D. said, “that maybe you don’t even have a real face or shape. That shadow that I see whenever you disappear is what you really are. You don’t even have a form. You’re a lot of power with nothing to contain it and no discipline to use it properly. You’re like a child with a gun. I’ve never met anything more pathetic in all my time trotting around this sad little globe.”
