Path of Ranger: Volume 1

by RJ

  JB didn’t rush anymore like he did before. Just walked along the road, up the hill. Besides, he saw it as an excellent opportunity to finish those mangos he had. Bridgers gave a hard thought about who might have lived on that island. Maybe there had been something valuable or still was.

  In half a day, the gangster came to the road’s end. His destination had a surprise for him that he couldn’t even dream of. There was a small waterfall. The stream coming out cut off the road. From one side of the trail, there was a cliff, from another – a rock wall of the mountain. And there also was a giant stone head of a statue of an unknown creature. It was just a head that stretched out of the ground, yet it was about thirty feet high. The rest of the statue stayed under the surface. JB froze on the spot looking at it.

  Dozens of questions flew through his mind. Most of all he was concerned about two things: ‘what was that creature?’ and ‘who could build it so large?’

  The rocky surface seemed artificially cut. Perhaps those people had been working on digging out the statue. And judging by erosion and the vines that were covering it, that digging had been dropped a long time ago.

  The most exciting thing there, in JB’s opinion, were the eyes. Both orbs were made of huge pieces of solid dark-red stone. It was smooth and refractive, precious, maybe. The view made JB forget everything else.

  It was getting dark. JB took his time enjoying the view of the statue and of the island from that altitude. He was getting bored. He made a few pictures of the massive artifact. It was time to move on. The bamboo stick fulfilled its purpose, JB didn’t need it anymore. Soon as he did first steps down the road, he threw the stick aside, in the nearby thicket. Suddenly, a metallic impact sounded from there. The gangster stopped. It appeared that he hadn’t found out everything about that place after all.

  Coming closer to the rock, JB started removing the thicket around the spot where the bamboo tool was. When some of vegetation got cleaned out, a metal plate showed up. It was protruding out of the ground, among a pile of rocks and sand. JB took a stick to knock on the metal, it sounded hollow. With some of the rocks being removed JB recognized in that metal object an old broken mine wagon.

  A mine wagon… Interesting. A mine has to be somewhere around…

  It made his investigation much more exciting. He wanted to dig further. So he stepped back to take a good look at the place with a new perspective. The vines, ivy, and bushes were all around the wall. He had to clear that up.

  The next couple hours passed as minutes for JB. He didn’t even notice how he managed to remove most of the weeds. That spot around the wagon gained a clear look of what used to be a mine entrance. It was collapsed purposely, one could tell by the explosive cracks in the wall’s solid face. JB realized that wouldn't be able to clear out that logjam. Yet, he wanted to dig somewhat around.

  Some gold would be nice… A sack, or two…

  It went completely dark. The twilight was gradually becoming a night. JB lowered down near the wagon to dig the ground with his stick. After a while he found some strange material that was mixed with sand. That crusty substance had a dark red coloration, like the crystals of the statue’s eyes. He continued digging with his hands then. The deeper he dug, the more of that red sand appeared. JB picked a full hand of the substance to try how it felt. Then the weirdest thing happened, the dust went illuminating. A red saturated incandescence came out of that pile.

  After a minute of observation, JB thought that it might be unsafe to hold that substance so he poured it back on the ground. The next thing he saw was his skin glowing where the material touched it. The whole situation looked strange and brought lots of confusion. The big guy picked some of the sand again to take a sample. Maybe, after getting out of the island, he might reveal its secret. Or sell it.

  A sack of cash for a pile of trash wouldn’t hurt…

  He stood up to go after his backpack. When walking along the road he noticed a brief movement, a shadow that flashed nearby. Firstly, he took it for a mirage since it was too dark to tell. A strong wind rose. The leaves sounded like a symphony across the jungle. Just a few steps left to JB’s things. Suddenly, a twig crunched right ahead. Then the bushes swished. Bridgers didn’t have time to even look around when a dark shadow attack him. In just a brief moment, it hit him, lifted him up in the air and threw him back down to press against the ground.

  Breathing became impossible in the next few seconds. His throat and mouth filled up with blood. JB couldn’t see clearly because of the tears in his eyes. All he recognized was a dark silhouette of a strange creature upon him. Four blades of monster’s arm were slowly cutting through his chest. His back felt wet and cold from the leaking blood. And the cold breath of the creature was coming closer to JB’s face.

  Bridgers realized that he was powerless, and those were the last seconds of his life. His consciousness went black. With his last strength, he squeezed his fist with the grains of glowing sand in it.

  The light. Everything got illuminated, no shadow, no shelter. The entire world was made of light. Or perhaps, there was no world, just light.

  Where am I? Am I dead? How can I see this? If I’m dead…

  The pain had passed. It felt like a bad dream. JB gained peace, the worries were gone. The thought of being in heaven flashed through his mind. It couldn’t be, even if he were dead, he was going to hell. Still, such thinking seemed improbable since he always rejected an idea of the afterlife. The confusion was caused by an absence of his own body. There were no hands, legs, or torso, nothing. Soon he got used to that idea. He adjusted to the light. It was getting more and more pleasant. It was a heaven. Time had lost its value. JB didn’t need time anymore.

  A sharp pain in his head cut off that euphoria. It felt like a hit on the head with a sledgehammer. The surrounding went in tremors and the light got dimmer. Then it went back to how it had been, quiet. But not having a chance to calm down from that unpleasant feeling, another hit came through. This one was much stronger than the one before. The pain was unbearable, and the irritating ultrasonic noise went along. The silence disappeared, as along with the light. JB ended up in the dark again.

  The darkness took over the pain. The noise faded too. Soon a consistent beeping replaced it. A small beam of light broke through the pitch black, growing up in its brightness. The beam wasn’t just ‘white,' it brought a coloration along. The picture appeared within JB’s vision, a blurred and uncertain one. It looked like a man’s head that was flying in front of blinding surgery lamps. The face of the stranger was covered with a blue mask. He was a doctor.

  “Welcome back to the world of living, my friend,” the man said.

  “Dude…” barely pushing out air, JB whispered.

  He lost the consciousness again. Those few seconds of being up hadn’t brought him much. But it told him the most important thing – he was alive.

  Later…

  An awful suffocation made JB wake up. His throat was over dried and was itching terribly. His lungs were in pain as if an acid were eating them from inside. On the other hand, he felt a comfort, for the first time in a while. A soft bed and air conditioning were nice to have around for a change. His limbs didn’t react, in fact, nothing but his closed eyes could move. He had no idea where he was or what was going on.

  In a few minutes the gangster fully awakened. He tried to open his eyes but didn’t succeed. It freaked JB out. Such helplessness brought a fear upon him. It lasted for some time.

  Soon he realized that panicking wouldn’t do any good to him. It was time to take matters into own hands. He tried to move the left hand, then the right one. No success there. The tongue worked, though. Yet, JB couldn’t open his mouth. Using the tongue, he found out that his jaws were fixed together with metal braces. It frustrated him even more.

  The gangster wouldn’t expect any good from someone who had done such things to him. He had to do something, to get out of that position. The only thing comforting him was that he was able to breathe at least.
Yet, it wasn't easy. His next idea aimed to enhance that one action available to him. To breathe. Maybe, if he increased the air supply in his body, the sensitivity would come back. He tried to make as deep of breaths as possible, as frequently as he could.

  After few minutes of such action, JB realized that all he had managed to gain was soft vertigo. The anger rose inside of him. He was so mad at the person who had put him there, it provoked him much more. The gangster made several tries in spurting with his shoulders to wake up the arms. Nothing. Nevertheless, he didn’t even consider giving up.

  About a half hour passed. Sure, he was tired a bit from all those tries, he even sweated a bit. But it brought him slight mobility of the left arm. As soon as he realized that, his effort doubled up. On the next spurt, his left hand lifted up. Jerry started moving his fingers and flexing the wrist. It felt much better now.

  When the left hand was alive again, he used it to massage the right one. He checked the right hand from shoulder to fingers, it seemed okay. Then was the time to mobilize it too.

  Soon both the arms were back under JB’s control. The next target was his eyes. He slowly moved his hands towards his head. But something stopped them on the way. The right pinky tripped over something hard, when the hand was going above the face. It felt like a breathing mask. Perhaps that was the reason for his painful breathing. Then he decided to take off the eyes cover, as he had planned. A surprise was waiting for him there. The fingers slipped from the bandage to the head’s top to feel that it was bald. JB went over the whole head, it had been completely shaved off. No more cornrow braids there.

  Yet, the shock about a new haircut wasn’t the biggest surprise. Just as he managed to open his eyes, he saw that breathing mask. It wasn’t made of plastic, but of glass, and it was transparent. It contained a red gas in it, which JB was breathing with. The big guy got intimidated by that. He was going to take it off, but eyes got blinded. He tightened his eyes as hard as he could. The pain went lower. He couldn’t believe at first that just a room’s illumination might be so painful. Maybe that was the reason why someone had covered him with the bandage.

  “You’re lucky, you know? You’re a big guy. If someone else would have been in your place…” a male voice sounded from another side of the room.

  It was a familiar accent, a Californian. JB supposed that the stranger just came into the room, since he hadn’t seen anybody around in those few seconds of his vision.

  “Who’s there?” the patient asked. He tried to get up, but couldn’t.

  “Oh, you’ve managed to restart the sensibility. Wow! That’s impressive. Less work for me,” the stranger said cheerfully.

  There appeared to be some lack of clarity in the man’s voice, he was chewing. Then crust added to that symphony.

  “Who are you? Why da fuck am I strapped?”

  “My name is Mark Gibson. I’m a doctor. And you’re not a prisoner. This is for your sake. So you wouldn’t interrupt a reparative process.”

  “Say what? My body is burning in pain! What process are you talking about?” JB tried to yell, but the mask and constant growth in sensitivity wouldn’t let him. His voice lowered.

  “A ‘reparative’ process. Your healing.”

  “Whatever…”

  “You probably don't remember much, right? Huh, that’s interesting…” then a mechanical click sounded. “The patient shows a memory loss after the accident.”

  “Damn! You’re lucky that I can’t move, or you wouldn’t mock me!” JB shouted and instantly felt another burst of pain. “Damn!” He coughed.

  “Are you a gangster or something?” Gibson wondered. “Look, considering what happened to you, you have to see yourself as the luckiest man in the world. You’re still breathing, right?”

  Then a new sound came from the doctor’s side, a food crust. JB couldn’t go on without asking.

  “What do you have there? A ham sandwich?”

  “A turkey one, actually. We’re on the island. Where would I get ham here?”

  “Where did you get a turkey?” JB responded in the same sarcastic manner. “Still sounds good. Got any for me?”

  “An appetite… That soon? How interesting!” the doctor mumbled when chewing. “It’s too early for you. I can tell you a neat story, though. About that guy. Interested?”

  “Okay, Doc. Let’s hear it,” JB said quietly now. He finally accepted the superiority of his host.

  With those words heard, Mark came closer. It sounded like he put aside some paperwork and sat down on a rolling chair. He moved even closer to Jerry, took off his glasses, which he carelessly laid right on the patient’s chest.

  “The thing is, Jerry…”

  “JB,” the gangster corrected him. “How do you know my name?”

  “I went through your stuff. The wallet, fake iPhone…”

  “Wait what?!”

  “It’s an island, not much to do here… What do you expect?”

  “Fair enough,” JB agreed. “How did you find out that it wasn’t genuine?” he wondered about his phone then. “Didn’t you touch a silent mode switch?”

  “What? No.”

  A few seconds of silence followed. JB couldn’t tell just by hearing what was going on. It seemed like the doctor wrote down something.

  “That’s good,” JB exhaled with relief. “You don’t touch that button.” Gibson didn’t respond. “So, sup with that story, Doc?”

  “The thing is… How should I put this? Two weeks ago you were attacked near one of the mines?” the doctor continued. “When I found you, you were messed up badly. Your chest was torn, most of the ribs were broken, dislocation in the left shoulder… And that’s not mentioning all those countless cuts. You had lost about sixty percent of your blood. The chances of your survival were one to…” the doctor lingered in thinking. “No, from a medical standpoint, you shouldn’t have survived. And I think I have an idea what saved you.”

  “What’s that?”

  It started to come back to JB, what had happened to him that day.

  “Here we’ve come to the part when I start asking questions. At first, I supposed that you’d got here with others, on the plane. But then I found something interesting,” this words gave Jerry an idea of what Mark was talking about. “So, the first question. If you’re one of the passengers of the flight ‘one oh seven,' why didn’t you go along with the others, to the shore? And a second question. How did you manage to carry a loaded ‘Desert Eagle’ firearm onto the plane? And why did you need to?” Gibson’s voice became serious, the good doctor’s playfulness vanished.

  JB realized that his life was in hands of the man whom he couldn’t even see, so the answers had to be right. He decided to be honest.

  “Let me start with the ‘gun question,' Doc. A few minutes ago you asked me if I was a gangster. The answer is: kind of. Let’s put it this way. I used to have a solid business back in LA a year ago. Then I had some problems. I stayed in Ukraine for a while, laying low, you know. But then, I decided to come back to the United States. And there are lots of people who wish me dead. The point is, I don’t even visit the can without that gun around.”

  “Uhuh, let’s say so. That doesn’t answer the question. How did you manage to bring it on the plane?”

  “I bribed the Chief of Security at the airport.”

  “Okay, continue.”

  “About the first question. Why not go with others? The reason was: I gained consciousness too late. While searching, they probably had taken me for dead. So I was left behind there, with stiffs. A few days after I managed to reach them, found out where they were… Still, I’m not a good person, and the crowd ain’t my thing.”

  “I see,” Gibson’s tone went softer. “The thing is, JB… I have seen a tattoo on your back, two letters, ‘JB.’ I can call you that, right?”

  “What? I told you to call me that myself… Never mind, go on.”

  “What was I saying? Oh, right,” Gibson sounded lost for a second. “This island is not
a regular one. Strange things are going on around here. Things that aren’t meant to be revealed to the public. But some people would want to get to these things. Do you get what I’m talking about?”

  “Nope. Not a clue…”

  “This secrets are important. So I supposed that…”

  JB interrupted Mark when he finally caught the drift.

  “Do you think that I’m some kind of spy? That I’m here for your secrets?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is that special about this island anyway?” JB wondered.

  “I have no idea. They just told me so, when I got here. I didn’t argue,” Gibson confessed.

  JB didn’t care much either, so he took that explanation on faith and didn't dig deeper.

  “Yet, you’ve healed me, when you could’ve just let me die.”

  “And here we’ve come to the main subject,” an uncertainty was felt in the Doc’s voice.

  “What subject?”

  “Your treatment. There were some complications,” a paper rustle sounded. Seemed like Gibson picked up his notes. “Tell me, would you? Did anyone from your family have any major physiological anomalies or defections?”

  “Major? Not that I’m aware of. But, I don’t know much about my family. That’s a long story.”

  “Okay, then. Have you ever been going through chemo? Or been exposed to radiation, maybe? Or have you been taken experimental drugs?”

  “No. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “It depends on the kind of drugs.”

  “Street drugs doesn’t count.”

  “No, then not,” JB said confidently. “If only… Unless… No.”

  When those questions had been answered Doc pulled out something out of his pocket. Jerry heard a click.

  “The subject’s body is a perfect recipient for the influence of the substance.”

  Then a click sounded again.

  “Da fu… Are you recording me, Doc?” JB wondered.

  “Just taking notes. Please, try to remember your last actions before the creature attacked you.”