Second Solace

by Robert Clark

  Outside the room was a corridor. It looked as dark and dank and void of life as the room. I was at the far end. Nowhere to go but left. I set off at a run. Silent and deadly. Like a wolf. Toward the danger. At the end of the corridor, the path split two ways. Left and right. Left looked like more of the same. Right looked like a set of stairs that led down. I didn’t want down. I wanted out. I needed air. I needed freedom. I went two for two and headed left. I listened to the ambient sounds. The vibrations. The humming. No people. Not yet. I reached the end of the corridor and turned right.

  Which was where everything changed. I came face to face with my first problem. A door. Except it wasn’t a door in the most primitive of senses. It looked like the vault door to all of life’s secrets. Behind it could be anything, the eighth wonder of the world, or the secret recipe to Coke. I slung the hook around my wrist and clasped the giant wheel protruding from the centre. I gave it a twist. It was heavy, but it gave way. Nothing was going to stop me today. I heaved and twisted until it loosened the lock mechanisms and groaned open. I gave it a push and squeezed through the gap.

  The room on the other side was not what I’d expected. About the height and length of a double-decker bus, and easily the width of three laid down on their sides, the room was home to what I guessed to be the source of the humming. Six enormous generators stood in rows of three directly in front of me. However, only one of them seemed to be fully operational, judging by how enthusiastically it wobbled. The other five looked as dead as a slice of roadkill. No sound whatsoever coming from any of them.

  But they weren’t my chief concern.

  The three men standing around them were.

  The closest man was Jack Dawson, standing with a ream of paper clasped in his hand. He had his back to me, but I recognised his clothes. The other two men were shorter and thinner, but more of an immediate problem as they were looking right in my direction. Maybe the sound of the door opening drew their attention. Maybe it was just plain bad luck on my behalf. Whatever. It didn’t matter. It was time to fight.

  They came at me in a pair. Two short, stocky guys with their fists balled up ready for a brawl. No guns, which was going to work superbly in my favour. But I bet Jack Dawson had one stuffed in the back of his trousers. So I wanted to be halfway to him before he got the chance to pull it out. He was on the disadvantage. As his buddies approached, he was still facing the wrong way, still clutching a stack of papers in his hand, and still focused on the disabled generators. But he was a soldier way back when, which meant he could be up and ready in half the time a regular joe would.

  So I had to act fast. I unsheathed my hook and sprinted at the two approaching guys. The hook was in my left hand, which meant it was going to be lodged in the guy on the right’s temple as soon as humanly possible. And it was. They only realised I was armed as the pointed tip of the hook swung past the eyes of the guy on the left, and plunged into the soft spot on the now dead guy’s head. And as the guy on the left realised he was in the shit, I thrust my left knee up into his groin and flicked my forehead into his nose. Two for two, down in about two seconds. One dead. One disabled. Neither getting up in a hurry. Just like we were taught.

  But as the guy on the left hit the deck, Jack Dawson was already dancing the dance of the US Army. He had a pistol in his hands that was quickly making its way up to my direction. He probably had his fingers around the grip before he knew what he was doing. Such was the power of a soldier.

  But I was a hunter, and I had powers of my own.

  The sound of the first bullet echoed through the room, ricocheting off the walls and ceiling, and amplified by the acoustics of a cold, solid structure, so that one bullet sounded like an entire magazine was coming my way. But I was already out of its path. I darted left, behind the working generator, which not only provided me cover, but forced Dawson to move. He wouldn’t shoot up his one working generator, not even for me.

  Sure enough, as I reached the rear of the generator, I could hear the sounds of furtive boots slapping over the noise of the engine. So I stopped dead and kept my eyes ahead, not behind. A brawler would follow me like a cat with a mouse. A soldier would try to cut me off.

  Jack Dawson played the role perfectly, and as he emerged directly in front of me, I swung the bloodied hook up towards the spot where his jaw met his neck. He ducked back just in time, which meant the pistol he had intended to point at me now had to contend with a sudden lurch back. I batted at his wrist with my right fist, which knocked the pistol free and sent it clattering down into the corner of the room. Not far enough away to be moot, but still a risk should one choose to go for it.

  The soldier in Jack Dawson did exactly what it was meant to do. It went on the attack. In quick succession, he sent two sharp punches my way. Both aimed for the head. Pow pow. The first missed by a fraction. The second hit dead on. Right beneath my nose.

  I stumbled back and in stunned confusion, I dropped the hook. Dawson went for it, but I managed to kick it out the way, and used the movement to shoulder barge him back towards the generator.

  The thing about soldiers, is that they are trained in the art of control. They might grow up with fighting in their blood, but they aren’t taught it. They’re taught to assess, to aim, to measure up a situation and find the right angle. It all comes in handy when you put a gun in their hands and tell them to shoot, but not so much when you put them with just their fists in a life or death situation.

  But to serve in the Marines is to be of a higher calibre. And Jack Dawson hadn’t just spent an hour hanging upside down being used as a punching bag. All he’d done was the punching. He was trained. He was focused, but not too focused. He was a serious threat.

  With my shoulder still lodged in his chest, pinning him to the generator, Dawson did the only thing he could. He threw his elbow down into my back and kicked me away. I fell down and scrambled away, and came up right next to the discarded pistol. He saw it. I saw it. And we both knew what would come next.

  He launched at me like a wild animal with his hands outstretched and his eyes wide with rage. He landed on me as my fingers slipped in around the grip, and he punched down twice on the back of my hand. I flicked my head back and caught him in the face with the back of my skull. He stopped his attack for a moment, which gave me enough time to wriggle around and swing the weapon up between us.

  Dawson played a wild card. He gave up his fight or flight instinct. He let all of his six foot and two-hundred or so pounds of flesh and bone sandwich the pistol between us. I could feel it, pressed against my ribs, doing the same to him too. If I fired, it had as much chance hurting me as it did him. Not exactly fifty-fifty odds, because there was no definite way of telling where the muzzle was facing, but not far off.

  I fired anyway. I wasn’t going to let near equal odds get the better of me. I felt the intense heat of the muzzle blast singe my stomach, and felt something sharp skip across my skin. But that was it. A surface wound at best.

  Jack Dawson let out a yelp of pain and moved back like a dog scolded by its master. As he rose up and moved away, I felt blood splatter down on my hand. I looked and saw the wound through a tear in his shirt. Not much more than what I could have suffered, but enough to shock a man who wasn’t expecting it. And his instincts betrayed him, because moving up and out of the way was exactly what I wanted.

  Like a cowboy in a showdown, I levelled the pistol by my waist and squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times. Three neat little holes in the midnight blue shirt. Three waves of shock in his torso.

  Jack Dawson went down like his brother. On his back, looking up at the man who had beaten him. Gargled words forming on the lips, but no substance to them. Nothing heard. Unlike Carl Dawson, I granted him a little mercy. I fired once into his head, and watched him sag like a deflated balloon on the stone floor.

  Don’t mess with wolves, pal.

  I spent a final round on the man I’d head butted. I didn’t want witnesses. That wasn’t how I do things. I lef
t the three dead men where they were, and scanned the room. No other ways out besides the door I’d entered through. A dead end. I had to go deeper.

  Back through the corridor, I found the stairs leading down and, with no other choice, I headed down. My boots on the stairs sounded like a klaxon, but there was no other way about it. I had no other options. Down or nothing.

  The walls closed in. Made me feel trapped. Caged. I didn’t like it. Too small. Too enclosed. The air felt heavy. The light was too bright. Too electric. It made my head hurt. Felt the pounding in my brain. A ticking bomb. Tick. Tick. Tick. About to explode.

  I fought through it, running down corridor after endless corridor. Bars on the walls. Smells of death. Lights burning my eyes. Walls crushing my sides. Air burning my lungs. I needed out. Needed out. Needed out.

  Cages all around me. Bars on walls. Smells of death. Decay. Forgotten air left to fester. Shadows lurking behind bars. Groans and coughs. Not outside. Not clean. Not free. Needed out.

  A door up ahead. Different to the others I passed. Looked strong and purposeful and intentional. The air smelt different. Clearer. Cooler. Wilder. I scratched at the handle. Twisted it around and around and around until it yielded. Threw all my weight into it. Pushed it open.

  It gave way. Not to the outside. Not yet. But close. Close. I needed it now. Now. Not soon. Now. I ran. Kept running. Past shapes I couldn’t focus on. Sounds were loud and strong and alien and not the whistle of clean air or the rustle of tall trees or the beauty of birdsong. I ran past them. Searched for the exit. Searched for clean air. Nothing yet. Nothing.

  Another person. Running at me. I fired again and again. Bullets hitting. Not killing. More gunshots. Coming at me. Missing. I leapt at the figure. Clawed at the face. Squeezed the eyes. Crushed the throat. Killed. Killed. Killed. Dead. Blood on my hands. On my face. In my mouth. I got up and kept going. Didn’t even register the face.

  Another whiff of clean air. I followed it like a shark with blood. Needed it. I saw the door. A dot on a bright wall. The lights searing into me. Bubbling my flesh. I fumbled blindly at the handle. Heaved it this way and that. It came loose. I pushed and pushed and pushed.

  Oxygen. Clean. Fresh. Oxygen.

  I staggered out into the snow. Felt the beautiful substance invigorate my soul. Heal me. I ran. Ignored everything. I just needed the trees. The snow. The freedom. The pain in my head was unbearable. Squeezing and bursting and bulging. Outside wasn’t curing it. It was a tumour. Killing me. I knew what it was. Knew it because I had been it. Squeezing and bursting and bulging. Trying to hurt. Trying to destroy. It was him. Undead. Revived.

  I kept going. Couldn’t let him win. It was my turn. He’d had his fun. It was my chance to fix his mistakes. Kept running. Branches snagged my face and arms. I ignored them. They were nothing. Nothing compared to the pain in my head. Behind my eyes. Constricting my throat. Humming in my ears. He wouldn’t win. It was my turn.

  My legs came out from under me. I hit the snow. Felt the cold on my face. He was winning. I couldn’t let him. Not now. Not after everything. It was my chance. I pushed myself up. Kept going. Kept running. Away from here.

  My legs wouldn’t work. I tried and tried and tried but they wouldn’t work. He held them back. Pushed me down in the snow once more. Pain in my head was too much. Too much. I couldn’t let him. Too much pain. Too much. Couldn’t let him.

  I dropped. Tried to breathe. Lungs felt solid. Waterlogged. I was drowning. Drowning in air. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t feel. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t win. I gasped. Looked at the setting sun. Stolen away too soon. My chance at an end. He was winning.

  I breathed. Breathed. Breathed. Nothing going in. Nothing working.

  I shut my eyes.

  Felt him take control.

  The boy wonder was reborn.

  Twenty-Six

  Rebirth

  I woke, not lying on my back in a bunker, but face down in the snow with an intense pain running from the tip of my skull all the way down to my coccyx. I didn’t want to move, lest the sight before me turn out to be some manifestation of my wearied brain. So I lay there, face slowly turning to ice, watching the final fingers of sunset creep over the distant trees.

  Nothing changed. The manifestation felt real enough. My face was numb. The cold felt like toothpicks slowly working their way into my brain. I had to move. Slowly, I lifted up my head, and brought my hands up to brush off the excess water. As my fingers touched my nose, I winced. The skin had bruised something terrible. Not broken, but not far off. Yet that was not the worst of the pain I felt.

  That award went to my stomach, which as I rolled over to check appeared to have been grazed by something. Maybe a knife or a bullet. My wrists too showed signs of minor burns. The skin was red, and the hairs singed. Not only that, but my shirt was stained with blood, and there was a pistol squished into my trouser pocket. What the hell had happened to me?

  Nothing from the Wolf. His absence only fuelled the unsettled energy coursing through my veins. A blackout was one thing if I woke up in the same position I was in before, but this was something else, and I didn’t like it. I tried to summon him to the forefront of my mind, but in the shadows he lurked. A silent entity in an already troubled soul.

  For now, his explanation would have to wait. I looked around at my surroundings. I was a fair way down the mountain, judging by how high it stretched up behind me, and down below I could make out the warm glow of Second Solace.

  I had a choice to make, and both answers felt like the right thing to do. Should I go back to Second Solace and make contact with the FBI, or should I return to the bunker and look for Agent Noble? Both had their merits, and I knew calling Miles or Whyte without a solid location on their partner would heed only more agro from the federal agents. But I couldn’t leave it any longer. Everything had been in flux since the moment I last made the call and spoke to the mystery voice on the other end of the line. I had to find out what had happened. Good or bad may the outcome be, it was better than uncertainty.

  So down I went. Towards the danger. I wasn’t worried about being spotted on my approach. A moonless night swamped the land, robbing all light that wasn’t man made. My eyes slowly acclimatised, which made the journey a little easier, and the strange new boots adorning my feet kept me from getting too much colder.

  I headed for the minefield, not the main entrance. Going that way would be suicide. I had to assume Cece had gotten the word out that I was an enemy to their way of life, which meant every man, woman and child would be after my blood. My list of friends had dwindled all the way back down to zilch. Well, give or take one person.

  As I reached the start of the boulders, I paused and tried to remember the track I’d last used. So much had happened since then that the memory had ebbed and faded. Not so much of a problem if you’re trying to remember the shortcut back through the fields to your house, but in a minefield it was life or death. I eyed each boulder, trying to figure if I had a better connection to it than the next. I observed their distinctive features and found one I liked the look of.

  I stepped out and didn’t explode. Nor did I after the second step, or the third, or fourth, or fifth. I made it all the way to the boulder without turning into a firework. Then I repeated the process all over again.

  It took far longer to traverse the boulder field than I would have liked. But I preferred a cautious approach to a dead one. At the fence, I found the spot I’d snuck through before and gave it a wiggle. It came loose, and I hoisted myself back into enemy territory. The patrolling guards were far off to my right, walking amiably in the other direction. Completely clueless, just like I liked them. I replaced the loose boards and headed for the trees.

  I took a steady, silent route back to Gail’s house. The lights were off, and my upstairs window was shut. If Gail had been in to tidy up and noticed the window was unlocked, I was in trouble, but I figured she had bigger fish to fry at the moment, what with her father being usurped and all
. Making sure no one was around to catch me mid act, I clambered up onto the ledge and perched beside the window. The satellite phone was exactly where I had left it, buried under a couple of inches of snow beneath the window sill. I brushed off the snow and tucked it under my armpit. I wanted to make the call inside, preferably.

  I tried the window. It was heavy, but not locked. I breathed a sigh of relief and slithered inside. With my feet flat on the ground, I held my breath and listened. My hand slipped around the grip of the pistol, but there were no signs of life in the house. Perhaps Gail was by her father’s side. Perhaps she was defending him from attackers. Even so, I stayed still and listened to the rustle in the trees and a whole lot of nothing else for a good few minutes before I was satisfied.

  I took the phone out of the plastic wrapping and checked it over. Nothing looked broken or tampered with. Hopefully no one had discovered it in my absence. I flicked the button beside the screen and waited for it to light up.

  Then I made the call.

  I listened to the buzz of the outgoing call and waited for a response.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The voice came not from the satellite phone in my hand, but behind me by the door. I jumped and spun round, raising the pistol as I did. Gail was standing there, framed in the open door.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Gail. You almost gave me a heart attack.’

  She didn’t respond to that. Her eyes flicked between the satellite phone and the gun. Gone was the smiling persona I had come to recognise. I thumbed the call end button on the satellite phone.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said eventually. ‘What are you doing?’

  I thought about trying to hide the phone or lower the gun. In the end I did neither.