|
The administrator was humble enough, but there was no denying the facts.
Cindy shrieked. "Dead?" Only by the strong will of her mother's training did she manage not to claw the eyes out of the woman standing before her.
She practiced conjunctive verbs in first Latin, then Greek. It helped, but only a little. Benny dead. The Project was doomed. She herself was doomed. A nothing, a nobody. All her work since entering college was done for. She walked away from the lieutenant colonel, her hands clasp over her face. Deep within Cindy there was now an empty spot that would never again be filled. He was gone.
She spun, her arm shot out, finger stabbed at the man.
"Harshaw. I want his body."
"No." The head-nurse folded her arms under her breasts and stood her ground. "This is a military base and no civvie is gonna come into my hospital and make demands she has no right to."
"Dammit," Cindy cried, "I have clearance you only wish you could get." She stared fiercely into the woman's solid face. "I demand you do it, Harshaw. Do it," she screamed. "Now. At least we can salvage something. We can try to clone the boy's genes and repair the damage done to the Project."
"Yes ma'am. Will do." Harshaw's head jerked forward in a spasm.
"The hell you will."
Lieutenant-Colonel Jarvis took Harshaw by one flabby muscled arm and she smiled an evil nurse's smile. "You do that, boy, and you'll do a long stretch at Leavenworth. You hear me? A long stretch. In case you haven't heard, mister, there's a war on, and no civvies are gonna come on in here and play boy-games. We got wards full of men and women who can't be disturbed. You wind up in Leavenworth, I guarantee you'll be mighty sorry. You know what those places are like, Mr. Harshaw? You should. Men like you do your best to make them like that, you vote-sucking sunuvabitch. Then you know what happens? Provided you survive prison, that is."
She smiled at his adams apple. Amazing how much you can tell about a man by watching that little piece of gristle. It jerked up and down a few times, then she gave a small laugh.
"Yes, sir, you do know. You get drafted. It's automatic, isn't it, Mr. Harshaw-big-law-rat. You go directly to Go and the front. If there was a front in this war. You get to see the prettiest forest and mountains outside of the US of A. Right where the fighting's the thickest. I bet it makes Philly in July look like child's play. Least ways from the casualties I've seen, I'd say so. How about that, Mr. Harshaw?" She glared in contempt at the man's pretty face and well manicured nails. "You ain't man enough to survive prison, let alone South America in the monsoons. What makes you think you can get by me?" she hissed. "I'll eat your toadying liver, I will."
His mouth gaped like a dying bass. Harshaw's head jerked a couple of times in a sharp nod and he back-peddled away from this darkly ominous woman.
"Dammit, but you had better get out of our way," Cindy cried and raised her fists to the nurse.
Contempt written on her face, the lieutenant-colonel smiled. She raised her fists and said, "Come on, baby, make my day." Screaming "Hy-ya!" Cindy flew at her, the nurse stabbed twice, a sweet one-two punch and Cindy crumpled at her comfortable shoes.
"Yesssss, perfect," the nurse said. She glanced with cold eyes at Harshaw. "One, two. One I hit you, two you hit the floor.
"Orderly!"
A man in uniform ran forward. He saluted and grinned hard enough to crack cement.
"Ma'am?"
"Do you see this here trash on my floor?" she demanded. He nodded. "You know I run a tight hospital, correct?"
"Yes ma'am! Like a bull's ass in fly-time, ma'am!"
Her lips twitched slightly. "Well? Clean it up, private. Keep it neat in here."
She turned and marched down the emergency ward past numerous gurneys with men and woman from the MASH hospitals in the south of America del Sud.
The orderly was not gentle, and perhaps he couldn't resist laying his hands on places of that perfect body he shouldn't have. It was all in the line of duty, after all. Wasn't it? He lay her beside the huddled DA and saluted the lean, shaken man with the middle finger of his left hand.
"You folks have a nice day now, hear?"
Jarvis stalked through the halls of her hospital. She eased a sly wink at the ambulance driver and the paramedic and they hustled Benny down the hall and out the back of the cafeteria.
Making the Eagle-woman's sign for peace after them, she whispered harshly in ani:Tsalagi, "Don't you dare die on us, you little bastard," and stumbled away. "Dammed dust in this rat's hole," she muttered at a staring orderly.
Cindy. Benny caught that much from the low tones of the three moving him. He tried to smile at the old woman, a colonel-something. He wasn't up on Army insignia. Had he been able to, Benny would have used every ounce of cat-house charm learned at the Manse on this one. She was his personal hero from this day forth. No-body ever got much of anything over on Cindy VanTur. Geez. He tried to wink, but his right eye didn't seem to be there anymore.
Carefully loading Benny into the back of an unmarked van, the drivers, Army personnel, raced him up to Pope Air Force Base. He was placed on an unauthorized heli-jet and rushed towards Camp LeJeune on the New River.
Colonel Jarvis watched the van move out until she could no longer see it. She turned and hurried down the halls to Records and stepped in.
The personnel in the room stood at attention. She waved them down and took a chair, groaning over her feet.
"We got a major problem, boys and girls," she told them. She scowled at a few knowing grins and then let a small dry chuckle rasp in her throat. "You know the scut. You heard about it on the news tonight. But do you know the who?" Jarvis smiled and whispered, "Ivanovitch, Carl. Sarge, to most of you scuds. A Marine, yes, but a good man in spite of it."
She nodded at the door and one of the women snapped on a small portable radio. As C-&-W filled the small room, she quietly informed them it was Carl's stepson that the fuss upstairs was all about.
"He was a goddammed hero, for a fact. I met the man. Most of you at least heard of him. He's dead," she said in flat tones. Several of the people frowned. One took a hankie out and daubed at her eyes. "He still needs you, even if that boy did go to hell in a handbasket. Kid's name is Benny Wya Grey. He was never here. He was never in the State of North Carolina. You got compies, now use them." She arose, nodded, and left them to their work.
"What do you want us to do, Ma'am?"
Closing weary eyes she inclined her head.
"Whatever it takes. Carl's boy deserves it."
They hit rough weather, a storm that swept up the coast with all the fury the Owl could buy or blackmail. Lightening struck at the heli-jet. The demon hissed and screamed when a casual Two Swords flicked it aside. A bolt hissed past Two Swords and 'Heart and licked at the fuel lines for the jet burner. The tank burst into flames and the pilot cursed and jettisoned the tank.
Shuddering under the assault, the heli-jet rocked with the winds and rains lashing at it. Two Swords roared orders to his subordinates and charged directly at the Owl.
Lightening thrashed around the blades in an eerie blue glow.
"We're going down," the pilot cried, and gripped the joy stick with both hands in an effort to keep the chopper steady.
Owl screeched and slipped between the cracks in the hatch.
He stood, panting, his chest heaving, over Benny.
"You are mine, son of the Wolf's Bitch." He grinned and raised his sword, Grey-eater-of-men's-Souls in knife fashion.
Benny stared up at him, seeing his grandfather, old man Grey. This is insane. "You can't," he whispered. "You're dead."
"Live forever in Shambala," Owl said in a mocking whisper and thrust the blade down.
His Gray screamed and gold light crashed from it. Two Swords stood over Benny, his legs thrust out wide. He grinned wolfishly at the Owl and Heart trilled a challenge.
Owl cast a bitter look of contempt at the massive Warrior and his pulsing sword. The sword's tip moved a fraction of an inch towards the demon and a small spark of blue light struck off Gray's tip. Gray-eater shrilled in pain and the Owl dropped it and jerked back.
Owl stared at Heart and then at Benny. "You," he spat, "Grey-wolf's bastard son. You did that to me." He screamed a challenge, leaped at Two Swords, his hands curled into claws and then dived for his sword. Owl gave a laugh of triumph and snatched the gray, pitted length of steel from the floor of the sinking helicopter. The Warrior braced himself, ready to do battle to the death.
Owl feinted at Two Swords.
Two Swords slashed at the Owl and with a mocking laugh the Owl faded away.
He grinned at an awed Benny, then reached through the shell of the heli-jet to adjust the cracked blade. "Yo, Three Wings? Hang onto this piece of scrap till we make a landfall somewhere."
The subordinate Warrior wrapped herself around the blade and whooped in joy. "Better than catching a wave off a white nova," she screamed, her mohawk standing straight out from her body, jewelry flashing in lightening strikes skirling around them. The blade snapped. She grasp at it.
"It's gone," she screamed over the turbulence at Two Swords. He shook his head and roared back, "So? Do something."
"Like what?"
"Like, pretend it ain't gone."
She shot him a dark look and stretched herself out along where the blade had been.
Two Swords grinned at her and stuffed a wad of RedasCinn gum between his jaws and choked on the flames coming from it. Eyes watering, he turned and offered a much smaller piece to the Benny-spirit.
Benny felt something warn him not to try it. He glanced around at the Warriors. They all tried to look nonchalant and turned away. He was about to shake his head no, when the big ugly one in charge leaned down and with a gust of hot cinnamon breath said mockingly, "What? Carl Ivanovitch's stepkid a chicken?"
Benny bared his teeth in a cold smile and took the gum. He glared around him at the hidden grins and chewed. His eyes flew open wide and he gasp, choking on the hotter-than-scotch bonnets flavoring.
Two Swords gently pummeled him on the back. Benny gasp and spat out the gum. A gout of red and blue flames followed the gum that ignited the moment it left his mouth.
Benny clenched his hands into fists and Two Swords gave him a nod and a wink that said Benny was a wolf to run the trails with.
"Good man, you got a lot of guts, kid," Two Swords whispered to Benny.
The heli-jet eased down. They brushed the tree tops and the pilot bit his tongue. The tops of jack pines and a live oak seemed to reach up and snatch at the bottom of the chopper.
He spotted a clearing in the forest below. Water glinted in it. "Donno if it's an open space or a part of the swamp," he said tersely to his co-pilot, "but we don't have much choice."
The heli-jet slipped a little to the left. The blades crashed into the limbs of the trees, filling the air with greenery. The pilot choked off a laugh. It looked like some insane Santa's idea of Christmas out there.
The aircraft eased down. The surface of the water frothed and churned. Small slithering creatures franticly tried to escape and were crushed by hot rending metal and clouds of boiling steam.
They sank a few inches and stopped. The two men grinned at each other and nodded. "Great landing."
"No shit. Couldn't of been better if the Wright brothers had done it."
"How's our patient doing?" the pilot called back to Benny's attendant.
The helicopter shifted and began to sink into the mire of the bog.
The nurse knelt over Benny. She glanced at the men working the oars and shook her head.
"He won't make it."
The oars slacked and the pilot wiped away a film of rain lashing over his face. "He got any kind of chance at all?"
The nurse shrugged, then nodded. "Maybe. If we get him back on life-support in the next fifteen minutes, yeah."
The pilot nodded at his partner and they struggled with the small raft, trying to move it out onto the river.
"Pray not, old friend, that thy days run out-"
"Huh?"
"Something my old man used to say. I can't remember all of it, but he said he heard it in 'Nam, from a priest who was going to be executed in a POW camp. 'Pray not, old friend, that thy days run out before thy work is through . . . ' and that's all I can remember." He glanced at Benny and started praying softly. It was the only thing they had left.
"Moron," his Guardian shouted. "It's the only option you ever had."
A plane raced overhead. The nurse grabbed a flare and was about to strike it.
"Hang on," the pilot shouted and grabbed her arm. "What if it's the cops?"
She jerked her arm free and struck the flare. "At least he'd have a fighting chance with the cops, better than being gator bait out here," she yelled back.
The plane spiraled back, and the lights on the wing tips waggled at them.
A helicopter appeared like magic and Benny was, for once, the first allowed on board. A sergeant helped the nurse up. He shouted above the roar of the blades, "Welcome to Camp LeJeune, Ma'am."
Lights flashed past him, blue, green, gold, they whirled around his head, through his body. He blinked once and saw a bright, glaring ceiling over his face. It burned his eye. He groaned and was thankfully numb. He slipped away, up through golden waters that felt like warm oil. A hand shot down and heaved him from the stream.
Benny glanced back and shook his head at the mangled corpse laying on the operating table and the frantic doctors working there.
"Vital signs are low, Doctor, and dropping."
"Careful, Mike. See the pieces of bone lacerating his spinal column?"
"Yeah. I did one like this down south. Kid took a direct from a flying-mine."
The doctor chuckled. "Almost got nailed by one of those myself. I've hated macaws ever since."
He glared into the wound. "More suction, nurse. My uncle brought one back with him. He says it's better than a pit bull at guarding the house and grounds."
"Killer chickens."
"Yeah. There, almost got it." He held the last piece of bone up into the light and a ragged cheer broke out.
"Let's hope he makes it, people. He was pretty rough when we started and I would never have approved any of this if it hadn't been necessary."
Benny glanced across the Rock at the Sun Wolf. "Am I gonna live?" he asked quietly, with just a faint trace of fear. He had lived with Death stalking him for so many years it no longer felt strange to wonder.
The Wolf tried to smile. He shrugged and said in a soft murmur, "It isn't up to me, kid. If it were . . . ." He gave Benny a strangled smile and closed his eyes.
Benny dived down and down into the clear waters, into his envelope of flesh. He lay still and closed his eyes, ready for come what may. But nothing in his life prepared had him for what he heard and saw. Not life with old man Grey, not his months at the Manse.
He opened his eyes to stare at a roach infested ceiling. The light of a single, sixty watt bulb flickered, and shadows swung from a green tangle of rotted wires, that hissed and snapped in the bone chilling dampness of the room.
A girl lay beside him.
"Sue?" he whispered and smiled at her. His dream girl. His nightmare love. Pretty, vivacious, tortured Sue.
A microscopic sliver of bone clicked into a steel pan and the surgeon began the painstaking procedure of closing up.
Cindy paced her room at the Governor's Mansion, walking the length and breadth of the room as though it were a narrow confinement, a place of bars and no air. She ripped off the light robe she was wearing and cast it away. Sweat beaded over her flesh, ran down the tawny skin. Her steps were measured, her body willow and golden tanned wheat, her movements leonine, poised and graceful, the image of a hungry leopard.
A slight tap at the door brought Cindy out of her thoughts.
"Yes?" Her voice was well modulated and gave no indication of the inner turmoil her mind was going through. She clenched a fist and pressed it into her womb. No more Benny.
"Ah, Mrs. VanTur? A Mr. Wilson to see you, Ma'am."
"Tell that old bastard it's late and I have no intention-"
The door crashed against the wall. Cindy gasped in outrage and shock. She caught one glimpse of his chauffeur and the man's deeply appreciative eyes before the door slammed shut on the face of that prima donna of a maid, and she whirled, seeking her night robe.
"How dare you come in without my permission." She spotted the robe and snatched it up.
Wilson smiled and gave a slight bow. He settled into a chair and tapped his cane on the floor.
"Have you found your, ah, prey, Mrs. VanTur?" he asked in a deferent voice that did not match the look on the face.
Her eyes narrowed. The judge's fleshy jowls quivered and the slightly mocking smile wavered.
"It would appear all your work was for nothing, Judge."
His eyes widened in alarm. "But, the subject was in Fayetteville only today, Mrs. VanTur. I have it on good authority that he was arrested by the police and was hospitalized after resisting arrest."
She tossed Wilson the remote for the television and said, "Try any channel."
He pointed the remote at the wall and the curtains slide aside to reveal a six-foot screen. The woman took a seat near him. She would rather of sat farther from the man, but the only other place that was far enough yet still be mannerly was the bed, and that was out of the question.
"Wait," she snapped when he frowned at the screen.
A few minutes into the program a news flash came on. the announcer smiled broadly at the camera and rhapsodized of a new way to save money by using his sponsor's product and then a jingle of the product. The next scene was the night-washed south-bound lane of interstate I-95. Only one casualty. A Benjamin Wya Grey, late of White Haven, Pennsylvania.
"Oh my God." Wilson gaped at Cindy. "Was our subject involved in that?"
Cindy's head went back and she laughed until tears rolled down her face. With a final gasp, she broke off with a near hysterical choking sound and looked at Wilson. Cindy managed to gag, "Involved in it, Judge Wilson? Heaven forbid. No, sir, our subject," she said forcefully, "wasn't involved in it." The tears covered her face and Cindy felt a sharp pain in her stomach and heart. "He caused it."
Stunned, Wilson floundered for something to say. He opened his mouth several times, reminding Cindy more and more of a beached carp.
"I- Mrs. VanTur, I am deeply sorrowed at your loss." He glanced at the screen and the remote fell from his hands. Thirty cars? My God, but it sounded like something that little bastard would cause. Property damage, people harmed, perhaps insurance carriers ruined. He mused with an angry knowledge that his own life was finished because of Benny. No injured? But for the subject himself. Impossible. Something was not quite right here. Totally absurd. No accident that involved thirty cars- Was she trying to cheat him? It would be a cold day in hell first.
"I-"
Cindy wiped her face. "Yes?"
"Ah, well, Mrs. VanTur." The fleshy wrinkles hanging from his neck quivered. "You see, there is a small matter of expenditures." His face became closed to hide the hunger in his eyes.
"No, Judge Wilson. No Benny, no reward."
"But Mrs. VanTur, I spent a great deal of my own money in this search for the subject. I am nearly destitute." He looked outraged. "Why if you only knew what I had to lay out for information on his whereabouts-"
"Good evening, Judge Wilson." Cindy gave Wilson a serene look that boded ill for him and nodded at the doors. The doors swung open and a tall, bitter man ducked into the room.
"James, would you be a dear and please escort Judge Wilson to his car? Do be careful, though, as I'm afraid Judge Wilson is the delicate sort and might break if handled ungently."
James smiled at Wilson and the portly man cast a frightened glance at the woman. Her face was as cold and pale as Denonitian marble. Wilson managed a hasty nod at her and scurried from the room with an agility that surprised her.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
|
