“It learns fast. Sometimes in only one lesson.”
I said “It’s scared of you.”
He answered in a low and menacing voice “I know.”
He waved at a portable generator off to one side
“It doesn’t like electricity,”
Then at a large galvanized tub inside the cage,
“but it can stay underwater for at least fifteen minutes without drowning although it was pretty loopy for a couple of hours after that, oxygen deprivation I suppose.”
He turned and walking over to a little table I had not noticed before, he picked something up and tossed it to me, it was the missing piece of shiny black exoskeleton,
“It can stand pain, but it isn’t impervious to it.”
Disgusted I tossed it to the ground at his feet.
I looked at Tucker expecting to see violence, hatred or even madness in his eyes but instead he just looked like he was empty of emotion, flat. Dead. I asked him
“What are you going to do to it next?”
He took a pack off of his shoulder and from it produced a glass jar filled with a clear liquid.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Sulfuric acid, this is pretty high concentration. I picked it up at a high school about an hour from here.” He said holding the bottle up to the sun. “Look it has etched the glass.”
He added and he turned to place it on the table. I looked at him in disbelief.
“What?” he asked with a curious expression on his face.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him incredulously.
“Because we half to know.” He sounded determined and I felt ill.
He took the glass stopper from the jar and I tried to make my feet move but they felt like clay, in an instant he bent down, picked up the piece of exoskeleton and dropped it in the jar. I found that I had stopped breathing because I was suddenly able to do it again.
“Look John. The acid is eating away the inner layers but the outer isn’t reacting at all. Incredible.” He said.
Yea, incredible
. I thought.
Breathe, I thought. I had imagined him dousing the monster with that acid and it had stolen the air from my lungs. I watched Tucker as he checked a stopwatch and then made some notes in one of those spiral notebooks common in every high school backpack ever made. I heard the monster make a sound and I turned to look at it. Its eyes were wide, its gaze fixed on the bubbling piece of exoskeleton. I took the time to look over it carefully and suddenly I knew.
“It’s a girl.” I said.
“Hmmmm?” Tucker asked without looking up.
“The monster is, or was, a girl, maybe my age.” I said.
He put his pen in the notebook and closed it. Much to my surprise he didn’t make fun or tell me to ‘run along’ instead he said
“How do you know?”
I said that I wasn’t sure, but it was in the way it moved, the way it reacted. That perhaps it was just in the slender exoskeleton. Tucker thought about it for a long time then said
“I think you are right.” And a moment later, “Poor thing.”
Then he picked up a large bottle of lighter fluid and he started to pull the wire rope, dragging the little monster next to the chain link fence. I turned away and headed back towards the lodge. I had just reached the back porch steps when I heard the monster squealing. Screaming. I didn’t turn around I just sighed deeply and went into the kitchen.
Instantly I was assaulted by three giggling little girls who were doing their best to escape Karen Morena who was giggling just as hard as they were. I took my rifle from my shoulder and leaned it against the wall then gave chase, all I wanted was to be little and forget for just a little while.
Lunch was good and I was growing quite fond of the two new ladies. They certainly were the most popular people in the lodge. With everyone except Mrs. Livingston that is, the old black woman rather resented their intrusion so she was throwing herself and by extension her husband into preparation, canning, and ‘
putting up’
. Whatever that was. All I knew was that Mr. Livingston sure seemed frazzled. After lunch Kelsey and I were asked to help Deputy Weir unload bags and bags of flour from the Humvee. I wondered who had gone back for it but I suppose it doesn’t matter. It was actually kind of fun, Kelsey talks a lot and I listen a lot. She is smart and funny and, well to tell the truth she is very pretty. Apparently our efforts drew the attention of Karen Morena who watched me with her arms crossed over her chest and her foot tapping the whole time. Girls are crazy.
I was up for over watch at three and Mr. Lowe asked if I wanted company and I said sure. I walked post and he sat and smoked a pipe, I find cigarette smoke disgusting but I found the pipe smoke kind of nice, like apples. The sky was orange and every thong was quite, apparently Tucker was done torturing monsters for the day. Mr. Lowe stood and walked over next to me and taking out an old fashioned pocket watch the checked it and said
“Six o’clock, 48 hours to go.”
I turned and was surprised to see Tucker working his antenna thingy. I wondered how someone like him could move so quietly. I nearly broke out laughing when Mr. Lowe asked the same question. As we watched Tucker working his machine and jotting things down on his notebook. I whispered to Mr. Lowe
“Don’t under estimate him sir.”
“What do you mean?” he whispered back.
“Just don’t.” I said.
When Rico and Elaine took over I went downstairs to find Karen, Kyle said she was in their room reading.
“What? Like a book?” I asked.
“Doofus” was his answer.
Something very weird was going on where Karen was concerned but for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out. I decided to go find Lucy and see what she was up to. I found her in the Hardy’s room cutting pictures of people out of some Southern Living magazines. Mrs. Hardy, Mrs. Driscol, and Kelsey were in there with them and when I stuck my head in Mrs. Driscol smiled and asked how I was doing. I told her I just wanted to say goodnight to Lucy who, hearing her name waved over her shoulder to me while she, Jordan and Gina simultaneously said goodnight to me. This was apparently very funny because when I walked away I heard them all giggling. I walked past Tuckers room and saw he was writing in his notes. It was too early to go to bed so I headed downstairs, I passed the Livingstons going up and we said goodnight, Mrs. Livingston asked me if I was okay and I said sure, she pursed her lips and looked at me over the top of her wire framed glasses for a moment then said
“Well, if you need to talk, you know where our room is.”
I said thanks and thought ‘
something very weird is definitely going on
.’
When I got to the lobby I saw Mrs. West sitting alone in the great room so I walked over to her. She looked at me like I had two heads or something but she didn’t say anything. So I sat in one of the overstuffed chairs next to her, checked my rifle safe and put it in the chair next to me. We sat there a minute or two in silence then she said
“You never let that thing get out of reach do you?”
I thought about how best to answer her then said
“Before this all happened I had never touched one before. Now? It lets me protect my family. Protect my friends.”
She sipped a drink that I had not realized she had then she said
“And you get to kill the monsters.”
I remembered the pitiful thing Tucker was torturing up on the hill, and suddenly realized something and I told her my realization;
“If I never saw one again that would be fine. I don’t need to kill them I just need to… hmmm... I can’t lose anyone. Not again, not if it kills me.”
She was silent for a minute then she said
“Your sisters are lucky Johnny, lucky to have you.”
We sat in silence for a bit then she added
“They all are.”
I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. We sat there together for an hour before she spoke again;
“I want to kill them all.”
After that we sat in the dark together, I felt that this strong, strange woman was telling me a story, a terrible story told in painful silence.
Day 25
I awoke alone in the overstuffed chair to sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen. I stretched and reached for my rifle which was right where I had left it but sitting on the chair next to it was a little box. I looked around but Mrs. West was nowhere to be seen. I picked it up and something rattled inside; I was curious as heck but for some reason I was hesitating. I was startled by the voices in the kitchen; apparently Mrs’ Boudreaux, Livingston, and King were debating if green beans and potatoes for breakfast should include a healthy dose of bacon fat and salt or not. I turned back to the box and opened it; inside I found a framed photo of a family on a beach, the waves crashing in the distance behind them. The three little kids were being wrapped up in the arms of their smiling parents. The father was wearing a military uniform, the kind that pilots or air force people wore. He was tall and had square jaw that you usually see on comic book heroes. The mom was hugely pregnant, her long, black hair was blowing in the wind and she was using one hand to try and control it. Her smile was huge, her eyes were sparkling and the joy in her was obvious. It was Mrs. West.
Under the picture was a note, I unfolded it and read it quietly to myself:
“Johnny, I wanted to thank you for sitting with me, and I want you to know that I think you are brave and strong, I just hope you can still find joy and love too. The world does not need to be balanced on your shoulders alone, you have friends who love you and will help you if you just ask. Lastly I am hoping you will keep the picture for me, it is my most treasured possession.”
It was signed Diane West.
I folded the note and put it in my breast pocket, I put the photo back in the box and not having any better place for it I unbuttoned my shirt and slipped it inside. I would put it in my room after breakfast, but first I absolutely needed to find out the answer to the great bacon fat debate so I headed into the kitchen.
I was surprised to find Deputy Weir there, since he normally took the early morning over watch and would still be up there. He raised his ever present mug of coffee to me in greeting then as if reading my expression said
“Vernon said he would cover my watch and get with you and the others to cover watch until we get back.”
He looked a little embarrassed as if he should be able to be in two places at the same time or something. I nodded, then grabbing a plate and checking the big serving bowl on the table discovered that bacon fat won.
The mood had darkened since the previous day, the MRAP and the Humvee were out front and Lieutenant Kline was making sure everything was be loaded, checked and rechecked. When she finished that she did it again. She checked with Tucker to make sure the target was still moving in the predicted path, the she would meet with small groups and with a map make them recite where they were supposed to be, what they were supposed to do. Then she would go over different scenarios; what if this happened, what if that. She was giving me a headache but her professionalism was impressive. She made sure that everyone knew that if she or Rico blew their whistle then it was bug out time. No questions asked just run to the MRAP and if that was over run then to get to the fall back where they would stash the Humvee. Heck I wasn’t even going but by lunch I think I knew where everyone was supposed to be and what they were supposed to do.
Mrs. Livingston made a plate for the Lt. and asked Karen to take it to her since she hadn’t come in for lunch. When Karen came back in I walked over to her and asked how she was doing, she looked at me with a “
you gotta be kidding me
” look. Karen turned and started to walk away so I repeated my question. Karen stopped and answered my question with her own
“And how is Kelsey?”
“Okay I guess do you want me to go ask her?”
I asked not really understanding her question. Karen turned back to me and as she put her hands on her hips she said
“Oh, you would love that wouldn’t you?”
I responded with my most articulate and intellectual “What?”
She got a snarky look and then spat
“Oh come on, any excuse for you to glue your eyeballs on that over endowed college cheerleader Barbie Doll will do, won’t it?”
I felt that my head was splitting,
“
Ummm,
what
is a ...” I began.
“Don’t give me that!” she said.
She was wiggling a
fiercesome
finger in my face and I felt myself backing up but somehow she only got closer.
“Do you think I’m blind? You couldn’t keep your eyes off of her the whole time you were unloading the truck.”
She said and I suddenly realized that it was really hot in there.
“I don’t…” was all I got out before she cut me off.
“Listen here Mr. Big Britches, that girl is old! O. L. D. do you hear me? She is like 2o or something, maybe more, and someday I’ll have boobs too and you are going to regret this!” she snapped.