Refraction | Part 1 | Darwin's Steroids
35) Rifts
Here’s how it happened.
Israel awoke with a start. He had been having a nightmare, an old, recurring nightmare. One that he hadn’t had in years. Decades. He had fought the demons within for a long time, he had not beaten them, but he had learned to live with them. This dream had been one of those demons, the tormentor of his nights. This demon had opened the door to others; addiction, despair, and anger to name a few.
The dream is always the same. Israel is in a helicopter with 11 other men. It is night, and the chopper runs dark, flying low and fast over the tree tops. A red light begins to flash as the helicopter banks steeply into a clearing. The red light stops blinking, and a green light next to it sparks to life. Israel leaps out the door to the ground, landing quietly, all around him shadows appear in the tall grass. The helicopter surges up and away, leaving Israel and his comrades alone in the silent embrace of night. The moon is down, but the landscape is filled with shifting blue dream light. Israel crouches on his haunches and spins slowly, looking for his sergeant, getting his bearings. The village is 2 klicks north of their present position.
It is the last rational, lucid part of the dream. Then the nightmare begins. Israel stands in the shadows at the edge of a small village in the woods. He is surrounded by a pack of wolves. Israel walks through the center of a village in flames, around him wolves tear helpless, screaming townspeople to pieces. He sees himself in magnificent grotesquerie, naked, his brown skin covered in a slick of fresh blood, in his left hand he holds a globe of fire, his right hand transformed into a demon’s claw. A child appears in front him, calm and quiet in the midst of the hellish bloodbath. Immune to the heat of the fire that consumes the life around him. Israel raises his right hand to the sky and plunges it into his abdomen, its cruel claws biting through the hard wall of muscle beneath the shining skin. He does not simply gut himself but rather grabs hold and tears his flesh away from his body. A ten pound human flank steak hangs from his fist. From within the gaping wound a great ebony wolf struggles to burst forth, its eyes ablaze with the fury of bloodlust, it’s jaws dripping with the stench of death. It tears itself free of Israel and leaps at the face of the child.
Israel awoke with a start.
He lay quietly in the dark, listening to his heart pound in his chest, sweat cooling on skin. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, poured himself a glass of water. His hand trembled as he sipped, calming himself. He padded back into the bedroom, crossed to the dresser and reached out to switch on the lamp. In the moment his fingers curled around the cord, he hesitated. He cocked his head in the dark and listened. A noise, on the fire escape. A creak. A shifting of weight. A whisper followed by the soft click of a hammer being cocked. He stayed as still as death in the center of his bedroom, listening. A muffled squeaking from the hallway. Israel took a step and peeked out his bedroom door just in time to see the crack of light at the bottom of the door disappear. These weren’t junkies. Junkies don’t unscrew light bulbs and mount two pronged attacks. He walked quickly and silently across the room, punched the code into the lock on his gun cabinet. From within he pulled a small backpack, a vicious k-bar knife, a Colt .45 (Model 2020 Military Officer’s Issue), and a two shot pop box. He hesitated for a moment then pulled out the arrow, opened the backpack and slid it down inside.
He slipped on his holster, and slid his Colt into the well worn leather. He selected a 9 shot ED pistol from the case and tucked it into his pants at the small of his back. He shouldered the back pack as he crossed the bedroom to his shoes. Another noise came from the window that led to the fire escape, an almost inaudible clink, followed by a quiet, high-pitched squeak. A glass cutter, definitely not junkies. The curtain fluttered slightly as the night air passed through the newly formed hole.
In war, as in business, one must strike while the opportunity exists. Israel knew this lesson, he had learned it the hardest way. In war, not in business.
He stepped behind his dresser, releasing the safety catch on the pop box and bracing himself against the wall. Taking rough aim at the window, he pulled the trigger. Pop boxes are a particularly nasty little piece of weaponry. They are essentially handheld claymore mines. A shaped charge packed with shrapnel and wrapped in wire. When the charge explodes the shrapnel is sent out in a rough semi circle in front of the user. The results when Israel pulled the trigger, everything in front of him was torn to shreds. The mirror and the lamps shattered, there was a small fire on the bed. The bookcase is a pile of splinters, the window has turned into a million tiny knives and flown out into the night. The man who had been letting himself into Israel’s bedroom just moments ago had been turned into hamburger, much of which had come loose and fallen to the street below.
Israel stepped out onto the balcony, his heart pumping wildly in his chest. He carefully stepped over the mangled body to the railing. Looked up, looked down, made a decision. Israel began to descend the fire escape as quickly as his tired body would carry him. He had made it down three steps when he heard the door to his place blow off its hinges.
Next >
