CHAPTER XX
STANDOFF
Judas, still smarting from Logan’s kick, managed to regain the upper hand, at least in his demented eyes.
“You’re completely off your rocker,” Logan bellowed from across the field.
“I’d say that’s a fair assessment. Nice move with the whole dramatic kick to the face, gunning down Katy’s shooter.” Judas admired Logan’s expertise. He finally gathered the strength to stand up and cocked his head to one side.
“You left me no choice,” Logan’s tone soured.
“It’s a shame that you didn’t think for one moment that I would pull the trigger on her.” Judas let a sinister smile grow upon his yellowish face.
“We’re completely fucked now. You killed the only person that could’ve forged the antidote, and left us all stranded here without the cure!” Logan screamed in haste.
“As I said, I will find the missing page with or without your help.” Judas solidified his grip on the gun and caressed the trigger with his index finger.
“I wouldn’t help you.”
“Well, then,” Judas said. “Game.” Judas motioned over to Katy’s immobile body.
“You’re going to pay for killing her.” Logan raced towards the doctor, drawing his Glock and deftly fired off an automatic slew of bullets into his adversary’s immediate area.
“Set,” Judas also returned fire upon the charging Captain.
The bullets ripped through the mud, slinging its mucky residue all over Judas. One of the bullets burrowed deep into his left shoulder, jerking the doctor backwards.
Logan’s stance was cut short when several of Judas’ shots ripped into his legs, sending the tall Captain lurching to the ground.
Judas swayed about, the detonator still firmly clasped in his right hand. Judas again readied for the kill shot on the teetering Captain. “I’ve won Logan. I have the device and you in my cross-hairs.” Judas opened his hand to display the detonating device.
“Match,” Logan muttered as he squinted his left eye and pulled back on the trigger. An expert marksman, Logan had the perfect shot on the unsuspecting doctor.
The bullet rocketed through the air, tearing into Judas’ right hand, igniting the detonator upon impact.
“Burn in hell,” Logan heroically dispersed his final words.
The vast collection of C-4 implanted by Garrison was immediately set off by Logan’s blistering shot, engulfing the entire colony in a circle of fire.
Many of Judas’s men were caught in the explosive uproar and torn virtually limb from limb. The few remaining soldiers scattered about, their bodies engorged in orange flames. Moments later they would be permanently extinguished by another deadly round of fiery explosions.
Judas emphatically lingered about. His left hand dangled the weapon by his side. The pain within his shoulder grew with unbelievable intensity. The stunning gun shot had ripped apart his right hand, leaving several fingers severed above the knuckles.
He searched throughout the fields, eventually finding his way into the church. “L-O-G-A-N,” he beckoned to his foe. “Come out, come out wherever you are.” The smoke started to choke the colony under her thick blanket. As a result it dampened Judas’ immediate vision. His eyes burned from the stinging smoke, tearing upon contact.
The blazing fire ripped through the colony, engulfing everything in its path. The huts collapsed underneath the intense heat. The colonists’ bodies immediately ignited, their flesh consumed and burned, emitting an awful stench in the process. John Garrison’s limp body eventually caught fire, melting away the proud Lieutenant into nothing more than a gooey mess of burning pulp and bone.
The beleaguered Captain could vaguely made out Judas’ position. The doctor shuffled his feet across the stone floor, trying to brave the looming cloud of smoke. Using his last ounce of adrenaline, Logan jammed his last line of defense, a thick bladed Army knife into Judas’ leg, and pulled it out. Logan managed to draw a healthy amount of blood with the slick attack. He had hoped the blade sliced into the femoral artery.
“You’re a sly mother fucker.” Judas lowered his weapon and shot a reckless round into the encapsulating smoke screen.
Logan acted with a swift maneuver, and inched his way under the smoke, painfully crawling along the church floor.
The gun eventually emptied and nothing more than an incessant clicking sound penetrated Judas’s eardrums.
“Did your mother ever teach you never to swear in the house of God?” Logan brought his own version of sarcasm to the messy quandary. Logan’s position was low, only reaching Judas’ waist line.
“Where are you?” Judas felt his head explode with pain. The excessive headaches had cost him the necessary concentration needed to eliminate Logan.
“It looks like you are out of bullets G.I. Joe,” Logan remarked with a sarcastic tone as he buried the knife into Judas, spilling blood all over the silver blade. Logan’s forceful grind of the weapon into the doctor’s groin, sent Judas sprawling to the smoky ground.
The church had started to cave in from the thunderous explosions, sending large amounts of debris crashing below obliterating the wooden pews beneath.
Logan attempted to escape the church. His mobility limited from the gunshots, he crawled at a brisk pace along the shattered stone floor.
Judas managed to withdraw the knife from his groin, sending a stream of blood pouring from his wound. Unable to stand, he was stranded on the stone floor. Judas realized what was left of the roof would come crashing down upon him.
Logan had also turned his head, catching a quick glimpse of what Judas was staring at.
The last piece of the battered roof broke free. Momentum carried the heavy object lurching towards the stranded men below.
Logan rolled off to the side at the last minute, dodging the devastating impact.
Judas wasn’t as fortunate. The roof’s fragment plunged itself into the sinner’s heaving chest, crushing his lungs in the process. The doctor gave one last meager jerk, attempting to break free. Coughing, Judas forcibly spurted up blood sending it cascading in a stream over his lips and down his chin.
Rolling towards the exit, Logan managed to escape from the church. His eyes were unable to find Katy’s body in the smoldering thicket of smoke. Logan’s reluctance was evident as he braced for the agonizing pain in his legs. He somehow brought himself to his knees. He had no time to waste, he had to radio this information to the chopper, informing that Plan B was a success.
Logan was locked on finishing Plan B. His newfound feelings for Katy Madison had inexplicably thwarted his one-dimensional game plan. What turned into his last mission, a heroic charge into the belly of the beast had disintegrated into a change of heart.
He went against the fabric of what a Captain needs to accomplish. You go in and eliminate the threat at all costs.
You’re not there for an alternative plan. Those particular circumstances only hinder your mission and leave you muddled in a mess of confusion and uncertainty.
Katy Madison had introduced a fresh new twist into Logan’s staunch way of life. Logan desperately wanted this to work. He had hoped For Katy to find the antidote and for the colony to survive through this critical time. However, it wasn’t going to shake out that way.
As Logan knelt beneath the ominous stare of the distant mountain, thoughts raced through his mind. His late wife, his best friend John, and finally of Katy.
Logan was kneeling before the church, which had teetered and crumbled into a massive pile of debris behind him. Off in the distance, a barren Jeep rested in a patch of mud. The muddy graveyard rested a few miles in front of Logan, with the burning huts off to his right. One of the colony’s wells had rested off Logan’s left side, several feet behind him. It was rendered useless after its contents had dried completely up.
“LOGAN!” The chilling voice snarled.
The Captain felt a thunderous crack into his back, sending him reeling forward. Logan’s face landed into a mound of dirt. Logan found himself in a prostrate position stretched across the older graveyard that had rested in front of the church. The hard strike had forced Logan to egest a wad of dirt from his mouth once he had regained his stunned senses.
Judas, bloodied and nearly running on empty, culled the knife from his groin. “Gravedigger, when I dig your grave,” his voice filled with a sinister refrain. He unlatched the backpack and freed himself of the cumbersome object. “Your turn, Logan.” Judas left hand held the knife high, twirling the deadly object between his fingertips. Judas felt a large adrenaline rush that catapulted Judas’ vengeful strike upon the stunned Captain.
Judas leaned up against the well to support his final charge. He had Logan dead to rights. “I do this for the greater good,” Judas bellowed with one final lunge.
BANG!
The unforeseen impact had spun Judas around in a wild motion, like a coin whirling around in a crazy dance on a table.
BANG!
Judas staggered to the well, favoring the stones for support. Leaning over the aged structure, his fingers dropped the bloody knife to the ground. His mouth filled with fresh blood. He inched his way back around to face the mysterious attacker.
Katy reloaded for another daring shot into her former flame’s teetering body.
“Katy, I love you.” Judas’ mind had offered him a rare peek into what clarity he had left. “Forgive me. I was led astray by Quentin.” Judas begged her to issue him a pardon for his sins.
“That’s not my place Judas.” Katy snapped back on the shotgun and fired off another round.
BANG!
Judas’s flew backward from the bullet’s forcible penetration, sending the doctor spiraling over the well and plunging deep into the depths below.
Katy gingerly walked over to Logan’s wriggling body, shotgun resting by her swiveling hips.
“Logan,” her voice called out him.
“Katy.” Logan managed to roll over onto his back. The color in Katy’s face had returned to normal, pleasing the worrisome Captain. “You’re looking a lot better.”
“You look how I feel.” Katy mustered a wry facial expression. “Here, let me help you up.”
“Call me Nathaniel,” Logan answered back.
“Okay. Logan it is.”
“Don’t make me laugh. It hurts,” Logan quipped as he sported a slick grin.
“You’re telling me? I was just shot in the lung.”
“Valid point. I noticed a Jeep over there,” Logan motioned his head. “I say we snatch up the journal and high tail it out of here. There’s going to be another round of explosions very soon.”
“Where’s Alethea?” Katy asked. Her fingers unzipped the knapsack and retrieved Quentin’s crumpled journal.
“I don’t know. Perhaps she made out in time.”
“Come on,” Katy beckoned.
“I’m glad you’re not dead,” Logan stated with a stoic tone.
“Did you mean what you said back there?” Katy shouldered the injured Captain along.
“Yeah. Every word.” Logan skipped the rest of the way to the Jeep, almost jumping into the passenger seat.
“I think I might be able to reconstruct the antidote from the journal.” Katy offered a potential solution. “I also culled two samples from Zartan’s son,” she motioned to her pocket.
“Sweet. When did you do that?” Logan asked as he contorted his body to fit underneath the Jeep’s steering column.
“After you left me by the hut, I returned back inside once you and Judas were engaged in your fight. Like the Captain says, ‘if Plan A doesn’t work, then on to Plan B’,” she quoted Logan’s mantra.
“Well done my young grasshopper,” Logan attempted a rare joke. “John taught how to do this back on a mission overseas,” Logan fondly spoke of his fallen friend.
The engine sputtered about, until at last, it roared to life.
“Are you okay to drive?” Logan playfully brought her attention to his wounded legs.
“Yeah.” Katy slipped into the driver’s seat, coughing in the process.
“Hang in there.” Logan shifted in the passenger seat. “You’ll be fine.”
“I know.” Katy shared a kind stare with the Captain.
Logan reached out and with a gentle stroke, caressed her right hand. “Ever drive stick?”
“Yeah. It’s something my father taught me.” Katy grinded the gear into first and peeled out of the muck and bounced the sturdy vehicle across the fiery field.
“One last measure,” Logan said as he pulled out his own black detonation device. “I always have a Plan C.” His battered finger pressed the red button.
A flurry of explosives raged across the last section of the colony, swarming around the graveyard, rolling towards the church.
The colony weakly succumbed to the thundering round of C-4 explosions that consumed the once flourishing settlement in the blistering wake.
Down in the well’s depths, Judas Sturgis lay in a gnarled, mangled contortion, pinned in a shallow, watery grave. Inside Judas’ eyes the tortuous image of the fiery cloud raced across the landscape, scattering dirt and debris through the well’s constricted confines, burying the esteemed prodigy underneath a pile of rubble.
CHAPTER XXI
EXODUS
“Plan C?” Katy mused.
“Do you remember the A-Team?” Logan inquired.
“The popular show from the 1980's?” Katy fondly remembered her younger years. “My brother loved that show.”
“Well, the leader was called John Hannibal Smith. And he always a plan in place.”
“I personally liked Face.” Katy sported a sheepish grin.
“Of course you did. I fashioned myself after Smith. Always have a plan in place, and another one just in case.”
“So, we are we headed?” Katy plowed through a small thicket of brush.
“Keep going until we reach a clearing, or a stream.” Logan laughed.
Katy’s followed something moving amongst the brush. “Did you see that?”
“As a matter of fact, yes I did. Pull to a stop here.” Logan gripped the top bar of the naked Jeep and slipped out of the vehicle and propped his body against the hood. “Hey,” he shouted out to the moving object.
“Are you infected?” The voice curiously asked from the hiding place.
“I don’t think so. Are you?”
“No. I’m a survivor from the colony.” The deep voice indicated it was a man behind the brush.
“Great. Are the more of you?” Logan asked of the light-skinned man.
“Yes. We’ve found temporary shelter in a clearing not too far from here. It was one of Dantu’s camps. It was left unguarded, so we took it.”
“Do you have a name?” Katy questioned the man.
“Sebastian,” he withdrew from the brush exposing his frail body to his visitors. Sebastian was definitely middle-aged, and his graying temples were evidence of that. His face was riddled with wrinkles. He possessed skinny arms and knobby legs. A taut grey goatee was tied off just below his chin, banded with a red elastic band. “I used to able to an experienced craftsman. My true love is constructing boats from a single piece of wood and watching it blossom into something grand and wonderful.”
“Where did you learn such a skill?” Logan’s curiosity got the best of him.
“My father,” Sebastian walked over to the Jeep. “I will take you back to the others. May I?”
“Hop in.” Katy waited for Logan and Sebastian to climb back in.
“Aren’t you one of the doctors from the colony?” Sebastian poised the question.
“Yes I am.” Katy nodded her head. A slight twinge caused her to violently cough again.
“You don’t sound so good.” Sebastian observed.
“Are there any supplies at this camp?” Logan started to find his way back into the swing of things.
“Dantu left a medical building, several tents, and canteens of fresh water. There seems to be a waterfall somewhere by the caves.”
“Interesting,” Logan replied. “It’s starting to shape up to a rebirth of another colony.”
“If I can develop the cure in this medical facility, then we might have a fighting chance.” Katy continued along the shoddy path.
“With your medical background, my military brilliance, and Sebastian’s craftsmanship, we might be able to construct a working establishment.” Logan rubbed his hands together.
“Don’t tell me. You have a plan.” Katy looked over at Logan.
“As the great Hannibal would say, “I love it when a plan comes together.” Logan’s mind stirred with visions of building a new colony with Katy.
*****
CLICK.
“Hello out there,” her voice called into the earpiece. “Can anyone hear me?” Her nimble fingers clicked the dial to Frequency 76. “Hello?”
A faint crackling sound penetrated over the other end.
“I copy, Logan.”
“My name is Alethea Kineta.”
“Copy that. Alethea. Are you a survivor, or one of the infected? And where’s Captain Nathaniel Logan?” The man’s voice routinely questioned the woman.
“He’s dead,” Alethea sadly responded. “And, yes I am a survivor. I also have a young boy with me.”
“Has the colony been eradicated?” A new voice boomed over the communication device.
“I’ve escaped the colony. Logan was successful at setting off the explosives,” Alethea replied.
“Where are you?”
“I’m located along the shoreline. I also have something that might interest you.”
“Explain,” the stern voice continued the conversation.
“I have the antidote.” Alethea bravely clutched Maddock’s well-worn Bible close to her breast.
“We are targeting your location. Stay where you are.”
“I will not move an inch,” Alethea confirmed.
Within the hour, the chopper that Logan had promised, arrived over the shoreline, scouring the area for Alethea.
The helicopter grounded just along the shore, burying the landing gear into the soft sand.
Out of the bird stepped an older man. The dominant man crushed his black boots into the shifting sand, displaying a very dominant stance. For a man well into his late fifties, his body showed no signs of age. The gentlemen still held onto a healthy mane of black hair, and an impressive build. The large black sunglasses covered his eyes, as he peered about the landscape looking for the lone survivor.
“Alethea,” his stern voice boomed across the area.
“I’m right here,” she stepped out from behind a collection of trees. “I needed a break from the sun.” Her eyes noticed the man was a decorated military leader. The green and black patch on the left side of the man’s fatigues revealed the name Murdock.
“I’m General Devon Murdock,” he introduced himself.
“Alethea,” her voice softly conjured up the necessary syllables.
“I understand you have the antidote.”
“Yes, I do.”
“The President of The United States would like to personally thank you for obtaining the cure,” Murdock escorted Alethea to the chopper.
“I have a young boy who also is a survivor.” Alethea motioned over to the trees.
“Rick,” Murdock called to his pilot.
“I’m on it, Sir,” Rick responded as he embarked across the shore and headed for the boy.
“Are you comfortable?” Murdock asked Alethea.
“Yes, thank you.” Alethea’s grasp on the Bible tightened. “Can I trust you?”
“Implicitly,” Murdock coolly comforted her doubts.
“Alright then,” her fingers flipped open the Bible’s pages and withdrew the folded up piece of wrinkled notebook paper.
“Is that the antidote?” Murdock quizzically questioned her.
“I suspect you have a team of doctors that can use this blueprint to cure the virus?”
“Of course we do. We have only the finest men and women in the medical field.” Murdock’s shifty nature concerned Alethea.
Rick returned to the chopper without the young boy. He slid the pistol back underneath his shirt and hopped aboard the chopper. “Okay, let’s get airborne.” He slunk back into the cockpit and flipped the switches to start the rotors. “Buckle up.” He informed his newly acquired passenger.
“Where’s the boy?” Alethea looked around.
“He didn’t make it,” Murdock nonchalantly responded.
“The boy was dead when I found him,” Rick said.
“Tough loss.” Murdock’s rigid character rarely demonstrated any remorse for the dead. “The colony has been destroyed?” Murdock wanted to know as he buckled Alethea into her seat.
“Yes. It burned right to the ground.” Ally was saddened that the boy didn’t make it. This made her the sole survivor.
“And what happened to Captain Logan and Lieutenant Jonathan Garrison?” Murdock’s questions were causing concern for Alethea.
“Dead. I witnessed Garrison when he shot himself in the head after becoming infected with the virus,” she dutifully responded.
“Tough loss. There are going to be casualties in any war. And what about Logan?”
“The Captain ignited the explosives.”
“Did he survive?”
“No. He was caught in the fire and was unable to escape,” Alethea remembered the gruesome fight out in the field between Logan and Judas, as she watched from inside the church.
“But you managed to escape, unscathed.” Murdock had seemed impressed with her abilities.
“I left shortly after the first round of explosives went off.” Alethea watched as the chopper lifted off into the air, and turned around. She ran her fingers over her belly, gently caressing it.
Murdock turned his head and witnessed the fading remnants of the colony in the background, watching as the smoky pillar burned off in the distance.
“I had to get you the antidote, at all costs,” Alethea insisted that was the cause for her escape. “The goal was to save those that could be infected outside the colony.”
“And I’m very proud that you kept to your word.” Murdock slickly grinned while he peered out of the side of the chopper and stared across the region. The General eventually rested his sight upon the skull-shaped mountain that towered above the landscape, as the chopper headed back to the United States carrying its new passenger.
reviewed by Mistophiles [Withersin Magazine]
