Dark Titan Journey: Finally Home (11 page)

“Come on,” Nathan said, leading Smoke back up to the dirt road. It only took fifteen minutes for Nathan to get a headache from wearing the thermal monocular. His brain had grown used to the green world. When a sippy cup tapped his chest Nathan reached down. “Sorry, doodle bug,” he said, taking it. After filling it, Nathan handed it back and dug some crackers out of his pocket for Emma.

As she babbled quietly Emma reached up taking them. She stopped babbling and, reflexively, Nathan patted her. “Taks yoo,” Emma said and started babbling again.

Nathan smiled. “Thank you, Emma, and you’re welcome.”

“Bitch,” Emma giggled and started babbling.

Knowing where she heard that, once again Nathan chose to ignore it, hoping she would forget that word. It was one of the few words she could say very clearly. Contemplating how to deal with Emma’s newfound vocabulary, Jasmine trotted up beside him. “Did Emma just say ‘bitch’?” Jasmine asked.

“Bitch,” Emma squealed.

Nathan sighed. “Emma not loud, monsters are close.” Emma’s babbling got softer.

“You taught her to cuss and are telling her monsters are real?!” Jasmine nearly shouted.

Slowly turning his head till he looked at her. “She picked it up. It’s not like I can call them enemies,” he grumbled, feeling his headache start to pound. He couldn’t see her expression with thermal, but Jasmine could damn well see his with NVGs.

A scowl was on Nathan’s face and she knew he was pissed off, big time. “Nathan, I’m sorry I was loud. But monsters?” Jasmine tried to justify she was letting the cussing pass till a later date. She saw his jaw clench and snapped her head forward.

“Technically, the enemy can be described as monsters, just humanoid ones. Since they have no humanity they aren’t human. Next, some humans are preforming cannibalism, so to be precise, monsters will eat you. Furthermore,
Homo sapiens
have teeth that can be mistaken for fangs, and many haven’t cut their fingernails, so theoretically they have claws. Additionally, monsters hide and attack their victims, and guess what, so does the enemy. I’m not sure about under the bed or in the closet but I’m not ruling it out. So in conclusion, I don’t have any problem telling a toddler monsters exist because they do, I just proved it. She’s seen me eradicate them and recognizes that if she’s quiet, they leave us alone. With them leaving us alone, doodle bug can telepathically enlighten me of what the hell she desires.” Nathan elucidated the facts and his reasoning with an egotistical tone.

Jasmine’s jaw hit her chest, literally. She looked behind her and saw the same reaction on the others. They had never heard Nathan talk like that, much less use words like that. Jasmine stuttered, “. “N-Nathan, I’m-I’m sorry,” as she pulled back on her reins and pulled in front of John at the very back.

“Bitch,” Emma giggled again.

“Emma, that’s enough,” Nathan snapped, and Emma actually jumped in her sling. “Just babble, I can’t understand that and I’m sure some of it is worse than that word,” he added patting her in the sling. Emma giggled and complied, babbling.

John moved up beside Jasmine after he looked behind them with his thermal scope. “Why did you even say anything?” he asked.

Looking down at Chip, who was asleep, Jasmine pulled him tighter to her chest. “Little kids aren’t supposed to cuss, and you don’t tell them monsters are real,” Jasmine mumbled. “Granted, now I know monsters are real, having heard his dissertation.”

Shaking his head, “Amanda and Casey cuss and you haven’t said anything,” John pointed out.

Jasmine smiled at John. “John, when I first met y’all, I could see in Nathan’s eyes that he saw you as his family. Now he sees these kids as his, I just thought I could get him to control it with Emma. I don’t say anything about those two because they have him in the palms of their hands. All of you do,” she admitted. “I don’t want to make any of you mad at me, because he will take your side, and I don’t want him to make me leave.”

Guiding his horse closer, John did what Jasmine never thought he would do willingly: He grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently. He gave her his customary smile. “Jasmine, he would never ask you to leave, and if you did it on your own, he would follow to talk you out of it. If it was your choice he would let you go, but it would hurt him,” John told her then looked around then back at her. Jasmine smiled, seeing John take his responsibilities so serious.

“I’m not so sure,” Jasmine confessed.

“I am,” John said, letting her hand go and guiding his horse a little farther away so they wouldn’t be bunched up. “You’re right about how he looks at us. My mom kind of looked at me the same way and when I noticed that, I can’t tell you how happy I was. When I first came upon Nathan and Amanda, I thought she was his daughter. He doted on her something fierce, but still treated her like a friend. It was the middle of the second day when Nathan did that to me,” John said.

“You see what I mean then,” Jasmine said.

“No, because he looked at you that way when we camped out by that lake. He saw you as family,” John said. Jasmine gave John a small smile. John shook his head at her his smile still the same. “But when we took time off in Arkansas, I noticed a difference in how he looks at you and talks about you,” John informed her.

Giving a snort, Jasmine almost asked about the telepathy but stopped. She still wasn’t sure if Nathan wasn’t on to something. “What do you mean?” she asked timidly.

“I think he likes you like a girlfriend,” John said in a low voice. He pulled up on the reins of his horse and fell behind Jasmine. Jasmine looked over her shoulder to see John looking around with his thermal scope. Turning around Jasmine thought about what John said and studying how Nathan had treated her recently.

Noticing someone holding up ahead of her, Jasmine glanced up as they pull in next to her. Seeing it was Amanda, Jasmine actually got scared, wondering if younger girls could read minds, along with putting thoughts in them. Amanda noticed the shocked look on Jasmine’s face and, since neither Natalie nor Jasmine told the others what they heard, Amanda mistook the shocked look for fear. Amanda had heard what Jasmine and John were talking about, after Casey pointed it out to her. Amanda had been concentrating on listening to the radio.

“Don’t be scared of me,” Amanda told her. Jasmine’s eyes grew wide.
Holy shit,
Jasmine thought. “John’s right, Nathan sees you as a girlfriend,” Amanda admitted looking off. “I know what you meant now back in Alabama. Nathan doesn’t see me like that. He sees me as his daughter but calls me his firecracker, and I like that,” Amanda said, smiling. Reaching down pulling out a bottle of water she took a long drink. As she put the bottle up, “If you break his heart, I’ll shoot you sis,” Amanda warned, kicking her horse trotting back up to Casey.

Riding in shock because Jasmine didn’t connect the hunter’s ear to Amanda hearing her, Jasmine was really starting to give credence to Nathan’s theory on little girls. In Jasmine’s defense, the hunter’s ear was now part of them, like their weapons. It was always on them.

In the lead, Nathan’s head was now pounding, two hours after he popped off at Jasmine. Thankfully, Emma had fallen asleep, and Nathan was convinced a little man was inside his skull with a hammer. Nathan just looked at the world in shades of gray in his left eye, trying to ignore his headache. Deer and cattle were everywhere around them. Nathan had never realized how many cows Kansas had. He had spotted a few horses and hogs running in the fields, and a coyote.

Ares and Athena alerted him to most animals before he saw them. Truth be told, Ares alerted him, Athena just copied Ares. Nathan smiled for a second and had to admit Athena was a good dog and Amanda was doing excellent with her. Then the scowl filled his face as his head reminded him that it was hurting by pounding harder. Seeing a creek up ahead, Nathan pulled into the ditch, guiding Smoke to the creek.

Before reaching the creek, Nathan climbed off and handed the reins to Natalie, who was riding behind him. “Water them,” Nathan said, and Natalie led the horses to the creek. Casey and Amanda passed by him. They smiled and Nathan attempted to smile back but didn’t pull it off. Next was Tom leading the three pack animals. The pack horse was just following along but the two donkeys were holding their heads high looking around as they followed.

Nathan saw Jasmine and John, but didn’t wait for them as he turned to the last donkey and started rummaging in one of the bags on the pack saddle. Nathan didn’t stop the donkey, but walked beside it as Tom led it to the creek. Before they reached the creek, Nathan pulled out something and tied the bag up. Seeing Nathan with the scowl on his face, Jasmine led her horse to the other end of the line from Tom. John just led his horse past Nathan, pulling up beside Tom and letting his horse drink.

Careful not to wake Emma, Nathan took off his pack putting it on the ground then took off his messenger bag. Nathan looked at the backpack and messenger bag, his vest packed with shit, the ‘Emma sling’ holding the doodle bug and his M-4. “I’m just a jackass packing shit as well,” Nathan said in a regular voice.

The others heard him very clearly and turned around as Nathan started digging in his pack. Seeing Nathan holding Emma and his rifle out of the way as he dug in his pack, they wanted to laugh at the sight, but wisely didn’t. Suddenly Nathan let out a loud sigh holding up a bottle. He threw some pills down his throat, pulled out a bottle of water, swigged deeply, and put the bottle away.

Next he threw down his boonie hat and harness holding the thermal monocular. Then he found another head harness for a monocular and took off the mounting arm, putting the harness in his messenger bag. He picked up his harness and mounted the arm on the right side, then pulled out the NV monocular and mounted it. Putting it back on, he lost half his field of vision.

Each eye gives a sixty-degree field of view but monoculars cut one eye down to thirty and Nathan had just put two on. Nathan actually stumbled back as his brain processed what it was seeing. The right eye was seeing the world in green from the NVG while the left eye was seeing in the thermal spectrum. What was weird, his brain superimposed the images over each other. Since his head was already hurting, Nathan didn’t realize the little man with the hammer inside his skull started swinging harder with a bigger hammer.

Slowly Nathan got used to the view and looked around. He could see the group in green and in thermal. His head was hurting too much for him to be excited; the little man must have taken some speed. Looking down at his stuff, Nathan was freaked out. He actually had some depth perception.

Putting his pack back on, Nathan started bitching. A small part of him was really happy Emma was asleep so she didn’t learn new words. The other part of his mind didn’t give a shit. The little man with the hammer was beating the shit out of the inside of Nathan’s skull.

As Nathan walked over to his horse, the group paled as he dropped F-bombs with every other word. Climbing on his horse, Nathan combined his words in ways that should’ve been impossible. Amanda paled and just shook her head as the words flew out of Nathan’s mouth. To Nathan’s credit he wasn’t shouting or being very loud, just very vulgar, his voice just lower than a normal tone.

Nathan stopped his bitching and swung his head, causing the group to jump back in their saddles. “Let’s get this monkey-fuck shit-show on the road,” he grumbled, and pulled Smoke’s reins back, leading her to the dirt road. Smoke, sensing how pissed off Nathan was, tenderly stepped up to the road. The others let him get ahead of them a few yards before leading their horse out to follow.

Ares, like Smoke, could sense how upset Nathan was. Ares moved back and walked beside Nathan. Looking up at Nathan, Ares let out little whines, wanting to lay his head in Nathan’s lap. Hearing the whines, Nathan looked down at Ares. With Nathan’s weird vision, he could see Ares’s sad expression. “I’m fine, Ares,” Nathan lied, and continued cussing.

Riding behind Nathan, Natalie looked over her shoulder. “Casey, go make him happy,” she commanded in a low voice. Riding beside Casey, Amanda nodded and motioned for her to go up to Nathan.

Casey shook her head. “No way, I’ve never seen or heard of anyone that mad.” Not able to argue Casey’s point, they just followed a very pissed off Nathan.

Thankfully Nathan stopped cussing out loud after an hour. The ibuprofen had weakened the punk ass little man with the hammer, but didn’t make him go away. The others rode in silence, watching where they were supposed to hoping Nathan relaxed.

Luckily they hadn’t seen anything unusual. Everyone knew if something was spotted, Nathan was going to go ballistic. The farm houses that they used to pass every mile or so had become spaced at every two or three miles, and the land was farmed as far as the eye could see. Only small stands of trees broke up the monotony of the landscape.

Sitting up in her saddle stretching out, Amanda shook out a cramp in her hand and noticed the sky was getting lighter even with the cloud cover. Looking down at her watch, she noticed it was almost six. Pulling out her map and compass she started looking around to find out where they were on the map. “We passed our rally point twenty minutes ago,” Casey informed her.

After studying her map and seeing Casey was right, Amanda looked ahead at Nathan. “Think we should ask him where we’re going?”

“You can. He flipped off a cow back there that was just standing at the fence chewing a cud. For a second I thought he was going to shoot it,” Casey said.

Amanda looked around. They were just northeast of Tipton and she didn’t see a house anywhere. The others pulled closer to the two as they followed Nathan. Amanda looked over her shoulder. “Have you noticed any houses with people lately, John?”

“We passed several, but as you can see now, there’s nothing,” John said.

“Why didn’t he stop at the rally point?” Amanda asked everyone.

“There was a mobile home set up beside that clump of trees and someone was still there,” John answered. Nathan could hear them mumbling but ignored it as he tried to ignore the asshole pounding his skull with the hammer. In the last hour the little man had eaten some Wheaties and was now driving spikes in his skull with his hammer.