Gabriel's Sacrifice (The Scrapman Trilogy Book 2) (25 page)

“Did you see where I put that fifteen sixteenths?” a man’s voice went into the cat’s ears and out into the factory.

“No,” a young woman answered as the eyes of the feline moved direction, settling on Mohammad’s first glimpse of the man.

“I thought I put it here,” he said, placing his hand onto a workbench. He was sturdy looking, arms sinuous from months of labored activity–late twenties, perhaps.

“I haven’t seen it,” spoke the woman again. “Have
you
seen it, Dinah?”

The cat was suddenly scooped from the floor and cradled like one might an infant, the image of the woman’s face sending a jolt through him.

He looked up at Gabriel, body stiff, mouth wide, as the Traveler only smiled.

Her skin was red as Radia’s, her face nearly identical.

She’s … she’s a hybrid … a hybrid still alive.

“Through countless minds of dead men did I search, Mohammad,” the Traveler revealed. “All corrupt … until I found you. And through your eyes did I watch you find Radia, watched you teach her, then watched you perish trying to protect her. And
that
is why I brought you back.” He motioned toward the new female. “As you can see, Radia was not the last, but this one is going to need your help, going to need your gifts in order to survive.”

Mohammad looked again into her green eyes as she grinned back at him. God, she was beautiful … and happy … actually happy.

“Her name is Alice, Mohammad,” Gabriel introduced, “and she has
always
been your purpose.”

Purpose? He’d spent the lot of his previous life searching for purpose, for direction, for a sign if ever he’d lost his way. Vague was the help, if ever it was given–nothing remotely as clear as the image currently placed before him. Her smile melted away his insides, the relationship he had with Radia instantly invested into this one.

His knees, strong as they were, began to give way as he put his weight upon the guard rail. And there, finally, whatever part that hadn’t allowed him to grieve shifted slightly.

Gabriel released the mechanism from his wrist, letting it suspend there between them. “I’ll leave you now,” he whispered. “And when you are ready, meet me on the other side.”

Mohammad nodded, wiping his face.

And with sympathy present in his lumbering stride, the Traveler turned and left him there ... with Alice … to rediscover a portion of humanity he thought had been carved from his being.

J
oining the U.S. Navy in 2003, Noah Fregger was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. Immediately tossed into the propulsion division, he found himself below-decks, working closely with air compressors, evaporators and turbo generators. Noah had started to write his first book while still in the military, writing it on a close friend's laptop, but had lost the entire story when that sailor's laptop was stolen. He landed a job with Rock Tenn, a corrugated manufacturing plant, upon his honorable discharge in 2007. 

Being a writer of sorts, Noah decided to practice this passion more thoroughly, and with the request of his grandfather, had started to assemble a short-story trilogy based loosely on the story he had lost years ago; but the story, steadily growing in length, had soon become a novel in the works.

Noah now resides in Newark, California with his wife and daughter.

Please feel free to contact him with any questions or if you’d like notice when the next installment of the Trilogy is complete:

[email protected]

Gabriel’s Sacrifice

Book 2: The Scrapman Trilogy

Part 2:

The First Five Chapters

The shouts of men came as crisp as the gunfire to follow, sending adrenalin to course unhindered through Victoria’s veins. Her thoughts became cloudy, muddied with the terror of what would inevitably ensue. Not more than three weeks passed since discovering James and the others dead at that factory. She didn’t realize it at the time, but each stood like a support in what remained of her world. Without them it had quickly folded in on her again–the next level of chaos.

The Jackals, somehow detecting the loss of their leader and men, had finally closed in to claim the store. And as a group they’d hardly weapons left to defend themselves, a large sum of their armament vanishing the same day James walked out of his room for the last time.

I’ll be right back.

But he never did.

Now those outside were falling in a grisly display of convulsions and blood splatter, the bullets leaving misty trails of crimson in wake of their wounds. This would be her death–no other foreseeable outcome, another corpse upon the floor in a matter of moments. She’d almost accepted her fate, until a scream came to grant her clarity of mind.

Hazel.

Victoria lifted herself, putting the adrenalin to better use as she scooped the shrieking child and removed her from the gruesome scene. With Hazel’s arms wrapped firmly around her neck, the curls of her hair against the dampness of Victoria’s cheek, she took her deeper into the dark store. The girl’s wailing grew softer against the calm of Victoria’s voice, her subtle words of great contrast to the fury within her chest.

“Shhh, Sweetie,” she whispered. “My big, brave girl.”

In absence of a flashlight, she pressed her shoulder to the wall and followed it through the heavy shadow. The gunfire had ceased for the moment, the enemy fast approaching.

“It’s no use,” a voice told her. “Just stop.”

“Lay down and die then, Coda!” she hissed. “Leave the rest of us to fight.” She squinted at the blaze of his flashlight as he switched it on, the angles of his face making her long for James.

The boy had become increasingly distant since the discovery of his father, his mood somber and unpleasant, as Victoria awaited the course of his grieving. No such time remained, however.

“Where are you taking her?” He motioned to Hazel, a mark of concern in his inquiry.

She shoved past him. “Looks like I’m going to release the one soldier we have left.”

“Wait.” Coda put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll need this.” He withdrew a .45 and handed her a heavy set of keys. “Leave through the back door. I’ll slow them down here.”

“What about you?” She accepted the items, shoving the keys into her back pocket. “You have a gun?”

“I’ll grab another upstairs, just get her outa here.” He held out the flashlight.

“I need you to walk now, Sweetie.” She placed the child down as Hazel held on reluctantly an extra second. “Just stay with me.”

Coda left them in a hurry, passing the entrance as new gunfire spilled in through the broken glass, then disappeared up the stairway.

“C’mon, Hazel.” Victoria pulled, leading the girl to her father’s enclosure. “John!” she unlocked the door and flung it open. “John, let’s go!” She found him sitting at the opposite end of the cell, the place reeking of urine and feces. She gagged as the stench slid instantly down her throat.

Burdening himself with the hatred his late father had of the veteran, Coda kept John locked up for far too long.

“John, get up!”

“Daddy?” Hazel pleaded in a small voice.

“I’m leaving this door open, John. If you stay, the next person in here will be a Jackal. Do you understand?”

He looked up at her, his eyes a defiant blue amongst the bruises that had cooled his face to a sickly jade.

“It’s your choice, but we’re leaving out the back door.”

The clatter of men then entered the store as Victoria grabbed Hazel and sprinted down the aisles. Coda, apparently accessing the stability of the lock, had unbarricaded the back door weeks prior and failed to barricade it again after.

His lapse would be their freedom.

“Here, hold this.” She handed Hazel the flashlight, placed the gun on the floor, and fumbled for the keys. They came out in a glob of metal–more than she could possibly need. Victoria inserted each one between shaking fingers, panic rising with every failed attempt. “Shit!”
Do any of these fucking keys work?!
She finally felt the latch as it slid aside and she shoved the door open. Trading the keys for the gun, they rushed outside, only to be seized there by three men.

“Whoa. Whoa.” One of them wrenched the .45 from her fingers. “Where do you think you’re going?” They ripped Hazel away, the girl shrieking in protest.

“Let her go, you fucks!”

“Some words comin’ outa that pretty little moutha yours.” The one behind her wrapped an arm across her chest, pulling her close.

“Dibbs,” said another.

Hazel stopped her struggling, silence falling over her; and with strands of hair matted to her forehead, she fixed Victoria in an empty, vacant stare.

“Fine,” Victoria agreed. “You can have me, but just … let her go.”

The group giggled slightly, five of them in all, the one constricting her chest shoving his face into her neck.

“Geez!” The tall one’s face scrunched, the tip of his nose turning pink, before he covered it beneath a spindly hand. “Something smells like sh …” The back of his head burst open as something blunt and glistening came to smash against it. The others screamed, lifting their weapons, as John leapt out to connect with another, the man’s teeth ejecting by means of the metal slugger.

Triggers were clicking empty all around as John remained free to bludgeon another two into heaps of shattered faces, not a single bullet escaping a barrel to stop him. Releasing Victoria, the last man fled to the opposite end of the building, shouting for help as John lifted his daughter and started across the street.

Victoria followed behind … but there was so far to go, bullets already beginning to fly in their direction. No cover. Entirely exposed. She looked back for a moment. Several men had come to the man’s aid, their weapons echoing off the surrounding structure. Victoria fell, shielding her face as they began gouging small chunks of asphalt beside her. Kicking her feet, she propelled herself backward as something glimmered for a moment between her and the Jackals.

Victoria froze, staring at it, when it lit up again.

It was … some kind of energy … rippling in waves of purple when hit by a bullet. And something … something at its center … outlined with each impact.

“Victoria!” John shouted for her. But she continued to stare at the empty space, straight back at the men firing at them. Another strike and the thing rippled again, illuminating the figure of a man standing within it.

It spoke then, impossibly, a voice that solidified her terror.

“Go!” it told her.

And she obeyed, spinning, her body trying to move faster than her feet would allow. Hazel and John disappeared beyond the alley as bullets scorched the walls before her, marking each collision with a brush of burnt auburn. Even then she witnessed a portion of wall that remained untouched. Something was protecting her. Something came to aid them in their escape.

And she felt like she could put a name to that silhouette, felt like she’d seen the print of its right hand far too many times already.

Like a photograph plastered to the inside of his eyelids, Coda couldn't seem to shake the vision of Dad, swollen and pasty, dangling there against the concrete wall of the factory–the way he'd looked upon his son with those dead, lifeless eyes. And on his chest, the sign of his killer ... the mark of the illusive bogeyman.

They stacked pallets until they were able to cut him down; but the gruesome ordeal took far too long. He, Jackson, and the twins had been missing for nearly forty eight hours before they found him, then the other three on the roof–their right hands cleanly severed, the boogeyman's print upon their chests, as well.

Anger came quick to boil his young blood, but fear also soon spilled in. What on Earth could have done this? These were some of the strongest men he'd ever known; but still something lured them all the way out there ... for the slaughter. The lack of sense made everything too surreal, all just a bad dream beneath the spinning of his head.

It was just him now. No more direction. His was the only gut left to follow, couldn't rely on Dad's knack for slipping out of sticky situations, the way he could pull answers right out of thin air. Coda couldn't bear to see him that way–defeated and demoralized, a broken message to the world.

They burned the other three on the roof. For Dad, they placed him on pallets as Coda doused him in fluid; and after the flick of a match and a few kind words, his body was engulfed in a flurry of flames. Coda stood there for a moment, watching the blisters beginning to bubble across Dad's skin, before he finally turned away.

Not to be confused with chivalry, Coda would have traded him places in death. For what was the reason for living, anyway? Why prolong misery? Why not end it all right then? Bite the bullet straight from his own .45. No more suffering. Everything just ... over.

He tossed the thought around in his mind, the coolness of it like water upon parched lips. And as he'd looked back one last time, the wooden alter weaving its blanket of gray into the clear, blue sky, never had the notion of suicide been so inviting.