This Shattered Land - 02 (23 page)

I
have done terrible things.

I
have killed hundreds, possibly even over a thousand people. I am guilty of
murder. I have tortured people many times to get information that I wanted from
them. Whether I did it to save lives, or because I was ordered to, or because I
was angry and afraid, nothing can ever excuse my actions. To make matters
worse, I know that if it becomes necessary to do it again, I will not hesitate.
I am a killing machine.

But
I am not heartless.

The
world is full of murderers. Well, at least it used to be. I am one of them,
there is no doubt about that, but I am not a killer without a conscience. I
regret what I have done, and although I don’t know if there is any redemption
for someone like me in this life, I know that I am not a monster. People like
me are something of a necessity. In order for the good people of the world to sleep
safely at night, they need men who are just as ruthless and nasty as the bad
guys to stand ready to do violence on their behalf. That was my job. To be that
man who would do anything, stop at nothing, cross any line to ensure the safety
of the people under my protection, no matter the cost.

I
don’t know how long I spent on that stairwell brooding and lost in thought with
my blade unsheathed on the floor beside me. Undead children have that effect on
me. A voice drifted up the stairwell from the front of the inn, putting an end
to my little pity party.

“Gabriel?
Is everything alright?”

It
was Sarah. She sounded worried.

“I’m
fine, Sarah. I’ll be down in just a minute. Everything is fine.” I called out.

That
was a damned lie. There was absolutely nothing ‘fine’ about the situation I had
just dealt with. Nothing was fine about the whole sorry world. I got my feet
underneath me and walked back downstairs. Sarah met me at the door and stepped
back as I stalked toward the Honda. Her eyes fixated on the gore dripping from
the edge of my sword.

“Did
you run into any trouble in there?” She asked.

“Nothing
I couldn’t handle.”

I
dug around in the trailer behind the MUV until I found a piece of cloth and a
small bottle of rubbing alcohol. I poured some of the alcohol on the cloth and
used it to clean off the black goop that was rapidly congealing on the
carefully forged steel. I looked up and saw Brian standing on the other side of
the trailer. It was unnerving seeing such intelligence and maturity staring at
me through the eyes of a boy who just celebrated his twelfth birthday.

“I’ve
never seen you like this before, Gabe.” He said. “What did you see in there?”

I
thought about brushing off the comment for a moment, but after meeting Brian’s
steady gaze I decided against it. I didn’t figure I would be doing the kid any
favors by sugar-coating things for him.

“I
found three infected. One of them was a little girl.”

Brian
nodded, and looked down. “How old was she?”

“I’d
say probably seven or eight before she turned.”

I
heard gravel crunch behind me as Sarah stepped closer and placed a gentle hand
on my shoulder.

“I’m
sorry, Gabe.” She said.

I
shrugged. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. We need to drag those bodies out
of there.”

Sarah
watched me for a moment more before taking my hand and giving it a quick
squeeze.

“Okay.”
She said. “I’ll help you.”

“Me
too.” Said Brian.

I
gave them a curt nod and took a small blue tarp out of the trailer. We rolled
the bodies onto it and dragged them a couple of hundred yards from the building
before depositing them at the edge of the woods. Sarah retrieved some old
cleaning supplies from a broom closet and got to work cleaning up the stains on
the inn’s rough wooden floor. Brian and I spent a couple of hours gathering
smooth, rounded river stones from a nearby creek and stacking them over the
corpses in a makeshift cairn. It wouldn’t do much to keep the scavengers away,
but at least I did not have to look at the bodies anymore. I didn’t have to see
the broken fingernails of that little girl, or the dried blood and scraps of
rotten tissue stuck to them.

When
we finished, we walked back to the inn and helped Sarah clean up a couple of
rooms for us to stay the night in. I wedged the broken door shut in the room
where I found the infected as best I could, and silently resolved not to go in
there anymore. Sarah found a large pot in the kitchen big enough to do laundry
in, so we filled it with water from the creek and set it to boil over a small
fire in the parking lot. Sarah spent the afternoon washing sheets and then
hanging them out to dry so that we would have clean linens to sleep on. I offered
to do some knife fighting practice with Brian to pass the time, and he happily
accepted. Sarah watched us as she worked with a little smile tugging at the
corners of her lips. Not for the first time, I felt a flutter in my chest
looking at her, and then quickly shut the door on those thoughts. She is
married, and her husband is my friend. I knew it was dangerous to allow myself
to be attracted to her, and honestly at that point, almost anything alive,
female, human, and between the ages of eighteen and forty-five would have
looked pretty damn good. It had been a couple of years since I had even seen a
woman, much less someone as pretty as Sarah.

Nope.
Not gonna happen. Besides, I am as ugly as a baboon’s big red ass. What the
hell would she want with me even if she wasn’t married? She is a heck of a lot
more likely to cast her eyes toward Eric than she is to look at me. My friend
is not quite the hair-gel and health club muscles pretty-boy that he used to
be, but even with a thick blond beard and a mop that hasn’t seen a barber in
two years, he is still a damn sight better looking than I ever was.

“Gabe,
pay attention.” Brian said, as he lunged past my guard and nearly got me for
the second or third time. “I told you not to let me win. How am I supposed to
learn anything?”

I frowned,
and tightened up my stance. I was so lost in thought that I wasn’t paying close
enough attention to Brian’s attacks. The defensive movements necessary to keep
his plastic training knife from touching me were so ingrained in my muscle
memory that I did not even have to think about them, my hands and feet just
went on autopilot and reacted. It was a little spooky, really.

“I’m
sorry little buddy.” I said. “I’ll pay attention.”

Brian
continued experimenting with different ways to try and touch his plastic knife
to a part of my body that could result in a kill in a real fight. He got close
a couple of times, but I always turned his blade aside before he could make
contact. When he left himself open, I counter-attacked to point out the holes
in his technique. To his credit, rather than getting flustered or frustrated,
he simply listened to the corrections that I gave him and adjusted his attacks.

After
a couple of hours, Brian’s technique started to falter and his arms hung heavy
and low. Sweat drenched his clothes in spite of the cool air, and his breathing
had grown fast and ragged. I was starting to get a little tired myself, so I
called an end to the training session. Brian looked relieved, and thanked me
for the lesson. We fetched more water from the creek and took turns cleaning up
inside the inn. The plumbing no longer worked, but the drains in the showers
connected to a septic tank, providing a convenient spot to bathe without making
a mess. I washed off the sweat from the day’s exertions and dropped my dirty
clothes in a pile a few feet away from the fire.

“Let
me know when you’re done if you don’t mind, I want to clean this stuff up while
we have the chance.” I said to Sarah, and walked back toward the trailer to
fetch a clean shirt.

Maybe
it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn that I saw Sarah’s eyes
following me as I finished getting dressed. I don’t think she had seen me
shirtless before, and I imagine she was probably a little taken aback at all
the scars. My tattered hide looks like a freaking Kentucky road map. When
you’ve been in as many firefights, roadside bombings, near misses with mortars
and RPG’s, and back alley knife fights as I have, you collect a few scars along
the way. In my case, I collected a lot.

Something
was strange about the way she looked at me, though. Most women have a look that
is a mixture of pity and horror when they see my scars. Sarah’s expression
didn’t seem that way at all. The last time I saw a woman look at me that way
was a couple of decades, and a lifetime of violence ago. Back then, I actually
looked like a man and not like a piece of chewed up rawhide. I was never
exactly handsome, but I am tall and I have my father’s powerful build. For some
women that was all they needed.

After
I got dressed, I sat down on a folding stool across the fire from Sarah, and
set to work cleaning my clothes. I tossed them into the hot water with a little
bit of detergent and spent a few minutes agitating them with a stick. Sarah watched
me work while Brian went inside to put sheets on our beds.

“I
know you’ve told me before, but what branch of the military were you in?” Sarah
asked, breaking the silence.

“Marines.”

“What
did you do while you were in the Marines?”

I
shrugged as I stirred the water. “Lot of different things. You don’t really
wear just one hat in the military. Everybody has several jobs that they’re
responsible for, and there is always a lot of work to go around.”

“Did
you fight in the war?”

I
snorted and shot her a smile. “Which one?”

She
nodded, and tucked a stray lock of auburn hair behind one delicate ear. It
distracted me more than I wanted it to.

“Okay,
dumb question.” She said. “You just seem to know a lot about fighting. I was
wondering where you picked it up.”

I
looked down and watched my clothes spin around in the big stainless steel pot.
Sarah waited patiently for the minute or two it took me to respond.

“I
didn’t learn everything at once, and I didn’t pick it all up in the service.” I
said. “I’ve always been the kind of guy who wants to learn new things, new
skills, but nothing is a substitute for real combat experience. I saw my share
of that in the Marines, and elsewhere.”

“Eric
told me that you were a sniper.”

I
nodded. “Scout sniper, technically.”

“So
that’s where you learned how to shoot?”

I
shrugged. “I could shoot before I became a sniper. They just gave me a new set
of skills and taught me how to apply them. Made me better at what I was already
good at.”

  “So
other than your work with Aegis, what did you do after you got out of the
Marines?”

I
looked up at her and forced myself not to scowl. I hate talking about that time
in my life. A bevy of old deflections and changes of subject came to mind, but
as I stared at Sarah’s gorgeous blue eyes, I knew that there was no way that I
could stand there and lie to her.

“I
was a mercenary.” I said. “A friend of mine who left the service before me used
to brag about all the money he was making doing freelance work. Gave me a few
phone numbers to call if I ever left the Corps. I had trouble finding work
after Uncle Sam gave me my walking papers, so I picked up the phone. Dumbest
mistake I ever made. I worked for the CIA for a little while doing contract stuff,
and then I took the job with Aegis.”

“You
know, I seem to remember that Aegis was involved with a couple of minor
scandals. You know anything about that?”

I
barked out a harsh laugh that was meaner than I wanted it to be. Sarah’s
expression grew quizzical.

“You
don’t know the half of what those bastards were involved in.” I said. “Those incidents
in Columbia and Israel were just drops in the fucking bucket.”

“Hey,
watch your language.”

I
turned and saw Brian walking out of the front door of the inn. He pointed a
finger at me and did a dead-on impression of his mother’s frown. I laughed at
him and gestured at Sarah with my laundry stick.

“He
has you perfect.”

Sarah
flushed slightly as she jumped up and wrapped one arm around her son’s neck, giving
him a thorough rib-tickling.

“You
want to make fun of your mother, huh? Well this is what happens to you when you
mess with me little man.”

Brian
laughed and tried unsuccessfully to wiggle away. Finally he settled on grabbing
his mother’s arm and pulling her weight across his back. Sarah squealed in surprise
as her feet left the ground and Brian spun her around in the middle of the
parking lot.

“Put
me down!” She shouted, laughing. “I’m gonna throw up down your back!”

Brian
stopped and stood up straight. They both took a few dizzy, stumbling steps and
held onto each other to keep from falling.  

“Okay,
okay. I call a truce.” She said breathlessly, still laughing.

Brian
threw an arm around Sarah’s shoulders and walked her back over to the fire. He
actually looked like a kid for a change, and not like an adult trapped in a
boy’s body. He was about to say something before his eyes focused behind me.
All the brightness left his expression as he raised a hand to point. I dropped
the stick I was holding and turned around to look.