Escape From Asylonia, page 18
part #1 of The New War Series
A pyramid of cardboard boxes stood at the entrance of the warehouse. Rochelle thought about hiding behind it, looked about for a better option, and instead and scurried behind a stack of wooden crates lined against a nearby wall. From there, she watched as David hung out of the door frame, urging Sol and Noah forward.
Imitating David, Sol threw Noah recklessly inside and charged after him. The four of them sat behind the stack of crates with their backs against the walls and their chests throbbing with the need to suck air. David clutched Ganesha between his knees.
'What the hell did you do to piss those guys off?’ he whispered.
'Why don't you ask General Ginbreath over here?' Sol replied, slapping the back of his hand against Noah's flabby chest.
The General grimaced. There had been a time in his life when such a blow would have been as troublesome as a fly bothering the mammoth frame of a warrior. Now, it pierced like a wasp’s sting penetrating the flesh of a newborn.
'Screw you,' He moaned, reaching for his gin to once again ease the pain.
'Screw me? Screw you, brah. Those guys would’ve murdered you, I mean murdered you, if I hadn’t shown up to save your drunk ass, and now look, here I am, doing it again.’
David and Rochelle looked at one another, she with curiosity, he with something close to heartbreak. Sol turned towards them.
'Yeah, turns out our so-called fearless leader ain’t so fearless no more. Those goons were beating the holy hell out of him outside some stinkhole bar this afternoon. Good job I was passing by on my way to the show and stepped in,’ Sol let out a deep sigh. ‘I don’t know why I bothered now.’
'Neither do I,' said Noah.
The fiery stench of gin on his breath bothered the three noses and six eyes facing him.
'Because, you ungrateful asshole, you looked familiar,' Sol flared.
The volume of his voice came louder than he had intended. He shook his head as though reverting back to Hush Mode.
' At first I thought it was just because you were human. I mean, barely human, yeah, but still human. You know how long it's been since I last saw a human? Two years. Two very long years. And now from outa nowhere, there's four of you, and I’m damned if I know what kinda trouble we’re in.’
Sol wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and continued.
'But still brah, you gotta look out for your fellow humans, right? The Earth Force says so. You'd know all about that, wouldn’t you, General?'
The General glared at Sol. The big Samoan was right of course, but the stubbornness and belligerence which filled Noah's poisoned veins would vehemently deny it. Sol ranted on.
'Yeah, that's right. I recognised you. Took a while of course, and it wasn't until the kid and Doctor Lovely turned up that I could be sure.’
Rochelle snarled at this unwelcomed new nickname. The first humans she had met in a long time, and one of them had to be a chauvinist Romeo in red underpants. David pretended not to have heard himself referred to as a kid. He was lost in the image of the great General Fallon, cowering in an alleyway and sucking gin from a bottle. David tried, and failed, to piece everything together, and was almost glad when Sol spoke the words he himself could not utter.
'Dude, you were a hero, and now look at you. What in the blue hell happened to you? I mean...'
Rochelle covered Sol’s rattling chops with her palm. He took her hand in his and pushed it from his face, then stared at her in complete bewilderment as she overpowered him, and muzzled his mouth a second time with even greater force.
This time, he dared not resist. He was too surprised -partly by the strength emitting from the lithe figure of the doctor, but mostly by the sound of footsteps echoing in the darkened warehouse- to do anything but sit quietly, and wonder how a day which had started off so mundane had taken such a severe turn.
XLV.
'We know you're in here, humans,' came the unmistakable voice of Bulldog Jack, his slow, sadistic drawl resplendent with malice. 'Come out, come out where-ev-er you are.’
The four humans watched Bulldog and his gang stalk past, each with cigarettes between their teeth and guns in their hands.
'We only want the one in black. Give him up and the rest of you can go free.'
David and Noah exchanged questioning glances. Bulldog paused, then burst into a demented cackle.
'Free to die, that is.' He snickered.
The four thugs separated from one another, laughing wickedly, each taking a corner of the warehouse. Behind the crates, Noah drank timidly from his bottle of gin, his trembling fingers spilling more of the stuff over his shirt than actually went in his mouth. David lunged across Sol and Rochelle, and snatched the bottle.
'Hey...' began Noah, only to receive the brunt of Rochelle's free hand slapped against his mouth. A lump swelled in David’s throat. He drew his arm behind him, and launched the gin bottle towards the gaping entrance of the warehouse. At the shriek of glass exploding against the concrete floor, the thugs pounced to attention, heads shifting from left to right, eyes wide like rabid wolves sensing nearby prey. They ran forward, guns pointing straight ahead, the scent of gin and blood making them drool freely.
As Bulldog stood facing forwards, ready to shoot, his henchmen hung out of the doorway, scanning the alley at either side for the humans.
'Uh oh,' the guardsman muttered, as the cardboard pyramid came crumbling down towards them.
David withdrew Ganesha's gaze from the fallen pyramid and tucked her back in his pocket. It had only been a distraction, but it was enough. He closed his eyes and bowed his head.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Dad, get my back on this one, will ya?’
Now or never, David. You’ve got this.
A final glance back toward Rochelle was enough to quell his trepidation.
‘Eat dirt, scumbags!’
Grabbing a crate in his hands, he leapt in full view of the thugs, and launched it at Bulldog’s head. The box struck the beast and he wailed backwards, tripping on a rogue gathering of cardboard boxes, and dropping to the floor. A second thug charged and met with a similar fate. David bent to pick up a third wooden missile, but the two remaining beasts tackled him to the ground and he crashed through it. Gasping for breath beneath the gross weight of his opponents, David thrashed wildly, drowning in a sea of splintered wood and fat, grey flesh.
XLVI.
'Screw this,' barked Sol. Reaching into Noah's inside pocket, the back of his hand brushed over something soft and unpleasant. His stomach crawled. He took Enosh Lavia’s severed hand from the pocket and tossed it aside without looking at it, frisking Noah until he found the Colt pistol he was looking for. Taking the weapon in his hands, Sol leapt from behind the crates. Standing in an abandoned warehouse with a loaded gun, wearing nothing but red spandex trunks and boots, the absurdity of the situation felt somehow fitting, a snapshot of the crazy train that had been derailing around him since that afternoon.
Sol grabbed the largest of David’s attackers by the collar of his trenchcoat and spun him round. The thug’s terrified face met Sol’s broad fist. Inspired by the arrival of an ally, David brought his forehead against the nose of his remaining assaulter. The beast stunned, David overpowered him and took him to the ground. He mounted the thug’s chest, his knees digging into the ribs, and his fists clenched, ready for war. As his adversary struggled, David observed Sol bringing a second clobbering fist across a pudgy jaw. Impressed, David copied Sol's technique, right down to the angle of the elbow and the straining of the throat muscles, as he rammed his knuckles into the thug's face, and felt the brittle bridge of the nose crack against his hand.
Thug Number Three emerged from the wreckage and leapt onto Sol's shoulders, grabbing him around the neck. The mostly-naked human clambered to his feet, dropping his weapon in the process, trying to shake the beast from his back. As David stabbed his elbow into his opponent’s throat, Sol hooked his own adversary around the back of the neck and thigh, lifted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and threw him across the warehouse. The creature rolled in the air and landed, back-first, on a steel shelf.
Sol swept his hands against one another, but his proud gesture was thwarted as another beast spear tackled him to the ground. Behind him, David was having problems of his own. The dry skin of a grey palm thrust into his face. His nose stung temporarily before going numb. Pain spliced wickedly through his temples, screwing knots into his jaw. A second hand beat against the side of his head. David batted the hand away and retaliated with a strike of his own, chopping at the thug’s chest with a fist. The thug screeched and hit back. A flat palm smacked against David’s forehead and pushed him over. As the back of his skull bounced off the concrete, David observed the discarded Colt in the corner of his eye. He reached for it without thinking, and as his attacker pounced, David pulled the trigger. A bullet ripped through the thug’s chest. The thug dropped dead, though David barely noticed. He held the gun in shaking hands and glared at it as though he had no idea how it had gotten there.
Sol had found a more resilient adversary. The creature who had tackled him to the ground received a fist to the face for his troubles, was lifted up over Sol’s broad shoulders and thrown into the shelving unit.
This thug got back up and rushed forward, was lifted up and hurled away again. He got up a second time, reaching into the holster on his hip for a gun of his own, and aiming it at Sol. His claw squeezed against the trigger. Sol dodged out of harm's way and ran at the gunman, ploughing him down. He went for the weapon but was kicked in the groin. Sol doubled over in agony. The beast climbed to his feet and sunk the barrel of the gun into Sol’s neck muscles.
From his vantage point, David saw this and snapped out of his moment of shock. He took aim, squinting through one eye and biting on his lip with concentration. The beast reeled, shrieking with torment as the bullet cut through the bones of his fingers. The weapon fell to the ground. The thug swung his remaining good hand at Sol, but the wrestler blocked it, wrapped his huge hand around the throat of his prey, lifted him up from his feet and drove him, skull first into the concrete. The thug’s eyes rolled in the back of his head and then closed. His legs and arms twitched and then were still.
David froze in his tracks again, rendered numb by the surge of power entering him from the point where his fingers clutched the pistol, and by the confusion and horror of a situation which, until this moment, he had only ever experienced as a fantasy.
'God Damn, brah. Where'd you learn to shoot like that?' Sol moaned as he moved slowly towards his gun-toting partner.
'Video game,’ grinned David.
From the safety of her hiding place, Rochelle started to her feet and reached for Noah's hand, only to push him back to the floor and dive beside him as Bulldog Jack emerged from the shadows and charged at David.
Throwing himself in harm's way, Sol caught Jack by the belt around his waist, and by the bandana around his neck. He heaved the brute high above his head and launched him into a wall. The one thug who remained conscious ran from his hiding place among the shelving units. David waited until he was closer, then tore a hole in his inner-thigh with two bullets.
Rochelle came from behind the wooden crates at last, pulling Noah behind her, and stood between David and Sol. They surrounded the weeping thug, staring down at a wound in his thigh which oozed with pus and filthy coloured, foul-smelling blood.
XLVII.
Caught in the moment, his mind swimming with scenes from countless action movies, David Attreus waved the Colt M1911 pistol mere inches from the thug's face, and fought an internal battle against The Shakes. Sol squatted beside their victim.
'Say,' he grinned. 'That there is one damn fine coat you're wearing, brah.'
The thug stared up at Sol and gulped.
'Huh?'
'You heard me, take it off.' barked Sol. 'And I'll need those jeans, and that shirt too, punk.'
The thug did as he was ordered, stripping slowly to reveal blistered grey flesh that sank into his rib cage, and the healing scars of knife wounds, latticing across his belly. Sliding his arms into a grubby, once-white shirt, Sol turned to Rochelle.
'Sorry Doctor Lovely, the gun show’s over, baby.’
David found himself at first scowling, and then smiling as Rochelle rolled her eyes at the wrestler. Sol ignored the doctor's frown, pushed his arms into the trenchcoat and turned his attention to the captured thug.
'So here’s the plan,’ he began, resting his palm on David’s shoulder. ‘You tell us what you guys want with The General, or my buddy here pumps your face full of lead.'
'I don't... I don't know. Honestly,' the thug insisted.
The adrenaline swarmed David’s veins. He pressed the barrel of his gun into the thug's quivering throat. Sol learned in closer to the beast.
'Now look, you’re making him angry. Let’s try this again, brah. What the hell do you want with General Ginbreath over here?’
‘Honestly, I don't know,’ the thug pleaded again.
His voice croaked like a dying motor. ‘
‘We were hired. We were supposed to capture him, that’s all I know, I swear to you. Capture him, and lock him up until they came to collect him. That’s... I swear down, that’s all I was told.’
Enraptured by the thrill of the situation, David felt his fingers shake against the side of the thug's throat.
'Who hired you?' he snarled. 'All you gotta do is tell us, dirtbag. Tell us, and we’ll let you go free.’
Excitement mixed with nerves in his system.
‘Free to die,’ he added with a sly grin.
The thug drew into himself.
'The Temüjin,’ he spluttered. ‘The Temüjin hired us to capture your friend, but honestly, my brother, I couldn’t tell you why. I just don’t know. I swear I don’t.’
The thug began to weep again. Noah had been sitting quietly on the ground throughout the interrogation, half paying attention, but mostly trying to figure out how he could lose the other three and find more alcohol. Suddenly, his heart froze and he felt sick to his guts.
'It can't be,' he moaned. 'It can't be the Temüjin, pal. Those bastards are dead. I killed them, damnit. I killed them. It’s over.’ The General was sobbing now. ‘It’s over for God’s sake!’
His gun still pressed against the grey, jellied flesh of his hostage, David turned to face his hero with sorrow in his heart.
‘It was over,’ he sighed. 'They came back,'
'Came back? What do you mean, came back? That....That can’t be.’
Noah’s voice wobbled in his throat, grew high pitched with pleading desperation, and sunk low again with defeat. Tears traced the vein lines running across his flush-red cheeks.
‘That was the end of it. That was The Final War, for crying out loud. Not just any old bloodbath, not just another shootemup for the damn fun of it, pal. That was the final war.’
'Yeah, it was,' David continued. He buried his face in his hands, then turned to Noah to break the news.
'At least it was supposed to be, man. We all thought that was it, thanks to you, General. Damn, the stories of how you saw off the Temüjin are legendary,’ He paused, fighting away his own tears. ‘But you didn’t kill all of them, Sir.’
‘And they came back?’ Noah asked meekly, trying to understand.
‘Yeah,’ David replied. He kept a firm grip on the gun, but brought it up just slightly so that its mouth gently kissed the thug’s chin.
‘See, General, when you were around to defend the United Earth, those slimeballs would come nowhere near us. They were gone, man, and probably would’ve been gone for good, too. The Temüjin Empire feared you, they knew if you were alive and kicking ass they didn’t stand a chance. I guess after you went missing they figured it would be easier this time. So they came back, and I hate to be the one to break this to you, Sir, but Earth is really hurting in The New War.'
All eyes were on David now, even those of the hostage at the end of his gun.
'There's a new war?' asked Noah, wiping fragile tears from bloodshot eyes.
'Yes, Sir. The UEF are doing their best to stave off the attack, but I don't know how long they'll last. It don’t make me happy to say this, man, but things are pretty bad back home.’
‘Can’t be any worse than they are here,’ Sol muttered.
'I did kinda wonder why you didn’t come out of retirement and send those slimeballs packing again,’ David continued. ‘It just didn't sit right with me, but damned if anybody knew where the hell you were. Eventually, I got into the UEF confidential files and found out all communication between Earth and The New World had been cut off. then it made sense, man. Then it just made sense, so I got in my ship and got out here. That’s why I’m here, General. To take you home.’
'And me also, David?' asked Rochelle.
'Yes, and you Doctor Lov... I mean, Rochelle. Don't you understand, Sir? I dunno what's going on with you but, with all due respect, you gotta get your shit together. The whole friggin' planet needs you, Sir.'
Rochelle moved her arm tentatively around Noah's shoulders as he buried his face in his hands. Holding Noah as a mother would a distraught child, she turned to David.
'So, do you think that perhaps Temüjin Empire found out too? That Noah was here, I mean. Do you think that they tried to keep him here so that it would be easier to invade Earth?’
David felt a knot in his stomach.
'Would definitely explain a lot, wouldn’t it?' he said. ‘They find out General Fallon’s here, and they put a big forcefield around the planet to stop him getting back out, and anybody else getting in. With Noah trapped here, they figure he’ll be easier to find, and they set every low down, no good asshole on the planet on the hunt. We threw a spanner in the works, ‘Chelle. That’s why Cringor was gonna send us out to the jungle, right into the arms of those Temüjin dirtbags. They’d do us off and stop us getting in the way. Well, sucks to be them, man, because we’re all here and we’re damn sure going home.’
