Ghost / Writer #3

Later that day, long after the rug-shampoo and the strange visitor, Butch Kerns sat basking and thinking in the dead man's sprawling master bathroom. The tub was twice as big as some pools he'd been in, and the bathroom itself was a fever dream of dark wood, mirrors, porcelain, and polished stainless steel. As he soaked, Butch looked out a vast and frameless bathroom window at sunset on Narragansett bay. He thought he could see seals, leaping and playing on a chain of rocks jutting far into the sea from the writer's back yard. None of it did him any good, because despite the luxury and the seals, Butch was stressing.

It wasn't the guy at the door. That
guy - as problematic as he seemed at the time - was long gone. He himself would be gone in a few days with the house, and everything that happened there, locked up behind him forever. It wasn't the guy.

It wasn't the plan either. How many times could the visitor return before flight 83? Not enough. No, the plan was sound - thought Butch - the plan would do. The problem was Coop.

Butch's "partner" had been jumpy from the first about the job, the place, the time, the amounts and the planning. The guy complained and needled him at every bend in the road, and his over-think was contagious. Twelve straight hours he'd endured, Coop guessing, raving and pacing and stage-whispering through each fabricated betrayal:

"Who the fuck WAS that guy?
Is it a cop? A fed? He'd rolled up on a deserted house on a cold autumn day. He didn't have a car, Butch. "

He went on and on, seemingly more put-off by the second, as if the stranger's visit spelled his certain, painful arrest and incarceration or worse. 'clueless fuck hadn't even recognized the guy. The "coincidence" - when and if Cooper eventually discovered it - would send him off into total fear vapor-lock.

Butch figured he'd have aced Coop already under more cooperative circumstances, but in light of the stranger's promise to return, Butch now sensed unnecessary risk. In a perfect world, he'd have done the stranger as well, but who'd miss the guy and how soon? Before flight 83 non-stop Westerly to Bermuda was airborne and away?

"Nah"

Butch spoke out loud in the porcelain cloud of the bathroom:

"Two days, flight 83, 10am from Westerly."

If the guy came back, Butch would meet him at the door with the Colt. When he'd first shown up, Kerns had been busy cleaning the writer's blood and brains out of his wall-wall shag. At the bell-tone, he picked up the Colt, moved to cover. Coop - eating standing up in the kithchen - flashed him a silent look over his shoulder as he moved from the kitchen to the door. He opened it, and two things happened at once:


Butch recognized the man at the door, and - at the same time - realized that the the bloody smudge on the writer's eggshell carpet was plainly visible from the front door.

It was twenty feet away across two big, bright rooms, but from his vantage looking over Coop's left shoulder, the visitor would be looking directly at the spot where the writer had bled his last. Butch had left the bucket there when the doorbell rang, along with a sponge-mop marking a sprawling crimson blotch on the carpet. Butch held his breath, pulled the hammer on the heavy revolver in his hand, and concentrated on not breaking for the cleaning supplies. Instead he leaned an ear to the edge of the door and tried to listen...

Interpreter #15

"Walking side by side with death,
The Devil mocks their every step"


I found the 'Terp as the last of the rags were shot trying to escape. He was sitting alone at the top of FB Rango's high outer berm. I waved, and he threw me a tepid thumbs, shouted something like:

Not bad for half-staff and conventional weapons skip...

I smiled and kept moving. He was right - I knew - but events were not yet complete, and it's bad luck counting chickens. The Rango raid - planned in a day, prepped in five, and decided in twenty minutes, had gone remarkably well. Division had taken strength and experience, redeploying Mase and his entire 12-man detail out of the AO just prior to our move on RIS with no explanation. The move left the column without its black weaponry, and stripped of an invaluable special forces resource, so I was especially proud surveying the aftermath. They'd stolen our heart, but the soul of the column appeared intact.

For a few minutes things had looked bleak. FB Rango - we'd heard - was at the top of a high rocky pass and held by experienced fighting men. As we moved closer, however, intel reports on the FB were looking more and more favorable. There were between 25-30 men holding the base, a much different situation from the countless thousands promised by the rumor mill. Satcom showed five prisoners from the first fight, penned without guards in a cell towards the center of the camp.

I had 50 rangers dug into the woods around Rango, and heavy conventional weapons on a far ridge, sights trained, guns armed, awaiting a word. The wire at FB Rango was guarded by only nine men, and the prisoners were locked behind enough walls to keep them unleaded during the operation.

Nobody - it seemed - knew anything about the cache.

We moved at dawn. I had three snipers in position on the ridge hidden between the tracks. Each was assigned two of the guards. I gave the "go", the guards fell, and 70 men went, unassailed, into FB Rango. After ten minutes of red slaughter the body count machine read 25, and the prisoners were set free and taken to the rear. The dust had settled by the time I found the 'Terp again. He was sitting atop a berm overlooking the southern reaches of valley of Ris, smoking something illegal when he noticed me.

Fuck man fuckiiiiin, take a load off. You wanna ?

He held out the joint. It looked big and inviting, so I felt proud of myself saying "no".

That's right. On duty. And you got scruples too. Ok. I just got off sat phone with A-Group. Your wife says "hi".

That was weird, but not completely out of character. One of the many things that amused Kayla about me was my pleeb security clearance. She talked to the 'Terp and other operators almost daily, and I was was allowed to hear exactly none of it. He went on:

She was concerned. Wanted to know as soon as we secured the base.

I replied with a laugh:

And - of course - all about her dashing husband...

Terp took a long hit and held it a few seconds before blowing it out at the rising afghani moon:

She didn't say, but yeah bro, I felt it. All the way through the phone. She was happy about the cache, thrilled about Rango, and elated about the prisoners.

What prisoners? We got the ordinance?

You didn't hear?

His eyes were drowned red and barely opened but he sounded amused and lucid as always:

We got three rabbits trying to break down the cliff in the back when we clearing the camp. Got em trussed in the basement, awaiting your pleasure. Mine too I guess, since Mase is back in the world...Anyway, we found the rabbits with all sorts of computers and gizmos hooked up to a metal wall. Fuckers found the weapons but couldn't get to 'em. K says we gotta talk with 'em...

"talking" was A-group argot for torture and death. Things were getting away from me. I didn't speak. After an uncomfortable few minutes, the Interpreter spoke up again:

I dunno boss, your old lady is foaming about these guys...Best talk to 'em before she calls back. Powers that be...

I stopped and waited for him to climb down. A few minutes later I was following him down a ladder buried between hooches in the center.

Dank down here dude. These guys ain't in the best condition...

It was more than dank, it was pitch dark. I was looking down about ten feet below me, at the Terp bathed in the only swatch of white light from above. I jumped the last few rungs and looked around at blackness.

Ok follow me sir. Stay close. Treacherous down here...

Treacherous and stinking. There was a concentrated decay smell so thick in that void, it made me want to climb back up. Instead, I felt Terp's hand on my shoulder, guiding me past. I turned my pen light on, and - casting it forward and down - almost jumped backwards over him. The two of us fell through space until the walls checked our stumble. I'd seen the source of the decay-reek in tepid pen-light: Three corpses, dry- rotted and moldering in the wet cellar. Terp...fuckin' with me. I yelled back toward the stairs:

Three dead bodies. Thanks duder, I'll remember this. You forget...

I turned back toward the bodies once more, just in time to catch another, dimmer flash over the dead men. There was a loud spitting noise, and Pain washed over me like a a moon tide. I was dead before hitting the ground.

Unused Band Names...

Notso Fresh and the Giant Douches
Band of Thread
Coward
Ser Robert Strong
Nighty Knight and the California Kings
Dauntless Archibald
Bad Press
Catness
Squrm
Mantis
Ka
Headland
Quash
Kibosh
Polka-dot Stress Test
Wert
Monster Manual
Roar Shock
Horshack
Cyclic
Martian Dunebuggy
Calcify
Mork
Bronn
Gopher
Puzzle
Wet Spot
Wet's Pot
Gimmelshtunk
Tenth Dentist
Smelly Cock and the Roto Roosters
Puce
Fillibuster
Ass Aglet and The Undone Laces
Fairda Middlyn
Pigtail
Arterial Sclerosis and the Hard Hearts
Crooked Pinkerton (sounds like a euphemism for an abhorrent sex act AND a band)
Rabbit Foe Man
Lawn
Biscuit City
Horse-Shaped
Soil
Weapon
Novel T Ford
Flay
Unfair Stereo
The New New New Adventures
Docker's Clutch
Acid-Wash
Hi Voltage and the Ex-Tension Chords
Gort
Suicide Wheeze (the word "Suicide" followed by any other word is a good band name: Suicide Mud, Suicide Canasta, Suicide Blizzard, Suicide Balls...See? Try it! Suicide Porpoise, Suicide Nickel...)
Plaster
Po
Flounder
Hat Gift
Bourbonbon
Myex Wife and the Sloppy Seconds
Glip
Dangit
Stemware
Thorough Bread
Fling
Cyprus
Kermit
Doozie
Banbronnimus
Staff Infection
Glamcake
Scoundrel
Glaszz Toast
Bing Crosby Snorkel Face
Pumpkin Spice
Glass Nipple
Thergo Aye Buttfore and the Graces of God.

Afterwards

"Throw me a line if I reach it in time, I'll meet you up there where the path is straight and high..."



There's water all over Florida. Never mind the whole thing is surrounded by ocean, you can't walk a block without falling in a runoff pond or scummed-over canal. Florida wasn't so much built on top of marshland as it was nestled down in it, a perfect storm of laziness and poor civic planning.

Sgt. Theodore Broach rescued me from the last cleanse. He found me on beach on Long Island, told me about the cleanse that had already come and the one coming up. The last one had cleared New England, he said, and the next one would scrub the rest. The entire east coast north of Athens Georgia would burn for six months, he said. "33 days from now" he said.

33 days to pull hard south on foot, and avoid the bombs and the fire. Long island was an 18 hour car ride from Athens over well-kept interstate pavement, at a carefree 75-80 mph. Going - as we'd have to - on foot, I felt better taking my chances with three weeks of relaxing and a quick nuclear death. I heard TB out politely, told him "thanks, no" and got back to my beaching.

That - by rights - should have ended it, but Broach wasn't having it. He pulled a chaise lounge out to my spot on the beach, threw down his pack, and sat.

There was conversation between us until late that night, and in the end, I left with him. We put almost 1300 miles behind us in 3 weeks, walked the last 100 miles. TB and I spent the next six months in Key West, listening for reports and waiting out a cleanse that never came.

***

Turns out, Broach is actually from Florida. He was raised on the Gulf Coast and knew everything about the shape of the land, how to stay out of sight, and the safest places to hide. He's a talker, is Sarnt. Broach, and he spent the last 300 miles of our run telling me about two things: the water snakes, most of which were "deadly poisonous and fast as herpes", and the cats:

"Cats down south are strange these days" He said in his lazy-sounding whisper of a voice. "Resist the urge to approach them, especial if there's more than one. " A decade of feral generations had apparently altered the genetic purpose of the once- domesticated feline. They'd taken to traveling in packs - "prides" he called them - and they were to be avoided at all costs. "If you do end up crossing paths with one of 'em, resist the urge to run, and for fuck's sake don't get up a tree. They can see and hear much better that you can, and in their world only prey runs. Water - pond, stream, fountain, fucking puddle - whatever there is, you need to get to it. Slow so they don't get suspicious, but fast so you're safe before one of them decides he's hungry. If you can get to water quick enough, you might have a 50/50 chance. "

I didn't believe him, of course. This was a long time ago, when I was still just Danes and he was still just Sarnt. Broach. At this point, by my estimation, he was also the crazy man who'd talked me into an impossible task, and who was now telling me elaborate warnings about evil, predatory house cats. The weirdness of his tale, delivered as it was, in TB's deliberate, emotionless tenor left me weary. Most nights found me shivering and miserable, knowing I should run away as Broach slept, and castigating myself for not having the balls to do it.

By the time we made Florida, worrying about Broach had become a full time job and I'd forgotten all about the bad cats. My partner was a mystery to me back then, and getting weirder by the day. I didn't know him, and I didn't trust him. True, he'd saved my life and given me a reason to go on living, but for all I knew he'd been fattening me up like a game-bird, waiting for his moment to strike.

Bubbling beneath the Broach worries, there was the constant, and growing threat of actual other people. As the days wore on it became clear that folks in the south knew about the coming cleanse, and about the relative safety of the Sunshine State. We saw more functioning human bodies our first day under the Mason/Dixon than we had the entire journey. Mostly, the encounters were at a distance, with neither party hailing the other. As they crawled father south - however - we were actually able to stop and chat.

A former police officer in Dunedin told us they'd start bombing in less than a week.

A woman in a pant suit told them the local McDonald's was plugged in still, and that they had breakfast "all day long now!! Int it great!!?".

A guy in Tampa pulled a gun on us, demanded "loot and a blowjob", then shot poor TB right between the eyes.

The man's aim was true, and it earned him the worst beating one man ever gave to another with an orange plunger dart protruding from his forehead. It was during this beating that Broach and I both had the idea to get the fuck out of Florida.

Our plan was pure simplicity:
We'd break for Alabama and then New Orleans, left on a Friday afternoon with food and supplies stuffed in every pocket. We made 38 miles the first day, and made camp in a town called Brayton Meadow.

***

The weather was perfect that day, and the ground soft with spring. We could have slept in mansions or high rise hotels, but outside seemed so cooperative and accommodating we'd mostly just eat at will, and pass out wherever we lay. We'd done just that in Brayton Meadow when we first heard the pride.

That fucking noise. I'd been fast asleep my first time, but when that insane screaming came blasting down on us I jumped to my feet with my head on a swivel. It was a sound like a violent cat fight, amplified and looped into an echo box and played back at triple-volume. It seemed tangible and mean, less a sound than a force, malevolent and crafty and stalking.

I was terrified. The wails and screams seemed to be all around us, flooding and suffocating the air over our heads. The sound evolved quickly into a waveform of building intensity and punctuated by momentary silences. It was during the silent parts I heard Broach, whispering in my ear like a thought: "The water", he said, annunciating so as to only speak once. With that he turned, and began walking away from me.

***

The previous night, we'd bathed in a nearby drainage ditch filled with clear water that looked almost drinkable. The pipe had been originally purposed as an outflow public early school, but years of neglect had allowed seepage enough to fill a natural pool around the last 50 feet of it's length. The pipe, long buried by the run off, served as a natural causeway running half the length of the pool. I fell in a few steps behind TB and we made for the pond with the hideous yowling getting louder behind us.

***

Tad wasn't running, but he was moving as fast as he could without running. It took all of 60 seconds to get from camp to the water, but when we arrived we saw somebody else had beat us to the spot.

A small girl was standing in the center of our pool at the very tip of the outflow pipe. She looked to be about 10-12 years old, Blonde-headed, fully clothed, and staring up past us at the oncoming cat stampede.

The cats. Whatever I'd been expecting, it couldn't have come close to the real deal. The word "Cat" is not effective nomenclature for the thing that these beasts had become. The years since the wars and the cleansing had honed the breed into a super-efficient predator. They were proud, these cats, and looked bigger around the chest and hindquarters than normal cats. The pride was like watching a freight train grind past at a busy Florida crossing. You kept thinking it could go no further, that nothing could be so long and still move, but yet there it went. The cats were scarred and mangled and maimed. Most of them were fighting and clawing at eachother as they went and a few were bleeding. I saw at least two with missing legs, and one with no hind legs, dragging his stumps in the dusty soil and fending off swipes and scratches the whole way.

They were making their way down to the water hole to investigate further, as TB and I walked out on the pipe. The girl was still facing us, still staring at the cats, still remaining silent.

Within seconds, thousands of yowling, raging cats had surrounded the pond, stacking up 20-30 cats deep, and completely encircled the three of us in the center of the water.

I turned carefully to watch the two tendrils of mobbing feline converge, like a line of fire ants mauling a sugar cube. They were walking in near-perfect rows of ten and sounding off. The cries had become an evil, black chattering that - at times - seemed more in my own head than an actual sound. For a few seconds I felt sure I'd pass out. TB grabbed at me from behind: "Easy duder" he said, barley distinguishable over the screeching parade, "don't wanna leave anybody..."

He stopped short. I was turning around to face him when he gave my elbow a squeeze, gesturing with his glance toward the banks of the pool and a giant water moccasin, wending and twisting it's way towards us on the pipe. At that first glance, the snake couldn't have been less than 20-30 yards away, but it closed -almost instantly - to within 20 feet. I felt instinct taking over, demanding that my feet run, hide, anything to get clear of the danger. I began to move, fighting my own consciousness for command of my arms and legs, when the girl spoke the only words I'd ever hear her say:

"I'm Going". With that, she jumped off the pipe into the muck, and started pulling hard for the waiting cats. As she broke, I heard TB behind me saying "fuck fuck fuck fuck" in a much louder whisper than before.