Gods and Men- The Hank Boyd Omnibus, page 28
part #1 of Gods and Men Series
Through blurred eyes and over a smoldering crater, Kane saw a man emerge from the rear exit pulling the pin on another grenade. A second man, standing beside the first, had already opened fire on his position with his AK47. Most likely the jerk-off responsible for the first blast, Kane thought through the pain and nausea.
He did his best to aim and sent a few controlled bursts towards the new threat. Fortunately, he hit the man attempting to throw the now live explosive. The man dropped to the concrete, and the heave turned into a less threatening vertical lob. The grenade landed next to the man’s unsuspecting partner. With no time to react, the shooter was instantly pureed by the blast and now very, very dead.
Before the detonation, Kane lost consciousness from the trauma he suffered to his back and head, blacking out. He awoke three days later in a military hospital where he would miraculously recover from a broken back and a fractured skull.
Unfortunately for Captain Jeremy Kane, he had permanent nerve damage in his back and was forced out of the active service despite a clean bill of health eight months later. The army just didn’t want to take a chance.
That’s when the Company came calling. They offered him a job and got him back out in the field where he belonged, puttin’ a hurtin’ on the people who deserved it.
Frost wasn’t so lucky and had multiple surgeries to fix the massive damage to his face. His left arm was scorched down to his fingers, and he broke his leg in three spots.
Kane tried to stay in contact with his friend, but Frost eventually disappeared and hadn’t been heard from since.
The last conversation he had with Frost ended badly, and his former partner ended up blaming him for his maiming and subsequent discharge from the service. Unfortunately, Kane knew the man was one to hold grudges, and he suspected that this wouldn’t be the last time he’d see his vengeful teammate.
9
Hotel Dolores Alba Chichen
Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
“No, we didn’t see anything that looked like it could be hiding a secret entrance. But, it’s not like we could walk up to the ruins and poke around without somebody noticing. We’ll know more, later on, tonight.”
“And what happens if you don’t find what you’re looking for?” asks the caller.
“I’m not sure,” I honestly reply. “I guess we’ll figure that out when the time comes.”
“Look, son,” Dad says, giving me his concerned, fatherly voice now. “Maybe it’s time you put this whole thing on the backburner for a while. You’re driving yourself crazy looking for anything that even remotely resembles a tie to the Atlanteans. You’re headed for a nervous breakdown at this rate.”
Too late, I think.
“I'm all right, Dad.” A lie and he knows it. “I’ll call you when we get back to the hotel tonight and fill you in with whatever we find out, okay?” We hang up, and I toss my phone onto my bed, falling face first into my pillow. I go over every single scenario I can think of if this doesn’t go as planned. Not once do I attempt to devise a plan if it works out. Do I really have that little faith in what I’m looking for here, or am I just being a pessimist and seeing the glass as half empty?
Still, face down in my pillow, I hear the door to the bathroom open, the sounds of wet bare feet slapping against tile flooring, stopping beside me. The bed dips and leans as I’m joined by another person. Please don’t be Kane. Which it shouldn’t be, he’s napping next door.
I’m then mounted from behind by a pair of smooth, soft legs, which have climbed themselves onto my back, straddling across my hips. I lift my head to look up at my visitor but stop when two strong, yet gentle hands start rubbing out the kinks in my neck and shoulders. My brain instantly turns to mush, and I fall directly back into my pillow as I moan with sheer delight.
“Fan, Hank!” Nicole curses. “You need to start getting this done regularly. Your back feels like the world’s largest mogul run.”
“Shut up…and push harder,” I mumble into the surprisingly soft pillow., even though it came out like I was practicing underwater Yiddish.
“Ow! Dammit!” I yell as a hand yanks my head up, gripping my hair.
“What was that?” The hand yanks harder.
“Ow! Nothing! Let go!” I cry as she drops my head back down to the bed with a laugh.
“Get up, crybaby. We are meeting Kane for dinner to go over tonight’s tour.”
I turn my head just as Nicole’s naked form reenters the bathroom, shutting the door. I smile broadly at the view and then frown at the sight of the door now blocking it. Groaning, I turn over and grab my phone, checking the time.
6:30 PM
We aren’t due to arrive back at the park until after closing time, around nine o’clock, so we have plenty of time to relax and eat. The diner here has a couple of outstanding local items that have grown on me the last two days since we first checked it.
I unwillingly get up from the bed, actually feeling a lot better than when I first tried to suffocate myself with my pillow. Man, she has magic hands, I think as I rub my neck and roll my shoulders.
Standing in front of the dresser mirror, I remove my shirt and apply a fresh coat of deodorant. I give myself a look, noticing a lot of new scars that weren’t there a year ago. Hell, they weren’t there four months ago.
I slip off my shorts from earlier today and into a pair of black cargo pants. My Kilimanjaro Tours t-shirt, depicting a rhino on the front, fresh from the racks at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, is next. “I wonder if he’s related to Rhonar?” I ask myself, recalling the Minotaur-like beast we killed while in the Atlantean underworld.
“What?” Nicole asks from the bathroom, apparently hearing me speak.
“Nothing,” I answer. “It’s nothing.”
I glance back down to my shirt one more time, the hair on my arms standing up. Just the thought of the dead city under the desert in Africa gets my heart pumping. The muscles in my back tense up and I start to sweat, as my breathing quickens. My eyes dance a little, and I quickly become lightheaded and lose my balance, stumbling a little.
“Hank?”
I turn to see Nicole, fully clothed in her usual, less-flashy attire, with a clear look of concern on her face. She sees the fear in my eyes and rushes to my side as I experience, for the first time in my life, and as my father just predicted…a full-fledged panic attack.
Isla de Jaina, Campeche, Mexico
The boom of distant thunder echoed across the water, reaching land shortly after. It signified the end of a storm that had just ripped through the western shore of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Seeing it coming, Frost quickly and purposely packed up and left an hour before it arrived, shortening his raid on the treasure trove.
The storm dumped thousands of gallons of water on the area including Isla de Jaina, which was hit the hardest due to its location just offshore. The wind whistled through the expeditions dig site, churning up the debris left from the morning’s activities. Everything was doused, including the ash-laden land.
The shake of equipment rattled throughout the research tent arousing its occupant. As the low rumble resonated through the camp, it finally startled awake the unconscious form of the woman who had collapsed atop a cot earlier that morning.
“Huh?” A surprised moan sounded from one of the tents, shortly followed by a shout of pain. “What the—arrr!” Olivia Dubois grabbed her head and winced, fresh pain shooting through her skull. Through foggy vision, she looked down at her hand, seeing a hint of fresh blood on top of the dried blood from earlier. Seeing it, she instantly remembered what happened.
Olivia stood on wobbly legs, using her workbench as a crutch, getting her bearings. She was still in the research tent, except it wasn’t in the same condition it was earlier. Her examination table for one was a mess, papers flung everywhere, as was her cot.
She saw a splotch of dried blood in the center of where she had just been. Great, she thought. She was about to touch her head again but decided it was best left alone, not wanting another pain filled zing. Plus, Lord knows what kind of infection she could have given herself.
Carefully, she shuffled towards the tent’s entrance, head spinning. She turned the doorknob and stepped through, careful not to trip over the raised threshold.
The first thing Olivia noticed was that the lighting was off, the sun was in a different spot. She looked up, confirming her presumption. It was, in fact, lower in the western sky.
I must have been out for a couple hours.
Curious, she looked down at her watch for the exact time and saw it read four o’clock. “Okay, more than a couple hours,” she grumbled aloud.
Olivia had, in fact, been unconscious for almost six hours, close to an average work day for most. Must have hit my head hard, she thought. I wonder where—
Her thought was cut off when she noticed something past her watch, on the ground directly beneath her. A stray sneaker laid not six inches from her own foot. Then, she saw another shoe, a foot from that one, and then a shirt, and then pants.
After seeing what must have been the ninth or tenth set of sodden, jumbled clothing, Olivia experienced a mental lightning bolt. She was hit with the memory of what happened to the people these clothes belonged to. The morning's past events slammed into her like a tidal wave.
She recounted the advancing darkness that consumed everyone, spreading like wildfire through the camp. She looked back down at the sneaker that was buried in the black mud beneath her feet—wait a second, black mud? She thought, confused. The ground here was a deep brown, but not black.
She lifted her own foot noticing her shoe was also covered in the same black substance. She lowered it back down and saw she was standing in a shallow black puddle of muck and realized what it was. It’s not mud. It’s wet ash. It was the soaked remains of the man who had been desperately seeking her help.
“Gah!” Olivia screamed in fright, hopping out of the puddle, shaking her feet, trying hysterically to get the stuff off. After recognizing the gunk wasn’t coming off, she tried to slip out of her shoes but then thought better of it. Traipsing around in her bare feet with Bob and Phil between her toes, didn’t sound like anything she would ever want to experience.
Regardless of what she thought, she could feel that her feet were wet. Some of the black-water had infiltrated her shoes via the mesh-like material on the toes of her running shoes.
She gasped again, thinking the worst, but realized something. The ash-muck wasn’t eating away at her feet. Why isn’t it killing me? Not that I’m complaining or anything. She wasn’t sure what the difference was, but maybe it had to do something with the water mixed into it. Is it diluted?
Now composed enough to think straight, Olivia knew she needed to call for help, understanding that no one back in the States knew what had happened. The only way they would have was if one of the workers called home while the darkness was trying to consume them. “Not bloody likely,” she said, quoting one of her former classmates—a Brit. She was the same person who made the comment about her chest.
Olivia pulled out her cell phone and cursed. No service. She then raced back into the research tent, searching. After about a minute of foraging, she found what she was looking for. She procured one of three satellite phones they kept in the camp from under her bunk. It must have gotten tossed under the cot when I fell and hit my head.
She instinctively rubbed her head and grimaced in pain, but felt enough to know the severity of the damage. She was alive most importantly and probably needed stitches, but knew it could wait.
Quickly looking in the bathroom mirror, Olivia surveyed the damage. Her short hair was matted down where the blood had dried, but she couldn’t see any on her shoulders, just a little on her neck. Okay, could have been worse.
She sat on her cot and breathed slowly, trying to calm her nerves. She tried wiping the blood from her trembling hands onto her already destroyed sheets, but to no avail, it was dried and had stained her skin. She relented and powered on the device.
The manufacturer’s logo blinked to life then disappeared from the screen, being replaced by the phone's menu icons. Olivia silently cursed again when seeing the signal strength. Nothing, just like her cell.
As the tumultuous feeling of impending doom slowly returned in full force, Olivia found it hard to breathe. It’s then she decided to do the only thing that she knew would occupy both her mind and her time. So, she would work. She would research and record everything she discovered about what happened here.
There were enough supplies to last the thirty-plus crew of workers here for another month, but with it being just her it could last her several. She actually dreaded the next meal she would have to prepare. When she’d sit down to eat, she’d be cooking a meal for one.
10
Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
The near-death feeling I just endured has me thinking like my father…which is just as frightening.
“Maybe it’s time to give up this search for a while,” I say talking it out with Nicole and Kane. “When we’re done here, I mean. I think we need to move on to a normal project—something that doesn’t involve me ending up in the loony bin or dying of a heart attack.”
Not surprisingly, they both agreed.
Plus, Kane really wants to get back to his CIA thing and hunt down the people pulling strings behind Zero. He’s still a little pissed that they have tried to kill him a few times.
Who wouldn’t be?
We arrive back at the park’s front gates and are met by two armed security guards and a woman who may be pushing five-foot-nothing…if she had heels on. She kind of reminds me of Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Specifically, when she blew up like a purple balloon. And boy does she look pissed.
She glances at Nicole and scowls. I even think I can hear her claws unsheathe as she approaches.
“Gentlemen and…lady. This better be important. We’re knackered from a long day already. We don’t exactly do night runs here. This better not turn into a damp squib.”
Great, I think, a Brit with an attitude problem.
I don’t get to answer. Nicole beats me to the punch. She steps forward like a lioness about to pounce, “You got the message, yes? You know why we are here?”
Veruca stammers, “Well… I… Yes.”
“Then you will do what you’re told and accommodate us until we’ve finished,” Nicole orders. “If you are unwilling then I’m sure we can speak to your superiors and find someone who is.”
Oh, damn! I think, inwardly fist-pumping in triumph.
To my enjoyment the woman says nothing and after an awkward couple of seconds finally speaks, “Fine. Follow me please.” She spins on a heel, which I found impressive, considering her less than athletic physique, and takes off at a brisk pace.
I give Nicole an impressed look and motion for her to follow the guide with an “after you” bow and hand gesture.
Once out of earshot from Veruca, I hear one of the guards behind us chuckle to himself. This gets a smile out of me. It seems we aren’t the only ones who thought the shrew could use some taming.
We make our way past the gift shops and bathrooms, passing through the now quiet courtyard. Entering the main clearing, we again marvel at the view of the step-pyramid. It just sits there, majestically lit up by four construction spotlights.
“Man… Matt would have loved to climb that thing.”
I glance to my right hearing Kane. “Who’s Matt?” I ask.
“Huh? Oh…my cousin, his name was Matt Carrack. He served in the army—the 10th Mountain Division—up at Fort Drum in New York.”
“Was?” Nicole cautiously asks.
“He, uh… He died a few years ago on a training exercise somewhere in New Hampshire, I think. They said he fell when scaling a cliff face and suffered massive brain trauma, but honestly, I think the whole thing is bullshit.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Matt was an experienced climber—the best. When we were kids, his family used to come out to Montana over the summer. We would go camping and hunting every day. The guy was like a spider monkey when it came to climbing. The 10th was the perfect outfit for him since they specialize in alpine warfare, and other backwoodsie stuff. No way he just fell and died.”
“What do you think happened?” Nicole asks.
“Don’t know,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “But one of these days I’m going to find out.”
He then speeds up, effectively ending the conversation. I glance back up to the pyramid, thinking. I guess everyone has their soft spots.
Mine is my mind. I just really need to focus on something else and try to put what happened behind me and move on. If only it were that easy. Just getting some solid rest would be a start. I almost gave Nicole a concussion a couple weeks ago while thrashing in a night terror.
I try not to think of anything that could set me off, like the mental and physical pain I’m in— or the tortured stone beasts in the Atlantean underworld—or the near-miss doomsday the world almost suffered—or the—
I stop in my tracks, halfway to the Kukulkan’s castle, heart beating like a death metal drummer’s kick pedals. I can barely breathe, only getting a few precious gulps of air in before I start to panic. I’m on the verge of screaming for a shrink and seeing if they can fix this dilemma.
I seriously doubt it, though. There probably isn’t much of a cure for Apocalyptic Anxiety Disorder.
Then, the best “therapy” that I could ever ask for begins. Nicole gently lays her hand on my shoulder and squeezes. My condition is pretty noticeable, I guess.
I rest my hand atop it, giving it a squeeze back, slowly calming down. I haven’t spent a night away from her since the desert for this exact reason. I have no idea what would happen if she wasn’t there to rescue me. I close my eyes and finally get a hold of myself, the fear and mental anguish mercifully subsiding.
