Rise and Walk Read online

  Facing Tony about ten paces apart, Jack held firm onto the handle of his bamboo practice sword with his right hand. He raised the rounded, somewhat harmless looking weapon towards Tony and spoke,

  “Okay, this time I’m gonna leave myself open. See if you can capitalize on the mistake.”

  Tony sighed and held his Kendo Sword with both hands in a defensive position; straight in front of his body. He wanted a smoke. He wanted a coffee. Hell, he wanted to be back in his tent sleeping but Kendo, the ancient Japanese art of sword fighting, was a reminder of a simpler time. He could wake up early for this once in a while. Tony took a deep cleansing breath, just as he was taught to do so many years ago and exhaled slowly, allowing his thoughts to wash away into a quiet calm.

  Jack advanced with amazing speed. His left hand joining his right beneath the bamboo hilt bringing an increased force as it struck Tony’s upraised sword. Jack pivoted on his left foot and spun, bringing his blade close to his body on the turn and extending it as he once again faced Tony. With instinct that he hoped looked like anticipation, Tony back peddled a step and caught Jack’s blade mid-air. Jack feinted to the right, leaving his left leg overextended and exposed to attack. Tony missed what should have been an obvious and exploitable opening. Tony backed off and resumed his defensive, sword first stance.

  “Missed it,” Jack chided.

  “Huh?” Tony said while noticing he had stepped on a sharp rock. He shifted his weight to absorb the pain without conscious thought and compensated for the change in stance. Then, in a heartbeat, Jack Mason advanced with incredible speed. He blocked Jack’s strike from the right at a low angle, left from on high and again from the right. Pain rang out from behind his left hamstring as Jack’s blade struck. Tony fell to one knee and put his sword up in instinctive defense. He looked to see Jack demonstrate his control of his weapon as he stopped his sword just inches from Tony’s neck.

  “Punk,” Tony exhaled.

  Walking away with an air of satisfaction, Jack asked,

  “Were you even paying attention?”

  Taking a seat on the picnic bench anchored to their campground, Jack watched Tony struggle to his feet.

  “Man, it’s too early to pay attention,” answered a defeated Tony.

  He took a seat at the bench opposite Jack and drank the last of his tepid coffee from a stainless steel mug. Tony knew that a critique was on its way when Jack began to speak.

  “You gotta be more aggressive; learn to think about offense and defense at the same time; and pinpoint possible targets.”

  “It’s kind of hard to find targets when you’re swinging at me so fast,” Tony complained.

  “That’s why we train, so you can speed up your reactions, to see weakness and openings,” Jack continued, “Dueling takes practice against real people to learn from the unpredictable.

  Tired of Mason’s criticism, Tony just raised his eyebrows and tried to dismiss the conversation. Sword fighting didn’t seem to matter as much in his adult life. Sure, he would always bring his gear and practice when camping like in his youth but even camping was beginning to lose its appeal.

  “You could be better, you just have to practice,” Jack offered.

  “I am better, better than ninety eight percent of the general public,” Tony answered as he put down his coffee. “How many people practice Kendo anymore?”

  “Not enough,” Jack lamented. “You should take it more seriously though.” Jack stood and started towards his tent.

  “Yeah, when it’s for real I will,” Tony mumbled. He finished his coffee and looked around for his smokes. Amongst the clutter of the picnic table; underneath Jack’s copy of Secrets of the Ninja and Tony’s Improvised Munitions Handbook, laid his pack of cigarettes. Tony noticed that the box felt a little light but was relieved to find two smokes left. He separated the pair and popped one into his mouth. Finding the lighter would be another matter. It wasn’t underneath the men’s camp fire reading materials. It wasn’t near Tony’s collection of obscure vitamin supplements, nor underneath his motorcycle helmet that he had allowed to fade in the sun. Tony stood over the table with his cigarette hanging dumbly from his mouth as he searched.

  “Here, it was on your bike,” Jack’s voice rang out accompanied by Tony’s lighter as it sailed through the air. Tony caught the stainless steel Zippo and lit his cigarette. Tony saw Jack disappear into his tent and wondered what time it was. Looking out over their campground, past Jack’s white late model truck and their two motorcycles on a trailer, he could see the sun, still low on the horizon. There was still some hot water on the camp stove and the thought occurred to Tony that he should have some more Coffee. He poured a hot cup and added only instant creamer. He opened a bottle filled with eleven different vitamins and amino acids. Each pill had an esoteric purpose that Tony resolved would help him fight off the effects of smoking, careless nutrition and the occasional hangover. Tony had previously filled the bottle at home from his supply of health products in anticipation of the weekend. He palmed the mixture and downed eleven pills with a large slug of hot coffee. Cigarettes and vitamins, Tony never even considered the contradictions.

  Tony smoked while looking at the books on the table. They were so different from the textbooks that he had so recently studied at college. The Improvised Munitions Handbook was written in the eighties by the U.S. Army to teach field personnel how to create explosives from common household materials. Tony had bought the handbook when he was sixteen from a military surplus store during the first Bush administration. Back when World War Three seemed like it was just over the horizon. He had read the book cover to cover many times and was reasonably confident that he had absorbed the principals of improvised explosives. The weapons and training all seemed like useless knowledge now. After finally graduating with a Bachelors in English just two months ago and now facing the prospect of finding a real job, Tony wondered if he had wasted his youth studying the wrong things.

  “Don’t you think thirty is too old to play army?” Tony asked with a loud voice as he smoked his dwindling cigarette.

  Jack exited his tent dressed in full camouflage combat gear. His tactical vest was neatly stuffed with equipment. A large combat knife hung on the left side of his chest with the scabbard fastened securely as not to snag on anything while sneaking through the brush. He cradled a very expensive black paintball rifle in his arms, always aware of where the weapon was pointing.

  “Who’s playing?” Jack asked.

  THREE

  The bright sun continued on its westward course over the Sierra basin warming away the early morning mist. A short distance from the main body of the campground, away from the reveling and often loud local campers, stood a lone tent next to an old country squire station wagon. Inside the tent, Marcia Dahlgren’s mind danced in that small space between consciousness and slumber.

  Since becoming a mother, she had discovered an ability to multitask in her sleep. Her first acquaintance with this ability was when she had fallen asleep while her husband David had been watching football. Her dream had incorporated the sounds of the game coming from the television. That evening, during her nap, she had led the Steelers to victory over the Eagles twenty-one to seven. Marcia found the experience quite pleasing. It was an exciting diversion from which she awoke rested. This strange skill had assisted her while her son grew up. She was able to nap while still keeping an ear on her child’s activities. She could sing with purple dinosaurs or adventure with Hobbits while her mother’s mind would let her know if her son was getting into trouble. As a mother, Marcia had learned to tell the difference between the sound of her son getting a cup of water and the sound of the top cabinet in the kitchen being carefully opened while sleeping; The top cabinet that held the chocolate chips she used in baking cookies. Her boy was clever and tried a number of times to gain access to the chocolaty treasure when he thought she was asleep. While taking a restful nap she could sleep through unimportant phone calls on the answering machine but bolt up wi
th full awareness if the voice on the machine was family. Marcia was a mother and mothers could do that sort of thing.

  She lay peaceful with her back to her husband in the warm tent. The familiar reassurance of her home brought pillow cuddled below her cheek. Her mind transitioned into the waking world ever so slowly, to the sounds of birds and a gentle lakeshore. Her bladder was full. She tried to ignore her need to relieve herself yet the sound of the lake with its soft waves wouldn’t let her. She had remembered that David had been up and down during the night, clumsily exiting the tent in the dark to pee. That will teach him to drink so much beer, she thought smiling. This morning Marcia found herself a little envious that men could just pee wherever they wished. She would have to walk over to the main office to find a suitable restroom, David and her son could just use a tree. It just isn’t fair.

  Her husband was restless. She became aware that he was rocking back and forth. His body leaning towards hers, touching her back with a broken rhythm. Still half asleep, she opened her drowsy eyes and tried to discover through her senses what David was doing. She heard a wet sound followed by a slight groan. Her eyes widened at the thought; is he masturbating? She suppressed a slight giggle while her expression scrunched up as if she had just bitten into a lemon. Oh that is funny, she thought. He was feeling frisky last night but Marcia didn’t want to make love with her young son sleeping in the car so close by. She had agreed to let the boy sleep on his own but was sure he would get scared and return to their tent. Marcia didn’t want to be caught in the throws of passion. She had pretended to be too tired for her husband. I guess I could join in, she thought. Her mother’s ear would warn her if her son got out of the car. She loved her husband and in the soft warm confines of their tent she would be happy to lend the old pervert a hand, as it were.

  Marcia rose up silently, intent on surprising her husband by saying something romantically clever. As she turned, she was startled by the form of a young man sitting halfway in their tent through the open flap. She became frozen with an otherworldly fear. Her heart began to race. The young man appeared to be covered with dried mud. He was holding a pear sized piece of torn red meat. Greenish black drool fell in ropy strands from his bottom lip. His features were distorted and slack. The thing took no notice of Marcia who had become as stiff as a wax figure. Her expression was one most appropriate for a house of horrors. Her breathing quickened, filling her lungs with the foul fetid smell of decay. The young man-thing took a large bite from its handful of gore. Teeth gnashed against the meat while bloody hands tore the remains from his lips. It looked at the ground outside of the tent and appeared disappointed. A disgusting belch escaped the thing’s mouth. It sniffed at the meat it was holding and casually tossed aside the slimy mass of tissue.

  To Marcia’s unbelievable horror, the creature turned its glassy eyes back in the tent. Its gaze passed her frozen form without recognition and fell to David’s leg. A split second passed and she wondered with the speed of thought why David hadn’t waked to deal with this filthy stranger. Her fearful eyes welling with tears, hesitated to move. The thing at the foot of her tent picked up her husband’s leg. It lifted limply into her view. The leg was missing a generous portion of the calf muscle.

  This isn’t happening. She was having a most vivid and horrible nightmare. For once her lucid dreaming had turned against her. Instead of adventuring through a fantasy dreamscape her subconscious had delivered her a vision of hell. The man she loved devoured by a mud encrusted demon dressed as a college student. No, this can’t be real. She must have had a bad meal last night. Something she ate was spoiled in the icebox and now it was giving her a nightmare. It would soon be over and she would awake to make breakfast with her son like she had promised. Breakfast, with freshly bought ingredients to be sure.

  The ugly devil wore a torn expression of exasperation as it dropped the tattered leg. Disinterested, it turned slowly towards the outside and sniffed at the air. The living dead creature that was once Gary Jones stood with some effort, its body wracked by rigor mortis. Marcia shuttered as the creature exhaled a loud dry sounding gasp. It shuffled with stiff legs, towards the campground; footsteps diminishing with the growing distance.

  She trembled. Her forehead beaded with ice cold sweat. Shivering she lay propped up on one arm looking at the open flap of tent where the creature had been. Silently her mind screamed; this must be a nightmare. She had witnessed the absolute impossible and it simply couldn’t be real. The stillness of her terror was shattered by a sudden inhalation of air from her husband. The sickening sound of gas drawing in through phlegm-choked tubes echoed in the tent. She craned her neck to see David’s face. His normally tanned skin had lost its color. His features that she had loved so well for over a decade were drawn and sunken. She moved closer, putting her arm on his chest, her sleeping bag falling open with her movement. Her husband’s eyes opened. They were dry and empty of emotion. He blinked apparently without focus. He exhaled a stinking vapor that made her retch but she didn’t withdraw. This was her husband; this was a dream. She could make him all better as soon as she got hold of her food-poisoned imagination. His eyes moved. Some sort of dark awareness flooded his features like a monster suddenly realizing that it had been born; born again, to a living dead existence with only the most primitive of needs. He looked at Marcia with eyes devoid of pity. Her smell was fresh, somehow appealing. Without verbalization or cognitive thought, the creature that was once David Dahlgren wanted to consume the living thing before him. No longer recognized as his wife or a human being, she was food. That is all.

  Mind numbing fear prevented Marcia from understanding what happened next. Her mind simply turned off. Her mind that was able to entertain her through naps and keep an eye on her child did her one last great favor. It robbed her of her consciousness to protect her from the horror of her husband’s attack. Doctors would call her condition disassociative shock. She would feel nothing. She would have no idea that her husband of ten years had just bitten into her face, tearing the flesh from her cheek. She wouldn’t feel the slightest pressure of his teeth grinding with primitive aggression into her jawbone, removing the soft membrane of her skin. Her body silently submitted to the thrashings while her mind transported her back to the memory of her soft pillow, nestled beneath her cheek.

  FOUR

  Through the glass doors of the campground market Veronica Emmons watched two men outside exchange angry words. One of the men was her employer, Andy; the other man was a mystery. What was even stranger was that Andy, a six foot four, bear of a man, seemed intimidated by the much smaller man with frosted blonde hair.

  “Who’s that guy?” Veronica asked her coworker Nikki Howe.

  “Are you kidding?” the short blonde asked as she drank a soda.

  Veronica looked at the girl and raised her eyebrows, reassuring that she didn’t know who the man was.

  “That’s Lance Richardson, his family owns the plant. You know; our sponsor for the match,” Nikki said and finished her can of sugary caffeine. She placed the can in the trash and began stocking drinks into one of the refrigerated displays that lined the wall.

  “How long have you lived in Whisper anyway?” Nikki asked without looking back at Veronica.

  “About six months.”

  “Well, Lance is an asshole. He thinks he owns the place, and he kinda does.” Nikki said.

  Veronica was familiar with the plant. She hadn’t really made any friends since moving to Whisper California; population seven thousand, however she had heard about the plant in passing in her classes at Whisper Junior College. It seemed that many of the locals worked at the ammunition plant, loading bullet casings and processing orders. The company had many government contracts and the ongoing war in the Middle East generated a lot of work. The Richardson Ammunition plant was the sponsor for Andy’s latest venture, a paintball tournament. Veronica thought it funny in a sad way that a company that makes instruments of death was sponsoring a competition that turned mock warfa
re into weekend fun.

  Andy and Nikki where the two people that Veronica knew best in her new town, but that wasn’t saying much. She wasn’t very close to anyone up here in the mountains of Northern California. Veronica had an almost self consuming goal of becoming a doctor and her focus left her little time for friends. Veronica felt best when working towards a goal. Her free time was spent reading medical journals or textbooks; anything to keep her mind off of her past. Taking a summer job at the campground store allowed her to stay busy and earn some extra money but she also got to know her coworkers. She knew that Andy had worked hard to put together the paintball tournament to promote his field. Veronica admired his determination. Andy had built the general store at the campground to serve campers a couple of years ago. This year, the expansion of his business had provided Veronica with a job. Since there were no classes offered in the summer that she needed, Veronica was thankful to have something to do.

  Andy, his confrontation over, pushed on the heavy glass door to the shop and entered. He removed the sign that read CLOSED and propped both the swinging doors open.

  “Veronica is your drawer ready?” he asked his attractive young employee.

  “Yes, we’re all set,” acknowledged the tall dark haired woman as she shut the drawer to the cash register. A phone rang at the desk near Nikki who dashed to answer it. Veronica noticed that Andy seemed upset. She was very perceptive about other’s pain and felt compelled to inquire about his well being. Nikki’s voice sounded, cutting Veronica off before she could speak.