VI




Victor arrived at the Canso Causeway at two o'clock, the Honda running like a top all the way. Nobody searching for him would suspect him to be in a car with Nova Scotia plates if they even considered looking in this direction for him. On the remote but possible chance they decided to turn their efforts to Eastern Canada, they'd be on the lookout for stolen cars, not one given willingly by its owner. He felt fairly safe.

It took him another forty-five minutes to make the distance to the MacKie place. He found it without difficulty, and was surprised he'd remembered so easily where it was when he hadn't done the driving. In addition, the last time he'd been here it had been coming on dark. He spotted and continued past the white marbled driveway, just to make sure everything was clear. Seeing nothing to cause him worry, he drove turned around a half mile up the road, drove back to the driveway's end and parked. He sat a moment more just to ensure there was nobody of authority around. Again, there didn't seem to be. He got out, and walked up the drive towards the farmhouse. Not only was the coast clear, the area appeared completely devoid of any sort of activity.
Victor felt his stomach give a queer jump. Was he already too late? Had Malig already been here and done harm to Janie? That just couldn't be.
There was no way on this earth he could get all this way, then be too late to make a difference -- that just couldn't be the case.
'Now calm down, Vic, old boy. She's all right," he assured himself quietly, but with a sense of fear constricting his chest. He began to pace the perimeter of the farmhouse. He stopped on the grass beneath the large front picture window, there to put his hand against it to block the reflections, and leaned forward to peer inside the home of the woman of the bonfire soul.

This is where she lives.

It was all he could think, with a feeling approaching reverence.

Then he was lying spread-eagled on the grass with someone seated like a ton of bricks across the small of his back, his head clamped to a chest like a steel barrel, his neck yanked back and stretched out up from the ground. Something cold and hard pricked the base of his windpipe where his pulse leapt, and there was a sudden trickle of warmth on his skin that could only be his own blood.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't slit your throat like the pig you," his assailant demanded, a hot whisper in his ear.

Who? What the --! Victor was witless for a moment, a deer in the high-beams. Then realized he knew that voice!
"...Horton?... Horton, it's me, General Chaplain! I thought you were dead!"

General Chaplain suffered a jerk of the head by his hair for that remark.

"That was the idea, asshole. You're about to be if that's the best you can come up with." The knife pushed in a little harder.

"Horton, Janie ' the farmer's wife,'� he corrected because Horton wouldn't know her name from a hole in the ground, '-- she's in danger ' she's going to be killed if --"

His attacker cut him short growling low,
"Isn't that why you're here, to kill her? Why the fuck do you need to do that? She didn't see anything," he snarled.

There was another jerk of scalp, and there seemed to be more blood running down into the 'V' where his collarbones met. He was finding it almost impossible to speak in the position he was held. Horton was crushing him, and it getting harder to catch his breath. He'd wheezed out his last words. The iron man on his back eased up on the knife at his throat the barest bit. But his head wasn't lowered at all. He was starting to get light-headed.
"How come you're here? Alone? You're a fuckin' general... This is nuts."

Another shake of his dizzy head. 'Major--" he gasped.

"Not any more, I'm not."

The knife tightened to him again.

'Horton," he rasped, "I'm not a general anymore either. I'm awol... Like you... I...'� he breathed raggedly, struggling to get his words out, '-- I came up here to get Janie away before Malig gets here,'� he said and stopped, to get one more lungful of air, and gather the courage to say the final thing that he just had to say, but would likely get him gutted. 'I've seen Peter, and I was told to come."

He was rolled over with unexpected speed and his former officer straddled heavily across him. The knife that had been at his throat was now held menacingly less than an inch from his nose. The man's other hand kept its hold and jerked the short hair at his nape to hold his wavering head motionless.
"Peter who?"

For a moment, all Victor could think was that this man wasn't the same man he'd seen a week ago. This man seemed... different.

Then the wicked blade shifted back and forth, making him just about cross his eyes to follow its red-dropped point towards his nose. A more speedy response to the question was being demanded.
"Peter MacKie, and the angel and the Children," he gushed out.

"What?" Mark Horton shook his head, and for the first time he looked really closely at the man underneath him. It occurred to him that the general looked... different.

Victor saw a perplexed look cross the major's face.
He doesn't understand me. Small wonder, I can barely take it in myself.
If they could just talk, he was sure the man could be made to understand the peril Jane was in, even if he believed nothing else. He squirmed the tiniest increment just to see if he could get loose enough to get an edge. If he could, then he could find a way to keep clear of him long enough to convince him that Jane was in mortal danger, and he wasn't here to hurt her. It was no use though. He was in good shape, but the younger man was a rock with the advantage of being on top, with a knife. He couldn't move than a half-inch in any direction. There was no way he could get clear of him before the weapon did its damage.
Well, if he was meant to die here, damned if he wasn't at least going to have his say.

"Horton, you know you can stick me before I can blink. But at least listen to me before you do, even if it sounds crazy. Jane's life depends on it."

The knife stopped its dancing. Blessedly, Horton waited for him to continue.

(Humouring a dead man?)

Sweat from the major's forehead dropped into one of his eyes, and he blinked hard against the sting as he continued in earnest.
"Horton, Malig is on his way here to kill her and anyone connected to her. Someone around here knows too much about what happened that night-- Malig wants to put an end to them. Someone nearby found a shell casing--"

(A shell casing too? Jesus, how much more did I miss? Mark thought dismally, very disappointed in his work)
"-- and looked it up on the Internet. That sent up a flag and they traced it back to here. When you hit me I thought for sure were one of Malig's men."

Horton still wasn't loosening the painful grip on his hair.

Keep talking, he's got to see I'm telling the truth, he told himself, but he knew his story was insane (-- this is the part where he cuts the crazy man's head off--).

"Horton, the thing that we killed that night wasn't an alien. It wasn't anything of this earth -- it was an angel -- I've talked to it -- well actually, to it's children -- and they talked to Peter and the angel (now I'm babbling) and they said that he said he had a choice to die, and he agreed to it," (--here it comes, God! Here it comes, I hope it's quick--) Victor finally ground to a stop. He waited for what was meant to come with a stout heart, and hoped that whatever happened, he'd done enough to keep Jane MacKie out of danger.

"I know that."

Mark Horton twirled the knife against his pant leg wiping off the beads of blood, and slipped it back into its sheath at his belt. Then he got up off his ex-commanding officer, pulled him to his feet without effort and started dusting him off as if he'd just realized he'd knocked over an old friend.

Victor was completely taken off-guard by the sudden reversal. And to say the least, he was really, really relieved.
"You mean you believe me?" he asked, his voice rising a dubious half-octave on the 'lieve' part.
Mark snorted. "Yeah. It only makes sense."

"It does? It hardly makes sense to me," Victor replied, feeling his throat for the damage.

Mark snorted again, regarding the man he faced at near eye-level thoughtfully for a moment. Finally, he was putting some order to the chaos of the past seven days.
"Look, let me try and explain something. I heard Malig tell you to get someone down here within a week to 'survey the scene'. I'm not an moron, I know what he meant. Little prick,'� he exhaled under his breath, scowling. "I was expecting a merc, but when I saw you, I saw red. The only thing in my head was that you were there that night and the reason you came back was to clean things up yourself." He frowned.
"You know you'd be dead now if you hadn't just said what you did."

Victor swallowed, tangibly aware of that fact. He'd passed his fingers down his neck, and they were sticky from feeling just how close he'd come.
Well, now he knew why he'd been ambushed. But why had he been spared?
"So, why do you believe me?" he was inclined to press. What could possibly have changed his mind?
"I'm getting to it -- give me a second, will ya?" Mark shot back in irritation. His actions had been justified, but he was uncomfortable with the knowledge of why they were. He settled himself, and prepared to speak.
Slowly, he began to confess bits of his own experiences of that night in the meadow. His speech was halting. He half expected derision. But the other man had just confirmed what he'd seen, what room did he have to scoff? He continued.
"The strangest stuff's been happening to me -- so I guess I'm glad you're here. Until a minute ago, I still thought I might be coming unglued. I've seen people I know are dead -- talked to them even -- and I talked to Peter myself. So that leaves two choices. Either I believe you and you're on my side, or I'm totally insane. I think I prefer the first."

Mark was quiet again for a moment, his eyes returning to a decidedly less aged-looking General Chaplain, if memory served correctly. After appraising him from head to foot to make sure of his observation, he burst out laughing.

Victor goggled at him, thinking the other man might have just flipped into the second categoryafter all.
"What in hell are you braying at?" he demanded, angered and confused by what he considered an inappropriate display of amusement, apparently at his expense -- he didn't see anyone else standing here.
Mark covered his mouth to stop, but couldn't seem to, and Victor got hot under the collar.
"We're both having conversations with spirits, you practically skewer me, and you think it's funny?!"

Mark wasn't laughing at Victor. Well, not exactly. His laughter was only because he was so relieved. He told him so when he finally could stop long enough to speak.
"Look, Chaplain, if we've both seen Peter and talked to an angel, then we can't be psychos. Two people at separate ends of the country can't share the same crazy dream. And I'm laughing at me, too. I should've known someone who'd drive right into the yard in broad daylight wasn't much of a threat. You're not exactly guerilla material anymore -- I did overreact," he admitted.

The taller man with the bleeding line at his throat was far from mollified, being given the distinct impression this pup had little respect for older campaigners.
That tinge of youthful attitude smarted. The rankled ex-general said exactly what he was thinking.
"Look I didn't come here to fight, I came here to warn these people about Malig. And if you want to get right down to it, I was a hell of a lot tougher than you when I was your age, and meaner, too. Got the medals and the scars to prove it. You caught me by surprise, or you wouldn't have caught me," he advised and crossed his arms in front of his chest aggressively, straddling his feet for better balance.

Mark did back up a step. The man was older, but not dainty.

Now that immediate threat to life and limb was past, it was Victor's turn to see red. He didn't need insults, this situation was tough enough. He felt powerfully tempted to deck the guy right in his smug puss. Let him find out what a threat this seasoned vet could be. Thankfully, rationality returned an instant before he followed through on the impulse, as he decided that it wouldn't solve much anyway. And since cutting with words could be more effective than fists, he opened his own and let them drop slowly to his sides.
"Horton, do you think you're going to stay young forever?"

That simple question shut Mark up better than a hammer in the teeth.
He'd spent the latest period of his own life being insulted by younger fellow soldiers. They'd treated him with the same type of disrespect, and it'd caused him no small amount of misery. He frowned as he made the connection. In answering that one question, he gained new insight into himself and a greater measure of respect for Victor Chaplain. He sheepishly stuck out his left hand in apology.

Victor let it hang there for a moment, making the point that he'd been unfairly abused. Then he accepted the overture as cessation to hostilities and shook the proffered member firmly if awkwardly with his own left.
Now, back to business.
"This is all well and good but it isn't helping me do what I came to. Obviously, no one's home or they'd be out here by now." He looked up to the porch and the closed door.
"Where's Janie -- Peter's wife? She's a little blond woman, about this high," he said putting his hand midway up his chest, where he figured she'd come to on him. "Have you seen her?"

Mark was prepared to tell him, but mention of the home's residents reminded him they'd probably soon be along. It wasn't a good idea to remain out in the open where anyone, including possible unfriendlies, could see them.
"Listen, do you think we could get somewhere less exposed before I fill you in?"
He didn't wait for a reply and headed in the direction of the cattle barn.

Victor had no choice but to follow, if he wanted more information. He hustled after the younger man who ran around the back of the high structure. Once inside, they climbed up a wooden ladder, and that brought them up past one hayloft and into the top-most level, another hayloft.

Mark plunked himself down into a bed of loose hay, and waited for the general to do likewise. When they were settled and secluded, he answered his question.
"She's at the funeral, with her family I'd have to guess -- the younger fellow with her looks just like Peter,'� he advised with raised brows, as it was an uncommonly close resemblance. 'Then there's a woman near his age, probably his wife, and two kids, a girl and a little boy. And there's a skinny older guy, tall as you maybe, who's here nearly all the time. He's about sixty-five I'd say, and he's been doing all the farm work. Old coot's -- I mean the fella,'� Mark checked himself, '-- he's as tough as shoe leather. He's been here twice a day to milk the cows and clean the barn."

I'll bet any money he's the 'hillbilly' with the computer, Victor surmised, noting with some gratification the younger man's verbal correction regarding an elder and the less than kind reference to age. Lesson learned.
"That's a lot of people for me to make disappear," he said aloud, then whistled softly. "This is going to be a bit more complicated than I realized." He sighed.
"You say they're at a funeral? I would've expected Peter'd be buried by now. Well, at least if they're at a funeral, Malig isn't likely to bust in on them,'� he concluded. 'When are they expected back?"
"How would I know?" Mark snuffed bluntly. "In case you didn't notice, I'm not exactly on a 'come on in for coffee' basis. I've been dug in at this barn since I came down off the mountain. They have no idea I'm here, and they don't discuss things out in the yard."

Of course they wouldn't, Victor agreed to himself. Then after a second of consideration, and now that topic had been brought up, it occurred to him that the other man's presence here was very peculiar.
"What exactly are you doing here?"

He watched the younger man scratch a thickly reddish-whiskered cheek and lean back into the soft pile he occupied, to lift a foot and rest its ankle on the opposite knee. Then he watched while he fiddled with his wedding band, spinning it loosely around his ring finger with his left thumb.

Mark stopped twisting his ring (a habit he had when he was anxious or pensive) when he noticed the act was being followed with curious attention. He stilled his fingers by placing that hand against one large thigh. With his other he picked up a strand of hay, put it to his mouth, chewed on it anxiously, spit some out, then used the bushy remainder to tickle the toe of a well-worn black boot. Then he dropped that booted foot down beside the other and sat up again, hunching forward in deep thought. After much movement, sufficient fidgeting, and nothing said, his eyes finally returned to his companion. That was a mystery he hadn't solved for himself yet.

Here was another man, a former general, telling him he wasn't the only one who'd witnessed Peter and the angel after they'd died.
Even so, he found it hard to speak about his own more personal experiences. For such a tough and physical person, emotional disclosure was harder than any foreign campaign. He'd dealt with a lot of pain and anger in a very short time. Things were skinning over, but he was still tender.

Victor waited, studying in turn the younger man who studied him. He was clearly upset. There was more to this story, but he'd tell it when he was ready.

While Mark debated internally, his left hand crept up to his breast pocket without his realizing it. When he did look down he was unsettled to find it there, and almost moved it. Then the feather pulsed warmly against his heart, and he found the courage to leave it there and bare more.
"I'm not sure why I'm here. But on the night of the third, when all that shit went down, I found this."

Victor watched Mark reach into the pocket he'd been covering with his ring-hand.
As he withdrew it, he saw that gently cradled within his hand was a feather.
The white bit of fluff radiated light, illuminating their faces and dispelling a small part of the mid-day gloom under the low rafters. He leaned close in fascination.

"I came down from where I was hidden because I realized I lost one of those damned gloves somewhere on my way up. I didn't want one of your men to recover it when they came back, or they'd know I wasn't dead and start looking for me. I came all the way down back to the field without finding it.'�

I'd be willing to bet the same man who found the casing's got your missing glove, thought Victor.

'Then I thought, what could be a better place to hide than here, so here I came."
Mark lifted his arm and swung it expansively, indicating his new domain.
"After a couple days, I decided to go out and get a rabbit or some kind of meat to eat, but when I tried to leave I got a feeling like something huge was going to fall on me if I didn't come back. I turned around 'cause something was telling me to stay until.... until I didn't know. Maybe I was supposed to wait for you."
Noting that Victor's gaze was fixed on his hand, he moved it to pass his talisman to him. But just before the other man could touch it, he twisted his hand over, closing it. The light escaping from between his fingers now shone down at the hay between them.
Victor's eyes, denied their view, met Mark's inquiringly.
"If you don't want me to hold it, it's okay," he said tentatively, and withdrew his own hand. This man was more unpredictable than he remembered. He'd have to watch his step.
Mark saw Victor's look of mistrust. He flipped it back over again but still didn't open it. "No, it's not that. I just want you to be ready for a shock when you do. The first time I touched it, I saw...."

The auburn-haired man's voice faltered and he looked away to and past the wall, dropping both hands to his lap and then his eyes to follow. The light that seeped from his still-closed hand softly lit his face as he gazed down. He blinked hard several times, and Victor was surprised to see a tear run down his face.
Whatever had happened, it must have been quite an ordeal.

"Not only did I see Peter and the angel, I saw my wife and our baby she'd been carrying. She's dead,'� he added tightly. 'He was never born, but I saw him, and they both spoke to me." He swiped the gathering water with his free hand's knuckles, then unclenched the fingers of his other.
The feather once more lay on his outreaching and faintly tremoring palm, this time clearly inviting the general to touch it.

Victor didn't move.
"Maybe not, Horton. I don't think my heart can take too many more shocks."
God only knew what else he'd see.

The Major was a bit confounded by this refusal, but wasted no time in returning it to its former place of safekeeping.
"Call me Mark," he said sticking out his now freed left for a more formal acquaintance making, "I don't mind."
"Thanks, I will," said the general with a quirk of a smile as he shook awkwardly again with his own left. "Call me Vic."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the creakings of the old barn moving in the wind and the distant cluckings and mooings of hens and cows below.
After a passage of a quarter of an hour, Mark laid back in the hay and raised his eyes to the webs hanging from the roof, coated with dust and hung with dead bugs. When he spoke, it was to the dried-out crane flies in the rafters instead of the ex-general.
"How did you first see them?"

Victor wasn't sure which them he meant.
"I don't have a wife or a child."
"I mean Peter and the angel," Mark rolled an eye and clarified, as if Victor should just know what he meant. "Did you touch the angel after you... After they killed him?"
The older man grimaced.
"No, it was in another way, quite different from how you saw them."

Victor thought, if this guy thinks he's seen some weirdness, he ain't seen nothin yet.

"Do you know why Malig wanted the angel?" he countered.

Mark shook his head and shrugged, waiting for Victor to enlighten him.
The blond man leaned over closer, feeling the need to speak quietly, as if he might be overheard.
"You've seen for yourself what even the tiniest part of him can do."

Mark nodded he did, with experienced understanding.

"Well, Malig took eight of the angel' cells and in some way, God only knows how," (Victor looked up as he said this) "-- he fused them with eight human cells. He actually managed to produce living, intelligent beings. They were only one day old. But so wise..."
It was Victor's turn to pause lost in thought. He held his lip between his teeth, slowly shaking his head, still astounded by what he'd seen and felt.
"Four days ago, on the eighth, Malig took me down to Sub-16 to show them to me. They were in these large liquid-filled incubators,'� he gestured with hands at opposite arm's length, '-- swimming around. When I went up and touched a cylinder, they -- the Children -- they reached into my mind and told me things. Right into my head,'� he emphasized, fingers now to his temples. 'They told me what Malig was --"
("what Malig was?", Mark wondered oddly but didn't interrupt to ask --)
"-- and what he had in mind. I know they didn't tell me everything, but they said terrible things would happen if I didn't go to Peter's wife to protect her. To protect Janie."

As Victor described what he'd experienced, Mark saw the older man had been transported to another world. That feeling, he was becoming familiar with.

Then Victor's look of rapture melted with his next words.
"I think Malig wanted to gloat before he got rid of me, because he told me some of his plans. He asked if I could remember what you'd said to us when you saw the angel die. Then he told me he could control the children, and he knew they'd spoken to me by the look on my face and because that was what were designed to do -- to reach into people's minds. He also told me that he didn't know exactly what they'd said to me... Then the Children told me why he didn't hear."

The look on his face as he shuddered and swallowed was enough to tell Mark that for Victor, it had to be a very unpleasant explanation.
"Malig looked at me ' he just looked at me -- and I couldn't move -- I was paralyzed. Now, I've known him for quite some time. Mikhael and I used to be friends,'� he explained, with a shrug of hindsight for that lack of taste and judgment.
'But in the past two years I watched him change into a person I didn't recognize. The Children showed me what had changed, what it was I couldn't see about him."

Just as Victor spoke these words, a palpable wave of cold passed over them both.

Each man wondered if the other had felt it, but the elder chose to ignore it and go on.
"Mark, I don't have to tell you there are angels. Or aliens or creatures or whatever we want to call them. You know they're like nothing of this world. We've seen one with our own eyes. But there's another side to that coin.'�

Victor paused. It was the gravest subject he'd come across, and it required an internal bracing.
'There's a presence in Malig. It's taken him over,'� he finally spoke. 'I say demon is as good a name as any, because it describes what I saw ' something so ugly and evil that I saw pop right out of him and take control of me. The only reason I got away with my life is because the Children helped me find the courage to run. And at least now, I know what to expect. He won't fool me again," he promised.

This time instead of just a chill passing over, the air around the two men seemed to expand like they had suddenly both been sunk deep into a low-pressure front.
Mark reacted automatically to the stimulus, standing up and brushing off his backside.
'Do they have tornadoes in Cape Breton?" he asked the general, who'd jumped to his feet at the same instant. He wasn't a man inclined to panic, but the feeling of impending danger was becoming stronger, and he didn't know this territory or its weather well. He did know it was time to find better cover than the high top of what looked like a centyry-old barn. That cellar under the house would be the safest bet. He started for the hayloft ladder and had his left foot on the top rung when he saw that Victor wasn't following.
"Hey, Chaplain! We gotta get outta here -- c'mon!"

Victor didn't set a foot from where they both stood planted.

Mark was getting more anxious by the second. He scurried back up into the loft and ran over to Victor. The man was actually standing there with his eyes closed!

"Chaplain -- Vic -- we need to move!"

Victor gave one sharp negative shake of his head, too deep in concentration to spare more energy. Eyes still shut tightly he turned a rough circle on the spot. Loose hay caught, rustling beneath his shoes. He inhaled deeply, as if testing for something elusive on the wind, his arms outstretched like a rooftop weather vane.
His eyes flew open when he realized precisely what it was he'd sensed.
He hadn't felt it since Utah. He'd assumed that the distance had severed any connection to its source. He'd been wrong. It was nothing so pleasant as a tornado.
"Malig's coming."



Mikhael Malig was indeed on his way, though he was not aware that General Victor Chaplain already was where he was going to.
A doctor had been checking his vitals thinking how miraculous it was that a man on the brink of death six days before seemed almost completely healed of his injuries.
When the general sat bolt upright on his bed and glared at him like he was possessed, the physician nearly keeled over in fright. But the faintly scarred hand he'd been examining clenched painfully into his like a claw, and that held him upright.

Dr. Woods yelped and jerked himself over backwards, wrenching his fingers free before their popping noises became actual breaking. The stethoscope he was wearing was flung to the floor and crunched when he backpeddled to keep from going down. He did catch his balance, and looked back to his patient in astounded dismay. He was then ordered by that patient to take a hike (though not so politely) before the bellow then went up for staff to 'get the fuck in here whoever you are!'.

Doctor Woods retreated with anger and bewilderment to the safety of the corridor just outside the general's private room in Alfo base.

The sergeant entering short moments later avoided the pulverized medical equipment on the floor and warily approached his senior. He had been enjoying a cup of coffee down the hall at the nurses' station when he'd overheard the doctor being told off. Now that the general had finally come around (bets on his time of expiration had been squashed when everybody realized he was actually rallying) it was his regretful duty to inform him of General Chaplain's escape.
As he got close to the bed he tried not to slink, but wasn't succeeding well.
The brow of the general remained arched high in annoyance at his hang-dog manner. He waited silently.

'WHAT?!'� was soon barked.

Taking a swallow, the sergeant proceeded to perform the task that losing the drawing of straws had won him. He revealed the bad tidings.

At the news Malig snarled and swung himself off the bed. Slapping the I.V. from his arm, splattering blood and fluid across white sheets, olive-drab wall, and beet-faced soldier, he began tearing the room apart looking for his clothes.
By this time, the other R.N. who'd been up one level at the Alfo cafeteria had been alerted to the commotion, made her way down, and was poking her head in to check it out. When she saw what the patient was doing with such vigorous disregard to his condition, she firmly told to get back in bed and lay down. As the general located his clothes and hurriedly dressed, he told her what she could do with her advice. Well aware of her duty (sticking her experienced medical opinion up her ass wasn't part of it), Nurse Curtis called on the sergeant for assistance to restrain the clearly unsettled man.
'I ain't touchin' him,'� he promptly shook his head when the general started slamming doors open hard enough to dent the drywall.

Nurse Curtis did her own hollering. Within seconds reinforcement was at the room entrance in the form of the building custodian. Eyeballing him, she then pointed to the general and to the empty cot with meaning.

The janitor could see he hadn't been summoned to clean up any mess. He could see exactly whom it was he was supposed to be bundling back to his pallet. He could also see the way the man's eyes narrowed and his fist clenched and drew back when he made a motion to give it a go. Reversing, he too shook his head at the nurse. If she wanted him in that bed, she could put him there.
The sergeant repeated his earlier gesture to the nurse as well.

With a final sigh, Nurse Curtis gave up. The general couldn't be that badly in need of confinement or rest with an attitude like that. And what did she care if he died from a hemorrhage? She was out of here next week.

All three exited the room and left their commanding officer to his own devices.

Malig snorted at the departing backs as he hauled on his trousers and tucked in his hastily buttoned shirt. Wasting no time, he shrugged into his jacket as he sprinted down the corridor (the nurse, the sergeant and the janitor now nowhere to be seen), then dug in his upper left breast pocket for his security card (knowing full well it'd be in there because nobody'd have the balls to go through them) as he arrived at the elevator. Slightly breathless he pulled it out and slashed it through the scanner, passed through the sliding doors, jammed the double-arrow 'close' button, and waited for it to lift him up the four floors to his main level office.

His secretary was at her post in the office adjoining his as he swished by. She had heard he wasn't dying after all and was on the miraculous mend, but still she hadn't been expecting him to be up and about this soon. Head stuck under an extended drawer of the filing cabinet, she banged it hard when he sped by grunting something that may or may not have been her name, and slammed his door.
"Well, hello to you, too!" she mouthed off at the vibrating barrier, all thoughts of kiss-up congratulations on returned good health leaving her mind. Deciding that one o'clock wasn't too early for a break down at the PX, Mary Bell retrieved her purse from under her desk and left her boss to his own devices. If he was in one of those moods, she didn't want to hang around and catch the brunt of it.
Maybe she wouldn't even be bothered hanging around anymore, period.
She'd had offers from D.C., and the drop in pay to go there didn't seem so bad now.
General Malig had become such an A-hole to work for.


Mihael snatched up his phone and got an outside line, making the calls that would quickly have another batch of mercs to a rendezvous point just off base. It would only be a short while before they began to arrive, but it was time enough to visit a 'friend' in the stockade.

Identifying himself at the security post of the detention center twenty minutes later, he asked to be admitted to see the only prisoner there, Private Meyers (formerly Sergeant Meyers) of the Motor Pool.

The guard didn't know what 'Al-foe' was, but he knew three stars when he saw them. And since there was only one detainee in residence, that had to be the man this general was looking for. Figuring he was there to verbally ream the poor bugger, there wasn't much to say about it. The spec'd been stupid enough to get caught drinking on the job. You screw up, you get caught, you get castrated. Tough shit. He punched in the code that slid open the electric gate, and watched via video feed until the visitor from on high reached the next security point and the next guard. He'd already called ahead, he was through till the brass came back.

The next guard allowed the general to pass, and kindly instructed him as to which cell young Meyers occupied. Malig nodded and struck out, clicking down the corridor towards his quarry, footsteps ringing through the nearly unoccupied block.

Private Meyers wasn't enjoying his break. He didn't like the small size of the cell. But he made the most of his enforced R & R, listening to a small radio a buddy had brought for him. And for some odd reason the chow in here was better. That afternoon, he'd been laying back on the narrow cot and had started reading a book he'd found underneath it before breakfast, something called 'The Stand'.
The realism of the story had his undivided attention, and he was just getting to the part where one of the characters was locked in a cell (much like himself) and everyone around him in the jail had kicked the bucket. Lil' ol' Lloydie had started to go ape-shit from a combination of silence, gnawing hunger and rotting corpses, people who were now both his sole companions and unsavoury sustenance.
Then, a strange, dark man entered to tease him with a promise of freedom and power.
Private Meyers jumped in startlement as a shadow crossed his pages, a tickle in his mind telling him it was the dark man, but really expecting to see Corporal Masters, or perhaps another new detainee. Company would be good -- this story was too close to his own situation, and was giving him the willies.
His fingers fell open and the book dropped to the olive-drab pillowcase when he saw his visitor. He scrambled to his feet and over to the bars, eyes downcast.
"God, Sir, I'm so sorry about the accident," he said trying to sound his most apologetic, but in his mind wishing the little asshole would get hit by another car for locking him up. He wrung his hands.
"Is there anything I can do to make up it, Sir?"
Smiling ingratiatingly, his eyes flicked up to his despised superior's face in hopes of clemency.

Unexpected the reply, "As a matter of fact, there is. Come here."

He did as told and got closer. When the general reached a hand through the bars with a like smile, he thought it was to shake. He reached out his own, and the general touched his hand.

Seizing it like a vise, Malig closed the distance between them in an instant, pulling him till he was a hand's breadth away through the steel the bars.
The look of pure malice suffusing his features made the private pale.
"As a matter of fact there is, now that I know what runs you. You can die."

In the time that Malig touched him, in less than the second it took to yank him close, the Worm was able to complete the search it took that seemingly innocent gesture of forgiveness to make. First he felt for resentment or anger, guilt or prejudice -- anything negative that'd been in the man long enough to take root and make an opening he could wriggle through. He found it immediately ' Meyers was practically radiating hatred for Malig for putting him in here. Following it like a tributary, it led him on into the mainstream of the man's psyche. He tunneled through the layers of it like his namesake, a worm through an onion.
There, he unearthed what he'd gone in search of.
In Meyers' mind was a memory of darkness and desertion, of musty air and the smell of his own urine. It was a memory a small child had of being locked in a tiny closet as punishment for over two days. It was a nightmare that still woke the grown man up in cold sweats years later.

Aha, he's petrified of closed spaces -- excellent! And it's as fresh as the day it happened...

This was going to be an easy one. Using the man's own fears against him, the Worm magnified Meyer's memory of being trapped a thousand-fold, building on it with sensations drawn from old and terrible experiences -- the overwhelming smell of preservative and lilies from his abusive father's casket-side vigil, the smell of fresh-dug earth from the cemetery. He flooded those feelings with others drawn from Meyer' imagination -- the cushion of padded satin against a back, the muffled sound of unheard screams and of pounding and frantic digging as feet and knees kicked till they were bloody, as fingers rasped themselves against slippery fabric that soon stripped to wood, where slivers soon dug up into them as they scratched and could finally go no further because they were now bony stumps.

All of this the Worm let Meyers perceive in the utmost darkness that only being buried alive could provide. The petrified man was scrabbling at the air in front of him, then he crashed down shuddering to the cement floor. He had never let go of his fear or anger or pride enough to tell anyone about it, not wanting anyone to know that he was afraid of anything, keeping it all inside in a locked place so nobody could ever hurt him that way again. He had never gotten over the clausterphobia and fear of being buried alive. That terror, fully encouraged, now grew to unstoppable proportions.

I can't breathe!! LET ME OUUUUUUUUUT!!!

He turned blue. He turned deep purple. His tongue seemed to have a life of its own and was mercilessly choking the life from him as he clawed first through the pitch black that his eyes saw as the casket, and then he clawed at his own neck because it was impossible to fight the starvation for air.

Malig backed up a step, just inches beyond, and turned away as the man silently begged for someone to release him from his entombment. Soon crimson trickled from his lip as the small capillaries in his lungs began to burst.
At last, after only a few minutes, the private stared up unseeing, glassy eyes suffused with pinpoint pricks of red. Then he was beyond caring.

Private Meyers had been literally frightened to death.

Malig grimaced when the Worm turned him back to the body on the floor. The man had gotten sick and it smelled vile. He never liked when this sort of thing was done. But it was better than some of the other things he'd had to do, or what could be done to him...

That was almost too easy, the Worm thought to himself.
Rare people were too strong-willed and could see through his creations. They were the ones he had to kill with Malig's own two hands (which had its upside too).
But others had minds like over-ripe plums. When squeezed, they popped with a splat. Meyers had been one of those.

He had Malig take off at a fast clip back the way he'd come, yelling for the soldier who was manning the gates to hurry, there was something wrong with the Private.
The dozing guard leapt to his feet sending his four-wheeled chair spinning. He had to punch the code twice before the gate would open (the General made him queasy and nervous) and charged back down the walkway with him to the cell.
But as intended, by then things had already run their full course. There was nothing the guard could do but turn light shade of green, ask what had happened, and then go off to call the base coroner so he could certify death and its cause.

When the coroner arrived on the messy scene, and met those waiting, he queried both men as to what had happened. E-4 Masters admitted he hadn't seen a thing.

General Malig, the sole witness, said all he knew was that the young fellow seemed suddenly unable to talk or breathe. Locked out and unable to render assistance, he'd left to get help. It was sadly too late when that help had returned.

The doctor reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves, donning them to examine the victim. After scooping out a mouthful of vomit, he found the young soldier's tongue grossly swollen, and firmly lodged in his larnyx.
All he could surmise with present evidence was a grand-mal seizure due to some prior and undetected condition. He covered the dead man with an olive wool blanket taken from his bunk, and refused to draw any conclusions until he had more thoroughly examined the body.
'Have him brought to the morgue, please,'� he requested of Masters, then turned to make his way out.

"What a shame," Malig tsked, moving ahead of him and then proceeding quickly down the hallway.
"General, can we call on you if we need any more information about this?" the doctor asked to his back as the E-4 hurriedly passed them both to open the inner gate ahead.
Malig was frowning with irritation at his watch making plans for travel when he vaguely detected someone buzzing something at him.
"Hmm? What?'� he asked and sped up the slightest. The coroner had to lengthen his strides to not be left behind.
"Can we call on you if we need any more information?" the coroner repeated, a little winded. For a short man with short legs, the general could put on some steam.
'Oh, yes, of course. Whatever," Malig waved vacantly.
"Thank you, Sir," huffed the doctor politely. Insensitive prick, he thought.

"If there's nothing else now?" Malig asked matter-of-factly as they came to the second gate and were coded through.
"No," the doctor answered.
'Very well, then,'� said Malig, and putting on more speed, he managed to beat the doctor to the final gate and get out ahead of him.

Dr. Landriault sneered at the general's departing backside. He had never gotten on well with Mikhael Malig. He was one of the few people on the base who'd had the misfortune and displeasure of working with him. It had only been on one occasion, but once had been more than enough. He'd found Malig sarcastic and nasty to the people below him, and was glad to be quit of him this day with only a few words exchanged.
Setting down his bag at outer side of the final gate, he stood with the first guard as the heavy barrier slid closed along its track behind him. There he remained to wait for the meat-wagon.

Within a half hour, Malig had been driven back to the building he'd thrashed out of a short time before. Seated within his office one security-door later (the secretary was certainly taking a long lunch), he picked up on the one blinking phone line that blipped at him. His hirelings were waiting. The small, handpicked group had nearly three hard day's driving ahead because again, he wanted no choppers -- silent running all the way. Perhaps on this trip, things would get done right.
Of course he'd have to come up with a different means of removal than 'poachers' for one would-be keyboard wizard by the name of Franklin W. MacInnis.

Hoping the situation hadn't progressed too far beyond repair during his involuntary hiatis, he thought with growing ire how annoying these fucking little Cape Bretoners were becoming.

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