Chapter 1

Today was a good day. In ninety fours years on this rock, Clyde had had more good days than bad. He could give no complaints. Even if I did, no one would listen, he thought. The past seven months, however, had been the exact opposite of the rest of Clyde's life. They had been filled with enough misery to nearly overtake all the good days, like the black tornado that eats up all life laid out before it and leaves the pieces for the unfortunate souls that are left behind to clean up.

Shady acres, the place Clyde has had to call home for that seven months, was something not unlike a Japanese prisoner of war camp; complete with sadistic guards and doors locked from the outside. How can it not be a prison when they lock you in the damned thing? Shady acres is where the welfare office decided that Clyde should live out his remaining years. It's where they shut you away from the world to shrivel up and die, hopefully, without much fuss or causing anyone inconvenience. They liked quiet deaths here ('He went peacefully in his sleep' was a phrase used as often as possible, even if it wasn't always true), it was tidy and kept things moving smoothly like clockwork.

Clyde had no family to speak of, not since Alice passed four years ago. None that cared enough to take on the burden of an old man who could no longer completely control his bowels anyway. An old man who had swollen legs from poor circulation, who had to use a walker (with two silly tennis balls on the front legs). An old man who could no longer even bathe himself. There weren't many nieces or nephews lining up to take on that chore and he couldn’t much blame them for that at least.

Places like Shady Acres are where they put you when you're no longer a benefit to society. When you have nothing left to offer or nothing left they can take. It's a hole dug in the back yard where you bury your trash. Clyde knew he'd only leave this place one way and that was tits up in a body bag.

And so it goes, Clyde endures day in and day out. Long hours of boredom, longing for the good old days, struggling to get out of his chair ten thousand times a day to go take a leak. But that's not all that occupies his days, no there is the pain. Enduring the pain that comes with old age and the pain that comes with Drake.

Melvin Drake (he prefers to be called “M-dog”, thank you very much) was an orderly at Shady Acres. He had been for a fair number of years, longer than he'd done anything else in his life at least. He brought pain with him like others bring their brown bag lunch to work, tucked under one arm and put away until that bell rang at high noon. Like the mailman brought the mail. Rain, sleet or snow Melvin brought pain. He had come to embody it to many of the residents of Shady Acres. Especially to Clyde.

Drake was a miserable smear of a man. A lot like a back biting dog. The ones that bark like they're going to tear apart the world and then run away, tail between their legs, as soon as you move in their direction. That was Melvin in a nutshell. He was shifty, shady and above all he was vicious when he had the advantage.

Sometimes Melvin wonders why his mother left and if it would have made a difference had she stayed. He wonders if he could have been a good man had she loved him more than she did her job. Shanda Drake left her son and husband when Melvin was twelve; went to work on a Tuesday morning and never came home.

Melvin's dad, much like his son would become, was a weak man. He never had time to play catch with his son, never any time to talk to him. He never taught his son to be brave and stand up to the bullies in life. You can't give what you don't have and Herbert Drake didn't have any bravery to offer. He went with the flow, like a dead fish.

Melvin liked to think that his dad checked out on life when his mother left, but the truth is his father was just like she was from the start. He never loved Melvin half as much as he loved himself.

So Melvin Drake became a devil.

He was beaten nearly everyday at school. Not just bullied like most kids but beaten to a bloody pulp by the other boys. Instead of facing his tormentors, Melvin emulated them. He became like them and then he became much more than them. Melvin's talent was cruelty and he was a damn straight natural at it.

After one particularly hard day at school Melvin came home and studied on killing himself. The jocks had stripped him naked in gym class and shoved him into the hall just as third period was over. He wanted to die because he still had no pubic hair to speak of and he wasn't particularly well endowed. All the girls let him know that was the case, even if he didn't realize it himself. That’s how it is, people always make fun of your shortcomings, like you don’t damn well know about them. Like it’s some revelation.

The jocks had written “faggot” across his back and forehead in permanent black marker and when he got home he scrubbed the marker off with a wire brush his dad used on the barbecue grill. It hurt like hell, but it was better than being marked a faggot. But he couldn't scrub away the marks they'd left on his soul. No, that sort of thing doesn't scrub off even with wire brushes. It stays on you, it defines you. Kills you inside if you let it. Dying was the only relief he could imagine. His dad wouldn't care; probably wouldn't even realize he was gone for a few days. No one at school would care either.

Then it hit him. No one, absolutely no one, would care. He sank into an even deeper pit than he had been in before. A dark, dark place that he would make his home. He would move in, sweep the floors clean and put his house in order. Here, in this darkest of dark places, he would be king.

He didn't kill himself that night, instead he got angry. Not with the jocks who did that to him, not with the girls who called him “little dickie”. No, he got mad at himself for being weak. For not taking advantage of those who were weaker than him like the jocks did. How could he be such a pussy?! He came to understand that might did indeed make right. That was his world after all: it was all he knew for the first half of his life. The tough guys always got the girl, they were always loved by everyone and they always got what they wanted. They were winners. Their mothers didn't leave for work and never come back and their fathers were proud of them and loved them with a deep and abiding love. Melvin wanted his way so very badly and taking advantage of those weaker than you seemed to work really well. He knew that was his ticket out of this hell. Or rather, his ticket to bring others into his hell, which was much more important to him. It's not exactly that Melvin worked all of this out in his head, it's more that he did what was done to him and found he liked it very much.

At first the problem was that there weren't many things weaker than him. But still he found subjects to impose his will on, to dominate. Neighborhood cats and dogs were first, then children younger and weaker than him. Then came Shady Acres and old people. Melvin would become a great and terrible master of his twisted world, he became the bane of Shady Acres and all who made their dwelling there.

But unlike Clyde, Melvin would have no good old days to pine for, his fate was sealed the day he accepted the job at Shady Acres. As soon as he laid a finger on Clyde Ramson it was all but carved in stone that Melvin would meet his fate with blood and screams of terror that even he would have a hard time believing were made by a human being. Screams like that came from somewhere else not accessible by humans, unless it were the most dire and hopeless of circumstances. Melvin would access that 'somewhere else' and drain it dry of all the inhuman screams it contained. He just didn't know it yet.

If Melvin was the villain of Shady Acres, then Clyde Ramson was his exact opposite in every way, his arch nemesis. Clyde, although you'd never know it to look at him, sitting in his chair with his walker (with two tennis balls for feet), was a bona fide hero. A genuine, sacrifice your own safety for others kind of hero. He had served with the Alamo Scouts in the Pacific during the war and served with distinction later in Korea. This is why Melvin hated him so much, why he was especially cruel to him. Not so much because he believed the old fart’s stories about the war (Clyde never spoke of it much. Melvin had seen his medals though), but because he knew in his heart that Clyde was a better man than he was. A good man. A man Melvin never could be and never would be. He could feel Clyde's goodness, like a chill in the air that runs down your spine and gives you a shiver you can't stop for any amount of wanting. It made him hate Clyde with great and powerful hatred.

Tonight Mrs. Crane, the night matron at Shady Acres, would be taking leave to meet her daughter, Elsa Jean, at the Kansas City airport. Mrs. Crane liked to remind anyone who would listen that Elsa had gone and married a wealthy Italian dignitary and moved to Italy two years ago.

Mrs. Crane had made the very unwise decision to leave Melvin Drake in charge while she was away. And oh what a glorious night it would be. Melvin had it planned down the last infinitesimal detail. The fox would be in charge of the hen house and that old son of a bitch Clyde would get what was coming to him in spades.

Chapter 2

The night time, Clyde learned to dread it. Not just because that's when Melvin (M-dog. Clyde chuckled when he thought about that dumbass name.) would come to visit, but because the night was always when bad things happen. Your team gets ambushed at night, the Japs come for “information” in the camps at night, the policeman regrets to inform you that your only son was killed in a car wreck. They come for your wife's cold body when she dies in her sleep in the bed beside you. Always at night.

But ever since the war years, Clyde had faced his fears- never would he run from them- he flat out refused. The Kill Captain taught him that a lifetime ago, back when Clyde could do thirty chin ups without breaking a sweat and didn't have to wear adult diapers. The good old days, when people looked at him and saw a man instead of a pitiful, elderly child. Even the kindly people saw him that way, “Oh honey dear, you soiled yourself,” Mrs. Crane would say in that patronizing sort of way, like he was some snot nosed kid. “Open up. The food goes down the hatch,” Charlotte would say when she fed him because Clyde couldn't stop his hand from shaking long enough to feed himself. Despite the torture of Melvin Drake, Clyde thought being old was the worst torture there was in life. He'd lost all his dignity. It's damned hard to be dignified when you crap your pants in the middle of a bingo game. “Can't even tie my own damn shoes anymore”, he muttered to himself as he sat in the easy chair, half watching a Gilligan’s Island rerun on TV. He no longer had the dexterity in his fingers to do it, his own body was betraying him, so he had to wear those damn slippers from Walmart he hated so much. The really shitty ones made in China that fall apart after about two times of shuffling to the bathroom. It made the ridiculousness of the walker that much worse because he had to scoot his feet so the damn things wouldn't fall off his feet. They made a Chu-chu-chu-chu sound, like a steam engine going up hill very slowly. The old man shuffle. It reverberated all the way up the hall to announce that he was on the move and that he was less than half the man he was just twenty short years ago.

But none of that made a tinker's damn right now, because it was seven pm and Melvin was just pulling into the parking lot. Clyde knew the time without needing to look at the clock, he could feel it in his bones. He pushed the blinds to the side just enough to peek into the parking lot. Drake was standing by his car, staring at Clyde's window, grinning. Clyde had seen that look before on the face of another sadistic little man, a lifetime ago.

1943 The island of Luzon, Philippines

Clyde was dying for a cigarette, but there was no smoking in the field, not on this team anyway. They called themselves The Frightful Four. Seemed pretty logical since there were four of them on the team. Clyde Ramson, Jackie Sommers, Teddy Smithon and him...the Kill Captain.

Some of the Scout teams allowed smoking, back when Clyde was on the Dryskall team they would smoke. But not on this one, the Captain wouldn't have it. You could smell cigarette smoke a mile away in the jungle and that sort of thing gets you and your teammates greased. The cigarette would just have to wait.

This particular day wasn't much different than the ones before it. It was a typical recon run, if you could call anything the Four did “typical”. But, sadly, it wouldn't end like all the other days before it.

The team had just settled into their night defensive position, they had patrolled all day and counted over 700 enemy soldiers in the area. They were in the middle of a beehive of Japs and they didn't want to poke the nest, that sort of thing got you killed too.

The air was thick and smelled of rotting vegetation, salt water and damp earth. The Kill Captain loved it. Lived for it. Everything about it except for the salt water smell reminded him of the woods back home in Missouri. He was made for the jungle and there were none better at operating in it.

The situation got hairy right about dusk. A Jap patrol was beating the brush off trail, something they rarely did. But this night they were walking through the thick jungle, heading right for the hidden team of four men. At first Cap thought the team might have been compromised and that the Japs were looking for them, but when they got close enough to hear, he could tell they were lost and trying to find the trail. Cap spoke just enough Japanese to make out an officer chewing on the point man's ass for getting them lost. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so damn scary.

The enemy was about forty yards away when the Captain gave the hand signal to stay put in hopes the Japs might walk past them. It's not as suicidal as it sounds. They'd done it before on more than one occasion. The four men laid absolutely still, concealed in their frog skin camo uniforms and local vegetation they'd tied on that morning. Clyde tried not to breathe and wondered if the enemy could hear his heart beating because that's for damn sure all he could hear. Thump! Thump! Thump! It felt like it was going to bust out of his chest any second now.

The Japs were close, still arguing with each other about which way the trail was. There was a whole damn bunch of them, something like a company sized element. This was bad mojo for sure, no way to fight them all and if the team stayed put there was a good chance they'd be seen. But they had no other choice.

Very close now. Almost right on top of them. The Captain tightened his grip on the Thompson 45. and then it happened. A Jap walked into their perimeter and stepped on Smithton's hand and that's when all hell broke loose. The Jap looked down and hesitated, his brain was trying to tell his eyes what he was seeing but it wasn't making the connection. That hesitation cost him his life, the Kill Captain put a 45 slug through his forehead and he dropped like a stone, dead as a hammer.

“Guns up!!” yelled The Captain. “Break contact!” They'd practiced breaking contact countless times and their training kicked in, it was automatic. Clyde smoked the two Japs closest to him. He reached for a grenade , pulled the pin, let it cook for three seconds and chucked it into a group of bunched up Japs. Everyone else did similar. Amazingly, not a single enemy soldier had returned fire in the initial seconds. That's what the element of surprise can do for you. But surprise only lasts so long.

Everyone got moving and beat feet for the rally point, a spot just off the beach where they'd wait for the PBY (the Navy's name for a sea plane) to pick them up. Everyone except for the Kill Captain. He stayed behind, not to be a hero, he was like anyone else in that regard, he didn't want to die. He stayed behind because he knew it was the only option if he wanted to keep his friends alive.

Clyde glanced back to see if Cap was coming. He wasn't. He saw the Kill Captain being swarmed by hundreds of Japs and watched as Cap went down, like a hammered nail, from two simultaneous shots to the face. Then... he got back up. The Japs were pulling a Banzai charge on him, trying to get through him to the rest of the team. “He's laying waste to those little bastards.” Clyde thought to himself. But there were just too many.

Cap ran out of ammo and there was no time to change magazines because the Japs were almost on top of him, so he pulled out his Thunderbolt knife. Three more Japs went down as the Captain slashed, stabbed and bit them. It was a horrific sight, he looked like a cornered animal. The whole episode only lasted a few seconds from start to finish.

Then about ten of the enemy took careful aim and unloaded with deadly precision. Six rounds hit the Captain, two hit him at center mass and four hit him in the head. This time when he went down they all emptied their bolt actions into him and he didn't get up like he had before. The firing stopped and there was dead silence, damned funerals aren't that quiet.

Smithton fought back the tears as he tried to cover the team's back trail. This was the first time the team had been bloodied in combat, they hadn't lost a single man up to this point. No scout team had.

The remaining three made it safely to the shore line and set up a defensive perimeter in the tall grass where they'd stashed their inflatable raft. All night the Japs looked for them, talking in whispers and stabbing grass clumps with their bayonets as they passed. This went on for what seemed like hours and the team thought that finally the Japs would quit looking. That's when Clyde heard the dogs.

Chapter 3

Once the dogs caught their scent it was all over but the screaming. There was no fight because there was no point. The team was outnumbered more than thirty to one and almost out of ammo.

The word “surrender” wasn't part of the Japanese soldier’s vocabulary, to live to fight another day was a foreign concept to them. If they hated you for trying to stop them from subjugating the world, then they hated you completely and absolutely when you surrendered. In their minds it was a cowardly act and therefore you were worth less than dirt. Even more worthless than before.

Clyde, Teddy and Jackie were in for hard times and the beatings began immediately. The Japanese were masters of torture, they made it an art form and the three teammates were about to experience it in full.

The Kill Captain lay in the underbrush for nearly six hours before waking up. He was amazed the Japs didn't try to cut him into little pieces like he'd seen them do so many times before. It was nighttime and Cap couldn't see his hand in front of his face because his night vision goggles had been shot off his face. The supply goofs wouldn't be happy about that, those things were experimental and very expensive. But he didn't give a damn what made them mad or happy. Right now finding his boys was all that mattered.

His whole body screamed in pain but he was alive and for that he thanked God. He did a blood check which was useless since he was bleeding pretty much all over his body and he couldn't see anything much anyway. Nothing hurt worse than anything else, so it was safe to assume none of the rounds had penetrated too deeply. Most had probably dug out a chunk of flesh and then bounced off, so he wasn't going to die and the pockmarks were already starting to scab over.

Cap knew he had to move, the Japs might come back to search his body for intelligence, something they neglected to do in their haste to capture the rest of the team. He made his way carefully down to the beach and swam out to meet the PBY, hoping he'd find the rest of the team there. But he didn’t. They hadn’t showed up for the extraction.

The brass wanted to pull him out and they told him they were going to send in an Alamo Scout team or three to look for the remaining team members. The Kill Captain was far too valuable to lose at this point in the war.

“You tell the brass that ain't gonna happen.” Cap said to the PBY pilot who was on the radio with headquarters. “I'm resupplying and going back in. I'm not leaving without my guys. Period.”

There was no argument, it wasn't up for discussion.

Cap got in the spare rubber boat and paddled back to the beach, back into the meat grinder where men go to get chewed up and spit back out. The brass decided to send four Scout teams to the area to back up the Captain...or to kill him if he fell into enemy hands, they were issued two recoilless rifles should that eventuality come to pass. But things happened at a much slower pace in those days. The Army didn't have the technology to get teams on site in a speedy manner and it took nearly twenty hours for the patrol boats loaded with Scouts to reach the island. By that time their only job would be to search the dead bodies.

The ropes were cutting into Sommers's wrists badly, so badly that there was blood dripping down his fingers and his hands had gone numb. Clyde was in similar shape, tied to the same post. He wasn't sure how long they'd been in the village, everything since their capture had sort of congealed together. The Japs had taken over a small native village and tied the three teammates to a post in the center of the town square, as it were.

Clyde and Sommers were soon to be the only two left. The Japs had stomped Smithton so bad that he was on the verge of dying. Clyde never got that scene out of his mind and he hated the Japanese as long as he lived for doing that to his friend. It takes a man a long time to die from being stomped. And the sounds...he'd never forget the sounds Smithton had made as he lay there bleeding to death. But the most important thing was Smithton didn't die alone. His friends were there with him. Clyde did his best to hold his hand as he died, all he could manage was to touch Smithton's forearm with his index finger. But it was enough. Damned if it wasn’t.

Smithton began to choke on his own blood, he breathed a deep, gurgling breath and then stopped moving. Teddy Smithton had died a horrible death and his tormentors laughed a hearty and cheerful laugh. At that point, Sommers lost it.

“Fuck you!! Fuck yoooouuuu! You sadistic pricks!” Sommers was like a rabid dog, completely given over to the rage and fear that had erupted inside him as he watched his friend die. “I'll bite your fuckin' throats out, you sons a bitches!” The Beaver (Clyde's nickname for the head Jap in charge) pulled out his katana and slammed it into Sommers' neck in one lightning quick movement. Blood shot out two or three feet from the wound. Clyde had heard stories about how Japanese swords were the sharpest cutting instrument on the planet- how mystical they were- but that was bullshit. The first blow didn't make it all the way through. Neither did the second. It took three tries for the Beaver to remove Sommers's head from his body. His nerves kept his hands and feet twitching for several seconds after the deed was done. Then the Beaver dropped the head onto Clyde's lap.

That's when Clyde saw the look, the look of the preying mantis looking at a fly. The Beaver had that look and Clyde knew he was next on the chopping block. One thing Clyde decided for sure was that he wasn’t gonna beg, to hell with that. Instead he looked the Beaver straight in his beady little eyes and said “I will not fear the terror of night, the Lord is with me.”, something he’d remembered from his bible. Sounds weird but when you’re tied up and staring down the edge of a sword, you find religion real quick.

The Beaver looked at him and in broken English said “ I am your Lord.” As the last word left his lips the Beaver’s face exploded. The report of a Thompson .45 machine gun rang out from behind Clyde. Several more rounds ripped like angry bees through the Japs who were now running for cover. Next came grenades thrown with laser precision and incredible force. One of the grenades hit a retreating Jap square in the back and sank into his flesh and actually stuck, like it had been fired out of a cannon. It knocked him face first into the dirt and he exploded into two halves. Clyde grinned. Then he heard someone running up behind him and felt a hand slap him on the shoulder. The Kill Captain had returned from the dead, with a vengeance.

Cap pulled out his Thunderbolt and cut the ropes around Clyde's wrists. “Let's get the hell out of here, kid.” Cap said as he grabbed Clyde hard by the collar of his shirt and dragged him to the tree line.

The Kill Captain paused for a moment and then yelled, “I'm coming back, you sumbitches! And I'm gonna kill you all! Down to last man!” With that he grabbed Clyde up in a fireman's carry and ran for the river.

By that time the Japs had mounted a halfhearted attempt to pursue them. But the Kill Captain owned the night, he had gotten replacement goggles on the patrol boat, the enemy may as well have been wearing Christmas lights. More .45 rounds cracked through the night, all hit their mark and then there were no more pursuers. Clyde and Cap jumped into the river and floated down to where it dumped into the ocean a few miles down. Clyde laughed a fear filled, giddy laugh nearly the whole way down. He was so damn glad to be alive and utterly terrified all at the same time. He looked over at Cap, no fear on his face at all. Clyde was sure it was there, but all that showed was anger and determination.

“Here's the deal”, Cap said once they got to the ocean and climbed up onto the beach, “the PBY will be here at dawn with four Scout teams. The challenge and password is 'catch' and 'wrestling'.” Cap treated Clyde's wounds with his first aid kit and gave him a Thompson he had stashed earlier. “I'll see you soon, Clyde.” was all he said before he disappeared back into the jungle.

That was the last Clyde saw of the Kill Captain for about three weeks. He heard later from one of the scouts that Cap chased the Japs, ran them into the ground and slaughtered them like rats leaving a burning house. He carried Sommers' and Smithton's bodies the four miles to the beach on his shoulders when all the shooting was over.

But that was then and this is now. And now was looking bleak. M-Dog was coming.

Chapter 4

“Alright, Melvin, I'm leaving. Call me if anything unusual comes up.” Said Mrs. Crane as she was walking out the door. She had no idea how unusual things were about to get.

“I got it well in hand, Mrs. Crane.” Replied Drake, trying to mask the excitement in his voice.

Clyde knew what was coming, it was only a matter of time now. Two things were sure. He knew he didn't have the strength to fight Melvin, time had taken all he had left thirty years ago like a slow leak in a balloon. The other thing he knew for sure was that Melvin was going to murder him tonight. As slowly as he could. Tonight would be worse than all the others combined, worse than the two days of sleep deprivation. (Mrs. Crane had the flu and left Melvin in charge.) Worse than the straight jacket. Worse than the water boarding. Worse than the time Melvin put the plastic bag over his head until he blacked out. Melvin was particularly fond of torture tactics that left no marks. With bruises come questions and Melvin couldn't afford to answer any questions. But tonight would be different, Clyde could feel it. He had a talent for that sort of thing. Sometimes he could feel what was going to happen before it happened.

February 1944 Kerama Island, Okinawa

The island , like all before it, was crawling with Japs. Caps team was the advanced recon element for the invasion force yet to come. The past five days of patrolling had been uneventful and the Kill Captain was leading the team back to the beach for a PBY extraction, a real milk run. Clyde was on point, Cap pulled slack behind him, Donnavan was next and was the r.t.o. (radio telephone operator ) and Espinoza was closing the door, putting vegetation back that the team had disturbed. Everyone on the team carried a suppressed m3 grease gun. Stealth was important when you're outnumbered more than a thousand to one and the silenced 45 caliber m3 made them harder to find if they did have to shoot.

Clyde had been feeling uneasy for the last hour. He had no real logical reason for it, no evidence that anything was out of the ordinary, he just had a feeling in his bones. An uneasiness. He decided to say something to Cap about it, he had to because he was starting to freak out a little bit. He motioned for Cap to move up to his position. Clyde cupped the Captain's ear with his hand and whispered into it. “I think we're being tracked.” Cap knew Clyde well enough to tell he was anxious and dead serious about what he was feeling.

“Alright” Cap whispered. “We'll give them a little greeting from Uncle Sam.” He set the team up on a small ridge that overlooked the area they had walked through a few minutes earlier. They waited. The Kill Captain pulled out the cut down m97 trench gun he carried for back up, he had loaded it with buck shot. No need for stealth now, the PBY was waiting just offshore.

The jungle sounds stopped all at once, like someone had flipped a switch. A very bad thing to hear (or not hear) when you're in the enemy's back yard. Then came the noise of Japs talking in raspy whispers, they were walking right where the team had been no more than twenty minutes earlier. Heads down like bloodhounds on a hot trail. The Captain looked slowly over at Clyde only to see a big goofy grin on his face. Needless to say the Japs experienced Clyde's intuition in a very real way that day.

Melvin Drake, the man who brought pain with him, walked into Shady Acres through the front door and stashed a large duffel bag under the counter. He'd wait for the other two orderlies to fall into their nightly routine, so they wouldn't interrupt his plans. There were only two of them. Jill did exactly seventeen minutes of actual work and then talked on the phone with her boyfriend the rest of the night. Robert wouldn't be a problem either. He liked to smoke a little ganja out back and then crash on the break room couch until his shift was over. Even if he did wake up and go snooping around he wouldn't tell if he saw something. Robert liked to mess with the old “wrinkled asses” sometimes too. If he squealed on Melvin then he'd go to jail right along with him. Robert was an imbecile for sure, but not ignorant or heroic.

Melvin used his time wisely, he was always astute like that. No that there was a lot of intricate planning involved. Pretty much it just boiled down to hours of torture, prolonged as much as possible and then murder. Horrific murder. There wasn't even a plan to get away with it, he figured it would all be worth it in the end. Sure, he'd get the chair for murdering a useless old bastard like Clyde Ramson (which was a fuckin' tragedy of justice, but whatever) but he figured he'd have a good ten years worth of appeals before they threw the switch on him and he rode the lightning. By then the death penalty would probably be abolished by the bleeding heart liberals in Washington and he could spend the rest of his days doing jack squat and eating three meals a day, all on the American tax payer's dime. Not too shabby. Thank God for liberal college kids who carried signs and protested for shit they had no clue about.

Clyde wasn't one to lay down for a beating, even if he couldn't stand up without a walker. He searched the room for anything to use as a weapon, but nothing caught his eye. Melvin had taken anything sharp from the room a long time ago “for Clyde's own safety” of course. That same tired line reared its head in Clyde's life anytime someone wanted to take advantage of him. But Mr. Ramson, you need to go to a retirement home for your own safety. Mr. Ramson, you can't have a gun in the city. It's for your own safety. People always want to tell others how to live while not abiding by their own standards, it's how the world works.

It was then that Clyde remembered a tiny, little detail, not something he did often these days but he did this time and it was gonna be his ace in the hole. A while ago, he couldn't remember how long, he'd stashed a Thunderbolt knife under some loose floor boards. A Thunderbolt knife that had belonged to the Kill Captain and it was well fitted to the job at hand. It was stained with the blood of evil men.

Chapter 5

December 1950: Somewhere on the Korean peninsula

“We gotta move, boys.” The Kill Captain was assessing the situation as he put a full magazine in his Thompson .45. “Every sumbitch in the country heard that racket.”

The team had just pulled an ambush on a squad of Chinese communist troops and the Kill Captain wanted out of the area before the enemy could send reinforcements. Clyde was running point again, a job he didn't like but did anyway, because he had a talent for it. He could keep everyone safe better than anyone else on the team could. Today would be different though, the entire team had gotten complacent lately. Comfort gets you killed in combat and they had forgotten that cardinal rule. They hadn't been hit yet this far into the war and the last time they'd been bloodied was six years ago on Okinawa. Donnavan and Espinoza had never been hit since joining the team. Everyone including the Captain began to think they were invincible. That shit makes dead men out of live men and they were about to find that out the hard way.

Normally, Clyde would be scanning every inch of ground in front of him and to the sides, looking for trouble that might be lurking about. Instead he was thinking about how cold it was and how he liked fighting in the jungle much better. He was thinking about his wife Alice and how beautiful she looked the day he shipped off to Korea. How she trembled in his arms, not knowing if he'd come back alive or in pieces or not at all. “I'm with the best soldiers in the entire world, baby. I'll be fine. Promise.” And he believed that to the core, but Alice didn't.

About that time Clyde was picked up off his feet by a huge flash of fire that threw him back a good ten feet into a snowbank. Only by sheer miracle was he unhurt, the enemy had pulled their ambush too soon, just missing their target. If they hadn't, the entire team would have been wiped out in the blink of an eye. They would have been gone forever, never to be heard from again, just as Alice had feared.

A split second later, a wall of bullets came in from their right side. “Out of the kill zone!” The Captain yelled. “Attack!” But they couldn't make a counter attack, Donnavan had been hit in one arm and both legs, Clyde was still in shock from the initial blast. Kill Captain glanced back to see the two men down and still in the kill zone. “Noza! Get to cover and lay down some fire on those Chincs!” While Espinoza lit up the enemy position the Kill Captain went after the two downed men. He grabbed their collars, one in each hand and dragged them to cover. He took a couple rounds to the left thigh but they were of no effect and bounced off.

Then the Russian DSHK heavy machine gun opened up on them. Cap couldn't figure out why the Chinese would bring an anti-aircraft gun on an ambush and then he realized it was because the Chinese were hunting him. The team wasn't up against a hasty ambush like he'd thought at first, but a well planned and well orchestrated group of killers sent just for him. There was no other reason in the world an element their size would be carrying AA guns.

“Donnie!” Cap yelled at Donnavan, “Suck it up, kid. Get on the horn to H.Q. And tell them to get those Chickasaws inbound.” Donnavan got to it even though he was fading in and out of consciousness. “Stone Hombre, Stone Hombre. This is Smiling Skull. How you read me? Over.”

As Donnavan got the choppers in the air, Cap turned to Espinoza, “We gotta hit these, sumbitches, I ain't dyin' in this shit-hole country. You ready?” Espinoza breathed out a deep breath and said “Let's do it.”

“Stay right behind me until we break through their line, I'll block the incoming rounds. Then you break left and I break right.” Cap looked Espinoza in the eyes and pointed his finger at him to emphasize what came next, “Noza, you waste anything and everything that moves when we bust that line.” The Kill Captain gritted his teeth as he said it. Even he had to work up the nerve to charge head first into an ambush.

“Choppers are inbound! Five mikes out!” Donnavan had a relieved look on his face as he yelled out the good news, maybe they were gonna live through this after all. “Roger that!” Cap yelled back. “Keep your head down until they're on the ground.”

Cap and Espinoza stood up and charged head on into the enemy position, not because they were especially heroic, but because they had no choice if they wanted to have any chance of getting out of this in one piece. They each lobbed in two grenades to make a hole in front of them and off-balance the enemy. They broke through the line and got to work, catching the Chincs by surprise, letting loose with accurate fire and more grenades, pouring everything they had into the enemy. The last grenade landed right by the Chinese DSHK gunner and blew his lower jaw off, killing him instantly, but not before he got off one last burst of fire. Things went dead quiet after that last loud boom.

“Donnie!” Espinoza's voice broke through the silence. “Donnie! Cap's hit!” Donnavan couldn't see Espinoza from where he was positioned, Espinoza was frantic sounding. Donnavan had never heard him sound like that and it shook him deep inside, fear was contagious. “Oh shit, he's busted up bad, Donnie!” Espinoza had the sound of tears in his voice. “I don't know what to do!” Then another short pause. Espinoza was gathering himself, regaining some of his military bearing. “Tell...tell Stone Hombre to get a doc on one of those choppers!”

Donnavan, still bleeding from his wounds, got on the radio and relayed the info. He was told not to worry, headquarters was sending everything. By everything, they meant a twenty man quick reaction team, five choppers (all they had in country at the time), a mobile surgery unit and six f-86 Sabre jets as escorts and close air support. The Kill Captain was an asset they weren't prepared to lose without one hell of a fight.

Clyde ran to help Espinoza stabilize Cap. He was shocked to see how bad it actually was when he got there. Cap had been hit twice in the chest by the anti-aircraft gun. Two huge holes in his midsection gushed blood like a faucet... more blood than Clyde had ever seen in his life and he'd seen lots of blood in his time. Cap was gasping for air and choking on the blood in his throat as Espinoza tried desperately to plug the sucking chest wound with two pieces of rubber raft they carried just for an occasion such as this. Clyde was in a state of shock, he'd thought the Kill Captain was invincible. To see him lying there, fighting for his life, like any normal man, left Clyde paralyzed.

“Looks like I screwed up...huh, Rams?” Cap's words were broken and full of blood.

“You're gonna be ok, Cap.” Clyde was pretty sure that was a lie, but he said it anyway. It's just what you do. “Pour some water on this for me.” Clyde held out a compression dressing for Espinoza to wet with his canteen. He didn't want to put a dry compress on Cap's intestines, it might damage them more when the docs went to take it off, if he made it that far. “I'm gonna try to push his guts back in a little.” He said it in a clinical, deadpan tone but it tore his heart out to have to utter those words.

“Go easy”, Espinoza said, “don't make it worse.”

The two worked on the Captain for what seemed like hours, while Donnavan stayed on the radio with headquarters. The fast moving Sabre jets streaked overhead, pouring fire into unseen enemy positions over the next ridge. The choppers would be on site in a matter of minutes. Clyde went from despair to hope as soon as he heard those jets open up, such a beautiful sound. He knew the Captain might actually have a chance now. A small one, but at least it was a chance.

The familiar thump of the chopper rotors could be heard coming in from the south.

“Clyde.” Cap's voice was weak and small. Like he was speaking through water. “get my knife. Right hip.....if it's still there.” Clyde tried to pull the knife out of the sheath but when he did the whole thing came free, knife, sheath and belt all together. The belt had been cut when the round went through Cap's stomach. Some pieces of flesh and blood coated it making it slippery.

“I got it, Cap. What you want me to do with it?”

“Keep it. I want you to have it.”

“I can't take your knife, Cap. You had this thing custom made. Had it since the war, before we went to the Pacific.” Clyde didn't want to take it. He knew this was a symbolic thing, a passing of the torch. This was Cap writing his last will and testament and divvying up what little possessions he had in this world. The gift meant Cap wasn't going to live through this.

“I want you to have it.” Cap's breathing was coming even harder now. Life was slipping away, riding the blood out of his body and spilling on the ground beneath him. “Don't want some rear area puke getting it when they divide my stuff up. Besides,” there was some sadness in his voice now “...besides, you’re the only family I got. Who would have seen that coming? Haha. A black boy from St. Louis and a white boy from the Ozarks being family.” His words faded away as the weakness overtook him.

It hit Clyde like a ton of bricks just how pitiful the Kill Captain was. Not in a way that made him lesser in Clyde's eyes, but in a way that made him feel deeply sorry for him. Here is a man , a hero to countless people, who had fought for his country, fought for the oppressed for at least the past ten years of his life and he had no one who loved him. No family. No home. No wife or special girl waiting for him to come back alive. No mother, no father. All he had was a knife to give and one friend to give it to. “I don't even know your real name, Cap.” the tears flowed down Clyde's cheeks and highlighted the age lines that the wars had engraved there. And he felt shame for never even asking Cap his name. What kind of friend does that? Not much of one he thought.

“Americus.” Cap whispered. “My name is Americus.”

Chapter 6

A quiet knock came from the other side of Clyde's door. Death knocks? He thought and he got a morbid chuckle out of it. The dim hall light shone through as Melvin slowly cracked open the door to Clyde's room.

“Good evening, Clyde.” Melvin had that excited grin on his face like you'd see on a junkie just as he's shooting up, he was in a trance. Melvin closed the door behind him and there was an audible, heavy *click* sound. That sound gave Melvin a small convulsion of ecstasy.

“Hey you little pussy.” Clyde didn't use vulgar words often, but he knew it would eat Melvin up inside. It would get to the heart of who and what he was and what he wanted no one else to know about him.

“I'm gonna show you how much of a pussy I am, old man!” As soon as he said it Melvin realized that didn't sound tough at all like he had wanted it to, quite the opposite in fact.

“Hahaha, ok Melvin. You don't have to show anything though,” laughed Clyde, “everyone already knows you're a huge pussy.” Melvin's blood boiled. He grabbed Clyde hard by the wrist and jerked him out of the chair. Clyde was an old war horse and he knew if he made Melvin mad, made him emotional, then he would get careless. Clyde was rarely careless, he'd made that mistake in Korea and it cost him dearly. Never again. He had tucked the Thunderbolt knife in his pants earlier in the evening and covered it with his shirt. Melvin didn't search him, he wasn't smart enough for something like that and his anger had overtaken him anyway. He hated being called a pussy and Clyde had called him a HUGE pussy. That was much worse. So there was no time for plans and or doing a search, it was time to make this old prick hurt.

Melvin put Clyde in a wheelchair and gagged him. There was no need to tie his hands, Clyde's mouth was the only thing that had any power these days. The only dangerous thing about him. He wheeled him quietly down the hall to the safe room, which had padded walls and, most importantly for Melvin, was sound proof. There would be lots of sound in the hours to come and Melvin didn't want any of it to escape. He wanted it all to himself. To drink it in like an expensive wine bought with the last of his savings, before the world ends.

Clyde was thankful for the padding when Melvin dumped him out of the chair and onto the floor.

“You know the problem with you niggers?” Melvin was digging through his duffel bag after closing the door behind him. “You never know when to shut up. Always running your mouths and always talking shit.” Melvin took the gag out of Clyde's mouth, obviously wanting a reply to the zinger he just shot out. Clyde gave none. He was too busy planning how to get that knife out of his waistband and into Melvin's throat, hilt deep.

“Well, M-dog's gonna take care of your mouth for ya, boy.” He put extra emphasis on the word boy. Then he pulled out a length of guitar string and a small metal rod. He grabbed Clyde by the head and got around behind him. While he did this Clyde fumbled for the Thunderbolt, his hands were feeble and wouldn't work the way his mind commanded them to. He got hold of it just as Melvin wrapped the guitar string around his head, just below his nose on his upper lip. Melvin twisted it together in back and put the metal rod in, to use as a windlass. He began to turn the rod, making the wire cinch tighter and tighter with every revolution. On the third turn Clyde decided if he couldn't stab Melvin in the throat then he'd take whatever he could get. He shoved the blade into Melvin's thigh until it hit bone and then he twisted it. Melvin screamed a blood curdling scream and went down to the floor grabbing the knife with both hands. He'd gotten the screams he was wanting, but it was his own.

Clyde cursed his old body for not having the speed and strength to keep hold of the Thunderbolt as Melvin pulled away. Even thirty years ago, when Clyde was in his 60s, he could have cleaned Melvin's clock. But not now, time had done a number on him and his strength dissolved into weakness and frailty. And if there were two things Melvin Drake loved it was weakness and frailty. He could smell them like a fat man smells a buffet. The wire around Clyde's face was digging in hard, breaking through his thin skin. He knew that didn't matter though, the real threat was Melvin. He had to be dealt with.

Clyde lunged for the knife, as much as a 94 year old man can lunge. It was his lifeline, no way out of this without it. But it was too late, Melvin had pulled it together enough to see Clyde coming and he planted the sole of his boot in Clyde's face, knocking him backward. Melvin's hands shook wildly as he pulled the knife out of his thigh. “You old son of a bitch! Why don't you just give up!?”

Clyde slumped onto the padded floor, his blood soaked slowly into the white canvas making him think of the watercolor paintings his mother would paint when he was a kid. It seemed like yesterday. “I'm weak...” he struggled to say “but I ain't dead yet.” The he added, “you big pussy.”

Clyde got some real satisfaction out of that last one and a smile crept across his face, even with the piano wire digging into his upper lip.

For a moment Melvin reverted back to what he truly was, a coward. He shrunk back, ready to be dominated as he had been his whole life, but then he remembered the rules. Might makes right. And, Survival of the fittest. His resolve came flooding back, bolstered by his recalling the cardinal rules of life. “You're gonna die today, old man...slowly.”

Melvin searched through his duffel bag until his hands fell on the bolt cutters. His leg burned with incising pain, none like he'd ever felt before and it was taking him out of the moment. Screwing up his high. “Fuck!” he yelled at nobody in particular. He spat on the floor, trying to look tough, trying to feel tough. He'd seen bad dudes do that before, just before or after they stomped him into the ground and if it was good enough for them then it was good enough for him. He grabbed Clyde by the head again and put the bolt cutters around the index finger of his left hand. Then he noticed the wedding band on Clyde's ring finger, a much better choice. Not only could he take a finger, Melvin could take something sacred at the same time, it was a two for the price of one deal. He moved his bolt cutters to the finger with the ring.

“No!” Clyde cried out. He hadn't taken his wedding ring off in more than sixty years. It was all he had left of Alice and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing it. If he lost the ring it would mean he was weak, less than a man. It would me he would lose Alice. No wife deserves a man who can't keep her safe.

Melvin slammed the cutters closed, they didn't do a clean job, the finger was still attached by a ribbon of skin. He reached down and yanked the finger off the rest of the way. Clyde screamed, not from the pain, although there was plenty, but from the anguish of what he had lost. Because of his weakness. He had lost Alice because he was a weak, old man. The wedding ring- Alice in Clyde's mind- dropped to the floor and Clyde sobbed deeply, only a small moan escaped his open mouth. Melvin smiled a toothy grin. He'd forgotten the pain in his leg, he'd gotten his high back and he was numb to pain. He'd broken Clyde, something he'd been trying to do for six months or more and he'd finally done it.

Melvin felt a quick tinge of sadness. Not for Clyde, but because he knew he'd come down from this high too soon. It would leave him eventually and he'd be plain Melvin again. Scared Melvin, the big pussy.

Clyde spoke in a very small, weak voice. “In you, oh Lord, my God, I put my trust. I trust in you; Do not let me be put to shame or let my enemies triumph over me.” Clyde remembered. He remembered that God was good and His grace was abundant. Always had been, this hadn't changed a thing. He'd go to his Maker content, despite these last hard days. It was a light affliction and he'd be shut of it soon enough.

“Are you praying?” Melvin asked with disdain and utter shock.

The intercom sparked to life, startling Melvin like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It was Julie, she sounded a little panicked. “Mel, there are some men out here that want to talk to you. It sounds important.”

Melvin pushed the big red button that said talk. “I'm a little busy right now.” he said and added, “you dumb, bitch.” under his breath. He wondered who would want to talk to him this late at night. “What do they want?”

No answer came. Then the door blew open with a tremendous force. Melvin stepped in front of Clyde in an attempt to hide what he'd been doing. It couldn't end yet, there had been no climax.

Standing in the door were three men. None of them of exceptional size, but it wasn't their size that scared Melvin. It was the way they stood, especially the one in front. He looked like justice. Burning-seething-ready to explode-justice. The man in front, the one who was justice, wore a leather skull cap and the strangest goggles Melvin had ever seen, the lenses were a translucent red color. The very sight of him made Melvin want to crawl into the darkness, find a hole and pull it in behind him. He felt warmth run down his leg as he lost control of his bladder.

“Americus?” Clyde said in a clear and strong voice. “Is that you?”

Chapter 7

“You can't be in here.” Melvin said with as much authority as he could muster, which wasn't much. “This room is for employees only.”

The Kill Captain said nothing. Instead he kicked Melvin square in the chest, slamming him into the padded wall hard enough to knock him out cold. Cap bent down close to Clyde and spoke into his ear. “It's ok, kid. I'm gonna get you out of here.”

Tears streamed down Clyde's face. He couldn't hold them back no matter how hard he tried. The two soldiers who came in with Cap brought in a backboard and an I.V. for Clyde. The familiar thump of chopper rotors beating the wind rang in Clyde's ears now that the door was open to the safe room. Just like the good old days, when life was precious and people fought to preserve it and friends gave theirs in exchange so that others might live. Oh, that damned chopper sounded like salvation, just like it did in the old days. The good old days. The best days.

“That Blackhawk out there is your ride outta here, Clyde. A good old fashioned medevac. Just like back in the day.” Cap knew what Clyde was thinking because they had been through the same hell more than once, they were brothers who at one time could finish the other's sentences. They'd been to hell, standing shoulder to shoulder looking into the abyss and had come back from the edge and they were forever connected.

As they loaded Clyde onto the backboard he turned his head as much as he could and said, “Cap, get my ring for me.” Get Alice for me. “That little pecker head tried to take Alice from me.” Cap picked up the bloody stump, the gold band still on it, and put it in Clyde's hand. “Here you go, buddy. Hold her tight, she's a special lady. Has to be to put with you for all those years.” Cap said with a warm smile.

And he did hold her tight, like that ring was the only thing keeping him from falling into a bottomless pit where he'd never stop falling. Clyde swore he'd never lose her again.

“Americus, I know that kid is a piece of human trash, but don't kill him. I've seen enough killing to last me two life times at least. No more.”

“Ok, Clyde.” Cap turned to Stark and Williams, his two teammates and said “Get him to the chopper. I'll clean up here and be out when I’m done.”

Clyde wondered what “clean up here” meant for a brief second but then put it out of his mind. He knew that when Cap said he would or wouldn't do something you could write it in stone. Damned straight.

The Kill Captain had earned his name. The promise was against his inclination to say the least, but Clyde mattered to him, more than his inclinations.

Laying there, sprawled out and unconscious was Melvin “M-dog” Drake. If anyone deserved to die it was Melvin, that much Cap was certain of. Cap had seen many evil men in his time on this earth and Melvin fit the bill in every way. He checked off all the boxes of what qualifies as being an evil scumbag. If Melvin was allowed to live he'd eventually be paroled and he'd do this again. And he'd be a smarter weasel after a stint in prison, a better murderer. Americus couldn't let that happen, it was an unacceptable outcome. What if Melvin moves on to kids? That's what cowards do, they look for easier targets. No, that could not happen on his watch. He knew what he had to do and Cap hated himself for making the promise to Clyde. He hated Melvin even more for making do it.

“Wake up, dirtball.” Americus kicked Melvin hard in the ribs. Melvin slowly opened his eyes hoping the pain in his leg and the devil standing over him were just figments of his imagination, but they weren't. The devil was a very real, very serious thing and it demanded his full attention.

“Who..who are you?” Melvin asked. “What are you going to do to me?”

“I'm going to fix you.” That sent chills down Melvin's spine. Fix me? He thought. Cap bent down and put his face close to Melvin's. “What's your name?”

“I don't have to tell you anything, I know my rights. I want a lawyer!”

Cap reached down and grabbed Melvin's wounded leg and squeezed. “Do I look like a cop, to you? Name!”

“Agggh! Melvin Drake!”

Cap released his grip on Melvin's leg. “Well Melvin, you owe a debt and I’m the guy who collects.” Cap pushed a button on his left ear cup. “Hawkman this is Kill Captain. Send Williams in with four C.A.T.s please.”

“Roger that, Cap.” Said the voice on the other end. “ Hawkman out.”

Melvin wondered what the hell this guy wanted cats for, but knew better than to ask. Still, it preyed on his mind so much that he almost forgot about the pain in his leg. Almost.

“I didn't want to have to do this, but I made a promise.” Cap gritted his teeth and swallowed hard as he spoke. “And damn you for making it necessary, you piece of shit.” Now Melvin was just about to lose control of his bowels. He didn't know what the cats were for, but he knew it couldn't be good after hearing that.

Just then, the medic showed up with the “cats”. C.A.T. stands for combat application tourniquet and Melvin was familiar with them from his many hours of perusing tactical catalogs and websites. The reality of what was coming was beginning to set in his mind.

The Kill Captain grabbed Melvin's left arm so tight that there was no chance of ever breaking free, it was like a vise. Melvin had never felt strength like that before, it felt impossible. Cap took a C.A.T. and began putting it on Melvin's arm. “What the fuck are you doing?!” Melvin tried to struggle but it was pointless. The vise had him locked in.

“A man is supposed to look after those weaker than he is, not abuse them or take advantage of their weakness. You should know that. You do know it, like all of us do deep down, but you've taken the easy way out.” Cap tightened down the tourniquet so hard that it felt like it could break Melvin's arm.

“No that's not right!” Melvin forgot about the tourniquet biting in. “ Survival of the fittest. If you aren't fit, you don't survive.” His eyes were wide like a child who had just been shown a coin trick for the first time. What the devil had said wasn't right was it? It couldn't be. It turned Melvin's world completely upside down.

“You're about to experience the error of that way of thinking, Melvin.”

Melvin protested and fought as much as he could as the Kill Captain put the tourniquets on his remaining limbs, just above the knee and elbow joints. “What are you doing?! Get off me!”

Cap pulled out his knife, he'd replaced the Thunderbolt he'd given to Clyde with a new model Air Assault knife. Melvin's eyes grew even wider and his breathing increased and deepened. “This isn't right! You can't do this! It's not right!”

“Of course I can, Melvin. I'm the strong one here and you're the weak one. You're here to serve me. If you aren't fit, you don't survive.”

Melvin blacked out as the Kill Captain began to cut into his left arm at the elbow joint. His mind just shut off, he wasn't strong enough to stop what was coming and there was no one to help him. Just like when he was a kid. Why would they? The strong don't help the weak.

“Aw, damn! He shit his pants” Williams said as he put his hand over his mouth and nose. Normally Cap would get a chuckle out of that, but this was different. Cutting up a human being isn't like cutting up an animal. It's something different entirely, something horrible and obscene, soul searing. There's a line and doing something like this was well beyond stepping over it. But it had to be done. Cap had done a lot of hard things, this was just another one added to the pile. Americus was a realist. He had the life experiences to tell him that this world is cold and cruel. That people aren't basically good like everyone likes to tell themselves. No, people are basically evil, selfish, shit bags. The good ones just suppress their selfishness and try to do what is right instead of what they want and there are precious few good ones left in this world.

Cap weighed the consequences of leaving Melvin whole against the consequences of cutting him in pieces, stopping him from forcing his cruelty on more people. It was a no brainer, black and white. Cap would rather be judged for cutting up Melvin than for doing nothing and letting him torture more innocent people. Someone had to do the hard things in this world, things the fence sitters didn't want to do. Things people called you a murder for doing. A butcher. A war criminal. He'd been called all those things and more by the people he'd protected. So be it. Words don't mean shit. He thought to himself. Words don't save the kid this scumbag kidnaps and butchers someday.

Cap turned to Williams, “You best wait outside. No need for you to have this on your conscience too.” He went back to his work. “I'll holler at you if he starts to circle the drain. I gotta keep him alive.”

“Roger that, Sir.”

Sir? Cap thought. Williams has never called me sir before. But he knew why. Williams now saw Cap in a different light and he didn't like what he saw. Cap was a butcher now instead of just another soldier. A war criminal. Williams would ask for a transfer as soon as he got back to headquarters, Cap would grant it without protest.

Americus severed the left arm at the elbow and set it to the side, then he moved on to the right. Halfway through the ordeal he wretched and held back the vomit that threatened to come up from his stomach.

“Kill Captain, this is Hawkman. Over”

“Go, Hawkman.”

“Cap, the doc says we need to get this guy to the hospital asap. Over.”

“Roger that. Go ahead and run him. I'll get another ride out of here.”

“Ah...that's a negative, Cap. The patient is going ballistic. Says he's not going to any hospital. He wants you to take him to the creek. I'm not sure what that means. Over.”

Americus knew what that meant and sadness enveloped him. It meant Clyde was dying and he knew it. “Roger that, Hawkman. Just keep him calm as you can. Tell him I'll take him to the creek. Just give me a few more minutes.”

“Understood. Hawkman out.”

When the last leg was removed it was time to finish the job. If Melvin could talk he would still be dangerous. More than one monster has done evil with just his words. Americus had seen the fruit of a mad man's words during world war two. Millions of people were murdered all because no one had the guts to cut out Hitler's tongue.

Americus took a deep breath and opened Melvin's mouth. When he grabbed Melvin's tongue Melvin woke up and immediately wished he hadn't. He let out a blood curdling scream when he saw his arms and legs were gone. They were laying next to him like a stack of firewood. He passed out again when he felt the blade of Cap's knife scrape against his teeth.

Of course it's a gruesome thing to cut out a man's tongue. It's not a quick job either, like the movies show. Americus had to slit one of Melvin's cheeks back to the jaw bone to get his tongue out that side. He threw it in the pile of pieces that used to be Melvin Drake.

“Skull Face, need you in here, man.” Cap said, speaking over his shoulder to the medic waiting outside. He no longer called him Williams as he always had, instead Cap used his call sign. Whatever friendship had formed between the two was gone forever.

Williams was shocked to see what he saw, but tried not to show it. There in front of him was the Kill Captain, covered in blood to his elbows and a now limbless, tongueless Melvin Drake. Or at least some semblance of him.

“Better glove up, no telling what kinda nasty stuff this scumbag is carrying.” Americus glanced back at Williams as he spoke.

“Is he still alive?” Williams had never seen anyone in that condition who was still among the living. He felt a little stick to his stomach.

“I know you hate me right now. That's ok. Just do your job, that's all I ask.” Before he walked out Cap said, “Make sure he's stable before we leave. He has to live. Whatever it takes.”

“Understood, Captain.”

It took Williams around fifteen minutes to stop Melvin from bleeding out and to keep him from going into shock. He closed up his med kit and walked into the lobby. Cap and the rest of the team had bound and gagged the nursing home staff. Williams thought it looked like they were being prepped for single shots to the back of the head. “He's good to go, Sir.”

“Roger that.” Cap turned to the two staff members who were sitting on the floor.

Anger welled up inside of him. “You sumbitches knew what was going on here and you didn't lift a finger to stop it? When my boys and I leave here I want you two to walk into that room.” He pointed to the soundproof room that contained the thing that used to be Melvin Drake. “Take a good long look. I give you my solemn word that if I ever hear of you letting this sort of thing happen again...I'll be back to visit you. “ He said it in a deadpan, matter of fact way that was unlike anything Julie or Robert had ever heard. He might as well have said, “The sun sets in the west.” It wasn't a threat, it was just information.

Cap cut the flex cuffs from their wrists with his Air Assault knife. The entire thing, from tip to pommel, was covered in dried blood. The sight of it made Julie go into hysterics. The saw on the spine of the knife looked like some archaic torture device to her, or maybe shark’s teeth. Something vicious in and of itself, not needing a human hand guiding it to make it terrifying.

Americus looked at her and put his index finger to his lips. “Shhh. Quiet.” She instantly stopped her crying and went still. Shocked by the calmness of his voice and the fact that she thought he'd kill her right there if she didn't do what he asked. He wouldn't, of course, but he didn't mind her thinking it. It made things easier on everybody.

Cap reached down and cut them free of the gags and put the knife back into its sheath which was coffin shaped like the pine boxes in the old westerns on TV. This made Julie almost flip out again but she held it back.

“Load up, boys.” Cap said. “We're done here.”

Chapter 8

The story of what happened that night first made the local news and then the national press picked it up. There were lots of interviews conducted and claims made, but no real evidence was ever found. No rational person believed that a super-soldier, wearing a leather skull cap and mask with red lenses took over a nursing home and mutilated one of the orderlies. It was completely out of the realm of believability. Almost as ridiculous as the official story, which was that Clyde Ramson, a 94 year old resident at Shady Acres, had mutilated the orderly and made his escape, never to be seen again. But people could swallow that easier than they could the actual truth.

The name “Kill Captain” was thrown around like it normally was in cases like this, but it got no traction. Eventually it became another urban legend, American folklore, like all the other Kill Captain stories. Akin to the Area 51 stories or Bigfoot. Only lunatics and conspiracy theory nuts believed in the Kill Captain.

Clyde was in stable condition and still clutching Alice, his severed finger wearing his wedding band.

“Where to, Cap?” asked Hawkman.

“Head north until we hit the river, then run upstream. I'll talk you in when we get close.” Cap looked at Clyde laying on the backboard, a sight he'd seen too many times in his line of work. One of his friends dying in the medevac chopper. It was enough to make a man old before his time.

“Hey, Cap.” Clyde spoke into the headset.

“Hey, Rams.” A short pause, Cap was still thinking about the past. The not so good old days.

“We're going to the creek, kid. Just like you wanted.” Americus put his hand on Clyde's forehead, “lay your head back. Enjoy the ride.”

The sun was just coming up and the Missouri humidity was already boiling. It was a beautiful sight to see, the pink and orange of the sunrise reflecting off the muddy waters of the Missouri River. Clyde drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face as the wind from the prop blast buffeted him.

Baldwin, the senior medic (call sign Pretty Boy), leaned over to Cap and talked into his ear. He didn't want Clyde to hear what he was going to say. “He's taking a dive, Cap. If we don't get him to a hospital soon he's not gonna make it.” He paused for a minute and then said, “Even if we do, he's probably a goner anyway.”

“This is what he wants, Pretty Boy. He's earned it and I owe it to him.” Baldwin looked at him and gave an understanding nod.

The creek was a spot that Americus and Clyde had camped at a few times back in the day. Cap had brought him and Alice here for the first time, not long after they got back from Korea. Clyde knew it was a special place for Cap and knew it meant a lot for him to ask them to come. Alice loved it and they both jumped at any chance to go whenever they were invited.

Clyde woke up when they landed and the Blackhawk's rotors started winding down. It looked a little different than what he remembered, but old places always do. No doubt though, this was the creek. He was home.

“I wanna walk down to the bank. You help me, Cap?”

“Yeah. Grab ahold of my arm.” With one arm around the feeble old man's waist Cap helped his friend walk home. The only one he had left.

Clyde sat peacefully watching the water tumble over the rocks in the creek, as Americus prepared a bed of cedar boughs for him to lay on. He covered it with a small tarp he carried in his kit. Cap found a nice shady spot under some old sycamore trees to lie Clyde down. Clyde loved the smell of cedar, it reminded him of the good old days. He was close now, close to leaving this world behind and crossing to the next.

“Americus...Could you see your way to building a fire for me?”

“You want a fire? It's hotter than hell's half acre out here, Rams.”

“Yeah, I know. But my bones are old. Besides, I like the smell. Takes me back to better times. Smells are right powerful things.”

“ That they are, my friend. I'll have to walk back off the creek a ways to find some decent splitting wood. You be alright by yourself for a few minutes?” Americus was concerned Clyde wouldn't be among the living when he got back.

“I'll be alright, just gonna sit here and listen to the birds a while.” Clyde's thoughts once again drifted into the past, as Cap went for wood.

1974. He and Alice had come to the creek with Americus and Babs. A lifetime ago. He and Alice were so happy in those days, her dementia hadn't shown up yet, it was still decades in the future, waiting for it's chance to eat her alive. Damn, he loved that woman so much it hurt.

Americus and Babs hadn't been married long, they were still in the honeymoon stage. Alice never liked her much. She used to say Barbara had a sadness about her, a selfish sort of sadness. One that isn't satisfied until everyone around is infected with it.

Clyde had been so deep in the past he hadn't noticed Cap had returned and was splitting down some white oak with his knife. The same knife he'd cut Melvin up with, he'd washed the blood off in the creek but a little remained in the knurling of the hollow handle.

“You kill that boy, Cap?” Clyde said in a weak voice.

“Nope. I promised a buddy I wouldn't.” Cap winked at Clyde. “He sure as hell had it coming, but I didn't kill him.” Americus was shaving the oak down into thin pieces to use as tinder. Clyde's breathing was labored.

“How'd you find me? How'd you know what was going on in that place?”

“I saw some stuff that the brass didn't want me to see.” Cap was laying his shavings out on a cravat made of camouflage parachute material. Something he'd saved from one of his jumps during the second world war. “I came across a report with your name on it. Naturally I had to take a look. I mean, why does the Army have a report on a friend of mine who's been out of the game for over 60 years? Didn't make sense. Turns out they had spooks watching you, to keep tabs I reckon. To make sure you didn't talk about what you knew. About me.”

“Sumbitches.” Clyde said. “How long they been watching me?”

“Since about '58, near as I could tell.”

“Sumbitches.” Clyde repeated.

“I promise you, Clyde, I didn't know.” Cap had laid the shavings out on some dry sticks and lit them using a metal match and his knife. “I'd have come got you outta that place sooner if I had....I didn’t' mean to stay away. I just thought you would be safer if I did.”

“I know that, Americus. Don't let it prey on your mind none. Everything worked out. You snatched me outta death's hand, gettin’ to be a habit with you.” Clyde stopped to catch his breath and then said, “You awol then?”

“No...sorta. Those heartless, bean-counting pricks were just gonna let you rot in there...I couldn't let that happen.”

Americus added handfuls of split wood to the growing fire. Clyde breathed in the smell of the smoke, the smell of the past. “How's Barbara doing these days?”

“She's gone.” Americus said in an almost whisper. “Left me.”

“I'm sorry, Cap. I kinda figured maybe... y'know? Since you didn't exactly get old. I mean that's gotta be hard for a woman to deal with.”

“It wasn't that. She left me because she went to a dark place, I reckon. I couldn't follow her there and I couldn't pull her out of it.” He paused for a moment. “She hated me, Clyde. And I couldn’t save her.” Cap's eyes welled up with tears as he spoke.

“I'm sorry, man,” said Clyde. He'd never seen Cap cry before. It didn't make him uncomfortable like he thought it might. Instead, it made him tremendously sad and he felt compassion for his friend. This friend who had such a life of violence and loneliness. He couldn't imagine it.

“She met me at the door one day, like a damn statue.” Cap wiped the tears from his cheek, he'd taken his goggles and mask off earlier. “Told me she was pregnant and that she was leaving and that I'd never see her or our baby again. Then about a year later I got a call from her. She said she had an abortion...she killed our baby, Clyde.” No more wiping the tears away now, they came heavy after that.

“And I don't know why. I don't know what I did to make her hate me so much. To make her hate the life we’d brought into this world.”

Clyde realized Americus had probably never told another living soul what he was telling him now. He had let Cap down, not been there for him when he needed him and that made him ashamed.

“Then she just hung up on me. She never gave me a chance to save that little one. Just left me there, gutted and dying. I don't understand people like that. I've fought against them my whole life and I still don't understand them. They just hurt others because they can.” Americus poked at the coals in the fire, the end of his stick catching alight.

“They found her two days later in a motel room in Jeff City. She'd cut her wrists , from hand to elbow, and bled out in the shower.” Nothing was said for a few minutes then Cap said, “Sometimes I just want to burn the world down, man.”

“She wasn't right in the head, Americus. Some people are just full of sadness. They ain't happy unless it consumes everyone close to them. I'm sorry I brought that pain back to your mind....I didn't know.”

“S'okay, kid. Feels kinda good to say it all out loud. Maybe those girly shrinks are on to something? Heh.” He grinned a little. “I talk with God about it and that helps. But it feels good to tell it to a friend. I ain't got many of those.” Cap put his smoking stick down and said, “You want some coffee?” He hated living in the past and that was enough dwelling on it for now. “I hate the stuff but I save it out of the m.r.e. packs for some reason. I remember you used to like it.”

No answer came from Clyde. Americus looked over at him, Clyde's eyes were open but they looked cold. Clyde had passed on from this world, but not until he’d helped his friend one last time.

Americus reached over and gently closed his eyes. “Go find Alice.”

He laid Clyde's body, neatly wrapped in the tarp he'd died on, in the grave he'd dug with his entrenching tool. It had taken the rest of the day to dig it and it wasn't very deep, but it was deep enough to keep the coyotes away.

Eventually everyone left Americus. So many he had loved and had watched die while he remained the same, unchanged. But that was the mission, he was a soldier, no way was he going to lay down and die just because it got hard. He carried that burden gladly, it was the least he could do for all that God had given him. And done for him. He'd see it through to the end.

A couple weeks later Americus came back to the creek and set a wooden cross, he had carved with his own hands, over Clyde's grave. On it he wrote : Here lies Clyde Ramson. Husband, father, hero, man of God. And the best damn friend a fella ever had.