This is elseworld, p.14
This is Elseworld, page 14
However, even if he had known, he still would have come. If that made him a jerk, so be it. Russo would have to get over his PTSD on his own time. They had a job to do.
“What did you mean when you said Jameson was in there?” Hackett leaned in and grabbed Mark by his torn shirt. He was close enough to smell his breath. Odors were muted with his mask on, but if it was strong enough Hackett would still be able to detect liquor on him.
Although he hated to admit it, Russo sometimes had good instincts for these things, and there was still a possibility that his partner’s original assumption was right. Mark could have been out having a good time with some girls, things went bad somehow, and he made up an elaborate excuse so he wouldn’t get into too much trouble.
“Mark, are you sure? Are you absolutely fucking sure that you saw who you think you did?”
“Yes, of course I’m sure. Coming face to face with the Boogeyman isn’t something you could mistake. It was him. It was him.”
Hackett smiled.
It’s showtime!
“Strike Team Commander, confirmation you’re getting all of this? How much have you heard?”
After several seconds, someone finally replied. “I’m listening. The reception is pretty rotten, but I’ve gotten the gist of it.”
The man’s voice broke in and out as he talked. It was true that the reception wasn’t the best, but Hackett was just pleased they were able to communicate in real time over the airwaves at all. He hated having to switch to his phone and use text messages over the paging system whenever he was outside the District.
“So, you heard who’s in there? Who we’re going after?”
“Um, yeah. Yeah, we’ve…uh…got it. We got it. Got it loud and clear,” said a shaky, thin voice from the other end.
“Good, I’m glad you got it.” Hackett emphasized the last two words. “Nothing changes. Absolutely nothing. You hear me? The plan is still the same. For now, just keep out of sight and hold your position until I give further instructions. If you see anything, and I mean anything, alert me immediately. Otherwise, keep your mouths shut and your eyes and ears open. Do you copy?”
No answer, just static.
“I said. Do. You. Copy?”
“Copy that, sir.”
Chapter eighteen
Magic and Monsters
Russo
Russo was back on his feet and breathing normally. Hackett nodded at him. Russo nodded back, indicating he was okay. But he wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay. Russo wiped his brow. He had broken into a cold sweat. An actual, literal cold sweat.
He noticed Mark still clutching his flashlight like it was his lifeline. Even back when Russo had him by the neck and was choking the wind out of the boy, Mark had never let it go once. The massive flashlight was the length of a baton, but thick like the wide end of a telescope.
“Mark, that was a really important detail,” Hackett said. “Why would you hide that from us for so long? You should have told us that Jameson was involved from the very start. Don’t you think? It makes me wonder what else you are keeping from us. We need to know everything that happened in there. And I mean everything.”
“I’ve already told you enough.”
I’m so sick of this damn snot-nosed punk. Hackett isn’t getting anywhere on his own. Why do I always have to do everything?
Russo took a large step forward and slapped Mark with the back of his hand. He was only using a quarter of his strength, but the force of it almost knocked the boy to the ground. “Kid, you better start talking. How the fuck are you so sure that it was really Jameson?”
“Because I am. I just am, okay?” Spittle and drops of blood spewed from his mouth.
“That’s not good enough,” Russo snarled. He raised his hand like he was going to strike Mark again, this time with a closed fist. It wasn’t an empty threat; he intended to hit him with everything he had.
“His face, okay? That’s how I know. I’ll never forget that face. Half of it was burned. And he had those…those claw things. They’re real. People didn’t make it up. All the stories are real.” The young officer cleared his throat. “We didn’t see him at first; he came out of nowhere. We had just taken one of them out, blew his head off like I said, and we had the others pinned down.
“We should have been able to see him sneaking up, but somehow, he got the drop on us. I swear he just appeared out of nowhere. One minute he wasn’t there, and then the next, he was stabbing Dustin in the back. His hand went right through him. Before I could react, he grabbed me and threw me against the wall. Picked me up and tossed me like I was nothing.”
Russo felt his throat tighten.
“Like I was nothing! Look, I know I’m not the biggest guy, but I’m not puny either. I didn’t know he was so strong. It was like he had super strength. They don’t tell you that in the briefings.”
“There’s a lot they don’t tell you in the briefings, kid,” Russo interrupted.
“Unfortunately, some things you have to find out the hard way,” Hackett added.
“I tried to get back to my feet, but again, he was right there. I didn’t even see him move. He kicked me in the head so hard that it must have knocked me out cold. I’m not sure how long. But here’s the thing: the entire time I was out, I was still fully conscious. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. I knew I was sleeping, but it didn’t feel like any dream I’ve ever had before. It felt so real. It’s like I was somewhere else, another reality.”
Russo didn’t like where the story was going. It brought back too many memories. A knot slowly churned in his stomach, but he kept his face straight and managed to keep his composure as best he could.
“While I was stuck inside of that reality, wherever it was. While I was sleeping, I dunno, I guess I was sleeping. I just know he came for me. He was in my dreams. That bastard was in my dreams. I could do things there that I can’t do in real life. Things that no one can do, stuff that’s just not possible. I could fly, do acrobatics, jump around like a superhero. I could even make weapons appear, but it still wasn’t enough. Not against him.”
Russo backed away without realizing what he was doing. Once he noticed, he found that he had to force himself to stand still.
“Do you know how it feels as a man to go up against another man one on one on equal footing and still get completely dominated?” Mark’s eyes moved between both men but seemed to linger on Russo. “He could do everything I could do, except better. I couldn’t stop him. I felt overwhelmed. He was all over me, and I couldn’t get him off. I couldn’t stop him. I tried…I tried so hard. But I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t wake up. The dream…the nightmare, I felt everything, everything. And it just went on and on.”
“So, it’s true that he can enter your head?” Hackett asked.
“It’s a lot worse than that, bro,” Russo said. “He violates your mind in every way imaginable. He really messes you up, figures out what you fear the most and makes your worst nightmares come true.”
Hackett turned toward Russo and it looked like he was going to ask him something. Russo felt a bit of relief when Mark spoke again because it drew Hackett’s attention away.
“Listen to your partner, he knows,” Mark said. “Jameson took pieces of me, things I can never get back. Never. And he replaced them with other things, put me back together differently.”
“I don’t think I understand,” Hackett said. “What exactly are you trying to tell us?”
“This isn’t me. He broke something inside of me that can't be fixed. I don’t feel like myself anymore. I’m not myself. When he penetrated my mind, he opened a doorway I can’t close, can never close, and now he can get in anytime he wants. No matter where I go, I can’t get away from him. When I go to sleep, I know he’ll be there waiting for me. And I can’t do anything about it.”
“Whatever he did to you, I hope you know it wasn’t real. None of it really happened. It was all in your head,” Hackett said.
“No, you still don’t understand. It was real! It was real to me. It was as real as anything I’ve ever experienced before. It’s as real as you are standing right here in front of me.”
“But you said you were slee—”
“It was real, damnit. You still aren’t listening.” Mark looked toward Russo again. “Tell him. Tell him. Make him understand.”
On the outside, Russo was stone-faced, but inside he was screaming just as loudly as Mark was. The boy was desperately trying to get Hackett to believe him. But Hackett would never believe, not until he saw it for himself, and by then, it would be too late.
Russo understood Jameson was a powerful magician of some sort. He didn't believe in magic, not really, but he did believe in the paranormal, which was easy because not much was normal anymore. Russo wasn't one of those nuts who believed in ghosts or trusted those crooks who claimed they could talk to your dead relatives for a fee. Ghosts didn’t exist, but monsters sure did. And that was what Jameson was.
A monster. A damn magical monster.
And whatever Jameson was, or had become, he was much worse than what he was when Russo had known him as a child. He was now more monster than man on the outside and not just the inside.
Truthfully, Russo didn’t know what the hell Jameson was exactly, but he knew he wasn’t a typical wastebag. Jameson was more than just some deformed freak whose mother had stayed in the Wasteland for too long while pregnant with him. He had abilities far beyond a normal human. In the Wasteland, it wasn’t just animals that had changed into wastelings.
Once Jameson got into someone’s head, they weren’t worth anything to anyone. Ever. They were better off dead. Russo didn’t think he could make it out of another encounter with Jameson. He had enough nightmares as it was; he didn’t need any late-night visits from the Boogeyman.
“What happened after you regained consciousness?” Hackett asked.
“It was abrupt. Took me a few minutes to readjust. At the time, I didn’t know how long I had slept, but it felt like a long time. When it was happening, it felt like I would never wake up. I was so relieved when it was over.” Mark took a deep breath, but instead of closing his eyes, he opened them even wider. “The room I woke up in was cold and dark and smelled funny, worse than out here, but I didn’t care. I was so happy to not be in that other place anymore.”
Mark’s face flushed with anguish. “They had us down below in some kind of cellar, only I didn’t know it at the time. But I figured it out. That’s also where they had the girls. They had ’em all chained up.”
There was a slight pause as Mark’s voice cracked. “They had Dustin down there. He was bleeding badly and squirming on the ground. He was trying to talk, begging Jameson’s goons to stop. The goons, some twisted bastards wearing these gimp masks, they were whipping and kicking him, laughing the whole time. Cackling like a bunch of psychos. One of them even lifted his mask and winked at me, and I heard him tell Dustin that now that I was awake, the real fun could begin. He walked away, and when he came back, he had these two huge dogs with him. They fed Dustin to their dogs.”
Fuck this shit. This crap is above my pay grade.
Russo didn’t want to listen anymore. He had already heard too much. He put his mask back on and snapped it into place, but he still smelled nothing but vomit. He realized he was smelling his own breath, but at least he couldn’t hear the humming anymore, and he could clearly see his surroundings. Russo used all the mental strength he had left to not storm into the police car and drive away.
Hackett could hitch a ride back with his precious Strike Team. No one would blame Russo for leaving, either. The police barely had enough manpower to cover their own jurisdiction. The District was huge, and there were just a handful of police stations covering the entire area, an impossible task.
Atrocities committed beyond the border were an unpleasant fact, but there wasn’t much that could be done about it, even if they wanted to. It was just as well that the Wasteland stayed unregulated. The further out one went, the more toxic the air was and the more vile the creatures were.
“They made me watch. They tortured me until I obeyed. I saw everything. Everything. I watched my best friend get eaten alive by dogs.”
Russo sighed. “Kid, how stupid are you to not realize those weren’t dogs? Were they as big as horses with teeth that looked like they could saw through metal?”
“Well, they were huge dogs.” Mark paused for a second. “Big and scary looking, with big teeth, yes.”
“Was anything else unusual about the dogs?” Hackett asked.
“Unusual in what way?”
“What the fuck do you mean unusual in what way? Are you an imbecile?” Russo almost shouted, raising his voice far louder than he’d intended. “Were they wearing tuxedoes and a black top hat? Did they stand on two feet and offer to serve you tea and crumpets? Come on, dumbass, you know what he’s asking. You can’t be that stupid.”
The young officer gave Russo a blank stare.
Russo smirked. “You came all the way out here in the Wasteland trying to play super cop, and you really don’t know jack shit. You have no idea what you’ve gotten us into.” Russo’s smirk turned sour, and he turned his back on both men. When he turned around again, he had his rifle aimed directly at the rookie’s forehead, his finger on the trigger. “Or maybe you do know what you’ve gotten us into. Nobody can be that stupid. Maybe this was all a setup.”
Hackett grabbed Russo—who towered over him by at least three inches and outweighed him significantly—and shoved him against the car. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Russo shoved him back. “Get the fuck off me, Hackett.”
“You’re taking this way too far.”
“You’re the one who wanted to do that good cop, bad cop shit. Don’t chicken out now just because you see what a bad motherfucker I can really be when someone is pushing my buttons.”
“Hey, right now I’m not the biggest fan of the boy either, but don’t you think the kid’s been through enough as it is? He’s not the enemy here. We have bigger fish to fry.”
“I don’t trust him, not one bit,” Russo said. “This smells fishy. There’s something else going on here. Why is he only giving us bits and pieces at a time, dragging this out? We got the Boogeyman and two fucking werewolves in that house. Don’t you think that’s how he should have started the story?”
“I agree with you, but you still need to calm down. What’s gotten into you? One minute you look like you’re ready to crumble into pieces, and the next, I feel like I’m trying to hold back a rampaging rhino. You’re all over the place. Get it together, man.”
“I have it together. It’s you who doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. You still think it’s a game.”
“It’s not a game. You’re right. But it’s not the end of the world either. Don’t lose your cool. We still have the upper hand here.”
“You’re smarter than that, Hackett. I know you’re comfortable taking on werewolves—hunting wastelings was what you guys did—but Jameson is another beast entirely. You’re experienced, but you still have some things to learn. You don’t know everything about what goes on out here.”
“And you do?”
“More than you realize. The monsters are evolving. You don’t believe me, but it’s true. Some of them look like people and have abilities far beyond anything we could ever even begin to understand. If we don’t leave now, soon, we might not be able to. You know what happens when you die out here? You come back as a walking, rotted corpse. That’s what happens.”
“You’re talking about zombies.”
“I didn’t say that word.”
“But that’s what you meant.”
“Call ‘em whatever you want. But it happens. People that die out here come back as zombies. There, I said it. But it’s true.”
“Now I know you’re full of it.” Hackett laughed. “That’s a ridiculous myth.”
“My ass it is.” Russo sneered. “Hackett, you cocky asshole. How many times do I need to repeat that this isn’t our fucking jurisdiction? We’re not trained for this. Well, maybe you were once upon a time, but it’s not your thing anymore either.”
Hackett didn’t reply. Russo hated how Hackett would ignore him whenever he made a good point.
Cocky bastard can’t handle being wrong.
“Besides, we’re in the field in a supervisory capacity,” Russo said. “Let the young bucks handle this. That’s why you created your Strike Team, isn’t it?”
“I hope you’re kidding. I’m not just going to sit here and do nothing while they go in alone. That’s not my leadership style.”
You cocky motherfucker!
Russo palmed his helmet with both hands, looked up into the milky sky, and shook his head as he paced away from Hackett.
“Or better yet,” Russo said, “how about this? Go ahead and call in some of your old buddies in the military. Drop his name. They’ll come guns blazing for a shot at getting Jameson and trust me when I tell you they’ll be a lot more effective than that poor Strike Team you’re going to end up getting killed. Two clueless blockheads, an idiot savant, and your precious little pet protege? Some Strike Team you got. They ain’t ready for this type of action.”
Russo looked at where he guessed one of the microphones would be embedded on Hackett’s shoulder. “And I sure hope to God they’re listening to me right now, because if they’re smart or have even an ounce of sense, they’ll already be long gone by the time I’ve finished this sentence.”
“No one’s going anywhere until this is over,” Hackett said matter-of-factly.
Russo glared at his partner. “The military handles this kind of shit. Maybe they can finally do something other than kill our own people for a change. Have ’em bring in some tanks. Or better yet, call in airstrikes. Get a jet out here and shoot missiles at that place. They wouldn't even have to risk manpower with a kamikaze drone. And just like that we’d vaporize the bastard, be done with him once and for all.”
