Project Cain (36 page)

Killing. Pain. Death.

Even through the gas mask I could smell the man’s, the dark man’s, burning flesh, couldn’t avoid looking at it, the man, as we stepped around—and it
was
a man now, not a thing anymore. A man with open, staring eyes and a gaping, terrified mouth.

A man that could have been me, as we were made, more or less, from the same stuff.

Made by my father.

•  •  •

Castillo dragged me away and outside again. Sporadic gunfire filled the woods. The more-human troops moving in for the kill now.

Castillo said something, but I couldn’t hear. My ears were still ringing, my head crowded still with too many strange thoughts and
feelings. I could feel this guy still burning at my very core.

Next thing I know, all this smoke detonated from a dozen different places, filled the whole trench. I couldn’t see six inches in front of me. Then someone shouting about grenades and Castillo was throwing me into the trench.

A tremendous boom filled the whole world. I slammed against the bottom of the trench almost as a relief, the feel of the ground the only thing that kept me pinned to the earth. Arms flailing, hugging the ground and praying that the wet cold earth would stop spinning beneath me.

Where was Castillo?

Around me were curses, orders, and the sound of more guns firing and bodies moving, but my own blood was pounding so loud in my ears that everything seemed like just an echo of the initial boom. I scrambled farther along the trench, seeking cover, seeking safety. I had to find Castillo. Or Ox. My one job was simple.

I lifted my head to find him. Pointless. There was still smoke absolutely everywhere, bodies rushing around like ghosts.

No Castillo. No Ox.

I spun back around. Called out for Castillo, but in the rain of gunfire my voice was completely lost. I whirled around again, scrambling down the trench back toward where I thought Castillo was, had been, should be, must be. Bullets zinged over my head, and shouts, voices I didn’t recognize, rang through the air.

Up ahead the smoke cleared just enough.

I saw Castillo.

Crouched ahead, not twenty feet away.

I waved at him—his face obscured by his gas mask and his body tight and coiled, as if he were ready to spring.

I shouted Castillo’s name and pushed myself forward, relief washing through me for the first time in what seemed like hours.

Castillo looked up as I approached and smiled at me.

Except you can’t smile through a mask.

I stumbled to a complete stop.

It wasn’t Castillo.

And the face I’d seen wasn’t really a face at all anymore.

Just an open gaping maw, dripping, leering at me with glee.

I’d seen that same non-face look a hundred times before. The same that had reigned over my nightmares and stared out of dark shadows for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t really a face anymore because it was
every
face.

Another
dark man.

With the face of the man I’d seen in the tank so many years before.

The face of the man with knives at the foot of my bed.

The face of the man who’d murdered my father.

And it was Ted’s and Henry’s. And Al’s and David’s, too. All of them.

Even the one painted like a clown.

Each and every copy of them too.

All the killers DSTI and my father had brought together blended into one.

And so it was my face too.

•  •  •

I ran.

Away from the second dark man. Away from the trench, the bunker. From my whole life.

Where was Castillo?
I had to find Castillo!

But Castillo could be anywhere—probably was fighting for his
life too. And I had no idea where Ox was either. I’d failed in my one task.

I spun around, eyes skimming buildings, forest, men. Flashing bursts of gunfire. The smoke had cleared enough that I could see the line of trees not thirty feet away. I’d never make it to Castillo or Ox. I just needed to get away and hide. Just had to make it into the woods.

I could hear the dark man behind me. Its sounds. Following.

My lungs burned as I reached the deep black trees, as I stumbled over roots and fallen branches, my breathing coming so fast and hard that it steamed up the inside of my mask until it was dripping with condensation and my vision was entirely blurred again. It was like running in every nightmare I’d ever run in. I ripped the gas mask off, dropped it, and picked up my pace, the sudden rush of oxygen all I needed to keep going. But I couldn’t just keep running. Soon it would catch me.

I broke free so quickly from the trees that I stumbled. Three buildings in this clearing, and barns beyond. I hid in the second building.

It was a storeroom. Mostly filled with food.

My hope was to hide.
Hide. Survive.
Wait for Castillo.

Behind me, the door opened at the front of the building.

I felt the breath die in my throat. The footsteps that came into the room were a man’s footsteps, but it wasn’t Castillo. Slow. Measured. And coming my way.

I tried to make my next breath more quiet.

The steps came just close enough, and I knew completely now.

The dark man.

Thoughts flooded through me again, incoherent but eerily familiar. Rage again, and death. Extreme focused purpose. Hunting, always hunting. For something that seemed never to be found. It was him again.
It
. The thing. Just another copy.

And coming ever closer.

•  •  •

Past the strongboxes of canned food and the MREs. Past the stockpiled oats and bags of flour and rice. I could almost feel it in my bones as it passed the first row of water drums. Knew it was there just like the other one had been.

I thought,
I’m dead.
A thought so clear and simple. It was going to get me. Castillo wouldn’t come. Castillo
shouldn’t
come.

This man was just me, who I would eventually be, who I was destined to be.

I deserve this
.

This terrible thought came swift and hard, and I gasped for air. I’d been invented in a lab just like this thing had been. They’d maybe used me to make the toxins, these things, all of it. I’d also been created from some terrible killer.

The dark man walked down the aisle toward me. Knew exactly where I was hiding. Almost as if it knew the truth I was only now coming to see.

I
was
the monster here as much as it was. I
deserved
to die too.

It stopped not five feet away. Stopped, and waited.

Waited for me.

To be a man? To accept my deserved fate?

The same fate of the real Jeffrey Dahmer.

I deserve to die.
I deserve to burn in hell forever.

He was right. My father was right about me.

I crawled free from my hiding place and stood in front of myself.

The monster I would become. The monster I already was.

I looked up at it.

And the monster looked right back.

A
man made partially from my own blood.

A brother. A cousin? A
son
even, maybe. I don’t know.

I knew only that he had a long knife.

And I had the realization that—whether I “deserved” to or not—I didn’t
want
to die.

And also that I was going to anyway.

•  •  •

I was shoved to the ground. Thought my head had been knocked clear off. Slammed against the concrete floor.

Castillo was there. For real this time. He’d sprung from the darkness like one of the room’s shadows had come to life.

He and the other man fought directly above me as I writhed on the ground in agony. I honestly couldn’t tell them apart. The whole room was growing dark at the edges. My head burning.

I struggled to pull myself away. Rolled to my hands and knees. Blood dripped onto the floor in front of my face. I touched the side of my head, felt the wet hot gash there. But kept moving.

I could hear them struggling behind me. And I could hear the dark man’s thoughts.

How much he
wanted
to kill. To kill Castillo.

I kept moving away. Looked back.

Castillo’s gun was on the floor, but I would have to get past the two men to reach it. There was no way. I dragged myself up to my feet, looked around for a weapon of some kind. Anything at all. To somehow help Castillo.

I could hear the other man’s thoughts more clearly. He was torturing Castillo. Punishing.

And I could feel the man’s fingers and nails digging into Castillo’s throat.

I could feel the man enjoying it. Watching Castillo die, I mean. Knowing that when he was done with Castillo, he’d then find and kill me, too. Knowing that Castillo understood this also. Castillo’s helplessness like a drug rushing through the dark man’s whole body.

Looking around, all I found was a warehouse of food. Crates, boxes. Rows of giant cans.

I grabbed hold of one of the cans.

I stepped free from an aisle of shelves and could see them again. The man was choking Castillo, Castillo’s feet kicking off the ground, his hand up under the man’s jaw, tearing. Struggling to free the two dark hands from his throat.

There was blood all over the floor at their feet.

I could hear the man’s blood pumping wildly, hotly. Filled with life.

And I could hear Castillo’s blood fading.

I swung that tin can as hard as I could.

Again and again and again.

•  •  •

The man was on the floor. His head split open pretty good.

He wasn’t dead.

Castillo had collapsed also. Was gasping for air. Fighting to get back to his feet. Leaving a smear of blood on the floor every time he moved.

I picked up Castillo’s gun.

Moved back across the room to where the dark man was.

I could barely stand. Or walk.

But I could aim.

•  •  •

Castillo stopped me. Told me NO.

I told him I could do it. That I even
wanted
to do it.

He just took the gun from me.

He said: No, you don’t.

He said: And you never will.

Then Castillo shot three times.

And then he collapsed back onto the ground.

•  •  •

In all the different ways Castillo ever saved me, this was, I think, the one that mattered most.

•  •  •

Castillo had been cut pretty bad. He used special glue to fill in the wound for a bit, but even I knew it wasn’t anything that’d last. I kept expecting him to pass out for good.

He got on his walkie-talkie and checked in with Ox. The whole compound was overrun with cops and ATF guys now, fighting for the Bad Guys. Castillo and Ox argued some over what to do next.

Castillo and I were too far away from the others for the original plan. (Something about sneaking down the back of the mountain with special parachutes.) Castillo told Ox to proceed anyway. Which he did.

They wished each other luck and then signed off.

It was now every man for himself.

I hoped it was not every
boy
for himself. It wasn’t.

Castillo pulled me close. His shirt was wet with blood.

The whole world started shaking again. An even bigger explosion than before. A huge distraction of explosives that’d confuse the advancing cops and soldiers just enough. Long enough for Ox and the others to get down the back of the property as planned.

As for me and Castillo . . .

Castillo could hardly stand. I wasn’t much better. I followed him to the door, the current plan to sneak through the woods and back down the hill. Past a dozen or more armed men.

Even if Castillo had been in perfect shape, it would have been a terrible plan.

At the door I had a better one. Not much, but better.

I’d noticed the stables across the way. Three horses.

I reminded Castillo of that time in Afghanistan. When he and the other soldiers had ridden across the open field on horses. Kinda suggested it’d be cool to do again.

Castillo agreed.

•  •  •

And the next thing I know, we were in the stables. The horses were all freaked out. “Spooked,” I guess, is the word. It took a couple of minutes for Castillo to get one of them calmed down enough. But he did. Tossed on the bit and bridle. But didn’t even put on a saddle or anything else as he led it to the open door. Just kinda jumped on. No time, he said. He held out a hand. He pulled me up onto the horse behind him. The animal jerked and shuddered beneath us.

Castillo turned to me, told me the
real
key to every successful operation was the same and quite simple: When the first plan goes to shit, which it almost always does, quickly invent another.

•  •  •

Hang on, he said. So I grabbed on to his waist. The shirt sticky in my fingers. In the near distance, the glow of raging fires lit the whole woods. The horse charged forward away from the fire into the darkness. Racing through the night between unseen trees, as if it could see perfectly. Castillo urged it to go faster with soft forceful words. The horse went faster.