Stone Soldiers 1: Mythical (4 page)

“Maybe when you grew your head back, your memories didn't all come back with it?” Carlos suggested.

Kendall thought that sounded reasonable. “That makes sense- if he regenerated tissue, the neural patterns left by experiences wouldn't be there.”

Everyone turned to Kendall with puzzled looks.

Kendall was suddenly embarrassed. “I am going to school this fall for pre-Med, if you guys remember.”

Josie turned back to Mark. “Do you have any ID on you? Maybe something to jar your memory? What about that necklace?”

Mark looked down and held up a hand to touch the necklace. He covered it defensively. “I- someone close gave this to me...”

Every instinct told Jimmy they should run away, get in their trucks and leave this strange, stone man in the desert. But like always, Jimmy reluctantly followed Josie’s lead.

“Did you check your pockets?” Jimmy asked.

Mark gave Jimmy a skeptical look. He may not remember much, but he remembered waking up in the remains of the melted boat. Anything that hot would have burnt up anything in his pockets- even if the pants themselves were heat-resistant.

“He's right,” Josie agreed. “If your pants survived that fire, who knows?”             

Mark shrugged and went to reach into his right pocket. His fingers stopped against plastic. Melted plastic- the pocket was fused shut. He pushed against the plastic, ripping it. The ripping plastic sound gave way to the sound of ripping velcro- the pants had a velcro closure. Mark’s hand slid in.

“I’ll be damned,” he said aloud. “Velcro.”

The pocket felt odd- lined with some kind of strange material, different from the pants. He felt around- there was a lump of something papery.

Mark pulled the object out- it was a wad of money. He fanned the bills out- several thousand-dollar bills, hundred-dollar bills, and even half-a-dozen twenties. There was close to four thousand dollars.

“Looks like just cash,” Mark said, holding the money u
p for the teens to see. “A lot of it.”

Mark peeled a hundred off of the wad of bills and offered it to Kendall. “Here's for all that water I drank.”

Kendall was shocked, but snatched out his hand and grabbed at the bill.

Carlos’ eyes were bugging out as he looked at the wad of cash. “Dude- what's with all the Benjamins?”

Benjamins?
Mark thought to himself. He looked at the money and saw the image of Benjamin Franklin on the one-hundreds.
Oh, more modern slang.

“When I was in Korea,” Mark said, some of his memory returning, “I always carried a wad of cash with me when I went out into the field. Just in case something came up.”

“When were you in Korea?” Josie asked.

Mark frowned. He hesitated to answer- no telling what these kids were going to think. He thought it was crazy himself.

“I got there in 1952 and stayed for a few years. The war,” he answered. He remembered every detail of it. Like it was only a few years ago- not more than sixty.

The teens all looked shocked. The super-powered stranger looked like he was in his 30s. For him to have fought in Korea would mean he was born long before their parents- maybe even their grandparents. Yet here he stood, not a wrinkle on him.

“You don't look that old,” Jimmy said, echoing what the others were thinking.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Mark admitted.

If the man could come back from the dead, could heal any wound and was strong enough to throw people around like they were footballs, being from 1952 didn’t strike Josie as being all that weird.

Josie reached over and took the one-hundred out of Kendall’s hand.

“Hey!” Kendall said.

Josie looked close at the bill. It was a modern one-hundred, printed in 2011.

Kendall snatched the bill back from Josie.

“That’s a 2011 bill,” Josie said, ignoring Kendall. “You didn’t get that in 1952.”

“What do you remember after the war?” Josie asked.

Mark sighed. “I remember dying. In 1962.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Mark Kenslir remembered dying only too well. The day of his death had come so unexpectedly. March 20, 1962- the day before his thirty-fourth birthday.

Seated in a chair outside the door to the bathroom of his small, shared apartment, Mark had been reading the newspaper while his new wife had been getting ready for work.

In those days, Mark wore green Army fatigues, clean and pressed. His boots were polished to a perfect shine.

The door opened and Maria finally came out, brushing her long, wavy, black hair. As always, she wore slacks, turtleneck and lab coat. Doctor Guerrero was as fetching as the day Mark had been assigned to protect her.

The Army should have seen it coming- locking a genius female scientist up in a secret lab, with a military intelligence officer as her twenty-four-hour-a-day, sole companion was bound to lead to complications. In this case, romantic complications.

Maria smiled at Mark as she brushed her hair. “Ready to go back to work?”

Maria was always excited about work. Until Mark had been assigned to her, it had been a passion that consumed her every waking minute.

Mark folded his newspaper and tucked it under his arm. He stood up, almost subconsciously running a thumb over his new wedding band. It still felt strange to wear a ring.
Mark looked down at his new, slightly-older wife.

“Tired of me already?” he asked.

Maria laughed and handed Mark her hairbrush. She then turned and headed towards the apartment’s tiny kitchenette. Mark hurried to keep up with her.

“That was a great honeymoon,” Maria said, sitting at their tiny table. “I still can’t believe you got them to let me out.”

Maria hadn’t had a vacation, hadn’t walked outside the facility, in years. She’d remember her honeymoon vacation for a long time.

Maria picked up a piece of toast from the table, while Mark sat down across from her. He set her hairbrush and his newspaper in one of two remaining empty chairs.

“Until they find someone else like me, I’m pretty indispensable,” Mark said. “I tend to get what I want.”

“Oh, is that how you got me?” Maria teased.

Mark sputtered, embarrassed, unable to think of what to say. As he remembered it, it was the other way around.

Maria quickly changed the subject- putting a small box on the table she had pulled from a pocket of her lab coat.

“What's this?” Mark asked.

“My wedding present to you,” Maria said.

Mark picked up the small box, very surprised. He opened it- inside was a gold necklace, with a small, gold Christian fish pendant on it.

“How’d you get this?” Mark asked. Maria hadn’t been more than fifteen feet away from him since the day they met.

“You mean, how’d I get this when we're never apart?” Maria corrected, smiling mischievously. “I have lab assistants, remember?

“Put it on,” Maria directed.

Mark pulled the necklace from its box and slipped it over his head. He tucked it under his shirt to stay within uniform regulations.

“Why the fish?” he asked.

“I know how much you like the story of the bread and the fish,” Maria said.

“Thanks- I like it,” Mark said, smiling at his wife.

“I fig-” Maria started to say. She was interrupted by the ringing of a red phone, on a stand by the front door to the apartment. A red phone that was never supposed to ring.

Maria and Mark exchanged worried glances, then Mark all but ran for the phone.

“Kenslir,” Mark said into the phone pressed against his ear.

Mark listened intently to the person on the other end for several moments. His face became grim.

“I understand. I'll inform Dr. Guerrero,” Mark finally said.

He hung up the phone and turned to face Maria.

“There's been an accident in the lab,” he said sternly. “Someone dropped the basilisk eye into the Fountain.”

All the color drained from Maria’s face at the implication of that statement. Of all the accidents that could happen on this project, this was at the top of the her list of the worst possible.

“Is anyone hurt?” Maria asked, standing up from her chair.

“It fully regenerated,” Mark said solemnly. “At least three people were petrified before they lost communication with the chamber.”

Mark hesitated. “It’s sealed in now.”

Maria moved away from the breakfast table and all but sprinted for the door. Those were her people down there.

Mark grabbed her by the arm as she headed for the door.

“We've got to get down there!” Maria declared.

“We can't.”

Maria couldn’t understand- of all the people in the building, Mark was the one who could go down to the lab now. Why was he hesitating?

“Mark, those are my people down there! I can't just stay here!”

Mark shook his head from side to side slowly. “Protocol says we keep it locked in until nightfall. Then it's problem solved.”

“You have a protocol for someone dropping my basilisk eye in the Fountain and the whole creature regenerating?” Maria demanded.

“It's the Army,” Mark answered. “We have protocols for
everything
.”

Maria struggled to get free of her husband’s grip. “I
need
that eye, Mark,” she pleaded. “I’m so close to figuring out how it works!

“If we lose that eye, we can't get another one,” she added.

Mark considered his wife’s plea. He considered just how much time and how many resources had been put into the project. Reluctantly, he released his wife’s arm. She was right.

“So you want me to go kill it and cut out its eye?” Mark asked. He dreaded the answer, but knew what it would be.

“It was done once before,” Maria reminded him.

“What if I get petrified?” Mark asked. Not that he really worried about that. It was the fangs and teeth part that bothered him.

“That werewolf bite a few years ago didn't affect you,” Maria said calmly. “A lizard staring you in the eye shouldn't either.”

Mark sighed. This was a test of his abilities he didn’t really want to take. But his wife was right. He turned and walked to a nearby closet door and opened it. Inside was his cache of emergency gear. Pistols, rifles, submachine guns. Grenades, explosives, web gear. Everything he might need to fight his way to the surface in any circumstance. Except maybe this one.

Mark turned to his wife once more. “Fine, but you have to stay here. I'll know you'll be safe here.”

Maria walked up to Mark and his gun closet. She reached past her husband and selected an M870, .12 gauge shotgun.

“The safest place is right next to you, dear,” she said.

***

Many floors below Mark and Maria’s apartment, in the bowels of the Project, there was a long basement hallway. This hallway was nearly one hundred feet-long- lined with heavy blast doors that looked as though they could withstand most conventional munitions.

The hallway itself was plain- a drop panel ceiling with fluorescent lights and vents, hanging over a simple tiled floor. At one end of the hallway, there was a large freight elevator- also with heavy, steel doors.

An eerie stillness was in the hallway. Only the hum of the lights could be heard.

The freight elevator doors suddenly opened.

Mark was now carrying a Thompson submachine gun, and wearing a belt supporting a .45 semi auto pistol and a number of canister-shaped grenades. Maria was still in her lab coat, clutching her shotgun with anxiety.

They both covered the area of the hallway with their guns- but it was still clear. Nothing could escape the chamber and its heavy blast door.

Maria nodded at the ceiling. “Watch where you shoot- there are pipes running overhead with natural gas in them.”

She knew she didn’t need to say that- she’d seen Mark firing on the range. He was a crack shot. The comment was more for herself. She wished she’d spent more time at the range herself.

Mark reached across to a handset hung up in the elevator. He pressed it to his ear as it connected to the Project’s main control room.

“Open it,” he ordered.

The control room didn’t like this plan. They were still trying to reach Command for authorization. But everyone knew this was the only chance the people in the lab had.

Midway down the hall, the chamber’s heavy blast door popped open a few inches. Hidden hydraulics took over, slowly swinging the door outwards. Faint wisps of steam and the acrid smell of electrical fires wafted out of the chamber.

The door swung to its half-open position and stopped.

Mark and Maria took a tentative step forward, out of the elevator. They held their weapons at hip-height, side by side.

From beyond the blast door came a strange skittering noise. Claws. Claws on tile. The basilisk suddenly darted out from behind the door.

It was a hideous creature. Nearly twelve feet long, with a vaguely reptilian head, surrounded by a boney plate with spikes- like a dinosaur. Beyond its head the creature had a bright plumage of feathers down to its shoulders. Like its shimmering scales, the feathers were blood red.

A purple, forked tongue darted in and out of the lizard’s mouth as it tasted the air. It immediately tasted the scent of the two humans. It hissed and turned to face Mark and Maria.

“Don't shoot its eyes!” Maria reminded Mark.

Mark already had his Thompson up, held tight against his shoulder, lining his sights up. He fired a quick burst at the side of the basilisk facing him.

The .45 caliber rounds slammed into the beast’s scales, directly behind its front legs. A perfect kill shot, directly over the heart. Except the rounds ricocheted off the scales.

Mark looked over at his wife, worry on his face. “You didn't tell me it was bulletproof.”

The basilisk felt the impact of the bullets. It roared in anger then turned toward the far end of hall and Mark and Maria.

Maria stepped forward, lifting her shotgun to her shoulder as her husband had taught her. “You aren’t using a big enough gun!”

Maria aimed and fired her shotgun as the basilisk began running toward them. The massive deer slug went wide, missing the charging basilisk and tearing a chunk out of the wall.

Mark decided this was a bad plan and it was time to change it. He threw down his Thompson.

“Sorry, dear,” he said, shoving his wife back into the elevator while he watched the approaching basilisk.

Mark quickly pulled an incendiary grenade off his belt, glad the creature couldn’t run that fast.

Maria nearly fell down in the elevator, but quickly recovered. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of the grenade in Mark’s hand.

“Mark! No!” she yelled.

Mark pulled the pin on the grenade in his hand then gave it an underhanded toss forward.

The basilisk skidded to a halt, perplexed by the approaching canister. Then it opened its mouth and swallowed the grenade. A second later, it spit the grenade back out.

“Oh, crap,” Mark said as the grenade bounced and rolled across the floor, back toward him.

Only a dozen feet away from Mark, the grenade detonated- releasing a cloud of fire and molten metal. A split-second after that, a second detonation erupted- the gas lines overhead exploding.

***

When Mark’s ears stopped ringing and his vision cleared, he found himself under a large concrete beam. Fire burned in the hallway and most of the lights were out. Mark tried to get up, but the debris covering his chest and legs wouldn’t budge. All he could do was turn his head enough to look into the elevator.

Maria was standing up in the elevator- blood trickling down her face from a scalp wound while the left sleeve of her lab coat burned. Maria hastily began to remove the jacket.

Mark suddenly realized that the debris covering him wasn’t just crushing him beneath its weight- the debris was on fire. Mark struggled against the burning debris. He began to feel the heat from the flames.

Maria finally got her labcoat off and threw it down. She had to hold on to the open doors of the elevator to stay standing. Suddenly, she spied Mark, pinned under the flaming debris.

“Mark!” Maria screamed. She turned and lunged for the fire extinguisher in the elevator.

Mark began to scream. He was in agonizing pain- the fire had finally reached his flesh.

Maria ripped the fire extinguisher from the wall and fumbled with the safety pin while her husband slowly burned to death.

Maria turned back to Mark, swinging the fire extinguisher around. Her flesh began to turn gray in color, and her movements slowed until she remained frozen in place.

The last image Mark saw before the flames engulfed his head was of his wife turning to stone.