Ever Onward Read Free Page B

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religious ecstasy on her breath. “Look at the Dark Stranger! If
you’re naughty, He will come for you!” Her ringed fingers had
dug into his thin flesh, pushing him closer to the page. “The
Dark Stranger ALWAYS comes for naughty little boys!”
    His heart pounding, Pussbag absently
wiped his snotty nose with the sleeve and fixed his gaze back on
the man in the jeep. The handsome face was the same as the one in
Mommy’s Good Book. When the jeep passed beyond his view, Pussbag
Smitty silently followed, the bayonet still clutched in his bloody
hand.
    Jocco stopped the jeep at the back of
the Officers Mess and looked around. Bodies were everywhere. Draped
over crates; laying sprawled on the ground. One was half in, half
out of the back door. All had been reduced to that paper-thin gray
shit.
    With all the finesse of a runaway
garbage truck, the ghost of a plan Jocco had kept secretly locked
away for years continued to push itself forward. Humdrum, every day
thoughts were casually shunted aside as easily as the parchment
thin bodies that littered the runway. Part of him tried to hold it
back, to wait until he was certain. Yet another part, the wilder,
savage part that always lurked just beyond the surface, urged him
on.
    Then someone staggered out the side
door of the Officer’s Mess, leaned over the railing and puked. The
bottle he’d been holding fell, exploding on the asphalt like a
bomb. Looking up, their eyes met. The puker’s widened, flicked to
the shattered bottle, then back to Jocco. His mouth fell open, a
string of thick saliva trailing from his lower lip.
    “You a ghost , man?”
    Jocco grinned. “Not likely. What are
we drinking?”
    The man, in his early thirties, was
big, balding, unarmed and drunk as a skunk. Jocco casually walked
over and read the soldier’s nametag: Sampson.
    “Nothing but the best , man”,
Sampson slurred. “The fucking best! ”
    His hand close to the .45 at his hip,
Jocco motioned towards the open door of the Mess. “Set ‘em up then,
friend. I’m buying.”
    Sampson seemed to find the casual
remark extremely funny. Laughing as only a well practiced drunk
can, he staggered back inside. Jocco followed.
    “Keep your money, man,” Sampson
grinned. “Drinks are on the fucking house!”
    The room was littered with bodies. A
good number were women, their skirts and dresses mingled with the
uniforms like a cut close line. Officer’s wives, daughters,
girlfriends. Jocco could care less. Sampson had found another
bottle and was attempting to fill two glasses. His hand shook so
much that most of the amber liquid ended up on the bar.
    “Fuck it!”, he growled, sweeping the
glasses away with his free hand, he grabbed another bottle and
thrust it towards Jocco. “Here, man. Help yourself.”
    Jocco took a sip, then placed the
bottle gently on the dripping bar. Sampson was chugging his. Shock,
Jocco reasoned. He’ll pass out soon. Soon turned out to be very
soon. Sampson hadn’t half finished the bottle before it finished
him. His eyes rolling white, he slid silently down behind the bar.
What remained of the bartender was already there.
    Jocco smiled, his mind racing. Over
three thousand men were stationed at the China Lake Base. It seemed
that only three of them were left alive. One in a thousand. He
wondered if those odds held for off the base as well. The wild part
of him hoped so.
    One way to find out, he reasoned. He
walked to the phone and dialed an outside line. A list of names and
numbers was by the phone. He tried them all. State Police;
Ridgecrest Hospital; Bakersfield Hospital; Los Angeles Airport;
then, just to be sure, the Malamar Naval Air Base near San Diego.
He got a number of machines, but nobody home. Some high roller had
penciled in the number of The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. Under
that was scrawled: ‘For a sweet time call Candy’ . A local
number followed. Snake Eyes on the casino. Candy’s number got him a
recorded ‘Moved. No forwarding