There are two worlds to the forsaken. Loneliness and solitude. The first revolves around desert and alienation. The lonely man suffers the absence of those who deemed him unworthy of their interest. The solitary wanderer is a different creature. He’s a man who build himself without the help of others. He’s a fort in the desert of loneliness. There is a monk-like comfort to be had, enjoying a healthy dose of time with yourself.
One could hear the strength and confidence of Walter Tatum’s footsteps as they resonated against the walls of the old warehouse. The heavy metallic thud of army boots pounding the catwalk could have intimidated any men present that was not ready to sacrifice his life at the very moment. This trail of fear and dread was the direct result of years of carnage. The more Walter piled up bodies, the more a shift operated in the world around him. He first thought that all this killing would make him a god, an indestructible being.
On the contrary, death made him more human than human. The shift left him unchanged, but took place around him. After losing count of how many people he killed, Walter started to understand death as being mechanical. Not unlike automobile, he was taking the spark out of humans, pulling the plug. The direct result of this being ghosts. Lots of them, all the time, everywhere. In his sleep, in the shower, in the street. The only way he found to fight ghosts was to lock himself in his solitude and kill some more.
Like always when he entered a target location, Walter was ready to leave his life over there. What good was living anyway if you were constantly surrounded by the wasteland you created? The place was poorly lit, but intended to be this way. Only a few spots of light were hanging from the ceiling, giving the surrounding brick walls a look that felt almost warm. Seeing the dangling spots reminded Walter the building he grew up in. The rusty lamp posts in the street he looked at by the window of his room before falling asleep. One of the only warm feelings of his boyhood. The lone light fading into the thickness of sleep every night, over and over again. That lone light that never stopped burning.
Walter had never seen anything like this. Tubes of glass, with bodies floating in a fluid too thick to be water. Something that looked more like oil or syrup. The steady sound of a generator nullified any possible chances to hear any oncoming attackers. That’s why Walter couldn’t really focus on one of the bodies inside because having reached a corner where he couldn’t get blindsided.
This whole setup looked improvised and rushed in. There were the coffins, some electronic/medical equipment and a coffee machine plugged in and put on the floor. Crazy catwalks that climbed in all directions looked a lot older than the curious installations he found out. Walter has never seen something like that, except maybe in a movie. He twirled for a little while in between the coffins before his attention was grabbed by a single name: Frank Penner.
He had seen it before in his case file. The list of clients of Dr. Murat Aksoy included a man named Frank Penner. Walter closed in on the coffin and pressed his forehead against the glass. Through the thick and murky substance, one could identify Frank Penner from the pictures in the case file. His head was shaved, his mustache had also been shaved, but that was him, that was the man. Frank Penner was apparently on life support, floating in a sort of amniotic liquid, waiting for a second birth or something.
“He had a disease that destroyed his central nervous system.”
Walter raised his head. Murat Aksoy was pointing the same old Walther PPK at him. He wasn’t scary though. His hand had a tiny but noticeable shake from the tension of holding the gun too tight. His breathing was poorly controlled and his own nervous system looked on the verge of overload. Murat Aksoy wasn’t used to wield firearms, his report talked about it. Not as loud as his wielding posture, though Walter for himself. He had long abandoned the idea that his life was worth anytime, more than ever worth keeping, but his absence of fear relied not only on this. There was a very good chance that at this distance, Murat Aksoy would miss him and pierce the coffin of one of these clients he strived to keep so bad.
“Lou Gehrig’s disease, is that right Doc?”
Murat Aksoy nodded and added: “Yes, I see that you’re really well informed sir. Now how about you have the courtesy of telling me who you are before I kill you. That would make my subsequent work so much easier.”
“Now now doc, I don’t think it’s very nice of you. I come here to keep you company in the loneliness of your research and you want to end me without telling me what’s going on? Come on doc, you have me cornered, just tell me what’s going on before you press the trigger.”
“You’re trying to buy some time” said Aksoy, visibly nervous.
“I’m not. I’m not with Mason anymore, you can rest assured. I almost bled him like a pig the other day. If it can help you feel good, I don’t think he’s going to stay alive for long. He seems to have a personal beef with you and he used way too much people to reach out to you. Me included.”
For only answer, Aksoy armed his weapon, getting ready to shoot. Walter’s heartbeat got a little faster, but he knew pertinently that he showed no signs of nervousness. Physical displays of any emotion but anger had been suppressed a long time ago. They served no practical purpose so Walter let them fly away from him. Like all the unimportant stuff.
“Come on doc. What’s going on with the creepy glass coffins? You got me curious.”
“Tell me who you are first and maybe I will tell you a thing or two before giving you your final rest.”
“Can I sign up for your sci-fi program of biology?”
“What do you mean?”
“I want you to put me in one of these things.”
“You don’t even know what I do with them. You don’t even know if these people are alive at all.”
“You’re right, but I’m dying to know.”
“Ready to know at the expense of your own life?”
“You bet.”
“Come” Aksoy said, waving his gun to what looked like a security control room to Walter.
Walter put his hands up and calmly walked in the security booth. This was a security booth. There was a table and counter. The only two things on there were hospital robes and sterile razors.
“Sit” said Aksoy.
Walter complied and looked at Aksoy in the eyes. The distance in between them had diminished and the hit percentage of Aksoy’s PPK went through the roof. Walter had one chance out of ten to duck and survive a potential gun shot. He was sure that the demented doctor would fire, the question was when. Walter felt the need to know though; he felt the need to know if Aksoy was somehow linked to Patterson which he though had been ended in the desert near Tikrit two and a half years before.
Without any warning, Aksoy shot him in the chest. Many times.
“Sorry, but you’re of no use to me alive” he said, laconically.
Most of the shots had been blocked the bulletproof vest he hadn’t taken off for the last two days, but one had broke a rib and did some internal damage. Walter closed his eyes and tried to manage the organic pain. Aksoy knelt down next to him and ripped his morphine patch from Walter’s tight.
“I know you’re wearing all kinds of body armor. Now that you’re worried about pain, I make you overdose.”
Aksoy shot the first syringe and the effect was immediate. Walter felt his arms get heavier and his mind going to sleep. He didn’t feel any other syringe banging against his tight. He saw Aksoy look away and leave the room in a hurry. There was a strange new light in the underground laboratory. A blinding flash replaced the intimate swinging spot. Voices, they moved around the room along with gunshots and rapid fire. Somebody had crashed the place.
Indeed a dumpster truck had crashed the rear wall of the laboratory. On the side of it was written: Lower D.C Waste Management. The monopoly of waste management business had been held by the same person for so long that even Murat Aksoy knew who it was. With no surprise, he saw Salvatore D’Ambrosio step down from the driver seat and spray a line of bullets across the room. Aksoy ducked in between two coffins to realize nothing had been touched yet.
Walter had made inhuman efforts to crawl to the door to see who crashed the party and saw an unexpected guess step down from the passenger seat, as well armed at the driver:
“Penske, you son of a bitch”.
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