After Image (Tony Downs Book 2) Read online

  What the fuck?

  What looked like a head slowly rose over the top of the first bush. Tony's mouth dropped open. It was nearly one-hundred yards away, but he could tell what it was—a person dressed in all black.

  Poachers?

  The light was growing but still too slowly for him to be able to see through his scope. Tony sat still, the rifle in his hands growing heavier. He was suddenly afraid to move as black blanket of fear filled his mind.

  Tony sipped another breath of air, closed his eyes, and tried to reach out. Nothing. Blankness. As if there was nothing there. When he opened his eyes, he saw five more heads above the other bushes. The light was gaining on the darkness. And soon, they would be able to see him, if they couldn't already. He wanted to ask them what the fuck they thought they were doing on the old man's land. He wanted to jump up and wave at them, assure himself they weren't the boogeyman. But the darkness in his mind, the fearful grip of childhood nightmares told him not to. Something was very fucking wrong.

  The men's heads all disappeared below the bushes. The line of vegetation shivered as the black-clad men tried to make their way quietly forward. Tony began to sweat. The cold wind flared up then, but he felt suffocated in all his gear. He stifled the urge to unzip his coat—they would hear that for sure. Instead, he slowly raised the rifle to place it at his shoulder and stopped. The rifle felt heavier, blocky. He spared a glance down and nearly shrieked.

  The 7mm browning rifle was something else now. The long barrel had grown fat, black, and now tapered to a vertical triangle from which a thin metallic tube protruded. The stock was no longer wood, but metal. A clip jutted downward from in front of the trigger housing. Tony blinked at the M-16 in his hands.

  Tony stared down at the black assault rifle. A slew of liquid syllables came from the brush line and he looked up. The black-pajama clad men were standing from their position behind the bushes. Tony couldn't believe what he was seeing. Eight men stood with their rifles raised toward him. The string of syllables came again from the man in the center of the group and he gestured with his rifle toward the blind.

  Confused, Tony said nothing and dared not move. The feeder went off again spilling more corn and feed to the ground. The men yelped as one and thunder filled the air. The Kalashnikov rifles erupted in bright flashes of light. The feeder danced and jerked on its tripod legs as bullets raked across it.

  The feeder tilted to one side and then smashed into the ground. The rifles stopped firing and he watched the men clear their clips and slam fresh ones home. Tony's ears whistled with the aftermath of the sonic assault. The man in the center of the group gestured toward Tony again with his rifle. Tony wasn't confused now. His body shivered with fear.

  The psychic sense he'd relied on for so long was blind. It was as if these men didn't exist, and yet their weapons…

  Tony slid from his chair with the rifle still cradled in his hands. Another yell of foreign speech came from below as he scrambled toward the hidden ladder, remembering to grab his pack as he slung the unfamiliar M16 and headed down. Bullets slammed into the side of the deer blind as he quickened his pace down the ladder.

  "Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit!" he yelled over the fire of the bullets. He hit the ground and ran.

  He knew they couldn't see him among the heavy brush and dense trees that covered the back of the blind. But there was a wide empty space near the jeep trail he'd have to cross. He hoped he was fast enough.

  The slung rifle's butt banged him in the hip as he ran and the heavy pack thumped against his back. The yellowed and scraggly weeds and field brush rubbed against his boots. Fallen branches cracked under his feet. Another copse of pecan trees was ahead. Their trunks were large enough to provide some cover. Twenty yards. Fifteen yards. Ten yards. As he ran beneath their branches, he found the nearest large trunk and ducked behind it.

  The pack dug into his back as he squatted and rested against the tree. Hoarse shouts in an alien language were getting closer.

  "This is not fucking happening," he muttered. "Not happening." A surge of panic froze him.

  You always have to remember that fear is not there to control you, boy, his father had once said. Fear is there to warn you. Nothing more.

  The panic slowly let go, but the fluttering in his stomach was still there. Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Another shout. Still closer. Tony unslung the rifle, a mottled piece of bark shook off the tree and landed on his shoulder. The noise of the men behind him stopped.

  Shit, Tony thought.

  He peered around the tree and into the jeep trail behind him. Only two of them were visible; they walked toward him with silent, careful steps. Tony swung his head back around behind the tree and panted. The panic monster was on the verge of returning.

  If you listen to the monster, he thought, you're going to die here and now.

  Tony took a deep breath, stepped out from behind the tree and pulled the trigger. The two men in the trail stopped, startled by his appearance and the weapon in his hands. Nothing had happened. The weapon didn't fire.

  "FUCK!" Tony yelled.

  The two men raised their AKs and began to fire. Tony leaped back behind the tree as bullets tore up the dead frozen ground. He examined the rifle, looking for the safety. He finally found the switch, swung it back and forth experimentally. He clicked the selector from "SAFE" to "AUTO." Tony took three quick breaths, and then leaped out as the firing stopped. The two men were spread further apart, each at an angle to him. Tony sighted on the closest to the tree and pulled the trigger again.

  The butt smashed again and again into his shoulder as the rifle roared. Bullets ripped up the ground in front of the nearest pajama-clad man. A mist of red filled the air as one of the bullets struck the man's chest. The Asian man fell backwards and Tony leapt back to the safety of the tree just as the other AK started up.

  Bits of bark and sawdust flew into his air and face as bullets raked the trunk. Tony put his back against the tree. The firing stopped.

  In the sudden silence, the man he'd shot moaned and whispered in a foreign tongue. Tony held his breath and tried to hear through the ringing in his ears. The sharp crackle of shoes on leaves…

  He jumped to the left, rifle at hip level. The remainder of the clip whipped from the barrel. The other soldier returned fire, his own bullets flying past Tony's head, but Tony was at the right height and angle. The man shivered as the bullets tore into his black clothes and spotted them with red. The man fell backwards, AK-47 dropping from dead hands. The M16 clicked on empty as Tony fell to the ground.

  His face stung. Tony put a hand absently to his cheek. It came away red with blood. The soldier stared upwards into the sky, face slack. A bullet ricocheted off the tree. Tony looked from the man to the jeep trail behind. More forms were moving toward him through the brush. Tony rolled over and started running. Another bullet smacked into the brush beside him and he began weaving, trying to make himself a more difficult target.

  He lost track of time as he ran, oblivious to the stinging in his cheek and the fire in his lungs. He didn't stop until he was deep in the forest.

  When his body could finally run no more, Tony slowed. His feet burned, back sore, and face on fire with pain. He knelt down next to a tree and slowly turned around. Nothing but trees. The sun was out now, but barely visible through the dense canopy. He leaned back against the trunk and panted. His entire body was spent.

  Rest now, he thought. Rest.

  Tony closed his eyes for a moment, hands still cradling the M16.

  Tony was studying the night his father finished Paco's Story. He lay prone on the floor, head resting on his hands, elbows tented against the creme-colored carpet, books spread before him. Joy Division's "I Remember Nothing" played from the speakers. He sang along as he took notes for his 20th Century World History class. His mind began to hum with a low vibration. Tony looked up from the book, the twirling pen in his hand suddenly stilled.

  A young man wearing fatigues,
helmet askew, appeared before him. The left side of the man's face was covered in crimson, the flesh burned and blackened. Tony's nose filled with the scent of blood and cooking meat. Vacant eyes stared from beneath the helmet. The man's mouth opened wide-mouthed as if to scream. Tony shook his head and the image vanished.

  For a moment, Tony stared at the spot where the man had been. Shaking, he rose from the floor. His nerves were on fire now. The sound of boots crushing leaves echoed around the room. Tony swung his head around, looking for the sound's origin. He was alone in the room.

  The hum was louder now, buzzing in his skull. Tony opened the bedroom door, his hands shaking, and peered out into the hallway. The noise in his mind made static spots appear in his peripheral vision. Tony shook his head as if to clear it. The darkened hallway melted into soldier silhouettes running against the backdrop of a darkened jungle, a full moon visible through a break in the foliage. He shook his head again and the dimly lit hallway returned.

  Every nerve in his body tingled as adrenaline rushed through his bloodstream. Fighting his fear, Tony stepped out into the hall. The humming was louder now, coming from the study, the last room down the hallway. Tony cautiously stepped forward, fighting the impulse to cradle his aching, noise-filled head in his hands, knowing it would do no good. Struggling with the pain searing into his skull, he forced one foot forward, the other to follow. With each step the buzzing rose in volume. His vision filled with static as he ventured deeper down the hallway.

  A staccato symphony of automatic rifles firing rose above the hum. Bright flashes of gunfire and explosions rocked his vision through the static. The roar of a helicopter overhead, leaves shaking and twisting beneath the rotor-wash, rang in his ears. With a shake of his head, the visions and sounds disappeared, leaving only the static and the hum in their wake.

  Tony felt his way into the room. Through the lines and spots of white noise, he saw a figure sitting in the leather chair.

  "Dad?" Tony croaked. The pain was getting unbearable now. He knew he'd pass out unless it stopped. "Dad?" he said again.

  The figure in the chair did not move. A pair of orange almond eyes stared at him from beside his father's chair. Another pair joined it. The eyes blinked. Tony's flesh crawled. "Not real," he said to himself. "Not real." The eyes disappeared.

  Even through his spotted vision, he could see his father's vacant faraway stare, the mouth slightly open in the beginnings of a scream. Tony steeled himself, closed his eyes, and reached toward his father with mental hands.

  A savage blow from a screaming, pained consciousness met him. His father's mind batted away Tony's telepathic reach. For a moment, his mind filled with streams of images: soldiers in bloodstained fatigues, dead bodies covered in flies, human gore spread across a jungle floor.

  "Dad, stop!" he yelled aloud and pushed again. His father's mind flinched, the desperation and panic subsiding a little.

  "Tony?" a voice said in reply. It was the cry of a small child, lost and terrified. "Tony?"

  The very sound hurt Tony's heart. He'd never heard his father sound so helpless, so alone.

  "I'm here," Tony said aloud. The static began to fade from his vision and the hum was receding. "You're okay," Tony said. He made his way from the door and knelt next to the leather chair. His father reached for his hand.

  His father's face was lined and scrunched with pain, eyes wild and darting. Is it over?" his father asked aloud.

  "It is, Dad," Tony replied, and stroked his father's hair. "You have to bury the dead, Dad." Tony reached into his father's mind and plucked at the memories, pulling them forward. Just a tug, and then a deep push. The blood, the noise, the fractured bones and blackened faces, the enormous pain and terror, he pushed them all down into his father's subconsciousness. His father's face went slack. Tony wiped a drop of blood from his father's nose. "You sleep now," Tony whispered. His father's breathing evened out from the quick pant and he knew the old man had fallen asleep.

  Tony's head ached with a migraine. He lay down beside the chair. For a moment, he saw a ghostly soldier who looked so much like his father. There were no lines on this young face, no scars. Tony blinked at the vision. The migraine pounded harder in his head and his vision wavered. The image disappeared. Tony closed his eyes and slept.

  Tony awoke with a start. He felt extremely cold and every extremity ached. Bark and leaves crowned his hair. A stiff breeze blew through the treetops, sending dead leaves floating on the air. Acorns and pine cones dropped to the leaf strewn ground. Each organic raindrop pattered against the dead forest floor. Tony looked up through the tree canopy. It was late. He had slept a long time. The sun already seemed to be fleeing the winter day.

  He looked down at the rifle in his hands. Still black. Still boxy. Still an M-16. Tony blinked and rubbed at his eyes. His ears burned with the cold. He lay the rifle at his feet and pulled off his pack. Instead of black nylon, the pack was canvas— the kind of pack he'd seen in war movies.

  "The fuck?" he muttered. With a sigh, he undid the ties and pulled it open. Inside, he found no ear muffs. Instead, he found two pair of clean socks, clips of ammunition, and a few MREs. He stared in amazement at the contents and rummaged through them again. He found exactly the same items.

  Tony shook his head. "What the holy blue flying fuck is going on, Dad?" he asked, his usually absent Texas twang now back in his voice. Dad.

  Tony closed his eyes and concentrated on his father's face, the smell of his father's personality, and mentally reached. His awareness passed through deer, through raccoons, through squirrels hiding in tree hollows and field mice burrowed in the ground. He found a hawk nestled on a tree at the canopy’s apex. His mental hands ceased their search and tied themselves to the hawk's avian consciousness.

  He'd never tried this before on a bird. He knew from spending hours with his childhood dog, and with squirrels in various parks, that he could touch animals' minds. He also knew he couldn't speak to them. Many of their thoughts made no sense to him without language and the images were often disorienting. Instead of trying to see into its mind or send messages, he sent an image to the hawk. One of flight. One of field mice scampering through the far northern field.

  The hawk's mind jittered. He felt an alien avian thought slide into his mind like water. It made no sense.

  "Fly," he muttered aloud. The hawk's mind considered the image. He could feel the hawk struggling with the idea of losing its perch to chase prey through the cold wind. "Please?" he said to himself. Nothing happened. "Go fucking eat!" his voice echoed beneath the canopies.

  He must have pushed at the same time because suddenly the hawk was airborne. Tony concentrated hard on the hawk's mind and a vision appeared. It was too sharp, as if he saw through lenses too finely focused for his eyes. His migraine returned.

  "Fly, goddammit."

  The hawk soared above the canopy. Tony felt the cold ripping at its warm feathers, the whoosh as air passed across the hawk's wings. The hawk's head turned quickly, making him nauseous as the movie in his mind constantly swung from one angle to another in its search for prey.

  Through breaks in the treetops, he saw black pajama-clad men creeping through the forest. He felt the hawk considering what to do about them and then relief as the bird continued its flight on course for the northern field. In another moment, a break in the canopy showed black clothed corpses laying on the ground. Splashes of red were strewn through the dead leaves and sunlight glinted off spent shell casings.

  Excitement and fear coursed through him. He pushed an image of the splashes of blood to the bird. He envisioned the hawk following the trail. The animal wavered for a moment and then dropped lower so it skimmed just above the treetops. The hawk's ears rang with the sound of automatic gunfire and a distant explosion. Tony unconsciously stood from the tree, his mind still locked with hawk's.

  Smoke rose in the distance. He heard yelling, the same foreign syllables he'd heard early that morning. A single scream rolled out from beneath
the treetops. It was his father.

  The vision shattered in his mind. Tony opened his eyes, the headache a pulsing bellows between his temples. "Dad," he yelled. Tony began to run.

  Tony figured he'd skirt the land's western edge both for the remnants of the sunlight and to avoid anymore of the...whatever they were. They had to be illusions of some sort, he thought. But how the fuck were they actually blowing shit up and tearing the world apart?

  As he jogged down the low fence-line, he turned the problem over and over in his mind. But the sound of his father's yells were getting closer now, as was the gunfire.

  The yells had deteriorated into hoarse grunts of sound that no longer resembled speech. Tony cradled the rifle between his hands. His ears no longer burned, meaning frostbite had probably already set in. The sound of an M-16 amidst the chorus of AK-47 return fire was getting closer now. Tony bent his knees as he moved forward. The light’s garish glow was barely discernible through the gaps in the western tree-line.

  Flashes lit the east. Tony turned and slowly made his way through the clutter of pines, pecans, and oaks. His father's voice was audible only in the gaps between flaming barrels. Tony saw one of the black pajama'd men creeping toward the center of the clearing. He brought up the rifle and pulled the trigger, but it only clicked. Tony looked down at the weapon.

  "Fuck," he snarled. He struggled with the rifle to let go of the current clip. His fingers finally stumbled over the release.

  He reached for the green belt at his waist and pulled a fresh mag from the pouch. He rammed it home, pulled back the slide, and once again brought up the rifle. The figure was gone now. Tony growled and continued toward the firefight.