Mykal's Deadly Perambulation Read online

  Title Page

  TOWBAR’S WORLD—BOOK 3

  MYKAL’S DEADLY PERAMBULATION

  By Dave Hazel

  Text copyright © 2014 David F Hazel

  All Rights Reserved, including reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE:

  Mykal’s Deadly Perambulation

  is NOT a stand-alone book,

  you must read Mykal’s Return to Towbar’s World Book 2

  but it is highly recommended to also read Book 1 first –

  37 Days In A Strange World

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN 12/13/1983

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN 12/14/1983

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN 12/15/1983

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN 12/16/1983

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 12/17/1983

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 12/18/1983

  CHAPTER NINETEEN 12/19/1983

  CHAPTER TWENTY 12/20/1983

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 12/21/1983

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 12/28/1983

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 12/29/1983

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 12/30/1983

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 12/31/1983

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN 12/13/1983

  1. Tuesday, December 13th 1983

  0710 hours, Unknown location, Other side of Towbar’s world

  “Hey Myk, come on, get up,” Boris shook him gently. “Come on, we’re gonna be leaving shortly.”

  “Yeah I’m up,” he gave a groggy reply and rubbed his face, but his eyes didn’t want to open. During the course of the night he rolled over onto a rock and now his back ached. He felt exhausted. His two stomach wounds, though nearly healed, still hurt with a deep throbbing ache.

  “Come on man, get your lazy ass up,” Jake chided playfully. “I’ve been up for the past couple of hours pulling guard duty.”

  “Whatta you so happy about?” Mykal asked and stretched to loosen some of his stiff muscles. “Did someone find a way back to the Pass?”

  “I wish, but that knife you gave me is amazing,” Jake whispered and pulled the weapon out to show it while he discussed it. “If I throw it or stab with it, it will continually penetrate what I stab. If I throw it and I miss my target it comes back to my hand just like you would think a boomerang should. It can also--”

  “Hey Mykal, you need to come here,” Staff Sergeant Fuller interrupted their discussion. Fuller’s facial expression looked like one of surprised heartbreak and sorrow. “Captain Diaz needs you right away,” the Marine added and turn to run back from where he came.

  “I wonder what the hell it is now,” Mykal groaned as he grabbed his rifle and followed Fuller. “Every time these guys come and get me it’s never good,” he joked to Jake and Boris who trotted along with him. He regretted being flippant when he saw a circle of men Fuller led him to.

  Fuller brought them to a gathering of all the men. All the faces were downcast and filled with utmost sorrow. Mykal’s heart sank when he entered the circle to see both Diaz and Finley kneeling beside Gunnery Sergeant Ratner who tried to find a pulse in Lieutenant Kim’s wrist. The Korean’s eyes were slightly open and the flesh of his neck and part of his face had been blackened from within. Lieutenant Kim was deceased.

  “Ah damn, what happened?” Mykal asked and felt like he had been run over by a truck. He had grown fond of the Korean Special Forces officer. “Was he killed in his sleep? Is everyone else alright?”

  “I’m not sure how he died,” Finley looked up from his kneeling position. “He’s been dead for a couple of hours.”

  “Some think it was the poison from the spider bite he received,” Captain Diaz offered while holding his forehead. Diaz looked emotionally crushed.

  “The rest of the men are fine,” Gunnery Sergeant Ratner answered Mykal. “Even the others who suffered spider bites.”

  “Why did Kim die then?” It saddened Mykal to look down at the lifeless form of Lieutenant Kim. “He seemed to be handling the spider bite better than all the others.”

  “Myk, we’re thinking that could be why he died,” Ratner replied. “I’m not a doctor, but Lieutenant Kim was the only one of them not to vomit. Their vomiting must have purged the toxins from their systems. That’s just a theory,” he paused and then corrected his statement. “Hell Myk, to be honest, it’s only a wild ass guess,” Ratner said and shrugged.

  “Aw Man, I really liked him,” Mykal mourned. “He was a good officer and a good man.”

  “Yeah, he was great with the Silent Killers,” Boris added.

  “Wow, that seems like so long ago,” Mykal whispered about the raid on the Soso encampment that was only a week ago. Mykal suddenly changed his attitude so the men wouldn’t see him as a sentimental weakling. “Take whatever we need from him and let’s go,” Mykal said to Diaz. He tried to come across as cold and indifferent by Kim’s death. Deep inside Mykal felt broken and hurt. Kim wasn’t as close to him as Boris or Jake, but he liked the man and knew he would miss the Korean.

  Mykal stopped at the two remaining Koreans in the group. Lee-Lon sat on the ground and tears rolled down his cheeks. Bak Kwon stood beside Lee-Lon for support but he looked near tears also. Mykal gave a sympathetic pat on Lee-Lon’s shoulder. He gave a sad smile to Bak Kwon and nodded. He wanted to say something to the man, but was truly at a loss for words. He turned and walked away.

  “We gotta get the hell outta this forest,” Mykal moaned to both Boris and Jake. “This place is getting to me. It seems like every time we turn around we’re losing someone. It’s just a matter of time before we’re all dead. This is our fifth day being lost on this side of Towbar’s world and it’s been a disaster. I don’t wanna lose anyone else.”

  “Myk, I know you’re putting some of the blame on yourself just like Captain Diaz is, but don’t,” Jake suggested. “These are things that are way beyond your control. Don’t torture yourself like that because you’re not going to bring anyone back and you’ll only make things worse if you blame yourself.”

  “I agree.” Boris nodded with conviction. “If you try to be too protective and try to over think everything you may put people in a worse situation.”

  “Believe me Myk if you were screwing up, I’d tell you.” Jake winked and smiled to encourage him. “If you start screwing up I’ll be the first to point it out. I’m here for you, but we gotta get home safe and sound so don’t beat yourself up with guilt. It’s not your fault that he got bit by a giant spider and died because of the venom.”

  “You don’t know how much I appreciate the two of you. It just seems like this journey is never going to end,” Mykal said while looking deeper into the forest. His view was blocked by trees, and brush, and greenery of all kinds. The colorful plant life lost its vibrancy. The sound of the many different birds chirping in the trees all around them might as well be a death call.

  Mykal stood and looked ahead. He wondered what horrors, what disasters, what heartbreaks would befall them as they continued on their deadly perambulation to find Zizmon-Tarl. Could they find him? Would they survive long enough to find him? If they found him, would they be able to stand against Zizmon-Tarl? If it was Zizmon-Tarl who threatened them in the green fog five days ago, could they be any match for him after all they endured thus far?

  Mykal continued to look into the distance and wondered if he would ever make it back to the Pass? More importantly, would he ever make it back home? How he missed Pam and the boys. He wished his last hug and kiss would have been longer. He wished he would have spent more time with them when he was home. ‘Damn, am I even gonna be alive tomorrow?’ he wondered while he stared into the trees.

  2.

  The
column was halted and everyone instinctively dropped to one knee and all the men faced a different direction so as not to be caught off guard. Down the line of men the command was whispered for Mykal to join Lieutenant Finley and Captain Diaz at the front of the line.

  “What have you got?” Mykal asked when he joined them. The hand full of men was staring at something on the ground. “Oh shit,” Mykal gasped. “I’ve seen those but the ones I saw back home were a hundred times smaller.”

  Mykal was staring at the shed skin of a giant snake. The piece of skin laid out covered a length of at least fourteen feet. There were several other pieces of dead skin around the area as well. “Damn, how big was that thing?”

  “This is only a part of it. Look Myk,” Boris whispered while two Marines pulled the dead skin up to get an idea of the diameter. “You could fit a car tire inside that thing. Let’s hope that friggin thing isn’t around here. That thing would use us as a snack.”

  “I can’t imagine how big the real thing would be,” Boris whispered. “It kinda makes you wonder if our weapons would even be effective against such a damn monster.”

  “Myk, you gotta come see this,” Sergeant Freeman whispered after touching his shoulder. “Come here Sir.”

  “What do you have Freeman?” Finley whispered when they all looked at him.

  “Remains I guess Sir,” Freeman whispered and pulled away knowing they would follow him.

  Some fifty to sixty feet away were the skeletal remains of another great beast. Whatever it had been the remains laid on its side. The leg bones were long and thick. At the end of each leg were several curved claws eight and ten inches long. There was no skull present to determine what kind of creature, but the shape of what remained seemed similar to something in the feline family though much larger than any big cat from back in the world.

  “Do you think there would be any more of these things around here?” Jake asked.

  “I sure as hell hope not,” Boris scoffed. “Why the hell does everything here have to be gigantic? Do you think these were natural creatures or do you think they were other bizarre creations of that Zizmon-Tarl dude?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” Mykal whispered.

  “But it really doesn’t matter,” Captain Diaz said while scanning the ground for any more clues. “We just don’t need to encounter anything like this. Let’s make sure all the men are on a heightened alert for such strange creatures. As a matter of fact,” he turned to Finley while he spoke. “Let’s tighten up our formation a little.”

  “Yes Sir, I agree with you,” Finley replied while looking all around them for potential threats.

  “If either one of these things pounced on one of the men it would kill him before we had a chance to do anything to rescue them,” Mykal whispered.

  They moved a little faster but remained on high alert for any gigantic creature that could become a potential threat and may want to use them as a meal. They traveled into an area of the forest where the trees seemed to be more dense and closer together. It felt similar to an area they trekked through the day before, after the attack of the giant spiders. Whereas the area yesterday was open and the trees were thinned out, this patch of the forest was tightly packed together.

  The similarity was the sense of heaviness and gloom. A true sense of dread engulfed them all, even the joy filled Christian Captain Diaz sensed the heaviness and couldn’t fight the depressing mood that seemed to swallow them up. The trees and vegetation seemed to have lost all the color and vibrancy they had been experiencing. The colors were there but everything seemed to feel gray and depressing.

  “Could there really be something in the air that’s causing this heavy depressing feeling we all seem to feel?” Boris asked Mykal and Jake.

  “I don’t know, but I really feel bummed out and I don’t know why,” Mykal said.

  “I feel it too,” Jake said and for the first time Jake looked sad and looked like he was on the verge of tears.

  “I believe it is something of a spiritual nature,” Captain Diaz replied to their discussion. “I believe there is something here that is ungodly in nature and may even have demonic powers. It is not of the natural realm,” he said and then silently mumbled.

  Mykal believed Diaz was praying. Mykal wasn’t sure what was happening but he felt like something was going to go wrong. If Diaz was praying, he didn’t want to interrupt him, but he wanted to know how to combat such an emotional or ‘spiritual’ foe.

  They continued their silent trek, ever so vigilant. They stepped into an area where they could see and feel and smell everything was different. They crossed an invisible line and suddenly it was like they went from dark to light, oppressive and onerous to freedom and liberty. The colors of the vegetation were bright and lively once again.

  “Man, what a friggin difference,” Mykal said and shook his head. “That’s twice we went through something like that. Whatever that was, it was freaky. I mean deep down inside freaky,”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Boris said. “I don’t wanna know what the hell that was, but I wanna know what it was. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean,” Jake chuckled. “But I don’t wanna know what that was. I’m too old to be screwing around with that heebie jeebie, hokus pokus supernatural shit.”

  “Hey Captain Diaz, come here Sir and look at this,” a Marine called out and waved him to his location. “This is really odd looking.”

  Mykal followed Diaz and Finley. Jake and Boris went with him and William followed behind them.

  “What have you got Winnie?” Diaz whispered while kneeling down beside Corporal Winfield.

  “I don’t know what it is Sir, but I don’t trust it,” Winnie said and pointed around the tree he knelt beside. “Take a look Sir.”

  They all looked to see four piles of what appeared to be very large shark teeth. “What the friggin hell is that?” Mykal asked. The four piles of extremely large teeth formed a square. Each point of the square held a small pile of twenty to thirty teeth. Each tooth looked to be bigger than a man’s hand and ended in a deadly point. The square shaped formed by the four corners was large enough for two grown men to stand inside. Some of the men started to mumble softly. Sergeant Freeman silenced everyone quietly.

  “Shhhhh,” the Green Beret Sergeant whispered and held up his hand. Sergeant Freeman spent most of the time in the point position and he became used to remaining observant to their surroundings. “Sir, let me have your attention,” he whispered to the top three leaders Mykal, Captain Diaz and Lieutenant Finley. “I don’t know what that is, but if you will look there is a vine, not a rope, but a vine that goes into the ground about five or six feet from each one of those settings of teeth. See that?” He pointed. “Three of them, the vine goes right up along the tree so that you would never really notice it. I caught sight of it cuz the fourth one goes from the ground on an angle to the tree. Do you see that?”

  “Oh wow, great eye Freeman,” Finley said once he caught sight of the vine that had been deliberately placed there. “Obviously, it has to be a trap of some sort. But why teeth? Those are either shark teeth, because that is what they look like. Or it is some other strange animal or creature or freak of nature monster that we haven’t encountered yet.”

  “But, if it’s a trap, a trap for who or what?” Gunnery Sergeant Ratner asked in hushed tones while he scanned the area.

  “And who or what set the damn trap?” Mykal whispered. The tone of his voice made it clear he was getting frustrated by being on edge for so long. “I wanna get the hell outta this damn forest.”

  “Myk, this really is bizarre,” Boris said. “It’s bad enough that it’s some kind of trap, but why the hell would someone or something use such big ass teeth to form a box or a circle?”

  “This is putting me on the edge of having a nervous breakdown,” William admitted. He obviously felt relieved that he never got banished from the group for his antics the previous few days.

  “I’d almost rather deal
with those giant spiders again,” Jake joked and everyone looked at him like he had lost his mind. “At least we saw what we were up against and knew what to expect.”

  “So many unanswered questions,” Mykal whispered. “Who or what would put that here and why? We’re in the friggin middle of nowhere. I’m getting to feel like William,” he chuckled. “This is putting me on edge. I’d rather they just jump out and attack so we can see what the hell we’re dealing with. I mean, that is so odd that there isn’t any bait in the square. It’s just teeth. What the hell does that mean?”

  “Listen up men,” Diaz whispered and waved his hand to get their attention. “We’re going to move on. I know I don’t need to tell you to keep your eyes open and watch for anything that doesn’t look right.”

  “For anything that doesn’t look right Sir?” Jake whispered with a sarcastic laugh. “There’s nothing that looks right around here.”

  “Point taken,” Diaz said with a nod. “The possibility does exist that we may have an enemy watching us right now. So be careful and pass it on to the men behind you who couldn’t hear me.”

  3.

  The group traveled in silence for hours and only stopped to eat lunch. The tension eased when they didn’t encounter any strange creatures or odd people who may have set the trap they discovered. They were getting low on rations and knew living off the land would become a reality soon. Mykal didn’t concern himself about their lack of food. He knew many of the men had been trained in depth for such situations. His chief fears and concerns were about getting the men back home to the real world as impossible as that seemed. His gut feeling led him to believe something didn’t seem right. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “Hey, how are you doing Myk?” Boris whispered.

  “I’m fine, how about you?”

  “I’m still hurting from that magic knife stabbing me,” Boris answered and they started to laugh together. “If I ever try to explain that to anyone they’d think I’m nuts. But after all the weird shit we came across today, I’ll gladly deal with the pain than go through anymore of the wacko stuff.”