The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: The Butcher and the Black Tide, Part 12 of 13

Lucky Ford and his allies have fought against Hellbörg’s cretins and creations, only to find themselves broken and at the mercy of a gold-hungry mercenary. Even under O’Laughlin’s gun, the countdown until they are stranded in Spain continues.

The Butcher and the Black Tide is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 12 of The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: The Butcher and the Black Tide. If you haven’t read Part 1. Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, and Part 11, check them out before reading any further.

Content Warnings: Violence, Gore, Mild Swearing, Drug Use, Tobacco Use, Alcohol Use, Human Trafficking

TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 13, 1943
OUTSIDE LA BATERIA DE LOS ACANTILLADOS
THE SOUTHERN COAST OF SPAIN

“It's not personal,” O’Laughlin said with a chuckle. “Since Florida, it's been a slow year for jobs and a fast year for whiskey. Ye just keep yer arse flat on the dirt while these boys and I take the bird inside.”

“There's nothing left here,” Lucky told him. Emilia hadn't moved on her own since Espada had tossed her.

“There's five ‘undred gold bars that tell me otherwise, boy-o,” he answered, smirking. He hefted a canvas bag high enough in the air for everyone to see and shook it loudly. If rattled and rasped like shifting slate. Every bolsetero who could stand went rigid at the sound

“There's also a sack of smoke in it for any of ye what gives me a ‘and!”

The bolseteros’ twitching increased in intensity at the thought of the sodium-sobrialux crystals.

“Over my dead...“ Lucky started, only to be interrupted by O'Laughlin.

“Please don't make those ye last words, be more creative, lad,” he quipped.

“Either do it or shut up, you loud-mouthed mick!” Bucket demanded.

“Don’t rush the man,” Lucky muttered.

“It'd be a pleasure to make those words ye last, spade,” the Irishman responded. Bucket looked ready to plug O'Laughlin where he stood. Lucky was too, but but the pair of them were unarmed and they weren't in any shape to stop a tumbleweed, much less a murderous mercenary.

O'Laughlin shoved Lucky with his boot, just to discourage him from getting any ideas. Pain shot through Lucky’s chest, so intense that he couldn’t even grasp for his knife. Basil inched toward his face, a low growl rolling like thunder in his throat.

“Ye boys look right wrung out,” O’Laughlin said, “The only thing ye fit to try is me patience.”

O'Laughlin stepped off Lucky and crouched down next to his growling dog, holding out a piece of jerky.

“Watch these lads, Basil,” he said. Basil chomped down the small morsel while glaring at Lucky and Bucket. O'Laughlin turned his back on the officials, confident in his guard dog. Lucky had no doubt that Basil would tear him to shreds before he could make a move.

“Tis a real shame,” O'Laughlin said to himself as he crouched over Emilia, “‘Anding off a fine lass to that mental scab. But a job's a job.”

“You don't have to,” Lucky said again. Basil growled louder. His beady eyes caught sight of Miller, now a ragged pile of pale meat. Lucky sat up so he'd be between the dog and the still official.

“Can't afford a loss here, boy-o,” O'Laughlin said. He flipped Emilia onto her stomach, raising a cloud of ash.

“Sorry it has to be ye, lass, but it's the job,” he told her. He lashed her wrists and ankles while the bolseteros watched and shuddered.

O'Laughlin brushed ash off his hands and knees while he admired his work. Basil's tail suddenly dropped between his legs and he pressed his ears flat to his head. He yelped and darted to his master's side, cowering behind him.

“What is it now, ye bloody babby?” O'Laughlin asked the trembling dog. He looked at Grease's still body and sniffed the rancid air coming off of it. “That old sack of pus can't get you, Bas.”

A deep rumble rose from the ground. Lucky could feel it pulsing through him where he laid on the road. O'Laughlin nearly stumbled trying to stay upright, and Basil ran over and cowered between his legs. Several bolseteros tripped and fell; the mercenaries had enough trouble keeping upright even when the earth wasn't shaking beneath them. Cinders dislodged from where they collected on the rattling tin structures and sandbag walls began tumbling over.

“What in the bloody blazes?” O'Laughlin shouted.

The decrepit towers and walls atop the bunker cracked and crumbled, collapsing as a massive steel scaffold sprouted from beneath them. The structure had to be eighty or a hundred feet tall, nearly disappearing into the rolling cinder clouds. The tremor ceased as the tower locked into place, looming over the burning battleground.

A stubby black plane sat ready at the structure's base, pointed skyward. Its rounded wings stretched no further across than the length from its flattened nose to its tail. Lucky could make out Hellbörg in his tube plugged into the cockpit.

“Damn, never thought I’d see a Ba-249 Orkan here,” Bucket said. “And that’s its launch rail. What the hell is that in the cockpit?”

“This guy’s boss,” Lucky wheezed, pointing at O’Laughlin.

“Quiet, there,” O'Laughlin snapped, waving his gun around. He stared at the weird aircraft, asked Bucket: “What is that thing?”

“You want me to be quiet or to tell you?”

“Don't be smart, boy-o, just share.”

“Ba-249 Orkan. It’s a rocket plane. Was the fastest plane prototype for a while, but it has a nasty habit of exploding on takeoff.”

Flame roared out of the nozzle at the plane's tail, drowning out whatever O'Laughlin had to say about it. The flame intensified intensified into a jet, vomiting out a blinding wall of chemical fire and toxic smoke. Lucky felt the rocket’s heat wash over him.

The roar rose to a deafening howl. Its exhaust boiled through the shattered fortress and down the bunker’s face. Just as the roiling plumes reached Lucky, the plane jumped off the scaffolding and shot into the sky like a bullet.

Lucky squeezed his eyes shut and pressed himself as flat against the dirt as he could go as the hot black fog surged over him. Chemicals stung his nose and skin. The haze was heavy and sticky, and it took a few minutes to for the sea winds to wash it away. When he finally re-opened his eyes, Lucky found O'Laughlin standing over him once again, gun in hand.

“Well, ‘ell,” the Irishman was saying. He watched the trail of the smoke that Hellbörg's plane had left behind, a swiftly dispersing black column that the gray volcanic sky eagerly devoured.

“That's your paycheck disappearing,” Lucky said.

“That no-good rotter,” the Irishman muttered under his breath. He sighed, then aimed at Lucky down his triple barrels. “Ye lads ‘ave cost me a pretty penny this afternoon. I 'ave a reputation, ye know. Can't let people think they can take food out of Bas' bowl, now can I?”

“I thought you didn't do freebies,” Lucky said, inching away from the gun.

“I can make an exception,” O'Laughlin replied.

“I don't think you should,” Bucket told him.

“And why, pray tell, might that be?” O'Laughlin demanded, exasperated.

Bucket answered by pointing to tree line with his good arm, up past the entrance road to a waiting skirmish line made up of scores of men and women. They clutched rifles and machine guns, shotguns and pistols, machetes, hatchets, and butcher knives, all masked against the ash.

The surviving bolseteros, shell-shocked and exhausted, fell back to their knees, throwing their weapons aside again to put their hands back in the air.

“Oh ye ‘eaders are some kind of yellow,” O'Laughlin bedamned the bolseteros, gritting his teeth.

The line of grim militia fighters split open in the middle for a short man in black vestments whose long white beard was caught in the igneous breeze. He clutched a Bible in his gnarled hands.

“Ah, padre!” O'Laughlin shouted to Father Mandario.

“Put down your weapon,” the old priest called back. The militia around him brought their weapons to bear, but Mandario raised a hand and they obediently lowered their firearms. O'Laughlin kept his drilling pointed at the ground.

“How about a compromise, father?” O'Laughlin asked. “Ye bein' a reasonable man, and I bein' a businessman. Besides, twas these lads that did the killin' and kidnappin', all before me time.”

O'Laughlin grinned as he sold out the bolseteros.

Father Mandario ambled down the hill, his line of irregulars two steps behind. They advanced over craters and bodies to herd the bewildered bolseteros into a knot near where O'Laughlin stood with Basil.

“I would listen to any proposal for peace,” Father Mandario said. He was calm and projected loudly, despite being within arm's reach of the armed mercenary.

“Me proposal is this: ye get ye saviors here,” he motioned to Lucky and the officials, “And the Gallo, and the bunker, and these smoke-heads. All I want is me an' Basil to take our leave, with me good friend Espada in tow.”

“A monster such as Espada cannot be allowed to escape justice,” the old priest said.

“That won't be the case, father, swear on me ma.” O'Laughlin removed a bundle of papers from his breast pocket. Father Mandario took one, unfolded it slowly, read through it twice, then refolded it with a sigh.

“I cannot let such a fate befall even him,” he whispered.

“I need some kind of payday ‘ere, father. The gold's gone, but I always 'ave alternatives. Unless ye can scrape me up fifty thousand Reichsmarks, I'll be leavin' with the good captain, either peacefully or across the dead body of every sheep in ye flock.” O'Laughlin's voice did not waver as he made this pledge loud enough for them all to hear. He wanted them all to know that he would kill any one of them without thinking twice.

He continued:

“Sure, ye may get me, but is it worth any of these lives in trade for an animal like ‘im?”

Father Mandario stayed silent for some time. He looked at the fierce faces of his people: farmers, merchants, and timber men forced by desperation to become soldiers.

“There has been enough death here,” he said quietly. “Take him and never return.”

“I appreciate it, father,” the Irishman replied, once again chipper. He leaned down and sliced Emilia’s bonds, letting her arms and legs flop back down. Then he trotted off and disappeared into one of the few undamaged shacks, Basil at his heels.

A moment later an engine coughed to life and O'Laughlin puttered out behind the handlebars of a four-stroke BMW motorcycle. He’d strapped a delighted Basil into the sidecar and had holstered his drilling next ot his knee for a quick-draw. He always kept his dog and his gun close at hand.

The big wolfhound's tongue hung out happily as he looked around from behind a set of oversized driving goggles, a set matching those strapped around O'Laughlin's head. The Irishman had hooked a small trailer to the rear axle of the bike, just big enough for the wounded Espada. The grinning mercenary pulled up next to the fallen captain.

“All right, let's a get a look at ye, ye big bastard,” O'Laughlin mumbled. He pulled the eyeless mask off Espada's face and tossed it aside with a clang.

“Culero...” the wounded captain groaned.

O'Laughlin leaned over and held a piece of paper next to Espada’s face. Underneath the mask, the man was pudgy and balding, over forty years old with an extra ten years of stress and son-of-a-bitchery accumulated under his chin. He opened his eyes and looked at O'Laughlin, then turned to glare at Lucky. His left eye was dark brown, almost black, and filled with malice and bloodshot veins. His right eye was bright sky blue, and was even more unsettling because it lacked an eyelid and had a half-dozen poorly-healed surgical scars radiating outward from it.

O’Laughlin muttered as he wrapped a ratchet strap around Espada’s chest:

“Damn, I knew ye was an ugly git, Armando, but I thought ye mate ‘Ellbörg would take better care of ye war wound than leaving it all arseways.”

Espada wasn't just Hellbörg's enforcer, he was a patient. The Romanian had dug out someone's eyeball and planted it in Espada's maimed face, no doubt after a handful of practice surgeries on kidnapped patients.

O'Laughlin grunted as he dragged the wounded captain in his hundreds of pounds of shattered armor onto the trailer.

“A little ‘elp?” he asked no one in particular. Father Mandario and his militia watched him struggle. He gasped and wheezed: “This rig was supposed to be for me gold.”

With one final effort, O'Laughlin hauled Espada the rest of the way aboard and chained him down. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and straddled the motorcycle. With one last scratch of Basil's ears, he hit the throttle and ascended the hill, slowing to a halt next to the old priest.

“Tis no pallet o' gold bars, but but me an’ Bas will be on down matresses for months,” he said. He dug the sack of sodium-sobrialux crystals out of his saddle bag and jangled it. The bolseteros groaned at the sound. “Ye going to need this if ye be taking these particular prisoners.”

Father Mandario took the sack from him, then gestured at his people. The militia parted, making enough space for the motorcycle to pass.

O'Laughlin adjusted his goggles, then wiggled some clinging ash from his mustache. He looked back over his shoulder at Lucky and said:

“I'll be seeing ye again, boy-o.”

Emilia groaned rolled herself over. She and reached up to touch the bandage on her forehead. Her fingertips came away red.

“And take care of the lass, she's a fine bit o' stuff,” the Irishman added, then he hit the gas and roared off, kicking up a plume of ash and gravel. Mandario's militia fighters watched him go.

“Take it easy,” Lucky whispered to Emilia, gently pushing her arm away from her face. Even that small effort caused pain to erupt in his side.

O’Laughlin’s backfiring motorcycle woke Emilia the rest of the way. She sat up in time to see him disappear into the swirling gray, towing Espada behind him.

“That is Espada. Where is he going?” Emilia croaked, weak and groggy. She tried to push herself off the ground to pursue the motorcycle, but her right arm folded over itself the instant she put weight on it. She cried out then collapsed face-first into the ash. Bucket tried to help her, but she swatted him away.

“Who let him go?” she asked, her eyes darting around trying to find someone to blame. Father Mandario stepped up to take the brunt of her frustration.

“I allowed Mister O'Laughlin to take him,” he told her.

“But he has to pay,” she hissed. She clenched her jaw, fighting back frustrated tears that had begun to mingle with the ash stuck to the congealed blood on her face.

“You may not be the one to collect his debt, but he will pay, I assure you,” Mandario said. He handed her the paper O'Laughlin had given him. She read it quickly, then crumpled it and threw it aside is disgust. It bounced to Lucky's feet. He flattened it out and gave it a once-over.

The photo atop the sheet was of Espada laid out in a hospital bed, a bloody bandage taped over his right eye. Lucky only knew a little German, but between him and Bucket they pieced it together.

“The SS want him bad. Fifty thousand Riechsmarks'll buy the mick a lot of whiskey,” Bucket said.

“Does that say 'deserter?'” Lucky asked, pointing out the word ‘deserteur.’

“Yes, and thief of military secrets,” Bucket replied. “He stole that armor from the krauts in Stalingrad. A bounty this big is a statement: don’t steal from Department Three.”

“Dead or alive,” Lucky said to himself. 'Tot oder lebendig,' the bounty sheet had said.

“The SS puts that on everyone, Luck,” Bucket whispered. “Last I heard, my rear is worth about forty thousand, though that was before I helped blow up a mountain. And you helped with that same mountain, on top of stealing from them. Can’t wait to see what they price your skin at.”

“What?” Lucky stammered.

“Yeah, Dee-Three puts a price of every official, don’t get a big head about it,” Bucket whispered.

“His last days will not be pleasant,” Mandario assured Emilia loudly, shooting a glaring side-eye at the chattering officials.

“This is not how I wanted him to die,” she muttered.

“No, it is not. But your efforts still saved many lives,” Mandario told her. He gestured toward his assembled militia, the once-terrorized townspeople, now standing strong and proud. “Letting the assassin take him prevented more blood from being spilled in this place that has seen so much already.”

He put his wrinkled hand on Emilia's shoulder. She jerked away, ignoring her wounds. The tears perched in the corners of her eyes overflowed and began to tumble down her gray and red cheeks.

“He has to pay,” she said. Her voice trembled. “Hey has to pay. He has to.”

“Señora Rosales, vengeance is but a continuance of a cycle of death. Your bravery, and this victory, is a celebration of life,” the old priest said, but she still looked lost. She had gone silent, and her vibrant green eyes, once bright against the crimson staining her face, had become dull, empty.

Father Mandario appeared to have more to say, but she wasn't willing to hear it yet. Instead, he set to work, rattling off orders to his militia in such rapid-fire Spanish that Lucky couldn't follow a word of it. His forces burst into action.

A dozen of Mandario’s soldiers entered the bunker, weapons at the ready. Lucky doubted that any bolseteros left in there could hope to fight back. Neither a raging gunfight nor a rocket launching off the top of their heads had been enough motivation for them to show any life.

Another group of irregulars rounded up and bound those surrendered bolseteros outside the bunker, careful to restrain them loosely enough that they couldn't hurt themselves when their smoke withdrawal kicked in and their twitching grew more severe. Lucky could already hear pleas for 'fumo' coming from the knot of captured addicts.

A third contingent set upon Lucky, Bucket, Emilia, and Miller with Red Cross bags. They went to work on Emilia, changing the a bandage over her split forehead and splinting her broken arm before wrapping it in a sling.

Lucky'd almost forgotten about the scalpel gouge in his shoulder and the gremlin bites on his shin and chest, but the medics spotted, cleaned, and wrapped them in seconds. They couldn’t do anything about his ribs.

Bucket howled through a mouthful of bloody gauze, spitting pink saliva when they popped his shoulder back in place.

The medics worked quietly and diligently until they got to Miller. What they saw when they removed Lucky's coat from his torso made them recoil in shock, crossing themselves and whispering prayers.

Miller's organs, clammy and bloodless, quivered as the warm wind rasped against them. The torn edges of the wound had already been healed smooth by the lingering regenerative properties of the intrinsic sapient current, but his body temperature was rapidly rising. His back spasmed hard, making his liver jump in the exposed body cavity. He groaned.

“We have to cool him down,” Lucky wheezed. He pushed through the pain and held the medics back before they started stitching up Miller’s insides. As long as they could get him cold and charged up, he'd heal himself, or so Lucky understood. Then he remembered the freezer overflowing with ice down in the bunker.

“Down there, we need ice!” Lucky told them. The two makeshift medics looked at each other in confusion.

“Ice!” Lucky shouted in vain.

“¿Qué?” they asked. Lucky felt a weak hand tug on his sleeve.

“Hielo...” Miller groaned. The medics almost fell over their own boots. Miller tried to say more, but the thin scar membrane that had sealed his perforated lungs tore from the effort, causing both organs to deflate in his open chest. The medics stood frozen, unsure of whether to perform surgery or an exorcism.

“Sí, sí, hielo...” Lucky snapped, breaking the medics out of their daze. His Spanish ran out, reducing him to frantic gestures accompanied by overemphasized pantomime. “Down there, now!”

Between Lucky's antics and Miller's translation, the medics got their meaning and started to run down the hill.

“Wait!” Bucket yelled through his gauze. He pulled the bloody cloth out of his mouth, showing off his knocked-out tooth. “I'll go with 'em, just keep Miller covered.”

He and the medics disappeared into the open bunker doors.

Lucky examined Miller. The effort it took to say that last word was more than enough to knock him the rest of the way out. The first symptom of his temperature rising would be unconsciousness. At least he wouldn't have to be awake for whatever it was that his body would go through next.

Lucky realized with a start that he'd forgotten Grease in the chaos. He laid his shirt back over Miller, and he slowly got to his feet. Each movement, each breath, ached through Lucky's rib, but he shuffled down to where Grease was laying.

He took a knee next to Grease's shoulder. Lucky took a deep breath to focus on anything other than the stabbing ache, then examined his friend.

Grease was alive but out cold. Each breath stretched his wide chest against the staples holding him together. Lucky studied the wounds before trying to wake him. Espada's hydraulic punches had broken Grease's nose, even under the steel plate bolted over his face. Thick blood trickled from under the brim of his helmet and had been stained black by ash. Lucky put his hand on Grease shoulder and nudged him gently.

“Grease,” Lucky said. No response.

“Grease.”

Still nothing. It looked bad. He'd been unconscious for almost fifteen minutes. Even if he wasn't torn up by the Romanian's surgery and drugs, getting knocked out wasn't good for anyone's brain.

Lucky tried again:

“Marco, are you all right?”

Grease groaned like an old barn door.

“Mama?” he asked groggily, finally stirring. He slowly opened his eyes, then saw Lucky kneeling above him. He sat up like he was spring-loaded, nearly bowling Lucky over. “Damn, Ford, don't call me that! Only one person gets to call me that.”

Grease was suddenly self-conscious and looked around frantically to make sure no one else heard him call Lucky 'Mama.' Lucky couldn't help but chuckle. Grease would always be Grease, Lucky didn't know how that surprised him any more.

“What happened to that tin-coated bastard anyway?” Grease asked, looking around for Espada.

“Carted away to a Nazi execution,” Lucky answered.

“I hear they're good at that,” Grease grunted. “Well, he's getting what he's got coming.”

“Sure is,” Lucky said quietly. He was surprised that he was glad that O'Laughlin had taken Espada. He'd come to Spain to put a bullet in Jonesy, but that wasn't what was right any more. Jonesy was sick, he'd been captured, tortured, and cut to pieces before having his head bashed in. Not even a murderer deserved all that. Lucky didn't have the stomach to decide what justice was any more.

“You boys really went to town here,” Grease said as he stood up. He’d once stood halfway-up Lucky’s nose. In his new form, he towered over him. His new mechanical leg creaked when he put weight on it.

“Forgot about that,” he muttered to himself. He looked around like everything he saw from that height was new. The craters, the burning buildings, the flipped trucks, and the dead bolseteros caught his eye. “So who are your new friends?”

“All those folks running around, they’re locals who’ve had enough. The ones that got me here, Miller and Bucket, are part of the Office. They, me now, too, take the fight to anyone who uses alternative sciences to change the war,” Lucky said, trying to explain it like the Colonel had explained it to him.

“Alternative sciences? Like cannibal beast men, ash raining from the sky, and mad doctors?” Grease asked.

“That and more,” Lucky answered.

“Well... shit. How long was I out?” Grease wondered.

“Three days,” Lucky offered. A bone deep tired blossomed in Lucky’s core. “Three long damn days.”

“That’s the understatement of the year, pal,” Grease said. He held his hand out and caught a few ash flakes in his palm. He caught sight of the stitches and staples running all the way down his arm and let the flakes blow away.

“Do you think they can do anything for me?” he asked quietly.

“They're the best at what they do. If anyone can help, it'll be the Office,” Lucky said. He knew the officials would do everything they could to fix Grease, or at least make him better. Lucky'd make sure of it.

“What do we have here?” Grease said. Something in the ash drift caught his eye, ending that line of questions as quickly as he'd hoped it would. There wasn't time to talk when there was interesting toy nearby.

He squatted and picked up Emilia's punt gun, discarded after Bucket had wrecked Espada and dislocated his own shoulder with it. Grease easily brought the ridiculous cannon to his shoulder and held like it was a Daisy BB gun. The thing must have weighed a hundred pounds, but he carried it like it was a Garand.

“Is this a shotgun?” he asked, giddy as a kid with his first firecracker. He examined the huge muzzle-loader, then found a packet of buckshot that hadn't been loaded yet. He stared at it in awe: the thing was the size of a pint glass and held dozens of times the firepower of a regular twelve gauge shell. Even that looked small in his armored hand.

“I hope the Office doesn't have any problems with trophies, because this old boy's coming with me,” he said. He threw the big gun over his shoulder.

“You'd have to ask the owner,” Lucky said, nodding to Emilia. She hadn't moved from where she'd sat up. Grease stopped in his tracks. The punt gun dropped off his shoulder.

“I have never seen such a pretty girl look so sad before,” he observed. He was right. Emilia looked empty, like a popped tire. With Espada and Hellbörg gone, she had stopped functioning. The vengeance she'd dedicated her entire existence to was gone, never to be fulfilled. To her, she'd lost everything. Again.

Father Mandario stood close by her, but said nothing.

“I don't think now's the time,” Lucky said. Grease nodded.

Bucket's shouts cut through from the battery.

“Out of the way! Out of the way, move it!” he shouted, scattering the irregulars who'd gathered to examine the great bunker doors. The medics he'd brought with him followed close, struggling to carry an iron claw-foot tub up the steep road. Ice chips spilled off of it in sheets with every step.

“We need to get this thing up there, now!” Bucket yelled at them. They grunted, but couldn't pick up the pace. An avalanche of ice tumbled into the ash.

“Let me help with that,” Grease said, and clomped over. The medics nearly dropped the tub when they saw an I-soldier charging at them, but Father Mandario raised a hand, calming them. Grease took the tub from them, lifting it easily even with the punt gun in his other hand. Bucket looked on in awed confusion, then saw Lucky.

“Sergeant Bucket Hall, this is...” Lucky started.

“Private Benolli,” Bucket concluded.

“Call me Grease. Good to meet you and all that,” Grease said. He was holding the whole tub under one arm. "Now where do you want this?”

“Up there, follow me,” Bucket said. Lucky limped along with them. Each step pounded into his aching rib. “We'll get Miller on ice, then find some Osteo-Bond for this tooth. Snowman always has a tube of the stuff, unless it got blown away by that limpet, too.”

“You managed to hold on to your tooth?” Lucky asked.

“Not a chance,” Bucket said, grinning and showing off his gap, “Swallowed it. Just got to... recover it and put it through the dishwasher. Then we'll be back in business.”

Lucky tried not to picture what Bucket meant by 'recover.'

“Can that Osteo-Bond stuff do anything for ribs?” Lucky asked, holding his side.

“Absolutely, but I'd wait on Pietrzak to inject it. Don't want to calcify your lungs or anything,” Bucket advised, then stuffed a fresh wad of gauze into the bloody gap in his grin. Lucky agreed with him, he'd rather have be the one injecting him with weird chemicals. They reached where Miller was laid out, still under Lucky's shirt.

“Drop it right here, big rig,” Bucket ordered.

“Sure thing, four eyes,” Grease replied, and set the tub down next to Miller. Lucky could tell those two would get along, they both had their own way of saying things.

“Is that guy okay?” Grease asked, then saw Miller's torn-up, unconscious body splayed out. “He looks how I feel.”

Lucky lifted his shirt off Miller's shredded abdomen, revealing Miller's exposed insides. Under his puffy red stitches and yellow-crusted armor, Grease turned green.

“I hope you don't feel that bad,” Bucket mumbled, pointing at the jiggling innards.

“Ice isn't going to do anything for that,” Grease said, coughing. He gagged, but couldn't take his eyes off the perforated guts. Bucket pointed at Miller's booted feet.

“Lucky, get his feet, I'm useless with this bum arm. And big guy, don't just stand there, take his shoulders,” he said. Grease overcame his nausea and took hold of Miller's shoulders. He took most of the weight, and they delicately lifted Miller's limp body.

“Careful there, don't lose any of his bits,” Bucket said. Grease suppressed a gag at the thought of spilling Miller's cool, pale organs into the ash. They gently laid him in the tub, and Lucky buried him up to his neck in ice before covering the tub with the shirt. Behind his burnt gas mask and cracked lenses, Miller just looked asleep.

“Don't worry, Lucky,” Bucket said, clapping him on his shoulder. A lighting bolt of pain shot down to Lucky's busted rib. He winced, but Bucket didn't notice, he just kept talking: “I've seen Miller put himself back together after some nasty stuff. Just keep him cold, he'll be on his feet in no time once we get him back aboard the George.”

“Good,” Lucky said quietly. Bucket smiled, then squinted his eyes small as pinholes to examine Grease.

“Hey, big guy,” he said, “Let me get a look at you. You struck gold getting mixed up with Ford here after this mess. The people we know, you're going to feel right at home.”

“Yeah,” Grease said, then did a runway spin. “They should call me 'Lucky,' too.”

Lucky smiled as best he could, then wandered away to survey the battlefield while Bucket yammered on and checked out Grease's armor and hydraulic peg leg with a mechanic’s curiosity.

Around Lucky, dozens of bolseteros laid dead. There were dozens more laying maimed in the battery, whimpering for their smoke. The Romanian was gone, but so were the hundreds of people he'd kidnapped. And he'd live to do it all again. Grease was changed forever, and so was Emilia.

Lucky heard a pair of muffled engines somewhere out in the gray.

“Hey, Grease!” Lucky shouted, surprised and proud that he'd heard something before Grease and his notoriously sharp ears had. Lucky pointed up in the air. What he'd heard was the sound-suppressed engines of The Express.

The Office had arrived.

The modified C-47 Skytrain shot through the hanging ash fog to buzz the cratered hill from the east, flying close to ground-level over the battery. The Express flew passed so low overhead that Lucky could see the Eagle, Eye, and Sword painted on her wings. Lucky even thought he spotted a shock of blonde hair in the cockpit window, the Angel looking down for him.

The plane's jump door was open and Edgard Neff hung out up to his waist. Even out in the wind at a hundred miles an hour, he clenched a cigarette in his teeth and wore his mirrored sunglasses. He held his anti-tank rifle to his shoulder and scanned the battlefield through its sniper scope.

The plane passed over, then cut into a sharp bank to turn around and fly back overhead again. Lucky waved at them and jumped, though he immediately regretted it after feeling the hard ground through his busted rib.

“Bucket!” Lucky yelled, “Look!”

Bucket glanced over at Lucky and his jaw dropped open. He was staring over Lucky's shoulder, rather than at the airplane above his head. Grease jumped to his feet, and the militia irregulars all brought their weapons to their shoulders and took aim at Lucky. The bolseteros writhed on the ground, too weary to even get up and run from what they saw. Instead they twitched and babbled while staring at him. Emilia snapped out of her comatose state and stood with a flare gun in hand. The look on her face drained every drop of relief from Lucky's aching bones.

Lucky swallowed the lump in his throat, but was in the air before he could turn around.

Two enormous arms covered in dried blood, stretched skin, crusted armor, black stitches, and steel staples wrapped around his chest, under his arms, and began squeezing hard.

Lucky's cracked rib broke the rest of the way, and it was immediately joined in its agony by two of its brothers.

Pop.

Pop.

Stars burst in his vision, then everything flashed red and began fading to black. It took everything Lucky had to look over his shoulder and see the thing trying to crush him to death.

Jonesy's shattered face hovered over Lucky's left shoulder, wheezing stinking breath onto his cheek. Lucky’s scalpel wound tore open further, spilling fresh blood onto his stained undershirt.

“I know, Ford,” Jonesy gasped. Dry blood flaked off his mashed-in face as he struggled to speak. Grease had dented in his helmet a good eight inches, smashing Jonesy's skull and pulping the whole right half of his face. The ruined helmet was the only thing holding whatever was left of his brain inside his pulverized head.

“I knew all along, but you made them think I was crazy,” Jonesy gasped.

Blood gargled in his throat with each breath. He tried his best to laugh but it sounded like he was strangling himself with the effort. His pulped face slid further down his half-liquified skull. With a grunt, he locked his hands together over Lucky's sternum in a final death grip.

“You'll know, too, and then you'll die.”

Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Dudu Torres. Spanish translations by Caitlin Gilmore.