The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: The Butcher and the Black Tide, Part 6 of 13

Lucky Ford is confronted with the true horrors wrought by the Romanian, while at the mercy of the people the mad doctor has terrorized the most.

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

This is Part 6 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, or Part 5 yet, check them out before reading any further.

Content Warnings: Violence, Gun Violence, Animal Violence, Death, Gore, Mild Swearing, Tobacco Use, Drug Use, Body Horror, Crass Humor

TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 13, 1943
LAS ENCRUCIJADAS
THE SIERRA ESPUÑA MOUNTAINS, SPAIN

Three rust-pitted trucks ground to a halt in the town square, parking side by side. Their headlights blazed across the empty crossroads, beams catching every flake of falling ash. They were old Italian rigs, same as the ones that had burned on the bridge. The middle truck was a soft-top, with canvas stretched across metal ribbing to cover the bolseteros riding in the back. The other two were flatbeds, each carrying some kind of huge crate with a tarp over it.

All three engines shut off at once, leaving the square eerily quiet and starkly lit by their six headlamps.

Lucky’s breath caught in his throat. He stayed still behind the shuttered window, watching the Romanian's men disembark in silence.

A pair of bolseteros emerged from each cab, clad in their patch-work cloaks and French gas gear. Two of them clutched rifles while the other four were armed with multi-tipped spears, more like frog-gigging sticks than pitchforks. Each spear had cork-screwing wires running from its butt into large packs strapped to the bolseteros’ backs.

All six twitching men surveyed the empty town, carrying out a threat assessment even as their bodies fought against gas-induced muscle spasms.

“¡Seguro!” one of the rifle-armed bolseteros called out. None of them had noticed the dozens of locals on the roofs surrounding them, or the weapons that had been tracking them since the moment they'd pulled into town.

The soft-top truck's tail gate creaked open and a massive dog jumped out, landing heavily in the four-inch ash drifts. It raised a gray cloud as it stomped around, then it trotted over to the closest bolsetero.

Basil sniffed the man, careful to get a whiff of him from ankle to face. The dog was as tall as the mercenary's ribs, so the bolsetero dared not interfere.

Basil apparently smelled something he liked and lifted his leg, letting loose a stream of urine on the bolsetero's boot. The man grunted and stepped back out of the spray. Basil growled and lunged, grabbing the bolsetero's thigh in his jaws and yanking him off of his feet.

“Oy!” O’Laughlin shouted. “Quit yer pissin', Basil! Be dignified, for the love of Mary and Joseph.”

Murphy O'Laughlin was standing on the soft-top truck's tailgate. Basil dropped the bolsetero and bounded over to the mercenary. His long tongue flopped with each step.

The Irishman hopped down, raising a gray cloud, and sauntered over to where the bolsetero had landed on his rear, Basil in tow. The man held his leg and groaned. Having seen the dog’s jaws up close, Lucky knew they could put one hell of a clamp on someone. He almost felt sorry for the moaning kidnapper.

Almost.

“Get up, boy-o, we're supposed t'be scary,” O'Laughlin laughed. He waited until the bolsetero had dragged himself to his feet, shaking his head throughout the entire groaning, moaning ordeal. Once the man was back in line, O’Laughlin cupped his hands around his mouth and called out to the old church:

“Father!” he called out, “Father, I need a bit of help out here.”

The dark chapel offered no response.

“What the hell kind of dog is that?” Bucket whispered, peering over the window sill beside Lucky. “It looks like a sick horse.”

“An Irish wolfhound,” Miller answered. “Colonel Halistone had one named Horatio when he was a young man. A large, hardy breed known for their loyalty.”

“Large is one way to say it,” Bucket muttered, “If someone brought one of those to Brooklyn, the Army'd chase it across town and then shoot it off the side of the Empire State Building.”

“Is 'at right?” O'Laughlin muttered to himself. He took a map out of his pocket and examined in the truck's head lights. “Las Encrucijadas, Mandario...”

The map was scrawled over with red X's. He crumpled it up and stuffed it back into his pocket.

“Oy, padre! Come talk! I've kicked in enough doors for one night!”

There was still no response from the small church.

“'Ave it your way, then. Basil,” O'Laughlin said, loud enough that anyone nearby could hear, “Go get Heather for yer da.”

The big dog scampered to the back of the truck and jumped in, emerging after a moment with the drilling gripped in his jaws. Lucky recalled the woman’s name engraved on its stock. Basil trotted back to O'Laughlin and sat at his feet, holding the gun and wagging his tail like mad. The Irishman smiled and scratched Basil behind his ears before taking Heather.

O’Laughlin plucked a pair of shotgun shells and a rifle round from his bandolier and fed them into the drilling. He spit on the ground, then slammed the breach shut with enthusiasm.

“What in the hell kind of heater is that?” Bucket whispered.

“An M30 drilling, a Luftwaffe survival weapon issued to long-range pilots. It has only been produced in very small quantities,” Miller replied, drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge. “Two twelve-gauge shotgun barrels mounted atop a 9.3-millimeter elephant gun rifle barrel. Some consider the M30 to be a vanity project initiated by Goering, the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, because - !”

“O’Laughlin can be surgical with it, too,” Lucky interrupted. He knew that once Miller got going, he wouldn’t slow down.

Out in the crossroads, the Irishman was yelling again:

“Father, drag ye ragged arse out here before Heather has to raise her voice!”

O’Laughlin cocked his head and pulled the drilling to his shoulder. After a few seconds' wait he shook his head, disappointed. A small flurry of accumulated ash dislodged from his bushy mustache.

He fired off two shotgun blasts into the air, one after the other. The twin muzzle flashes lit up the gray night.

When he received no response from Father Mandario he aimed down his triple barrels again. He let out a short breath and fired the bottom barrel, the roaring elephant rifle. It blew in chapel's iron lock with ease, sending pieces of it skittering down the aisle, between the pews.

“Ye might be beyond me help if that didn't wake ye up, ye old bugger,” O'Laughlin called out. He cracked the gun's breach open, pulled all three spent cartridges out, and tossed them into the ash. There was still no response at all from church. He sighed, threw his drilling over his shoulder in exasperation, and gave orders to his men: “I guess ye need to wake the lads.”

The four bolseteros with the spears moved the to rear of the flatbed trucks, their tremors increasing in intensity as they neared the weird cargo. They unhooked the tarps and let them slide off, revealing a pair of metal crates. Both cubes were pocked with air holes.

The bolseteros stood back and twisted dials on their spear handles, like they were turning on a gas stove. Arcs of blue electricity popped to crackling life, dancing between the barbed tines on the spear heads.

“Those look like arc projectors,” Bucket whispered while he studied the sparking devices. “Batteries that size'd give ‘em enough kick to K.O. a cow.”

O'Laughlin was busying himself by making silly faces at his confused dog.

On the trucks, the two-man teams went to work on the crates with socket wrenches. It took them a couple minutes to detach the bolts holding the back panel on. The steel plates slammed down, testing the old trucks' abused suspensions. A tortured moan oozed from one of the open containers.

“Oy! Shut that nancy up and get 'em out ‘ere,” O'Laughlin yelled over his shoulder.

One of the bolseteros jabbed into the crate with his spear. There was a loud lightning crack, blue light flashed within the box, and the low moan warped into a pained yelp and defeated whimper. Basil looked distraught at the bestial sound until O'Laughlin gave him another scratch behind his matted, ratty ears.

“We want to see what these I-soldiers can do, don't we Bas? Don't we?” He gave the dog another piece of jerky. “We've certainly 'eard that drooly scab go on about them, 'aven't we, pup?”

The bolseteros started yelling at whatever was in the crates, gesturing with their spears. A massive figure hauled itself from each steel box, moving slowly and grunting painfully.

The men, if they were men, each stood seven feet tall and just as broad. Their arms were as thick as tree trunks, like they had steer thighs instead of biceps. The two things clambered down from the trucks and shuffled forward, prodded along by the bolseteros' electric spears. Lucky could see angular juts sticking out from their bodies: there were pieces of them that were manufactured instead of organic. With every tortured breath, hazy clouds of green vapor escaped their lungs, illuminated in jade by the headlights.

“They're what the Romanian makes,” Bucket growled. He steadied his Thompson on the window sill to track the two things. Miller put his hand across Bucket's sights and shook his head. It wasn't time yet.

“It seems that Doctor Hellbörg has continued pursuing his goal of transplanting foreign tissue onto a new host,” Miller observed. Lucky looked closer at the two men. They weren't the Romanian's men, they were his victims.

The two men, the I-soldiers, stepped in front of the headlights. They were rippling mounds of muscle, grotesque hulks of skin and flesh. Each had a German helmet worn low on his brow, with some kind of fabric bag covering his nose and mouth. These bags inflated with each exhalation, billowing with writhing green mist.

They both had heavy armor strapped over their massive frames, though with the scalding lights behind them, it was hard to tell how much. O'Laughlin walked a wide circle around the pair, looking them up and down.

“I'd bet me ma's eye-pennies, God rest 'er wretched soul, that ye lads are every bit as strong as 'Ellbörg says,” O'Laughlin said. He stopped and took a curious sniff of the men and almost tripped over his own boots when he got a nose-full.

“But trust I'd trade every red cent of those winnings if ye didn't have such a reek. Like a cat-house shitter in August, I tell ye.” The I-soldiers stared ahead, not hearing a word of the Irishman's mockery. He waved a hand in front of two sets of unresponsive eyes.

“These lads are more hopped up than the worst opium fiends I ever 'ad the misfortune of meeting in the Orient,” he said, before turning to the bolseteros. “Can't they follow orders?”

The closest handler nodded and tightened his grip on his electric spear.

“Then go get me the bloody priest!” the Irishman shouted. The I-soldiers just stood before him, swaying and deaf to his words. Their minds were so addled that they couldn't understand what O'Laughlin was telling them to do.

“¡Vós agora!” the lead bolsetero yelled. He jabbed at the confused I-soldiers with his spear. Electricity arced from the barbs and zapped the closest one, jolting them both into action. The two men broke into a full sprint, charging past O'Laughlin and Basil. They slammed into the front of the old church like a pair of human cannonballs.

The wall didn’t so much as slow the I-soldiers, it was nothing to them. One step they were outside, and the next, within, wall or not.

Emilia lowered her visor, a bad sign for any enemy of the Gallo Rojo. Lucky flipped his Colt's safety off.

Inhuman roars rose above the sounds of destruction echoing from the church.

“I take the time to shoot out the lock and the brutes don't even use the bloody door,” O'Laughlin muttered to Basil. Lucky put the Irishman's ten-ring in his sights. Emilia rested her gloved hand on his shoulder, pulling his gun down.

“We will know when they are ready for us, Lucky,” she whispered. Her modulated voice rattled, echoing and distant.

Out in the square, a full-length oak pew blasted through a window and landed heavily in the ash, broken glass of every color tinkling around it. It tumbled across the ground, finally coming to a halt a few feet from O'Laughlin, right-side-up. He sauntered over and laid down across it, kicking his feet up.

“Lads, get that old bugger out 'ere, I don't 'ave all night,” he called after the rampaging I-soldiers. The sounds of breaking wood and glass continued unabated. O'Laughlin hung his head in exasperation and waved for his bolseteros. The four men gingerly approached the quaking building, spears at the ready. O'Laughlin watched while twisting his bushy mustache and speaking to his dog:

“Whatever conditioning the jerries are plannin' to give these lads, it better be bloody top notch, because otherwise these blackguardin' super soldiers look like they'll see as much use as a chocolate-flavored gooter on an Englishman.”

Blue flashes and sizzling cracks lit the pitch-black inside of the church. Within seconds, the two I-soldiers stomped back out through the holes they had bashed through building. Father Mandario walked between calmly them, flanked on either side. The old man looked even smaller and more skeletal between them. The four bolseteros followed with their spears leveled and electrified. The padre stopped ten yards in front of O'Laughlin, staring the mercenary down.

“I understand these lads 'aven't been through 'ere in quite a while, old man. Because of the bird,” O'Laughlin said, leaning on his drilling like it was a walking stick.. “Ye know who I be looking for, don't ye?”

The old priest mumbled something through his beard at the armed man. Lucky couldn't hear him from where he was hiding, but Mandario's tone sounded defiant.

“Speak up, ye geezer,” O'Laughlin growled. He took the M30 drilling from where he'd draped it over his shoulder and fed two fresh buckshot rounds into its hungry breach.

“Go home,” Mandario responded.

“He speaks English?” Bucket wondered with hushed surprise.

“Father Mandario taught at Catholic University in Washington, DC for nearly twenty years,” Miller answered.

“You know him, too?” Lucky asked.

“I had never met him before this evening, but I recall his name from a faculty register I read during a visit to the United States in 1935. He had taken a sabbatical to return to Spain before the Civil War to oppose Franco.”

“How can you remember that?” Lucky asked, but Bucket cut in before Miller could answer:

“He isn't going take any guff from the Irishman,” he observed. “The old man is cocky. We got to be ready for anything with a character like that in play.”

Lucky nodded in agreement and turned his attention back to the town square. O'Laughlin was oblivious to the dozens of militiamen training their rifles on him. He yet to realize that he wasn’t the one in control of Las Encrucijadas.

O'Laughlin took a single elephant gun round out of his bandolier and rubbed the brass casing on his shirt like he was shining an apple. He sighed, then dropped the round into Heather's under-slung rifle breach.

“Ye know why I'm 'ere, padre. Can't leave 'til me work's done,” O'Laughlin said. His cheerful tone couldn't hope to hide the murderous intent behind his words.

“You will not find what you want here,” the old priest stated flatly.

“Ye sound like there's something else for me to find 'ere,” the Irishman said, his facade of calmness fading quick. He slammed the gun's breach shut loudly and deliberately and moved his shooting finger to action-ready position, laying it flat against the trigger guard.

“There are only people here,” Mandario answered, “But the people who were afraid are dead or gone. We are what remains.”

As he spoke, Lucky saw movement on top of the building across the town square, then a shadow of activity on the neighboring roof. Mandario's troops were readying for action.

“We are tired of waiting for things to improve.”

The figures on the closest roof lit a torch, illuminating two men and four women holding long guns. Each muzzle was trained on O'Laughlin's head. Three more torches ignited on that same roof, followed by a dozen more that lit up the top of each building surrounding O'Laughlin and his men. The Irishman craned his neck as he surveyed an entire militia's worth of gun barrels zeroed in on his forehead.

“Now this is a true welcome,” the mercenary chuckled, his wide grin spreading his mustache all the way across his weathered face. “Ye 'ave the whole bleedin' town out to see me.”

Mandario’s face crinkled, then he whistled.

On command, six shots rang out, shattering the trucks' headlamps and leaving the town in darkness.

A torch landed at O'Laughlin's feet, sending a cloud of sparks and ash up around him. A dozen more arced up and dropped down into the town square, creating a circle of flames around him, his men and Basil, and Father Mandario. Basil huffed, but O'Laughlin latched onto his scruff and stood his ground.

The bolseteros clustered tight, twitching. They held their electric spears and rifles out to face the surrounding threat. The I-soldiers stood in place, swaying and staring at the fallen torches in a daze.

The flickering blaze let Lucky get his first good look at the Romanian's creations.

The I-soldiers were like things he'd only seen in movies. They were Frankenstein's monster if it been knitted together out of circus strongmen. Slabs of freakish muscle bulged under swaths of leathery hide stretched tight across their frames, distending their silhouettes until they were as broad as they were tall. Thick staples strained to hold their meat inside even as sharp corners and unnatural angles emerged from within, pressing against their taut skin. Lucky could see the flesh sliding around these protrusions as the I-soldiers shifted: the Romanian had sown metal plating into their bodies. Neither man wore a shirt, just gray trousers that were cut off at the knee to accommodate their bulging legs. With each heaving green breath, the I-soldiers' inhuman muscles strained against their stitches; each expansion of their chests came ever closer to tearing their tanned hide and snapping the staples.

There was a stud protruding from either side of ther helmets, with a bloody wing nut threaded on to hold them tight to their skulls. The more Lucky observed the I-soldiers, the more he felt for them. Each detail he took in spoke volumes of horror and pain.

One of them looked up. Firelight melted the deep shadows from between the lip of his helmet and the slab of steel riveted onto his face, into his living cheek bones. His eyes shone with a wild insanity, that look a man gets when he's seen something that's broken his world: a look Lucky was too familiar with.

The bag over his nose and mouth dripped acrid fluid with each inflation. Whatever chemicals the Romanian was forcing him to breathe were seeping through. The green vapors he exhaled twisted for a serpentine moment before being whisked away by the abrasive breeze.

The man was covered in thick armor wherever the internal plates couldn't protect him. These external plates was bolted straight into his deep muscle tissue, some nailed into bone. His forearms, knees, knuckles, and feet were wrapped in studded plates strong enough to pulp a man as easily as they'd demolish an old church.

The second I-soldier stood with uncertainty, like he was unfamiliar with his footing. At first Lucky thought that whatever drugs he was inhaling through his chemical feedbag had thrown his balance, but then he saw the I-soldier's right leg. Below the knee, it had been replaced by a stainless steel prosthetic, all springs and pistons, creaking as the giant abomination shifted his weight on it.

Drops of puss leaked from stitches all over each man's body. The wind shifted and brought the stink of the leaking fluids and green vapors wafting toward Lucky's hiding spot. The man's obscene, gorilla-sized arms and legs stank of untreated infection. It turned Lucky's stomach, and Bucket started to gag.

“What is it, sergeant?” Miller whispered. He couldn't catch a whiff of it through his gas mask.

“They stink like they been left in the sun a few days,” Bucket said. His pinched his nose to ward off the stench.

“What do you smell, exactly? Can you differentiate between their body odor and their chemical exhalations?” Miller asked. “I should be able to identify what compounds Doctor Hellbörg has sedated them with via olfactory means.”

Lucky risked another sniff. The stench of pus and blood roared up his nose and almost sent his ham dinner all the way back up, but he pushed through. On the second sniff he caught a whiff of something else, something so twisted and strong that it made him lose his balance. Miller propped him up as he caught his bearings. The vapors the I-soldiers were sucking down wracked Lucky's mind, overtaking him with dizziness immediately. The orange flames outside tinted green as his vision wavered.

“Did you detect the chemicals, private?” Miller asked. Lucky took a second to let the orange bleed back into his vision. The vapors still stung his nostrils, but he could make out the remnants of the exhaled compounds.

“Something like cinnamon, I think, and...” Lucky mumbled, still trying to regain control of himself.

“Coffee?” Miller said

“Yeah, old stale coffee.”

“Steamed widow wort and Saint Stephen's root, an alchemical hermetic aromatic. It leaves the user extremely disoriented and suggestible, though the effect wears off rather quickly once it disperses,” Miller said. Lucky was astounded. Miller could tell what chemicals these men were forced to breathe by using someone else's nose.

“Ain't a thing dispersing long as they're wearing those masks,” Bucket pointed out. Lucky had almost been knocked out by a second-hand whiff of that chemical cocktail, he couldn't imagine what it would be like to suck it down with every breath.

In the square, the old priest thought O'Laughlin had had enough time to consider his predicament and loudly cleared his throat.

”These are men of a powerful nature, Brother Murphy,” Father Mandario extolled, seemingly unfazed by the I-soldiers' monstrous look or their horrendous smell. “They are defined by pain, desperation, and loss. Las Encrucijadas has no defense against such men.”

“So ye see me point then?” O'Laughlin asked, his chuckle half-hearted.

“What I see is that you are not of this nature. You, we can defend against,” the old priest responded. “Your nature is one of greed. At what point is the cost of your victory too much?”

Mandario slowly raised a hand, two fingers extended. A pair of shots barked out from a rooftop. The two rifle-armed bolseteros dropped into the ash, small-caliber bullet holes drilled through their shooting hands. The two men didn't scream so much as wheeze when they collapsed into the cinders, wracked by seizures as they bled all over themselves.

Basil began barking, baring his huge teeth at the wizened little priest before him. O'Laughlin yanked on the huge dog's scruff, silencing him.

“Ye make an interesting argument for a man of the cloth,” O'Laughlin mused as he looked over his maimed men.

“Unless you leave Las Encrucijadas now, it will be your resting place,” Father Mandario continued. “How much gold is that worth?”

“I 'ave 'eard a ton o'gold is 'ard to spend with a slug in ye 'ead,” the Irishman responded. He laid Heather back across his shoulders, slowly, careful not to let the barrels track anywhere near where Mandario stood. Then he raised his voice loud enough that all the encircling gunmen could hear him. “Ye do know that la Medida will be back for ye, all of ye, regardless of what I do tonight?”

“We will do what is required of us when he is,” the old priest replied.

“I can see that,” O'Laughlin said, surveying the array of rifles and sub-machine guns trained on him. Father Mandario took this opportunity to step out of the circle of torches, giving O'Laughlin his leave.

“Well, old man, I must say ye got the bollocks of a bear. Ye can 'ave tonight, but I can't make any promises regardin' tomorrow,” the Irishman warned him. He then turned around then addressed the bolseteros:

“Pack these stinkin' gobshites up, we're 'eading out,” he ordered. The four spearmen leveled their electrical prods at the dazed I soldiers.

“¡Para o caminhão!” one of the bolseteros yelled and jammed his spear into the peg-legged I-soldier's back. A snap of electricity lashed at his spine, eliciting a pained animal howl that almost sounded like someone cursing in Italian.

The wild-eyed I-soldier caught a zap as well, sending a tremor through his body. He groaned and swung a steel-plated arm around that caught his bolsetero tormentor in the temple. The mercenary's helmet caved in like a beer can, dropping him instantly. The other three bolseteros immediately turned their prods on the rebellious I-soldier, zapping him into submission. He yelped and staggered, then scampered on all fours into his crate. The truck creaked and he clambered aboard.

O'Laughlin watched both I-soldiers get bolted back into their crates, then dragged his two wounded men to their feet. They groaned in protest, but moved with purpose when the Irishman swung a scuffed leather boot at their rears. O'Laughlin squatted and fished treat from his pocket for Basil. He scratched behind the dog's big ears before he stood and began walking toward his truck.

“Do not forget your friend,” Mandario said, nodding at the dead bolsetero with the concave skull.

“Keep 'im,” O'Laughlin said. “'E'll be better off with you lot, trust me.”

The Irishman swung the driver's door of the covered truck open and let Basil jump in first. The big dog took the passenger seat, throwing a paw out the open window like he was a riding shotgun. O'Laughlin paused a second and called out to Mandario from the running board:

“I hope ye people show this level of moxie in the mornin',” he said. “Tomorrow will be a long day for ye. Rest ye well tonight, father.”

O'Laughlin ducked into the cab and slammed the door behind him. The truck reluctantly coughed to life and kicked up plumes of ash as it turned around, rolling away from Las Encrucijadas and down the southeastern road, to the coast. The two I-soldier transports stuck close, careful not to lose their leader in the gloom.

The dozens of rifles and shotguns on the rooftops tracked the convoy until it disappeared into the darkness. The rumble of their engines was quickly swallowed by the night, leaving the town square empty save for one old man praying over a bolsetero corpse with a pulped skull.

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

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