LXXV.
When several fighters came to take Jimmy, they wrapped him in the most dignified cloth they could find and carried him off, Ben remained in the van long after they'd gone. He stared blankly at the empty table, as a rage built inside of him, hot and fiery, until he couldn't stand it anymore, he needed something, anything to take the edge off. Everything. The aliens had taken everything from him and given him nothing in return. They'd let him think for a moment that it would balance out, that he would have this one boy in return for all the horror and sorrow they'd put him through, but it was only a ruse, a reminder, that they could always take more.
Before Ben knew it, he'd flown from the medic van, hopped on one of the bikes and taken off down the street. His nightly hunts had taken him by at least one building where the Skitters gathered and took refuge. The one that had gotten away on that fateful night, if it was still in the area, it would be there. He reached the building at a record pace, unsheathed his knife and marched through the doors, ready for whatever hopeless assault would befall him.
Nothing.
The building was empty. The entire area, it seemed, was devoid of life. Everything. The aliens took everything from him.
Ben cried out in his frustration. He put the knife into the wall, his fist soon followed. He pounded on his surroundings until his hands were bloodied and bruised, and collapsed his knees, utterly defeated. He tumbled back through the months, the kisses, the caresses, those shared moments where he and Jimmy laid bare their hearts and souls to one another, going all the way back to that first patrol, his soft confession, I like you; to the days and weeks before that, of falling madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with a boy that wouldn't spare him the smallest of glances.
If only he'd stayed away. Ben knew, watching Rick slip into a kind of madness, that there was that chance, that sliver of a chance, the aliens still had some kind of control over them. Knowing it, Ben brought that other boy, that sweet, perfect boy, in and held him close, close enough to hurt, close enough to kill. Ben looked at his hands long and hard, try as he might, he couldn't the image of Jimmy's blood staining them up to his elbows. It all made sense now; the aliens gave Jimmy to Ben for Ben to destroy.
"Ben," Hal's voice startled Ben from his dark musings.
Ben didn't realize how crazed he had been, how lost in his tears and mangled sobs, until Hal's entry startled him into a staggering silence. Hal took a seat across from Ben on the floor, waited patiently for his brother to finish crying.
"What are you doing here?" Ben asked in a harsh croak, once he'd finally composed himself.
"I was going to ask you the same exact question," Hal replied, "I'm here for you. Dai saw you bolt from camp, never would've found you if he hadn't. I followed you here. So what are you doing here?"
Ben looked over his hands, at his knife forlorn on the ground beside him, and shrugged, dismayed, "I don't know. I thought that…but it doesn't matter. I was wrong."
"I know things are pretty screwed in your head right now," Hal said, "But I can't have you losing it on me. If you're thinking about doing what I'm scared shitless you are…"
"I'm not. I won't," Ben said, sniffled, and assured his brother, "I'm seeing this war to the end. I'm going to put a bullet in as many of those fucking bastards' heads as I possibly can."
"Good. Because we need you on this."
"And then when it's over, and they're all gone, completely gone, wiped from this entire universe, I'm going to take one last bullet, and I'm going to put it in my head," Ben declared.
Hal drew his breath in sharply, "Don't say things like that."
"It's the truth," Ben said, staring out at Hal with a haunted expression, "And there's no one left in this world that can stop me from pulling that trigger."
…
"…it doesn't fit. Give me the other one."
"Dumbass. If that one doesn't fit, why in the flying fuck with the other one fit. They're a matching pair."
"Shut up and just give it to me."
Jimmy wrinkled his brow, attempted to cry out in pain but his lungs had no air in them. There was no way to measure or explain the amount of pain his body was in. He barely registered that he was cold, lying on something soft and damp. He curled his fingers into it, granules slipping through them. He tried to take a breath, the tiniest of mouthfuls couldn't squeeze down his throat. His feet were bare and his clothes felt different, constraining in their unfamiliarity. He could feel the cool weight of the chained bullet around his neck. Back, he realized, but back from where?
With a great deal of effort, Jimmy sat up, tried to gage his surroundings. Blistering light overhead, the smell of dirt and pine, birds were singing nearby, a beetle clack-clackity on a tree, he had to be in the forest. He peeled open his eyes. The immediate light hurt, and he squeezed them shut again, gave them a few seconds to adjust and tried again. They were off the side of a road, in the wooded area. He sat at the edge of a freshly dug hole, partially dragged out, half of his legs still wrapped in red cloth. Nearby, two older men squabbled over what he recognized to be his boots.
"Augh, it doesn't fit either."
"I told you."
"Shut the fuck up! What else is there? Little dead fuck had a knife, right? Go grab it for me."
Little dead…another glance at his surroundings, and it didn't take Jimmy too much brain power to put together two and two on that offhanded comment. Panic gripped him. He didn't expect these two to be friendly were he not a freshly risen corpse, moment they spun round and saw him, he expected they'd be in a rush to put a few bullets in his head. His mind kicked into survival mode.
Jimmy had been stripped of most of his belongings, they sat in a little pile in front of the two men, rifling through it for anything worth taking. He was lucky to still have his clothes on, either because they hadn't gotten to them yet, or just weren't that comfortable robbing the dead. The two men weren't pushovers. The gruff one trying on Jimmy's boots was the biggest, meaty arms and a rounded barrel chest. He had a bit of blond curling off his chin, and a wild look in his eyes. The other one was lean and tall. He had the look of one who hadn't eaten a good meal in a while, which Jimmy knew from experience tended to make a person desperate and mean. He had a handgun on his hip, no holster, just tucked into the waist band of his blue jeans. The gruff one's handgun was lying a few feet on the ground behind him. Jimmy thought he might be able to reach it before the two realized he'd woken, if only he could get his muscles to move.
"Would you watch the language, huh? It's just a kid. And he was buried all nice, wrapped in a pretty blanket, too, you know what that means?"
"We're kings for a day?"
"It means that someone cared about him. Show a little respect, huh?"
"Bullshit. If they cared about him, they would've buried him with better shit. At least we got this nice trinket, though, huh?" the gruff one lifted an item so painstakingly familiar, it brought Jimmy to a stunned pause, heart cinching in his chest. Weaver's compass. How the fuck did those bastards get their hands on Weaver's compass?
The scrawny one rose and walked around the pile of Jimmy's things, nudging them with his boot toe in search of the requested knife. His eyes slowly lifted to meet Jimmy's, and they stared at one another for a short second. The man gasped, hopping hotly from one foot to the other, as Jimmy scrambled to his feet and darted at the scrawny man first, effectively ramming him. He pulled back before the man had time to recover or react, and doubled back for the gun on the ground.
"Holy shit on the stick, it's alive!"
Jimmy reached for the gun just as the gruff man lunged at Jimmy, knocking Jimmy back with the full force of his body's weight. They crashed to the ground, struggling against one another. Jimmy knew he needed to swiftly end the fight; one good punch and the gruff man could easily overwhelm him. Jimmy put an elbow through the man's eye, and grimaced as a knee thrust dangerously close to his groin. He managed to wriggle out of the man's grasp for the most part, clawing his way back to the gun. He got his fingers around its grip just as the gruff man grabbed him round the neck and jerked him back by the hair, one meaty arm crushing round his neck. Jimmy poked the man in the gut with the gun barrel.
"You can't strangle me faster than my trigger finger," Jimmy hissed.
The scrawny man suddenly remembered his own gun, reaching for it at his waist, but it was gone. Jimmy cocked the second gun at his thigh, which he'd easily grabbed in his initial attack. Both were paused, confused, and slightly perturbed.
"Get off me," Jimmy commanded the man at his back. When the man didn't move, he fired a bullet off the direction of the other man, it hit a tree in the distance.
The other man jumped around, shrieking, "Jesus, Earl, do as he says and get the fuck over here!"
Reluctantly, the gruff man released Jimmy and sauntered over to his friend. Jimmy kept the guns trained on both men. He bit his inner cheek to hide the pain as he put every ounce of effort he had into climbing gracefully to his feet.
"Now I'm taking my stuff," Jimmy commanded, he glanced over his shoulder at the truck parked on the edge of the road, clearly belonged to those men, "Give me the keys."
"No way," the scrawny man snapped, and Jimmy put a bullet in the ground between his feet, leveled the gun at the man.
"I won't ask again," Jimmy growled, "The keys, my stuff…"
Jimmy glanced at the dress shirt he was wearing and made a face. He looked back at the two men. The gruff one wore a white ribbed tank under a flannel that looked stiff with his body sweat. The scrawny man wore a white tee with a black skull on it.
"…and your shirt," Jimmy said to the scrawny one.
"What?" the man complained, "Ah, fuck."
They tossed over Jimmy's things, and the keys. He slipped his feet into his boots, left them untied. He removed the cartridge from one of the guns, and emptied the gun, tossed it towards the woods. He gathered up the rest of his things in his arms.
"The compass," he said. The gruff man made a face and held it out.
"Come and get it," he taunted.
"Put it on the ground, take ten steps back," Jimmy returned, "Or I put a bullet in your head and be done with this."
The man dropped the compass, and paced back. Jimmy eyed the scrawny man, and he followed his friend. Keeping eyes and gun locked on the men, Jimmy closed the distance, knelt without ever removing his eyes from the men, and scooped the compass up. He backed towards the truck.
"Turn around and put your hands on your head," Jimmy said.
"We're going to find you and kill you," the gruff man vowed.
"What put me in the ground didn't do the trick, you think you can do better, you're more than welcome to try," Jimmy spat. The men turned and placed their hands on their heads.
"I really liked that shirt," the scrawny man whined.
"Shut up, Kyle."
Jimmy opened the truck door, tossed his things inside. He hopped up, started the engine, and the men immediately spun round. The scrawny one raced for the gun, and the other towards the truck. Jimmy peeled out onto the road, watching the men fade away in his rear view.
Finding the way back to the hangar was easy. It wasn't too far from where Jimmy had been buried, and after patrols and nightly hunts with Ben, he'd become fairly familiar with the surrounding woodland and highway markers. He parked the truck and slipped out, wandered around the empty lot of land, heart hammering in his chest a strained sorrow. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't speak or call out, he couldn't think.
Gone. They were all just gone. Where they went, how long ago they'd left, he had no way of knowing. The camp was dead and cold and wasn't talking. He was alone. Lost, and alone, and had no clue where to even begin finding his unit. Somewhere, something beckoned him. A crackle of thunder in the back of his skull. A message. Somewhere, something stood clear in his mind. A place he'd never been. Being built from your blood and your bones. A route he'd never taken before. A map of your world. Puzzles in his head that he couldn't sort out. Did he follow the map – the path drawn out for him by the alien enemy, or search for his comrades like a needle in an eternal haystack?
Jimmy went into one of the bathrooms. He stared at his reflection in a cracked mirror for several minutes. Dirt stained his cheeks, and clothes, clumped in his hair. He'd taken a few hits during the fight, his lip and the skin beneath his eye split and bleeding. He turned on the faucet, ran the water a few seconds, and then started cleaning himself up best he could. He undid the buttons of his shirt, and the light caught off the bullet chained around his neck. He touched it lightly, closed his eyes.
"Ben," he whispered. Somewhere Ben was living, breathing, and feeling God knew what. He believed Jimmy dead. The grave flashed into mind, and Jimmy shuddered, tears falling down his cheeks. He had been dead. The map, the signal, the strangely familiar place, the aliens and their confused mumbo-jumbo that did not and should not have anything to do with him, some lost little war orphan, nothing special, cannon fodder from the start, it could all be damned. He needed to find Ben.
Jimmy paused, hovered his fingers over the bandaging at his gut. He recalled the image of a tree branch jutting through him, unbearable pain and the mangled look in Ben's eyes. He'd screamed at Ben to leave him at that moment, but couldn't get the words out. Trembling fingers, Jimmy peeled away the bandages, let it fall without care to the floor, and gaped at what lay beneath. The hole hadn't fully healed, he could see his innards as translucent skin mended together over it before his eyes, shimmering and writhing as though a separate, living entity, sewing his flesh back up. Taking slow and steadying breaths, Jimmy ghosted his hand over the hole, it shuddered. He lifted his eyes to his reflection.
"What the hell is happening to me?"
.
.
.
AN: Can you believe this story hit 300,000 words? I mean, like actual story words. Ignore the fanfiction sites word count, it's factoring in all my useless author note chatter. Got to get to work, but yeah...I'm not really sure why so many people were convinced I would kill of jimmy. I thought I made it really abundantly clear that he wasn't going to die. I mean, come on, there's this huge mystery surrounding him with the glowing skin and mysterious healing. Points to TyhoonBoom08 for nailing that foreshadow down, that the odd skin rash thing would be "saving" Jimmy.
Right. Um...first chapter of next part will either be up tonight or tomorrow. I'm thinking the title will be "Fallen Hero". So remember to check back! I have to go to work and then do homework. **Edit -finals are kicking my ass right now. New story will be up this weekend, will attempt to get two chapters up by Sunday. **
Don't forget to let me know what you think.
Should probably apologize for all the horrendous typos too...didn't get a chance to proofread...and I wrote this last night so...yeah...forgive me please!
Um...
The End? Or To Be Continued...