Dear list members,
an [original] story
AND a quick update.
The story is rather grim, so if that's not
your cup-of-tea, just do a search on
[UPDATE] to skip ahead.
Beauty in Darkness
Copyright Allyn Yonge
March 28 2002
All characters are fictitious.
Any resemblance to any person
living or dead is purely coincidental.
@@@@@@@@@@
"Please sir, we need water."
Vassili Sashenko looked sharply at the frail
lookingfourteen old, then at the sea of blond haired
children layinglimply on the truck bed. Cursing he
yanked one of the sitting guard to his feet.
"Dammit! Get her some water. And anything else
she
wants." He slammed the man against the side of the
truck. "If one of these kids dies, I'll gut you like a
chicken."
"Thank you," the black haired child whispered.
"What's your name," Vassili asked gently.
"Sothea."
"That means 'sweet flower'?" He said soothingly
to the girl who'd been ripped from her home six weeks
earlier.
The girl nodded.
"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
"My sister, Veata."
*The Wind.*
"But she wasn't home, when . . ."
Vassili smiled. "Well Sothea, we'll get you back
to your sister a quickly as possible. In the meantime,
just take care of those children."
*Because alive, they're worth ten million USD..
Even the local girls 'recruited' as babysitters would
bring a few thousand.*
A crossbow bolt slammed into one of the lounging
guards, pinning him to the side of the truck.
"AMBUSH!"
Cursing, Vassili watched his guards milling
around
like a basket of blind kittens looking for a working
teat.
"Dammit! Odd sections cover left, even sections
right!" As if any of the damned *pizda* knew their
right from their left, he thought sourly. A writhing
bundle flew through the air, dropping down the open
hatch of his lead BMP-1. An instant later the rear
doors burst open with a bang as the eleven man squad
exploded out the back, screaming throwing
themselves around as if possessed by devils. A second
bolt pierced a guards head in a spray of blood and
every gun opened up at once.
Vassili dove to the ground as a wild-eyed guard
hosed the muzzle of his AK-47 in an arc, almost
cutting him in two.
The BMP's main gun fired, then froze with a
scream as the auto-loader tried to stuff the gunner
into the breach. The HE shell detonated almost
instantly in the thick canopy. Splinters of hot metal
dinged off armor plate, or sliced through the
unarmored organic components.
Firing slowed, then died away, replaced by moans
and men calling for their mothers. Smoke oozed slowly
through the thick air, and curled around trucks and
men like dirty grey snakes.
*What a cluster fuck.* A howler-monkey barked in
agreement, and Vassili wondered if he wouldn't be
better off teaching the monkeys how to drive. He began
a quick inventory of vehicles and wounded, making a
rough calculation of munitions expended.
*At least the money is good*, he thought sourly,
recalling his brother-in-law's job offer as night
manager of his Ramada Inn. *And it's better than
Afghanistan.*
"The Doctor wishes to know what is holding up our
progress." The caravan leader, Pol asked.
*Afghanistan had been cooler. This was like
walking through a lake.* He fell in behind Pol. *And
you could see the sky.*
****
Stepping into the luxury trailer Vassili
shuddered at the thirty degree temperature drop. Pol
vanished into the back and Vassili took glass of tea
from a tray. It was just the way he liked it, with
bits of lemon and strawberry. He held a lump of
coarse sugar in his teeth and sipped the tea through
it
as he paced around the room knowing that he might have
a wait of a few minutes or several hours. Trailing a
hand along an ermine covered wall he caught a glimpse
of his rather ordinary face reflected in some
sterling silver trim he looked like a Russian turnip
farmer, and totally out of place surrounded by such
luxury.
A high pitched cry, like a kitten caught under
the
wheels of a car, brought him out of his reverie with a
grimace of distaste. A moment later Sebastian Arnie,
MD, PhD, DDL entered from his private apartments,
pealing off the snowy white gloves he habitually wore,
dropping them in an Italian marble trash-can. The
butter-soft leather was almost transparently thin,
fragile as butterfly's wing and he often went through
thirty pair in a day.
"It is the hand which separates man from the
beast," Dr. Arnie's rich hypnotic baritone flowed
over Vassili like warm butter. "The human hand is
nature's most perfect tool " long slender fingers
writhed about each other in a sinuous dance as he
smoothed a mixture of musk and herbs into his skin.
"Thoughts are only ghosts until hands give them
life." He smoothed on a fresh pair of gloves.
Pol came after his master, bearing a bloody
bundle
that mewed faintly.
A faint look of distaste came over Arnie's face.
"Women are such filthy creatures, aren't they?"
Vassili kept silent, knowing that Arnie preferred
to answer his own questions.
"Treacherous, weak, disgusting in their personal
habits and morals." Arnie lowered himself into a
chair. "Yet they also have curative properties."
Steepling his fingers he looked meditatively at the
faintly bloody bundle. "For the first six
months of life the female has the ability to
rejuvenate and reinvigorate the male by acting as a
receptacle for excessive phlegm." Arnie looked at
Vassili thoughtfully."Perhaps you could take care
this?"
Pol pulled back a corner of the blanket and
Vassili stared at the tiny infant, laying like a
broken doll in Pol's
hands.
"You're not squeamish, are you?" Arnie asked
softly.
@@@@@@
"Are you squeamish?" Spetsnaz Sargent Kokh roared
as Vassili flinched back from the drowned corpse of
his
friend. You will kill your mother and fuck the corpse
if ordered!"
Vassili hesitated a moment too long.
"Death is your comrade, Vassili Sashenko. And
comrades stick together." Kokh heaved the clammy
corpse
across Vassili's shoulders and strapped it tightly in
place over his pack. He ran fifteen kilometers back
to camp, Baho's dead arms slapping him in the face,
Kokh's stick slamming him across the shoulders. It
wasn't until he staggered up to his barrack that he
realized what Kokh meant by comrades 'stick together'.
****
Vassili stood, swaying in the sun, apart from
the rest of his company surrounded by four grinning
Turjikistan privates. They kept him from killing
himself or removing the slowly liquefying corpse. He
no longer noticed the stench, or the cloud of insects
that settled over him like a living blanket, or the
looks of horror from his comrades if they accidently
glanced his way.
"Ccomrades," Kokh roared, "today we learn about
the 37mm cannon." He struggled with the ropes holding
the tarpaulin over the bulky weapon.
" Sargeant," Vassili stepped forward. "Let me
give
you a hand." Baho's limb tore like rotten paper as
Vassili handed it to Kokh, who roared with laughter.
Vassili had never been afraid again.
@@@@@@
****
Until he'd met Arnie.
"Not at all." Vassili stilled the infant's cries
with a quick twist.
Arnie smiled to himself as Vassili took another
small step down the path to complete domination. The
Russian had been more difficult than most, but the
effort was worth it. "Explain these delays." Arnie
said as Pol left the trailer, "Our cargo is
perishable."
"We're less than a week's travel from the Laos
border." He met his employer's eyes squarely. "But
we're low on food, fuel and ammunition."
"Being forced to take this circuitous route is
intolerable." Arnie complained pettishly. "I've always
had a good working relationship with the local
officials. Why are they suddenly against me?"
*Because you managed to get even the Khmer Rouge
to condemn you in the UN for human rights violations,
you fucking idiot.*
"Politicians have no understanding of objective
reality as men of the world do." Vassili replied
soothingly
"What are you doing about these delays?" Arnie
returned to his original topic.
"There isn't much I can do . . .unless you let
me make a sweep?"
"Impossible! I need you to watch this rabble.
Send
someone else"
"I don't have anyone trained in jungle fighting."
He didn't add that if he let them go into the jungle,
they'd run for home. "And it's hard to kill what you
can't see. The heat and wildlife," he waved his hand
in the general direction of the thick green jungle
that surrounded them. " fool the Thermal Imagers. And
we've only got one man-portable TI unit left."
Arnie arched one thin patrician eyebrow.
"A bundle of vines and snakes thrown into the
lead
BMP. When the crew bailed out, the TI operator took a
crossbow bolt through the imager." And through the
head, Vassili didn't bother to mention.
"Why crossbows?" Arnie rapped the table top
peevishly.
"They're quiet and they don't have a thermal
signature." Vassili explained.
"Could they be government troops? Slowing us down
until the main body arrives?"
Vassili shook his head. "Helicopter troops could
have hit us weeks ago. No, I think this is a group of
poachers who stumbled across us and are knocking out
our vehicles for salvage. The real danger," he tapped
the map, "is that they send someone to alert the army.
But hopefully we'll be over the border before then."
****
Walnut sized insects whizzed out of the mist and
banged off the truck windscreen with a sound like
glass
pencils breaking as Vassili swept the jungle with the
last TI. Gibbons hooted, cats yowled and frogs
shrieked a wavering counterpoint, until it seemed the
entire jungle was on the seat next to him.. The
column would start as soon as the fog lifted.
A sudden gurgling cry brought his head around
toward the rear of the column. In the thermal sight a
fiery ghost flew a meter off the ground, and where it
went, men died. The terrifying apparition was halfway
through the line of men and truck before anyone could
react then the world erupted in a blaze of gunfire.
Hot wind, harbinger of the coming monsoon, blew a
hole in the mist and Vassili yanked off the TI
goggles, to see a figure on a bicycle, pumping madly
for the head of the column, swinging a bloody shovel
back and forth to clear the way.
Leading the rider, as he would a duck, Vassili
fired one sabot slug from his shotgun, hitting the
front wheel. The bicycle flipped in midair, tossing
the rider to ground.
****
"This is your group of poachers?" Arnie asked
sardonically.
"It would seem so." Vassili looked at the bound
figure laying in the dirt. About ten or twelve he
guessed, right side horribly scarred and right foot
replaced with a crude prosthetic probably a
butterfly-mine or she would be dead, he thought. "I'd
like to find out what she thought she was doing."
"I will question her," Arnie said firmly, taking
his black bag from Pol. "You see about getting the
column ready to move."
Arnie's eyes moistened with pleasure as he
removed a thin flexible blade from his bag and knelt
next to the semi- conscious girl. "I am going to ask
questions," he ripped open her shirt, drawing the
blade across one childish nipple. "you are going to
answer."
Vassili turned away from the muffled scream,
wondering if he should point out the girl probably
didn't speak English. Walking down the column he saw
that most of the damage consisted of slashed tires and
smashed radiators.
*What the hell was she up to?* Vassili knelt by
the abandoned bicycle just like the ones the Vietminh
had used to drive out the French and Americans. That
explained how she was able to move so quickly and
quietly. He noted frayed wired dangling from the
generator and an empty clamp for the
headlamp. *Shovel*, he looked at the bloody,
sharpened
implement with respect, *a handful of rice, two
packages of instant oatmeal and a crossbow.* Ignoring
the high pitched wail behind him he hefted the weapon
looking at the six remaining arrows.
Another sobbing cry, and another. Standing the
bicycle upright he straightened the bent front wheel
and rolled the machine back and forth. *What the hell
did she think*---- a fat spark jumped between the
bare wires ----
*Six arrows left . . .Why a frontal attack?*
*Slashed tires . . . On the cargo transports.*
*No headlamp. Working generator--- A radio?*
"AMBUSH!"
Even as he yelled a warning, an enraged band of
farmers erupted from all sides of the jungle. His
guard force, watching Arnie instead of their flanks,
were caught completely by surprise. Firing his weapon
as fast as he could pull the trigger, Vassili dashed
into the jungle. Sprinting hard, he listened to the
sounds of fighting fade behind him.
*Maybe I ought to see if that night-manager job is
still open.*
****
"Damn them!" Arnie cursed under his breath as he
struggled down a narrow deer track.
*Especially that filthy little cripple.*
He had millions in hidden accounts, and money
would buy anything in this part of the world. He'd
rebuild his organization, bigger than ever. Then he'd
find the ugly creature and teach her a lesson.
The tiniest whisper of sound warned him and he
had a brief glimpse of the crippled girl racing toward
him on her hastily repaired bike, shovel leveled at
him like a lance. She hit him at almost twenty miles
an hour and the impact folded him around the end of
the shovel, lifting him off his feet. He was
unconscious before he hit the ground.
****
"What is that smell?" Angus McIntosh wrinkled his
nose at the sickly sweet stench.
"Gangrene," Rory Anderson explained, handing the
RCMP Superintendent a mask. "He was dumped off the
back
of a bicycle, tied with bailing wire. By the time we
got to him . . ." he shrugged. "Who is he anyway?"
"They didn't tell you?" McIntosh looked down at
the frail, emaciated figure, bandaged stumps moving
feebly like a beetle turned on it's back. "It's Dr.
Death."
"The bastard who killed all those children and
put
drawings of it on the internet!" Anderson's face
twisted in fury.
McIntosh nodded. "I wish we knew who did this to
him."
"Actually," Anderson said reluctantly, "we
tracked herdown a few days ago."
"Even accused criminals have rights." McIntosh
looked sternly at Anderson. "Her Majesty wants me to
deal with this personally."
****
"This is very dangerous. My last six couriers
quit, or have gone missing." Jun-Chhoun Prak looked
doubtfully at the small scarred girl.
Veata shrugged. "I need work, and Sothea needs
good food and medicine." Prak looked at the older
girl,
painfully thin, looking nervously around with haunted
eyes and could readily believe that. Just as he could
believe that no one but a maniac would take liberties
with this hard-eyed child. Still . . .
"I need someone honest and reliable."
Veata handed him a piece of heavy parchment.
There was no denying the British crown seal,
though it was a bit unusual to have a citation for
littering appended to a letter of recommendation.
"I need packages and letters delivered quickly."
He looked doubtfully at her prosthetic foot.
"That is not a problem," Veata's scared face lit
up as she reverently caressed the titanium frame of
her new mountain bike. "On my bicycle, I am fast."
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
[UPDATE]
I've been gone a while and it will
be a while longer before I'm back to
writing and C&Cing. Among other things
I've had to replace both Hard Drives {they
shouldn't make grinding noises, should they?^_*}
and I'm on my third monitor.
Fortunately all under warranty. ^_*
And only one file lost. :(
A few other odds and sods of Real Life
have also interrupted my writing.
I have also NOT answered all my e-mail
and some may never get answered. It was
lost with the HD. If you wrote and got no answer,
please write again. ^)^
I WILL get back to Sukeban Senshi (I've been
working on it off and on).
ALL of my incomplete stories on the
web-page WILL be finished.
In the meantime, you can read D-chan's stories.
http://www.geocities.com/ayongedarling/
Beauty in Darkness was originally conceived as
as fanfic. However I needed an original story for
A-kon and I realized that the basic concept
would lend itself well to the project. I was going
to do an historical piece (Tokagawa era) but it
kept growing to novel length and the contest
has a 2500 word limit. This was originally
3540 words. The last 115 were the hardest to
cut.
I hope you liked it.
(I may go back and re-write it as a fanfic. It all
depends on time constraints and how well the
[original] is reveived, etc, etc. ^_O)
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