Over the Mountain

David begins to recollect what made him who he is.

        Chapter 7: Over the Mountain

 

         David Stared forward blankly as he drove. Adriana, Jace, Kyle and Mallory looked around and out the windows uncomfortably. The stolen weapons of the dead guards lay hidden under a blanket in the back of the vehicle. “How are we getting out of the city, David?” Mallory asked him, her tone laden with uncertainty.

        “I'll figure something out,” He responded in a flat, uneventful tone. He seemed unsettlingly calm and content.

        “W... well... I mean what the f**k? There's no way out of the city without them finding this s**t,” Adriana chimed in. David did not respond, only continued to gaze forward at the road. “David?”

        “I'm thinking.”

        “well we have to...” Adriana began to speak but was cut off.

        “Adriana,”David exclaimed, “just shut the f**k up! I need 5 god damned seconds to think. Just shut up. Shut the f**k up,” he said, shaking his head, “seriously.”

        “Sorry,” Adriana responded softly. The others bit there lips and stared around even more uncomfortably than they had before. The silence that entailed was of an awkward and strained nature, the kind that always entails when a couple fights in front of their friends.

 

        David blinked and swallowed, searching around his mind for a thought passerby. “You know its a whole year, right, bro?”

 

        “Yeah, I know.”

 

        “You're not... like... I don't know how to put this... but you really aren't going to be the same.”

        Words echoed back through David's head as they always did during the moments of a mental standstill. “I know.” slowly the memories crept over him and began to feel less like distant recollections and much more like the current reality.

 

● ● ●

 

        David's brother, Josh, chuckled heavily and stuck his tongue over in his cheek. “Alright man, what part of 'hit me' don't you understand?”

        David shifted on his feet unsteadily with his fists raised in front of his face. He glanced around out the expansive trees and mountains and took in the cold Canadian forest air. “well... how hard?”

        “I don't give a f**k,” Josh said, grinning, “you know how many f***s I give?”

       “Not one f**k.” They responded simultaneously whilst raising one finger in the air and laughing.

           “Not a single one... now hit me,” Josh said, watching a 15 year old David shift around and look in every direction but forward. “C'mon man, we've been through all this combat s**t. It's not time to check out the f****n' scenery. Look at me,” David promptly looked forward, “good, now hit me,” Josh said. David took a slight step and hurled his right fist forward in perfect form, his arm curling and the tightly wrapped ball of fingers and malice at it's end hurled towards his brothers face. David felt nothing but a cold swish of air where his brothers exposed cheek should have been, and a flash of pain at his upward twisted arm and the downward force on his elbow, which was used to throw him around to face the opposite direction from his brother, who swept his hand upward, snatching David's hunting knife from his belt and raising it to his throat while his brothers other arm slid up David's which he had twisted him into position with and slipped under his arm and behind his neck to lock him into a half-nelson. David barley realized that he was being forced to his knees the entire time as well. The knife stood poised just in front of David's neck, “You would be dead right now,” Josh said, “Never do what an enemy thinks is going to happen and never let him know before-hand. Surprise is the mother of death, and you are it's father.”

             David opened his mouth a little before speaking, “for the father of death I sure am getting my a*s kicked a lot,” David said jokingly, still with a knife held to his throat.

            “Shut up,” Josh said, laughing and rolling his eyes. He released his younger brother who fell to the ground.

            “And where do fried mayonnaise balls fit into death's family?”

       “distant cousin,” he responded, walking over to his and David's tent, he bent down to tend to a fire. “how are you and Adriana?”

        “We're good I guess.”

        “You're not worried about being away from her for a year? I mean s**t I was worried bout' leaving my girl for a few months when I was in the SEALs.”

        “Well of course but I mean... we are the only people either of has ever dated and it's not like... I don't know, she's not too self confident. I doubt that she would even have the courage to try and do anything while I'm gone, and I don't think she would anyway,” David said, walking over and setting himself down on a log several feet from his brother.

        “I wasn't talking about her, man. I mean you're gonna be out here for so long you might get used to not being around her and you might start getting' it in your head that you don't need her or something,” Josh said, cracking his knuckles and zipping up his jacket. He sat an a rock across from David and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, “And whatever you might think... that's not true. Sometimes a girl is all a guy's got to keep his a*s halfway in reality,” he said, raising a cigarette to his mouth and lighting it, “I gotta say though I was surprised by this whole Adriana thing I mean I just got the idea that you'd be a heart-breaker.”

        David laughed a little, mostly too himself, “thanks?” he said, deliberately highlighting the “?”.

        “So,” his brother said, “just how long have you been...” Joshed a smile and let out a cackle.

        David stuck his head forward and smiled raising his eyebrows, “W-w-w what, how ling have you been...” he said in a deep, stupid sounding tone, mocking his brother.

        “Nailing her.” his brother completed.

        “W... what? I... what?”

        Josh laughed wildly, smoke billowed out of his mouth and nostrils with every scraping eruption of sound that he emitted as he laughed. “seriously man, you two have been dating since you were what, like 12? There is no way, no f****n' way, that you guys are all over each other the way you are for how long you have and aren't stirring the cream with the coffee,” he said, then paused, looked around and thought about the coffee comment, “she's Mexican right?”

        David opened his mouth and threw his hands out, “Puerto Rican... half Puerto Rican. Was that coffee thing racist?” He said with no spacing between the sentences.

        “No, I love coffee.” Josh said, also not leaving space between sentences. “so she'd be more like a... mocha? I don't know.” He said, setting his chin into his hand.

        “Can we stop comparing my girlfriend to coffee?”

        “No... unless you want to compare her to models of cars. Women are objects that can only be compared with equally entertaining objects. And I prefer the term 'vaginal associates' over 'girlfriends'.”

        David blinked at him and cracked another smile, “dude you're f*****g horrible.”

        “That's what brothers are for.”

 

● ● ●

 

        As the weeks passed, time melted into an indiscernible mass marked less by the cycle of day and night and the meaningless numbers on the watch, and more by the series of accomplishments that David met one by one. David became a machine, an empty vessel waiting to be filled with more knowledge of how to kill. Something deep inside of himself made him feel alarmed to some degree at this. This feeling, however, was eclipsed by the inexplicable feeling that this was more important than anything else.

 

        After a month, Josh introduced David to yet another series of accomplishments for David to attain. These, in the form of firearms and knives, but still continued with hand-to-hand combat. David was a fast learner, much faster than Josh had expected. From the beginning, David's shots were accurate and his composer was contained within the steely determination of a man who wanted nothing more than to hit that target no matter the distance, as if it were mocking him with invisible eyes. After some time, something that disturbed David began to occur, he started to put faces over the targets with his mind. Eventually he told his brother of this, who did nothing but smile.

        The days melted further and further, until David hardly recognized the dividing lines between the days at all, and only referred to his sleep as “rest”, since, after all all, thats what it was; tiny notches in the line of training that had become David's 15 year old life, and before he could realize what was happening, 6 months had passed. Over 180 days of training, some harder than others, but every one an accomplishment. David's hand-to-had combat wasn't perfect, but it was superior to the abilities of any average person, his proficiency in weapons, in stark contrast, resembled that of a machine rather than a human. He executed the military grade training tasks that his brother assigned him with brutal efficiency.

        (For some perspective, a US Army Recruit relieves 9 weeks of training —a little more than 1/3 of the length of David's training training so far—, and the degree of difficulty to this training is less than that of the US Marines, who a receive what is considered notably longer training, which was still only 13 weeks.)

 

        David lay prone, behind an R-700 sniper rifle and made the final adjustments to his scope, and with confidence, readied himself to hit the target. “Notice anything strange about the targets?”

        David, did not respond, which was a sufficient “no”.

        “Then you need to start working on your observational skills. There are two targets, you can shoot either of them, except this time, David, your choice has the possibility of severe consequences. Something you will encounter when taking an actual shot.”

        David broke his standard silence while taking a shot, “What do you mean by consequences?”

        “take a closer look at the rocks, bro.”

        David examined the rocks through the scope and saw something that he was alarmed he hadn't noticed. There was what appeared to be a dark rope—or wire—that ran through the rocks in their direction, peeking into view every now and then. “what the f**k is—”

        “its the covering to a fuse,” Josh interrupted, “and it runs from one of those targets to us, and one s**t load of C4 underneath these rocks.”

        “are you f*****g ser—”

        “Yes,” Josh interrupted yet again, “and stop asking questions that you know the answer to. That's what stupid people too. If you take the wrong shot, you will die.”

        David still didn't look up from the scope, he simply gawked at the target that lay in his scope.

        “and if you try to run, I will kill you.”

        David didn't really believe this, but he certainly wasn't willing to find out.”

        “This isn't hard David, if and when you ever find yourself in an real situation you are gonna have to make decisions like this in a split second. Now stop thinking about it and start thinking about it, and do it fast.”

        He opened his mouth to speak, but David decided against it as he often did when speaking with Josh.

        He starred into his scope.

The time that elapsed could have been an hour and it could have been a second. David stopped trying to make a decision and started simply knowing what he knew was right, he looked for the truth instead of what was possible, and he took the shot. He did it without thinking, much like he had when he and his family had taken that summer trip up north to Pacific Grove (and been very disappointed by the onset of thick, miserable fog at the end of the Vacation.) and he had been urged by his brother and sister to jump off that rocky and menacing cliff into the seething, cold ocean below, much colder than the waters down south. He simply stopped thinking about doing it and did it, and much to David's relief, like the day on the cliff, he was still alive when it was over, and a neat puncture lie an inch from the center of the target. David smiled.

        “Why did you chose that target, David?”

        “I didn't chose the target, you chose the target, I just trusted that it was the same one that you chose.”

        “Why were you confident that I had chosen that target?”

        “Because you always taught me to conserve resources. Why would you have wasted fuse on the further target when I wouldn't know the difference, or you thought I wouldn't.”

        As usual, Josh responded with a smile, which alerted him that he had given the right answer. Josh Raised his R-700 and aimed it down range.

        “What are you doing?” David said as he saw josh taking aim at the other target.

        Josh didn't even put in the usual effort at aiming, instead he simply traced the target into view with his scope and rather sloppily fired at it, and hit it. David was once again pleasantly surprised that they were still alive.

        “What, I thought—”

        “You thought based on the information that I gave you. You made the right decision when it came to the target and you made it for the right reason, but you were mistaken in relying on the information I gave you, even though it was helpful. I lied to you, as you would expect any enemy to do. There may or there may not be consequences to a situation, you should always act as if there will be, but never, ever act as if you know anything, and that includes the potential consequences.”

 

 

Author's Note

tell me what you think

Reviews

[Nely Amorim]

very detailed and cohesive to the previous chapters, i like the section about the brothers. great work Dillon (sorry it took me so long to review it) i've been unwell :)