Brothers in Blood: For the Children

You're Not Their Father

James was curled up in the armchair, Kyle sprawled out on the couch. They shook and tears ran down their faces from the nightmares they were fighting. They shook themselves awake and turned the movie back on. Mommy had said to keep watching it until Daddy got home. She had been asleep for a long time, four movies. They were still scared, but the living room was in the center of the house with no windows where creepy things could be watching them. “Whayya wanna watch now?” Kyle scanned the movies on the shelf. “Lets watch a God movie, like...” He looked on the top shelf. “Da Lord of the Rings! See, its got fellowship in it, like Pastor Hernandie always talks about before snack time.”
James nodded his consent. “Okay, and God’ll protect us from all the bad things and he’ll take away all those scary things out there.”
They popped in the movie and huddled together in the armchair. The opening battle sent them scampering for the shadows, to hide from the giant bad guy who was throwing the good guys everywhere. They crept out of hiding when the scene shifted to Hobbiton. Then Daddy came home and caught them right before the Fellowship entered Moria.
“What are you watching?” Mac stopped to consider, why he asked that. he knew exactly what they were watching, he had practically memorized the movie. he went over and turned it off. “Why were you watching that?”
“It was a God movie, Daddy,” Kyle was off the chair and pulling at his father’s belt, and James was leaping into his arms the second they realized he was home. “It had Lord in it and fellowship like pastor Hernandie talks about on Sunday!”
James interrupted. “We was scared, daddy, so we wanted watch a God movie to make the scary things go away. Oh look, the sun’s coming up!” His eyes closed and he passed out, his little head resting on Mac’s shoulder. Kyle curled up at his feet. He reached down and picked him up and carried them both to their rooms. Then he washed his face in the kitchen, stripped off his shirt and crashed on the couch, exhausted. All-nighters were nothing new to him, but driving all night and not having slept well the night before was taking its toll on his body. he slept for an hour, woke up and decided to move to his own bed. he could hear Rachel in the shower, singing to herself, waking herself up for work. She had gotten a job at a local bookstore called The Neverending Adventure.
he left his jeans on and fell across the bed, his eyes finally closing. Mac felt her side of the bed. it was cold, like she hadn’t slept in it. Then he felt warmth under him. She had slept on his side, and from the pillow arrangement, she had been doing it for a while. he rolled over and stared at the ceiling. In the other room, she was turning off the water.
“What time you gotta be at work, love?” She almost dropped the towel she was using to dry her hair. She was wearing his bathrobe, at least four sizes too big for her. A small sound, joy, surprise all rolled into one came out. He stood up and wrapped his arms around her. her hands went to his face and stopped. “You haven’t shaved since you left. I told you to take care of yourself down there.”
he pressed his forehead against hers. “Not down there for me, baby, down there for the kids. That’s why I’m back. for the kids.” She kissed him hard. She felt him start to fall and fell with him, back onto the mattress. His lips went still, his body relaxed. Rachel held on for a moment, then smiled at him. “I’ll see you tonight, dear.” She kissed his cheek and got dressed and left for work.
Around noon, James and Kyle crawled into bed with him, nightmares had plagued their sleep again. They huddled against him, nudging him to wake up. His eyes opened slowly. “Sup, boys, whass goin on?”
“We scared, daddy, that scary man still out there. You gotta take care of him, daddy, make him go away.”
Mac sat up. he had come home because the boys had found a body, and now he needed to get rid of it. “Where was it?”
“In the tree, back by your shed where you say we can’t play in.”
Oh yeah, the shed where the Tribe had stashed all the weapons they found after the firefight. he still hadn’t gotten around to taking care of them. he pulled a T-shirt on and plodded outside, barefoot, out to the shed. The boys were tucked in his bed, sleeping again, confident that Daddy would vanquish the scary man.
he found the body easy enough, twenty feet from the shed, hanging out of a tree. There were signs all over the place where snow had clumped down when it had fallen. It must have just gotten too heavy for the branch to support, with all the snow, and slid off. It was hanging seven feet in the air, held together by the combat suit. The face was ravaged by exposure and rot. he pulled it down. The body felt different somehow, too heavy to have been six months old. he had interned at a body farm one summer, and had learned to tell deterioration by weights. This was most definitely a two or three month corpse.
he dropped the body and immediately went to the shed. there were bits of wood broken off around the lock, but it looked whole. He pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Something wasn’t right here. he tied a string to the handle and went back to the shelter of the house before pulling it open.
Down in the town, Rachel was taking a walk on her lunch break when she saw the fireball erupt from the mountainside. She ran for the nearest phone and called the house. Mac picked up, she felt her knees sag with relief. “What happened up there? All I saw was the explosion.”
Mac was still a little hard of hearing, but he got the gist of her message. “Someone rigged up the shed, booby trapped it with enough C-4 to bring down a building.”
Answers escaped her, she had no idea what was going on. “How could someone have rigged it? No one else’s been up there since the shootout, not anyone we didn’t want up there.”
“That’s where we’re wrong. That body the boy’s found was three months old at the most. Someone’s been up here, and i can’t wait to find out who it was. They’re probably in town now, watching for it to happen. Anyone we know move in recently?”
She bit her finger. There were the Vincentti‘s, the Beck‘s, Officer Tom Berry, and Rich Taylor, they had all moved in within the past year, and all went to the church across town. She thought hard, and couldn’t remember ever seeing the Mr. Vincentti or Mr. Beck. Mac was regularly hanging out with Berry, he had been airlifted before the split with a bullet through the shoulder, and Rich was a deacon at their church, someone Mac talked to on a regular basis. “Vincentti? That name ring a bell?” She heard the phone hit the floor. Mac was yelling something. She hung up and raced back to the Neverending Adventure and clocked out. She scribbled a note for her boss and cranked the car into third gear and flew up the mountain.
James and Kyle were cowering in a corner of the basement where Daddy had told them to go play. Then they heard him yelling and got scared.
Mac smashed one of Rachel’s cooking wine bottles against the counter, holding tight to its neck.. Kenny Beck, dressed to kill, was standing in the doorway with a Colt .45. His suit was immaculate, and his face was perfectly transformed by plastic surgery. His dead black eyes and the pronounced limp in his right leg were the only giveaway that it was Beck, one of the traitors. The Tribe had met up with them a few weeks after the split, and Mac had crippled Beck before he could raise his weapon. Now Beck was back, and in complete control of the situation. And he wasn’t happy that Mac hadn’t fallen into his trap.
“Good to see you again, McNaughton,” His voice was oily, like movie theater popcorn. “been a long time. Vincentti said someone by your name was hiding up in the mountains, hereabouts, but I had to see for myself.” He studied Mac, crouched like a tiger, the bottleneck in front on him. “Kept yourself well I see, got a woman I heard. Rachel, that’s her name isn’t it?”
“What if it is?”
“She’s got something of mine. Actually two things, three if you count the car she stole from me.”
Mac cocked his head to the side. “What two things?”
“My sons, Kyle and James.” he saw Mac’s eyes flick to the floor, then back up to his face. “I was back in the country, going under the name of Rick Howards at the time. She treat you well?”
“Those kids are mine now.” His voice turned into a low growl. Red started filtering across his vision. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, the veins throbbed. “She never belonged to you. Leave now.”
“Once I’ve reclaimed what’s mine. Where are the kids? My man mentioned that he had seen them before he had that heart attack. Died right in the middle of a report. Did you find him?”
They heard a car pulling up in front of the house. “Expecting someone?” Beck moved into the hallway, just out of Mac’s vision. he took advantage of the opportunity and grabbed his own gun, the 12 gauge he always kept above the cabinet. He heard keys in the lock, heard the door open and Rachel call. He heard her step inside and the door slam shut behind her. he heard her scream. He leapt into the doorway and aimed at Beck’s head. Rachel was pressing herself against the wall, staring at the abusive boyfriend she had escaped from.
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
Beck moved from his place next to the door. he saw Mac standing with the shotgun. “I’m here for my sons, Rachel, and some revenge, right Mac?”
Rachel’s eyes darted to her husband, stiff and enraged, poised to kill. She looked back at Beck. “What happened?”
“I shot his leg off during the War. He was on the other side of the split and attacked us one night. Hit him before he could get a shot off.”
“And may I return the favor.” Beck fired a shot at Mac’s leg. It barely missed, piercing the wood floor and flew into the basement. Kyle and James screamed for Mommy to come and save them. “Ah, my children, my blood!” Beck pushed past Rachel and kicked at Mac, who had dived to the side when the gun went off. “My son’s, Daddy’s come for you!” He opened the basement door and felt his shoulder sink into his chest.
“Never turn your back on an enemy, Beck. That was the one lesson you never learned.” Beck fell to his knees, struggling to rise against the pain. he felt the torn flesh bleeding itself out. It burned like fire. “I’ll help you only if you take your family, and leave us alone.”
Beck pointed an accusing finger at Rachel, his eyes wide and face pale. “I saved you, stupid whore, took you in off the streets and gave you a place to stay! Took you in, made something of you. And you stole my children, my blood from me.” tears started rolling down his face. “Stole my sons, stole the only thing I could truly call my own, no matter what name I went by. How many STD’s would you have now if I hadn’t ripped you from the streets of the Indiana, saved you from self-destructing in the sex trade? Sleeping with everything that moved for money, any man who would give in to you.” His voice faltered, blood starting to drip from his clothing to the floor. “And you, Mac, remember what Borkowski said? Dying for a country that hates you? We saw the signs, Vince and me, we saw them. Should have done this a long time ago.” he raised the gun in his good hand and pointed it at Mac’s chest. Mac stood tall and stared him down. The gun wavered, then Beck fell. Kyle and James were still crying for Rachel. She stepped over Beck’s unconscious form and went quickly downstairs to comfort them. Mac picked up Beck and tied him with his belt. then he drove him to the hospital, wondering what was going on back down at Jack’s house. He wouldn’t be going back there any time soon.