CHAPTER 8: TRAINING

TRAINING

Ryan unlocked the door to his two-bedroom apartment, walked in, and set down the box. He walked into the kitchen and started to brown some ground beef, he cut up an onion and let it simmer in a separate pan. He planned to make his favorite dish, homemade spaghetti. Ryan walked into the bedroom and grabbed his Karate GI, taking off the light blue button down shirt now covered in dry blood, checking the wound; he changed the bandage and got dressed.

He turned on his DVD player and picked Iron Maiden “Live in Japan” to stretch-out to. He turned the volume up slightly and checked his ground beef, it was brown enough, so he added the onions, draining the pot, he opened the cabinet pulling out a can of tomato sauce, a can of mushrooms, a can of crushed tomatoes, and a can of tomato paste. He opened the cans dumping them into a large pot adding water, salt, pepper, garlic, and three packets of spatina spaghetti spice. He put the lid on the pot and set the temperature to simmer. He could workout for the two hours he needed for all of the flavors to combine.

Ryan started to stretch out his stiff and sore body from the night before. He completed all of the stretching exercises that he had learned while taking martial arts in the military.


Sgt. Maj. Ryan Douglas had finished his career with the U.S. Army Rangers, The Army’s Commandos, during which he had mostly been a paratrooper in the Eighty Second Airborne Division, as an Infantry Platoon Sergeant. He had never dreamed that the skills he learned in service would help him fight his war against demons or that Demons even existed.

Ryan squared off in front of a large mirror, turning his body to the side so that his right hand held slightly off the jaw was in the rear, his power hand. He shot his left fist in a straight jab out to an imaginary target, tightening his fist at impact and driving through the target. He did this ten times and changed his fighting stance to a right hand forward position, to train both sides equally. Ryan completed each punch and kick using an orthodox and unorthodox fighting stance, completing each movement flawlessly, first slow, then medium, fast, and red-line. Ryan practiced martial arts for two hours, feeling his body start to loosen up, then he turned the meat sauce to a warm setting and went into the second bedroom and punched and kicked his heavy weight bag for another hour. He ate dinner in a full split position on the floor lifting the curtain aside to judge how much time he has until sundown.

Ryan rested after dinner for about an hour, then laid out equipment on his living room floor and unfolded a map of Cleveland on the dining room table. He mentally checked off his equipment as it passed his cursory inspection: two wooden stakes, made from a dogwood tree he grew himself on his balcony, fed only Holy water and Miracle grow. The Dogwood was said to be the type of tree Jesus Christ was crucified on. God made the tree so that for all time it would never grow to the size that it was when Jesus died on it, its petals would forever grow in the shape of a cross, with bloodstains on them.

He turned the wood using a lathe set up in a walk-in closet, in the back bedroom, where he kept his weapons. Ryan in-laid the stakes with pure silver it doubled as a werewolf killer. He kept one in a sheath at his waist and placed the other high between his shoulder blades under his Tac vest, using masking tape. The Sgt. Maj. oiled and pulled back the slide on his matching fifty caliber Desert Eagles, replacing the lead with hardened dogwood bullets that were encased with silver nitrate at its core, sealed by wax. He placed a silver cross around his neck; besides the religious purpose, he figured that he could tape it to a frag grenade and throw it in a werewolf den. He taped a Gerber Mark II fighting knife to his right leg above the ankle in a boot sheath.

Around his waist he had extra magazines, thermite, frag, and flash grenades, a redlense flashlight, first-aid kit, and canteens. The one on his left had Holy water and in the one on his right he kept spring water. Ryan slung a cutoff Mossberg Viking pump shotgun, with three-inch magnum shells, lead removed, and reloaded with silver and dogwood shot. He was ready.