Shep said, 'Once we take that thing out of you, you'll be fine. It will all be fine.'
'I…'
'No. You do it. Now.'
Nina batted her eyes and cast them to the ground in an expression of guilt, dejection, and embarrassment, like a contrite teenager accepting punishment.
Shepherd grabbed the hand holding the pistol. He slowly twisted her wrist. Nina did not fight but she did not willingly surrender the gun, either. She grunted as the older man forced the weapon from her grasp.
Nina staggered to one knee and held her wrist.
'Trust me, Nina. Whatever that thing has done to you, you still know you can trust me.'
She stood again, sheepishly, and let Shepherd lead her away…
…Except for Tyr, Trevor lay alone on a blanket under the white canopy hastily hung between a tree limb and a wagon. His expression did not change. His eyes saw, but not the tent: they saw hours of torment. They saw the torture-spider and bore bugs. The instruments of anguish long gone but the feeling remained; ingrained in the memory of his skin and his nerves and the pain centers of his brain.
A visitor entered the tent. Tyr raised his head but lowered it just as fast.
The Old Man sat on the ground and crossed his legs.
'Dirty pool,' he said in a hushed voice. 'That’s what this is, Trevor. The rest of us have been playin' by those rules but it seems some think they don't need to be following the script. And that's how we got here, Trev. Nothing right about this. No, Sir.'
Trevor did not respond.
'Can you even hear me? I 'spect not. Not over the sound of all them screams. Yeah, I can hear them. Not a scratch on the outside, but your insides are more scrambled than an omelet, ain't that so? Your soldier-girl, they're yanking that slug-thing out of her right now and she'll probably be right as rain. But what they put in you…well, ain't no cure for that.'
The Old Man held his hands over Trevor's body, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath…but the breath sucked in something other than oxygen.
'A man can take a lot of pain, but what they did to you…you can still feel all of it, can't you? That was the point. Get to your mind through this body of yours. Trevor-you listen to me-this wasn't supposed to go like this. Ole' Voggoth pulled a fast one. Now I can go and cry about him breakin' them rules but by the time that gets all sorted out this thing would be done and over with you on the sidelines. So here's what we're going to do, Trev. We're going to right the ship, as it were. We're going to settle the score. Now I can't make the nightmares go away; they're a part of you from now on. But I can dull them a little. Make them bad dreams: old, old memories. Take away the bite, as it were.'
The Old Man sat next to Trevor for several minutes, but before he faded away, Trevor's eyes slid shut and he slipped into a deep, peaceful sleep.
– The raiding party traveled for four nights to reach home. Trevor spent most of that journey asleep in the rear of a wagon. For him, the trip took the form of flashes from explosions and flares, and sounds from gunshots and roars.
He did not see the statue-like stone soldiers, the flying flower things, or the hippopotamus monsters with eyes on stalks.
Late in the afternoon of November 22, Jon Brewer’s successful rescue party arrived at the main gates of the estate. There the wounded, bruised, but ultimately victorious group received a welcome deserving of heroes.
To the surprise of all-particularly the rescue party-Trevor stood and walked off the wagon under his own power. He had not spoken a word for four days; Reverend Johnny figured he was locked into a waking coma of some kind, or completely insane. However, when the wagon stopped in the driveway, Trevor Stone stood and walked-with a stumble-into the mansion.
Trevor offered no explanation because he had none; he did not know how he had escaped the prison of screams in his mind.
Eventually, however, night came. Trevor would spend those nights alone in his bed, haunted by images of spidery shadows slinking along dark ceilings; of sickly mouths gnawing; of deadly swarms creeping. More than once he woke with a scream muffled behind locked lips and sweat dripping from every pore on his trembling skin. Yet they were only dreams, and they held little power over him. As if, perhaps, he had imagined the whole ordeal.
While the people welcomed Trevor home as a hero they eyed Nina with suspicion, no matter how many times Johnny proclaimed her free of implants.
Nina slipped away quietly to the sanctuary of her apartment, and there she stayed for a long time.
20. Storm
Jon Brewer faced his biggest decision of the conflict. His next move would determine victory or defeat.
A field blanketed in dead leaves served as the battleground. Overhead a blue sky, but in the distance gathering clouds suggesting that the surprising warmth of the afternoon was a prologue to an evening of storms.
But that would be later. For now, all depended on Jon’s next move.
He shared his plan with his unit: Tolbert did not like the idea but Benny Duda (Stonewall’s 12-year-old bugle boy) and Kristy Kaufman appreciated the creativity of the strategy and felt certain the enemy would be taken by surprise.
Jon moved his troops forward and grabbed the oblong, air-filled weapon from the ground.
Across the line of scrimmage waited the enemy: Dante Jones in front of Jon; Dustin McBride guarded Benny Duda; Woody 'Bear' Ross squared off against Tolbert; and Kristy had drawn coverage from Anita Nehru.
Jon shouted, 'Hut one! Hut two! Hike!'
He pulled the football close to his chest and dropped three steps back.
Dante Jones counted fast: 'One-Mississippi…two Mississippi…'
Kristy ran the perfect buttonhook, exactly as diagramed in the dirt. Jon fired the ball just above the outstretched arm of Anita Nehru. Kristy bobbled it but held on.
Dustin McBride abandoned his coverage of Duda and lunged to tag the receiver. Tolbert, downfield by the end zone, engaged the larger Ross with a blocking move.
Kristy feinted to run but-as planned-flipped the ball to Benny Duda.
The unexpected move left Benny clear to race for the end zone…except Woody Ross threw Tolbert aside and blocked the kid's path.
The freckle-faced 12-year-old gasped. Ross, a first-round draft pick out of the University of Miami and one- time starting strong side linebacker for the Washington Redskins, stood between Duda and the winning touchdown.
Bear played it perfect. He stomped his feet, snarled, then let howl a cry of battle.
Duda yelled, 'Ooo…shhhhhh… iiiiiii…ttttt…'
Ross reached to make the two-hand touch tag and…swatted air.
Duda spun away and pranced between the two bushes marking the endzone. The resulting celebration included knocking knees then spinning the ball on the ground and shooting it with pretend guns.
Woody 'Bear' Ross stood alone in the field, the subject of intense scrutiny from the handful of people who played the role of the roaring crowd.
'God damn it, I won a national championship.' He shook his head and smiled in an 'awe shucks' sort of way. 'Hey Bugle Boy!' Ross yelled with false fierceness. 'Let’s play tackle!'
Benny's eyes grew wide and frightened as Ross ran at him like a charging bull. The kid raced off through the woods and down the slope to the parking lot behind the Methodist Church.
Trevor and Lori Brewer, standing amongst the dissipating crowd of spectators, laughed at the sight as they walked across the field. Jon joined them.
'Here comes Coach Lombardi,' Stone, limping, joked.
'Chuck Knoll,' the lifetime Steelers fan corrected.
Tyr and several other K9s trailed Trevor and the Brewers. The dogs did not understand football. They did not understand Thanksgiving either, and they certainly could not comprehend how a feast and a sport were so closely tied together. However, they did understand that hunting parties had been under special orders to catch
