Laura's Story, John Stormm [top 20 books to read TXT] 📗

someone will proclaim me as a hero for saving the girl, by defeating her stalker in self defense in the night time shadows. But in my world, CIA handlers in MK Ultra will twist everything until I am named as this bastard's murderer, and it will be evidence used to hold over my head, to make me more compliant, to murdering the people they want me to.

I don't think I ever spoke of this little adventure before, and barely more than a mention to Laura, that he would not be coming around anymore. We both know when not to press for secrets or uncomfortable information from each other. Also in this man's pockets, were little plastic sandwich bags. Some of them had locks of hair, and odd bits of ladies' jewelry. I imagined that these were his trophies of other stalkings. We wouldn't be seeing coppery red strands of hair in his future collection, and for that, I was contented with my actions that night. The police would find him when and however they would. But as far as any were concerned, I had my alibi for where I was and whom I was with that night, and would never speak a word about it.

After that became old history, Laura would come on down to the crew's breakroom at the ambulance base, and we'd chat if I were in. Or she'd listen to all the tales of the things we had done out on our runs, by the crews on duty. Back then, we had something called the STEP Council. It was run mainly by a competing ambulance company, and some questions came up for all the "wild risks" I was taking with my life to get to my patients quickly. You've seen all those rescue TV series, where the medics get the victims free of the automobile wreck and nearly 50 feet away before it blows up in a ball of flame. Well. About half the time, the wrecks ignited while I was still trying to get my patients loose of them. They'd have second and third degree burns, and I'd have a sunburn with maybe a few small blisters, and a loss of some body hair and eyebrows.

Some were making accusations at the time, that I had some kind of unhealthy death wish. I knew that I was more resilient than that. Even if that fiend had shot me, I had already survived much worse than that previously, and even after that, without even missing the next day's work. Laura knew that about me, and said that I had a Frankenstein's Monster complex, and valued everyone else's lives more than my own, and secretly wished that I could leave this world as a dead hero than a monster. I think there was a ring of truth in that. Except, I was always fairly certain that I'd probably survive most of those escapades and in some degree of pain for my efforts.

I'd do right, because it was mine to do. She started labeling me as a "do-gooder" and the "White Knight" always charging to the rescue. She used to love listening to all the stories in the break room, and then push all my buttons about it afterwards. Never really in a bad way, and she always got her point across to be more careful and that there was always somebody in this world that could see me, for me and still care about me. She was a friend with no special claims upon my attentions. She knew what I was about and accepted it easily and frankly. Everybody else THOUGHT they knew or understood me, according to the world they chose to believe in. But over time, they'd wonder if they ever knew me at all, and all I could say to this was: DUH!

Eventually, I had left Rochester again, for a few more MK Ultra missions, full contact karate tournaments, marry again and lose it again, because what woman can really say they really love someone that they have no real inkling of. I thought about Laura again and again, and always secretly wondered what kind of children the two of us might have produced. But firstly, Laura grew up as the "lady of the house" tending to her dad and younger brother, in the absence of her mother. She wanted no part of the stay at home, baby maker, mommy thing.

I was more than a little concerned about what kind of special issues might be raised, by the children we might have had, and I had a friend who was my number one fan, and never gave me any attitude except to make a point, and left it at that, when she did. Why would I want to mess that up by marrying her? Lovers came and went, and usually in that order. But Laura was always like a welcomed sister to me. We could share any and all secrets, and still feel the same as ever about each other.

I came back to Rochester, after my second failed marriage and my last couple Ultra missions went sour. I was certain that I had been sold out by my handlers, as I had been very picky about what kind of jobs I'd take, and there was no other way that our targets could know we were coming and from where. Back then, they referred to us as "Black Boys". We'd sneak across the border, carrying no ID whatsoever, crossing no checkpoints and not even having manufacturing tags on any of our clothing so that someone might figure out where we bought them, and trace us by them. I was waking up and breaking free of the MK Ultra conditioning, and that represented all kinds of stress and trouble for me. I got things squared away, and had to prove to Social Security that I had not, in fact been shot to death in Mexico. And decided that I would settle down with a nice Christian girl, that I knew her whole family since she was eleven.

They seemed all grounded and down to earth in their faith, and I thought that was a nice, normal, stable sort of relationship to raise a family in. I particularly liked my mother-in-law too, and was her favorite son-in-law. What could go wrong? Handlers, would play upon the oddities that always had people wondering about me. It took a while to destroy that marriage, because I worked hard at it, and was devoted to raising my kids well. I never had any children by my previous two. In the end, they spread rumors in my jobs, and any decent job I had, never lasted longer than five years before I was out pounding the pavement again, looking for more work. But I certainly wasn't aboout to take any more work from the spooks.

My Christian wife, who made the holiest vows she could make before God, had had enough and broke them all, took my children away and left me. Anything I coud say or do, simply made me out to be the monster, even though no such violence or abuses ever happened against my family. We lived in some rough neighborhoods, and I had more than a few tussles with the local drug dealers and gang bangers, but I always came out on top, and had even prosecuted a few, as a chief witness against them in a court of law. But as I said earlier: In my world, the CIA handlers always twist such things about to where nobody calls me a "hero", but always a monster... like THEY are.

In the process of a long, nasty divorce, I took a job managing a local neighborhood convenience store. I had a good mentor, and not wanting to constantly live all my hurts and outrages, I threw myself into being the best store manager that I could be. I stayed focused on the job, and the pay was okay too. It got a little dangerous now and again, as robberies and gang bangers tried to infringe upon my domain. But let's face it, they had no clue of what they had wandered into, when they picked my stores to victimize. I was steadily racking up a tally of convicted felons for our D.A.'s office, on a really regular basis.

For a while, the Bay Street store would get robbed once a week, whether it needed it or not. But that trend quickly went away when I came on duty there, and similarly so, at a few other of their stores. During this time, I was also managing the North Clinton and Ridge Road store, and making more steady busts than R.P.D.'s Clinton Avenue section. This was back in the general vicinity of Laura's neighborhood, and we became re-acquainted, as all the stories of my latest exploits started circulating around the neighborhood again. I'm nothing, if not consistant, and so was Laura. She was working in the accounting and billing department of a local hospital at this time.

Laura could sniff out a "breed" from nearly a hundred yards away. No kidding. Over the years, she had become acquainted with no few extremely gifted individuals of various walks of life. Most of them had a penchant for being arrogant, self serving and cruel. We figured that it was because so many things came so easily for them, so they spoiled themselves. We, on the other hands, were brought up being responsible to our families and learned that no matter what we could do, to put the needs of others before our own. Might, never made anything right. So we had learned to set our own boundaries on what we found as acceptable behavior in ourselves, while most of the other hybrids indulged their own every whim as they would.

Being somewhat of a larger-than-life "do-gooder", as Laura put it, my reputation preceded me among some of these, and they had no intentions of ever coming at me in cross purposes. Some said I was more like a "full blood", than a "breed" in my inclinations. I wasn't sure at the time, of what that meant, but later I figured that it had more to do because of what I inherited naturally in my mixed gene pool, and then what was conditioned into me via the MK Ultra programs I was involved in. In these times, I learned more and more about how the other half lives, so to speak. Laura had already long ago showed an ability to drain the very life force out of a man if she wanted to. She always carried her age extraordinarily well.

To give you an idea of what I mean: Laura was only three or four years younger than my present sixty years of age. But she would easily be mistaken for a healthy gal of thirty. Her boyfriend, Rolf is only a little more than half her real age but looks like he's the elder of the two of them. He looks sort of like a younger Dolph Lungren kind of guy in Special Forces gear. How some of these "breeds" feed, tends to vary with their types and appetites. Many, like Laura will tend to feed by standing at the edge of large crowds of people, so that no single person gets sapped for too large a portion. They will eat, like anyone else will eat, but hybrids always seem to require something more for life as we know it. Their bodies demand more than "normal" humans demand from them, and they are capable of far more.

Some of the worst of these types, live for the adrenalin rush they get by feeding off of the life forces of people who are terrified and afraid. It is like seeing someone addicted to a drug like heroin or the likes. I found that I can feed off life force too, but I prefer more the flavor of tapping into Nature. That makes