Mind + Body, Aaron Dunlap [smart books to read TXT] 📗

A moment of clarity. The jagged pieces of reality that make up my perception of the world suddenly snap from disarray and everything becomes clear for an instant. At this time, I don’t do things because I want to or need to. I do them because they are the only things that could ever make sense. Afterwards I’m left in a daze and barely remember the moments just before, but while I experience them they are the temporary embodiment of a perfectly executed concept. The universe seems to be in chaos, then for a second the fog is lifted and I see the world and my life through disconnected and clairvoyant eyes. Just as quickly, the fog returns and I’m snapped back inside my head and the world continues just as before, only reeling from whatever I had just done.

Twice so far this had happened to me. The first was eight days ago, when the comfort of my existence was interrupted by a few punches to the gut and a fist driving toward my face. The second time was six days ago, another interruption of my stasis as a man began firing a silenced pistol through the darkness and through the windshield of my car. Both times, the violence sucked my attention from the typical malaise of my life and into that moment of clarity. Both times, I performed actions I would never have considered before. Both times, I hurt people in ways I didn’t know I would ever be capable of. Both times, I couldn’t have cared less about the pain I caused.

The third time happened like this:

A solitary desk lamp fought away the night darkness in my bedroom as I stood in silence, listening to the steady thumps as my heart forced blood through my veins. Downstairs, the front door’s lock was picked, the door opened. My legs and arms relaxed, then moved nimble and dedicated through my bedroom door, down the hallway, and partway down the stairs. My knees and ankles shared the tension and accepted my weight so I made no noise.

I ducked in the stairwell landing and peered from the darkness into the main floor, just as I had done years ago while my parents argued about baseball team tryouts. Through the wooden slatted banisters and down the main hallway I could see the front door, now open. One man walked through it, one other man behind him, another was already inside and turning into the kitchen. They crept like me, their knees crooked and steps silent. They wore uniform black body suits, black nylon harness vests around their chests, black domed helmets on their heads with tinted goggles covering their faces. They carried compact carbine submachine guns in their hands. When the sight of these people seemed in no way unusual or foreign to me, I realized that I was again operating on autopilot.

The second man came through the door as the first disappeared into the kitchen, and the third came in as the second turned to his right into the living room. The third came straight down the hallway towards the stairs.

It wasn’t a SWAT team, I thought to myself. They weren’t maneuvering in a stick formation and they were clearing rooms without cover. If it were a SWAT team, I would have just turned myself in right there. SWAT, a division of local police departments, has rules to follow. They subdue people and take them into custody; they don’t shoot anyone unless they’re a threat. They also bust through doors with rams and explosives, screaming “Police” and generally making their presence known.

They weren’t SWAT.

That’s all I needed to know.

When the third man turned toward the staircase, I sunk back into the darkness and went back up the stairs. To the left were empty bedrooms; to the right were my bathroom and my bedroom with soft yellow light seeping through the partly open door. The rest of the floor was pitch black, including my bathroom where I went, pressing myself against the back wall. I heard the soft jingle of gear dangling from a vest as the third man came up the first set of steps, turned across the landing, and started up the last set. I heard him stop at the top of the stairs, perhaps choosing a direction, and choosing right and heading toward the light of my room. I listened to my heart beat in pace with his steps, and I made sure I was breathing. My knife was still in my hand.

When the dark shape of the man passed the bathroom door, I sprang from the darkness in a single step and plunged the blade of my knife into the man’s right shoulder through the back and brought my left hand around to cover the man’s mouth just as he tried to scream from the pain. If I had been in a more rational place, I would have noted how the knife’s Teflon coating and unique tanto-point design let the blade slide through cloth, bone, and muscle with little resistance.

With a quick tug I dragged the man backwards into the black of the bathroom. He dropped the gun from both hands and it dangled from the strap clipped to his harness and over his left shoulder. The knife still stuck into the meat of his shoulder, he wouldn’t dare move his right arm, and his left was pinned by my own arm. He breathed hot and wet through his nose against my hand.

“Who are you with?” I asked as quietly and as menacingly as I could. I put a small amount of pressure on the knife, and slightly lifted my hand from his mouth.

After a few tedious groans and winces, he said, “I’m an American.”

That was obvious.

“What’s your objective?” I asked in the same voice.

Between groans and whimpers, he said, “Some guy. Whoever lives here.”

“Extraction or hit?”

He mumbled something between groans, but I didn’t understand. I asked again. Nothing.

I sighed. He wasn’t going to be any help.

I covered his mouth with my hand so nobody would hear him scream when I pulled the knife from his shoulder. I felt him go limp from shock, but his head bobbed and the tension returned to his muscles. Guy just didn’t know when to pass out.

I grabbed the nylon rifle strap from his shoulder and wrapped it around his neck and pulled sideways with my free hand, putting pressure on his carotid artery. After a few seconds of limited oxygen to the brain, his legs began to buckle and his whole body went limp. I let him drop to the tile floor.

A part of me, deep down, wondered if I’d screwed up and simply strangled him, but I pushed through the concern.

I rolled him over and unclipped the strap from his harness, then unwrapped it from his neck and picked up the gun. In the limited light I could barely make out the shape of the weapon but it seemed foreign, even for a submachine gun. I felt around the sides for a bolt, found one, and pulled it back. The guy hitting the floor had made more noise than I expected, the other two men downstairs probably heard it.

I started down the first set of stairs quietly, but I heard that jingling noise again. Around the corner, someone was coming up the bottom set of stairs. I stopped at the landing, waited for the jingling to stop, and swung the butt of the gun around the corner. I felt the metal frame of the rifle connect with a helmet or goggles, and heard what sounded like a few sacks of potatoes being dropped down the stairs. I turned the corner and followed the noise with my eyes down to where a man lay crumpled at the bottom of the staircase. I leveled the gun and raised it to look down the rail and took the a few steps down.

I found the other guy; he was in the hallway now heading toward the commotion. He looked at the man on the floor, then saw me and lifted his gun. Mine was already on him. I took a breath and started to pull the trigger when more movement caught my eye. Four more men, dressed the same as the others, poured through the front door. There were more than just the first three, it seemed; this changed things.

Three gunshots sent three bullets toward me. I fell backwards and edged around the wall dividing the staircase, heard more bullets impact the wall just behind me. I thought about dropping down again to try my luck shooting back, but the odds weren’t in my favor. I instead just stuck the gun out and fired off a few rounds blindly, then ran back up the stairs to my room. I locked the door behind me, then tipped the nearby bookcase over to pin the door shut.

I called Amy’s name, said it was me, and knocked on the closet door. She opened the door, the gun still in her white-knuckled fist. She looked a bit like a wet cat. “Icalledthepolice,” she said as one long stuttered word.