Path of Ranger: Volume 1 (24 page)

Two months earlier…

It was a dark night, the sky stayed black and no moon or stars shined with their presence. Jerry was running through a foggy jungle, conquering lots of obstacles on his way towards the top of the mountain. He ran for so long that he had lost track of time. There was no tiredness in his muscles. The speed lowered only when he occasionally needed to catch his breath. No peak was seen behind the trees, and no other clues were there except his intuition.

JB’s path lay straight, at least he thought so. The angled uneven ground was not easy to go through, yet his hunch kept leading there. A bunch of dirt-puddles, thickets, rocks and cliffs were in his way. The old bamboo stick was obliterated by half, his clothes got dirty to the point of no return. One thing that brought JB comfort was that he was so stinky and filthy that no sane animal would want to attack him. His mind had gone far long ago, the instincts took over. Even the pain from upcoming cuts and bruises couldn’t stop him.

The next morning, JB woke up surrounded by the high shrubs. He felt terrible, the pain was everywhere; in the skin, muscles, even in bones. The mist got even thicker than before. Jerry couldn’t recall how he had happened to get there. His mind deepened into blurriness just like the air. As soon as muscle ache was gone the gangster got up. He felt much better.

There were not many memories left in his head about the night before, still, knowing his ways, he was sure that he had stopped there for some particular reason. JB opened up the last of the water-fruit. He stayed for a minute to have a look around while drinking.

The first thing that drew his attention was a beehive built on one of the trees. There were a lot of bees flying around. A thought of having some honey struck JB’s head at once. But that wish instantly was overweighed by the risk of being stung. So JB took a few more sips of the juice and went on, out of the thicket.

Most of all the big guy was interested in why he had stopped there. Had he seen something? Or had something made him stop? Or had he just passed out because of exhaustion? No obvious answer came to his mind. A couple minutes of wandering around changed nothing, it still was unclear. Half of the mountain’s altitude was left behind. JB had a great view from that place on the ocean. The vegetation was different there than on the lower ground, and the fog looked much thicker. Yet, the overall picture seemed alike.

After few more minutes of searching for some kind of clue, JB gave up on trying. It was time to move on. He chose the clearest path to walk on. But with the first step taken he tripped and fell down. It wasn’t a rock or a root that he tripped over. It felt soft. That moment he remembered falling down the night before. Just like that, he ran there and then something got in his way. So that was what had stopped him. The gangster lowered down to see what it was. He found a piece of red plastic glass, the kind in brake lights. This one was stamped in the dirt. It didn’t come from the plane.

Exploring the spot further, JB noticed that it wasn’t just a random hole in the ground. It was a long canal, and another, a parallel one, lay nearby. Tire tracks. It looked like an old road that had been overgrown with the grass. There were no more doubts: that island had been populated once.

His logic advised to take that as a good sign, but his hunch called only for suspicion. The roads meant infrastructure. Those who look for the most hidden corner of the world for their entrepreneurship usually don’t want to draw attention. The question was: what business did they have there?

Not getting too deep into theories about the activity of that hypothetical organization, JB wanted to find out more. The obvious choice was to check out the road’s destination.

It was an equal balance of choice between one way or the other since he didn’t know anything. The decision had to be made by the universe, JB thought. He took a half dollar coin from his pocket for a toss. Heads – west, tails – east. The coin showed heads, it meant his path changed towards the west.

JB didn’t rush anymore like he did before. Just walked along the road, up the hill. Besides, he saw it as an excellent opportunity to finish those mangos he had. Bridgers gave a hard thought about who might have lived on that island. Maybe there had been something valuable or still was.

In half a day, the gangster came to the road’s end. His destination had a surprise for him that he couldn’t even dream of. There was a small waterfall. The stream coming out cut off the road. From one side of the trail, there was a cliff, from another – a rock wall of the mountain. And there also was a giant stone head of a statue of an unknown creature. It was just a head that stretched out of the ground, yet it was about thirty feet high. The rest of the statue stayed under the surface. JB froze on the spot looking at it.

Dozens of questions flew through his mind. Most of all he was concerned about two things: ‘what was that creature?’ and ‘who could build it so large?’

The rocky surface seemed artificially cut. Perhaps those people had been working on digging out the statue. And judging by erosion and the vines that were covering it, that digging had been dropped a long time ago.

The most exciting thing there, in JB’s opinion, were the eyes. Both orbs were made of huge pieces of solid dark-red stone. It was smooth and refractive, precious, maybe. The view made JB forget everything else.

It was getting dark. JB took his time enjoying the view of the statue and of the island from that altitude. He was getting bored. He made a few pictures of the massive artifact. It was time to move on. The bamboo stick fulfilled its purpose, JB didn’t need it anymore. Soon as he did first steps down the road, he threw the stick aside, in the nearby thicket. Suddenly, a metallic impact sounded from there. The gangster stopped. It appeared that he hadn’t found out everything about that place after all.

Coming closer to the rock, JB started removing the thicket around the spot where the bamboo tool was. When some of vegetation got cleaned out, a metal plate showed up. It was protruding out of the ground, among a pile of rocks and sand. JB took a stick to knock on the metal, it sounded hollow. With some of the rocks being removed JB recognized in that metal object an old broken mine wagon.

A mine wagon… Interesting. A mine has to be somewhere around…

It made his investigation much more exciting. He wanted to dig further. So he stepped back to take a good look at the place with a new perspective. The vines, ivy, and bushes were all around the wall. He had to clear that up.

The next couple hours passed as minutes for JB. He didn’t even notice how he managed to remove most of the weeds. That spot around the wagon gained a clear look of what used to be a mine entrance. It was collapsed purposely, one could tell by the explosive cracks in the wall’s solid face. JB realized that wouldn't be able to clear out that logjam. Yet, he wanted to dig somewhat around.

Some gold would be nice… A sack, or two…

It went completely dark. The twilight was gradually becoming a night. JB lowered down near the wagon to dig the ground with his stick. After a while he found some strange material that was mixed with sand. That crusty substance had a dark red coloration, like the crystals of the statue’s eyes. He continued digging with his hands then. The deeper he dug, the more of that red sand appeared. JB picked a full hand of the substance to try how it felt. Then the weirdest thing happened, the dust went illuminating. A red saturated incandescence came out of that pile.

After a minute of observation, JB thought that it might be unsafe to hold that substance so he poured it back on the ground. The next thing he saw was his skin glowing where the material touched it. The whole situation looked strange and brought lots of confusion. The big guy picked some of the sand again to take a sample. Maybe, after getting out of the island, he might reveal its secret. Or sell it.

A sack of cash for a pile of trash wouldn’t hurt…

He stood up to go after his backpack. When walking along the road he noticed a brief movement, a shadow that flashed nearby. Firstly, he took it for a mirage since it was too dark to tell. A strong wind rose. The leaves sounded like a symphony across the jungle. Just a few steps left to JB’s things. Suddenly, a twig crunched right ahead. Then the bushes swished. Bridgers didn’t have time to even look around when a dark shadow attack him. In just a brief moment, it hit him, lifted him up in the air and threw him back down to press against the ground.

Breathing became impossible in the next few seconds. His throat and mouth filled up with blood. JB couldn’t see clearly because of the tears in his eyes. All he recognized was a dark silhouette of a strange creature upon him. Four blades of monster’s arm were slowly cutting through his chest. His back felt wet and cold from the leaking blood. And the cold breath of the creature was coming closer to JB’s face.

Bridgers realized that he was powerless, and those were the last seconds of his life. His consciousness went black. With his last strength, he squeezed his fist with the grains of glowing sand in it.

The light. Everything got illuminated, no shadow, no shelter. The entire world was made of light. Or perhaps, there was no world, just light.

Where am I? Am I dead? How can I see this? If I’m dead…

The pain had passed. It felt like a bad dream. JB gained peace, the worries were gone. The thought of being in heaven flashed through his mind. It couldn’t be, even if he were dead, he was going to hell. Still, such thinking seemed improbable since he always rejected an idea of the afterlife. The confusion was caused by an absence of his own body. There were no hands, legs, or torso, nothing. Soon he got used to that idea. He adjusted to the light. It was getting more and more pleasant. It was a heaven. Time had lost its value. JB didn’t need time anymore.

A sharp pain in his head cut off that euphoria. It felt like a hit on the head with a sledgehammer. The surrounding went in tremors and the light got dimmer. Then it went back to how it had been, quiet. But not having a chance to calm down from that unpleasant feeling, another hit came through. This one was much stronger than the one before. The pain was unbearable, and the irritating ultrasonic noise went along. The silence disappeared, as along with the light. JB ended up in the dark again.

The darkness took over the pain. The noise faded too. Soon a consistent beeping replaced it. A small beam of light broke through the pitch black, growing up in its brightness. The beam wasn’t just ‘white,' it brought a coloration along. The picture appeared within JB’s vision, a blurred and uncertain one. It looked like a man’s head that was flying in front of blinding surgery lamps. The face of the stranger was covered with a blue mask. He was a doctor.

“Welcome back to the world of living, my friend,” the man said.

“Dude…” barely pushing out air, JB whispered.

He lost the consciousness again. Those few seconds of being up hadn’t brought him much. But it told him the most important thing – he was alive.

Later…

An awful suffocation made JB wake up. His throat was over dried and was itching terribly. His lungs were in pain as if an acid were eating them from inside. On the other hand, he felt a comfort, for the first time in a while. A soft bed and air conditioning were nice to have around for a change. His limbs didn’t react, in fact, nothing but his closed eyes could move. He had no idea where he was or what was going on.

In a few minutes the gangster fully awakened. He tried to open his eyes but didn’t succeed. It freaked JB out. Such helplessness brought a fear upon him. It lasted for some time.

Soon he realized that panicking wouldn’t do any good to him. It was time to take matters into own hands. He tried to move the left hand, then the right one. No success there. The tongue worked, though. Yet, JB couldn’t open his mouth. Using the tongue, he found out that his jaws were fixed together with metal braces. It frustrated him even more.

The gangster wouldn’t expect any good from someone who had done such things to him. He had to do something, to get out of that position. The only thing comforting him was that he was able to breathe at least. Yet, it wasn't easy. His next idea aimed to enhance that one action available to him. To breathe. Maybe, if he increased the air supply in his body, the sensitivity would come back. He tried to make as deep of breaths as possible, as frequently as he could.

After few minutes of such action, JB realized that all he had managed to gain was soft vertigo. The anger rose inside of him. He was so mad at the person who had put him there, it provoked him much more. The gangster made several tries in spurting with his shoulders to wake up the arms. Nothing. Nevertheless, he didn’t even consider giving up.

About a half hour passed. Sure, he was tired a bit from all those tries, he even sweated a bit. But it brought him slight mobility of the left arm. As soon as he realized that, his effort doubled up. On the next spurt, his left hand lifted up. Jerry started moving his fingers and flexing the wrist. It felt much better now.

When the left hand was alive again, he used it to massage the right one. He checked the right hand from shoulder to fingers, it seemed okay. Then was the time to mobilize it too.

Soon both the arms were back under JB’s control. The next target was his eyes. He slowly moved his hands towards his head. But something stopped them on the way. The right pinky tripped over something hard, when the hand was going above the face. It felt like a breathing mask. Perhaps that was the reason for his painful breathing. Then he decided to take off the eyes cover, as he had planned. A surprise was waiting for him there. The fingers slipped from the bandage to the head’s top to feel that it was bald. JB went over the whole head, it had been completely shaved off. No more cornrow braids there.