The Russian jerked his right arm upward, lifting the seeker’s body entirely off the passenger train roof. He then slammed it downward with as much force as his considerable strength could create, causing the temporarily stunned seeker to release its bite on his arm. Yakov managed to maintain his grip on the knife, which he plunged deeply into the seeker’s chest.
The other seeker that remained in the grip of the Russian’s left hand grabbed a handful of Yakov’s beard in its talon-tipped fingers, ripping a large chunk of hair from his face. The pain from that was worse than the biting wound to his forearm. The Russian screamed again as he brought the knife into the shoulder area of the seeker, causing the creature to let out a piercing shriek as it lurched backwards, ripping the knife from Yakov’s grip.
Sensing the Russian was without a weapon, the other two seekers that had been preparing to join the fight chose that moment to do so, both of their bodies flying toward Yakov, their inhumanly wide mouths open and snarling, their dark eyes burning with anticipation of the kill.
Yakov dove against the roof, hoping the creatures would pass over him. He sensed rather than felt a large figure rise up from behind him, and then heard the crunching impact of the seekers slamming into something – or someone.
Bear caught both seekers, one on top of each of his massive shoulders. He could feel their claws digging into his back as he pushed his momentum forward and then down, slamming the monsters so hard against the steel roofed train he both heard and felt their spines simultaneously snap in several places.
Six more seekers remained atop the train, slowly making their way toward Bear and the Russian. Yakov had regained his feet and crouched just behind Bear, who glared back at the remaining seekers.
“What do we do now?”
Yakov considered Bear’s question, soon realizing he had but one answer.
“We fight.”
A loud whistle sounded from behind the seekers, causing them to halt their movement toward the Russian and Bear as they looked behind them. At the far end of the passenger car’s roof stood Cooper Wyse, his feet spread wide, a Colt revolver in each of his hands as the wind whipped the lower portion of his jacket behind him.
This time the seekers did not pause in their attack. All six came at Cooper as one, with frightening speed as their bodies sped along the train roof toward him.
Coop Wyse’s guns proved quicker – much quicker.
Six shots rang out, three from each revolver. Four seekers stumbled and then fell from the train roof. The other two, though injured and somewhat slower, continued to move toward the rancher. As the seekers leaped in the air, their clawed hands extended outward, Cooper dropped to his knees and with both barrels pointed in front of him, fired off two more rounds. Both bullets found their mark, entering the front skull of a seeker and exiting out the back in a considerable spray of blood, bone, and brain matter.
Standing back up, the rancher took a moment to twirl both guns in each hand several times before returning them to their respective holsters and making his way back down the side of the train and into the passenger car.
So impressed was he with Cooper Wyse’s display, Yakov pointed a finger at the departing rancher while looking back at Bear, a wide grin breaking out across the Russian’s now only partially bearded and bleeding face.
“Oh – you see that? That was good! Like in the old movies! A real cowboy!”
Even as he made his way back into the cab of the locomotive the Russian was voicing his continued amazement.
“A real cowboy! Bang! Bang!”
Bear looked back at Yakov.
“Hey, what about me? I took care of two of those things. And without a weapon!”
The Russian appeared to consider Bear’s words, but then waved him away.
“You did good…but not a cowboy! Bang! Bang! That was good! Very impressive!”
The train was moving at nearly forty miles an hour. Just a mile behind its location, nearly seventy seekers followed the train’s path, pausing only briefly to inhale the death scent of the ten seeker bodies that lay strewn along the tracks. The largest of the seekers, the same one that had first followed the Dominatus survivors to the Wyse Ranch in Alaska, unleashed a furious howling scream as it began bounding down the middle of the rail lines, its speed almost matching that of the departing train.
XLV.
“So good to see you again, Mac.”
Alexander Meyer’s voice was much stronger than Mac remembered it. The Old Man looked less…old. More like he appeared to Mac when they first met over twenty years ago, upon Mac’s arrival at Dominatus following his release from prison.
“Hello, Mr. Meyer. I’ve missed the hell out of you.”
They were sitting at a table in Mac’s own Freedom Tavern, the home and business where Mac later explained to Reese he spent the happiest and most gratifying years of his life. A familiar, swirling, rich smelling cloud of cigar smoke hung over the Old Man as his kind eyes looked back at Mac with open appreciation.
“I know you have, Mac.”
Over the years, and in his interview with Reese just days before the drone bombing of Dominatus, Mac Walker had explained it was Alexander Meyer who had saved his life. The Old Man had given Mac the opportunity to live in Dominatus away from the oppressive mandates of the New United Nations, away from the political operatives of the Consul who would wish to have his knowledge of the events in Benghazi permanently silenced.
Mac arrived in Dominatus still enraged over his treatment at the hands of his own government, the false charges of race-motivated murder, followed by years of imprisonment – a seemingly limitless supply of resentment and distrust of all things had been built up inside the former Navy SEAL. Alexander Meyer had taken that broken and fractured man who Mackenzie Walker once was, and over time, gave him back both purpose and self respect, a gift Mac remained eternally grateful for.
“I’m dying, Mr. Meyer. That day in the snow, just outside my tavern here in Dominatus, August Hess injected me with a cancer. It’s killing me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m so weak now. Can’t hardly breathe, always tired. My thoughts get…fogged up. I hate being this weak. I hate other people looking at me with pity in their eyes.”
The Old Man’s brow furrowed as he took a long draw from his cigar, the smoke momentarily hiding much of his face.
“You’re getting a taste of how I felt, Mac – for years! It’s not so bad having people worry over you, is it? You must have done something right for them to do so. I can recall you looking over at me with pity many times young man, especially in the last few years of my own life.”
Mac had to smile at being addressed as a young man.
“Did I?”
Alexander Meyer nodded.
“Oh, yes, you all did. And for good reason – I was a very old man! So old in fact, it became my title as much or more than my actual name!”
“Did that ever bother you? Being called the Old Man?”
Alexander Meyer smiled back at Mac, the light in his eyes dancing happily for a brief second.
“No, not really. I knew I was loved, respected, cared for. There is no shame in that. I had lived a very long time – suffered much, celebrated more. It was, despite the darker moments, a very, very good life.”
The Old Man leaned across the table toward Mac, his right hand coming to rest on Mac’s left hand as his face grew very serious.
‘So tell me, Mac, how are you feeling about your own life?”
Mac looked down at the Old Man’s hand as he contemplated the question.
“I feel…I feel like it’s running out, and I don’t like it. Not one damn bit. I hate losing, and I know that is what’s happening to my body right now. It’s losing.”
The Old Man removed his hand from Mac’s as he moved back into his chair.
“Growing old is inevitable, Mac. Death is inevitable. A body is not meant to go on forever, as much as we would like it to. There’s your soul though, the life beyond life.”
Mac’s face contorted in disgust as he looked away from the Old Man.
“Ah, don’t go talking all that bullshit, Mr. Meyer. I ain’t interested in hearing it. And don’t think I’m so far gone already that I don’t know these dreams are just me having a conversation with myself inside my own head.”
Alexander Meyer folded his hands on the table in front of him while staring back at Mac for several seconds.
“You don’t think I’m really here? That this doesn’t exist? That I don’t exist?”
Mac was growing angrier, struggling not to shout back at the Old Man.
“You’re just a memory in my head! And when I’m gone, so is the memory! I’ll be gone. You’re already gone. That’s just the way it is. There’s no God. This world is far too messed up for me to believe in something like that - that there is some kind of ‘thing’ out there somewhere responsible for all this shit. Maybe a long time ago I’d have considered it, but I’ve seen too much. I’ve done too much. I’m not a stupid kid anymore. Sorry, Mr. Meyer, but you’re dead. I watched you die in your bed. Watched you take your last breath and buried you in the ground. You don’t exist anymore. Just a voice in my head. Just me talking to myself.”
The Old Man smiled back at Mac, though his eyes betrayed a deep sadness.
“Mac, please listen to me. I need you to prepare. I need you to be right when your moment comes. That body of yours is dying, but there’s so much more beyond that tired and broken shell. You’re a good man, Mac. One of the finest and noblest men I ever had the pleasure to know. You have protected so many for so long, I am now asking that you consider the possibility of the need to protect you from yourself, from your own arrogance and ignorance. Time is running out, Mac, and you must be prepared, otherwise your guilt and your dissatisfactions will permanently corrupt this new beginning – this beginning of a new beginning.”
Mac’s composure finally broke, causing him to do something he had never done before. He shouted back in anger at Alexander Meyer.
“Shut up with that shit! I don’t need your spiritual nonsense! I was born, and I lived, and now I’m gonna die! Not a damn thing to be done about it! That bastard Hess jabbed me full of this cancer. If there’s some god out there, why the hell did he let him do that? Why’d he let the globalists destroy America? How about all those people killed by the drones? Seems to me that in this world, evil is rewarded while no good deed goes unpunished! So screw God, and screw you too. Get the hell out of my bar! Get the hell out of my damn head!”
Mac Walker woke inside the passenger car of the moving train, the darkness outside passing silently by the window next to his seat. He sensed the train was moving very fast now, speeding down the tracks toward their destination in Churchill, Manitoba, to the priest and the hoped for weapon that would help destroy the New United Nations.
His lungs struggled to take in air, the sound of his wheezing enough to make Mac fear he would wake the others. He could feel his heart working harder and harder as it attempted to function with the diminished levels of oxygen in his body.
A wave of guilt washed over Mac. Even though he remained convinced it was merely a dream, he was shocked at how he had spoken with such disrespect to the memory of the Old Man, and found himself whispering a silent apology to that memory. Brando raised his head from the floor near Mac’s feet, the Doberman’s eyes seemingly full of concern for the dying former soldier.
Mac shook his head at the silly thought. Brando was a hell of a dog to be sure, but he was just a dog. He wasn’t capable of human feeling anymore than the universe was capable of having some god out there watching over everything and everyone. People tended to just believe what they wanted to believe.
Leaning down so that his face was close enough to Brando’s that the Doberman was able to gently lick his left cheek, Mac found himself whispering softly back to the dog.