Stone Soldiers 1: Mythical (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

After a long, wet, treacherous ride, Josie and her friends had made it back to their campsite. Which consisted of two large 4x4 trucks with extended cabs, a trailer for some of the motorcycles and five tents.

The teens changed out of wet clothes, trading riding jackets for dry t-shirts. They gathered around a campfire to eat a light meal of energy bars and overly-caffeinated drinks. They were glad the flash storm had stopped so suddenly.

The teens sat around the campfire, quietly eating, no one wanting to discuss their discovery.

Jimmy was first to finally break the silence. “Do we report this?”

“Report what?” Logan asked around a mouthful of energy bar.

Carlos elbowed his friend. “The boat- that corpse, stupid.”

Josie wasn’t eating, she was staring into the fire. She couldn’t get the image of the burned, stone man out of her mind. “I don’t think it was a corpse.”

Kendall gave her a confused look. “What?”

“The rain was washing the ashes off. It was stone underneath,” Josie said, finally looking up from the fire.

Kendall laughed at the absurdity of it. “A statue. In the desert?”

“Wearing clothes?” Carlos added.

“That makes no sense, Josie,” Logan said.

Josie knew her friends wouldn’t listen. They had been frightened to even approach the burnt boat. She took a long drink from her water bottle and remained quiet.

Her lifelong friend since kindergarten, Jimmy knew something was wrong. “What is it, Josie?”

“I- I don’t know.” Josie didn’t want to say more.

Carlos laughed. “I think the girl is scared! Never seen that before!”

Logan laughed nervously. “Yeah, Josie, you’re more of a man than Carlos is!”

Carlos frowned indignantly. “Hey!”

Jimmy watched Josie carefully. He knew there was more to this. “What is it, Josie?”

They guys would think she was crazy, but Josie knew what she had seen.

Josie laughed nervously. “I could have sworn it moved,” she finally said, shaking her head from side to side. She looked up at her friends, as if to dare them to say anything.

Logan laughed and threw an empty water bottle across the fire toward Josie. “Get outta here!”

Carlos chimed in next. “Man, I knew it! She’s trying to screw with us!”

Kendall watched Josie carefully. Her steely gaze was tinged with a bit of fear. He’d never seen that before. It made Kendall feel uncomfortable. He stood up.

“Nice try, Josie. You had me going for a sec,” Kendall said. He started to walk away from the fire- headed toward his tent. He kept his back to his friends, so they wouldn’t see he was a bit scared now himself.

“Big day in the Canyons tomorrow, losers. Hit the sack,” Kendall said, hoping he would be able to sleep now.

Logan moved a little closer toward Josie, a big grin on his face. “You know, Josie, if you’re scared, I could keep you company tonight.”

Jimmy, on the other side of Josie, glared at Logan. He was more than tired of all the flirting Logan did with Josie. All the other guys had figured out Josie wasn’t interested in them, why did Logan have to keep pushing it?

Josie frowned at Logan and threw her water bottle into his lap.

Logan held up his hands and stood up. This side of Josie he’d seen before- her angry face. He wisely remained quiet and walked off to his own tent. Carlos likewise stood up and left in awkward silence.

Only Jimmy and Josie remained by the fire.

Jimmy watched his best friend closely for several seconds as she stared into the fire. Finally, he stood up and offered a hand to Josie.

“You sure you’re all right?” he said.

Josie hated that she had let herself get spooked in front of the guys. Once again, she’d become the girl of the group. She climbed to her feet and batted Jimmy’s hand away.

“Fine,” Josie snapped. Angry at herself, she stomped off to her tent.

***

In the midst of the boat wreckage, the formerly-stone man leaned back, breathing slowly in the night air. He finally opened his eyes- strange, almost black, dark-green eyes.

The man looked around him. At his clothes, the melted boat wreck, his one boot. He leaned forward and put his hands down. With great effort he lifted himself up. No sooner was he on his feet than he collapsed to his knees.

The man knelt in the sand for a few moments, catching his breath. He looked at the sand and wreckage around him. A military knife lay on the ground, the handle melted. The man pushed the knife aside and tried to stand again.

This time, the man was able to stay on his feet. But he had to hold his pants up with his right hand. They were loose and baggy- several sizes too large.

The man looked up at the moon, and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. He slowly began to feel better.

The man opened his eyes and looked around him. Sighting a nearby rise in the sand, he started walking toward it.

Once he topped the rise, the man began to turn in a slow circle, eyeing the dark desert. In the distance, a tiny, orange glow could be seen. The man’s jaw set with determination. He began to walk forward, toward the distant campfire.

CHAPTER THREE

Several hours later, the stone man reached the distant fire he had seen. What had been a strong fire was now a barely-glowing collection of ash.

The man staggered, forcing himself to walk. His legs were sore, his throat dry. Despite his fatigue, he had forced his body on, toward the cluster of tents, trucks and motorcycles illuminated by the full moon.

The man plodded into the camp, past tents filled with sleeping teenagers. He looked around, panting lightly from the exertion of his long walk.

A small, metal can lay on the ground near a tent. The man carefully picked it up. Liquid sloshed in the can. Not much- maybe only a few drops.

The man held the can to his lips and tilted his head back, trying to drain the precious moisture out. The man made a face as he tasted the liquid. He looked at the can in the moonlight. His eyes refused to focus on the slender, tall can. Past the can, he saw something else. A cooler.

The man dropped the can and moved slowly toward the cooler. It was large, plastic. Cool to the touch. He opened the cooler. He could smell the water inside. He heard the gentle clatter of ice floating in water, bumping against the plastic sides. He saw the many bottles inside the cooler.

The man reached into the cooler and drew out an icy-cold bottle of water. The plastic bottle flexed in the man’s hand and he seemed taken aback. He examined the bottle as though it were some kind of alien thing. Then he grabbed the cap with his teeth and twisted it off.

The cold water went down his throat quickly. The man relaxed as he drained the bottle.

One was not enough, though. The man dropped the bottle and reached down for another. Again, he opened it with his teeth and drained out the cold water.

The man was starting to feel better. His vision was no longer blurred. He reached for another bottle of water. As he pulled it out, the other bottles shifted and thumped loudly against the sides of the cooler.

***

Josie awoke with a start in her tent. For her, that meant a sharp inhalation of air, and her eyes wide open. She had always been able to wake from the soundest sleep completely and immediately.

Her step-father told her it was the fireman coming out in her. Josie’s father had been a fireman, before he died when she was very young. But it was not a career she wanted. Putting out fires was dangerous- as her father had proven, with his life.

Josie lay unmoving in her tent, listening. She wondered briefly if she had dreamt about her father again. She’d been dreaming about him a lot lately. Something she hadn’t done since she was very young.

The more she thought about it, the odder it became. Dreaming about her father dying in a fire, then actually finding the remnants of a large fire in the desert and a dead man in the ashes. It was a strange coincidence.

Josie closed her eyes, hoping she cou
ld dream about something else. Then she heard a noise again. A plastic noise.

Josie’s eyes opened. She listened intently. The night desert was quiet and still. Except for plastic bottles bobbing in half-melted ice in the cooler.

Silence again. Then the sound of plastic. This time she recognized it- an empty water bottle falling against another. One of the guys must be thirsty.

Again, Josie heard sloshing in the cooler as another bottle came out. There was a short pause, then an empty bottle falling.

How thirsty were they? How many of them were up? Why weren’t they talking?

The hair on the back of Josie’s neck was up. She just instinctively knew something was wrong.

Josie quietly sat up in her tent and folded back her sleeping bag. She had slept in her motocross pants and a large t-shirt. She carefully reached for her boots and slipped them on.

Whoever was up was still drinking. Picking up full bottles from the cooler, then dropping empty ones.

Josie crawled slowly to her tent flap and began to unzip it. She could see a shape- a guy in the center of the campsite. He was standing by the cooler, drinking from a bottle.

She eased out of her tent.

As Josie climbed from her tent, she realized this was a stranger- not one of the guys. He was too tall. Then she realized he was bald and shirtless. He wore black pants, and one boot. Around the man’s feet lay almost a dozen empty water bottles. He held another in his left hand, and drank from one in his right.

Framed by the moon, the man’s features were hard to make out. But he appeared to be in his 30s. He had smooth skin- especially on his bald head. Josie watched as he drained another water bottle.

Was she seeing things? The man’s arm seemed to be swelling. As he drank from the bottle, she watched as his arms and chest were getting larger. Not swollen from drinking too much liquid, but more muscular.

Josie was suddenly scared. Then she noticed a gleam of gold around the man’s neck- a chain. And hanging from the chain, a gold, Christian fish pendant.

It was the burnt, stone man from the boat wreck.

The man dropped the empty bottle from his right hand and started to raise the bottle in his left to his lips. He stopped, turning his head toward Josie. Black-green eyes calmly regarded her.

The man put the bottle to his lips and began to drink.

As Josie watched, hair began to sprout over the man’s eyes. Eyebrows she hadn’t realized were missing suddenly reappeared- thick and black. On his head, hair began to grow- jet black in color.

The man dropped the empty bottle from his left hand and waved. “Good evening,” he said calmly.

The hair on the man’s head grew only a short length, into a very precise, military-style flattop, then stopped growing. It looked as though it had been freshly cut.

Josie screamed loudly. “
Guys!”

Carlos, Kendall, Jimmy and Logan all started in their tents- kicking off blankets and being generally disoriented. They struggled to put boots on and stumble out of their tents.

The green-eyed man calmly pulled two more bottles of water from the now nearly-empty cooler and began to drink one.

Kendall was first out of the tents- dressed in a t-shirt and jockey shorts, hopping on one booted foot as he tried to pull on another.

“What is-?” Kendall started to demand. He stopped when he saw the overly muscled, shirtless, green-eyed man calmly drinking water.

The stranger dropped an empty bottle and nodded a greeting toward Kendall. “Evening. I think I owe you some water.”

Carlos was next out of his tent, rubbing sleep from his eyes and wearing a long, over-sized t-shirt like it was a nightgown.

“What the hell?!” Carlos demanded.

As Logan and Jimmy spilled from their tents, the stranger began drinking water from another bottle.

Jimmy looked around, not knowing what to do. Like Logan, he had slept in his boots, pants and t-shirt because he was afraid of the rattlesnakes and scorpions in the desert.

Josie watched her puzzled friends as they looked at her then the stranger, then back to her again.                                                                                                                              

Josie sighed. “It’s
him
. The guy from the boat wreck!”

The guys all gave Josie dumbfounded looks.

Josie pointed to her own neck. “The necklace!”

Five sets of tired eyes looked toward the stranger’s neck as he finished another water bottle. His muscles rippled in the moonlight and his gold necklace glinted against his tanned skin.

Jimmy suddenly charged forward. “Get him!” he yelled. It was the bravest, and possibly stupidest, thing he had ever done in his life.

The stranger stepped calmly aside letting Jimmy charge past him. Jimmy immediately tripped over the many empty water bottles and fell onto his face in the sand.

The stranger dropped his last empty water bottle on the ground. “Hey, I’m sorry, but I really needed that water.”

Logan wasn’t about to stand there slack-jawed. He stepped forward and threw a roundhouse punch at the bulging, gigantic stranger.

The stranger snapped a hand up, almost not looking and caught the punch. With his other hand he pushed against Logan’s chest.

Logan suddenly flew backwards, nearly a dozen feet, collapsing a tent and landing with a heavy
thud
.

The stranger seemed genuinely surprised. He looked at his arm, then his chest. It was as though he had just discovered how overly-muscled he really was.

Kendall didn’t care how big the stranger was. He whipped out a knife from his back pocket, popping it open with his thumb.

“Stay back, man!” he nearly yelled. “I mean it!”

The stranger regarded Kendall with an eerie calmness. He raised his hands submissively.

“Calm down, son,” the black-haired water thief said calmly.

From behind the stranger, Jimmy had sprung back up. He charged again, ducking his head and tackling the much larger man- if by tackling one meant grabbing him around the waist and not budging him one inch.

Jimmy rebounded off the shirtless stranger, falling backwards to land roughly on his own bottom.

The stranger turned to face Jimmy, a curious look on his face. He then extended a hand, as if to help the teen up.

Kendall saw the stranger reaching for his friend and panicked. With skill born of countless years of practice, he flipped his knife up in the air, then caught it by the tip of the blade. With a flick of his wrist and arm, he threw the knife at the large stranger. The blade sank deep into the man’s back.

The stranger turned around quickly. Now he had an angry look on his face.

Josie nearly gasped. Not at the knife sticking out of the stranger’s back, but at the nickel-plated revolver Carlos had produced from somewhere. He held it in shaking hands, pointed at the stranger.

“Freeze!” Carlos demanded, his voice cracking.

The stranger became calm again. He started to raise his hands.

Blam!
Carlos fired the revolver in fear.

Almost immediately, the stranger slapped his forehead with his right hand, as if squashing a mosquito.

“Ow!” The stranger declared. He pulled his hand away slowly, revealing a minor wound, that only seeped a small amount of blood.

The stranger lowered his hand, then opened it slowly. In his palm were the fragments of a bullet, and some blood. He was very surprised as the blood in his hand soaked into his palm and vanished.

As Josie, Carlos and the others watched, the blood on the man’s forehead retreated back into his skin as well. His head wound slowly closed up, leaving behind only a faint, gray bruise.

“That doesn’t seem normal,” the stranger remarked, dumping the bullet fragments from his hand.

              Carlos panicked- then fired his pistol five more times.

             
Even with shaking hands and white knuckles, Carlos couldn’t miss at this range. His shots all hit the stranger’s bare chest. The bullets struck the dense flesh, tearing skin open but not managing to go more than a half-inch deep. Some fragments fell back out of the wounds after the firing stopped.

The stranger looked down at his chest. Again, what little blood had escaped his skin seeped back inside the stranger. The flesh of the gunshot wounds pushed back out, dislodging bullet fragments and healing over.

The stranger looked back at Carlos. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop doing that.”