Eye of Ra (2 page)

  “Tell me you think you read that wrong,” he slowly turned to him.

“My German isn’t that bad, First Sergeant,” Higgins shook his head. “Horus is supposed to be the god of the sky and kingship.”

“So what … she’s Horus?” The First Sergeant turned looking at her again.

“No, the supposed tomb of Horus that they found was not his tomb at all,” Higgins answered. “It was actually the location of the tomb that housed her. Her name is supposed to be Sekhmet, the same as the Egyptian goddess of fire, war, vengeance, and healing. She’s who they were taking the samples from to create the virus.”

Jackson’s heart felt as if it was close to bursting out of his chest at the rate it was beating. He took several steps forward to get a closer look at her.

“You said earlier, that they were close to ‘breaking the seal,’” Jackson asked without looking at him. “How close?”

“Again, we need someone with an extremely advanced degree in genetics to decipher all of this,” Higgins swallowed. “But from what I can make out, whatever they were extracting from her, if properly synthesized, is capable of turning regular humans …into gods.”

A cold sweat washed over the First Sergeant, as the wheels began to turn in his skull.

“Aside from you, and the detail upstairs,” Jackson glanced his way. “Does anyone else know about this?”

“Sir, no sir,” Higgins answered.

“Keep it that way,” the First Sergeant commanded. “Two questions, is she dead, and do you think this can be moved?”

“If you look closer, you can see that her head is actually severed from the rest of her body, so I believe so,” he responded. “Which is crazy because the readings here say that there’s no sign of brain activity or heart rate, but the cell samples I’ve examined show very little deterioration and are very much alive, and I don’t have the slightest idea how that is possible. As far as moving it, it appears to be designed for transport.”

“Get upstairs and tell the detail to remain where they are, guard the front entrance with their life, and to keep their mouths shut about this,” ordered the First Sergeant. “Get an encrypted message to General Eisenhower and tell him he needs to get his ass here preferably by the end of day today or early tomorrow morning before the break of dawn. Tell him we need three large inconspicuous transports that can move without detection from both enemy and allied forces. Then get back here, and help me gather all of this data, we’re going to take the written stuff, and burn all pictures and images. No one must see what we’re hauling back to the States …ever.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Higgins acknowledged.

“Higgins,” Jackson stopped him one final time, “Do you think
anyone else
, knows about this?”

Higgins hesitantly paused before answering, understanding what he was referring to.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure about the grunts, but those in high command that we captured probably know.”

“We can’t take any chances, there were no prisoners of war on this base,” the First Sergeant gave his final order. “Can you make it happen Corporal?”

“If I can pick the right guys,” fumbled Higgins. “We can make it look like an attempted escape during the dead of night.”

“Get to it then,” authorized the First Sergeant.

“Sir, yes sir,” the Corporal nodded.

As Higgins turned on his heel heading back upstairs to carry out the First Sergeant’s orders, Jackson walked closer to the containment tank to get a much closer look at Sekhmet.

“With your help, we’re going to make America a country not to be fucked with, our Holy Grail,” swallowed First Sergeant Jackson. “God help us if we’re not ready for this.”

Unbeknownst to the First Sergeant and even the Corporal, the monitors of that era, though primitive, were picking up activity. It was the most miniscule of activity that the human eye or ear could not detect, but that activity was slowly increasing.

CHAPTER 1

March 23
^rd
1994, Marcy Park South, Brooklyn New York:

Laurence awoke another morning once again disappointed.

He was not dead.

Instead he laid on the same filthy mattress he had slept, had intercourse, and got high on for the past six months staring at the same urine stained half burnt wall where basehead Bobby had caught on fire, watching the same rat chewing on a half-eaten biscuit.

Lazily lying there, he positioned his arm into view, staring aimlessly at the latest track. Needle number four hundred and seventy-five had not done the trick. Either later that afternoon, or that night, he’d have to switch to his toes or rear for his next shot. The calloused wounds and sores on his right arm were the same as his left and would not allow him to penetrate the vein anymore to get an injection off.

In the midst of the self-assessment of his deterioration, an arm that did not belong to him flopped over him as he felt a frail body pull close to his back for warmth. With her stringy napped up dark hair and size two frame, she looked like a porcelain doll that had been left in the mud.

A backed-up bladder in need of emptying was a higher priority than being a human heater, and somewhere between gentle and harsh, he swiped her arm away. She moaned as she rolled away, wrapping up in the ratty soiled blue comforter they slept in for warmth.

As he attempted to sit up, he winced in excoriating pain. Instinctively massaging his right surgically scarred knee, the intense rub down did very little to alleviate the ceaseless pulsating soreness within it. He would need another shot sooner rather than later.

He attempted another roll, this time putting all the weight on his left leg to stand up. Hopping around on one foot, he fell forward and almost crashed into a wall as he threw his hands out to stop his forward motion. Caught between sleep and the effects of chasing the dragon, he looked outside of two of the only windows in the rundown apartment that had never been cleaned before or since he began residing there.

He scratched his napped up hair in a poorly kept fade hairstyle, watching people below living their lives while his stood at a grinding halt. Nature calling pried him away from the window he wanted to jump out of.

Slowly he hobbled to the bathroom as his bare feet smacked against the sticky floor. Once inside he pulled up the lid and choked at the stench of what was inside. Slamming it back down, he glared back out into the living room at the culprit who was too wasted last night to flush after relieving herself.

He gave the toilet two good flushes, praying that it would not back up again.

Satisfied that the remnants of last night’s waste were gone, he held his breath to avoid smelling the leftover after-funk while he expelled the toxins from his body. Like clockwork his ears propped up to the sound of movement. After a couple of shakes, he closed the lid, flushed, and walked out to see her sitting up on the mattress rubbing her eyes and looking around. Decked out in a black t-shirt two sizes larger than her, she rolled on her hands and knees throwing her pink thong-clad bottom into the air searching for something. She sat back down into a seated cross-legged position with a cookie tin in her lap.

Cracking it open, she began to prepare morning breakfast taking out a glass crack pipe and the last two vials of the illegal narcotics within the tin.

There was no “Good Morning” or “Hello” between the two as Laurence hobbled over to the cabinets that were ninety percent bare, with the exception of a plastic tray of old baby biscuits that were mostly food for the vermin in the apartment, and his own tin that was adorned with cartoon superheroes. Placing it down on the filthy counter not fit for preparing any human food, he cracked it open to prepare his own breakfast.

Inside were three needles, a couple of rubber tie-offs, a yellow lighter, and a bent silver spoon that had signs of burn mark abuse. His brows began to furrow as he searched through the paraphernalia for the silver tin-foil that contained the formula for chasing the dragon. Losing his patience after searching the tin for the fifth time, he dumped the contents onto the counter hoping for it to magically appear. All he found was nothing and a stomach full of dread.

 “Rose …Rosemary,” Laurence searched an empty tin. “What happened to my shit?”

“I cooked up the last bit of it last night and shot you up,” her eyes fluttered in disgust.

“What the fuck you mean you cooked up the last bit of it last night?” He glared at her.

“Like I said, and told you last night negro!” She glared back at him, “There was only enough for one hit last night. You told me to cook it up and give it to you and I did. You just pissed out what was left in your system a minute ago.”

He was about to say something evil to her, when he winced and cried from the shooting pain building up in his knee. A tear ran down his right eye as he cursed and rubbed it begging for some relief.

“How much money we got?” He asked while scratching his neck.

“
We
ain’t got shit,” she said after taking another hit from her pipe. “You forgot that bitch fired me last Friday after accusing me of taking from the till.”

“Did you forget they caught you on tape?” He turned to her. “You’re lucky she didn’t have your ass locked up.”

“She still … a rude ass …ugly bitch,” she began to choke. “Didn’t even give me severance pay, anyway, what happened to your check?”

“It ain’t the end of the month,” he snapped at her.

“Well we got a problem then cuz after this hit I’m out too,” she blew poisonous smoke from her lungs. “And you know how I get when I can’t even out.”

He rolled his eyes and silently shuddered at the calm drug induced warning. He knew it was not one to take lightly or in jest. Rosemary uneven was an unholy terror to be around and nearly impossible to restrain despite her petite size. The rock was the only thing that muzzled her. Due to her high tolerance not even the strongest of cannabis could mellow her out like the rock.

“Why don’t you go hit your pops up?” She shrugged.

“What did you say?” He glared at her. His face dared her to repeat what she just said.

“I didn’t stutter,” she hit him back with a neck snap and eye roll. “Shit, aside from your little checks, I’ve been the one holdin us down these past two months, and you can’t run to your daddy to spot you till the end of the month? What the fuck yo?”

“Careful,” he held up a finger warning her.

“Or what Laurence? Or what?” She sprung to her knees going rabid. “What the fuck your limpin ass gonna do? Can’t even fuck me right, cuz you always in pain! And even when you’re fucked up you still can’t fuck me right! So you can’t work and you can’t fuck the two basic things a bitch needs from a nigga, what the fuck do I need you for? If I got to pull out my dick again and handle shit, what the fuck do I need a man for? Do I got to go crawlin back to Skeeter? After you promised me I’d never have to? Do I? Do I?”

He had a look on his face as if he wanted to grab and slam her into a wall until she stopped moving. She had a look on her face daring him to do it. It was clear to see that the hit she’d taken was not enough to even her out. And if he attempted to tell her where to go and what to do with the most sordid vocabulary imagined while leaving, she’d attempt to take out his bad knee, then hold a knife to his throat threatening to slit it, and then her own throat, afterward.

It was that or coming home to her burning herself with matches and cigarettes.

 He hated her when she was like this although it turned him on a bit. She was not remotely cute at that point while the hot lead pain ran through the knee he wanted to cut off, nor did he like being backed into a corner.

“Shut up, and get your shit on.”

˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

With no money between the two of them, a twenty-minute walk took forty-five minutes on Laurence’s bad wheel. The March winter chill that refused to leave didn’t make his journey to his father’s apartment any easier. Rosemary’s attempt to assist him as a human crutch alleviated some of the discomfort, but also added to their travel time.

It also didn’t help that he cursed and complained the entire time which turned into several spats between him and her on the street. Standing at the main glass double door entrance, he was overcome by the violent scratch that came from chasing the dragon as he squinted to find his father’s buzzer.

Every second he stood there, hatred began to build toward Rosemary.

He’d prefer to be anywhere, from a war torn country to the jaws of the devil himself, rather than standing at that door.

Being flat broke with no friends to ask for a loan, the building agony in his knee was the only thing that kept him from limping away.

Finally locating it, his finger hovered over the buzzer for a minute, as if there were some type of invisible cover preventing him from pressing it. He threw all of his body weight into the button, which emitted an annoying buzzing sound. After half a minute he released it and waited. Both of them stood glancing at each other and the environment around them. Laurence for the most part kept his head down hoping not to run into anyone familiar. The last thing he wanted on this day was to be recognized and asked what he was doing with his life, especially from those who knew his story.