Chapter 2 (Jasper)

At the crack of dawn, light filtered into my bedroom window. One intense beam struck my eyes, forcing me to wake up.

I shaded my eyes with one hand and sat up in bed, stretching my limbs.

Outside, the weather looked promising. Judging by the forecast, it would be the perfect conditions for a hunt. I couldn’t wait.

Jumping out of bed, I headed for the bathroom to splash my face with cold water to wake myself up. Fuck. It was freezing.

Most men with my status would never dream of waking up at 6 am to hunt their own food. Then again, I’m not like most men.

I’m told I should be living in a penthouse suite and fine dining at top restaurants with the amount of money I had in the bank. But where is the adventure in that? That wasn’t the life for me.

I preferred the mountains. Quiet. Natural. Out of the way.

For me, it was the only thing that allowed me to keep the flashbacks at bay and get on with my life – at least, for the most part. I couldn’t live the rest of my life in the past. I had seen the way some of those military guys ended up and frickin’ terrified me.

Just thinking about that period of my life made my stomach churn.

Feeling my stomach tighten further and my head start to spin, I steadied myself against the sink.

As I shut my eyes, the horrifying images came back to haunt me.

***

Pitch-black darkness all around me. Explosions sounded unpredictably from all directions, shaking the ground with miniature earthquakes that threatened to throw me to the ground with every quake. All I could tell was that they were close. Dangerously close. I remember humming to myself, the same song over-and-over, trying to stay sane. It was all I could do to hold my nerve.

It was a dark and unforgiving world in No Man’s Land.  You focus your mind on your goal: completing your job and staying alive. Otherwise, a man can lose it, left becomes right and up becomes down. When your thigh deep in sludge, carrying the weight of freedom on your shoulders, it can become impossible to breathe.

My comrades were flanked on my side – we always had each other's backs. Five of us in total.

We were a close-knit group who had gone to hell and back together..

I trusted these men with my life. And they trusted me.

“Just a little bit further!” Andy shouted. He was the leader of the group – the fearless one – always prepared to be the first one in and the last one out of any conflict we entered.

Following his lead, we moved forward toward the enemy base.

My heart was pounding in my chest so hard and fast that at times it would feel like I would have a heart attack.

Then, BOOM! The moment my world exploded.

I saw the night turn into a hellish blaze of reds and oranges. The pain I felt over my body was indescribable. Crashes, cries of pain, and shouting sounded all around.

A missile buried in the mud had detonated beneath my feet.

I went flying. And it felt like my body had come apart at the seams.

Seconds later, I crashed back down.

I cried out. It was as though I had just slammed into concrete.

I opened my eyes and forced myself back to my senses. I was ok right now. But I know I would have to move fast to stay alive. To my horror, I could see below me another dead man’s rotting face. The maggots had gotten to his eyes, crawling out of his sockets, looking for another body part to feast on.

Desperately, I scrambled to try to free him from the mud. This was someone’s father – brother – son. He deserved a better grave than this.

He was wearing American colors.

Another explosion.

This time accompanied by a blood-curdling scream.

Fred…

I ran as fast as I could in his direction. A surge of adrenaline inside of me numbing my own pain. I sprinted with everything I had, but I wasn’t fast enough.

We never saw him again.

He was gone. Forever. And it's all my fault.

***

I exhaled deeply and opened my eyes. I shook my head, trying to get the image of that dead man out of my mind but there it remained, tormenting me for most of the morning. Godammit.

I had lost my appetite to hunt.

Instead, I settled down in front of the fire with a good book.

Before I lived in the mountains, I had never been much of a reader. Most days, I would sit in front of a television, analyzing the stock market and watching my money grow day by day. I was good at what I did, becoming a millionaire in little less than a year but I was still left empty.

I needed something else in my life.

That’s when I joined the army, thinking I could become a hero.

How foolish I was to think there’s glory in war.

Trust me. There’s not.

There’s only pain, death and more death.

I had become a SEAL, traveling the middle east, stopping rig after rig of terrorists but no matter how many sites we raided or how many people we put behind bars, it was never enough.

There will always be evil in this world; evil that even war heroes can’t stop.

Facing that fact made me want to leave society altogether and live by myself.

And that is exactly what I did. Since then life had been great. But I have to admit, it is lonely as hell.

But I wasn’t about to move away just because I am lonely. A dog! That would do the trick…

It was as good a time as any, so I got up and grabbed my car keys.

Outside my Jeep was waiting for me, coated with a thick layer of grime. Back when I was trading stocks for a living, I drove a Bugatti around the city. I didn’t need that sort of luxury anymore. I was perfectly content the way things were – well, almost.

I was sure I would be happier once I got that dog.

I jumped behind the wheel and headed toward town. It was always strange to go back. Even though no one knew me, I still felt like they knew I was hiding some something. Every time I looked over my shoulder, someone would be looking at me with a suspicious air. Maybe I just stood out because looked different than everyone else. 

Fifteen-minutes later, I reached the main road. The sun had fully risen past the horizon, illuminating everything below with a bright glow.

In my rear-view-mirror I could see another car riding my tail and swerving from left to right.

It was starting to make me tense and uneasy.

Suddenly it sped past me, overtaking erratically. Was that guy drunk or did he just have a death wish?

I shuddered and gripped my hands firmly on the wheel, nearly falling into another flashback. Shit. Shit. Shit.

This is why I hated coming back. Everything was just too unpredictable.

I managed to steady myself and continued to navigate toward the center of town.

When I arrived, the town was dead.

Oh shit. It was 6:48 in the morning on a weekend.

Everyone was probably still asleep. 

I turned toward the beach to wait.

When I reached the beach I jumped out, taking off my shoes so I could feel the sand between my toes. The wind beat against my face and I breathed in deep, savoring the saltiness in the air.

I missed this. The ocean had once been my favorite place. I could swim for miles without ever getting tired. Maybe that was why I was so drawn to the Navy.

All that was gone now.

Wanting to let off some steam, I broke out into a sprint pushing myself to run as fast as I could, my feet thumping against the sand as my arms pumped like a couple of pistons.

Eventually, I panned out into a jog letting my body fall into a natural rhythm I could sustain for a long, long time.

By the time the shops finally opened, I had run a good five miles.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and grabbed a drink of water from a nearby fountain.

The wind continued to whip around me. The day was beautiful, but it was frigid. This year, the winter had been brutal, with snowstorm after snowstorm.

Most people were bundled up in thick jackets with gloves and scarfs covering up their faces. The cold didn’t bother me anymore. I had gotten used to it after serving a tour in Russia. Now, that’s cold.

I strolled down the streets, looking for a pet store and peering into a few of the shops here and there. I was sure I had seen one here before.

Finally, I came across a quaint little pet shop at the end of the high-street. A young woman was just opening up, carrying large sacks of dog-food and bags of straw and hay outside to sit out front.

The woman looked up and gave me a smile. “Hello! Can I help you with anything?” She looked me up and down with a curious eye. I must have looked quite a sight, 6 foot four,  with my long, rugged beard and hiker style boots.

“I’m just looking, thank you.” I entered the store and spotted a selection of small dogs in a pen to my right. There weren’t very many to choose from, and those that the store had were puppies, excitedly jumping around and stumbling over each other.

“Oh. Looking to buy a dog?” She asked, appearing right beside me.

“Yes I am. It doesn’t look like you have many to choose from right now.”

“We sell out pretty quickly here.” She explained.

“Ah.  all these dogs will probably find a home?”

“Yeah, I’d say they will be out of here in the next week or so.”

I nodded. “Do you know if there’s a shelter in town?”

“There is. It’s on Mulberry St.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“I’m guessing you’re looking for something specific.”

“I’m just looking for a dog that needs a good home and might never find one without me.”

She smiled. “Yeah, head over to the Mulberry St. shelter. They have a lot of dogs on the kill list. Maybe you can save one of them.”

Maybe.

When I left the pet shop I headed for the grocery store, contemplating my decision to get a dog. Would it be wise for me to take care of another living creature when I could barely take care of myself? For five years, I had been living in seclusion, running from my past, too scared to face it properly.

The thought kept running through my head as I circled the store, looking for the healthiest options. I liked to keep myself fit. Living in the wilderness without a job would make it extremely easy for me to pack on the pounds but I wasn’t about to let that happen. I may not have had anyone to impress but I still wanted to keep myself looking good.

“Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in.”

My eyes widened.

Andy? Was that really him?

“What are you doing here?”

“Same as you.” He replied, a wide grin beaming across his face.

We hugged it out.

It felt so good to see him again.

After the incident, we had all gone our separate ways. I had run to the mountains while Andy had gone to therapy doing all the right things to reintegrate into society. He was always the responsible one, after all.

“What have you been up to?” I asked.

“I actually decided to take a break.” He said, running his fingers through his short blonde hair.

“A break?”

“I guess you could say I decided to follow in your footsteps. I got myself a little cottage out there in the wilderness. A place where I can have some time alone. Tried to get myself a nine-to-five job just to take the edge off, but it just wasn’t working out.”

“I know what you mean.  where exactly are you.”

“Well, that’s for you to figure out.” He said with a wink. “You always were our best tracker. I’m sure you could find me in no time.”

I chuckled. “Is that a challenge?”

“It might be.”

I sighed. “Do you ever think about what happened out there on that night?”

“Are you kidding? When am I not thinking about it?”

We were silent for a moment. “What do you think happened to Fred?”

Andy shrugged. “He kicked the bucket, probably.”

“I hate that we never gave him a proper funeral. He deserved better than a muddy grave.”

“Yeah.” He looked down to the ground and shrugged his shoulders. “Such is life.”

“I don’t know how you can just accept that…” I shook my head. “It isn’t right. Whenever I think about it, I get so angry…”

He interrupted. “I don’t know, Jasper. But if I let myself dwell on it I wouldn’t sleep at night. For my own sanity, I have had to let it go.” He said, with sadness laced in his voice.

I sighed. He was right but that didn’t make it any easier.

Andy quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, what are you doing after this?” “Running back to your rabbit hole?” He joked.

“I was actually thinking of adopting a dog.”

“Oh, really? I would never have guessed you were the dog type.”

“I’ve never had a dog before.”

“Then why the sudden urge to adopt one.”

“It’s a lonely world out there in those mountains. You’ll see.”

Andy nodded. “I already know the feeling.”