Dark Winter

The shimmering sun beat down on the barrens. The land cracked under the heat of the sun. A small cloud of dust rose in the west. The weaving form of a man could faintly be seen in the swirling dust. His face and shoulders were bright red and the white tank top he wore was soaked in sweat from the sun. He stared sightlessly with dark brown eyes at the western horizon.

At the edge of the horizon could be seen a small dot, a helicopter, headed straight for him. He gasped, swiping his hand across his forehead. The heat was unbearable. His dark brown hair was plastered to his forehead just above his eyes. The man stopped and stared at the rapidly approaching helicopter.

"I should let them end this, just stand here and let them kill me." Jason thought covering his burning face with his hands.

His men were first. He was next, they always saved the best for last. They let him break free that night; it was more fun for them that way. What better way to torture someone then to let him escape, to give them the hope of life? Then to hunt them down like game and crush that hope by recapturing and killing them. And what better place to play fox and hound then in the desert where the fox had no place to hide. Jason knew that he had only two choices: he could let them capture him or he could resist them here, either way he would die.

The helicopter was almost on top of him; he could feel the downdraft from the blades. He tried to will him self to stand still, to not run and give them the satisfaction of the hunt, but his instincts took over. The wind whipped his fatigues around his legs and swirled the sand that his bare feet kicked up as he ran. A crack sounded behind him, barely audible above the roar of the blades, and the sand in front of him kicked upwards from the strike of the bullet. He risked a quick look behind him to see the sniper standing in the open doorway of the helicopter.
The sniper raised his rifle.

Jason’s foot caught on something below the sand. It wrenched his leg. And sent him toward the ground. The second bullet caught him in the upper left shoulder. Pain exploded red in his mind. As his body hit the ground, a gaping black maw opened in the golden sand inches from his feet. The sand beneath him shifted, sliding, slowly drawing him into the flat blackness of the hole.

Darkness closed in around him as he plummeted toward the bottom. He reached out to either side to slow his decent. The sides of the shaft were slick metal and the continual shower of sand only seemed to make the sides even more slippery.

* * * * * *

The downdraft spread the sand in rippling golden waves away from the dark square in the desert floor. "Land." The assassin called to the pilot over the roar of the blades.

The man glanced at him, shuddering at the eerie pink eyes of the albino. "I don't think its necessary. I doubt it if he could have survived a fall like that."

“Land” was all the albino said as he settled back into his seat.

"Even if he isn’t dead he . . ." the pilot stopped when he felt the cold muzzle of a gun at the back of his throat. The copilot shuddered but made no move.

"I am completely capable of flying this craft by myself. And I never leave without making sure. So lets go." He whispered softly into the pilot's ear. Shaking the pilot grabbed hold of the controls and gently pitched the helicopter down. The albino laughed as he resumed his seat, and began to pull repelling gear from the pack beside him.

* * * * * *

Jason's body hit a rusted grate at the bottom of the shaft. Its rusted squares dug painfully into his sunburnt back. Creaking and groaning under his weight, its decayed screws broke one by one and dropped him unceremoniously onto the hard floor below.

The grate dangled by one corner for a few minuets until a gust of wind from the shaft caused it to break free. It hit a console near him, causing a shower of sparks to fly from the dusty equipment. Luckily he was able to roll out of its way before it landed on him.

Pain flared behind his eyes as he rolled onto his right leg. He propped himself up against a bank of dusty computer equipment. Gritting his teeth against the pain he quickly he ran his good hand down the painful limb. He involuntarily cried out in pain when he found two splintered edges of bone pushing through the skin of his lower leg. Apparently either the wrenching of his foot by the cover to the shaft or his hard landing had broken the bone.

Another shower of sand along with a scratching sound drifted down from the opening of the shaft. They were following him!

He glanced around the room looking for something he could use as a weapon. In the darkness of the room, lit only by the faint sunlight from the shaft he could see that he was in some sort of laboratory or control room. A cylindrical glass tank stretched floor to ceiling in the middle of the room, it was filled with some kind of liquid. Something dark and tall floated in its depths, but Jason didn’t have the time or energy to waste to take a closer look. He was losing too much blood and there was nothing in the room that he could use as a weapon, except for the grate.

The scrabbling sound from the vent grew louder and another shower of sand descended. A dark figure landed in the sunlight under the shaft. The figure seemed to be occupied with detaching the ropes from the harness at his waist. Biting his lip against the intense pain Jason rolled painfully onto his left side and reached with his right hand for the grate.

Blood pounded in his ears. Just as his fingers brushed the metal of the grate a booted foot slammed down on his hand. Pain racked his body as he felt bones snap. The eerily pale face of the albino wavered in his vision. The albino kicked the grate from the reach of Jason’s hands. He sneered as he lowered the muzzle of his gun.
* * * * * *

“General I’ve got one!” A young man pushed his nose closer to the computer monitor in front of him. “It looks like . . . It is! General, I’ve got Jason’s vital tag!” A man in his early fifties rushed to the young man’s side. On the computer screen was a dot pointing to the signal from a tiny microchip implanted in the vertebrae in Jason’s neck.
“Where is he?” General asked as he leaned over the kid’s shoulder.
“ The computer places him at 30 clicks from the center of the desert and,” The kid tapped some keys, “about a click underground, sir?” The kid looked up at his commanding officer in puzzlement.
* * * * * *

The albino knelt beside the still body and felt for a pulse. His target was dead.

A machine sparked and sizzled in the near darkness. Startled by the strange sound the albino looked up and directly into the dead eyes of the woman in the tank.

The albino took a step back from the tank and stared at the woman. She hung motionless, weightless in the center of the tank. Her long hair formed a thick, dark cloud around her shoulders and face. Long black wires and tubes snaked and curled around her body, tethered to different areas of the black body suit that covered her body and to the strange band that circled her forehead.

She was clearly dead. Still there was something about her that disturbed him and nothing disturbed him, he was a killer, born and bred or rather cloned and trained.

The albino walked back to the shaft and the rope he had come down earlier. He turned to make one last sweep of the room before leaving and found himself staring again into those strange eyes. She seemed to see right through him to the wall behind him and yet at the same she seemed to be looking directly at him. As if she knew exactly who he was and why he was there.
He fumbled with the harness, then stopped and pulled out his gun. He flipped the gun to full automatic and fired off half a clip at the tank.
The tank exploded sending shards of glass and liquid flying.

Seeing no reason to stay, the albino clipped himself onto the rope and smoothly hauled himself up the shaft. The sound of helicopter blades roared and then faded into the distance.

* * * * * *

As the last of the fluid drained from the tank it revealed the still form of the woman lying curled at the bottom of the tank.

There was a soft sigh as her lungs filled with air then the sound of coughing as she tried to expel the liquid from her lungs. She lay on her side for a moment still coughing and retching before pushing herself up on her elbows. She spit out the last of the liquid and scrubbed her teeth with a finger trying to rid her mouth of its thick slimy texture and sticky sweet aftertaste.

Tucking wet dark blond hair behind her ears she crawled to the edge of the tank and peered into the darkened room.
“Where am I? What is this place?” she wondered looking out at the dusty, dead looking computer equipment and shattered glass that sparkled in the bright light from the ventilation shaft.

Pools of the slimy liquid she had coughed up were scattered about the room giving off a ghostly blue glow. As she crawled gingerly over the remains of the tank she slipped on the slimy liquid sending her sliding across the control bank that ringed the base of the tank to land with a thud on the floor.