4 - Shep
T he girl is gone for about ten minutes. Which is putting me off, to be honest, but when she returns my irritation at being kept waiting quickly fades when I realize she took the extra time to change her clothes. Instead of the dress, she’s now wearing a cropped white t-shirt that clings to her tits and makes her nipples pop out. She’s also wearing a pair of cut-off denim shorts with lots of loose strings dangling down her lean, tanned thighs. And she’s barefoot.
She grins at me and her eyes are wild with possibilities as she sets a tray down on a little table near the beaded curtain.
On the tray is a wide-mouth mason jar filled with clear liquid. It’s got a black label with white lettering around the middle of the jar that reads ‘Code Black.’ There are two shot glasses as well.
“Sorry I took so long. I just wanted to get out of that dress and put on something more comfortable.”
More accessible is more like it. The cropped t-shirt is so short, it would barely take a flick of my finger to expose her firm and perky tits.
She pours us each a shot of moonshine and then walks over to me, taking a seat on the couch. She’s so close to me, we’re bumping shoulders. But she turns her body, giving me room, and opens her legs a little, which makes me look down at her invitation.
She’s not shy.
“Cheers?” she says, holding out a shot glass for me to take.
Which I do, then nod. “Sure. Cheers.”
We click the glasses together and then I watch as she downs it in one gulp like a professional. The wince is immediate and it comes with a wheezing gasp. A moment later, she’s coughing and I’m laughing.
“It’s a little strong?”
She can barely talk when she answers. “It’s… not bad…”
Which makes me laugh again. Then I down mine and the burn—holy fuck. I’ve had homemade whiskey all over the damn globe, but this is something else. It’s so hot, I’m expecting fire to come out of my mouth when I breathe.
I cough too, and then she’s pattin’ me on the back and we’re both laughing.
It’s good. Not just the moonshine and the girl, but the laugh.
I feel like it’s been a long time since I had a proper laugh.
After about a minute, we’re both recovered and she pours us each another. But when she offers it to me, I put up a hand. “One is enough, darlin’. I didn’t really come here to get drunk.”
This makes her eyes dance and she cocks a hip. “Oh? Then why did you come?”
“Well, to be honest, I just wanted to… watch.”
Her smile is so big, I laugh again. “ Watch ?”
“Like people-watch, ya know? I just wanted to be somewhere I could relax and fade into the background.”
This makes her snort. “Fade into the background? Ace, I’ve known you for all of twenty-five minutes and even I can see that you’re not a background kind of guy. Main-character energy is flowing off you like water running over the side of a hill in the springtime.”
“Why are you calling me Ace?”
“Because I don’t know your name and you look like a man who gets shit done.”
“Do I?”
She nods and repositions herself on the couch next to me so that she’s leaning against the armrest and her legs are draped over my lap. Immediately, I start touching those legs, rubbing my large hands over her knee and then along her inner thigh.
When I look back up at her, she’s staring right back at me. “I thought you weren’t lookin’ to fuck no one?”
“I’m not,” I say, but my voice is kinda raspy and hoarse. “I’m just… enjoying the view.”
She smiles. “Well, if you change your mind, you let me know.”
“How much?” I ask. Which is a terrible thing to say to a girl who looks this sweet. But the facts are the facts. She’s a whore.
“That’s up to you. We don’t have to fuck. We could just have fun.”
“How much does fun run?”
“Fun is fun and it’s all the same price. Fifty for fifteen minutes.”
I reach into my pocket, pull out my wallet, and present her that same fifty-dollar bill.
She takes it from me and then leans over and places it on the little table holding the moonshine. Then she sits up, climbs into my lap, straddles my legs, and pushes her tits into my face. “Where should we start?”
I look down, then flick my fingertip against her tight, white t-shirt, and up it pops, exposing those firm and perky tits of hers. She takes both my hands and places them on her breasts, inviting me to squeeze. Which I do.
She begins to grind on me. Slowly and deliberately. Like she’s trying her best to hit my cock in just the right way.
Of course, it immediately springs to life so her task is made easier. When I look at her again, she’s biting her lip. “Do you wanna kiss me?”
I’m watching her lips as she says this. They are pink and plump. And then, for some reason, I’m thinking about shit. The things I’ve done. The people I’ve hurt.
And then the next thing I know, I’m throwing her off me and pushing my way through the beaded curtain, leaving the same way I came in.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
She grabs my arm, but I whirl around so fast she goes flying sideways, crashing into the wall. When our eyes meet this time, she must see something in them.
She must see me in them. Because she cowers.
I shake my head, then turn and walk down the hallway, go back out to the main bar, climb up all the stairs that lead to the real world, and spend the next half hour hiking back up to where I left the bike.
It’s early afternoon when I get back to the compound and the whole place is filled with ex-soldiers busy training K9s. I ease the bike down the long driveway towards the house I’ve been assigned to. There are like ten houses for the men here, and then all the guys who run the place have their own houses, so it really is a compound.
One might even call it a base. Because everybody here is ex-military.
I catch Amon’s eye as I pass by and he nods at me. I’m not sure what this nod means, but by the time I get off the bike and take my helmet off, I can take a good guess because he’s heading my direction.
“Hey… uh…” He forgot my name.
“Ean,” I say, fillin’ in that blank.
“Right. Ean. Sorry. We haven’t really talked yet, so I figured I’d come over and explain what’s goin’ on with the dogs.”
“I guess you’re training them for deployment?”
“Right.” Amon smiles, and he’s a very attractive man, so his smile is always comin’ off as charmin’. But he’s Collin Creed’s partner, so that charm he so effortlessly displays on the outside has absolutely nothing to do with the man he really is on the inside. “Obviously. What I meant to say is I thought I’d explain why you don’t have one yet. You see, we did have an extra puppy, but my son claimed it. And the other puppies are too young yet. Just born three weeks ago. So it’s gonna be about another month and a half before you can really interact with yours.”
“My…?” I’m confused.
“Your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
Amon chuckles. “I know. That’s why I’m explainin’ this to you.”
I look around and realize everyone has a dog. Everyone but me.
“I’m sorry,” Amon says. “I get that you just got here last night, but didn’t you get some kind of briefing about what we do here at Edge?”
I shake my head. “Nope. I was told this is my new contract and you guys own me for the next twelve months, so I showed up.”
“Oh.” Amon ponders this. “All right. Well”—he pans a hand to the soldiers and the dogs—“everyone gets a dog to train. And depending on where they’re at in the training, they might deploy with a dog or they might not. We’ve really only got about ten of them ready to work. All the others are a project, so I’ll just be blunt right now. You will not be deploying with a dog if you’re only plannin’ on being here for the first term of your contract because your dog will be a puppy.”
I shrug. “OK.”
“And said puppy is too young to bother you with at the moment, so you won’t be doing any kind of serious training for a couple months.”
“Fine with me.”
Amon stares at me. Hard. “So what I’m really sayin’ is that after PT every morning, you’re with Ryan.”
I look around. “Ryan is…”
“One-fourth owner in Edge. He’s not here, he’s in the woods making roads and digging shit up.”
Now I squint my eyes at this fucker. “Tell me again what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying you’re on labor for the foreseeable future.”
“Labor?” I laugh. “Dude, I’m a fuckin’ soldier. I’ve been all over the goddamned world. And you’re telling me… I’m what? Diggin’ ditches or somethin’?”
This guy actually has the balls to clap me on the shoulder. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, friend. I don’t have any fuckin’ idea what Ryan is doin’ out there in the damn woods. All I know is that you’re his new bitch. So… welcome to Edge.”
Then he turns and just… walks away.
“Welcome to Edge,” I mutter. But I don’t bother continuing the argument. I just take myself inside, go upstairs to my bunk.
There are ten houses, six men to a house. This is the story I got last night from my roommate, Chester. But I’m the odd one here, since I’m new and the rest of them have been here for months already. So this house has seven of us. The guy who was in this room has moved in to a walk-in closet on the first floor, claiming he’d rather live under the stairs like Harry Potter than spend one more night with Chester, who snores like a motherfucker.
But I don’t really mind. Sleep is highly overrated, if you ask me. Sleep is where the nightmares live, so I only give in when I have to.
I didn’t sleep a fuckin’ minute last night. Not a single minute. Which is most likely the whole reason Collin Creed told me to ‘take a day.’
But there’s nothing else to do, so I might as well just kick it on the bed and phone surf. I take my wallet out of my pants and this is when it hits me. “Fuck.” I forgot my damn credit card at that bar. Then I actually laugh out loud. Because right here and now, that place doesn’t even feel real. Did I really ride my bike into the woods, take several hundred stairs deep into a river gorge, and find myself a clandestine speakeasy filled with moonshine and whores?
The girl’s face pops into my mind. Not the way she looked when we first met, but the way she looked at me when we were partin’ ways.
I scared her.
But what’s new?
I scare everyone. Hell, I even scare myself.
Well, one thing’s for sure, I’ll have to go back to get my card. So maybe I’ll have a chance to explain. I walk over to the window and peek out. Not for any particular reason, just to take in my new environment. But immediately I spy Collin and Amon having a conversation across the driveway.
Then Collin turns and starts heading towards my house.
He’s coming here for me, I know it. So a moment later, when I hear boots thudding on the wooden stairs that lead up to the second floor, I’m not surprised.
I’m still lookin’ out the window when he taps the doorframe, knocking. Of course, the door is open, so it’s just a courtesy knock at best. “Hey, Ean. Got a minute?”
I turn. “Shep,” I say.
“What?” Collin squints at me.
“Everyone calls me Shep, not Ean. So I’d rather you just call me Shep.”
“OK.” He forces a smile. “ Shep .” He keeps that forced smile goin’. “I just wanted to welcome you proper, since you got in so late last night and there was some confusion on our part about who you are and what you’re doin’ here.”
I try not to sigh with frustration, but don’t entirely succeed. “I told you. Charlie Beaufort sent me. I was stuck in limbo because I was in prison and some judge got a wild hair up his ass about lettin’ me out.”
“Right.” Collin nods. “I get it. And you’re legit. I’m not saying you’re not. I called Charlie up, even though I hate that motherfucker and we’re not even on good terms, and it’s all legit. So I’m not questioning you about that.”
Now it’s my turn to squint my eyes at him. “Then what are you questionin’ me about?”
“Look, man, if you don’t wanna be here, you’re free to leave.”
“No,” I say. “I’m actually not. Working for Edge was a very specific condition of my parole.”
Collin chuckles. “Dude, I am not gonna turn you in. You’re a grown man. You can do whatever the hell you want.”
I sneer at him. “So you think… what? I should break parole and go on the run? Leave the country and hide from the fuckin’ CORE for the rest of my life?”
“Corps?” Collin says. “As in the Marines? Why would they care where you went? You’ve been discharged, right?”
“What?” I laugh. “No. I wasn’t in the Marines. CORE. C-O-R-E. CORE .”
“Well, I can hear what you’re saying,” Collin says. “I just don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“I thought you were in the CORE?” I wave a hand at the window. “I thought all of you were in the CORE.”
“I was in the Corps. Marine Corps.”
My squint deepens. “Are you fucking with me right now?” I scoff. “You better be fuckin’ with me. Because if you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about…” But I don’t finish. Because he’s not one of us. Collin Creed isn’t like me. And I’m kind of taken aback.
Collin squints back. “I think we should take this conversation to a more private location.”
“Which would be where?”
“We’ve got a SCIF in the church and I think we should go there now.”
I don’t say another word and neither does Collin. He turns and walks out and I follow. Because we need to set this straight and I’m sure as hell not gonna tell him anything out in the open air like this.
Anyone who thinks that the CORE can’t hear you any time and any place is a fool. And while Collin and his crew might not know as much as I do about how this world works, they are not fools. And this SCIF they have proves it.
We enter the church and Collin heads towards a door in the back. He pauses here, lookin’ at me. For a moment, I think he’s gonna change his mind because he doesn’t move. And while he doesn’t say anything either, he doesn’t really have to. I can almost hear the silent argument in his head: You’re just gonna show him all your secrets, Collin? Then hope he’s not a spy?
But he must decide in the affirmative because he pulls the door open, flicks on a light, and waves me forward.
I enter a stairwell and go down two levels, not just one. At the bottom I find myself in a small concrete room with two doors. One is the SCIF. I can make this guess because there’s a box outside the door, which I know from experience is a little Faraday cage for phones and shit. Nothing in, nothing out.
Collin walks over to it, opens the box, and drops his phone in. I do the same. Then he closes the box and opens the door.
I go in. He follows and closes the door.
The moment that happens, my head starts to feel weird. Like a vacuum. Which is normal, so I don’t panic about it. People don’t realize this, but the world is filled with electromagnetic frequencies. Unless you are very deep into the wilderness, there are frequencies floatin’ on the air all around you, at all times of the day.
This is the hallmark of the modern world. Humans are constantly surrounded by low-level waves. Wi-Fi, radio waves, electrical hums, and even nearly imperceptible environmental noises like distant traffic or air currents.
But the point of a SCIF is to block all those frequencies. So when you go in, and the door shuts behind you, it’s like puttin’ on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. But a thousand times more powerful.
Everything stops.
And it’s weird.
In CORE, they call it the Rift.
The void. Because it’s empty.
And they say if you stay in this type of environment too long, you’ll go insane. That humans have changed over the past hundred and thirty years since electromagnetic frequencies started to be manipulated for communications and now, it’s just a part of us. That’s why people go crazy in the wilderness. They can’t live without the frequencies.
Collin lets out a breath, bringing me back to the moment. “All right, what the fuck is going on? Who the hell are you, and why are you here?”
“First of all,” I say, holding up one finger, “I’m Ean Shephard and I came here on a contract with Charlie Beaufort. Nothing I told you was a lie.”
“Why are you here so late, then? When all the other guys arrived months ago?”
“I told you. I was in prison. Charlie made a deal, but the judge would not sign the papers for my early release. If there’s anything else goin’ on here, I’m not a part of it. At least, not a willing or an informed part.”
Collin sneers. “That sounds like an excuse to me. So in the future, when I find out you are a part of something, you can just say you didn’t know.”
“I get it. It’s all kinds of suspect. But whatever Charlie is doing, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But what the hell were you talking about up there about the Corps?”
“CORE,” I say again. “C-O-R-E. CORE. It’s black ops shit. Like the stuff you were involved in that didn’t get you sent to prison.”
“If that’s a dig on me and my men, well, we weren’t robbing gas stations, either.”
“Fair, I guess. But you and your guys did a whole lot worse than that. Other people just took your fall.”
For a moment I think he’s gonna object, but then he gives in and sighs. “Fine. We were… protected. But I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say the word CORE. What is it?”
“It’s just…” I shrug. “CIA shit, I guess.”
“You guess? Is it, or isn’t it?”
“I mean, obviously, they are two different things. But they share the same space.”
“All right. So why can’t you leave Edge? You said they would hunt you down if you left. Why?”
“Why?” I kinda laugh. “Because I was DRS. Deep Recon Specialist.”
“Assassin?”
I shrug. “Sometimes.”
“What about the other times?”
“Well, I just hung around, mostly.”
“Spying?”
“Obviously.”
Collin laughs. “How the hell am I supposed to trust you?”
“Hell if I know. I didn’t ask to come here. I was sent. And I’m not leaving without Charlie’s permission. So if you don’t want me here, you need to clear it with him. Only then will I leave.”
I am fully aware that if Collin Creed tells me to get the hell out of his compound, my ass will be getting the hell out of his compound. He knows this too. What am I gonna do? Fight them? Call the police? It’s stupid. I just want him to know that I’m insisting that he go through the proper channels.
He slides right past that and continues on to the next bit. “Are you reportin’ back to Charlie?”
“No.”
“Will you take a lie detector test?”
“Yes.”
“We’re gonna set that up and then I’ll have a better idea of what to do with you.”
I shrug with my hands. “You’re the boss.”
He nods, knowing he is, and then we retrace our steps and go our separate ways outside.
I head back to my house, but what I really wanna do is get my credit card back from that girl at the bar. It’s just… after that conversation I just had with Collin, it’s not gonna happen. I probably won’t be able to slip away until the end of the week at the earliest.
So I just mope around in the house for a bit, then hit the mess for some food.
But at night, when the place is mostly quiet and the demons in my head are just starting to get loud, I picture the Mule Pit and that girl.
I didn’t get her name.
But next time, I will.