The Sleeping Army Awakes

Untitled Part 82

Kelp had finished the cider and he had started swigging a bottle of domaci slivovice, a lethal home-made plum brandy that was distilled locally from the small sweet native orange coloured damsons that fruited early, on the other side of the hill, near the apple orchard. He felt the potent, colourless, liquor burn into the back of his throat and the banging in his head, soon became more like a distant drumming. After a couple more swigs, he felt almost human again, though he could still distinctly hear the distant calling of wolves and the sound grew more prominent with every swallow.

Kelp looked down at the two Skidges that had returned from patrol. Both had gunshot damage. The video feed from the other two had ended abruptly, and even in his current state Kelp could work out that that they had probably been shot down. He stroked the housing of one the damaged Skidges, as if it were a cat.

"Someone will pay for this!" Kelp vowed angrily raising his fist to the heavens. The Skidges were the nearest thing that he had to friends, apart from the cider and the domaci slivovice that was.

"It's them navy boys. You bullock!" Kelp said, "Navy to arse, those boys should have kept away! I'll get them one day! You see if I don't!"

Never for one moment, did it cross the alcoholic blur, that substituted for Kelp's mind, that any of this was his own fault. But it was his own negligence, in sending the Skidges out in the first place that was responsible for the destruction of two downed Skidges and the damage to the other two. But then Kelp always found it difficult to recall exact sequences of events, especially after Sacha's cider and nothing was ever his fault. 

Kelp could remember getting, what he thought of, as "a little worse for wear" the previous evening, he was unable to stand or remember his own name for instance. He could vaguely recall waking with a resounding hangover and perhaps having a drink to calm his nerves but from there on things had got a bit confused. He must have had a bit of a snooze in the afternoon, as usual after his final feast of mouflon, the bones of which were still on his desk as evidence, with the fat melting and glazing wood directly below the otherwise dusty scratched surface.

Kelp remembered waking once again to the sound of a massive explosion. He had been dreaming that the reservoir had been breached and then possibly he had taken another drink to make the dream stop, which it didn't. That drink had been followed by another and another... The jumble of empty jars was testament to that.

What Kelp could dimly recall, was sending the two pairs of Skidges out on patrol, because he thought that Sacha had told him to do so, but why would she have done that? They had caught the pesky kids and pinned them down in something that looked like a metal fish. It was odd that their first targets had been the twins and their girlfriends because Sacha had always told him to leave the twins alone or she would cut off his supply of cider.

Unsteadily Kelp wiped the dusty cobwebs from the centre of the dirty window so that he could peer outside... he could have used the surveillance cameras to look out but then he didn't know how to turn them in that direction when he was sober. He could see very little but it was certainly wet enough down there... perhaps the reservoir had burst after all . He wondered whether this was his fault.

"Oh Mr. God no!" Kelp shouted.

It suddenly hit Kelp that Sacha couldn't have told him to send the patrols out. He must have dreamed that too and now he had put his supply of cider in jeopardy. The Skidges had returned from that patrol because they had exhausted their ammunition but had resumed the patrol after reloading but Kelp couldn't remember why.

Kelp had flash backs of being expressly ordered to cancel all patrols by two people higher up in the organisation, Spencer Butler and Elektra.

"Mr. God I think that I am in big troubles!" Kelp said taking a long pull on the slivovice.

"You are going to get some visitors!" Samuel said, hovering in the air before him. "I would get out of there if were you!"

For some reason Kelp suddenly felt that it was safe outside and as long as he closed one or other of his eyes he could navigate, although he did appear to be swaying on board a storm blighted ship. When he had both eyes open at the same time, he saw two unresolved images... It felt like more because the world insisted on spinning... after two bottles of domaci slivovice, no-one, including Kelp could be really assured of what reality was.

"I need to get rid of evidence!" Kelp said, with more resolution and certainty than he really felt. He parcelled the mouflon skin and bones in some old packing paper and left the cabin. He would have to take the package as far away down wind as possible from the cabin, because the skins were really beginning to smell bad and the wolves liked really strong smells.

Kelp heard the howling of the wolves, but then he always did. There was something different though this time. The sounds were coming in through his ears and the song that they sang was not their usual plaintiff lament but more like a furious war cry.

He thought about all the mouflon that he had eaten and sold. And images of them floated before his eyes.

"Yes!" Said the disembodied voice that was Samuel, "That is why they are angry. I cannot stop their retribution. I agreed not to interfere... but I can stop you feeling the pain!"

Kelp had never been the best liked of men but today he had upset so many people in such a short period that he saw the end as inevitable."I was nice once!" He shouted to the heavens.

"You didn't ask for help soon enough!" Samuel's voice said. "I do not like you but I am not here to judge you. If you know any prayers now would be a good time to say them."