The Soldier

[Andrew Darmac]

Note: This contains a deleted scene that has been removed from my overall work. You may still read it, but it is no longer canon.

Cesare Vinatelli sat on a wooden stool, leaning toward the campfire in attempt to keep warm, his tent standing idly a good several feet behind him. In the morning, he planned to head downtown Cairo and meet with leader of the expedition, Julio Delaguerra, hoping all would go well. Right now though, he, Cesare, was only concerned about keeping warm and keeping the insects away.



“Damn mosquitoes!” he mumbled deeply, vainly swatting the air with his hand while the nuisances gathered around him and the fire. “Wonder how they can like this cold…”

The air, while about fifty degrees Fahrenheit, seemed to be frozen. The dry air didn’t help either. Cesare looked from the fire to the nearby ground – a pump-shotgun lay on the ground next to an aged, black-leather backpack. The backpack was about thirty-five years old, two years older than he, given to him as a gift from his father after Cesare went on his first trip. On one of the sides, a small tear had been patched once and again multiple times. While old and worthless in stores, the backpack had a lot of sentimental value to him, and he swore to never trash it till it split in half.



Off about five hundred meters to his left was the Nile River itself. Further off to the left and about two miles north from there were the Great Pyramids of Giza. Cairo and its lights were about another several miles north.

Cesare began to feel his eyes grow heavy. He saw the time was three-fifteen in the morning and began to consider going to sleep. A rustling sound coming from the nearby reeds repressed those thoughts, however. As the moon had already set, Cesare could not see what hid in the marshes. All he knew, however, was that he didn’t wish to go to sleep with the prospect that something might attack him in the night – namely, a crocodile.



“What is that?” he demanded, grabbing his shotgun and noting the fact that a knife slept in its shaft suspended from his belt. “Mr. Delaguerra? No, that can’t be you…”

He walked cautiously into the marsh with his boots sinking into a small pool of water of reeds and cattails. He turned on the flashlight hanging from a pocket on his chest while looking twice to both the right and left.

As he approached the eastern edge of the river, the sound stopped as suddenly as it had started. He slapped the back of his neck one last time as a mosquito fell dead to the ground, failing at its task.

“That’s strange. I thought I heard… Okay Cesare –You’re just hearing things, that’s it. You probably just need to get some sleep now…”



He turned around, heading back to the campsite while still securely holding onto his rifle. In just a second’s time, the rustling sound returned.

“Or maybe I wasn’t.”

A large wall of water pushed him down on his back down onto a pile of mud, while knocking the shotgun several feet back and out of reach.

“Damn it!”



A young crocodile rose out of the water and stomped over him, dripping more swamp water on his face. It held him down and tried to bite, but he was holding back the crocodile’s saliva filled mouth with both his hands pushing the bottom of the mouth upward. He could feel and smell the creature’s warm, foul breath flow along his body and into his nose and mouth. Its back left-leg pushed down on Cesare’s right leg, cutting him slightly with its claw-like feet and forcing him to hold back a yell of pain. He continued to hold the creature back, but was running out of energy to do so with.

The next thing that Cesare knew was that a booming sound suddenly rippled the air and the crocodile on him rolled over, though still breathed lightly. A shotgun nearby was pumped rather loudly in the seconds that followed.

“What the…?” Cesare got up, looking behind him.



The man behind pumped his shotgun again and walked to the injured crocodile, shooting it once more to kill it off, pumping the shotgun yet once more. He stood six-foot tall with a rough, almost menacing glare, charcoal-colored hair, indigo-colored eyes that gave an impression of hiding disturbed thoughts behind, a more-than-noticeably large nose, and about two-weeks overdue with shaving.

“That’s my shotgun, for your information,” Cesare said, looking at this complete stranger.

“So it is,” the man replied, handing over the weapon. “And you were the one being saved with it, not the other way around.”



Cesare scowled.

“Just be glad it wasn’t a woman who saved you. You’d never see the end of it if others were to find out…” The man laughed lightly, looking no less intimidating while he chuckled away.

Another rustling sound came from out of the reeds thirty feet away. A second crocodile, possibly the mate, came rushing for Cesare and the man.

Cesare aimed with the gun and fired, missing the shot by a few inches. Angrily, Cesare pumped the shotgun again, and aimed for the creature again. He fired, again missing the shot by a matter of inches, pumping the shotgun once more.

Suddenly, the man snatched the weapon out of Cesare’s hands and took aim at the crocodile, shooting, and hitting the creature directly. In seconds, the crocodile finished twitching and died in place. Cesare looked up at the stranger with a face of resentment.



“Are you with the expedition? If so, I just hope you know that I spoke with Julio Delaguerra – he trusts me with handling the weapons.” Cesare knew this was a lie – he had never actually spoken with Julio Delaguerra directly, but he wanted to keep hold of his weapons on the trip.

“He trusts you?!” the man almost burst out laughing. “We’ll see what he has to say about this when he gets here…”

Cesare was on the verge of boiling.

“Only there’s one problem with waiting for that,” the man continued, straightening his cap. “I’m already here.”

Cesare seemed no less angry, but his anger was hidden by more sudden feelings of surprise, half in realization of who this was, and half in realizing he had lied directly to the same guy he talked about.



“You certainly seemed surprised. Didn’t you know I’d be the one leading the expedition? And if that were so, wouldn’t I have to be one of the first ones to get here? Or do you feel some guilt about the story you told me?”

“Julio Delaguerra,” Cesare began, ignoring him. “The Spanish-born Canadian war-hero, father of four spoiled kids, owner of a five-thousand square-foot mansion in Monaco, married to actress Kalie Bouchard, world-renowned archaeologist who built his career in six years. And all achieved it by the age of thirty-two… I should’ve recognized you when you first arrived – I should’ve known you’d be an ass.”



“Actually, thirty-three as of October 7th,” the man corrected. “And it’s Kalie Delaguerra to you… Also, had I been a pushover instead of an ass, I’d never have reached the top.” He smiled mischievously, raising an eyebrow. “But enough about me. Since I’m here, I presume you have some questions?”

“Just one. What’s the plan?”

“Simple,” Delaguerra began. “I keep hold of the gun until the end of the expedition, and you listen to my orders.”

“This isn’t the military, dammit!” Cesare retorted. “You need to quit treating this like it is!”

“Remember who’s paying you to go on this trip.” Delaguerra’s eyebrows rose again. “I could always halve your share… And ahh, the military… Its hold on me has never gone away…”



“Its hold?” Cesare looked surprised again. “What the heck are you talking about?”

“Nothing that need concern you,” Delaguerra replied. “Just get some sleep already… You’ll definitely need the energy for…”

Cesare looked behind Delaguerra to the camp, noticing something he hadn’t seen before.

“What the heck is that?” Cesare pointed, interrupting Delaguerra.

“What the…?” Delaguerra looked around in the direction Cesare pointed. “Oh, that… Some weird lady at the airport told me to take it. Said it was a brochure of sorts…”

“That doesn’t look like any brochure I’ve ever seen before… Since when did they make them out of pitch blue without pictures of any sort…” He began to walk toward it.

“Don’t tell me you’re that easily distracted…”

Cesare decided to ignore him and investigate the “brochure”, as Delaguerra had called it…

 

[Evil Eye]

How's the rest coming along, J?

 

[Andrew Darmac]

How's the rest coming along, J?

It's doing okay, though this piece here was written quite a while back (when I was on the first chapter actually), so there may have been things I missed. That's mostly why I put this up