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+--- Thread: Noah Crow's Eye (/thread-213.html)
Re: Noah Crow's Eye - Noah Crow's Eye - 09-11-2016
<big>Vietnam, 1969
</big>
Corporal Noah Crow's Eye peered out from behind the M-60 mount at the open door of the Huey and scanned the jungle scape for movement. Half of the ridges leading out from the A Shau Valley had been blasted into unrecognizable twigs of trees as the ten-day battle had worn on. Hamburger Hill, they were calling it. The eerie twilight turned those ridges to an ashen ghost of a forest. Yet there was still plenty of greenery to provide cover for enemy movement attempting to sneak in. Anything could hide in that dense foliage.
As a matter of fact, for the squad sitting behind Noah and the other forces with the three other Hueys, that's what they were counting on. “There,” Noah cried out to the sergeant strapped in behind him, pointing to a barely recognizable sliver to the other gunner. “You see the back trail? That's what they're using.” He'd already seen the trail in a dream, walking it in that other place he didn't really understand. His people had old memories of things like that place in the Spirit world but much of it had been long forgotten or shrouded in mystery. Of course Sarge would think he was full of shit if he told him that.
The NCO chuckled. “Hardly. You have a bird's eye all right, Crow.” He slung his M-16 around his back. He called over the radio to the other units then patted Noah on his bare cheek. “Keep your babyface eagle eyes on the lookout while we fast-rope in. There ain't shit for a landing.”
Noah nodded, trying not to roll his eyes. He was already 19 and had been out here for nearly a year. However his inability to grow facial hair had earned him a couple of nicknames. He had run into his handful of other Native Americans out here, and they all seemed very out of place among the scruffy faces of the other rough and dirtied foot soldiers who'd been rotting in the jungle. More than once he'd been looked on suspiciously, which was ridiculous. He didn't look that much like Charlie. Eyes were all wrong. He shook his head. Sometimes it was hard to believe he'd volunteered for this, and all on a dream. It still made no sense to him for him to be here. They told him he'd be a medic but then after training they threw him in as a door gunner. More meat for the grinder. It had been a long and bloody slog over some God-forsaken jungle with no end in sight.
But still, what would be, would be. He glanced down at the mark on his forearm. A simple snake biting his forearm. His father, now long dead, and his grandfather before them, and their forefathers, had called themselves the Remnant, the Atharim. Secret protectors of the tribe and their people from monsters and disaster. It all seemed like so much nonsense, like the old stories of the medicine men. Noah hadn't seen any such thing as a monster. Only disaster he'd seen was what the Feds had done to the tribes, specifically the Cherokee.
The rope was thrown over the side and the squad slid down it one by one the sixty feet to the jungle floor. Noah quickly pulled up the rope and took his spot behind the gun. He coiled the rope carefully so if they needed to bug out he could just push it back over the side.
Speaking of dreams, the one he'd suffered last night was downright terrible, and had left him wiped out. Nothing but certain doom and gloom. It was one reason why he was packing his 12-gauge shotgun, his 1911 sidearm and a Bowie knife. Probably nothing but nervousness since his chopper had been lucky mixed with wild bogeyman stories of crash survivors disappearing in the jungle. This place could even swallow the dead.
There. Deep in the trees, about fifty yards from the drop. Wide conical helmet and the flash of metal. They were crouched. “Two O'Clock!” he yelled out. He swung around the machine gun and lit up the stand of trees. Metal casings went flying and his ears burned. The forest floor came alive with movement. There were at least two hundred of them! Noah kept firing as a flash of light sprung from the floor and struck the Huey next to him. It careened into the trees and ground up leaves and trunk alike in a flaming ball of wreckage. He swallowed and tried not to think about the same thing happening.
No such luck. His chopper lurched as its motor was hit by the RPG, and Noah slammed forward, first in to the butt of the M-60, and then out the open door. He felt his back whip back as he was jerked by the line that secured him to the Huey floor. Head spinning and out of breath, dangling twenty feet from the forest floor, he looked up as the Huey started listing to the right. He had just enough time to grab the knife and slice the line.
Noah dropped into a stand of bushes, branches gouging at his flesh, and tumbled to the ground. He felt himself over. Nothing broken. Just very bruised and sore. His helicopter veered away, trailing smoke from its engine. He got to one knee and unslung the shotgun, attempting to get his bearings. An enemy screamed and rushed at him with a bayonet. Noah knocked it aside and slammed the butt stock into the man's jaw with a crunch, and pivoted and fired a slug into the man's chest.
He looked around. There were no sense of lines at all. Just echoes of gunfire and explosions and screaming, and smoke everywhere. He rushed forward and took cover behind a fallen log. Night was rapidly falling and an American by himself – even one grown up in the North Carolina Appalachia like Noah – was as good as dead in these Charlie infested boonies. But out in the open he was just as good as dead, also. So he'd take cover till he heard recognizable voices, or until the choppers came back.
None came as night fell and the temperature dropped. Hopes of rescue dwindled. He was pretty sure that if he followed the trail back East he would eventually make it back to the firebase at A Shau Valley. Noah left his hiding place and pushed forward, quietly. The jungle had long since grown still.
He heard a scream up ahead. It sounded – didn't sound like Charlie. Then there was a growl, and some more screams. Noah picked up his pace, careful to keep his shotgun ahead of him in case he ran across a booby trap.
In the clearing ahead there was a glow. Noah dropped to his elbows and crawled on his belly. An all too familiar scent of blood and flesh reached his nostrils. He peered in. There were dead men, three of them, splayed out across the clearing. One of them was Sarge. Something was hunched over him. Noah made out a silhouette of a thing vaguely humanoid with coal-black skin. It had flesh and sinew between its teeth – it was eating Sarge. It looked up and turned its glowing eyes at Noah, and snarled.
The creature from his dream.
Noah popped up from the prone position and fired his shotgun twice, missing both times. Blazes, the thing was fast! It feinted right, and swiped a clawed hand at his shoulder, scoring a slash along the back of his forearm. Noah ignored it and instead slammed the butt of his shotgun into the creature's face. He remembered from the dream that it was going to go for his throat. He had to keep those sharp teeth away. The thing reeled back but it didn't seem like the blow had fazed it. It swiped and knocked the shotgun out of his hands. Noah backed up and tripped over a root, falling backwards.
It jumped at him just as Noah, on his back, brought up his sidearm. He emptied the .45-caliber magazine into the creature at point- blank range and braced for the feel of jaws on his neck.
It never came. The creature shrieked and jumped off, disappearing into the brush.
Noah didn't know if he'd manage to injure the beast or just scare it off. He didn't care. He scrambled to his feet, trying to catch his breath, giving thanks to the Great Spirit for watching over him. He scrambled for the shotgun and pulled it up. One thing was for sure, though. Those stories of creatures weren't hooey.
In his pocket was a flashlight. He pulled it out, shining it into the night along the barrel of his shotgun. Noah looked around for the first time. He wasn't in a clearing. It was an old courtyard of some sort. Perfectly square, and the far side dropped off like a cliff. And it hadn't been a root he'd tripped over but an aged slab of stone. He stepped forward. A huge hulking shape gave way to...a stone awning. A temple or altar, perhaps. No, a pyramid. It dawned on him that he was actually at the top of a massive, buried structure. There were glyphs of some sort, in an unrecognizable language. He couldn't make any sense of it. But there were drawings and a snake. Or a wheel. Or...no, it was the Oroborus.
Now Noah understood. This was what he was supposed to find.
* * *
<big>Thirty-four years later
March 2003
Duke University
</big>
The snow was falling outside that evening, unusual for that late in the year. There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Noah called out from behind his desk. The door to his office opened, revealing Dr. Nathan Folsom. archaeologist was a recent face at Duke, and he had an office across campus from Noah's study. Noah had gotten to know him well over the past year, much to his chagrin. He didn't like the man much.
“Noah.” Dr. Folsom put out his hand. The middle-aged European let just a bit of skin show on his forearm which revealed the head of a snake. Noah took his arm and shook it but didn't stand. “I've seen your latest work pre-Columbian deity mythology. Fascinating stuff about why Pontiac believed he could make his warrior braves bulletproof.”
Noah nodded and narrowed his eyes. The man wasn't here for academics. “I appreciate your endorsement. What can I do for you?”
The man tsked. “Your family has done some very impressive things, in their little isolated pocket of the United States. Did you know that our records mention an ancestor of yours singlehandedly took out a nest of Dreyken which was attacking the Jamestown colony?” Noah had known as much. He'd seen the records himself, at a safe house not far from here. It seems Folsom had been digging up information on Noah for quite some time. Not in the waking world, of course. While walking the dream. There were other natives who could do it, as well. Wolves, also. And still more, hidden, who kept such a distance they thought Noah wasn't aware of their presence. But he hadn't found any others who understood how to read the lines of if, however.
Dr. Folsom walked over to a stand across the room and picked up a skull. Chupakabra. Noah had tracked it down in the Southwest years ago. “Somehow, the Remnant has survived in the shadows on this continent, and carried on their work in their little pockets just like your family. A remnant of the Remnant. For hundreds of years, we have been trying to re-unite you under the guidance of the Regus. And things have become more urgent.”
Noah frowned. “In what way?”
The man placed the skull back down on the stand. “Direction. This isn't just about rogue monsters and the like. This is about bringing you in under the fold. You hear things, I know. I'm sure you have heard Regus Wilhelm lost his own son to a Dreyken attack. He's become...insistent on things.”
Noah opened up a drawer and rummaged through it while keeping his eye on Folsom. “What does this have to do with me, exactly?”
The man opened his suit jacket. Noah saw a pearl-handled revolver for a moment, but the man instead pulled out a paper. “This should be right down your alley. It seems our efforts to...infiltrate the goings on of the Native groups of Atharim continue to be stymied. Additionally, someone has been...poking around. Threatening to expose certain historical actions allegedly taken by the organization. The manipulation of Jackson, for one.” He tsked again. It was an irritating habit. “Here is what we know about where the requests are coming from. We've traced it to coming from somewhere on this university and we think it's one of your local boys. Find it and quiet it.”
Noah's eyes narrowed. What was, and what will be, may be what is, today. His left hand found what he was looking for. “What do you mean by quiet it?”
The other man shrugged. “Figure it out. But the Remnant in this Godforsaken continent will be consolidated.”
Noah reached down with his right arm. “I don't think so.” He pushed back from the desk and brought his right hand up, revealing a taser pistol. Barbs flew and struck Folsom in the throat. Fifty thousand volts turned his muscles to jelly and he collapsed like a boneless sack of meat.
Noah didn't spare a second. He raced over and pulled the revolver from Folsom's holster. Then he stuck the man with the syringe in his left hand – a large dose of sodium thiopental.
“I'm going to tell you something,” Noah told the man. “Your kind are killers. Vicious killers. This isn't about saving people. This is about control to you.” He turned the man's revolver back on himself. Not that it was particularly necessary. The drug was fast-acting. “Who else knows about me?”
The man drooled a bit. He'd be compliant, but not lucid for long. “The safe house. Two others. And one in Alexandria. Your family record is there.” His eyes tried to focus on Noah. “I thought you were one of the good guys. Why you...you...”
Noah sighed. He came back to his desk and reached for another syringe. “Because the more you try to fight the future, the more blood will be shed. And it won't make any difference.” A raspy, mirthless laugh broke out from deep within him. “I've seen the future. And it doesn't belong to you.” He stuck the man again. The man's eyes glazed over. Within minutes his heart stopped. A shame Noah had to kill him. But that's what warriors did when they had a fight to win. Certain things had to come to pass if any of his people would survive the coming storm. And letting Folsom and Wilhelm and their ilk to penetrate further than they'd already managed to do so far would make things ten times worse. Noah reached behind his desk and pulled out the black body bag he'd stashed there earlier that day, whistling to himself.
That night, an explosion ripped through an upscale home in Durham. Three people were found dead in the blast the next morning, including a Dr. Nathan Folsom. A gas leak was blamed for the explosion. Two days later, a house went up in flames in Alexandria. If anyone was inside there wouldn't have even been dental records surviving. It was a suspected arson. The only problem was that no one could find who owned the property and no one stepped up to file an insurance claim. Neither of these incidents were considered particularly remarkable. Certainly no one connected them. And certainly no one connected either incident with Noah's announcement that he would take a sabbatical that year in preparation for retirement from the academic world. It was hardly a rare occasion for a tenured professor to drop his course load when he was nearing sixty.
He dropped into private research after that on his reservation in Cherokee, N.C., and his activities since then have been for the most part unnoticed. The Atharim have long forgotten about him as well as he has managed to wipe out all knowledge of his affiliation with them. But Noah has not forgotten about them. And he became instrumental to the development of the current Council of Native Americans. As the Sickness began to develop, Noah developed more and more of his time to studying the illness and coordinating efforts with other Native American tribes.
He never got rid of the tattoo, though.