reach the rotting carcasses of my earlier victims. Naturally camouflaged and wonderfully cunning, they made the game that much more challenging.
On Day Four I started killing the winged carrion eaters that came to feast on the dead. Blowing the fuck outta them was a special joy to me. I’ve always hated vultures, human or otherwise. I’d let each one get his fill before sending a high velocity round crashing through its body. Payback is a motherfucker. Gun control means hitting the target.
I spent Day Five cleaning the rifle and its optic from stem to stern. If anyone had heard my shooting they never came out to investigate. The Stoner was zeroed to perfection and gave me no mechanical problems. Even better, my natural shooting ability with a long gun was again up to Rogue standards. I could hit anything that moved and was the size of a coyote or smaller. I’d hardened myself to the rigorous demands of a sniper and weathered the bleaching hot days and bitter cold nights of the Utah desert. By the time I’d repacked the Dodge and made my way back to the highway, I was feeling much, much better. Shooting to kill has always had that effect on me. And I’ve always hated cute little furry animals anyway.
I swung up into North Dakota where I attended a yearly SEAL reunion in Minot. For three days about sixty of us ate, drank, and swapped war stories. I met my teammates’ wives and kids, at least those who were lucky enough to still be married (though not necessarily to the same woman they’d started out with). I met a waitress named Roxanne at the local diner my first night in town and we ended up fucking each other silly for the rest of the weekend. She was a leggy, blonde former airline stew who’d burned out on flying the friendly skies and getting hit on by middle-aged pilots whose wives thought their husbands were cockpit commandos ever since September 11,2001. Rox had come to Minot to visit family the year before and ended up staying just for the fuck of it. It was easy to tell she’d been bored to death by the hometown cock monsters. Every night I gave her free play with the Rogue’s royal ten inches and happily let her work out her wildest fantasies. Every day we enjoyed the company of good friends and good booze.
By the time I left Minot, Rox was swearing like a SEAL and could fuck, suck, and drink nearly any stud in town under the diner’s tables. Me? I felt centered again after being among my own kind, and better yet, I didn’t feel the urge to jack off every time I saw a Brittany Spears music video on the Ram’s onboard television!
Four days later I was in Tacoma, Washington. I’d heard about a street-fighting motherfucker named Kelly Worden from some of the operators on SIX. They said the guy could hurt you just by smiling. After getting lost driving around the fucking city I finally stopped a cop and asked if he knew where the fuck it was I could find Worden. Turned out he did. All I had to do was sign an autograph. I linked up with Mr. Worden and spent the next two months living out of my truck on a small beach across the Narrows Bridge. For the next two months, five days a week, five hours a day, I trained with Worden at his home. It cost me $500 a week to learn Worden’s Natural Spirit method of close quarters combat. But what I’d heard was true—the bastard could hurt you just by looking at you. Then when he touched you, the pain really got intense! At first I tried to fight him with everything I’d learned on the streets as a young punk who’d brawl with anyone he met. Then I tried all the down and dirty shit we’d learned in the teams and that I’d introduced to both SIX and Red Cell.
The fucker just laughed and proceeded to beat the crap outta me with his fists, his feet, his fucking head, and anything else that came to hand.
Remember what I’ve been telling you about pain? I lived in a constant state of pain for those two months. My bruises had bruises. My joints felt like they’d