Sedona AZ (April 15, 2015) – The following has been taken from Collins Rhōg’s private journal, and reproduced exactly as it was written, by his own hand. The date has been omitted, at his request, but Collins view is always captivatingly honest, full of depth and color, heart and perseverance in times of struggle. Collins spills his soul and captures his feelings with vivid imagery and heart felt emotion that oozes from the pages of this historic text.

The following is but a portholes view, from across the room of “The Life and Times of Collins Rhōg“:

If you are new to the story, it all begins at this link (click here). In previous weeks, our readers were introduced to Rhōg’s story as written in his journal. Join us as we return to the Life and Times of Collins Rhōg, now 38, while he surveys the gates of Hell:

– Cambire, The Story Part 17 –

My swollen eyes parted to witness four shapes standing around a bleeding hulk of a soul. Focusing my vision, I saw it was Two Gun Johnny, his second in command Hooky Miller, and a couple cronies, Daemeon and Granger. The fellow they were laying the hurt on was Candor, the biker from the Dodge who helped save Reegan.

“Okay Boys,” Two Gun said while threading the Arch Angel silencer to the muzzle of his 45. “Pay attention. This is what happens to assholes who upset me.” He chambered a round and the three others pulled out guns and followed suit.

A chorus of clacking noises caused Candor to look to the men cycling rounds into the barrels that encircled him. These were his last moments…these were his last sights…these were the last memories that he took with him as he left this world.

The biker held his composure, looking at them with a faint smile, his head tilted down slightly as a stream of blood stretched from his mouth, then thinned, to snap and plunge into a puddle on the ground. Blinking slowly, Candor’s eyes settled on Two Gun Johnny. Blood tumbled from his nose and splayed out his mouth as he barked, “What the fuck are you waiting…” Their guns erupted in a blinding fury.

“NO!!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed.

Time slowed. Muzzle flashes continuously burst and faded as guns hopped. Spent brass shells were ejected to tumble through the air and bounce upon the ground with an eerie tintinnabulation within the whumps and clacks. Candor lurched as if torn by swarming piranhas. He wrenched and contorted, but never screamed, wearing a sneer as they filleted him with bullets. From the corners of his eyes, he peered at the four and slowly bent both arms at the elbows to defiantly flip them off. Candor looked my way, his face bloodied and swollen and took his last breath. Raising his aim, Two Gun obliterated Candor’s skull and the man slumped to the ground twitching.

The gun fire ceased and the ringing sounds from the last of the spilled shells became louder in the deafening silence. Candor’s body stopped twitching as blood crept out with his soul. I noticed his hands, both still clenched, flipping the bird. Then, as Candor left this world, Two Gun took a long drag from the fag that dangled from his lips and proceeded to flip the dead man off and flick the cigarette at his body.

I heard a voice. “What the fuck are you looking at?” but darkness fell upon me.

Coming to, I was tied to a chair, arms behind my back. I had taken a hard thrashing and my body hurt everywhere. My face was grotesquely swollen and numb and as my tongue passed over the jagged remnants of a molar on the right side of my jaw, shattered at the root, I felt intense pain. Several more of my teeth had been knocked out. My ribs were sore, mostly on the right side as well. They must have been standing to my right when they put the boots to me.

Blood trickled down my arm, wrapping around my wrist and dripping off the pinky like a faucet that was cracked open. I felt like shit and realized that I might soon be meeting my maker. Not the kind of bloke to go out quietly, I swore that if the chance came, I’d take at least one of those bastards along for the ride.

My attention drew to a whistling noise coming from my nose. It was an odd, high-pitched whistle that peaked and faded with every breath. I thought about the glob of dried blood completely barricading my sinuses.

Through swollen eyelids, I could see that I was sitting in the middle of an empty swimming pool, at its deep end, facing the shallows, the roof of a house barely visible above. Around me at the corners stood four yellow work lights, now off, rising about six feet on tripods, lights aimed where I sat. Each halogen had an orange extension cord trailing behind it that scaled the walls of the pool and disappeared. I noticed small puddles of blood gelled on the smooth concrete floor and was able to identify two of my teeth, resting several yards apart. I made out several smudges where I had been dragged around, bringing back some recollection of the beating endured hours prior.

The sky was a brilliant blue and the air was crisp and fresh. It was early morning. I became aware of just how cold I was and began to shiver. I felt my feet going numb, each leg tied to the chair. My arms were tightly bound to the base of the seat back, with no give. Trying to wriggle loose was in vain, it wasn’t to be. Whomever tied me up knew what he was doing. I sat at the bottom of the swimming pool shivering uncontrollably as my body did its best to generate heat for my organs. I couldn’t think of anything as I tried to fight off the cold. I just shivered and existed, waiting for the sun to fully rise and longing for the warmth it would bring.

I hadn’t the strength to articulate anything, but rather just droned for several hours until the morning sun finally struck and filled my soul with warmth as the air temperature rose a bit. The shivering stopped.

With eyes closed, my thoughts turned to Reegan…wondering how she was, thinking she might be watching TV from her hospital bed. I wondered if Shugo was alright and had he managed to survive? The thought of Reegan in hospital and Shugo, God knows where, suffering from his wounds, drew life into my devastated body.

Attempting to formulate an escape plan, I sat for hours watching the shadows from the work lights shrink and grow beneath the sun’s course. Needing to piss something fierce, my bladder held much of my attention. It was around mid-morning when the air was a bit warmer that the flies came out. They began to land on my body, lapping at my wounds. I tried to keep them off of my face, though the task was impossible, so did my best to ignore them, but they could not be ignored probing my lesions. Just after midday, I could hold my piss no longer and let it rip, the warmth of urine creeping from crotch to left leg, but soon the wet pants became cold and stuck to my skin. Misery multiplied.

After a while I heard footsteps approaching. Over the ledge of the pool I saw Hooky Miller. He was looking down at me.

“I see you’re awake,” he said. “Did you have a good nap?”

Raising my eyes up to meet his, I parted my lips and felt scabs rip open, then called out, “FUCK YOU!” as anger crept back in.

Hooky chuckled, turned and walked along the pool perimeter, toward its shallow end.

“No, FUCK YOU, Collins!” Miller loudly retorted as he strolled down the steps and into the pool. Wearing a grin, he whispered “Fuck You, Collins…” and walked by, out of my line of vision.

“Ya know… ” Hooky was leaning into my ear as he spoke “…you’re not such a bad ass after all.” I couldn’t see him, he was directly behind me, but close enough that I could smell his ash tray breath.

“FUCK YOU, Collins!” Hooky screamed as the steel toe of his boot crashed into the right side of my face with a punishing blow, landing squarely on my shattered molar. I fell back to feel another kick collapse my leg.

“Ahhhhhh!!” I screamed out in pain, feeling my face begin to bleed again.

“Looks like you pissed yourself, Collins!” He was still behind me out of view when I felt him grab the back of my head with one hand and the seat of the chair with the other.

“Won’t be long now, tough guy!” He flipped me over in the chair. My face hit the cement hard, sending a twinge through my skull with a quick flash of light. My face was bleeding everywhere.

Lying on the pool’s bottom, my line of sight ran along the floor. I looked up to see Miller standing over me. Reaching into his jacket with his right hand, he gave me a wink and a nod, then pulled a throwing knife out from inside the coat. The six inch blade held a sharpened edge on both sides. The tang was wrapped with a black nylon cord that served as a handle. Once again Miller walked out of view. I felt the ties that bound me free from my legs, and then my arms.

“Get up, you fuck!” Hooky snarled.

He half dragged me out of the pool, beneath Daemeon now on the ledge above articulating his gun barrel.

“Over there!” Hooky ordered, pushing me to the right. Daemeon was standing James Dean style, his head cocked and his left hand in his trench coat while his right hand held a Glock 17.

“G-day mate,” Daemeon greeted me with an air of cockiness. “Ya look like you’ve been pistol whipped.” He smiled as his eyes turned to Hooky. They both chuckled.

“I’d say it was a Glock 17,” Hooky interjected with a laugh before joining Daemeon.

“There’s more where that came from, Ace!” informed Daemeon. “You’ll be joining that biker prick soon enough, Collins. Old Tristan thinks you’re dead so dead you will become!”

“But first you need to tell us where you hid the weapon. I’m just glad you didn’t spill the beans on the first night so I can kick the shit out of you again!” Hooky added.

I could feel a slight breeze from where we stood beside the empty pool. The sun was lower in the sky, it was around 5:00 p.m. and we were facing west. Directly in front of me stood Daemeon with Hooky Miller to his right, and the pool about three feet behind them. I could see no one else around, but made out the faint sound of a lawn mower in the distance.

“Got a cigarette on you?” Hooky asked Daemeon.

“Yeah, I’ve got you covered,” he replied, while pulling his left hand out of the pocket of his trench coat to have it disappear inside the flap. Never taking his eyes off me, Daemeon’s right hand held the Glock steady at my chest level, good for the kill shot.

I could hear the lawn mower noise growing louder. Looking up, I saw it was a single engine airplane flying overhead. Daemeon removed his left hand from his jacket clutching a pack of fags. He held the pack out to Hooky by crossing over his right arm with the gun. Hooky, who had looked up at the aircraft for a moment, didn’t see Daemeon holding them out. Impatient as he was, Daemeon glanced over to see why Hooky hadn’t taken the cigarettes from his hand. This was the chance I was waiting for and seized the opportunity.

As fast as lightning, I lunged into Daemeon, blocking his right arm and gun with my left hand. Daemeon’s left arm, laying across his right holding out the cigarettes, was pushed up in sync with his right arm and into his face. My right hand came down and seized Daemeon in the scrotum with all that was left in me. I squeezed as hard as I could, crushing Daemeons balls and stealing the breath from his lungs. The man’s eyes were big as saucers as I picked him up by the groin, pushing him backwards and over the edge of the pool. He never fired a round, just fell backwards, head down over the edge to the concrete waiting twelve feet below.

Without a moment to spare, I spun 90 degrees. Hearing Damaeon moan as he landed at the bottom of the pool, I brought my elbow to bear on Hooky’s face. He stumbled back a step, parallel to the pool’s edge, but avoided going over. Quickly I closed the gap to prevent Miller room to maneuver or, worse yet, pull a weapon. I thrust the palm of my left hand upward and into his nose. The one-armed man moved, glancing my palm away with minimal damage and stepped back again to buy room. I advanced anew, wanting to get on him and maul him like a bear, but Hooky threw a left cross with his prosthetic, bound for my right eye.

I blocked high, stepping in once more to close the quarters. With his left arm safely up and out of the way, I dropped my right hand down behind Hooky’s head. Grabbing his hair with all my might, I threw him down, guiding his face into my knee, intent on carnage. Hooky’s right eye socket nested into my kneecap, splitting out his cheekbone, just aft the eyelid.

Still clutching his scalp, I powered another blow into his face, but he turned and broke my grasp. Spinning to the ground onto his back, Hooky’s head bounced up off of the concrete and down again with a dull crack. I met him on the ground with a right jab square in the nose and moved in for the finish. Throwing a block with my right hand again, Hooky brutally grabbed my hair and jerked my head back. My view changed to the sky.

My swollen eyelids and face grew taut as Hooky pulled, I could feel more lacerations rip open. The pain increased my rage tenfold. I was spitting as I exhaled and levered my right elbow into Hooky’s face as hard as I could. His head smashed into the cement which yielded no give, but allowed Miller’s skull to absorb all of its energy. Hooky loosened his grasp and I tore my head free, cocking my arm again to fire upon him.

“You fucking bastard!” I growled as blood and saliva sprayed out my mouth and fired my elbow back into Hooky’s mug, connecting for the third time, this time to the bridge of Hooky’s nose which exploded with the sound of a ripe apple being stepped upon. I had all my might in the blow, which again launched Miller’s head like a croquet ball into the concrete where it cracked and halted as my elbow bulldozed deeper into it. I recoiled for another launch.

“Wait, wait…!” Hooky murmured as I let go another round and frequented his skull once more. Hooky’s plea turned into a cry of agony as I repeatedly struck him in full rage, hitting him again and again and again with my jaw clenched tightly, feeling blood bubbles expanding and popping beneath my nostrils with every breath.

“You’re coming home to a pine box, you fucking asshole!” I snarled.

Reaching down, I grabbed Miller’s head with both hands. Our eyes met as he flailed in a pathetic attempt to stop me. The terror in Hooky’s eyes said volumes through my swollen field of view. I rapidly twisted Hooky’s head as hard as I could with all of my strength. I could feel the resistance as his muscles, tendons and vertebrae reached their maximum range of motion, yet I powered through, teeth clenched with rage. I turned his head far beyond its capacity. Everything that bound Hooky’s neck now snapped against my brute force. Hooky’s body rose up in defiance, then abruptly went limp in two stages the instant his neck cracked like a thick fresh carrot being snapped in half. It was like someone had turned Hooky off – it was me and he was gone!

My vision limited, I quickly reached inside Hooky’s jacket for a gun and found none, but searching his torso yielded the knife used to cut me loose of the chair. Pulling the knife from its sheath, I passed it over Hooky’s neck in one motion, parting it into a furrow. There was no room for error.

Standing up I prepared to meet Daemeon, still in the pool but not in sight. Cautiously peering over the edge, I saw him sprawled out, his gun ten feet from where he lay. Bending down, I grabbed the edge of the pool and tossed my legs down into its emptiness, holding the knife in my right hand. Daemeon saw me and started crawling for his gun as I peeled away from the side of the pool, pushing off with my legs and landing on him. He cushioned the weight of my fall as I sank Miller’s knife square into his back. It pierced his lungs so he made no sound and I drove it home through his heart. The man died instantly.

Getting up, I grabbed Daemeon’s Glock. It felt heavy. Cracking the slide confirmed it was fully chambered. After a quick look around, prepared to shoot but with no one there, I quickly dropped the clip. It held 17 rounds.

After picking up my knocked out teeth, I made my way from the pool and advanced towards the house. Briefly taking cover behind a patio table topped with booze and mixers, I sized up the situation. There was no one within sight, so I grabbed a bottle of ginger ale from the table and advanced to cover behind a thicket of bushes nearer the house. From that vantage point I could see a man standing near the corner of the home, roughly one hundred feet away with his back to me. I dumped the ginger ale onto the ground and tried to clear my vision. The sentry was looking away, down the driveway. Wiping my swollen eyes, I emerged from the hedge.

I swiftly ran toward the guard who was facing away from me, though he heard my movements and turned to catch me approaching. Raising the empty bottle to seat it to the barrel of the Glock 17 as a silencer, I paused in my stride to take aim.

The 9mm exited the barrel with a muted “Whhhump”, sounding very much like a tennis racket slicing through the air and striking a tennis ball. Within that sound, I heard the clack of the Glock’s slide as the mechanism ejected the spent shell before returning to peel a new round off of the clip. It seated into the barrel like a torpedo slid into a tube, ready to be fired.

The bullet struck the guard in the left jaw, exiting out the back of his head, shedding flesh and bone which scattered to the ground within a fine red mist that vanished as my gun chambered a new round. I squeezed off a second shot in rapid succession, high and to the right, just below the guard’s eye socket, fragmenting more matter out the back of his head. I watched the guard drop where he stood. Looking about ready for another, no one was to be seen, no one was alert to my actions. Grabbing the body, I dragged the sentry behind the bushes from which I had emerged. Frisking the dead man revealed nothing but a Sig handgun.

Bursting into the house I found Granger. “Remember me?” my arm was fully extended with Glock in hand ready to drop him.

“Rhōg!” he was surprised. “You know it wasn’t personal…”

“You guys shot my girlfriend and my dog…and you’re telling me it wasn’t personal!” Adrenalin and rage were pulsing through my veins. I felt my strength increasing by the second, jaw tightening as I clenched my teeth.

“Drop your piece!”

“OK, just calm down…” Granger replied with hand gestures, as if he was going to negotiate with me.

“Calm down?” I questioned, my wrist articulated faintly as I touched off a round. The Glock’s muzzle hopped slightly and targeted Granger’s left ear which now missed its top third.

“Fuck Man!” he cried out cupping his left hand to his head, his right fumbling for his gun.

“Slowly…” I nodded.

He gingerly pulled out his gun and set it on the floor. It was a 45 ACP, still dirty from shooting Candor the day prior. Before he had a chance to stand, I shot the .45 which slid three feet before spinning in place. Another bullet pushed the pistol another few feet. Granger quickly stepped back, arms in the air.

“Now your back up heat…”

“That’s it, man!” My Glock hopped again as the top of Granger’s right ear disappeared.

“That’s it, huh?” I fired again and blew out his right knee cap.

“Fuck you! Fuck You!” Granger screamed out. My Glock moved to take site on Granger’s groin region. I shook my head.

“OKAY!, OKAY! STOP! PLEASE! STOP!” Granger slowly reached behind his back and dropped a nickel coated snub nose hammerless .38 to the ground.

I sidestepped Granger and kicked his left knee which caved like a thick branch beneath the wheel of a truck, while my right elbow blasted him square in the face. Granger stumbled back and fell to the floor. Turning, I kicked him square in the groin. His eyes widened as my steel toed boots devastated his appendage.

Standing over Granger, “This is for Reegan, Candor and Shugo, you fucking bastard!” I kicked his nose with the toe of my boot, launching his nose bone straight into his brain, while the tip of the nose ripped apart and drooped to the side. He died quickly, too quickly. I felt bad that he didn’t suffer longer, that was more than he deserved.

Inside the house, I found fresh clothes and hit the shower to clean my wounds. Revenge was sweet.

– Collins Rhōg

Back in the truck with Collins on the mountainside, Josh Randal closed Rhōg’s journal.

“Is this for real?”

“It is,” Collins replied with a sigh. “I wish it wasn’t, but it is. Where are you at anyway?” Collins looked to his open journal in my hands.

“Uh..the swimming pool.”

“Right. The swimming pool.” The pilot smiled broadly in the dim light, showing off the holes in his mouth, presumably from the swimming pool encounter.

“Those assholes searched my plane about the time I was getting the shit kicked out of me in that pool. I heard Daemeon ramble on vaguely about it, but never put it down in the journal. Of course they didn’t find the weapon, but I suspect they sabotaged my Super Cub at the time, hence my crashing and you and Samantha finding me.”

I just stared at the man in front of me, not knowing what to make of his tale.

“So have you really been infected with the Ebola bio weapon?” I bluntly asked.

“I have.” Collins answered firmly.

“So…if you’re infected, then Samantha and I are infected now as well?”

“You’re fine.” He nodded at me.

My voice raised, “What do you mean “We’re fine? You just got done telling me that you’ve been infected with a bio weapon! How can you say “We’re FINE?”

“Keep reading, mate,” Collins interrupted and pushed his journal that I held towards my nose. “There’s so much more to the story…”

Cambire, The Story continues in the SedonaEye.com. Some SedonaEye.com scenes have been edited due to content, however, be advised that some language may be considered offensive or inappropriate. Look for the unedited Cambire, The Story, available at booksellers and retailers in the fall of 2015 to be published as Change of Allegiance.