SEAL Team 666: A Novel

There were the occasions when I took advantage of a situation if I didn’t like the people. And this is where you come in. I made a mistake in Corregidor. I was hired to trade for some penicillin. I got the penicillin, but got a better offer in Manila. A bar owner wanted to corner the market on the drug, knowing that the girls had to have clean bills of health on their red cards. He paid me triple what I was going to get from the Malay doctor on Corregidor.

I figured I’d be able to take the cash, buy some more penicillin, and get it to Corregidor after only a few days’ delay. But I hadn’t anticipated the supply would dry up. When I realized that I couldn’t get any more, I tried to buy back what I’d sold at a loss, but the bar owner just laughed at me.

I wired my contact in Corregidor. The reply I got back told the rest of the horrifying story. The drug was to be used to halt an outbreak of meningitis at a local orphanage. They had to have it. Without it they’d all die. And they did.

Forty-seven children.

Dead.

Because of me.

The last line of the telegram I received in return said that I’d pay for this.

Two weeks later I noticed the change in you. I don’t know how it got in you. I don’t know who did it. All I knew was that one minute you were a happy-go-lucky kid having a great life in the P.I., and the next you were like a ravenous dog with the mouth of a sailor.

Then I lost you for four months.

I’m still trying to figure out what exactly happened to you. According to the woman who convinced the priest to rescue you from the garbage dump, you are possessed by a Hantu Kabor. Turns out that’s some sort of Malaysian grave demon. It sucks out the souls of the dead, but can be harnessed to do the same with the living. As it was explained to me, as if this were something logical, the demon possesses you for as long as it takes to break down your internal defenses. Once that happens, it eats your soul and moves on. I’ve seen the sort of people they claim have been its victims. And Jackie, they scare me. They scare me worse than anything because I don’t want you to end up that way.

They just sit there, staring at the world.

No, that’s not right. That would entail some sort of interaction. They sit there with the world staring at them. They’re like rocks. Or clay. Or a hill. They are nothing. There’s nothing left inside except for the elements that made them.

They’re empty.

But you were strong.

You kept it at bay. Through whatever hell you were in, you kept it from consuming you.