Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) by F. Paul Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

object, but was freed and has been following its own agenda ever since.  But it knows it will eventually have to surrender its freedom in the final battle… and that the final battlefield will be America. 
     
    I'd originally intended to use a much shorter version of "Dat-tay-vao" as either a flashback or a prologue in The Touch , but no matter how I tried to work it in, it simply wouldn't fit.  Used early on, it gave away too much of the mystery of what would be happening to Alan Bulmer in the body of the novel; inserted later, it seemed redundant.  So I scrapped it.  
     
    After the novel was finished I returned to it and fleshed it out to make it a stand-alone story – a prequel to The Touch .  It appeared in the March 1987 issue of Amazing Stories .  The story takes place exactly nineteen years before its publication… right about the time of Reborn .  The events in Reborn trigger the Dat-tay-vao 's migration to the US where it plays an important part in the Secret History, as you will see in Nightworld . 
     
    Here’s how it starts…
     
     

Dat-Tay-Vao
     
    1
    Patsy cupped his hands gently over his belly to keep his intestines where they belonged. Weak, wet, and helpless, he lay on his back in the alley and looked up at the stars in the crystal sky, unable to move, afraid to call out. The one time he’d yelled loud enough to be heard all the way to the street, loops of bowel had squirmed against his hands, feeling like a pile of Mom’s slippery-slick homemade sausage all gray from boiling and coated with her tomato sauce. Visions of his insides surging from the slit in his abdomen like spring snakes from a novelty can of nuts had kept him from yelling again.
    No one had come.
    He knew he was dying. Good as dead, in fact. He could feel the blood oozing out of the vertical gash in his belly, seeping around his fingers and trailing down his forearms to the ground. Wet from neck to knees. Probably lying in a pool of blood… his very own homemade marinara sauce.
    Help was maybe fifty feet away and he couldn’t call for it. Even if he could stand the sight of his guts jumping out of him, he no longer had the strength to yell. Yet help was out there… the nightsounds of Quang Ngai streetlife… so near…
    Nothing ever goes right for me. Nothing. Ever.
    It had been such a sweet deal. Six keys of Cambodian brown. He could’ve got that home to Flatbush no sweat and then he’d have been set up real good. Uncle Tony would’ve known what to do with the stuff and Patsy would’ve been made. And he’d never be called Fatman again. Only the grunts over here called him Fatman. He’d be Pasquale to the old boys, and Pat to the younger guys.
    And Uncle Tony would’ve called him Kid, like he always did.
    Yeah. Would have. If Uncle Tony could see him now, he’d call him Shit-for-Brains. He could hear him now:
    Six keys for ten G’s? Whatsamatta witchoo? Din’t I always tell you if it seems too good to be true, it usually is? Ay! Gabidose! Din’t you smell no rat?
    Nope. No rat smell. Because I didn’t want to smell a rat. Too eager for the deal. Too anxious for the quick score. Too damn stupid as usual to see how that sleazeball Hung was playing me like a hooked fish.
    No Cambodian brown.
    No deal.
    Just a long, sharp K-bar.
    The stars above went fuzzy and swam around, then came into focus again.
    The pain had been awful at first, but that was gone now. Except for the cold, it was almost like getting smashed and crashed on scotch and grass and just drifting off. Almost pleasant. Except for the cold. And the fear.
    Footsteps…coming from the left. He managed to turn his head a few degrees. A lone figure approached, silhouetted against the light from the street. A slow, unsteady, almost staggering walk. Whoever it was didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Hung? Come to finish him off?
    But no. This guy was too skinny to be Hung.
    The figure came up and squatted flatfooted on his haunches next to Patsy. In the dim