Peculiar's Good {Caesar X Bestfriend!Reader} #Wattys2020

Chapter 37: McCullough's Story

A/N

(Y/N) Your Name

"Signing" 

"Talking" 

Caesar was still tied up to the giant 'X'. He saw the soldiers take (Y/N) up into the Colonel's room and after a few hours, it was dark. (Y/N) had been brought back to her cage, but she was badly bruised and beaten. The apes looked in her direction with concerned faces. Caesar couldn't see that his sister was back but he knew she was by the behaviour of the apes. He turned slightly and could see the Colonel watching him on his balcony from the corner of his eye. Red Donkey walked in front of Caesar. 

"What did the Colonel promise you?" Caesar asked. "You really think he'll let you live after we are gone? You let them call you 'donkey.' You are ape." The gorilla slowly lifted a sharp metal bar and struck it down on the ropes that held Caesar arms up. Caesar gasped. 

"Kerna want see you." Red Donkey said to him. 

Caesar, Preacher (the main soldier from the first attack) and Red Donkey went to Colonel McCullough's room. Caesar had the metal collar around his neck as they walked. Soft rock music played from the old radio. Caesar looked around the room, the Colonel looked at a map on his table with markings all over. 

"Interfere with the work again, and I'll begin slaughtering the apes one by one." He said interrupting Caesar's thoughts. "Understand? I need that wall." 

"Apes need food and water." Caesar said what he said earlier. 

"They get food and water when they finish their work." 

"Give apes food and water, or they cannot finish." 

"You know, you are very emotional. What makes you think you're in a position to make demands?" 

Preacher faced Caesar and said, "Okay, let's go." But Caesar didn't move. 

"The soldiers who are coming here. They are not coming to join you, are they?" This caught McCullough's attention. "I saw men outside on the wall, preparing for battle."

The Colonel faced the ape. "They told me you were smart, but that's impressive. No. They won't be joining me."

"They are against you?"

"They fear me." 

"Why? Because you kill your own men. We found bodies. Something wrong with these men." 

"Jesus Christ. You are impressive. Well, you paint quite a picture. What you must think of me."

"I think you have no mercy."

McCullough froze. He stepped close to Caesar. "You came here to kill me. Were you gonna show me mercy?"

"I showed you mercy when I spared your men. I offered you peace and you killed my family."

The Colonel breathed heavily and stepped away from Caesar and toward the radio. He turned off the music. "Mercy." He said. "You have any idea what your mercy would do to us? You're much stronger than we are. You're smart as hell. You have a human ally who has powerful wings. No matter what you say, you'd eventually replace us. That's the law of nature. The irony is, we created you. We tried to defy nature, bend it to our will. Nature has been punishing us for our arrogance ever since." He held a knife and turned away from the radio and faced Caesar. 

"10 months ago, I sent out recon units to look for your base. My own son was a soldier with one of the units. One day he suddenly stopped speaking. He became primitive, like an animal. They contacted me and said that they thought he'd lost his mind. That the war was too much for him. Then the man who cared for him stopped speaking too. Their medic had a theory, before he stopped speaking, that the virus that almost wiped us out...the virus that every human survivor still carries had suddenly changed. Mutated. And that if it spread, it would destroy humanity for good this time. Not by killing us but by robbing us of those things that make us human. Our speech, our higher thinking. It was turn us into beasts. You talk about mercy? What would you have done? It was a moment of clarity for me. I realised that I would have to sacrifice my only son so that humanity could be saved." He looked at the knife he held. 

"I held that gun in my hand for a long time. I pointed it at my only child...he looked at me, trust in his eyes. Even in his primitive gaze...I felt his...love." He looked back up to the ape and lowered the knife. "I pulled the trigger. It purified me. It made my purpose clear. I gave the orders to kill the other infected. All of them. Burn their belongings and anything that might spread contamination. Some of the men questioned my judgement. I was asking them to do what I had done. Sacrifice their friends, their family. Of course, they refused. I had them killed too. Others with children, deserted into the woods. One of those cowards fled to my superiors up North. They tried to convince me that this plague could be dealt with medically. That's when I realised that they had learned nothing from our past." He took a sip for a mug he picked up. 

"You killed them too?" Caesar asked. 

McCullough looked down to his mug. "What did I do, Preacher?" He asked the soldier. 

"You severed their heads, sir." Preacher answered. 

"Except for the one I spared so that he could return and deliver a message. If they wanted to relieve me of my command they would have to meet me here and do it themselves. This used to be a weapons depot. They turned it into a relocation camp when the crisis was just beginning. But the weapons are still here inside the mountain."

"How many men will be coming?" Caesar asked. 

"Probably all of them. But don't get any ideas. The only thing they fear more than me is you apes." He stepped closer to Caesar. "This is...a holy war. All of human history has lead to this moment. If we lose, we'll be the last of our kind. It will be a planet of apes. And we will become your cattle. Look at you. You think I'm sick don't you? I didn't mean to kill your son. But if his destiny was to inherit your unholy kingdom...I'm glad I did it." Caesar growled and pushed the Colonel over. He snarled as the metal was tightened around his neck. "So emotional!" McCullough exclaimed. 

"What did you do to my sister?!" Caesar asked while growling. The Colonel stared him down. 

"I asked her a few questions and all I wanted was answers. But she gave me attitude instead! She gave my men a fight with those... appendages of hers. Now, I can see how conflicted you are. You're confused in your purpose. You are angry at me for something I did that was an act of war. But you're taking this all much too personally. What do you think my men would have done to your apes if you had killed me? Or is killing me more important?"