"Metro"
When my mother was dying in the hospital, she reached out a twitchy finger to me. Her IV drip was suspended by a flimsy, T-shaped pole and the strings were taped to her wrists as if she were a proud Joan of Arc being fried by emaciated power-lines. The IV bags were glossy red and white balloons—the kind that an alley-way clown had given me on my sixth birthday. For some reason, I thought the balloons that kept her alive would float away, but I was nine years old then, and the imagery of her death was technicolour; garish and cartoon-like. I didn't understand what was happening, but my mother was quick to inform me.
"I'm dying," she said. "Are you afraid of me?"
I said yes. I hadn't been taught tact yet.
She nodded and told me, "I'm glad."
"What for?"
She didn't say anything, and I knew she'd forgotten I was even there. We were in a dying person's hospital, casually known as the People's Dump, because we had no money. There was a florescent pot light on the ceiling that seemed to be her stage light—it made my mother look even more sick. Her blonde hair looked neon green, and her face was a fierce radioactive yellow. I stared at the blotchy stain on the blanket, and knew it hadn't been washed, ever. There were seldom any doctors or nurses in the Dump, and I couldn't scream for help if I needed to. This suited my mother just fine.
"It's finally coming," she said.
"What is?" I asked.
"I'm getting out of here," she told me. She could barely contain the gleeful excitement that threatened to burst out of her. My mother spoke in brittle whispers, as if she were bequeathing a secret fit for my ears only. "I have an audience with the Lord," she said. "He speaks to me, you know. He wants to see me."
Dawson's mother, who lived the room over in our tenement building, would have been jealous, I think. Whenever she wanted to speak to God, she'd drag her shitty kids and drunken husband to the chapel and spend the night sweet-talking plastic, crucified Jesus; as if she believed he'd pop off his cross, wipe the paint from his ankles and wrists, and put in a good word for her with the old man upstairs when she was finished. I didn't know whether I should be proud or concerned that my mother had her own direct line.
"You're going to get better, right?" I said. "Isn't that why you're talking to Him?"
"No, stupid," she said. "He made me this way in the first place. You don't oppose God, Jonathan. Do you want to make him mad?"
Up until then, I'd believed He was kind and merciful, an advocate of neighbourly love—or at least, a corporate sponsor of it. Meekly (and fearful of Hell), I said no.
"God will fuck you up," she said.
"Are you angry at Him?" I asked.
"No," she said, sounding surprised. "I've been blessed. That's why I'm leaving. I've been waiting a while for this."
"What's going to happen to you?"
"My body's going to shut down," she said.
"Think you'll make it into Heaven?" I asked.
"I'd better," she said. "After everything I've been through—everything He's put me through, I'd better. He knows that. He's coming to rescue me. He has to."
God was going to rescue my mother by killing her, I learned at a young age.
She weakly tugged at the plastic shackles that were dug into her skin. She said, "We're trapped here—prisoners. I am, and you are too. But I'm ready." She hollered at the ceiling, "I'm right here! You hear me? I know you're watching!" She twisted her head to the side and she cackled at me: "I pity you."
Then, stiffening like a decaying plank of wood, she flung out her arms and waited for God to take her.
When He finally did, my father called her a coward. He told me she was too weak to survive in this world. He made me repeat it for next seventeen years until I believed it. He said she'd given up easy, went AWOL, left people behind when it wasn't her call to make. My father, Ed, had been a marine most of his life. He'd always boasted leathernecks didn't give up—didn't back down from a fight.
Ed retired from service the day we found out that God had decided to cleanse the earth once again.
#
The sun blooms over the toothy remains of skyscrapers, their molar-like peaks sliced from the constant shelling. Our section is dug in deep, holding position in the quiet hospital downtown. It's our new FOB, but the building looks like it's already endured months of tortured devastation. We stomp all over ground floor or the basement levels, mostly. Brennan says the place is likely to collapse, during the next bombardment, or the one after, so we'd better get used to living underground. He doesn't come up for sunlight and air these days, and I have to hike downstairs to the sour-smelling mortuary to talk to him. I find him sitting on top of a battered-looking ammunition crate, sucking on his millionth cigarette. The storage room is mutely lit and already smoky, and I do my best to ignore the foul burning at the back of my throat as I breathe in. But I don't protest, and Brennan continues on, unperturbed.
Some men from the squad are here too, prying open breakfast rations and perching on anything they can find: an unused gurney, storage shelves, and an overturned detergent bucket that looks like a piece of unwanted junk from another century. There are a few marines from the other squads of 1st Platoon congregated in the back corner of the room as well, but they keep to themselves.
Sergeant Blunt appears with a terse rap on the doorframe, a feeble paper cup of coffee in his hand. We nod our greetings to the non-com as he saunters up alongside the men. Tanaka stands, humbly offering the squad leader a seat on his tiny throne of a bucket, but Blunt waves him off.
"You boys get a nice sleep?" he asks us. "Quiet night."
Private Gaine is neatly tucked in between the storage shelves. He says, "Sounds nice. Haven't been able to get a full night's worth since we got here. Naps, on and off, maybe."
Brennan idly watches as Blunt hands Gaine his cup. Then he decides to say, "Man just stole your coffee, Blunt. I'm the one who hasn't been getting any sleep—not with the way that son of a bitch's been snoring."
The sergeant swivels. Gaine's already gulped down the watery beverage; he slyly leers into the bottom of the cup.
"If it ain't one thing, it's another," Private Stickel tells Blunt. His weight causes the wobbly gurney to groan underneath him. Trapped in one place, food and supplies are starting to be a problem for us, but we've already made plans to hack up and evenly distribute the chubby private amongst the squad. I think Stickel is actually keeping his sidearm underneath his pillow these days.
He says to the rest of us, "Anybody else hear it again last night?"
We all look up at Stickel. Blunt asks, "Hear what?"
Stickel raises his stumpy fingers and shrivels up behind them. "Don't look at me like I'm a head-case—Tanaka says he heard it too. He can vouch for me."
Tanaka nods slowly, rocking back and forth on his plastic perch.
"Having two crazies instead of one hearing noises doesn't fill me with any kind of relief," Blunt says. "What are you talking about?"
"Wailing. Crying, like a kid," Stickel says. "Noise like that keeps you up."
Blunt looks at Brennan. "How about you? You got any say?"
"Didn't hear a thing," Brennan replies. He throws a glance at Gaine. "'Cept for the aforementioned."
I tell Blunt, "Brennan sleeps twenty metres below ground. His say doesn't mean anything."
"Building's gonna come down soon," Brennan insists.
The sergeant asks me if I knew, but I shake my head. "News to me as well."
Blunt thinks to himself, then says to Stickel, "Sorry, kid. Crazy doesn't get you pulled off the line. Not in this outfit."
"I ain't making this up," Stickel says. Annoyance seeps over his face.
Brennan taps the butt of his cigarette against the edge of the crate. Ash tumbles off the end and seems to dissipate into the dusty concrete next to his boot. "You know, there's a baby carriage rolled into the gutter over on fourth and nineteenth." He nods to himself, remembering. "Woody told me he saw it yesterday. Somebody must've just left it when we fell back here."
Woody, or Corporal Woodrow, is the squad's marksman. He's set up in a listening post half a klick from the hospital, nestled deep inside the ravaged no-man's-land metropolis, but he likes it that way. He's probably off doing early morning reconnaissance right now.
Blunt frowns at Brennan's words. "I've seen the one. But it's been there for a while now." He says to Stickel and Tanaka, "You two are losing your shit. Nobody left a kid in there." Blunt's words seem to expire mid-thought. His lips deflate as firmness and resolve are whittled away by the sordid spread of doubt. "They just wouldn't."
It's infectious. Nobody speaks while the runaway notion holds the room hostage.
"Well, fuck," Brennan finally says.
"Maybe we oughtta swing by, check it out," Stickel says to Blunt. "The next time we're on patrol."
"No way." Blunt shakes his head as if he is scolding an idiot child. "Woody also said there's a sniper that likes to comb the high rises on fourth. We don't go anywhere near the place."
"There's snipers all over the city." Stickel has his arms crossed in timid defiance. "Doesn't stop us from heading out anyway."
I say to him, "Sergeant's got a point. You remember this in Basic? Japs at Guadalcanal would pretend to surrender, lie down on a primed grenade and wait for the marines to march up. It's underhanded, but it does the job." I sneak an apologetic glance over to Tanaka. "Sorry."
Stickel glares at me. "You think there's one out there waiting for a dumb bastard to walk by? You really believe he's smart enough to set a trap like that?"
"Sure. They've been killing us for a while now. They've gotten good at it."
"They know where we're weak. Soft," Blunt says. "Maybe if we admitted that, we'd understand why it is we're losing this war." Blunt's murdered the discussion, his words spitting out in a heretical hiss. "Won't have my people myth-busting, running around out there. Not on my time," Blunt warns. In the gloomy hush that follows, he seems to remember the reason he'd shown up in the first place. His tone softens. "Anyway, they've sent a runner down from Battalion…"
The squad snaps to, listening to Blunt's brief. But I'm distracted, myself. What's coming out of his mouth is just robotic, regurgitated words. He informs us we've been tasked with patrol again. From the way the men look at one another or tap their feet with prickly irritation, I can tell the men are unhappy with Blunt's brusque dismissal of the previous topic. But they play along and act like marines while he's still there.
Then they talk to each other, voices low and conspiratorial, after the sergeant has sauntered back out of the room. They want to do it anyway, they decide. Hell with the sergeant, and hell with his wisdom. The night following the patrol, when Blunt should be sleeping, they plan to visit the attractively dangerous fourth and nineteenth. It's a hasty arrangement fueled by machismo and daring, but one by one the squad agrees to it. Soon it's my turn to choose.
"How 'bout you, Parish?"
I'd earlier stood against it, not wanting to forget the presence of the enemy sniper hanging over the carriage, exploiting the innocence we'd somehow unanimously assigned to the inanimate object. We'd already lost a few people to sudden blinding flashes and lagging cracks, puncturing flesh and bones and everything important in between without solid projectiles—bullets as invisible as the sinister apparitions they come from. The men might as well be forming a suicide pact, the way they know what's out there yet remain eager to go. Still, Blunt couldn't reverse the effects of his own doubt projected on his face that we'd all seen, and the enduring idea remains more intrusive than I want to admit to the men.
"I'm in," I say finally. I have no heroic fantasy of pulling a snivelling brat from a soiled carriage, but I do want to go, if just to answer the unanswered; for Stickel to prove its existence. But I have a real, prowling question that I keep hidden from the others, and it causes my gut to churn—
How could the bitch that it belonged to just leave it there, alone and vulnerable to this world?
#
Sergeant Blunt leads us through the metro tunnels, picking his way around misshapen pieces of debris that jut out everywhere like yearning stalagmites. His flashlight beam scythes through the darkness and we follow the bouncing, guiding orb. The tunnel is stifling and it feels like it's being bled of oxygen. We dread setting foot in here, journeying through the cavernous ruins that run for hundreds of kilometres beneath the city, but it's all we have left—the surface, clean air, and sunlight are all fatalities of the war. I see glittering pieces of trash strewn all over the ground, filthy evidence of a squalid existence. People had taken refuge here once, but I don't know where they were now—the hellish tunnel had probably unhinged its jaw and greedily devoured them.
A private has been put on point, the runner from Battalion. He's a boy named Cross—a replacement new to the squad. We can tell he isn't one of us Shield Company men. We keep him at a distance as he stumbles headfirst through the tunnel like our own condemned canary. It's not any fault of his own, though; we detest the word 'replacement.' We're grateful to have reinforcements to bolster the ranks on the frontline, but the term is crass to our ears and sentimentalities—a careless slur Battalion staff throw around while collectively doodling on topographic maps from the safety of the rear CP. Spoken as if the people—our friends—Cross was replacing were no more than ink marks, expendable figures to throw at an imaginary enemy and diminished by the unlucky roll of dice.
It didn't help that they'd died like punks, too.
Helgati was cut down because he was too damn lanky—his helmet had always poked up over the defilade. Briars had snuck out for a much-needed piss when they caught him halfway through the act. Singh had done everything right, but they still got him through the drywall. He was as surprised and disappointed as any of us the second before he stopped breathing, a nickel-sized hole blown through the centre of his chest. We'd been forced underground by the lingering fear that they could get us anywhere, their shots directed by God Himself. The marines' deaths had come quickly—pre-ordained, almost, and there's no one we can place the blame on or swear revenge against. We never see them up close. Only Woody has—through the scope of his rifle. Woody doesn't believe in God.
Most of our ire is directed at the son of a bitch CO of Shield, Captain Stern. He works us hard and keeps sending us out here, even when we come back with less than what we started with. He's the reason we're stuck in this rotting intestine. He's refused to link up with the rest of the unit, priding his company on the superhuman-like qualities he bestows on its reputation. Shield can handle anything they throw at us, he tells his superiors.
But it's not true. We can't. Shield is just us—just men. This isn't a fight, it's a firing range. Stern isn't on the line when he talks out of his ass. Some marines from 1st Platoon joke about putting a round in the back of the CO's head the next time he joins them at the front. The squad idly fantasizes about the prospect, but Sergeant Blunt bats the idea out of air before it gains any real momentum.
"They will find you, and they will put you up on charges," Blunt warns us. "In a combat zone, that means summary execution. They'll take you out back and blow your brains out. Used to be a hanging."
"He's the one killing us," Brennan says to him. "He's just doing it slow and deliberate."
I can't help but agree. Stern's the one causing us to bleed, deciding who lives and who doesn't. He's keeping us here. We're his scorned prisoners. He's just a man, standing between us and our freedom. We tell Blunt it's just talk, but given the opportunity, I know a couple of them at least wouldn't hesitate to frag the captain. But I think of my mother who was right about the rapture, and the way her warped and crazy mind might have understood the situation. "He's just doing the work of the Lord," she might say. "Sending you boys to a better place." Then she'd say to me, "Come and join me."
A while later, there's a flicker of light in the tunnel up ahead. Bluish shimmers boogie on the grimy walls. The squad gets down low; the putrid smell of trash is next to my nostrils now. We can hear them as they round the bend, snorting and grunting in their foreign vernacular. Creaks, rustles, and clanks wind down the steeply curved passageway as they draw near. Judging by just the sound—there's too many of them to count. More than us, anyway.
Blunt's already figured this out. He climbs onto the platform and off the tracks, motioning for us to follow. His exaggerated waves urge us on, and he yanks each man up to the platform by their arms. Someone drops his rifle on the tracks—it's too late to go back for it. The lights intensify like an oncoming train in the deadened metro, and we scurry to get out of its way. Shoulder leveled, Blunt crashes through the nearest swinging door, and the squad crams in behind him. I can't see anything in the dark. Rubber scrapes on sticky tile; a man bumps into flimsy, reverberating sheet metal.
I hear Stickel groan: "It's a fucking toilet!"
The others tell him to shut up and keep it down. I'm closest to the door; instinctively, I reach over and flick the light switch. The marines squint and cover their gleaming eyes. A green halo watermarks itself into my vision, its edges oscillating and wavering as I peer around the room. There's a squeak from below.
Underneath the cracked sink I see the bulbous eyes of a rat staring back at me. It remains still for a moment, whiskers twitching. Its fur is glistening red and its teeth is stained a similar colour. It's hunched protectively over a gruesome patchwork of cartilage, bone, tattered flesh, and hair; a chewed-up rat carcass has been partly crushed beneath a spring-loaded trap. Half of its body is missing, eaten away; its twig-like limbs had been deemed undesirable and tossed aside. Its fellow rat sneers at me over the opportune feast.
From the back of the washroom, Blunt roars, "Kill that goddamned light, Parish!"
My hand shoots up and I stab at the switch. Like someone has slashed out my eyes in a single, violent swipe, I'm painfully blind again. Nobody speaks, and all I hear is the delicate tearing of flesh as the rat continues to gnaw and bite.