A Series of Short Stories about William the Bloody

for Joss Whedon, John Wayne, Graham Greene, Chet Baker, Juliet Landau and James Marsters,

Old Frontiersmen

My language specialties were French and German. I got into this game assuming I'd be working with the resistance when the Reds broke through the Fulda Gap. I was inspired by Kennedy and his call for public service. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." What I could do was to put my body between two dominos, and, given a chance, make them fall the other way. So I got my gun, my wings, my Ranger designation, and eventually my Special Forces designation. Doing my duty for God and my country, as I had pledged. I received a commendation from Kennedy when I became an Eagle Scout, and it was with his blessing that we were allowed to wear the beret.

It was after the crazy jarhead assassinated the man that my guys went to Vietnam. They were hot, humid, hellish days, and there were times where it rained for what seemed like years at a time. We were training the ARVN to fight. To hold up their domino themselves.

There were places in the jungle where, even in the middle of the day, you never saw the sun. You could feel the heat everywhere, though, and in the darkest parts of the jungle, no air moved. It was like we were wading through a hot spring. We were there with half the A-Team, leaving the other six back at base camp. We were nursemaids for about 20 ARVN guys. Lt. Lavelle called 'em 'twenty guys named Nguyen'. We were going to show them how to do a proper ambush. Which means we dug holes, set up claymores, got hidden and waited until somebody walked by.

One thing you learn is to sleep when you can. So, we rotated so one of us and two of the Nguyens were awake, and switched off every two hours. It was about 3, time to switch off. I took my eyes off the trail and started moving to roust Petersen for his shift when I saw it. It had slit Muldoon's throat with his own knife and was ... drinking the blood, sucking it out. It looked human, deathly pale with long, light brown hair pulled back in a pony-tail. It wore tiger-stripe fatigue pants and no boots. Tiger stripes meant he's a gre n beret, or had taken them from the body of a green beret. I was locked and loaded, and each of us had spent time with our M-16s, taking off or tightening down anything that would make a noise. I drew a bead on its back, drew and held my breath, and slowly, quietly flipped the safety off.

It looked up at me. It had yellow eyes and a distorted face, a scar on his left eyebrow and Muldoon's blood dripping down his chin. He smiled.

I went full auto, waking everyone around. Everyone started firing everywhere. The claymores went off. It went from a dark, quiet hell to a bright, loud hell, and then went back and Lavelle called to cease fire. He saw me, then he saw Muldoon. "Bac Si! Bac Si!" He was asking for the medic. I could've told him it was too late. I could see the windpipe.

I told Lavelle what I saw, but never told anyone else. Who'd believe me? But we started hearing stories. We started hearing names. I didn't know the Vietnamese, but French had been spoken there for generations, so I heard some of the stories. There was a "Fantôme Blanc", "Fantôme Noir", "les Morts Affamés". There was one name I heard a few times. Guillaume.

By my third tour, the Nguyens called me Dinky Dau. Crazy. I could care. Chose not to. I was no longer there because of a dead president's dream, nor to prop up a decayed domino. I was chasing a ghost. A White Ghost. An overgrown Cong Moui who drank the blood of a comrade. I always took point, I always took the late-night watches, and I always reconned the villages first. Lavelle had made Captain, and I was in his unit. Nobody else would put up with me. There were times I thought I saw him. Maybe a glimpse here or a trace of a footprint there. Not that I could tell anybody, but I knew his handiwork. When a village was hit by us, we burned it down. When a village was hit by the VC, they always mangled bodies. They wanted the other villages to know the cost of crossing them. The mystery villages just had bodies. Bodies where the throats were slit or torn out.

And, oddly enough, they never killed the pigs. VC always killed the pigs.

In 1968, at the end of my fourth tour, two days short, I was spending my time in Saigon, showing Captain Lavelle the resourcefulness of a deformed Eagle Scout. I has thrown helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, clean and reverent out the window. I kept trustworthy, loyal and brave. They fit the environment. I knew I was either out and training the next set of knuckledraggers how to live out here or I was out and finding out what a knuckledragger does with his life when he's back in the World. In the mean time, I was trying to be under the table for the two days before I was gone.

I had a line of ten empty shot glasses in front of me, and another of full ones, on the bar when I heard his voice whisper into my ear. "So you must be Dinky Dau."

I had turned in my gear, so there was nothing to grab when I went for my knife. He stepped back, holding his hands up, signaling truce. This was the first time I had heard his voice. He sounded British, like one of those Mersey Beat bands. The eyes were different -- blue, not yellow. He looked like a movie star, not a monster. But the scar above the left eye tipped me off. It had to be him. He wore a black t-shirt and bell-bottom dungarees, and wore his hair in a ponytail halfway down his back. "You've spent the last three years trying to find me. Here I am. Y'know, the french have messed up so many places so wonderfully. Have you noticed? It's the reverse of Midas. Everything they touch turns to merde. New Orleans. Tunisia. Haiti. Here. All perfectly wonderful places to visit. It took nearly 80 years to appreciate them, but I must say I get 'em now. I'll have to visit Montreal some time, test the pattern."

I stare at him, tracing in my mind the line where Muldoon's blood had dripped down his chin.

"Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. They know me here as 'Guillaume'. Or 'Cong Moui'. Mosquito. Did you start that? Somewhat fitting. London was a stagnant pool back then. I hear it swings like a bloody pendulum these days. I should really go visit some time. It's been ages." He grabbed one of my shot glasses and emptied it.

"You know I've killed for less? I've killed for that, specifically. Bloke said he'd rather have a railroad spike through his head than hear me prattle on. I obliged him, of course. But I did take the name. Better than 'Lucien, Prince of Lies', isn't it?"

"Anyway, I thought I'd mention that I'm short, too. The missus says the King of Wands will fall to the Ten of Swords, and that there will be a wonderful celebration. Now," he stops to light a Marlboro ," I don't know what the hell that means, but what my Dru wants, my Dru gets. I'm thinking Detroit. I've been hearing bits and pieces from there. 'Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!' What a great way to start a song, don't you think?"

I couldn't force my mouth to make words. I couldn't force my jaw to unclench.

"Anyway, I thought I'd come by, say hi. Also, that bint over there, trying to be the good captain's shirt," he nodded over to Lavelle, sitting at a table with a vietnamese girl wearing hot pants and a bandana, "has enough C4 in her purse to bring down the block. I thought after 3 years in the boonies, you'd be able to smell it yourself. If I was you, I'd take a walk. Soon. Professional courtesy." He dropped a couple of bills on the bar and turned to the door.

I took a second to get my breath back, then walked to the captain's table. "Sir, don't you think we should head back to the compound?"

"No, Tony. I think I'm happy right here."

"I really think we should di di mau."

"You go ahead."

I couldn't think of any way to get him out of there without being obvious and getting me dead, too. So I said my goodnights and stepped out the door. The place went up ten seconds after I was out. And I flew back to the World, leaving trustworthy, loyal and brave in a blown-up bar in Saigon.