Winds of Change

By Berry's Ambitions

Chapter 3: Rythmn of the War Drums

A/N: Sorry, I know this update took longer than the previous ones. I really don't have a fixed schedule as to when I'm gonna post new chapters, though, so hang in there. I've always pushed myself to give the characters I write for realistic reactions, so let's hope I succeeded. Things are gonna get ugly from here on out.

Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: I do not The Hills Have Eyes.

WARNING: Coarse language, gore and thematic elements.


"Man, this is some bullshit," Crank complained. I'd been following him when I noticed Missy standing still, brow furrowed and staring off into the distance.

I approached the older girl. "What?"

"Thought I heard something," she replied, still not looking at me. "A shot."

I hadn't heard a thing, but that didn't mean she was wrong. "This is a military base. People are shootin' all over the place."

Missy still didn't appear convinced. "I think it came from camp." Now she sounded worried. "Has anyone checked in with Amber recently?"

I plastered my notorious shit-eating grin onto my face to cover the disdain I was feeling. It had always really bothered me that Missy was all buddy-buddy with Amber and yet neither of them could be bothered with me. "Mickey's down there by now, and he's got her in a tent, and they're doin' a whole 'nother kind of training." Ugh. I really hope I'm wrong.

The only reason I said that was to annoy Missy, but she didn't even roll her eyes. She must've been pretty anxious.

"Know what I mean?" I pressed, keeping my tone light.

She sighed.

"Sarge, over here!"

"I see it!"

I looked up. The others had found a signal mirror. I pointed to it, finally distracting her from her musings. "Another one."

"You two, get your asses up here!" Sarge ordered. Crap. I hadn't realized how long we'd been standing there.

"Come on." I gestured for her to follow and chased after them, listening to Missy's footsteps from behind me. Sarge kept calling out, but, like earlier, no one was responding.

By the time we reached them, I saw that Delmar was turning an object in his hands. "The red and black high-top forces? What? And it's my size too?"

"What the fuck's it doing up here?" Crank wondered.

"Now if we could only find the other one, we'd be in business," Delmar murmured thoughtfully.

"Sarge!" By the tone Spitter was using, this was urgent. "Over here!"

I ran over with the others, pulling the distracted Delmar along as Spitter and Missy, who'd been with him, led us to their discovery.

It pretty much spoke for itself.

A man - one I didn't recognize at all - lay there, unmoving in a puddle of his own blood.

"What the fuck is in his head?" I probably looked as shocked as Sarge sounded. But, unlike me, who stood there trying not to vomit, Sarge was back in business an instant later, addressing Crank. "Private Crackhead."

"Huh?" If there was someone here who shared my nausea, it was Crank.

"Fish it out."

He did as he was told, bending down with a barely-supressed shudder and beginning to pull. Seeing Crank all grossed out would have been funny had the situation not been so serious.

The object was removed with a disgusting 'sqelch' a minute later. A wallet.

Stunned by what he'd just found, Crank unfolded it and read aloud. "'Dr. Paul Foster'. Department of Defense." Crank looked up at us, deadly serious. "Looks like we found out of our scientists." He closed the wallet and tossed it onto the ground.

Sarge didn't miss a beat. "Lock and load."

"This isn't supposed to happen on an army base, man," I said slowly, a chill going down my spine.

"In the middle of a U.S. army facility," Crank chimed in.

"The size of Rhode Island." So even Sarge knew that something was beyond off. "Look, if some asshole wants to go nuts, this is a damn good place to do it. Spitter, get Amber on the radio."

Spitter tried, but, not to my surprise, his attempts were futile. The sound of a bird chirping caused me to practically jump out of my skin, and I silently cursed myself for showing weakness. That was the last thing we needed right now.

At long last, Spitter shook his head and hung up. "There's too much interference."

Missy spoke for the first time. "Sarge, we should go back down."

"Amber's fine," Sarge assured her, as if reading her mind. "She's got Mick and Napoleon."

"Help me."

This time, we all sprung a few feet into the air. Metaphorically speaking.

"That the radio?"

Spitter nodded.

"Let me have it."

Spitter did as the sergeant requested.

Sarge held the device to his mouth. "Colonel Redding, is that you?"

None of us could make out the garbled response. I looked to and fro, trying to keep cool.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

Yet again, Sarge received no response.

"That wasn't the same voice as before," Missy pointed out. Now that I thought about it, she was right...

"Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't. But if somebody's hurt, we're gonna help him."

I gave him a questioning look, not really buying it.

"And if somebody is fucking with us, we're gonna find out who it is."

How comforting.

"Sarge-" There was a pleading note to Missy's voice that hadn't been present earlier.

"I told you before, this isn't spring break." There was no room for negotation here. Not with Sarge. "One way or another, lives are at stake."

Neither Missy nor I could argue with that logic.

"That's how it is," Sarge stated simply.

Missy looked as if she wanted to say more, but was wise enough to keep her mouth shut.

"Crank, Spitter, you stay with me on lead," Sarge instructed. "Missy, Stump, Delmar, you bring up the rear. Watch our backs. Stay alert and stay alive. Let's move."

I could only hope it would be fast enough.


"Stump, calm down."

Missy spoke to me in an irritatingly patient way I paced around.

"How can either of you be calm?" I stared at her and Delmar, eyes huge. "You do realize there's some psycho running around trying to kill us, right?"

"Stump." Delmar's tone matched Missy's. "That's what being a soldier's all about. Risks."

"If you were afraid of this kind of thing-"

"What?" I crossed my arms, staring up at Missy defiantly. Sometimes I hated being the shortest member of the squad (hence my nickname). "I shouldn't have taken the job? I knew damn well what I was getting into." I looked at Delmar. "D, c'mon. This isn't like any of those other times. Sarge said so himself."

"All we gotta do is remember the training, and we should be fine," he assured me.

I sighed, holding my rifle close to my chest. "What if there are more than one?"

"It doesn't matter," Missy said calmly. "Whoever these people are, we have something they don't. Preparation. Tactic."

"You honestly think we'll make it out of this in one piece?" I wished Mickey were here-

"SARGE!"

The reaction was instant.

"That was Spit, man," Delmar gasped. We bolted.

It seemed as if everyone was gathering at once, Sarge's name being screamed over and over. While Delmar rushed to a tearful Spitter's aid, Missy and I made a beeline towards Sarge.

Who lay on the ground.

He wasn't moving.

Blood. There was so much blood. We both knelt by him, pleading for him to awaken but to no avail. Then it hit me. The wounds. He'd been shot - more than once. Did these people have guns?

Oh, God. Not Sarge. Not our leader. Not the one with all the experience. The only person here who had a clue what they were doing.

He choked out a breath. He was still alive, but not for much longer if we didn't act now. "What do we do?" I asked Missy shakily. Out of the corner of my eye, I swore I saw Napoleon run by.

"Go get me the medipack!"

"Medipack!" I groped around, unable to find it. "D!"

Delmar looked up from Spitter, whom he was consoling.

"Medipack! Bring it here!" I gestured frantically, listening as poor Sarge struggled for air.

Delmar wasted no time. I took it from him and began rummaging through it, in such a state of shock that it was a miracle that I was functioning properly.

"Is he okay?" Spitter kept crying. "Is he okay?"

Missy had pulled off Sarge's body armour and was now doing chest compressions; Sarge just lay there, eyes closed, blood dribbling from his lips.

"Sarge?" Missy's voice was desperate. Delmar looked on fearfully. "Sarge?" Her voice rosed a pitch, and she pressed harder. "Come on, breathe. Breathe Sarge..." She checked his pulse. "Sarge, stay with us." This was the closest to hysteria I'd ever seen Missy, and it disturbed me. I didn't associate Missy Martinez with hysteria.

As Spitter's pitiful wails began to pierce the air once more, I looked up to see Amber hovering over us. I felt immense relief at that. I may not have liked Amber all that much, but I was glad that she was safe.

My relief, however, soon turned to overwhelming fear when I remembered Sarge. "What do we need?" I asked Missy, holding the medipack out.

She let out a whimper in response.

"What do you need?" I was ready to shake her by the shoulders.

Missy stared at me, the tears in her eyes unmistakable.

"Crank!" The agony in Spitter's voice was near-impossible to bear.

"Missy, what do you need?" For the second time in a hour, I felt a chill go down my spine.

She continued to stare at Sarge, quivering.

"Crank!" Spitter sobbed. "Crank, tell them, man! Tell them!"

Delmar put a hand over his face and turned away just as Missy lowered her head, allowing herself to cry over the body.

Not Sarge. A body.

"It was an accident." Crank seemed on the verge of tears himself. "It was a fucking accident."

Accident?

The pieces began to fit together.

Spitter... Jesus Christ.

Amber's face was blank, I saw. That's how I felt. Frozen. I wasn't even able to let it out, like Spitter and Missy. I was stuck.

"They're fucking with us," Crank whimpered. "These guys are smart."

They'd known. They'd known Sarge was in charge, so they took him out.

Crank was wrong. This was far from an accident.

Napoleon stared off into the distance. The one time I wished he would say something, he didn't.

I heard a clatter - Spitter had thrown something - and more crying.

"It was easy," Delmar had said, about killing. "That's what makes it so dangerous."

Sarge was gone. And, even with the knowledge we weren't totally useless, I felt utterly helpless. The one thing I could be grateful for was the others had made it back-

Wait.

I scanned the area, tension coating my muscles as I did.

"Amber?"

She looked up at me.

"Where's Mickey?"

She turned her head, but not before I caught sight of her face crumpling.

The desert suddenly seemed very cold.


I helped carry the body.

"Watch between the rocks," Amber warned. "Under your feet, too."

Spitter asked the question that had been plaguing me since she and Napoleon had told us their story. "That's how they got Mickey?"

"That's how they did it." Thankfully, Amber didn't want to discuss it anymore than I did.

"God..." Spitter was obviously sickened. Good. I'd be more worried if he was taking this all in stride.

I knew I was darting glances around like a deer in the headlights, but at this point I didn't give a shit. I think I had a right to be scared.

No. Scared didn't even begin to cover it.

It had to be Mickey. The sweet, goofy guy who'd been my friend since practically day one. To my surprise, I found myself sympathizing with Amber. She'd known him as well as I had, if not better. In the back of my mind I wondered how seriously they'd been, but had enough common sense not to ask.

Delmar abruptly raised his gun.

"What is it?" Crank questioned.

Delmar narrowed his eyes.

Spitter spoke softly, not wanting to attract anymore unwanted attention. "What do you see, Delmar?"

Delmar turned back to us. It felt like years since he'd been joking around about shoes. "It's nothin'. We're almost there." He jerked his head for us to follow, and none of us wasted anytime following the command.

Delmar stopped short. End of the road - or rather, cliff. "Alright, guys," he announced. "Let's rig a line and get Sarge down."

"I'm going with him," Spitter said automatically. I walked over to Delmar, whom he was talking to, in hopes of offering assistance.

"Sorry, Spit. I don't know how to rig for a two-man."

"Yeah, me either, man," I confessed apologetically.

"I can do it."

The look Spitter shot at Napoleon could have set a house on fire. Missy eyed him critically. She hadn't said a word after her breakdown, but her body language was enough to get her point across.

"Alright, alright," Delmar agreed before any protests could start. "Let's make it happen."

Napoleon removed his bag from his shoulder, setting it on the ground. I joined him seconds later, gathering supplies. "You need two, right?" I was referring to the ropes.

"Yeah."

I handed it to him, suddenly wondering if I should apologize for my douchery earlier.

"Oh, and a couple of those carabiners," he added.

I did as he asked, deciding that no way was not the time for heart-to-hearts. Napoleon began tying to the knot. I watched his fingers at work, impressed. We all had a talent, supposedly; I guess his was tying ropes.

"Yo, prop him up."

I helped Crank lift the body, carrying him over to where the rest of us stood. Amber held Sarge steady when it became apparent that two of us couldn't handle his weight.

"You sure you know what you're doing?" Despite everything, Crank still didn't trust Napoleon.

He nodded, standing up. "Double bowline." He held it up for us to see. "Right knot for the job."

Crank remained unconvinced. "You sure about that?"

"I was an Eagle Scout."

I think that if we weren't all in mortal danger, Crank would've mocked him. But instead, all he said was, "It better fuckin' hold."

"Come on, Spit, let's do it," Delmar said.

Spitter rose, and we hooked him to the body. Delmar and I looked at him apprehensively. "You ready?"

Spitter nodded.

"Alright."

Sarge was handed over. As we tied him to Spitter, I saw how, exactly, our leader leader was going to be carried, and instantly feel sorry for Spitter.

"I'm sorry, Spitter," Napoleon said gently. Sarge's head was resting on Spitter's shoulder. "It's the only way. If he gets lose he'll fall out of his harness. Okay?"

Spitter seemed to be in a trance. "Mm-hm."

"Okay." Napoleon nodded at us, signalling that he was all set.

"See you down there, cabrĂ³n."

"Okay, man," Spitter replied tiredly, barely even acknowledging Crank.

"Okay..." We began to lower Spitter off the edge of the cliff. "Easy," I instructed, "easy..."

Spitter seemed to be doing well so far. "Alright, man," I guided. "Plant your feet..." I backed up, trying to keep him in my line of sight. "Take it easy... Right there, Spitter, you got it. Plant your feet, man."

It went on like this for a while, with me watching and offering tips while the others chattered nervously in the background. "You comfortable?" I asked Spitter.

"Yeah."

"You're looking good, man!" I praised. "Keep it right there." I turned to the others, who were clutching the rope, and raised a hand in warning. "Alright, slow down. I'm about to lose visual. Slow down a little." I raised my voice. "Keep it slow, Spitter!"

I could hear the sound of the rope straining, and my heart skipped a few beats. "Yo! Slow down! Slow down-"

The rope promptly snapped, sending my comrades flying backwards and Spitter straight to the bottom. I screamed his name repeatedly, as if hoping to summon him... but it was too late.

"What... what happened?" Amber cried.

Delmar joined me, following my gaze.

There, on the bottom of the rocks, lay Spitter and Sarge's bloody forms.