V

STEP SEVEN: SHIT HAPPENS

AN: I still don't own the characters or the movie (unfortunately). Despite its title, this is my personal favorite chapter. Warnings for war-related violence in this chapter.

They had settled into silence, weary in the wake of the adrenaline-fueled panic of the past several hours. It occurred to her that their argument over disarming Dawson was the longest conversation they'd had since leaving West Virginia, even though they'd spent the last six hours together. Clyde had been entirely focused on talking his friend out of suicide on the way up there, and Sarah had been hyper-focused on getting them there as fast as she could without calling in a police escort.

Sarah's stomach reminded her that they'd skipped most of dinner in the spontaneous rush to Pittsburgh. Her eyelids were starting to droop. She was going to need some food and caffeine if she was going to get them safely back to West Virginia without driving off a bridge somewhere. "Hey, are you hungry?"

He grunted something that sounded affirmative.

"Great. How about I treat you to one of my guilty favorites?" Sarah punched directions into the car's Garmin, which directed her to an exit a few miles ahead.

She saw that Clyde was preoccupied with inspecting the damage to his arm in the dim dashboard light. He was less than thrilled with the thought of going back to his old, bulkier prosthetic. Finally, somewhat shy about it, he unstrapped the broken device and removed it.

"I was thinking-I know a few folks at the Prosthetic and Orthotics Center over in Beckley. They owe me a couple of favors. Maybe one of them could fix that arm of yours, so you don't have to wait around for the VA to get around to replace it?" Sarah offered.

The offer caught him by surprise, she could tell. "You'd do that?"

"Sure."

"I'm going to owe you a few favors after tonight," he admitted.

Sarah grinned. "I'll keep a tab. Here we are."

Clyde looked up, surprised when the car pulled into the parking lot of the Blue Blazes Truck Stop & All Night Diner. It was bustling with activity even at three o'clock in the morning. The main building was a combination restaurant, gift shop, and convenience store. A dozen semi-trucks were parked in the back, idling as the drivers slept or chowed down. A small knot of people had gathered behind the building, smoking something that definitely didn't smell like tobacco. Garish blue neon flames outlined the entrance to the diner. The lights reflected off the Monongahela River, and picnic tables had been set out so that customers could eat on the riverbank.

"This is your guilty pleasure?" he asked.

"Just wait. BB's has its own cult following. I can't believe you've never heard of it."

She was beaming like a kid at an amusement park. He wasn't sold yet, but her enthusiasm was contagious. Sarah hooked her arm through his and led the way, aiming for the convenience store rather than the crowded diner.

"We're not going inside?" he asked.

"Trust me. I spend more time on the road than in my apartment. I know my junk food." Sarah promised. "Plus, I like to eat out by the river where it's quieter."

The market was stocked with fresh produce and a deli counter boasted every kind of food, American or International. Sarah grabbed a basket and started loading it up with fruit and a container of strawberry-banana juice.

"I do trust you. So, what's good here?"

"Ordinarily, I'd say chicken wings, but since it's kind of early…the breakfast burritos with apricot jam. Definitely."

"No."

The rejection surprised her. She raised her eyebrow. "What happened to trusting me?"

"Yes to the burritos; No to the jam," he clarified.

She pursed her lips. "All right. What about regular apricots?"

"No cots."

Sarah was beginning to understand the issue. "It's one of those things like carrying the acorns in your pocket and lifting your feet whenever we drive over a bridge—yes, I noticed." He didn't answer, naturally, adhering to the rule not to give a voice to superstitions. "Okay, so, salsa instead of jam. What about dessert? Their cheesecake has about ten thousand calories and will probably clog your arteries, but it's worth every bite." When Clyde started to refuse, Sarah put on her best puppy dog expression and offered him a plate. It was such a ridiculous display that he didn't have the heart to turn her down. No wonder she sold so many of those damn pills…

After placing their order, Sarah had to ask. "You know that apricot thing reminds me: I've been wondering about something all night…"

Clyde raised an eyebrow at her, waiting.

"I wasn't trying to listen in when you were talking to Duane before, but did I hear him say something about 'cauliflower'. What was all that about?" The randomness of the comment amidst the intense conversation that they'd been having had stood out to Sarah.

When Clyde didn't answer right away, she stole a glance at him. He had a pained expression on his face that had nothing to do with physical discomfort, making her wonder if she had asked something that she shouldn't have asked. She waited until they had paid for their food and headed out to one of the picnic benches before asking: "What? What's that face? Is it some big military secret? A vegetable-based code or something? Brassica vegetables means 'drive to Pennsylvania immediately'?"

"No, nothing like that." Clyde's ears were bright red. He stalled by taking a couple bites of the food. She was right about the burritos. "It's something Jimmy started when we were kids. Paw-paw had an old Chevy that we always wanted to drive. So, one day, he drove us down to the Kroger's and left us in the car with the keys."

She nearly choked on a bite of food, already seeing where this story was going. "Let me guess…"

"Jimmy drove it around to the loading dock, then let me have a turn. It was a manual transmission. I mistook first gear for reverse and backed it right into a delivery truck. Busted out the taillight, dented the trunk, and took out twelve produce pallets." Clyde had only been eight years old but was already as tall as his eleven-year-old brother and could easily reach the pedals. "Jimmy knew Paw-Paw was going to have my hide for that one. So, before everyone came running outside to see what happened, he slid over to the driver's seat. Took the blame for the whole thing."

"Okay, but what has that got to do with cauliflower?" Sarah wanted to know.

"I'm getting to that. Jimmy decided that I owed him any favor he wanted. Made me promise. Mom wouldn't let us swear on the Bible or nothing—she thought it was sacrilegious using the Good Book for our foolishness-so Jimmy made me swear on a pile of cauliflower that landed on the hood."

Sarah resisted the urge to giggle. "Well, that is just…stinking adorable."

"I'll have you know that a cauliflower favor is very serious." He tried to sound indignant at her reaction, but there was humor in his tone. Clyde had considered it more than a fair trade at the time, especially since the car was their grandfather's prized possession. He'd given up their farmhouse rather than sell the Chevy to pay the mortgage. Their father had taken a belt to Jimmy's backside after Paw-Paw told him what happened, but Jimmy had taken the punishment without so much as a muttering word. Clyde had felt guilty about the whole thing for the longest time.

"Yes, most vows made on farm-fresh vegetables are serious," she agreed. She crumbled her food wrappers and pitched them into a trash can, then downed most of the juice in two swallows. "So, let's see if I understand this: If someone does you a favor-"

"A big favor," he emphasized.

"-okay, a big favor, you're in their debt, and all they have to do is say 'cauliflower' and you have to do anything they ask in return? No matter what it is?" Sarah supposed she'd be pushing her luck asking if Jimmy ever used one of those 'cauliflower' favors to persuade Clyde to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

"Pretty much."

She mulled that over carefully. "Now, if someone were to do something like, say, drive you from West Virginia to Pittsburg in the middle of the night so you could save your buddy's life, would that mean you owed her a cauliflower favor?"

He was staring at her; she felt it, giving her question some careful consideration. "Seems like it might…as long as you aren't going to ask me to sing at the Palomino or something."

Now she grinned wickedly at him. "No, no, I want to use my cauliflower favor for something important."

Clyde felt a surge of dread. "Like what? If it's that Facebook thing, you ought to know Jimmy's truck is a piece of crap."

"No, not that. I'm going to have to think real hard about what I want." She was enjoying his dismay. Sarah decided to take a chance by asking: "What did Jimmy get for his favor?"

Clyde grunted. "He got me into lots of trouble for it," the honest answer slipped out before he could think better of it. Sarah could imagine the kind of trouble that an eleven-year-old wielding absolute power could create for his kid brother. "Once. He had me be a lookout while he hotwired an Impala to take his date to the junior high prom."

"You boys did realize that's a felony?" Sarah felt compelled to point out that fact.

"That's exactly what the judge in the juvy court said," Clyde answered. It had been his first time in any kind of jail. He still couldn't think about it without becoming genuinely pissed off with Jimmy.

Sarah knew that she shouldn't laugh, so she stifled a giggle. "Seems like Jimmy would want to save a favor like that for something more important."

Clyde hesitated, fidgeting a bit in the passenger seat like he was making up his mind whether he wanted to share something with her. "Well, he did ask for one other thing."

Fourteen years earlier…

"Guys, if I'm late, they're gonna drop me out of the plane without a chute."

Clyde's words were muffled against Mellie's shoulders. His little sister had wrapped her arms around his neck and was clinging like she thought he'd stay or take her along if she didn't let go. He'd been ambushed with Mellie's bear hugs all week long, but now that they were standing in the Marine base airport, the girl seemed determined to keep him there.

A short distance away, the rest of the Logan family had already taken their seats in the bleachers for the send-off ceremony. Their mother was sniffling into a handkerchief. Paw-Paw was decked out in his old dress uniform. Jimmy's new girlfriend (Bobbie Lee? Bobbie Ray? Clyde couldn't recall her name at that moment) kept checking her watch.

Clyde almost didn't have the heart to push Mellie away, except that if he didn't go get into formation with the rest of his unit in the next two minutes, he'd probably be starting off his first overseas tour of duty by getting his ass handed to him by an angry Sergeant Dawson. He could feel Mellie trembling, scared for him beneath the all that teenage bravado she normally exuded. "Mellie—"

She released him abruptly, impatiently wiping at her eyes, hoping Clyde wouldn't notice. Her brother didn't need to be distracted worrying about her. She smiled brightly for him. "You Skype us soon as you get a chance. Anytime you want, even if it's in the middle of the night here. Ernie's said we can use his computer at the Pig & Pancake whenever we need it."

Standing next to Mellie, Jimmy was doing his best to keep a stoic façade. He was failing miserably. Decked out in that Marine uniform, with his hair buzzed shorter than it had been probably since the day he was born, Clyde somehow looked even younger than his nineteen years. He didn't look old enough to drive, much less fly off into some godforsaken war zone.

Clyde hadn't even told the family that he was thinking of enlisting; he just came home one day from bussing tables at the Pig & Pancake with enlistment packet in hand. Maybe he had said something, and Jimmy hadn't paid attention. Jimmy cringed inwardly at the thought. He'd been so consumed by football practice, Bobby Jo, and keeping up his grades so he didn't lose his scholarship that he barely spent time with his brother anymore.

Jimmy cleared his throat, determined to keep his composure by taking a farewell dig at his brother. "'Bout time you got a damn haircut anyway. Go on, give him the present, Mellie. He's got to get going."

She's almost forgotten about their gift. She'd saved a month's worth of babysitting money and Jimmy had taken extra shifts washing cars at Chapman Auto to buy it. Mellie fumbled for the small box that she'd hidden in her pocket. She'd been guarding it since they picked it out; she'd even asked the pastor down at the Baptist church to bless it. Mellie didn't believe in omens or luck or the superstitious stuff that Clyde went on about, but she believed prayers and blessings were a good idea since her brother had gone and signed up for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever the Marines intended to send him. She didn't want to think about it.

Mellie pressed the small box into Clyde's hand. "Just-for luck."

"What'd you two do?" He grinned at them, carefully pulling the tiny box open. Inside, a silver and pewter ring in the shape of a horseshoe was nestled on a little piece of cotton.

"You're supposed to wear it on your right hand, not your left," Mellie instructed him. "And make sure it points up so the luck doesn't run out."

"I know." Clyde was about to add thanks when Jimmy suddenly stepped forward and swept him into a one-armed hug. He knew his kid brother wasn't one for big displays of affection, so he kept the hug short. Besides, Jimmy sure the hell didn't want to end up blubbering like a fool right there in front of the spectators and the other soldiers. Still, he had one last, important thing to say to Clyde before the kid took off. "You promise that you'll come back safe, okay? I mean it."

Clyde returned the brief hug before pulling away when Sergeant Dawson's voice boomed a threat for what would happen to any Marine who wasn't in formation in the next thirty seconds. "I gotta go," Clyde said again, tucking their gift into his bag. "It's only twelve months. You won't even know I'm gone."

"Hell, mama's gonna rent out your room," Jimmy threatened. Mellie slugged him in the arm, but Clyde just grinned as he turned and ran for the tarmac.

Jimmy was gripped with the sudden worry that his brother didn't understand: What he'd just asked was supremely important. He expected the kid to do anything and everything possible to come home alive. Jimmy wanted his unbreakable word on it. "Clyde!"

Clyde turned around, listening but still making his way towards his unit.

"Cauliflower," Jimmy said.

Clyde cocked his head at his brother, still smiling though he knew Jimmy was dead serious. "Did you just say 'cauliflower' to me?"

The feel of fingers brushing against his drew Clyde out of his reverie. Sarah had reached across the table to clasp his hand in hers, squeezing lightly. Her thumb touched the silver horseshoe ring.

LLLLLLL

The conversations were clipped and superficial. Clyde refused to join in, speaking only when asked a direct question and then with as few words as possible. This ride was no different than any other mission on any other day in the last two years that he'd spent in this desert country. Only the twitch of his gloved right thumb as he felt for the ever-present horseshoe ring beneath the fabric betrayed the nervous energy he was working to contain.

From his place in the left rear seat of the transport, Clyde kept his attention riveted to the passing scenery, his gaze sweeping over the buildings and faces, watching for the most miniscule hint of a threat, just as he had done on a thousand patrols. This was, he told himself over and over, just another joyride in the armpit of misery that was his second combat tour.

He didn't think about their destination. Until he got there, it simply didn't exist in his current reality and it wouldn't until his feet hit the tarmac back home (or better still, was standing on his own front porch). Reality right now was limited to the vehicle he was riding in, the road it bounced along, and the potential dangers around him.

Clyde wished he could have ridden with Whitshaw, Parnelli, Sikes, and Sergeant Dawson. Unfortunately, the Staff Sergeant had exercised the ranking officer's right to utilize whatever transport he liked with whatever other Marines he chose. Dawson had a habit of assigning the taciturn country boy to work with the more…was 'boisterous' a nicer word than 'rowdy'…Marines in their unit. Whether he intended that Clemments, Johnson, and Lowe would draw out the younger Marine or that the younger Marine would chill them out like some sort of damned emotional support labradoodle, Clyde never figured out, but either way the idea was an utter failure.

Of course, Dawson was probably the only person in their unit who was as superstitious as Clyde, which might also be the reason the latter was riding in the lead vehicle in the convoy while his closest friends were bringing up the rear. Dawson didn't ride with short timers. No exceptions, not even for the "country bumpkin" Marine corporal for whom the older man had developed a soft spot. It was bad luck; on that point, Dawson and Logan agreed.

However, at the moment, the two corporals in the front seats of the vehicle were the source of most of Clyde's agitation because they lacked a healthy respect for not giving superstitions a voice. Johnson and Lowe hadn't stopped sharing their plans for their post-war lives since the moment they'd loaded into the transport. He had pointedly refused to be drawn into the dialogue, answering their baiting questions with a shrug of his shoulders or a grunt.

"Darla. Then pizza. Then Chloe. Then another pizza. Then maybe Darla and Chloe both." Clyde could hear Lowe droning on despite his best efforts to tune out the private. Lowe's litany earned a fist bump from Johnson, the driver grinning his approval.

Lowe looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Logan's scowl from the corner of his eye. "Sorry, Logan, am I offending you?"

Clyde didn't so much as glance sidelong at the other man. "Hell, I don't give a flying fart what poor girl's gonna catch the clap once you get home, just please stop fucking talking about it," he answered, irritated. He knew that it would only encourage them to keep up their litanies, but seriously, how were these fools still alive in a combat zone if they didn't know that most of these superstitions to which Clyde adhered had a least some basis in actual facts?

Lowe gave the finger to the back of Clyde's head. "With all due respect, sir: Fuck yourself, hillbilly."

In the seat next to Logan's, Lance Corporal Clemments opened his mouth to say something-probably to issue a warning to both of them, but Clyde would never know. Before the man uttered a syllable, the world beneath them exploded with a deafening roar and a fireball that engulfed the two Marines in the front seat before Johnson and Lowe had time to realize they were going to die.

The transport was pitched into the air with the horrible noise of metal bending and ripping open. Clyde had less that two seconds to register that the vehicle had hit a bomb before the concussion struck him, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Before the transport crashed back to the ground, he was torn from his seat and out the hole where the left side door had been. He hit the ground headfirst, feeling the impact despite his helmet.

Clyde struggled against the sudden, intense pull of unconsciousness. He gagged on the sudden taste of blood in his mouth, smelled the noxious odor burning oil and burning flesh, but these sensations were fuzzy and distant. A loud ringing in his ears muffled the sounds of the world around him. Again, his sluggish mind barely registered the din and couldn't be bothered to care. He thought he heard popping noises, like tiny explosions, but they, too, were distant and irrelevant. Comforting darkness beckoned him, and with every passing second, it grew harder to resist.

He thought that he should be moving. It seemed like he should be moving. Clyde mustered his concentration to try to make himself move, but his entire body felt numb, and he wasn't sure if he was so much as twitching. Why couldn't he move? Then his left arm spasmed, and agony became his new world.

He couldn't hear it with the ringing in his ears, but Clyde was sure he had screamed.

As if trying to carry him away from the pain in his arm, his left leg moved. The motion awakened every nerve in his body, heightening the pain to a level of suffering Clyde wouldn't have believed possible to endure much less survive. Suffering encompassed his whole existence, made the noxious smells, the blood in his mouth, the din in his ears afterthoughts in the more pressing need to do anything to escape the pain…even sinking into the blissful oblivion threatening to overwhelm him.

A shadow moved in his peripheral vision. It seemed to be yelling unintelligible words at him. Clyde barely noticed and didn't care; he hoped futilely that the dark shaped could make the pain stop. It yelled again, something that might have been his name, as it drew nearer.

"You are a mess, aren't you? What happened-those Belton boys corner you after school again? You know you're supposed to wait 'til I get there to walk you home."

The unexpected, familiar voice momentarily distracted him from the lull of unconsciousness. Clyde squinted at the shadow as it leaned over him.

"Mama's gonna ground me if you come home all beat up again. And I'm gonna have to go kick their asses now, so I'm gonna come home all beat up, too. Guess she'll have to ground me twice, but what else am I supposed to do?"

Jimmy.

That was wrong. How could Jimmy be there?

Clyde tried to answer the shadow that was speaking in twelve-year-old Jimmy's voice but could only spit out another mouthful of blood. Shadow Jimmy pulled a dirty handkerchief out of his back pocket and pressed it to the corner of his mouth. "Hey—we gotta look out for each other, right?"

He managed a grunt of misery in response, tried to nod. Shadow Jimmy laid a hand carefully against the side of Clyde's head, grinning encouragement at him. "Hang on, okay? Hear me?"

He had tried…Jimmy had made it a cauliflower promise…didn't Jimmy see that he'd tried?

"Logan!"

The harsh word, accompanied by hands that suddenly caught Clyde roughly beneath his shoulders, made shadow Jimmy vanish abruptly. He tried to protest, but the hands that had seized him suddenly tugged at him, dragging Clyde roughly along the ground, away from the burning smells and the blaze of heat and the popping noises.

"Jesus, Logan!" When they stopped pulling at him, the hands suddenly landed on his left arm, squeezing mercilessly.

He thought he'd been in misery up until that point. He was wrong. The contact sent a fresh fire of pain shooting from his arm through Clyde's battered body. His vision whited out, and this time he couldn't summon the will to fight it.

The last thing Clyde saw was Sergeant Dawson leaning above him, mouthing words that were lost as he slipped into unconsciousness.

The horseshoe ring on his right index finger was the first thing Clyde remembered seeing. His head pounded with such agony that the mere act of opening his eyes to the bright lights of the hospital was a Herculean effort. He felt like he'd been kicked in the head by a horse. Machines were beeping. He knew it was the sound of hospital equipment, but the pain in his head jumbled his thoughts so that he never associated the beep of the machines with a hospital, much less associating himself with a hospital. His body screamed in misery despite the I.V. lines that pumped painkillers into his veins.

He felt like he was moving, but he had to open his eyes to know for sure, and it simply wasn't worth the suffering. He could hear wheels clacking over an uneven surface, and the bed beneath him jolted now and then, sending fresh waves of pain coursing through his body

Clyde's eyes refused to focus; he could barely stand to keep them open with the assault of the light. He thought someone might be standing beside him, but his vision was too blurry to distinguish a face on the human-shaped blob.

The blob was talking to him, but its voice was tinny and distant. It might have been calling his name. Clyde could barely muster the will to care what it had to say.

"-move, Logan-the hospital-"

The distant voice sounded vaguely like Sergeant Dawson. Something squeezed his hand.

"-hear me, Marine?" the voice barked authoritatively.

Clyde reflexively responded to the title and the command. He did his best to nod, to answer, but all he could do was exhale a quiet grunt of acknowledgement.

"Hang in there, Marine," Dawson ordered. "I'm going to call your family myself, let them know you'll be home soon. You will not make a liar out of me, is that understood?"

Home.

Mellie. Jimmy.

Clyde opened his eyes again, searching for the sergeant's face. He had to concentrate, to shut his mind to the pain and concentrate on forming words with his uncooperative mouth. There was something important he was supposed to say. "Call—"

"You got a message for them, Logan?" The Dawson-blob said something to the other blobs around Clyde. The gurney stopped moving so that Dawson could lean closer, trying to hear the soft, weak words. "I didn't catch that, Logan, it sounded like you said 'cauliflower'…"

LLLLLLL

Sarah sat bolt upright with a strangled cry, heart slamming in her chest. She might have cried out, or she might just have imagined that she'd cried out. The nightmare retreated, taking with it the acrid smells of smoke and gruesome, bloody images, leaving her alone in the dim light of the dank motel room.

TBC…