The jeep flew unceasingly over the elbow-deep potholes that marked the road
out of camp. It seemed to the Father that the Jeep ride embodied the whole
of his mood, the whole of his situation. As the chaplain and the
unconscious corporal flew down the road, there wasn't anything that could
stop them. Father Mulcahy put the lead out and removed his hat, pushing it
down in between the seats so that it wouldn't get blown away in the breeze
created by the hasty 25-mile-an-hour speed.
He was becoming so convinced, bolstered by the balmy breeze and warm sunlight, that no vampire could stand in the way of his getting the M*A*S*H 4077th out of its current predicament that even as he turned a wide corner of road and saw the MP post up ahead, he thought nothing of it. There were, after all, MP posts all over the countryside out here. He deftly halted the jeep a mere few inches in front of the barricade, and his foot hovered impatiently over the gas as he smiled at the approaching MP and saluted.
It was only after the MP began to speak that the Father's crest began to fall.
"Ex-- excuse me?" he asked.
"I said," the MP repeated, "The road up ahead's not secured. You'll have to turn back."
"But the road," Mulcahy protested, "goes to Seoul. Has Seoul been taken by the North Koreans?" he further asked, pointing out the ridiculous nature of that claim.
"Look, smart-aleck, I've got my orders, here, and they're to let nobody pass along this road. There's hostile fire back there!"
Mulcahy grew understandably frustrated. "Look, I work in a M*A*S*H unit not 10 miles back that way--" he pointed, "If there was fighting up there, don't you think we'd know about it?"
The MP frowned in consideration of the question, then, in a manner that signified the action as his last resort for all confusing situations, he consulted his clipboard. "There's no M*A*S*H unit down that way," he affirmed with the conviction of a stone, having read it on The Clipboard.
"Yes, there is," Mulcahy brightened up as he began to explain, "The M*A*S*H 4077th--"
"Bugged out three days ago and nobody's heard hide nor hair of them since."
"But we didn't--"
"We've got surveillance records-- they're nowhere in the area anymore."
"But I just came--"
"There are planes sweeping possible resettlement locations, but no luck."
"If you'll just LOOK, I've got identification--"
"Father J.F.P Mulcahy, hm, M*A*S*H 4077th. Nope, sorry, Father, this can't be right."
Mulcahy's eyes widened. Suddenly leaping up onto the driver's seat of the jeep, he hurled these harsh words down onto the heads of the MPs:
"Listen to yourselves! You're trying to tell me that I'm not who I am! Does that make any sense to you? Does it, really? And does it make any sense that an entire unit should disappear off the face of the earth, there one day and gone the next? Does it make any sense to block off a road you had to travel down to set up the guardpost? And where will the people come from who'll relieve you after your shift? From the enemy territory, or from the nonexistent M*A*S*H unit down the road? What's the matter with you? Can't you see the hands, the-- the cold, dead hands pulling the wool over your eyes? Don't you see the Camarilla playing you all for fools? Look out your windows at night! Look good and hard and you'll see those lurking in the darkness of the world, orchestrating at midnight the jokes you tell at lunch! The vampires who herd you like so many cattle-- turn your heads, cattle! Look back at the figure who rides the pale horse in your very midst!"
The MPs held a brief, silent conference with their eyes, and, in unison, lifted their sidearms. One of them spoke, "Okay, look, nutso, just calm down, and sit down, turn the jeep around and go back wherever you came from. Our orders are to not let anybody pass."
Father Mulcahy, outmanned and outgunned, and the case for his sanity not corroborated in any way by the man sleeping in the wedding dress next to him, sat. And turned. And drove.
And drove. His face, once bright with promise, grew dull, finding the same obstacle on any road he could think of that would lead a significant distance away from the camp. Coming to a meeting of three dirt paths, two of which he'd traveled down before, the third of which led back to camp, he stopped the Jeep and rested his arms on the steering wheel. He stared straight ahead. Between the two roads, a steep, hilly area with brush and rocks nearing on towards the size of boulders. Sitting up straight and setting his jaw, Father Mulcahy positioned his foot over the gas pedal, determining himself to drive straight on until he gets somewhere or die trying.
And Klinger? Would he risk the life of an innocent bystander in this adventure of his? He turned his head and looked, hardly surprised to see the marks of the beast's work on the dark Lebanese skin. The sight steeled him further, and bolstered his resolution. He was going to get out of the grasp of the Camarilla, once and for all.
And he was, too... he was about to drive all the way to the coast, over mountains and through rivers and parting grasses as tall as the jeep itself, if it meant freedom from the wide grasp of the vampiric society.
That is, he was fully intending to do all these things -- the breath of God was in him -- if he only wasn't out of gas.
~
He was becoming so convinced, bolstered by the balmy breeze and warm sunlight, that no vampire could stand in the way of his getting the M*A*S*H 4077th out of its current predicament that even as he turned a wide corner of road and saw the MP post up ahead, he thought nothing of it. There were, after all, MP posts all over the countryside out here. He deftly halted the jeep a mere few inches in front of the barricade, and his foot hovered impatiently over the gas as he smiled at the approaching MP and saluted.
It was only after the MP began to speak that the Father's crest began to fall.
"Ex-- excuse me?" he asked.
"I said," the MP repeated, "The road up ahead's not secured. You'll have to turn back."
"But the road," Mulcahy protested, "goes to Seoul. Has Seoul been taken by the North Koreans?" he further asked, pointing out the ridiculous nature of that claim.
"Look, smart-aleck, I've got my orders, here, and they're to let nobody pass along this road. There's hostile fire back there!"
Mulcahy grew understandably frustrated. "Look, I work in a M*A*S*H unit not 10 miles back that way--" he pointed, "If there was fighting up there, don't you think we'd know about it?"
The MP frowned in consideration of the question, then, in a manner that signified the action as his last resort for all confusing situations, he consulted his clipboard. "There's no M*A*S*H unit down that way," he affirmed with the conviction of a stone, having read it on The Clipboard.
"Yes, there is," Mulcahy brightened up as he began to explain, "The M*A*S*H 4077th--"
"Bugged out three days ago and nobody's heard hide nor hair of them since."
"But we didn't--"
"We've got surveillance records-- they're nowhere in the area anymore."
"But I just came--"
"There are planes sweeping possible resettlement locations, but no luck."
"If you'll just LOOK, I've got identification--"
"Father J.F.P Mulcahy, hm, M*A*S*H 4077th. Nope, sorry, Father, this can't be right."
Mulcahy's eyes widened. Suddenly leaping up onto the driver's seat of the jeep, he hurled these harsh words down onto the heads of the MPs:
"Listen to yourselves! You're trying to tell me that I'm not who I am! Does that make any sense to you? Does it, really? And does it make any sense that an entire unit should disappear off the face of the earth, there one day and gone the next? Does it make any sense to block off a road you had to travel down to set up the guardpost? And where will the people come from who'll relieve you after your shift? From the enemy territory, or from the nonexistent M*A*S*H unit down the road? What's the matter with you? Can't you see the hands, the-- the cold, dead hands pulling the wool over your eyes? Don't you see the Camarilla playing you all for fools? Look out your windows at night! Look good and hard and you'll see those lurking in the darkness of the world, orchestrating at midnight the jokes you tell at lunch! The vampires who herd you like so many cattle-- turn your heads, cattle! Look back at the figure who rides the pale horse in your very midst!"
The MPs held a brief, silent conference with their eyes, and, in unison, lifted their sidearms. One of them spoke, "Okay, look, nutso, just calm down, and sit down, turn the jeep around and go back wherever you came from. Our orders are to not let anybody pass."
Father Mulcahy, outmanned and outgunned, and the case for his sanity not corroborated in any way by the man sleeping in the wedding dress next to him, sat. And turned. And drove.
And drove. His face, once bright with promise, grew dull, finding the same obstacle on any road he could think of that would lead a significant distance away from the camp. Coming to a meeting of three dirt paths, two of which he'd traveled down before, the third of which led back to camp, he stopped the Jeep and rested his arms on the steering wheel. He stared straight ahead. Between the two roads, a steep, hilly area with brush and rocks nearing on towards the size of boulders. Sitting up straight and setting his jaw, Father Mulcahy positioned his foot over the gas pedal, determining himself to drive straight on until he gets somewhere or die trying.
And Klinger? Would he risk the life of an innocent bystander in this adventure of his? He turned his head and looked, hardly surprised to see the marks of the beast's work on the dark Lebanese skin. The sight steeled him further, and bolstered his resolution. He was going to get out of the grasp of the Camarilla, once and for all.
And he was, too... he was about to drive all the way to the coast, over mountains and through rivers and parting grasses as tall as the jeep itself, if it meant freedom from the wide grasp of the vampiric society.
That is, he was fully intending to do all these things -- the breath of God was in him -- if he only wasn't out of gas.
~