My name is Jack Blanchard and I am a deserter.
I don't know why I did it, and why I picked the time for it, but in the end... I deserted. I left my comrades not in the heat of battle like some (all those that have done that have been caught, court-martialed, then hung at the description of a traitor), but at the break of morn'. The coffee was just sifting through the camp and dim rays of the sun were lighting my face as I looked to the horizon for answers. But, at the time, I never even realized it --- I sorta had it in the back of my head, and that was all. The reasons were apparent, however.
I did not sign up to fight some fucking bugs. These... Zerg... Jesus-Christ these Zerg. History books claimed nothing to their name, nothing to their existence for that matter. The only thing I knew when I signed a four-page listing of the ins and outs of the army was that the wars would be between us humans. We quarrel alot, humanity, and like most I had fought my brethren at an early age... grade school, in fact. So the prospect of taking the fight to the next level didn't bother me too much. The thought of levelling the sights of a .30-caliber rifle onto another man's face, well, it didn't seem all that bad.
I never, never, came to think that some other race would intervene in our own mingling. Who would anyways? During training all combat maneuvers were for lambasting human-enemies. We stabbed stuffed human-replicas; we tossed grenades into man-made bunkers; we sighted lasers on fake, computerized towns for simulated-destruction. Those that rose through the ranks were trained even more on how to kill another human-being. We learn that on defense it is better to wound, than to kill. Why, one might ask during this learning-process. Well, the answer is an attacker must commit, by XXth century military standards that still stand to this day (because we'restill human, aren't we?), a force three-times the size of the defender's. But why injure instead of kill?
Because we're human. Funnily-enough the more prideful, the more traditional the target, the better! When a defender cracks a shot through a man's shin, dropping him into a pile of cat-like howling, his comrades will come to his aid and carry him away offering up two things for a defender: take out the wounded and those who have come to help him, or, let them carry him away --- usually taking a few of the attackers out of the action altogether as they move the wounded. It's a great tactic underused by many. Even I utilize it as I've come to realize I really do mind killing my brethren.
And just how many have I killed?
Well, that I can recall, I have put an end to a few lives. Surprisingly the first shot I ever fired on a field of combat splintered a man's helmet into three grey shards and when his body slumped back there was nothing left but a bulge of red. My second kill came four months later, and this one was more on a personal level. I had been hiding out in the second story of an apartment on observations --- relaying information to CO's, Lieutenants, etc. etc., the drill, when suddenly I realize there's this smoking hole next to my face, the plaster crumbling at the yawning, my ear hot and ringing. So I turn about and find myself looking at a man trying to unjam his rifle, a bent casing keeping the hammer from closing. He notices me gawking at him and drops the gun and draws his arm back. My eyes were probably bulging, but instincts, thank-God, came in to save the day, overriding my overall surprise and near-fatal stupor. My side-arm came into hand, the man pulling out his own. I caught him with three shots, his own gun half-way in its swing towards me. What I remember most was that he did manage to squeeze one off before he finally bought the farm. Scared the shit out of me, too, 'cause he was lying on the goddam floor when it happened.
Anyway, those are the only people I can recall putting an end to. Maybe there were more, I really don't know, but those are the one's I know for certain.
So, why did I desert?
Well, again, because of those damn Zerg.
Let me explain the Zerg to you: they are the devil's minions. They are macabre creatures from a universe we cannot even hope to comprehend. They are mostly a mob of mindless monsters commanded by other monstrosities that have enough noodles to think for themselves, and thus, others. The Zergling, the most basic of their race, is in itself one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. They scamper across the ground at such a speed your heart freezes even before they rip it out. Their attacks are led by a duo of claws and they dine themselves to whatever meal they have come to put down.
And that's just the Zerg's regular.
They have more creatures... snake-beings that slither forward with horrifying-grace. I've seen men drop their weapons in terrific-awe, standing before these 'Hydralisks', their human-flesh ripe for the taking.
But enough about the Zerg --- the simple rememberance of them is almost too much. For now, let us go back to the day of my desertion...
------
...Captain Wilkins pumped off a string of shots, torso half-twisted, before running off again. "Fall back!" He ordered as I covered his weak-ass from a pair of Zerglings. The two creatures went down with a few pot-shots into their limbs and bodies --- not necessarily dead, but down, and that was enough for me. Wilkins high-jumped over a wall, the sound of his body thudding into the ground a dull annoyance.
I looked back, sprayed some unaimed-lead, then went over the wall myself. Not quite like a cat I practically busted my ass from the fall. Luckily, Wilkins was there to pick up the slack, meaning me, as he helped my lunky body up. "C'mon, our lines are around the next block," he said, turning away and taking off.
I checked the ammo-counter on my rifle, saw the 'two', and decided I'd be better suited switching to my .377-side-arm (the lack of rifle-mags on my belt gave the vote a two-to-three-odds-over win). Wilkins got about fifteen yards away but catching up, like always, took little of any effort: the man lacked any sort of physical attributes --- his mentality was where it was at. How many times he had saved my ass with spot-on calculations is beyond any number of human-comprehension.
Okay, three times. But exaggeration have always been one with my nature.
Anyway, I saw Wilkins turn the corner. I checked my blind-spots, then also flipped the bend.
Wilkins was down.
I looked from his body to a nearby Hydralisk closing up at the chest after firing its armanents.
How I despised the Zerg.
My .377 honed in on the creature.
I crowned it king with a lead-crest.
The bastard.
As it cried its final cry, slumping backwards through a door, I fell to Wilkins side brushing off the wails of the alien from my ears.
The man had received a volley of organic needles. I looked into his face and saw the void. The void all men in combat have seen. I began to shake. "Wilkins... Hey, hey," I patted his cheek, my heart beginning to race. "I'm here," his eyes darted to look at mine. My heart met its apex of pounding, then slowly began to resettle. I smiled, "You bastard." Blood leaked from his mouth, "Where am I hit?"
I licked my lips, surveying the damage. "Um..." His hand clutched mine, gripping it with surprising intensity, "Jack, tell me. I have to know."
"Okay. Okay," I wet my lips, my tongue going over them a second time.
He was hit just about everywhere. "Goddammit, Jack, tell me." Another line of blood went from his mouth, this one flowing into the little pool at his chin. The small divot flooded and then the blood began to run down to his neck and adam's apple. "There's one in your sternum. And, I think, one in your lungs." "It's not in my lungs, it's in my ribs." He cringed with every word. I quickened my observations for his sake. "One in your gut... one in..." They say when the Hydralisk's spine hits your body, the tip folds, creating a sort of hook. When you try to pull the needle out a good amount of flesh and muscle come with it. I've seen it for myself and it is, quite frankly, a devastating sight... a demoralization-effect, really, made to emphasize the fear the Zerg species already emits in droves.
I finished my count.
"Jesus..." Wilkins hand dropped from mine.
His death had come too soon and I sat in media res, strangled by the follicies of its surprise.
We army-folk leave no man behind, and I followed that rule to a tee.
I picked Wilkins up off the ground, throwing him over a shoulder, and began to move towards the defensive perimeter. The Hydralisk's-spikes bristled against my face like some sort of horrid mass of unshaven extremities.
Jesus, how wrong our patrol had gone. They always go wrong, at least the one's I'm involved with. Captain Bobby Switzer, Captain Vholven Petrok, and, now, Captain Wilkins. I think I'll I just promote my goddam-self to captain and see where that leads me.
The defensive perimeter was only around the next corner. I turned it and found a string of barbed-wire digging into my shins, and watched as rifles rose to my chest, a clutter of safeties being switched and chambers being filled. In the end, nobody pulled the trigger. The hand of some unknown diety had kept me alive, for now. Why no accident? Why not just one man twitchy at the finger? Oh how I hated this life I was living.
They let me through.
A pair of paramedics took the weight off my shoulder. I followed them into a nearby tent and watched their procedure. I left them to the task, though, unable to watch. My steps led me across the street from the tent to an apartment building. Headquarters. I entered, being disarmed of my pistol immediately. I moved inwards, brushing past a furious buzz of clicking and clacking keyboards and boops and beeps of a dozen monitors. I climbed the stairwell, each level showing a different taste of making its own fashion statement. Armory. Medical. The board.
I could only imagine what the basement held.
The board's door popped open, leaving my hand hanging at where the knob used to be. "Blanchard?" The general, his authority shown in the form of two stars to each shoulder patch. Green uniform, kept tight and kept clean. I, most likely, looked far more than what the opposite could be.
I spoke, "Sir." My composite form shifted into a straight stand-still. "At ease," the man said, "Come in."
I walked into the room, being observant of and being observed from a posse of lieutenants and captains. One-star generals and hopeful ladder-climbers. I'd seen it all before. Nothing new.
One of the posse spoke aloud, directed to me, of course, "Report, private."
"Sir. Captain Manahan Wilkins, KIA."
One man nodded, his head aiming towards an open doorway. I heard footsteps near the very room I was in. A person entered, leaned in towards the upper-echelon-general, was given a message, then quickly darted off, the door slamming behind him.
I couldn't help but cringe at the fact that Captain Wilkins' death would be heartlessly typed onto a monitor. So very hollow. A final-stop unable to control its shallow-self.
I could've cried.
"KIA, detail." Another one spoke this time.
"Sir. Zerg forces."
"Detail."
"Hydralisk, a block away." I turned to face the man, "Per usual, sir."
"Private," a stern voice, the two-star general.
I straightened up, "We ran into a small squad of Zerglings, patrollers, just like us, sir. Neither of us received injury at that point. I put down a few Zerglings, as did Wilkins. The Zerg seem to be going about their usual, sir."
The men nodded, as if they had been there.
They let me go, shooing me away with the board door's emblem being printed onto my ass as it slammed shut. I took a stroll down the hallway opposite the room and found not much, except for a few computers. I saw Wilkins name, a blinking text-line next it. The typer must've gone off to fetch some coffee. I invited myself in.
There were about four computers in the room, each a digital obituary. I sat down at the monitor with Wilkins name. The keyboard felt uncomfortable to my fingertips. When I looked down at the letters to readjust my hands I saw that all the lettering had been smeared off. "Jesus..." I went back to the screen and blindly bumbled with the keys, typing a few of them in to figure out where my hands were on the keyboard. Eventually I got things rolling.
Except, when I got started, I couldn't actually get started. I tried to write a small footnote to Wilkins parent (mother, as the father had also died in the military), but... I just couldn't get going. I wrote an emotional sentence, introducing myself as Wilkins military-chap. But then I erased it. My second drumming of the keys stamped another emotional sentence onto the page, acting as if I knew the man in all these fake war-stories. I erased it, too. The third time around I didn't even finish. I simply sat, staring into the monitor with the realization that anything I do or say would not change anything. Wilkins was dead, his mother would be one to bear the news without anyone to lean on, and I, myself, would more than likely join him, one way or the other. Sometime, somewhere, I would buy the farm.
Oh well.
I left the room, nothing changed on the monitor. I brushed past the man. Funnily enough he had some coffee, sipping it as he turned the corner. He eyed me queerly, knowing I had been in the room. I stared straight ahead, went down the stairwell, and made my way back outside.
I patted my military vest. Angrily swearing under my breath I realized I had gambled all my smokes three days ago. No problem, however, as with a quick hand movement I jacked a pack off an unsuspecting sleeper: an MP snoozing against the wall of the building. He deserved it anyhow --- a good, selfish thought to mask my inconvenience.
I pulled out a stick from the carton, finding I had nothing of which to light it. I went back to the MP, checked a few of his pockets and found what I was looking for. I flicked the lighter open, flame engulfing the cigarette. It sizzled orange, the paper crisping to a dull gray. I inhaled then gave the lighter back to the MP. He was awake now, looking at me as I dropped the lighter into front shirt-pocket. I patted his chest, "Thanks."
Walking away, grinning, I puffed on the cigarette. Hands in my pocket I took a stroll past a huddle of marines laying down some shouts and hollers along with their card-hands during a 'friendly' game of poker. I walked past the funny lot and made way through a few sand-bag mazes. The men here were all over the goddam place. One guy was even upside down, back bent over a sandbag-wall, smoking a three cigarettes at once. Music blasted out of a nearby stereo. Apparently nobody cared if it garnered the Zerg's attention.
In fact, I just don't think anybody cared, simply put.
"Bubb-lay!" A man knocked me backwards a step, mumbling an utter tragedy of a sentence. "Young man!" I shouted sternly, "Straighten up this very second! I'll have you peeling potatoes, private!"
This is how sad the situation, the entirety of it, was: this drunkard I was chewing out (for the fun of it), was ranked higher than myself. Not just ranked higher, but a Lieutenant. His squad was just cracking jokes and having a good ol' time behind him.
From that meeting I went a little further down the street. Away from the slummy sandbag-bunkers. Away from the med'-tent with its streams of erratic blood flowing from 'neath its tarps. Away from a marching-drill, with soldiers stepping to the ones and twos. Suddenly, I realized, I was walking away. I didn't look back, I didn't even care to think to bring a goddam weapon to defend myself with. I simply walked.
I simply strolled.
They hang deserters for their actions, but, honestly, I didn't fucking care.
And nobody else did, either. I walked a complete block without interference. Maybe they thought I had lost it like this man, Ving Cechavos, who had trotted off into the night. What a night that was: we spent a good five minutes hollering for him to come back, afraid to cross into the Zerg territory to just drag his ass back. He turned the corner, going out of sight. We all, morbidly in an awkward way, sort of just relaxed and left our screamin' posts. Then there was this horrible shriek into the night. Ving had had a change of plans as he came sprinting back around the corner. We were too late to his rescue: a Mutalisk dove in from above and swooped poor Ving up and into the night to never be heard from again.
For a brief moment I took my eyes to the sky.
That wasn't the first time the Zerg decided to 'take prisoners'. I was invovled in a ferocious battle between a squad I was with and a pack of Zerglings. One man got hurt, going down with a dismembered Zergling appendage sticking out of his leg. A marine went in to pull him out as we put down covering fire.
The Zerg cannot be suppressed, however. They do not think about themselves and throw their lives away for what cause they do not even have a grasp of.
Our covering fire was broken up by six or so Zerglings who bull-rushed through our bullets, caught the two marines at the calves, and then made with their escape, bouncing away with their screaming cargo. "May God have mercy," a marine next to me had said. Four hours later that very marine had his head sawed off by a rabid civillian; just came out of nowhere and hacked his head right off. Just shows that war is the most atrocious and horrible event a man can commit to. It's also very nerve-racking. It really wears on one's willpower and heart. Knowing that your death may come at anytime from anywhere is like a huge slice of Army-filtered humble-pie. Jesus, it's not even describable. The best way I can put it is: have you ever been in trouble? Or been nearly caught at one period in time, then, shortly thereafter, almost caught again. Let's say that is about as close to it as you can get --- just magnify the 'getting caught' (for whatever it may be) to 'having your body parts dumped into a ditch'.
Ever see a guy take a direct hit by a 120mm artillery shell?
Ever see a guy have a building's fucking face fall on him?
Ever see a guy drop a pack of cigarettes and get riddled across the chest when he goes back for them?
I have, and I'm sure others have seen worse. Far worse. But that is war: just a bunch of horror-stories rolled up into one bloody novel.
I deserted that day and thought, happily at the time, that I was actually getting away from it all.
I was too ignorant at the time to realize that nobody gets away from war. War gets away from you, but you don't get away from it. It's the one making the decisions, you just sit and play its game.
------
The day was at about noon when I had to take a major duper, I mean, my gut was about ready to explode. So I made my way into an abandoned business buildings. Apparently a barber-shop of sorts. I scuffled past piles of clotted hair and dry-scalp, my hand wrenching my gurgling gut. I found the bathroom and hastily dropped my drawers and sat down, my ass exploding the second air hit it. I clenched the side of the 'pot as the devil escaped me.
Something in the window caught my eye, though. As the last volley made a dazzling exit I looked through the window and noticed the adjacent building's boring grey go to a dark brown, then back to grey again. Whatever it was, it was huge. I mean, the bathroom shook with every step the creature took and the atrocious foot-falls made the toilet-top clatter. The window itself shuttered in its weak frame: I feared its breaking and calling attention-to.
I began to fear a lot of things after I deserted.
I picked up my drawers and, not quite having them all the way up, fell on my face as I tried to hop out the door in front of me. My lungs felt like they heaved into my throat as I choked on a clutter of hair. I quickly, and quietly as possible, got myself reoriented. My footsteps cautiously neared the barber-shop's entrance and I stealthily opened the door, craning my head out.
Whatever had past was gone, but it left its passing in records of deep foot-falls.
Thinking the creature gone I ventured out into the road.
I've been wrong many times in my life. Two-times-two is not twenty-two. The door is actually pulled open, not pushed. The Ultralisk had really only gone down an intersection of the road. My stupidity is sometimes killer: the teacher scolded me in front of the class; I cracked my head on the damn door; and now I was about to have my bones stomped into dust. I was in the middle of the street, sorta juking left, then right, my brain scrambling for a direction to go. I randomly thrusted my body one way and found myself heading towards a tall apartment complex. I caught the Ultralisk at my periphreal: it was coming in fast. I closed my eyes, stuck my arms in front of my face, and burst through the door in front of me. I fell through, wood slapping my body and one of the door's bolts rolling into a nearby hallway. I scrambled to my feet as I heard one of the Ultralisk's tusks pierce through the side of the building, and then drag to the door way, kicking out brick and plaster all over. I ran up the apartment's stairwell, got to a pre-base, and looked back. The Ultralisk was tearing up the face of the building, throwing its tusks around like the heavyweight it was.
My body sorta got moving on its own, apparently deciding that my brain was too much of a dumbass to think for itself. I went up the stairway and began running up to another level when a section of the floor just to the side of me collapsed. Frightened, my legs stutterstepped and I ended up going through the gaping hole, landing on my butt back on ground level. Back to square one, really. Basically square one... with a tank. With tusks. And an attitude.
Scared as all hell I jumped to my feet, and then got knocked through a nearby wall when the Ultralisk barely even turned its body. Thank God the plaster in this building was cheap or I would've been squashed up against the apartment owner's smug face, brilliantly and timelessly captured in a fine picture. The new room, of course, belonged to the owner: the good bed (comparitively) and nearby bathroom gave it away. The Ultralisk ducked in for a glance, smashing both tusks through not only the room I was in, but the nearby bathroom too.
The structure began to wane and cry --- collapse was imminent. So I got up, turned around, and flung myself through a window, falling into a nameless alley. As I shakingly got up (cuts and bruises all over) I heard a loud crack come from about mid-level of the building. A chunk of brick popped out, spiraling against the adjacent building then falling nearby. I had to get moving.
I looked to the other building that made up the alley, found a window, and busted it with my elbow. The pain stung like a bitch, but I would just have to manage. I crawled through, nearly gutting myself on pieces of glass still lingering. As I collapsed into whatever room I was in I looked back through the window and saw the building move. It was going down. I quickly trotted across the inanimate room, limping past a couch and coffee table. I got to the other side of the building and waited.
Another loud snap of noise. A window from a floor above me shattered. I got myself into a corner, dragging a couch and chair around me for cover. My hands covered my head and I ducked between my knees and waited.
The Ultralisk screamed with surprise as the infrastructure of the apartment complex began to rain down on it. Then it all caved in, muffling its screams with tonnes of brick and mortar. Debris, dust, and smoke plumed into the building I was in --- my body was pushed into the wall and the furniture sorta squished me as well. The huge gust of air was past and I took my head out between my knees pushed back and then looked over my cover-couch, watching and listening to the spectacle. Pieces of the last of the fallen building tickled the one I was in. I began to cough uncontrollably as the smog began to move in. It get got to a point where I could notbreathe anymore, so I got the hell out of there.
When I came outside the fresh air was thrust into my nostrils, being enjoyed like a foreign delicacy. I noticed my enitre body was nothing but a swath of brown. I patted myself off as much as possible, feeling actual weight lift from my body. I was a human smoke-bomb, I swear.
After a few minutes of ridding myself of the dusty-blanket, I observed ground zero. A leg of the Ultralisk thumbed out of the piled brick like a worm out of a shrivelled apple. Somethin' like that. I continued on, however, ignorant to the fact that I just downed the Zerg's greatest fighter. My lack of care was beginning to seep into just about everything. From life to spectacular events. Hell, I didn't care.
As I tread down the streets, sometimes pausing at lamp posts to chew on a cigarette, I began to reminisce on what I had walked away from. I remembered this fellow, Mike Ruger. One fucked up soldier, I tell you what. This man took a tooth from every kill he got (he had his own set of handy-dandy pliers). But the man was incredibly intelligent. In fact he made me question the reality of what society accepted, neglected, and outright denied. He pondered the notion that war is something man can get used to, no matter the content of it. Not only can he get synthisized to the battlefield, but he can come to the liking of it. "How?" I asked. "Simple," the man responded, not caring that I was staring at the tooth-necklace resting on his shoulders, "War is no different than everything else we do. Think about it, we're all human. We all fuck, we all make-do with what we have, we endanger our lives to rescue those who may already be dead." He was right. "Jack, how many times have you heard about a man dying to rescue a child in a burning building?" I pondered the question, then responded to the tee that he was correct, "Many times." "Right, many times. So, what's so different about war than our other attributes? Throughout history I think we've murdered each other more times than anything else. Know why?" "Hope? Greed?"
I was wrong, of course.
"No, Jack, it's fear. There are only two emotions in our little human-minds. Fear, and love. Those are the two platforms that all other emotions build on. But fear trounces all that love holds. Fear develops everything we look down on: hate, un-cleansliness, dishonesty. How many times have you feared punishment, then lied your way out of it?"
I smiled, "Too many times to count."
He didn't smile back but simply continued on, "Right."
I interrupted before he could continue, "So what does all this have to do with humanity's liking to war?"
"Getting there, Jack." The voice was stern, yet forwarding. "Then we have sports. Humanity, I mean. I'm sure all species have sports, though." Mike was a firm believer in intelligent life in the universe. I guess he was right.
"I bet other species have sports worse than what we can imagine, you know," I tried to cover up humanity's vices.
He shook his head to this, "I doubt it. If we took their sports, no matter how gory or morally wrong they may seem, and injected them into our society ---" "---Society would accept them," I finished. He smiled, "Yup."
"So, what your saying is that what is so different about tackling a man in sport than killing him on the battlefield." "Exactly what I'm saying. I find it ridiculous that we still have yet to accept war for what it is: our past-time. Humanity will never escape it. We've tried plenty, in fact, yet it always lingers. Like the ups-and-downs of the economy, we will never be able to understand the enigma that is war --- and I doubt it will ever be able to understand ourselves: the oil that runs the machine that is war. It's a mutual disagreement on matters that have been agreeing since man has been man."
He could not have been anymore right.
I'm not sure where Mike Ruger is today. Last I saw of him was three weeks after that little conversation as he was shipped off to fight another war on another planet.
For myself I may never come to liking war, akin to Ruger, but, now, I see no wrong in liking war. Hell, it's just war, I say let those who understand it bask in it.
Now that I think about it, war is just a candy-coated conversation between two or more factions. Just that when they throw their side of the argument onto the table it comes wrapped nice and tight with forty-thousand coffins and the same, sad letter to their mothers. When the other side counters, it is flung with the thunder of artillery and the radiation sickness of nuclear warfare. The other side repents its wrong-doings and signs a sheet basically saying, "You've won. We/the public have had enough." Sometimes, and this is a rather sad potrayal, the other side slides the sheet back across the table with the most basic letters of messaging: F, and U. Then total destruction and futile defences are mocked-up. More die, a certain group of entitites are eradicated and life goes on. The argument's over. The podium is left dusted for another jaunt when the time comes on down the road.
Currently I'm off the goddam political cherade. Let the higher-ups throw other lives to the wooden-Davey's --- I'm not going to take part in something I don't believe in.
But I signed up for this. And that is where my mind is currently split, even though it may be too late to do much about it...
As my brain waxed itself over the sun began to set. I needed somewhere to stay and my eye caught a queer flicker in a building off to my right. I approached, cautious of the structure's contents. I came through an open window hoping to move in as quietly as possible. The room I was in was adjacent to the light vividly lashing out erratic and elongated shadows. I shuffled across the floorboards hoping that no unluckly creak would blow my position. Nothing happened. A little arrogant now I sped up and went into the other room, my caution a little levelled.
The light was a small flame in an aged fireplace.
Footsteps were coming from the other room, though. Footsteps and... whistling. The tune got louder and more bravo and I couldn't even move! My feet were suddenly stone fixtures, keeping me grounded in this room. The person came in holding a pan to his mouth and sipping, with a spoon, its contents. His eyes saw me, his hand pausing as the spoon came out of his mouth.
I smiled a little hoping to keep things cool.
He flipped. His hand dropped the pan and then went behind his back. I heard the distinct sound a pistol makes when sliding out of a leather-holster. That thick, and then hollow, noise. The barrel looked me in the eye. "Whoa whoa whoa," I stuck my hands up --- human instinct. We don't know where we got it, or why, but whenever danger is inevitable, and our death may be impending, we humans have a tendency to, of all things, just stick our little arms into the air.
"Who are you?"
The pan had some sort of sauce. It squeezed between the floorboards and built a little curl up against a desk's leg. The gun was a tad in the shake, wavering a little in small sporatic movements. He obviously wasn't afraid of me, but of something else. If it was me to be feared, I would already be dead. We humans hate fear.
"My name is Jack Blanchard, I'm just a civillian, this is my home."
Bad call.
"Bullshit! I've been here for three days," the gun steadied as the man's grip tensed. His eye caught something, my sleeve.
"A civillian, huh?"
Man, I really fucked up. I think I just lack anysort of common sense or memory that matters. He had sighted my military signals.
"Deserter?" He asked. My eyes, in a moment of self-pity, looked elsewhere, "Yeah."
He grinned, happy with my response, perhaps giving him a reason to have a little "fun".
I was wrong again, thank God.
The pistol's hammer was clicked back into place as he popped the gun into the air, drawing it back towards him. He spoke the best words I heard in some time: "Me too." Short, two-word sentence lacking anysort of chalant, only just a lick of our language, and, yet, it killed me. I could've fell to my knees and cried out a roll of laughter, but the pan-sauce was a little down-there so I held back. I did grin, though. Once a human gets something funny inside him, no matter how mellow the fellow, a little grin will always escape.
We sat by the fire, sipping rum.
Two deserters, together. I'm sure the universe was astonished.
"Ian McDavid," the answer to the question I probed for.
"Jack Blanchard," I rose the rum to my mouth, "But I'm sure you knew that."
He laughed in this funny, high-pitch tone. A type of laugh one doesn't forget easily.
"From the 352nd, 1st reg ---" I stuck my hand up, "No need."
He smiled, then nodded, "Yup."
"We're deserters."
He smiled and nodded again, taking a sip of rum.
"Why'd you desert?" I asked. I kinda hoped it was for the same reasons myself: those reasons being entirely alien to my knowledge. That would be great, two one-in-a-kinds in the same damn room, same city, same everything. The stars seemed right for his answer, but something was wrong with the alignment: "Ah, my general."
"Oh." Disappointment.
"He executed a soldier for leaving his post. The man had left his post to save another man's life, Jack. It just didn't make sense to me. So I left."
I nodded. But then I began to think --- a hobby I had recently picked up and fervently dug at.
I thought: well, wait a second, maybe there is a reason to execute a soldier for breaking orders. But that questions what humans have never been given the chance to answer: is one man worth ten? A thousand? Million? Billion? We've never, in all our wonder and imaginations, been able to answer that. There are glimpses of it, but never something we can see without having to squint our eyes.
I agreed with Ian's point of view anyway. No reason to offer my opinion. I didn't know the man that was shot by his officer, so I really had no right. Perhaps, if I did know him, my view would different --- maybe even skewed, which makes you wonder...
I finished off my cup of rum and set it onto a small table that seperated our chairs. I saw the fire flick glaring splotches onto Ian's head as he stared into the flames. I looked into it too. We sat for awhile, him finishing off his own rum and my silence a mere mask to what my concious was up-to: its new hobby of deep thinking and digging up old memories.
I once knew a guy that had one of his legs cut off at the knee by a .50 caliber round. I met him in one of the medical-tents when I was given the job of watching over the wounded. I came to know the guy and everything about him. Had a wife, said she was 5'2". He didn't mind joking about the sex they had and I guess I didn't mind laughing about it. He had a daughter, just at the age of six. Her zig-zaggy artwork was shown to me in all its glory (he pointed out every fine-point of her works, from the bulging eyes to the nostrils that started below the nose). He even had her medical papers from when she was born. "Almost strangled by the cord!" He laughed, pointing out the records. Eventually he got the nod that he could no longer remain in the field (why it took almost two months to come to that conclusion is beyond me). I saw no more of him after that. He went home and that was it for him. Funnily enough the day after his infinite-leave I had an arty' round land not more than a ten yards from me and fling my body through a shop window putting me into the med-tents for a stay of my own. I requested staying in the same bed he did but didn't get the opportunity: a man with half-his face a mash of goo and other ripped tissue layed in it. I took one gander at the man and didn't feel the need to stay in that bunk anymore: seeing the living dead crushes all imaginations.
"Hey, Ian, you got any other weapons I can borrow?"
He looked towards the fire a little longer before pulling away, setting his drink on the table and standing up, "Yeah." He walked across the room to another table with a set of drawers. I heard him shuffle his hand around then heard that gun 'clicking' noise when its components are loose. He came back around and gave me a pistol. A pea-shooter, at most.
"Thanks."
"Hey, Jack, you ever been in command of a unit?"
The question hit me like a phone book. "Yeah," my answer was reluctant in its making, "Yeah I did. I commanded a small platoon of about fifty men."
"Seeing that you're a private now, I'm guessing you fucked something up."
I smiled and looked to the dimming fire, "Yeah, I shit a doozy."
------
It was a wide street with most of the adjacent buildings levelled. Piles of rubble interlaced with the pavement making the whole area practically impassable by any small vehicles. A large tank could make it through, maybe. The occasional light pole stood defiant in this small, grey wasteland. Half a building or two stood at the edges of the rubble-grounds, maybe a hundred meters apart. A set of un-checked buildings, somehow saved by the artillery-barrages, sat at the far end of the zone, maybe two-hundred yards from myself.
XIX Corps was being strangled at the flanks by mischevious enemy-maneuvers and tactical strikes. My platoon sat roughly in the middle of it all, unharmed by the pesky skirmishes a distance away. We were holding the quadrant, waiting for the II Corps to come up at the rear for reinforcement then advancement for the final push against the numerous enemy --- the Stygots (a well-experienced lot of humans antsy for anysort of fighting). I studied our opponent carefully and to minute detail. Half of their contigent was formed of regular-uniformed soldiers. The other half was dispersed into various calvary, armor, and airforce divisions, not to mention a few marine-divisions.
I made my rounds of observation at the ugly landscape and issued an advance scout. I lead, ordering for my flanks (composed of twenty men each) to catch up in delays of ten-seconds.
I moved out, my marine-armor sulking out of my make-shift foxhole and cumbersomely catching toe to blocks of brick and grounds-of-mortar. My small squad followed and it took no more than a few steps for things to get rolling.
It started with one shot.
I dropped down, bending my knees and scanning the battlefield over the top of a heap of rubble. I looked around, "Who fired the shot? Who fired the shot?" None of my men appeared to know.
Then, off to my right flank I saw the heads of one of my men rise from the depths of rubble, "Mickey's DOWN!" he shouted before disappearing back into the blocky-grey.
"Oh Goddammit," I turned around and ordered for my medic and Assistant Sergeant to go over. "Yes, sir," they responded and climbed up and over the rubble, their bodies bobbing up and down as they made-way to the wounded. As they arrived safely to the rubble-hole I turned to my left, "Wilkins, Seymour, move up ten yards." They nodded and off they went.
I clicked my com-link and talked to my left flank, "Sergeant Brackens, did you see where the shot came from?"
The response was immediate, "No, sir."
"Sergeant move two men up---" Suddenly there was a loud pang in my ear and the com went to a muffled scatter of noises then silence.
I stood up immediately and shouted over, "Brackens!"
"He's hit!" One of the soldiers responded.
And then all hell broke loose.
Mortar and debris kicked up all around the top of the rubble --- the clouds of dust and spray so large I assumed heavy-machine gun fire.
I was correct. The 'brap-brap' chugging of a gun was laying into my position a good hundred meters away. My com filled with messages: "Brackens is dead!" "Boykins is dead!" "Villa's down! (Medic!)"
"Sonuvabitch," I stood up and scanned before quickly ducking my head down. "Two MGs, hundred meters down and fifty-meters apart."
"Troop?" One of my privates asked.
"A dozen or so." They all looked at me funny. "I'm sure there's more," I finished. A ricochet fell into our rubble-foxhole. I clicked my intercom and told my right flank to lay into the MGs for suppressing fire as my men moved up. As we went over the top I recognized my visual mistakes: there were at least thirty men across the battle-field, probably more coming, and there was a tank moving up from the rear, its sides flanked by two columns of un-armored infantry.
Running and gunning I moved to the middle of the field, surrounded by about seven men fit for combat (one man got tagged in the shoulder and fell next to me, another was drilled through the neck leaving his head on fleshy strings). I stood up and scanned again. The MGs opened up and I took flak to my suit, shots pinging off of it and one cracking my com-unit, mere centimeters from my jugular. The thing buzzed and died, its final cries overshadowed by superior forces. My men fell around me, "Sir, sir, you okay?" "Sir!" "Jack!" I looked at each one in the eye, giving each a personal documentary of my state. Content that they were content, I began to give orders.
"Tell the right and left flanks to advance. Assault-maneuvers, on-the-double." One of the men stood, waved a few hand signals to one side of the field, turned, waved a few to the other, then fell back into the rubble-hole. "Vickeo, hand me your radio." The man hustled over and turned his back to me. I took the radio off his shoulders and dropped it between my legs, settling my back into the rubble.
I dialed in.
"HQ 431, 3rd Platoon under heavy attack. Enemy forces numbering a hundred plus tank. I need air-support at..." I turned to Vickeo who finished writing on a piece of paper. He turned the paper to me, I continued my relay, "S-Z-45-X-2-10, over."
"Roger 3rd Platoon, HQ 431 has already spotted enemy forces. Correction: numbers equaling two-thousand, plus a tank-battalion. I repeat: heavy-armor heading to your sector. Air-support is already en-route, over."
I winced, then reluctantly picked the 'conversation' back up. But it was cut short in a orgy of shouting and gunfire.
"Enfilade, enfilade!" One of my men was pointing north-east towards a broken-building: an MG stood six-stories up and aiming his sights right into our rubble-hole.
"Move! Move!" The bullets riddled through the hole, snapping a man's leg in half and blowing the radio to bits right at my feet. I kicked and screamed, stood, and took off, unsure of my direction as an unsettling fog of debris and smoke encompassed the area. Trying to control my nerves I made my way through the battlefield when suddenly something hot and whining went screeching past, exploding and hurling me to the ground. I crawled a bit and tried to get a synopsis of the situation. The smoke was thick and making my observations weak and unreliable: I couldn't tell which side I was looking at.
"Sir! Sir! Over here!"
I looked behind me. Vickeo was waving his arms in the air, occasionally cupping them to his mouth and calling. I stood up and ran. He ducked away for a moment, then came back up, a group of men coming with him to offer covering fire. With their help I got across relatively safely, although not entirely free of enemy-aim (rubble and mortar kicked up around me, my suit pinged a few times, and I could hear a bevy of bullets whistle past).
"That tank is gonna tear us up!" One man screamed, firing a few pot-shots.
He was right: the tank was really laying it on thick with a set of machine-guns and giving plenty of work to its main cannon.
The enemy began to scream and whoop. "Sir, they're coming in!" I looked over the top of the rubble-hole and saw a row of about thirty men charging over. It's funny how the lack of fear in one causes total fear in another: the soldiers were totally commited to whatever cause they supported, or thought better for them to support. I lined my rifle up and began to fire. My men followed suit and my flanks began to fire as well. The row of men became cluttered and disorganized as a few fell into others while some simply fell out of line, dead. The dozen or so survivors fell upon us and us alone.
I clubbed one man across the chin with the butt of my rifle, shattering the gun. Using the rifle stock I whapped the next on-comer across the temple. He still insisted on coming at me so I beat him across the face a few times, bloodying his presentation into a mess of red and purple. The next man tried to stab me in the jugular but hit the back of the interior of my suit around my neck, losing the knife in the process (it bounced around my nape before falling out). I grabbed his wrist and broke it. He screamed as I pulled out my sidearm and put his cries to rest. The next attacker got his brains wrapped around a lead salad.
One of the final attackers was lucky enough to look down the barrel of an emptied pistol, the chamber locked in an awkward state. Devilishly, the man paused, looking as if he had just shit his pants, then smiled, a total shift in emotions. He then came at me in a monstorous frenzy, taking me to the ground and socking me in the jaw quite a few times before two of my men came up from behind and stabbed him repeatedly in the back with their combat knives. The assault taken care of I asked for a count.
Two of mine dead. Vickeo was face down, a drip of blood draining seemingly from his neck. Barggs, my field-assistant, had taken a horrific hit to the temple and was killed instantly. "More sir, more!"
I looked over the rubble and sighted another row of attackers, this time bringing an attack two-fold more numerous than the last.
------
"Wait wait, you were in the Smensky Offensive?" Ian seemed faintly interested now. Earlier, at the start of my little talk, he seemed unsettling low in his attention --- as if he was hearing what he has already experienced. I wasn't offended, it's a common thing when war becomes the center of life in such a short time. However, given the unveiling of my story, Ian was sitting straight up and keen with his hearing. "I heard all about that. The center fell apart and the Arcane Stygots broke through and routed the entire army in one fell swoop. So you were that center?" I nodded. Funny-enough I wasn't too grim with my expression. The past was the past, I figured, nothing I could do about it but discuss its woes.
"I was the very center. I had a platoon of about fifty men, half-strength stuff."
Ian nodded. I continued, "There was supposed to be four battalions of artillery at the rear in case of an attack. They showed up, the artillery, but never grounded-themselves nor set their sights. The whole thing was one big fuck-up. The air-strike I called in was the only thing that came out right. Had about four 'craft swoop in and just tear up this line of Stygots rushing over to take over our positions. The air' stuck around for awhile, keeping the attackers at bay. During that time I regrouped and fell back. Set claymores all over my prior-position and took up a spot fifty-meters back."
"Your communications, they were out, right?"
"Right."
"So how did you relay all your commands?"
I smiled, stretching my face into an almost horrid-looking grin, "Why I gave the orders myself."
------
The ground-support planes finished their runs, having laid waste to the would-be attackers. As the smoke drifted about, shielding my platoon's movements, I began to bark out orders. "You!" I pointed to a man next to me, "Signal for mine-fall-back." The man nodded, slung a backpack off his shoulder and began shoveling out claymores and assorted explosives. I stood up, surveying the smoke to make sure the enemy couldn't blow me and my assurance away. Figuring the smoke good enough a mask I went over the top of the rubble and headed towards my left flank.
They were a mess. Four men remaining, every single one of the others was dead.
One man, half-crying, was pressing his palm into his thigh. He saw me, and, not in the least bit surprised at my sudden appearance, told me what happened, "Fucking sniper tore us up, sir. Tagged four of us before we even knew that he was even there. He's gone now --- we basically levelled his position in that building yonder, " the man nodded behind him. A close building looked rather ordinary to all the other half-destroyed structures, beside a solitary window peppered with bullet holes.
"Alright, that's alright," I spoke soothingly --- the men looked very scared. "We're preparing a mine-fall-back. Get your claymores and set 'em up. Make sure you have them facing the right way." I had seen one man fuck-up his claymore-facing, and that's one too many for me. "And cover them up, don't want the enemy throwing them back at us or anything, alright?" They all nodded. I hung around for awhile, observing the men and the area, "Okay, get to it." And then I was off.
I passed over the center of my platoon-line and went straight to the right flank. The men were in a little better shape. Worse for the wear, of course, but the casualties counted to two dead and no wounded. "Mine-fall-back, got it?" They all nodded and went right to it. I watched them for a little bit and, right before I took off, I saw a young-looking man salute me. I gave him a short-salute back and then sprinted off, myself a little frightened.
"Down-hill" was not what I thought it to be. The true meaning of the word hit me when, as we were falling back, one of the mine's went off as a soldier was setting it. Flecks of debris (flesh? bone?) sprinkled onto my suit. I tilted my head to a side, all hearing gone. I looked to my left and saw a man flutter to the ground, leg-less. Another man screeched and squealed as he bustled out of the rubble-hole grasping his face as it melted between his fingers. My hearing rang and the world shook and one of my privates was talking to me.
"Sir, we've lost our right flank."
A man screamed and sprinted to the enemy lines, an arm missing causing his jog to be a little unnatural --- the arm-less disappeared into the smog, the sillouhette vanishing like a teasing mirage.
I turned to the private, recognized his face, and addressed him so: "Private Mooney, fall back."
We continued our cherade of an "organized" retreat. The smoke that gave us cover was dissipitating and losing its effect. A there was a loud pank followed by a spray of metal and blood from one of my marine's suits. "I'm hit!" He called out, struggling to keep his run. "Keep moving!" I grossly depleted the strength of my throat, "Keep moving!" The bullets were pouncing at our heels. A soldier fell, word-less bar the 'splash'. We got where I destined us to go and immediately took to a prone position. A wall of rubble shielded us from the hail of lead.
I gazed over the cover and saw the enemy converging onto our previous position. "Everybody, heads down!" I prepped the detonator, flipping a small and resistant switch. "Heads down!" I yelled again and pushed the detonator. The explosion was convincing: screams, automatic responses from their instantaneously-dead masters (perhaps just the whistling their gaping mouths made as they soared through the air), limbs and body parts, tails of shirts and pants, quite a few helmets, and a thick red-and-grey smog to envelop it all.
After taking in the massacre I had orchestrated I stood and began firing into the smoke, "Fire-at-will!" My men started blowing their magazines into the smog, unsure if they were actually hitting anything.
------
"Sounds like you did alright to me," Ian interrupted.
I nodded, "I did. My men believed I did as well. I think everyone believed I did, but that is not the point. The point, Ian, was that I was apart of a major retreat, a major rout, in fact. My platoon was decimated, we barely got out alive, our only cover being the occasional aircraft to keep the enemy stalled while the entire front just fell back, amazed that defeat was on us, that defeat was something we smelled between the gore and heard under the hellish screams and cries. Hell, Ian, the point was, in the end, for people to take the fall. When defeats happen on such grand-scales people stack up their mud-reserves and begin slinging it. I was just one of the many to get hit. I wasn't actually booted from the army entirely, just busted to private. No quarrels from me, although the four survivors of my platoon put up a short protest before being dispersed among other army-companies for the counter-attack.
"Myself, I spent a few months driving supply trucks around. I guess the army needed soldiers, though, and relocated me to the front."
Our talks went silent. The story just goes back to being 'normal' from there, really, and we both knew it.
Eventually we both came to the conclusions of our mutual exhaustion. The adrenaline that came into us with our first-encounter began to have its effects as our bodies fell into drained-stupors. I brought the chairs together and slept in them, my legs strung out over one chair and my body filling up the space of the other. Ian slept on a tiny cot in another room.
Sleep came quickly as if an invisible hand laid my eyes to rest and I could not help but succumb to its mystical powers. That or I was just faced.
------
I awoke to find myself shivering, swamped in a cold-sweat. I quickly clambered out of my 'bed' and winced as my back whined and my knees popped. Ian was up, moving about in the other room, the kitchen, I think. I slowly made my way over, landing myself into the wall and making my way across it to the kitchen's yawning. "Hey, Ian I need a blanket ---" I looked up to find somebody else was in the house. The man, all sorts of pans in hand, widened his eyes and dropped his load. He was wearing a torn sweater and had a bundle of clothing about him. A scavenger. He retrieved a pistol from his bevy of apparel and levelled its aim towards me. "Whoa, wait!" He fired.
The bullet blew a hole through my coller-bone. I didn't even have a chance to cry out as he squeezed the trigger again and again. With every bullet there was a sudden pain, then a moment of utter peace. I felt blood coming up my pipes as my body fell into the kitchen counter. I tried to cling to it but my hands were covered with something slippery and I went down. My back-pains suddenly became simple in their strikes. He finished his clip off and wildly sheathed the pistol. He moved left and right, indecision all-over his goddam face. Eventually he picked up two pans and then moved towards my body. I could feel his hands going at my feet, taking my boots off.
"Hey..." I reached my arm out to him. My spine felt hot and burnt-out. The blood that ran down it wasn't felt by its motions but by its risen-heat. I smelt smoke.
He slapped my hand away and whined some protest to my resisting (how ironic).
"Shh, shh," his face came to mine. He had a finger pressed into his cracked and torn lips.
"Hey!" A voice. My head rolled to a side, facing the bottom of the kitchen counter. I counted cob-webs and timed how the line of events unfolded to my ears.
The man scrambled away. "Hey!" A gunshot. My feet tightened to the blast. The man who had robbed me of my damn shoes seemed to have collapsed then recovered and ran out into the streets. At a distance the shouts of Ian and then the shouts of guns wailed about the rooms and echoed their ways into my dying ears. It seemed to be an hour before Ian's footsteps resonated back into the room.
He was swearing. Swearing enough to make a sailor stand-straight, in fact.
"Sonuvabitch, sonuva bitch," he limped his way towards me and fell to my side. "He plugged me, Jack, fucker plugged me good --- holy shit! Jack! You've been hit!"
How could he not know? How in-the-fuck could this man not know? He heard the goddam gunshots. Was it because I never cried out? I tried, Ian, I really tried, but the fool just kept shooting me. He got me bad, real bad.
"Jack, Jesus, he diced you up good."
Good?
Ian turned me over and observed my wounds. He saw all that needed to be see and then left. I wondered if he had really left. I lay, in wonder of Ian's morals, of Ian's emotional-control. My presumed calculations failed me:
Ian returned. He pushed cloths into my wounds. My pump chested into the air, not even to my control, just human reaction. It's funny when we humans get hit. We seem to be over-dramatic, maybe even to the point of being melo-dramatic. But you know what I have come to find out? We can't help it. We just can't help it. I wondered if Ruger ever experienced this, the gung-ho bastard. My chest convulsed and skipped in a gory fashion, spurting blood where blood was still left. I felt so cold.
The ironies were killing me.
I tried to speak and failed. I realized there was a bubble of blood in my throat and it was choking me. I coughed it out and Ian mis-took my actions and began to cry. I now spoke, "Ian, it's okay. I'm alright." He didn't even hear me. I don't know if I'd say he was being selfish but it sure felt like he was being --- I was the one who got the morning wake-up call.
"Hey..." I tried to get his attention. He wouldn't pay his attention even if I gave him a screaming-dollar. I realized that maybe this wasn't the first time something like this had happened to Ian. Maybe I wasn't some spectacular 'first' for Ian. Maybe I was the second, third, person to die right in front of him and he being the only witness.
I would die alone.
I felt tears but wasn't sure if they were really coming out. It was so strange. Ian was crying into my bloody-guts and I was crying but not really knowing if I was crying. Death wasn't so bad I guess, so long as it left me in the dark which it began to do. The spots at the edges of my vision bloomed then withered away. I wondered when they would begin the final assault, clearing all things colorful and making way to the center of all that I could see. A few of them began to bloat and burst, black lines pulsating over all.
I closed my eyes: never have liked suspense.
What was it? Seconds? A minute?
Too long.