A/N Wow, I normally never write this fast, but I guess I was inspired. I have ta say, I always love the stories about Luke and his Marine history, so I decided to add a little of that in my story.
After this chapter it might take me a week to get the next one up, cause school's starting again and I am sooo busy. But I hope this one will get you through the week... Also, a big thanx to all my reviewers, you keep me writing guys! So thank you, you know who you are. Now let's git it on again! Enjoy...

9

"It happened in the last months of my service. We were under attack at the end of the afternoon. They were everywhere, we never had a chance. And after that last hit… My ears were ringing so bad, I couldn't have told ya what was up or down, left or right. The minute I regain my senses, I see Henry being hauled of by the Vietcong. As I ran to him some of them grabbed me from behind. They put somethin over my head so I was blindfolded and they bound my hand and feet tagether. Later on I found out two other soldiers from my platoon had been imprisoned as well. The walk through the jungle was terrible, it was dark, the only thing we heard was the thundering sound of mines and gunfire in the distance and the buzzing of insects. I stumbled so many times I lost count. But they were relentless, pullin us up by our wrists, dragging us when our legs refused."

Luke fell silent for a minute, breathing shallow breaths as fire spread itself through his chest with each and every breath.
Bo saw how he was focusing on those breaths, but remained silent, waiting for the rest of the story he knew was to come. He still jumped a little when Luke started talking again, his voice raspy…

"I heard him scream before the shot was fired. God, it felt so close, I thought it was me," he continued, eyes moving towards the sky as if he could see all the answers there.
"I couldn't see a thing, but I heard everything. I heard the bullet enter a body, I heard the thump his body made when he hit the ground. I heard him whimper when he found out the bullet didn't kill him. And I heard who he was. There was so much fear in his voice, it paralyzed me." Rubbing a hand over his eyes, Luke moved on, "I'd talked to him that morning, he had been with us for two months, and he was young. God Bo, he was just eighteen."

Bo didn't say Luke had been just three years older at the time. But he knew what his cousin meant. Nausea filled his stomach as he thought of the fears him, Daisy and uncle Jesse had had at that time. This story would probably prove them right… He focused his attention back on Luke again, who had kept on talking.

"Michael Guerin, born an' raised in Roswell New Mexico. He showed me pictures of his girl that mornin', tellin me how he was gonna see her again when he returned. But when I heard that shot, I knew: Michael wouldn't see her again. The second shot came two seconds after the first, and I swear even the insects stopped makin noise. Everything was so quiet I could hear my own heart poundin. And then I heard Henry yellin at them to take of his blindfold. A small thump got him to keep his mouth for a while."

"After that, we started walking again, or stumblin as we called it. I guess they left Michaels body in the jungle, cause when we entered their camp, he was gone. They took off our hoods and threw us in some sort of prison."

A shudder went through Luke as he remembered the time he spent in that shack. He almost decided against telling Bo, but he needed to know, or he wouldn't understand…

"It was small, probably as big as our room at the farm. It was crowded with people, most of them soldiers. But ya couldn't even recognise em, they didn't look like people anymore. It was dark in there, but somehow we could see everything. The bodies, cold and empty, the injured men, holdin amputated body parts against them, willin the pain away, the moans went on and on. And the smell… It smelt like rottin flesh and human fluids. The first night all I did was gag and throw up." Luke shook his head, as if he was clearing it from the smell that had invaded his nostrils again.

"I guess we were lucky, seein as we only had ta stay there for a week. But it was the hardest week of my life. At least, I thought so."

Bo, seeing the anguish on his cousin's face knew this had to be hard on him, remembering that time in his life. A time he himself had spent in Hazzard, missing his cousin, but going on with his life, going to school and chasing after girls.

"Luke, if ya don't want to tell me, I understand…" he began, but Luke cut him off.

"No, I need ta tell someone Bo. I never told anyone this story. Cause I thought… I thought, maybe if I never told anyone I could pretend it never happened."

Bo nodded again, seeing how this could help his cousin. He remained silent as to encourage Luke to finish his tale.

"When they took us out of that prison, Max, the other soldier, was already gone. The fever got to him and he was gone within a few days. Just withered away. And all we could do was leave him there. We just left him in that place, between all the bodies and body parts. God, I don't even know what kinds of animals lived in there. I do know they crawled all over us, and the bodies.." Luke laughed a humourless and painful laugh which came out as a sob, "Let's just say there was probably nothin left after a couple of weeks. But it wasn't over.. Somehow they discovered me and Henry were from an important platoon, so they decided to give us the special treatment. And that wasn't a good kind a special. We were both put in small cages. They were so small, all you could do was sit in them, hunched over. But worst of all, they were standin in the middle of the jungle. In the day it would get so hot I passed out a couple of times. It was almost unbearable. But the nights…"

Bo kept his eyes firmly planted on the pale face of his cousin and one hand resting on his arm. He could almost feel Luke's fears as he was there, in the middle of the jungle in a small cage, surrounded by insects and enemies. He swallowed hard, knowing the worst was probably yet to come.

"The nights were so bad I thought death would be better. The darkness was overwhelming, it covered us like a blanket so thick it made it hard to breath. Things crawled on us, they even nibbled at us. At first we yelled, and shook them off. But after three weeks out there, we were so exhausted we just let them. We let them eat at us, no matter how it hurt. It was like… Like we didn't even feel it anymore."

"The worst part was the loneliness. No one came to us. They only left little cups of rice and water once a day. We only had each other, and we used that to keep our sanity. We talked, 'bout everything, day an' night. I probably know more 'bout Henry than his own family did.
At the end of the third week Henry was tellin me 'bout his uncle in Tennessee when I felt a sharp sting in my bare foot. I almost didn't feel it, but when Henry started yellin "Snake!" I looked down," A dry cough ran through Luke's body, but he swallowed it down. He was finishing this story even it cost him his lung.

"The little critter had already made it's way across my pants leg to our food, but two little holes just above my ankle told me another story…"

Bo gasped, as a country boy he knew how dangerous snakes could be. But, despite his deep curiosity, he kept silent, listening as Luke kept talking.

"A few minutes later I was shakin like I never had before. It was morning so the temperature was already pretty high. But I was so cold… The next few days are nothin but a blur ta me. Henry told me how I kept talkin 'bout Hazzard and Roscoe chasin me. All I remember is feelin cold all the time and wanting ta give up. I really wanted ta die back then. Anything to stop the pain and misery."

Silence flowed through the forest, leaving that statement hanging in the air, while Bo let it sink in. Even the wolves had backed down for a second, looking up with a strange type of curiosity in their eyes.

"After a few days I became a little more coherent, well, coherent enough ta see them take Henry away. They questioned him, over and over. Every time he came back, he had more bruises and broken body parts. And one time…"

All of a sudden Bo made the connection. It had been there, in the back of his head, but now Luke told him all of this he remembered something.

"Luke? Henry never came back did he? They made 'em disappear didn't they?"

Luke had a far away look in his eyes, remembering those final days in captivity as if it happened yesterday. Bo was right, Henry never came back, but he didn't disappear. Luke knew what had happened ta him.

"He uhh… He did come back, just… They brought him back the final mornin, dead. I couldn't do anything, just sit there, with my foot twice as big as normal and turnin purple an' blue. They threw him down in front of my cage, as some sort of sick message I think. And the moment one of them opened my cage, probably ta question me, I heard it. Gunfire and explosions, making the world shake, and causing our captors to turn and fight them.

I'd never been so glad to hear those things. They'd come for us. I turned towards Henry, and after seein his empty eyes somethin snapped. I still don't know how I did it, I was weaker then a newborn puppy, but somehow I dug a hole, not even that deep but deep enough. And I buried him. I buried my friend. It was the last thing I could do for him, the only respect I could show him…" his voice trailed off.

Looking at his older cousin, Bo saw the tear tracks on his cheeks, and he felt his heart constrict in his chest. He had no idea… No idea of the horrors his cousin had been through. He knew the dangers of the war, but not that his cousin had been so close… so close to never coming back. Through all these thoughts he formed a sentence,

"Who rescued ya?"

Luke looked up, almost forgetting that his cousin was still here. He had been living those moments again, just like he did in his nightmares, he relived them, over and over and over…

"Men from my platoon, together with other platoons. They killed every captor they came across, and when they found me they thought I was already dead. I couldn't form a sentence, let alone words. All I could do was look up at the shadows hoverin over me, as I was lyin on the ground next to the place I had buried Henry. I must have lost it though, cause when I woke up I was in a field hospital, tied to a bed."

"They tied ya to a bed?" Bo asked, eyes wide in shock, "Why would they do somethin like that? he asked.

Luke heaved a small sigh, instantly reminded of the spreading fire in his chest. All that talking wasn't doing him much good.

"Seems I made quite a fuss when they brought me there. Even with my injured leg I tried ta escape every chance I got. And then they'd find me outside huddled in a corner, sleepin. My leg needed ta be elevated, so they tied me down to keep me in bed. They untied me when I woke up," he added as an afterthought. "After one month in that bed, I got the call that I was ta go home again…" he finished, wiping the tears he hadn't even noticed falling, from his cheeks.

"So that's where that limp you had came from," Bo said out loud, thinking back to the time when they had picked Luke up from the bus station. His cousin had limped a little back then, but it had disappeared a few weeks after his return.

Luke nodded, seeing how things fell into place by the look on Bo's face.

"I'm glad you held on cuz. You kept yur promise to us…" Bo said, wanting Luke to know how he felt about it.

Luke looked up from his pondering, smiling a little. "I'm glad I held on too. Ya know I never break a promise."

The two cousins sat in silence again, as they were both thinking back to that time of their life. How it had changed them and formed them to the way they were now. Luke remembered Henry and how he had pulled him through it all, and silently he thanked him, for giving him the strength to make his way back. Back to his family, his home.

Leaning his head against the rough bark he felt the coolness against his forehead which was getting increasingly sweaty. Drops were pouring down his face, covering the tracks his tears had made only moment ago. The pain in his chest was growing, thumping steadily as it clawed itself a way to the inside further and further. Every shallow breath felt like thousands of needles piercing through his lung so he tried to breathe as little as possible…

"You still afraid of darkness?" Bo asked, noticing his cousin sag a little.

Luke turned weary eyes to Bo, wondering why the edges were turning grey. The sound of Bo's voice was getting far away, as the grey edges made their way to the middle of his vision. Afraid of the dark?

"No," came the soft reply, before he lost all feeling in his body, letting himself fall into that never-ending darkness…

Bo saw him slide away from him, saw his eyes roll into the back of his head, he even saw his mouth form the word "No", before he saw his older cousin, his role model, his brother, slide off of the branch they were sitting on, plummeting to the ground below, where the hungry wolves were waiting…

Oooohhh boy, now that don't look to good. Ya think the boys can find themselves a way outta that one? They sure know how to keep me on the edge a my seat…