Ron's Worst Nightmares
Shit on the Soul
By Pat Squared
Ron lit up another cigarette.
Looking at the Surgeon General's warning, Ron scoffed. At the rate he was getting hurt, living long enough to enjoy lung cancer or congestive heart failure was less probable than the President of the United States throwing a free crack party in the White House for all the crack cocaine junkies in Washington D.C.
He remembered the first time he smoked a cigarette. It was one of Mrs. Stoppable's menthol brands. He remembered being caught, whipped by Mr. Stoppable with an extension cord, and forced to smoke a big old stogie.
He remembered puking his guts out.
He took in another drag.
What good is a future if you have no one to share it with?
He remembered his old buddy Felix. Paralyzed from the waist down, Felix managed to find love with Tara of all people. Felix was now an associate editor/writer for Zone of Gamers and would invite Ron to play the first person shooters. Now Ron was in the ultimate first person shooter, save for the fact that there are no cheat codes for this game.
Carefully, Ron placed the French claymore mine that he recovered from the sewers so that it covered the door. He rigged another claymore past the door shooting back towards his position. Both devices were tied to the same radio detonator and carefully camouflaged so the enemy would not know they were in a kill zone until they arrived at the gates of hell.
Vasilii never had a goofy smile. That was Ron's defensive mechanism. Act dull and no one would expect much. Vasilii was anything but dull. His smiles were twisted and would just stop short of the eyes.
Mr. Murphy once stated that whatever can go wrong will go wrong at the most inopportune time. Mr. O'Toole made the observation that Murphy was a bloody optimist. It was this force of chaos the both Ron and Vasilii subconsciously exploited.
The Ron Factor was simple. Jinx your opposition. Make them underestimate you and Murphy's Law would always bite your foes in the ass.
Today, he would ensure that the French would underestimate the marines.
Andre Ambler was monitoring enemy radio traffic.
The Americans were in Verdun. Unlike World War I, the France would not hold the enemy here. This was merely the first speed bump on a line of speed bumps designed to tax American logistics. All Verdun was is a jab to stun the opponent and set him up for the knock-out.
Contrary to the propaganda, Andre knew that the Americans were no pushovers. They were simply better trained and better supplied than the legionnaire tasked with bloodying the American here.
The warehouse was packed with homemade fuel air explosive gel. When let off, there was enough explosive to generate a mushroom could and destroy the city. It would look like someone dropped an atomic bomb. It was powerful enough to destroy the logistics base that the American would certainly set up in Verdun.
The mission was simple. Prepare the mushroom cloud, get out of town, let the Americans occupy the town and set up a logistics base, and then serve one mushroom cloud.
Slowing Andre turned the dial sampling the frequencies. Mostly all he heard was static. However there was always signal leakage and using the RDF, Andre could pin down the location of the Americans.
"Tramp Actual to all Tramps. Tramp Actual to all Tramps. There's sign of enemy activity in sewer underneath Garibaldi Avenue near the Hotel Les Colombes. Request two fire teams to start sealing off sewers."
Andre knew that it was time to flee. The sewers underneath Garibaldi was the primary escape route. If they did not move quickly, the enemy would seal off all the exits.
He quickly reported the intelligence to his company commander. Within two minutes, everyone was grabbing their weapons and gear. Andre activated the 96-hour fuse on the detonators. Now everyone had 88 to 104 hours to get out of town.
The eighty six legionnaires filed out the subbasement door and headed down the secondary escape route.
Two loud explosions and a mist of blood, told Andre that he was in the middle of a kill zone. Andre was knocked downed and he tried to rise. Failing that, he switched off the safety on his FAMAS and started firing. Within two seconds, the twenty five-round magazine was empty. He felt light-headed and could hardly concentrate on the task of reloading his weapon.
He felt something slam into him and a burning within his flesh. He knew that he was hit. He knew that he was a fish in a bucket trying to evade being tonight fillet.
The last thing he saw was the muzzle flashes from the American ambush.
Slaughter was an understatement.
Part of Ron wanted to say Booyah! However Booyah and Badical were terms to describe the good things in life. Converting eighty-six men into sausage was not suppose to be a good thing.
Yet Ron felt like he slain the dragoon, rescue the damsel in distress, won an all expense paid trip to Disneyworld, and was vote Prom King of Middleton High.
Ron took a deep breath taking in the acidic coppery taste of spilt blood into his lungs. He lit another cigarette and waited for the NCO's to give him an idea of the friendly body count. Today was a victory. However it came at a great price, five marines were wounded, one of them had no hope.
Ron walked up to the dying marine. Jose Raphael was a young father who joined up to support a family and get college money. Now he was dying. Ron squatted and handed the dying marine his cigarette. He wanted to tell Jose that there was a heaven, but how can one believe in heaven when all Ron ever seen was hell. Jose was gasping for his final breath like a fish gasps out of the water. Ron witnessed the death throes of the young marine.
Victory had a smell. Burnt cordite, the acid coppery smell of blood, the ammonia scent of urine, and shit – They all told a story that would never grace any history book. Ron took in a deep breath of Victory and hated it.
He looked at the bodies of the enemy. The only difference between victory and defeat was that in victory your sacrifices meant something. The enemy all lost their lives for nothing.
It was time for the marines to start house cleaning. Bodies had to be thorough checked for intelligence. Ron had to ensure that the enemy left no booby-traps. Ron called over his platoon and everyone had to dig into the pile of blood, guts, flesh, and shit. Victory meant that the winner would have to clean the shit off their hands before they eat tonight. Too bad you never got it out of your soul.