by Pj Belanger
above his head. I slammed the rustic entranceway shut.
“For Christ sake, we have only one more month!” I roared at him. “For god’s sake keep it together. Think of your mother.” It was the only relative he had ever mentioned.
He bellowed with laughter, rolling on the filthy floor, “Yeah, the old bitch would just love to collect my funeral pay.” He sat against the wall brushing the garbage off himself. “I’m gonna kill the first officer I see. The lying bastards!”
I slunk back on my cot. “You ain’t gonna do that. If we make it out of here, we’re heading to the first bar we can find and get stinkin drunk.” Of course it would be after I called my little girl, when they would give our call cellbuttons back. I had missed her fourth birthday. I cried the whole day when I had crossed it off the calendar that hung by my bed. I wondered if my wife and little girl also cried the day of my birthday. I hoped so but my mind just grabbed onto the morose idea that they had celebrated it without tears, if they remembered it at all.
That was the worst part of being here, your mind not only atrophied but it grabbed onto the worse thoughts that it could think. “You know you’d think they would have warned us to bring something to read,” although I didn’t know anyone who owned an actual paper book. “Goddamn them!” I spat. Our commanders had not said a word other than we could not bring our tabloids or cells. We were allowed to bring nothing but the basic supplies along with our uniforms and guns.
“I remember our Captain Abab had commented that everything we needed would be in the cabin.” Lars eyes seemed to shine in the coming darkness. I realized it was because he was crying and the moisture was reflecting the last rays of light. His voice cracked when he continued, “Captain Abab even laughed when I questioned him. Our bastard Commander said it would be a restful six months - the son of a bitch.”
“Fucking son of a bitch,” I echoed. “Now we know why they made us sign a non-disclosure contract. We can’t talk to anyone but higher-ups about this mission.”
“Shit, they can’t keep me silent.” Lars half yelled it. “I’m friggin going to scream what they did to us to the whole universe.”
“They’ll put you in the brig,” I reminded him, although I strongly agreed. Would my family wait for me if I went to jail? My morose brain thoughts said they wouldn’t.
We had been briefed before we left. We would be replacing two other soldiers, privates like us. They always screwed the lower guys. Never find a Captain here doing his turn, only dumb-ass newly recruited privates. The Captain explained the importance of the mission. We needed a presence on this planet or the Bassodian lizards would claim it. For Christ sake, what the hell for? Give the reptilian species the whole goddamn place. The giant lizards would probably fit right in with the huge spiders, the humongous boars and large boa constrictors.
“We are caught in a friggin planet grab,” I told my roommate. “Rumor has it that the sphere engineers put this planet here and we got to it before the other species could claim it. I heard the Bassodians were really pissed off. Know how much it must have cost them to get this planet engineered?”
“Who cares?” Lars was still sitting with his back to the wall by the door. “It’s a damn hell hole. Let them have it! It’s obviously engineered for them, not for us humans!”
I nodded my head in agreement but it was getting too dark for him to see it. “Let’s light the lantern. I’m sick of being in the dark,” I told him.
“Yeah, we had enough sun to have charged it,” Lars replied. “Sure you want to do that? What about the Great Beast?” I could see his face now that I’d put the lantern on. “You’re the one so scared.”
“I ain’t scared!” I sneered at him, Marines don’t get scared. It bothered me that he thought me a coward. “I just don’t want to draw them to us but it’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve heard the beasts and they only come late at night. We’ll shut the light off before then.”
“Fine.” Lars got up and went back to lying on his cot. I went to get our suppers. I counted the remaining MREs. The Meals Ready to Eat had sixty meals left; just enough to when we were supposed to be picked up. Wasn’t it a good sign? They would have given us more if they planned to leave us here longer than the time we’d volunteered for. Wasn’t it? My mind laughed at me, from the recess of my brain came a sneer. Keep thinking that, you fool, it told me.
We ate in our usual silence. I didn’t even know what it was we were having. They all seemed to taste the same. I even splurged a little giving us each a good sized glass of water. The water had a slight metallic taste but it still seemed heavenly.
I awoke to a thunderous shaking. We both had fallen asleep! It was late by the only clock that was by the kitchen table. It told me it was way past midnight. I felt the whole cabin shake. Lars rolled out of his cot and pounced on the light knocking it over but it didn’t go out. He scrambled onto his knees grabbing it, finally shutting it off but not before I saw the terror on his face.
I froze. Dread overwhelmed me as I felt the pounding of large feet coming closer. I must have sobbed because Lars shouted for me to shut up. My hands were shaking as the immense footfalls came closer. “It’s going to crush us!” I gasped over to where I thought Lars was.
“Shut up!” he hoarsely croaked as the whole cabin seemed to be coming apart. I actually felt my body rise and fall with the footsteps of the Great Beast. Lars had rolled over to me, shoving me under my cot. Overhead, the roof seemed to shudder as something heavy was dragged across it.
“Get near the wall.” His voice was wheezing for air. I felt him roll next to me. The shaking of the room increased. The room exploded with a large roar that seemed to be right on top of us. I put my hands over my ears as another bellow reverberated. I was going to die on this forsaken place and for what? So that the federation could land-grab a piece of shit!
I realized the roaring seemed not to be on top of us anymore but was now a distance away. The room shook less and less as the monster’s footsteps receded. I was still alive! In the pitch dark under the cot we couldn’t see what damage had been done.
“Quiet!” Lars said softly, “It could come back. Don’t make a move!”
So we lay under the cot waiting for the return of the footsteps but none came. I don’t know when we fell asleep but the graying light of the room awakened me. The smell hit me as Lars, who was sleeping naked was entwined with me, his head resting on my arm. I pushed him off me. “Christ, you smell bad!” I moaned. My body felt like I’d done ten rounds in a boxing fight with the champion of the base camp.
A thick layer of dust lay on everything. It covered the shit on the floor in a brownish rust layer - like a blanket. It actually made the place look better. “Shit, that was close,” I said standing up brushing my clothes off. To my relief we still had a cabin but the roof was in need of patching. Several holes, though not very large, were letting us see the clouded sky.
Suddenly I was seeing a face peering in one of the larger of the roof holes. The native face was painted in mostly white stripes with red circles around his eyes. Lars saw him too. He dove for his rifle that he’d carelessly sent across the floor yesterday. I watched helplessly as the face disappeared and an arm with a bow and arrow pointed down at me.
Crap, I survived the monster’s attack only to be killed by a small midget human being. I tried to move but the arrow moved with me. I heard Lars rifle go off. The rat tat tat sounded as loud as the damn Great Beast of last night. “You son of a bitches,” my roommate sprayed the whole roof but only the lone arrow shooter seemed to be up there.
The native fell to our grimy floor, his chest and face had been torn open by the bullets. We both stared at the dead man, both of us stunned into silence by the gruesome sight. “I, I think he’s dead,” I finally managed to get out sounding like an idiot.
“You think!” was Lars’ only comment. Still, Lars poked him with his rifle. He was a small man with absolutely no hair on his body. He was a male but there was no indication of a
ge. For all we knew he could have been a kid. I cringed at the thought. I shuddered at the thought, although if it weren’t for Lars, this small humanoid would have shot me dead. I walked over to the bow and arrow that had fallen with him.
“It’s got a red feather, think this is our shooter?” I reached down pulling off the matching red feather from the man’s twine-type necklace that had been strung around his neck.
“Yeah, looks it.” Lars checked the man’s small skirt type covering that had just protected his privates. “What are we going to do with him?”
“Should we bury him?” I looked down at our enemy, five months of shooting arrows, keeping us inside. I should have felt more hate but I only felt numbness at the senselessness of it all.
“You and your goddamn pagan ideas.” Lars poked him again, “Drag him outside, let the animals have him. I’ll cover you.” He holstered the rifle bringing it up to his shoulder.
“I just thought…” I wanted him to understand that this was still a human being.
“That’s the problem, you think too much. Come on, I’ll help you get him to the door.” He grabbed one arm and I grabbed the other. We slowly opened the door and peeked out. No arrows came from the woods. I grabbed the man’s shoulders and dragged him. Lars had his gun pointed at
