by William Oday
He shoved a thick thumb under her chin and tilted her head back. His tongue extended like a snake’s. He leaned over and slithered it over the tops of her breasts and up her neck.
He couldn’t do this to Holly! He couldn’t!
“Stop it! Why are you doing this?”
Theresa wanted to claw his eyes out and she was a hair’s breadth away from trying.
Cesar pointed the pistol at her.
The hole in the end looked big enough to swallow her whole. It looked big enough to swallow everything she’d ever known. She couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to miss the last few seconds of her life.
“Like it?” he asked. He turned the huge gun in his hand. The chromed surface caught the light as it moved. “Desert Eagle Mark Nineteen, fifty caliber. Polished piece of beauty. Does massive damage. But you know that.”
He waited for Theresa to respond.
She didn’t. She couldn’t. Fear froze her solid. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move.
Cesar set the pistol on the table and picked up a rolled joint fat as a cigar. He picked up a Zippo and lit the tip. The paper caught and crackled. He drew in a deep breath and the tip glowed orange.
After an endless inhale, he stepped toward Theresa and blew out a hot, rank cloud directly in her face.
The acrid stink caught in her throat. She coughed and hacked. Tears welled up in her eyes. From the smoke or blind terror, she couldn’t tell.
“You’re at my house,” Cesar said. He held the smoldering joint in front of Theresa. “Be a good guest.”
Theresa stared at the offering, racking her thoughtless brain for a way to say no that he might accept.
“No thanks. I’m trying to quit.”
Lame. It came out before she could stop it.
Cesar raised his brow at Evil and smiled.
“I wasn’t asking.”
He pushed the wrinkled paper between her lips and let his other hand rest on the silver pistol.
“Deep breaths. Show me you mean it.”
Theresa sucked in and the fat tip glowed orange and crackled as hot smoke filled her lungs. She immediately doubled over, hacking and coughing.
The three gang members laughed.
“That was a skinny white girl hit,” Cesar said as he turned to Holly. “Let me show you how a girl with curves does it.” He wrapped a muscled arm around Holly and pulled her close.
Her wide eyes followed the crackling blunt. Cesar brought it to his lips. He drew in an enormous volume of air. His already large chest expanded half again. A half inch of paper burned away as he pulled on it.
Finally full, he passed it to Cuts and turned to Holly. He grabbed her jaw and squeezed until her mouth opened. He forced his mouth onto hers and exhaled.
She struggled to pull away but his iron grip held fast. His breath filled her lungs. Filled them until gray smoke billowed out her nostrils. Her eyes rolled up into her head. And still more smoke blew out her nose.
She collapsed in his arms and he finally pulled away. Her head lolled back. He yanked her top down, spilling her bare breasts out. He squeezed them roughly and bent down to suck on her nipples.
Theresa wanted to bite his face off. The room spun and her belly did a sickening flop.
He ran his thick tongue over her exposed breasts, up her neck, over her jaw, and shoved it between her unresponsive lips.
“Now that’s a hit,” Evil said with a laugh.
Holly didn’t react. She was completely zoned.
Theresa wanted to scream, but her body seemed so far away. It all seemed so far away. Maybe it needed to be.
The distance might be the only way she’d survive.
48
November 2004
Fallujah, Iraq
MASON gulped down some water from his hydration pack. He looked at the fading daylight filtering through the black smoke that hung over the city. How much longer could they keep at it? They were all beyond exhausted.
They were the walking dead.
He scratched his face and wondered at how odd three days growth felt. Had it only been three days? It seemed impossible. It felt like a hundred years.
Third squad made its way up the street, heading back north. Reports came in that the muj had backfilled previously cleared neighborhoods to the north. So they had the aggravating mission of going back over liberated ground to ensure they wouldn’t get surprised from behind.
Evidence of previous battles was everywhere. Houses and buildings flattened to heaps of rubble. Craters in the road where IEDs or bombs had hit. An old Toyota truck halfway down the street burned furiously, sending greasy smoke into the darkening sky.
Mason sniffed the air and grimaced.
The stench.
An unholy reek permeated everything. The air was a thick stew of raw sewage, rotting bodies, burning plastic, and other less obvious repulsive smells. It coated the insides of his mouth like syrup.
The men had begun to mirror their poisonous surroundings.
Most everyone had bouts of debilitating stomach cramps and explosive diarrhea. It was getting to the point where a Marine might find himself literally shitting and shooting at the same time. Oozing sores dotted any exposed area of skin. The smallest nick got infected in no time.
Personal hygiene was for the civilized. A peace time routine that the grueling pace of war made impossible.
Mason picked his way around a pile of rubble and heard a buzzing sound like a bee’s nest playing a rock concert. The source came into view.
A hoard of black flies covered a dead body on the street. They were so thick no flesh was visible. Waves of motion swept through the mass.
A fly buzzed into his mouth. He gagged and coughed it out.
Disgusting.
The insects. How could there be so many insects in a desert city? Flies were everywhere. Like this one, hordes had taken over, feasting on the corpses. Once the city was secure, disposal teams would come in to clean up the carnage. But for now, the flies feasted and multiplied.
A wave of them shot into the air and Mason jumped back, smacking his hand at the air to fend them off. The body had been decomposing for a day or two. Half the stomach and ribcage was gone. The torso moved, sending another mass of flies darting for the air.
Mason leveled his rifle at the torso. There was no question it was not of the living. Right?
It jerked again.
“What the hell is that?” Lucky said.
Mason glanced over his shoulder and saw the kid wide-eyed with wonder.
A flap of skin wiggled and a viscera-covered creature crawled out of the torso. It looked up at them, bared its tiny teeth, and growled. Long hair was matted with human innards. Its fat little belly hung nearly to the ground.
Mason turned away, his stomach clenching and doing its best to push puke up his throat.
“Whoa, Sarge! Did you see that? A dog was in there. That was like Luke Skywalker in a Tauntaun! Cool!”
“You’re a sick person, bro.”
“Come here, Poochie Poochie,” Lucky said.
“Leave that filthy mongrel alone. Let’s finish this block and find someplace to go firm for the night. I’m beat.”
“It’s just a sweet little dog, Sarge.”
“It just crawled out of a liquefying human torso!”
Lucky waved him off and stepped closer to the growling mutt. His boot landed on a patch of slimed pavement and slipped out from under him.
A single crack echoed through the air.
Lucky fell on his butt as a round snapped through the air where his head had just been.
They scrambled behind the pile of rubble as the continuous crack of automatic gunfire echoed down the street. The rest of the squad dropped behind the nearest available cover and returned fire. Mason checked Lucky over and found no wounds.
“Damn! That horseshoe up your butt amazes me, bro!”
Lucky laughed and shook his head.
“You see, Sarge? It was my being kind to th
at poor dog that did it.”
“Maybe.”
Mason glanced back at the rest of third squad.
“Anyone hit?”
All the men checked in okay.
The volume of fire and the distinctive report indicated at least one Russian RPK machine gun had them pinned down. A number of AK-47s added to the deadly fusillade.
Mason peeked over the pile of concrete and saw a dozen or so muj digging in behind a couple of burned out cars at an intersection about two hundred meters away. The strafing fire intensified as more of the enemy brought their weapons online.
An RPG sizzled through the air above Mason’s head and exploded into a building no more than thirty meters away.
Another RPG whistled down the street and impacted the pile of rubble Mason was using for cover. Bits of shrapnel rained down and clattered off his helmet. A cloud of heavy dust swept by, leaving him coated in ghostly white.
Mason peeked over and started banging away with the M16. Two jihadis reloaded RPGs while others kept up a steady volley of small arms fire. Mason loaded a forty millimeter shell in the M203 grenade launcher attached to the underside of his rifle. After sighting the distance, he fired. The shell exploded in front of one of the torched cars.
A near miss.
He ducked as bullets pinged the concrete inches from his face.
This was about to go big time sideways. They were on the edge of losing fire superiority. They had to get in the fight or risk being overwhelmed.
“Lopes, go cyclic on those RPGs!”
Lopes nodded and started banging on the SAW.
“Miro, shower them with forty mike mikes!”
“Channing, get on the horn! We need fire support! Now!”
Mason popped up again and laid down suppressing fire. He emptied a magazine and then ducked into cover to refresh it. He looked around. All his men were in the fight. Their muzzles flashing in the deepening twilight. They were giving it their all, but they needed a better angle on the enemy.
A four-story building fifty meters ahead looked like the solution. They could get up a few stories then rain down hellfire on the muj. The problem was the approach. That fifty meters happened to be a patch of ground with no significant cover. Whoever sprinted for the entrance would probably get chewed to pieces.
Mason popped up and banged away. A skinny guy wearing a black bandana over his face collapsed as Mason found his mark.
Channing shouted from across the street, behind a smoking dumpster.
“Sarge, command has an Abrams en route.”
An Abrams M1A1 tank. That beast could definitely swing the fight in their favor.
“ETA?”
“Less than five.”
Mason got back into the fight. The air streaked with promised death. An RPG screamed in and exploded less than ten meters ahead. Mason ducked as shrapnel shot over the pile of rubble. Another RPG whistled in and hit the dumpster. The concussion knocked Channing on his ass. Miro dropped back to check on him.
Channing waved his arms wildly, screaming incoherently. Miro tried to calm him while calling for their medic.
“Corpsman up!”
He was there in no time, examining the blood pouring from Channing’s face.
The Abrams wouldn’t matter if they couldn’t make it five more minutes.
A delivery van pulled out of a garage at the intersection. It was a patchwork of bare metal and rust. It turned down the street, and the enemy lines parted to let it pull through. The engine roared and the van launched forward.
“Concentrate fire on that van!” Mason shouted.
The jihadis were known for vehicle-borne IEDs. VBIEDs were essentially vehicles packed to the brim with explosives. Bigger ones could take out an entire city block.
The one barreling closer right now was about a hundred meters from being close enough to wipe out all of third squad.
49
Time seemed to slow as the van approached. As if its arrival was an event horizon beyond which there was no return. Mason popped up and fired a 40mm grenade. It exploded on the bumper but the vehicle kept coming. Lopes had the SAW zeroed and bits of glass and metal exploded off the target. But still, it charged forward.
Now fifty meters from being inside a guaranteed kill radius.
This was the end. At least it would be quick.
An instant of vaporized thought. An instant later scattered to the wind.
Mason raged at the inevitability of it. At the ruthless certainty that grasped for his men. For their futures.
An animal aggression reared inside him. A senseless rage that asserted its claim above all others.
He howled and ran to the center of the street, banging away with the rifle. Bullets zipped through his legs, pinged the ground around his feet, snapped by his head.
None of it mattered.
Only the rage.
He fired 40mm grenades in an almost continuous volley. A round hit the front right tire and it exploded. The van crunched to a stop.
Yes!
The engine roared and the van lurched forward. Sparks flew from the metal wheel mount as it dug a channel through the concrete.
The van kept coming.
Oblivion approached.
BOOM.
And then another explosion.
The ground thundered and flung Mason into the side of a building. He bounced to the ground and sucked at air that wouldn’t enter his lungs. After slowly working breath back into his body, he propped up against the wall.
Less than a block away, a giant crater was all that remained of the incoming vehicle.
BOOM.
Mason jumped because the explosion came from behind them, to their sixes. Down the street, an Abrams tank rocked back as the concussion of its 120mm main gun sent another shell downrange.
The dozen or so insurgents at the intersection disappeared in a blink.
BOOM.
Another round fired to finish the job.
The hazy intersection flashed with the impact.
The sound of incoming fire went silent. Having a tank at your back made all the difference.
The tank chugged closer as Mason pulled himself up. He needed to check on his men. See how Channing was doing. See if anybody else got hit.
He stumbled as he got to his feet. His head spun with the ringing in his ears. Like that squeal when someone gets too close to a microphone, magnified a hundred times.
It took them a good fifteen minutes to get everything squared away. Nobody got a direct hit, but there wasn’t a patch of skin that didn’t bleed from taking shrapnel. Only the clear ballistic goggles they all wore kept their eyes intact. Their medic went from soldier to soldier, taping and bandaging as needed. Channing needed it most. His whole head was wrapped in bandages with two little eye holes. It looked like a bad Halloween costume.
Mason thanked the Army 2-7 tankers before they got called away to another Marine unit needing assistance. He watched as the tank lumbered back down the street.
Lopes slapped his back. “Sure wish those Joes could stick around.”
“You’re telling me, bro. Make life a whole lot easier.”
“Ahh, don’t look so glum, Sarge. We’re living the dream. Grunts in paradise.”
Mason turned back to his men.
“Yeah, right. Where’s my Pina Colada?”
“We don’t serve sissy booze.”
“Fine. Straight Jack will do.”
Lopes pursed his lips and shook his head. “Man, wouldn’t it?”
Mason laughed at the sudden change in tone. The wistful want of impossibility. He turned Lopes around and wrapped an arm over his shoulder.
“Don’t get soft on me, Lance Corporal Lopez. I need badass, knuckle-dragging Marines.”
“Well, this Neanderthal needs a rest.”
Mason looked at the dark sky. The firefight had chewed up the last of the daylight. His men were wiped out and torn up. They needed to find a spot to hole up for the night. He scanned the area and s
aw a single story building that looked like it might have been a restaurant in better days.
He pointed.
“Lopes, let’s go check that out. Might be a good spot to go firm for the night.”
Lopes adjusted the SAW and nodded.
“Miro and Lucky, let’s ride.”
“Coming, Sarge!” Lucky yelled.
They cleared the place and found a basement level that made it perfectly suitable for a night’s stay. There was even a pile of filthy rugs in the corner that they all passed around and used for blankets, despite the horrendous smell. Life in the infantry was like that. It stripped away all the artifice, until the smallest thing could mean so much.
Lucky swept the floor with a flat piece of wood. The floor was littered with discarded syringes and other medical paraphernalia. It must’ve been a muj hideout not too long ago.
Mason posted a couple of guys on the first floor and sent the rest of the squad below to get some deserved rack time. Within minutes, the sound of small arms fire started to pick up outside. Much of it centered on their position.
The insurgents had located them.
He got on the horn and called in for fire support. The last thing he wanted to do was to have to fight a protracted battle all night long. They were all close to the edge already.
The volume of fire outside picked up.
The Air Force responded a short time later. An AC-130 somewhere in the sky above unleashed on the insurgents outside. Its 30mm Bushmaster cannon buzzed death on the streets below. For his men, it was a guardian angel. For the enemy, it was a deadly demon.
The sounds of danger close fighting died down.
He did a final check on the men and then dropped to the dusty floor. Lopes tossed over a ratty rug. Mason accepted it with a nod. He was grateful to have it. A rug that in normal life he’d dispose of as toxic waste, he now wrapped tight over his body.
His eyelids drooped as he lay back on the floor. He was too exhausted to think. A couple hours would get him going again. The growing chill in the air guaranteed they’d all end up nuts to butts to keep from freezing to death. They’d already spent one night packed together like sardines with only their shared body heat holding back the bitter cold.
