Gary's Trilogy (Book 3): Still Myself, Still Surviving (The Retaliation)

by Marlin Grail

  Why shouldn’t they? I’m the one who set Grim off to start yelling for Claw and the others to return. I have blame in this, and I’ll have to live with this. Just like so many things.

  Maybe Claw was already on his way back, or it was Grim who indeed encouraged he answer her distress call, but either way…

  I close my eyes tightly and slump forward in guilt. I’m not able to deny those voices, those cries of irrefutable sadness. This is what Lissie and I respectfully stay quiet for.

  The both of us stand at their shut door, a door I’m sure we could bust open if we wanted to. Instead, we give each other looks to signify we’re likely stuck right in this spot, and won’t be able to go through.

  Then, an undead drags itself in our direction, down this lane with trash piles on both ends. It makes a raucous howl. Then, an explosion shuts it up for good.

  Apparently, it was haze-incubating. Now, a haze is directly in our line of sight.

  Chapter LXVI

  Surely, the haze sees us.

  I’m safe from it, but Lissie isn’t. If there’s one thing I’ll never feel gets distorted by the melancholy gray that is our life and life choices, it’s that I will always do the only course of action to protect her.

  “We’re coming in,” I warn the man behind the door.

  Instead of a considerate palm to the surface, like Lissie’s was when she first knocked on it, I put my forearm on it. The force pushes me back.

  It takes every remaining fiber of my fatigued, beaten, and abused body to compile the strength needed to combat his.

  Breathe. You have to breathe and see the door is light as a feather. Lissie’s well-being depends on it.

  As the door begins to budge, he begins to spurt out a frantic, “No, no, no!”

  I can start making out the darkness in the cabin. It’s becoming illuminated by the dusk. Then comes a color different from the sun. It’s the fabric of pants that have hustled to the door to counteract my progress.

  Suddenly I become the one saying, “No, no, no!”

  Lissie curses, surely not to vent at the people who don’t deserve that kind of treatment. Yet she’s human, and a haze is making its way over to her. She takes her arm back from behind me, and extends both her palms against the door, putting her entire back into the effort of pushing it open.

  Enough of this.

  “Stay right where you are, Lissie.”

  I take a couple of breaths in preparation while stretching my shoulders. My left is to be used at full speed, so I let my sword drop to the ground. If I were to bring it in with us, we’d appear as terrorizing intruders with intentions to harm.

  They’d be right to fear it. It’s not a defensive sword anymore. It hasn’t been since it spilled the blood of men back at the fort. We’ll be coming in as intruders then, won’t we?

  One more second counts down…

  I sprint with a roar. The full pressure I’m putting on my right thigh keeps my throat on full throttle to react to the sheer agony I feel with each step. Right as soon as I touch the door’s surface, I crash with a dive.

  It was a gamble to see if it would be enough, but it was a risk worth the pain in my body I feel afterwards, as I lay on one of those that were blocking it.

  They push me off by slipping out from underneath me with their hands. It’s from feeling their fingers, not so much seeing them because Lissie immediately slams the door.

  Leaving all of us in the pitch black.

  “I’m sorry, but we had to get in,” she apologizes to the room at large.

  “You’re not one of them, are you?” a frightened woman trembles.

  “No.” While she says it, Lissie steadily maneuvers her hands to feel me on the ground, and helps me up. “Like my partner here told you, I arrived with the helicopters today while he came with your leader.” She yanks me up completely, and caresses my back. “Odhran was his name. Right, Gary?”

  “Yes,” I confirm in a hoarse voice. From there on, I cough persistently. It conveys a lack of health. This makes Lissie speak in a vulnerable and hopeful tone that they instantly forget and forgive our rude intrusion.

  “Please, let us stay in here?” Lissie asks softly. “I want him to have a safe place to rest.”

  “You know,” a new female voice starts up from one of these four walls. “I think, if it wasn’t clear you two were together, we’d be hearing only deception in your voice. A year it’s been, and you still have a voice like you do now? One that can recall the lightness of the world?”

  Lissie’s stumped with how to reply. So am I.

  To both of our surprise, a warm chuckle comes out of the stranger.

  “Yes, you two can stay.”

  This woman snaps her fingers repeatedly to signal Lissie and I on where we should slowly head. She and I don’t have to ask any of the present figures standing all around us if they’re there. It’s purely a feeling of people keeping to themselves.

  Reserved.

  Which makes she and I feel unwelcomed.

  But this female is the one that’s making the both of us entrust she’s not luring us to the back of this small cabin just to have us assaulted. Or killed.

  “That’s it, let him down gently,” she instructs Lissie. The woman has such a pleasant tone. Friendly, but with just the right amount of assertiveness to remind us on a subconscious level she isn’t a foolish, or easily intimidated person. It fits her completely, and it defends the character she identifies as such.

  “I’m Maurice. I’m the head of our land’s council.”

  “Maurice,” I announce with a burst of energy. “I am in your debt.”

  I’m unable to bear witness to what her features are, her height, her clothing, anything to better recognize who this person truly is—who to admire and thank. All I can pinpoint of her presence is she’s above me now, as I lay on a blanket that provides a bit of softness against the firm ground.

  “Love is a precious thing.” She embarks on this topic with a warmth that keeps us developing a positive connection.

  It’s working.

  We might do well here. She seems extraordinarily centered with herself, and with what’s happening out in the landfill at the moment.

  She shocks me then with another warm statement, but it’s a neck-snapping one that kills off the hope of us being good friends.

  Neighbors even.

  “When the storm clears out there, and when you heal tonight, you’ll have to go elsewhere—away from our land.”

  Chapter LXVII

  (Will)

  “Two more down!” I shout. Adrenaline gallops through me.

  “Great,” Hannibal forces out. It’s all he offers under the excellency of his pistol’s rapid-fire work at the shadows of the forest-line.

  You’re trying to keep cool, Will. That’s why you’re annoying the shit out of him by continuously talking.

  The dense heaping piles of trash claimed as our shield has been abused. Massive amounts of bullets ricochet off of aluminum, causing significant dents. These enemy shooters have been shaving off inches of cover for me, Hannibal, and the rest on our left flank’s men, while they all remain pressing down, raining lead on us without the worry of losing their tree cover.

  But we don’t mess around at a midway point with what we hit. It’s either bark, or their bodies.

  I’m in a scrunched-up squatted position, but it beats having to try and hide up behind some thin and sparse trees. I’ve been blessed to be a part of the left flank. We’re four total sharing a cramped space, including Hannibal.

  Every time necessary, I reload with an irritating Smith & Wesson that won’t stop jamming on its slide practically every time it’s pulled back. It was damn alluring when one of the helicopter pilots offered it earlier today before leaving the helicopter. I couldn’t say no to that kind of generosity from a total random stranger.

  Maybe this continuous jamming is why he gave it up. It was always giving him problems.

  But aside from its flaws, it
s red dot sight attachment makes up for it. This small-framed body’s one of our survival infantry’s top choice in an assortment of offensive weaponry.

  That pilot is easy to spot because of his current position. That and his mustache which sticks out like a sore thumb. Fortunately, he’s not empty-handed in guns, so I don’t have to feel guilty.

  And he seems to be doing just fine with his bolt-action rifle. He’s set up behind a sandbag wall, on the right side of our whole battalion’s widespread formation that’s kept the enemy from attacking anywhere but the backwoods.

  Whoever this enemy is, Hannibal sure has a visceral fury towards them. I know this because of one name he keeps cursing.

  A guy named Casey.

  “Casey’s not a bright one, man,” I assure Hannibal. “Their numbers are lower than ours!”

  Again, Hannibal is indirect with his “Shut the hell up!” to me by simply remaining silent.

  You’re rightfully terrified, Will. That’s why you can’t simply aim down your red dot and pull the trigger at the shadows in the forest. You need a voice. A voice of reason, and a way to let yourself feel that what you’re doing—killing these unknown people—is accepted by your comrades.

  “Got another!” a rifleman officer beside my right announces.

  Every time another kill’s confirmed, it’s another window of time where the battle could just end here. No one else has to get shot or killed. We don’t know how bad it looks on the other side of this landfill, the one where Hannibal told me was being occupied by C., or “Clouse” as Hannibal called him.

  I hope Gary did the optimal thing, and put that whole clip into him, along with whoever “Grim” is.

  So why am I starting to have trouble killing, if I wish for others to kill?

  I think to myself, during a miracle moment, when all is silent with no faction firing, So much will have to be met with hard solid questioning. Just not now though.

  And then the firing of one or two assault weapons starts up. Civility to think about others is over. For all of us here on this trash mound, glued tight shoulder-to-shoulder, we’re really forgetful of one another when the needy attention from battle picks back up.

  I’ve occasionally gotten accidental contact to my face from the rifleman to my right. His backhand hits my cheekbone hard when he vigorously reaches with that hand to pull out his magazine.

  Only in the moment of fresh-air, not smoked-up from freshly-flying bullets, is when he’ll ask me if I’m good.

  I shake my head quickly to get back my sense of vision, also to make sure I can still exaggerate my motion with humor. When every average span of these three seconds allows me to, I do this. But I don’t release the grip of my gun to probe what black eye he might’ve made.

  “I’m good,” I lie.

  “Better be.”

  “I’m good,” I press the lie to sound like the truth.

  “Got another,” he’s told me within the average span of the freshest three seconds to breathe.

  It’s here I take a page out of Hannibal’s book, and simply reload. My lack of response means, “Don’t tell me this. I don’t want to know another person’s dead.”

  Our landfill’s attack is regularized in its way. There’s forever some enemy’s flashlight popping out from the trees. It fades out just as quickly as it came. Forever to have opposition.

  Sure, the spread’s dwindled and narrowed, but part of me has correlated this fight as some kind of limbo. One me, Hannibal, and all of the other officers, even the enemy, this “Casey”, are meant to lob back and forth repeatedly.

  Shit. Maybe I’m already dead, and this is a limbo state for my soul. What if this fight is never over?

  That freaky thinking cannot disregard the fact this battle’s turning more in our favor. I should be totally energized, like I was when I got those last two I told Hannibal about.

  That’s the thing though.

  For all the progress going right for us, it means we’re doing wrong to them. I’m killing like a soldier, and this type of murdering I can’t spin as a duty for the greater good.

  I feel nausea every moment I fight with my slide to pop another shot at somebody.

  What happened to just surviving the conditions of this world? Where’d all of this conflict and war come from?

  I’m the whack-a-mole that’s head has been competing with a shadow mass I’ve confirmed is against one tree trunk that betrays him. He must think he’s discreet, but it’s not discreet when the tree trunk stands out from all of the others.

  This trunk has a strange discoloration I can still make out under the veil of this darkening sun—it’s orange as light as lava. It’s not light enough to shine on everything, but the brightness is enough for me to see this one imperfect splotch on the bark. The palate would depict the colors of a swamp perfectly—had the figure behind its trunk not be darker.

  So I take aim, confidently waiting, since it’s the last enemy this left flank is pitted against.

  It was either you or me. Do I care if you succeed at shooting first? At this point, I can’t honestly say. I’m not someone that could kill you like this, without feeling I should deserve to have karmic justice inflicted on me.

  What an odd thing to think at this time, considering everything I’ve already done…

  The dark mass branches, putting its shoulder out on its right, but my red dot was already prepared. It lands on the body. One shot, then another, and the dot stretches back farther down the forest.

  At last, the left side is cleared.

  With our battalion’s squared-formation concentrated hard on the backwoods to this landfill, we’re now free to see the center section of our left, center, and right lanes. There’s only a handful of standing hostiles.

  Many not standing in place anymore.

  Most are laid out, dead, while the others are beginning to make the apparent sight of retreat.

  We’ve won the battle.

  And I feel like vomiting more than ever.

  I’ve just killed so many…this isn’t where I thought my life was going to lead me. Why, I had fun as a teen playing with other teens with airsoft guns at an airsoft field. I thought then I could handle the idea of being the hero, because I had a good aim.

  How very wrong I was.

  “Don’t let up!” Hannibal bellows. “Two squadron’s worth with me!”

  Immediately, he and the two officers that were in our tight cover bounce up. I find myself feeling a drop in my stomach. Because it’s bottomless, I won’t stop feeling the drop. Not until, anyways, I fall forward on my fours and begin to hurl.

  My god, what has happened? Aggressors are one thing. They make their decision to be bad and homicidal. How much could I bet that this “Casey”, and all of those we just fought and killed, fell under this C.F.O.G. because they felt it was the safest route?

  There’s a tingle in my mouth. I imagine my nerves are dancing from the sensation of vomiting. I wipe my mouth dry with my sleeve.

  I could never have been in war back before all this haze and undead business. Boil the purpose down, the recent wars were all fighting for protection, shelter, and safeness.

  But now that these thoughts run rampant through my mind, more so because Hannibal and those other two, along with several more, stomp and stride their way up the landfill, past those 18-wheeled haulers, I can’t stop falling in this bottomless pit of insane guilt.

  Aggressors that died by my trigger finger are also the same thing! Humans! And, humans are locomotives whose fuel of aggression runs mostly on anxiety and fear!

  “What have I done?” I ask myself, while burning a stare at my two shaking open palms.

  I throw my gun far away from me, because I can’t see what else it’d be used for at this point in time. It’d be to kill humans.

  I’m…not a hero. I’m not different than someone like the enemy. I am an enemy.

  “Hey!” an officer calls out to me. “We’ve got to get the people aware!”

  “Be
there in a sec!”

  The words are painful. It can’t be a lie I just told that officer, but I can’t stop wondering if I’m just a ginormous liar. One who’s been lying to himself that he’s helping the world, which automatically makes him a good person.

  If there’s one thing I wish I’ve asked Gary, it’s this. Does he consider himself a good person? If he does, then he must be lying. All of us must be, if we think killing another is okay. I was a follower of the lord, and if I know a thing about what I was taught, it’s that you sin for killing one of your kind.

  As I look at my open palms, subtly counting out numbers, tears cloud my vision. It startles me.

  I can finally tear up about something. I can cry over those I’ve killed, which are far more than the combined number of fingers on my hands.

  Can I make up for my sins if I cry? Better than jerking my head to pop it, as the nervous quirk I do when I go to hold tears back.

  I plop my ass down to my heels, and bury my knees in the ground. It’s because I’m crying too hard that I drain on air. I sniffle to the point I burst a bubble out of one of my nostrils.

  It’s definitely been more than a second since I last heard from that officer who called out to me.

  I’m thankful he didn’t wait up, but I’m sure somebody out here is watching me, or is going to know about this. They’re going to assume I’m just a softy who got lucky on so many shots at so many different people.

  That’s one thing I can’t say I’ve lied to myself about ever.

  I’m a good shot.

  The proof is riddled on the left side of the backwoods, in more flesh than bark.

  I might be sadistic in this sense, but I’m starting to feel crying isn’t enough to show myself, mainly God, that I’m sorry for the sins of all the people I’ve killed. I bring my dead girlfriend into the equation, thankful she isn’t here to comfort me, because I would push her off, raving that I don’t deserve that kind of compassion.

  Everyone else can have it. Except for me.