by Reece Hinze
He scratched at an itch. His fingers ran through his beard which had grown filthy, tangled, and matted. The bags under his eyes, puffy and swollen, forced his gaze to a squint yet he felt no desire to close them fully. Whatever the Doctor injected him with robbed him even of the peace of sleep. Instead of the healing of the REM cycle, Patient 1113 hatched red, bloody fantasies in full consciousness. He pictured ripping limbs from bodies and smiling as the blood coated him. He knew he would die in this place, that was unavoidable now, but before he did, he would kill the bald Corporal, the Doctor, the giant Sergeant who played the cruel game of promising freedom, but most of all, he would kill Devreaux and his pet Bishop. He was never one to subscribe to God, having seen too much to sorrow to believe in a loving Holy God, but after his experience in this place, he certainly believed in evil.
The urge to move his bowels stirred him from his fantasies so he slowly and tenderly turned, every bone in his body aching, to lift himself off of the ground. He stuck his arms out in front of him like a zombie, feeling his way through the darkness to his only companion left in the world, the cold rimless steel toilet. He lifted his dirty smock and sat, his knees clinking together as watery stool flowed free.
“Diarrhea, always fucking diarrhea,” he grumbled. “Not even a decent pot to shit in.” Patient 1113 leaned his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands until at last he was done. He reached for the toilet paper. Being issued exactly twenty squares of single ply tissue a day, or what they told him was a day, and because of his near constant stomach pains, there was never enough. The rage came to him like shifting tactile plates suddenly exposing the Earth’s magma.
“Not even a fucking decent pot to shit in!” 1113 screamed into the darkness. He lashed out with his palm and struck the concrete wall. He expected to hear the slap of a naked palm against the wall but instead was rocked by an explosion. Chips of ceiling fell in the darkness. The noise was deafening. The toilet hopped up and down and he fell off like a Cowboy who couldn’t beat the buzzer. He lay open mouthed with his stomach on the floor, like a Panther waiting to pounce, listening to the chaos. Men were shouting and boots thundered. Several ran past his cell. He crawled like Golem underneath the Misty Mountains towards the cell door and pressed his ear to the cold metal.
More shouting. He pressed his ear as hard as he could, trying to make out the muffled words.
“Explosion... under attack… the Colonel…”
The Colonel.
1113 slammed his palm into the wall in a sudden bout of rage.
What’s wrong with me? Stay cool. This could be my chance.
He held his breath and once again pressed his ear to the cold metal.
“Sergeant, what’s going on here? Why are you in your Exosuit? Situation report.”
A synthesized growl with a deep metallic resonance responded to the questions. “I’m sorry sir. There has been a change of plans.”
1113 recoiled sharply as the deafening crack of automatic weapons fire erupted from the other side of the door. He instinctively retreated to the middle of his cell in a crouched position, ready for combat. There was a clanking of metal as keys unlocked the bolt. The large heavy metal door swung open and as always, the influx of light blinded him. He held an arm over his squinting eyes.
A man’s massive frame, encased in a towering armor plated suit, filled the entirety of the doorway. The man stood a full two heads taller than 1113 who heard the slight effort of a motor as the man tilted his armor helmet downward. Red L.E.D. lighted eyes formed an angry expression on the gunmetal helmet. Twin filters, similar to attachments on a military grade gas mask, flanked a black grid where a human mouth would be. Two large tubes ran from behind his mask to connect the two filters. An unseen motor wined as the giant reached out an armored gauntlet.
“Time to go Captain James Lasko.” The low guttural voice sounded like an electronic demon from hell.
1113, with hands raised like a man about to start a boxing match, retreated until he hit the wall in the back of his cell. He fired off his questions like a twenty-one gun salute. “Go where? Who are you? What’s going on here?”
What could have been a sigh emanate from the suited warrior. The automatic rifle the man held in his hand, some sort of AR variant, dropped with a clank to the front of the cascading oval plates that covered the majority of the man’s armored chest. The gears of the suit wined as the man raised his armored hands to his helmet. After flipping two switches on his neckline and twisting the helmet left, the suit depressurized with a sizzle and the helmet pulled free.
“You?” 1113 stammered.
“Yes, me,” the man growled. It was the giant Sergeant with the scar on his face who had once tapped Morris code on 1113’s shoulder. “My name is Sergeant Cooper Brickson. I told you I would get you out of this place and well, here I am.” The man had cold withdrawn eyes like nothing, no matter how brutal, could surprise or phase him. The ground rumbled as he took another step towards 1113. “Captain, if you want to escape this place, we need to leave now."
"Captain? Why do you keep calling me that?"
"I call you Captain because that's who you are. You're Captain James Lasko, a strong man who has been through hell. That hell is over," the Sergeant said, putting an armored hand on 1113’s shoulder.
"Captain James Lasko." He tested the words as if speaking them for the first time. He sat still for a long moment.
James Lasko.
The armored suit groaned as the Sergeant shifted his weight. "Captain, my men have detonated an explosive charge as a diversion but it won’t take long for the others to catch on to us.”
“Your men?” James replied.
Cooper's cold eyes bore into James'. “Some of us, Captain Lasko, are still fighting the good fight but to win that fight, I need to get you and a few others out of this place.” He gave James a reassuring tap before reaffixing his helmet.
James thought the helmet's glowing red eyes unsettling. “Let’s go, sir,” Cooper’s deep electronic voice urged.
A thin smile, perhaps the first since he entered this hellish dungeon, cut across James' lips.
At last. Revenge.
Suddy water threatened to spill out of the bucket as Luke carelessly set it on the ground. The sponge inside floated the waves bravely like a Captain weathering rough seas. Luke sat, or rather fell down, at the top of the staircase, propped his rifle against the window overlooking the yard, and pulled out his flask. Through the upstairs window, he saw kids, dozens of kids, playing or sitting in the warm morning sunshine.
The previous night’s rain set the grass to a vibrant green. Puffy white clouds drifted lazily through the sky. Through bleary uncaring eyes, Luke saw his friend John chasing a few screaming kids in a game of tag. Reality would set in soon enough Luke thought. Let them have their moment in the sun.
Meanwhile, he would have his. He tilted his head back and felt the 100 proof whiskey burn down his throat. After he emptied it, he shook the tin rigorously as if it would summon more. He needed every last drop to get him through this day.
Everything has changed.
Luke glanced at the footprints smeared across the upstairs hallway. It looked like someone had trailed red paint over the hardwood. Before fetching the bucket, he had opened the windows to help ventilate the hall of the evil smell. Opposite from him, through the small bathroom window, giant oak branches rustled back and forth with the gentle wind. The body was removed but Luke couldn’t rest until the hallway was clean.
He crushed his temples with his palms. Dark images invaded his mind. The strange soldier falling lifeless to the dirt, his rifle spraying the brains of the naked woman all over the hallway like a water hose, John crying hysterically as he hovered over his mother’s dead body, unsure of what to do.
Luke shook his head and pulled the soapy sponge out of the bucket. Thick red-brown blood was everywhere. Chunks of gore, big enough to fill a pig’s slop bucket, smeared back and forth as he worked. He was just crea
ting more of a mess then when he started. He picked up a severed fingernail, threw it in the bucket, dipped his sponge into the red water, and continued his work. The cross necklace his mother had given him when he was a child slid out of his shirt as he labored. He reflexively replaced the cross inside his shirt without noticing the blood he smeared over Jesus’ sacrifice.
A swipe of his hand and she was back again, running at him, screaming. Lightning flashing off of her snarling teeth. Her eyes, the color of liquid blood. Luke clenched the sponge harder, a soapy red mess squirted between his fingers. He put all of his weight into the scrubbing strokes.
She was in her death throws, her heart barely able to pump blood in her body, and still she ran at me.
Luke crushed the sponge to a pulp as he worked. His tears, blurring his vision, splashed clean puddles on the red smeared floor.
She would have killed me if I didn’t pull the trigger. The guy at the pump too. Yeah, they would have killed me… right?
Luke didn’t seem to notice he had lost his sponge and scrubbed the floor with his bare palms.
Please, Lord forgive me. They would have killed me!
And then he stopped scrubbing altogether because regret poured out of him in great heaving gulps. His hand shot to his flask. He unscrewed and upended it to his mouth like a man in the Mohabi dying of thirst. His tongue licked greedily inside the cap. Frustrated at not finding another drop, he threw the flask as hard as he could down the hall. It landed four feet away, bounced once, and skid to a sloshy stop in a pile of intestine.
“What are you trying to cleanse, boy, the floor or your soul?”
Luke’s head snapped around at the voice. A slender black man stared up at him from the landing below.
“Mr. Worsby, I… I need to be alone right now…”
“Yeah.” Clifford Worsby replied. “I know. I’ve come to fetch you for your brother.” All of his great age showed as the old man climbed the stairs towards him. “Did I ever tell you about Wereth, son?”
Luke simply shook his head and stared at the floor, ashamed the older man had seen him crying and drunk.
“I was assigned to Battery-C of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion for most of the war. We called ourselves The Lucky Dozen because we hadn’t taken a single casualty in all of our action.” Mr. Worsby laughed grimly. He stopped and turned to look out the window at the children playing in the yard. Rays of sunlight, broken by the tree limbs, danced across his wrinkled face.
“Near the end of the war, on the 17th of December, 1944, my friends and I were dug in near a town called Wereth in Belgium. After heavy fighting, an S.S. unit overran our position. I’m not talking about the regular German Wehrmacht, boy but the S.S. The real psychos. They marched us into a field.” Mr. Worsby paused for a moment, his ancient eyes narrowing. “I had to carry my friend Jerry Smith because he was hit in the leg. They lined us up and we knew this was it. The Officer spoke to us in English and told us ‘black animals didn’t have the privilege of fighting on the same battlefield as the master race’ and ‘his conscious couldn’t allow us to live.’ We stood, arm in arm, facing our deaths as proud free men. When they opened fire I was hit clean through the shoulder and the hand. My friend Jerry, who had a wife and two children, fell dead on top of me. Afterwards the S.S. walked around bayonetting my wounded friends. I prayed to the Lord for one thing as I lay there bleeding,” he said, turning to Luke with watery eyes. His voice was heavy with emotion.
“I promised the Lord that if he spared my life, I would visit His wrath upon these devils who had killed my friends, His children. One of them walked up to me. I looked into his eyes and he into mine. He was a child Luke, no more than fourteen or fifteen. His helmet barely fit him. After a long moment, the boy just walked away. Eleven men died that day instead of twelve and sure to my word…”
Clifford placed a wrinkled hand on Luke’s shoulder. “I plugged up my shoulder, wrapped up my hand, and followed those boys to their camp that night. I waited in the shadows until they were fast asleep. Then, I pulled out my knife, walked from soldier to soldier, and cut their devil throats.”
Luke saw something deep in the old man’s ancient eyes, something similar to the eyes of the soldier at the gas station and the woman in the hallway.
Rage.
“With my best friend’s blood soaked into my clothes, I visited death on twenty-five souls that night, one at a time. They deserved it and boy… I don’t regret a thing. If allowed them to live, if I simply made my way back to the allied lines, those soldiers would have killed other good men.” Clifford stepped away from Luke and started down the stairs. “Now, come on son. Your brother, a good man, needs your help.”
Luke sat and stared out the window, his face hard, his tears dried. “Wait,” he shouted. “What about the young boy who spared you?”
Luke heard every bone in his old friend’s body crackle like bubble wrap as he turned to face him. Clifford peered at Luke from underneath his WWII Veteran cap.
“He was the first one I killed.”
Luke found his brother pacing back and forth like a hungry lion in front of one of the school buses. A defeated looking Charles Swinney was handcuffed to one of the gore covered bumpers.
“What is this Wade? How long has this guy been out here?”
Wade, silently paced back and forth in front of the defeated man, ignoring his brother.
“Please don’t…” Charles squeaked.
“Shut the FUCK up!” Wade screamed. Some children playing nearby stopped to look in their direction.
“Whoa, whoa, calm down Wade,” Luke said. “What happened?”
“This cowardly son of a bitch…” Wade was breathing so heavily he almost couldn’t speak. “He locked his doors and left those kids to die. Dozens of kids and two teachers. He just stared at them as they were mauled to death.”
“Please stop,” Charles pleaded.
“Shut up, shut the fuck up,” Wade screamed. He shoved Charles head into the blood and body parts stuck stubbornly to the school bus bumper. “You did this!”
“Stop!” Charles cried desperately. Most of the nearby children ran away towards the direction of the house.
“My God,” Luke said.
“I could kill this cock sucker,” Wade said, shoving Charles head one more time.
The brothers stood silent for a moment, Luke cradling his rifle, Wade sucking in breath, trying to control his anger.
“Maybe we should,” Luke said.
Wade snapped his head towards his brother.
“Maybe you should what?” Anne Slaughter asked, hands on her hips. Both boys turned to see their mother with an angry look on her face.
“Hey Mom,” Wade said.
“Maybe you should what?” Anne repeated. “Tell me.”
Luke pointed to the sniveling man cuffed to the bumper. “We should kill him,” he said.
“Kill him? What’s gotten into you boys?”
Wade pointed accusingly at Charles. “He left them all to die. HE killed all those children. You saw what he did!”
Anne closed her eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “I know what I saw. I don’t need anyone to remind me of that, ever again!”
Wade turned away, suddenly ashamed.
“So you’re just going to kill him huh? Drag him into the field and shoot him? Hmm?”
The boys stood silent.
“It’s better than what he deserves. I won’t stop you.” With that, Anne turned and walked away. Charles cried louder.
The brothers were stunned. Bird chirped happily overhead.
“I’ll get the truck,” Luke said after a long moment.
Charles didn’t struggle when they drug him away. Luke drove his old Dodge down the hill and stopped just past the cattle guard at the edge of the property. The brothers, one on either side of the truck bed, stared at the handcuffed man between them. Wade made the first move.
“Come on you son of a bitch,” he said. Wade grabbed him by the shirt
collar and drug him out of the truck and through the gravel road. Charles lay on the side of the road, staring into the morning sky.
“Are you ready?” Wade said as he pointed his rifle between the man’s eyes. Charles didn’t speak a word, answering only in sobs and gulps. Luke leaned against his old truck, staring at the scene through distant eyes.
“I asked you a question coward.”
Wade used the barrel of his rifle to shove Charles Swinney’s head into the rocks. “You let those kids die. All you had to do was OPEN THE DOOR!”
Wade placed his foot on Charles chest, pinning him to the ground. “You deserve death,” he said. With that, Police Sergeant Wade Slaughter fired three rounds.
“Wade?” Luke said.
“If I ever see you again I’ll put those into your head you piece of shit,” Wade said. With that, he lifted his boot off of Charles chest and left the stunned man sniveling on the road. He had shot the rounds into the dirt, yards away. “Let’s go bro,” Wade said to his brother.
“You’re not going to kill me?” Charles squeaked.
Wade threw his rifle into the passenger seat and slammed the door.
“Wait!” Charles pleaded. “Wait! You can’t leave me here!”
Luke threw his truck around, while Wade locked the gate behind them. The red glow of brake lights shone on Charles contorted face. The engine roared and the brothers disappeared in a cloud of dust.
“Don’t leave me!”
Captain James Lasko followed his armored rescuer into the hallway. The gears of the man's exosuit groaned from the effort of movement. He was gigantic. Sergeant Cooper Brickson stepped on a corpse. Guts spilled over his boot like a baker ramming his fist into a ball of dough and made a sucking sound as the Cooper walked on. James saw, with amazement and horror, the flattened part of the man’s stomach was as thin as a pancake. He delicately stepped over the corpse with his bare feet, making sure to grab the pistol out of the man's dead hands before running after the giant.
