Shades of War: A Collection of Four Short Stories

by Ashton, Josh

  Shades of War

  A Collection of Four Short Stories

  Josh Ashton

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Shades of War

  Published by Josh Ashton via Amazon

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright (c) 2015 Josh Ashton

  Cover art copyright (c) 2015 by GunneRpl

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permissions.

  For information: please email Josh Ashton at mjashto@gmail.com

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to all of those that contributed to the creating of this collection. A special thanks to Robert (aka GunneRpl) for donating his art for the cover page. And finally to Brad Torgersen whose musings planted this idea in my head over five years ago.

  Shades of War

  Contents

  Prologue - 1

  The Veteran - 3

  Spooks - 13

  Every Last Drop - 18

  The Building - 27

  Prologue

  The world was silenced in 2040. Darkness, horror, and destruction erupted across the planet. It was not a series of natural disasters. There were no massive earthquakes, epic tidal waves or category five storms. As a species mankind was the master of technology and development. If mankind could advance itself in the twenty-first century to incredible heights of technology; then of course mankind could drag itself back into the dark ages.

  War had been brewing long before the year 2040. Lack of resources, over population and politics had kept the world in the same mess for decades. Asia as usual with its crowded masses and its struggle to provide for its billions was perpetually on the brink. The United States military forces were still in Asia. The need for economic stability had kept US soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen an ever present fact in Asia.

  The year of the Monkey came around with all its strengths and weaknesses. China's over stretched economy slipped and with it, its control over its communist Neighbor. The jealousies and suspicions of the monkey affected everyone. The North Koreans for some reason tired of blustering and manipulating the world in order to maintain their power. Mimicking history the Koreans waited for the dead of winter and behind a massive artillery barrage their armies rolled south.

  The world tried to respond. The United States quickly deployed their forces to against the insane offensive. In a matter of weeks the ready brigades of the Marines and U.S. Army were locked in desperate combat with millions Korean soldiers again supplied with Chinese weapons. The technological advantage of the U.S. military in the beginning helped stem the initial assault. But the insanity did not stop there. The details were sketchy but the North Koreans decided that the U.S. was not fighting fair.

  Two nuclear detonations were detected in the atmosphere above the Korean Peninsula. The detonation was harmless to those miles below on the ground. But the resulting Electromagnetic Pulse or EMP was something different. In spite of years of warnings neither military had sufficiently protected their equipment from the invisible wave that rendered anything with advanced electronics useless. It was as if someone unplugged the world. Blackouts swept the earth, planes fell from the sky, radios and phones ceased functioning and everything just stopped working.

  In Korea the fighting still went on.

  Then deciding that was not enough the North Koreans decided to level the playing field across the world. It only took four submarines, four submarines scattered across the world’s oceans each launched dozens of nukes into the Earth’s Atmosphere. The resulting EMPS were catastrophic. What had happened in Korea was now repeated on a world wide scale. The world was thrown into madness, riots, and complete brake down of society as the world tried to survive without all the basic necessities that for years had been provided by electricity.

  The world has always been a strange place and there have always been myths or stories about the unexplainable and the supernatural. Something remarkable happened when all those waves of energy bounced back and forth between the atmosphere and earth’s surface, something unimaginable. Myths were no longer things of the forgotten past. Tales of ghost, ghouls, spooks and haunts became everyday occurrence. The supernatural, the unbelievable and unreal all came to life.

  With civilization crumbling and the bands of reality breaking the plight of the soldiers fighting in Korea was forgotten. They became lost, a forgotten side note amongst the back drop of the world being sent back in time by two hundred years. 100,000 soldiers were left abandoned in Korea. They had no choice to fight or die.

  Without modern technology, unable to communicate with home and with no reinforcements the US military in Korea should have been slaughtered. Instead they held and fought on. But they wouldn't fight alone. The super-natural was the new law of the land. In that law the US Military would find new allies and new enemies.

  These are their stories... Shades of War

  The Veteran

  Just give up. Let it go. Just hurry up and die, you son of a bitch.

  That's what the Veteran thought as his desperate hands closed around the Korean soldier’s neck and squeezed. Rough fingers gripped firmly the victim's neck, and thumbs dug into the soft tissue of the throat. The dying Korean's mouth opened like a fish gasping for air. There was no sound, the attacker's grip was perfect. The Korean soldier vainly batted at his assailant with weak arms as the lack of oxygen took its toll. The assailant was merciless and with one final heavy squeeze there was a sickening crunch. The Korean soldier's throat collapsed, there was a last fatal shudder, and the body underneath the attacker went limp.

  The Veteran rolled off his victim and in a stark contrast took huge gasps of air. He lay next to the dead man, drinking in oxygen that just a few seconds earlier his enemy had so desperately wanted. Out of a moment of guilt he forced himself to look at his victim's face. It was a young, soft face now permanently trapped in a expression of horror. Eyes bulging and mouth open as if searching for a breath that would never come. Even though he was a veteran the attacker felt some remorse; the Korean soldier he had killed was barely a man. But the soldier was his enemy and he was not yet ready to die or surrender. The irony of survival was not lost on him. They were a strange couple positioned together the breathing and silent, the alive and dead.

  Not wanting to waste any more time, the veteran that had killed the soldier came to his knees. Ever so slowly he let his head rise above the lip of the crater where the killing had taken place. Like a feral animal, he canted his head to listen as he scanned the landscape. Eyes wide, the man peered and listened into the dark night, but he heard nothing. Even in the blackness, the snow covered terrain was visible. It was not the pure blanket of soft white like something from a Frost poem. The whiteness was a tarmac of horror. Dotted across were dozens of other craters. Heavy artillery had pounded the field earlier during the day.

  The torn up earth was not the harshest part of the nightmare. In and around each of the craters were the scattered remains of men. With his experienced eye it looked like both friendly and enemy soldiers had been fighting hand to hand in this field when the artillery had rained in from above. Hundreds of years ago the French had the phrase “The Last Argument of Kings” cast onto their cannons. From then onward artillery was nicknamed “The King of Battle”. The king had arrived and slaughtered the men that had been fighting here. In probably what took a few minutes, a series of earth rending explosions had killed over a hundred.
No one had been victorious in this field. Only the dead had conquered here.

  The man had been traveling south for days when he had ventured onto this field. He had thought the field empty of life and worth the risk of crossing to save time. It had been until he had stumbled onto the poor young Korean soldier he had strangled. Notoriously impoverished, the soldier had probably been out here scavenging amongst the dead. The man looked up at the hills staring down on the field. Just a few hundred meters away the man could see fires gleaming from campsites on the hillside.

  The man glared longingly at the fires. Those fires would offer him no comfort this night. Around those fires sat hundreds of North Korean soldiers and they wouldn't welcome him. Sardonically he wondered about the reaction of the soldiers if he just wandered into the camp sat down and warmed his hands.

  I would be warm for a minute. The most exciting last minute of my life. Damn Koreans haven't been taking prisoners. Warm for a minute then cold and dead forever.

  He was still too far north; friendly lines were at least another day’s travel. Of course that was if the lines had not moved. The last information he had had about the lines was from over two weeks ago. The front lines of any war were a constantly shifting thing. But he was a survivor, and it was his only choice, so he would carry on southward.

  As a young soldier he had heard stories about how cold the Korean Peninsula was during the winter, but this was ridiculous. Now that his fight for survival was over, the chill of the cold caused him to again shake and quiver. He crammed his bare hands into his armpits to try to warm them. After a few seconds he readied himself, grabbed the small pack that carried his meagerly scavenged supplies, and he edged over the rim of the crater back into the open. Slowly and surely, just as he had been taught at Benning, he again started his way across the field. Serpent like he twisted and turned to avoid craters and bodies as he wound his way through the desolation.

  It was a slow crossing, but caution was necessary until he reached the trees on the other side of the clearing. His head low, his arms reached out, he twisted and pushed as he tried to make as little noise as possible. It really didn't look like a crawl. From above it would more like a man trying to swim across land.

  "Mommmmmm..."

  He had only been crawling for just a few minutes when a voice came drifting across the clearing. He froze in place. Had heard something? He instantly doubted whether he had heard anything at all. He wasn't sure with his head so close to earth, it was hard to tell. He waited, he measured off a slow ten count, and still nothing. Finally thinking it was just his imagination he resumed his crawl. The snow rasped and crunched under the movement of his body. Head down, the man continued southward slowly but surely to the safety of the trees. The edge of the clearing was just a few yards away when again a soft moan audibly echoed across the field.

  "Mommmmmmm..."

  The veteran didn’t panic. He slowly turned his body and looked back into the field. He couldn't make out the sound but it was definitely human. Could someone still be alive amongst all those upturned dead faces?

  "Mommmmmm..."

  Again another ghostly call gently echoed from the field behind him, but this time it went from a moan to a soft, steady whimper. He didn’t dare investigate, did he? He couldn’t go back into the field when he was almost clear. He didn't know who or what was responsible for the noise, but he had to keep moving. The North Korean soldier he killed earlier would have friends and leaders that could be missing him at any moment.

  Determined, the survivor made his decision; he had to keep going. He resumed his crawling. The trees that were his goal were so close. Once in them he could stand and be away from this awful clearing and the waiting enemy camped on the hillside.

  But then again came the sound. No, it wasn't a sound but a softly determined voice calling out into the night. It was a voice of desperation and confusion. The veteran understood the cry. In the end all men around the world everywhere cry and call for the same person when they are at their lowest.

  “Mom, please, mom. Help me.”

  The desperate sob was clear and pure American English.

  The man’s heart sank. Oh my god, how could I have been so stupid. Just like that the man understood the earlier moans and wails. That's one of my own out there. He has to be.

  “Mom, mom, please mom. I want to go home.”

  The voice was getting louder. It was not an old voice, it was a young man's voice, young like the soldier he had just killed. The veteran had to make a decision. I don't need the extra baggage. He was pretty sure he could get back to the lines on his own. But picking up some tag-along soldier was not in his plan. But I'll be damned if I leave one of my own out there.

  “Is anyone out there? Can someone help me?”

  The voice was now louder and louder with each cry. The man glanced at the fires on the hill. He didn’t see any movement, but if the voice got any louder, they would have company. He had to shut the kid up. The time for caution and silence was over. He rose to his feet and ran in a half crouch toward the voice.

  The voice never stopped but it settled down again into a whimper. Using the voice as a beacon it didn’t take him long to isolate its location. Eyes fixed ahead, the man moved quickly. The voice seemed to be coming from one of the many craters. In desperation to quickly silence the sobbing young soldier, he hurriedly dived head first into the crater.

  “Shut the hell up. Shut up,” he whispered savagely as he slid into the hole.

  He spun around looking for the voice, but there was nothing living in the crater. Three bloodied, torn and ruined bodies stared at him. What the hell? Had he been wrong? Had he imagined the voice? Or did it come from somewhere else? He was just about to leave the crater when a plaintive voice spoke just behind him.

  “Can you help me?”

  The man felt the hair on his body rise as a cold chill of panic entered his mind. The voice had come from the crater, just behind him. The man slowly turned, looking over his shoulder first then turning his body. There was something in the crater with him. There, sitting on the floor of the crater by one of the bodies, was an eerie blue figure.

  “Sir, can you help me? I’m lost.”

  The man didn't answer, he couldn't. He had always thought himself a hard, no-nonsense person. But this shook him. Suddenly fear caused his mouth to dry, he fought the urge to urinate and for a moment he was speechless. All his thoughts were a negation of what he saw; this can’t be happening. Was he now insane?

  He closed his eyes and denied this new situation. This isn't real. This isn't real. You're fine. You're not losing it. This isn't real.

  The voice dragged him back to reality.

  “Can you help me?”

  The man opened his eyes just as the blue figure moved towards him. The man actually jumped and flinched away from the personage, but there was nowhere to go in the crater. The Figure moved closer until it was inches away from the man. The man almost panicked and bolted right there, consequences be damned. Instead he steeled himself. I can do this. I really can. I may be insane, but all this is, is someone that needs my help. With that in his mind he steadied his voice and talked to what he thought must be a ghost.

  “I don’t know if I can, but I can try.”

  “Thank God. I’ve been here for days. I don’t know where to go or what to do.”

  What calmed the man was the fact that in the end the voice was simply that of a scared young man. He had plenty of practice taking care of scared young men. The apparition had a human like form, but that was about it. There were no real visible features. Just a simple hazy figure crouched next to him. Things like this don't happen, do they? Chill out. You need to calm down. Remember, indecision and inaction kill. Make a decision and act. If the kid is a ghost, why would he be here?

  “Son, can you tell me your name?”

  “Yes, sir. Wilkes. Mike Wilkes.”

  Guessing, the man pulled out a small headlamp from a cargo pocket on his left side. Cuppin
g the light in his hand, the man turned it on. The light was covered with a red lens that gave off very little ambient light. He quickly checked the three bodies in the crater. The uniforms were not too much help. They were too mangled and bloody. So with his bare hands he searched against clammy skin and frozen blood.

  He found what he was looking for around the neck of the second body. The body he was looking at had horror for a head, if you could call it that, as half the head was missing. The other half was that of a slim young man. Blonde hair and one lifeless blue eye peered up at the man. He pulled the dog tags off the body. Yep, the dog tag said it all:

  Wilkes, Michael

  AB NEG

  576-31-1000

  “Son, do you know what happened?” asked the veteran.

  “I don’t know. We were fighting the Slopes when I heard the artillery coming down. There wasn’t even time to do anything. I tried to take cover, I promise. I saw a couple of impacts, a flash, and then nothing. Then I woke up here. I was alone. They were all gone. My unit is gone. They're all dead. I’m the only one left.”

  What do I tell this kid? How do I do this? He had notified next of kin before when a soldier's relative died, but he had never had to tell the dead they were dead. The man paused took a deep breath and did what he had to do.

  “Son, you’re dead.”

  The figure didn’t answer right away to the comment. After a few seconds the apparition answered.

  “I figured so. My body is right there.”

  "Yes, it is. At least I think that is you."