Life During Wartime

by Lucius Shepard

  The blade slid home beneath the Cuban’s ribs, and Mingolla clamped a hand over his mouth, muffling his outcry. His knee nailed the rifle stock, sending it clattering to the floor. The Cuban thrashed wildly. He stank of rotten jungle air and cigarettes. His eyes rolled back, trying to see Mingolla. Crazy animal eyes, with liverish whites and expanded pupils. Sweat beads glittered red on his brow. Mingolla twisted the machete, and the Cuban’s eyelids fluttered down. But a second later they snapped open, and he lunged. They went staggering deeper into the room and teetered beside one of the cots. Mingolla wrangled the Cuban sideways and rammed him against the wall, pinning him there. Writhing, the Cuban nearly broke free. He seemed to be getting stronger, his squeals leaking out from Mingolla’s hand. He reached behind him, clawing at Mingolla’s face; he grabbed a clump of hair, yanked it. Desperate, Mingolla sawed with the machete. That tuned the Cuban’s squeals higher, louder. He squirmed and clawed at the wall. Mingolla’s clamped hand was slick with the Cuban’s saliva, his nostrils full of the man’s rank scent. He felt queasy, weak, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hang on. The son of a bitch was never going to die, he was deriving strength from the steel in his guts, he was changing into some deathless force. But just then the Cuban stiffened. Then he relaxed, and Mingolla caught a whiff of feces.

  He let the Cuban slump to the floor, but before he could turn loose the machete, a shudder passed through the corpse, flowed up the hilt, and vibrated his left hand. It continued to shudder inside his hand, feeling dirty, sexy, like a postcoital tremor. Something, some animal essence, some oily scrap of bad life, was slithering around in there, squirting toward his wrist. He stared at the hand, horrified. It was gloved in the Cuban’s blood, trembling. He smashed it against his hip, and that seemed to stun whatever was inside it. But within seconds it had revived and was wriggling in and out of his fingers with the mad celerity of a tadpole.

  “Teo!” someone called. “Vamos!”

  Electrified by the shout, Mingolla hustled to the door. His foot nudged the Cuban’s rifle. He picked it up, and the shaking of his hand lessened—he had the idea it had been soothed by a familiar texture and weight.

  “Teo! Dónde estás?”

  Mingolla had no good choices, but he realized it would be far more dangerous to hang back than to take the initiative. He grunted, “Aqui!” and walked out into the tunnel, making lots of noise with his heels.

  “Dase prisa, hombre!”

  Mingolla opened fire as he rounded the curve. The two Cubans were standing by the entrance of the auxiliary tunnel. Their rifles chattered briefly, sending a harmless spray of bullets off the walls; they whirled, flung out their arms, and fell. Mingolla was too shocked by how easy it had been to feel relief. He kept watching, expecting them to do something. Moan, or twitch.

  After the echoes of the shots had died, though he could hear the big guns jolting and the crackle of firefights, a heavy silence seemed to fill in through the tunnel, as if his bullets had pierced something that had dammed up silence. The silence made him aware of his isolation. No telling where the battle lines were drawn…if, indeed, they existed. It was conceivable that small units had infiltrated every level, that the battle for the Ant Farm was in microcosm the battle for Guatemala: a conflict having no patterns, no real borders, no orderly confrontations, but which, like a plague, could pop up anywhere at any time and kill you. That being the case, his best bet would be to head for the computer center, where friendly forces were sure to be concentrated.

  He walked to the entrance and stared at the two dead Cubans. They had fallen, blocking his way, and he was hesitant about stepping over them, half-believing they were playing possum, that they would reach up and grab him. The awkward attitudes of their limbs made him think they were holding a difficult pose, waiting for him to try. Their blood looked purple in the red glow of the emergencies, thicker and shinier than ordinary blood. He noted their moles and scars and sores, the crude stitching of their fatigues, gold fillings glinting from their open mouths. It was funny, he could have met these guys while they were alive and they might have made only a vague impression; but seeing them dead, he had catalogued their physical worth in a single glance. Maybe, he thought, death revealed your essentials as life could not. He studied the dead men, wanting to read them. Couple of slim, wiry guys. Nice guys, into rum and the ladies and sports. He’d bet they were baseball players, infielders, a double-play combo. Maybe he should have called to them, Hey, I’m a Yankee fan. Be cool! Meetcha after the war for a game of flies and grounders. Fuck this killing shit. Let’s play some ball.

  He laughed, and the high, cracking sound of his laughter startled him. Christ! Standing around here was just asking for it. As if to second that opinion, the thing inside his hand exploded into life, feeling and frisking about. Swallowing back his fear, Mingolla stepped over the two dead men, and this time, when nothing clutched at his trouser legs, he felt very relieved.

  Below level six there was a good deal of mist in the auxiliary tunnel, and this implied to Mingolla that the Cubans had penetrated the hillside, probably with a borer mine. Chances were the hole they had made was somewhere close, and he decided that if he could find it, he would use it to get the hell out of the Farm and hide in the jungle. On level seven the mist was extremely thick; the emergency lights stained it pale red, giving it the look of surgical cotton packing a huge artery. Scorch marks from grenade bursts showed on the walls like primitive graphics, and quite a few bodies were visible beside the doorways. Most of them Americans, badly mutilated. Uneasy, Mingolla picked his way among them, and when a man spoke behind him, saying, “Don’t move,” he let out a hoarse cry and dropped his rifle and spun around, his heart pounding.

  A giant of a man—he had to go six-seven, six-eight, with the arms and torso of a weight lifter—was standing in a doorway, training a .45 at Mingolla’s chest. He wore khakis with lieutenant’s bars, and his babyish face, though cinched into a frown, gave an impression of gentleness and stolidity: he conjured for Mingolla the image of Ferdinand the Bull weighing a knotty problem. “I told you not to move,” he said peevishly.

  “It’s okay,” said Mingolla. “I’m on your side.”

  The lieutenant ran a hand through his thick shock of brown hair; he seemed to be blinking more than was normal. “I’d better check,” he said. “Let’s go down to the storeroom.”

  “What’s to check?” said Mingolla, his paranoia increasing.

  “Please!” said the lieutenant, a genuine wealth of entreaty in his voice. “There’s been too much violence already.”

  The storeroom was a long, narrow L-shaped room at the end of the level; it was ranged by packing crates, and through the gauzy mist the emergency lights looked like a string of dying red suns. The lieutenant marched Mingolla to the corner of the L, and turning it, Mingolla saw that the rear wall of the room was missing. A tunnel had been blown into the hillside, opening onto blackness. Forked roots with balls of dirt attached hung from its roof, giving it the witchy appearance of a tunnel into some world of dark magic; rubble and clods of earth were piled at its lip. Mingolla could smell the jungle, and he realized that the big guns had stopped firing. Which meant that whoever had won the battle of the summit would soon be sending down mop-up squads. “We can’t stay here,” he told the lieutenant. “The Cubans’ll be back.”

  “We’re perfectly safe,” said the lieutenant. “Take my word.” He motioned with the gun, indicating that Mingolla should sit on the floor.

  Mingolla did as ordered and was frozen by the sight of a corpse, a Cuban corpse, lying between two packing crates opposite him, its head propped against the wall. “Jesus!” he said, coming back up to his knees.

  “He won’t bite,” said the lieutenant. With the lack of self-consciousness of someone squeezing into a subway seat, he settled beside the corpse; the two of them neatly filled the space between the crates, touching elbow to shoulder.

  “Hey,” said Mingolla, feeling giddy and scattered. “I�
�m not sitting here with this fucking dead guy, man!”

  The lieutenant flourished his gun. “You’ll get used to him.”

  Mingolla eased back to a sitting position, unable to look away from the corpse. Actually, compared to the bodies he had just been stepping over, it was quite presentable. The only signs of damage were blood on its mouth and bushy black beard, and a mire of blood and shredded cloth at the center of its chest. Its brass scorpion pin was scarred and tarnished. Its eyes were open, reflecting glowing red chips of the emergency lights, and this gave it a baleful semblance of life. But the reflections made it appear less real, easier to bear.

  “Listen to me,” said the lieutenant.

  Mingolla rubbed at the blood on his shaking hand, hoping that cleaning it would have some good effect.

  “Are you listening?” the lieutenant asked.

  Mingolla had a peculiar perception of the lieutenant and the corpse as dummy and ventriloquist. Despite its glowing eyes, the corpse had too much reality for any trick of the light to gloss over for long. Precise crescents showed on its fingernails, and because its head was tipped to one side, blood had settled onto that side, darkening its cheek and temple, leaving the rest of the face pallid. It was the lieutenant, with his neat khakis and polished shoes and nice haircut, who now looked less than real.

  “Listen!” said the lieutenant vehemently. “I want you to understand that I have to do what’s right for me!” The biceps of his gun arm bunched to the size of a cannonball.

  “I understand,” said Mingolla, thoroughly unnerved.

  “Do you? Do you really?” The lieutenant seemed aggravated by Mingolla’s claim to understanding. “I doubt it. I doubt you could possibly understand.”

  “Maybe I can’t,” said Mingolla. “Whatever you say, man. I’m just trying to get along, y’know.”

  The lieutenant sat silent, blinking. Then he smiled. “My name’s Jay,” he said. “And you are…?”

  “David.” Mingolla tried to bring his concentration to bear on the gun, wondering if he could kick it away, but the sliver of life in his hand distracted him.

  “Where are your quarters, David?”

  “Level three.”

  “I live here,” said Jay. “But I’m going to move. I couldn’t bear to stay in a place where—” He broke off and leaned forward, adopting a conspiratorial stance. “Did you know it takes a long time for someone to die, even after their heart has stopped?”

  “No, I didn’t.” The thing in Mingolla’s hand squirmed toward his wrist, and he squeezed the wrist, trying to block it.

  “It’s true,” said Jay with vast assurance. “None of these people”—he gave the corpse a gentle nudge with his elbow, a gesture that conveyed to Mingolla a creepy sort of familiarity—“have finished dying. Life doesn’t just switch off. It fades. And these people are still alive, though it’s only a half-life.” He grinned. “The half-life of life, you might say.”

  Mingolla kept the pressure on his wrist and smiled, as if in appreciation of the play on words. Pale red tendrils of mist curled between them.

  “Of course you aren’t attuned,” said Jay. “So you wouldn’t understand. But I’d be lost without Eligío.”

  “Who’s Eligío?”

  Jay nodded toward the corpse. “We’re attuned, Eligío and I. That’s how I know we’re safe. Eligío’s perceptions aren’t limited to the here and now any longer. He’s with his men at this very moment, and he tells me they’re all dead or dying.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Mingolla, tensing. He had managed to squeeze the thing in his hand back into his fingers, and he thought he might be able to reach the gun. But Jay disrupted his plan by shifting the gun to his other hand. His eyes seemed to be growing more reflective, acquiring a ruby glaze, and Mingolla realized this was because he had opened them wide and angled his stare toward the emergency lights.

  “It makes you wonder,” said Jay. “It really does.”

  “What?” said Mingolla, easing sideways, shortening the range for a kick.

  “Half-lives,” said Jay. “If the mind has a half-life, maybe our separate emotions do, too. The half-life of love, of hate. Maybe they still exist somewhere.” He drew up his knees, shielding the gun. “Anyway, I can’t stay here. I think I’ll go back to Oakland.” His tone became whispery. “Where are you from, David?”

  “New York.”

  “Not my cup of tea,” said Jay. “But I love the Bay Area, I own an antique shop there. It’s beautiful in the mornings. Peaceful. The sun comes through the window, creeping across the floor, y’know, like a tide, inching up over the furniture. It’s as if the original varnishes are being reborn, the whole shop shining with ancient lights.”

  “Sounds nice,” said Mingolla, taken aback by Jay’s lyricism.

  “You seem like a good person.” Jay straightened up a bit. “But I’m sorry. Eligío tells me your mind’s too cloudy for him to read. He says I can’t risk keeping you alive. I’m going to have to shoot.”

  Mingolla set himself to kick, but then listlessness washed over him. What the hell did it matter? Even if he knocked the gun away, Jay could probably break him in half. “Why?” he said. “Why do you have to?”

  “You might inform on me.” Jay’s soft features sagged into a sorrowful expression. “Tell them I was hiding.”

  “Nobody gives a shit that you were hiding,” said Mingolla. “That’s what I was doing. I bet there’s fifty other guys doing the same damn thing.”

  “I don’t know.” Jay’s brow furrowed. “I’ll ask again. Maybe your mind’s less cloudy now.” He turned his gaze to the dead man.

  Mingolla noticed that the Cuban’s irises were angled upward and to the left—exactly the same angle to which Jay’s eyes had drifted earlier—and reflected an identical ruby glaze.

  “Sorry,” said Jay, leveling the gun. “I have to.” He licked his lips. “Would you please turn your head? I’d rather you weren’t looking at me when it happens. That’s how Eligío and I became attuned.”

  Looking into the aperture of the gun’s muzzle was like peering over a cliff, feeling the chill allure of falling. It was more out of contrariness than a will to survive that Mingolla popped his eyes at Jay and said, “Go ahead.”

  Jay blinked, but he held the gun steady. “Your hand’s shaking,” he said after a pause.

  “No shit,” said Mingolla.

  “How come it’s shaking?”

  “Because I killed someone with it,” said Mingolla. “Because I’m as fucking crazy as you are.”

  Jay mulled this over. “I was supposed to be assigned to a gay unit,” he said finally. “But all the slots were filled, and when I had to be assigned here they gave me a drug. Now I…I…” He blinked rapidly, his lips parted, and Mingolla found that he was straining toward Jay, wanting to apply body English, to do something to push him over this agonizing hump. “I can’t…be with men anymore,” Jay finished, and once again blinked rapidly; then his words came easier. “Did they give you a drug, too? I mean I’m not trying to imply you’re gay. It’s just they have drugs for everything these days, and I thought that might be the problem.”

  Mingolla was suddenly, unutterably sad. He felt that his emotions had been twisted into a thin black wire, that the wire was frayed and spraying black sparks of sadness. That was all that energized him, all his life. Those little black sparks.

  “I always fought before,” said Jay. “And I was fighting this time. But when I shot Eligío…I just couldn’t keep going.”

  “I really don’t give a shit,” said Mingolla. “I really don’t.”

  “Maybe I can trust you.” Jay sighed. “I just wish you were attuned. Eligío’s a good soul. You’d appreciate him.”

  Jay kept on talking, enumerating Eligío’s virtues, and Mingolla tuned him out, not wanting to hear about the Cuban’s love for his family, his posthumous concerns for them. Staring at his bloody hand, he had a magical overview of the situation. Sitting in the root cellar of this evil mountain, ba
thed in an eerie red glow, a scrap of a dead man’s life trapped in his flesh, listening to a deranged giant who took his orders from a corpse, waiting for scorpion soldiers to pour through a tunnel that appeared to lead into a dimension of mist and blackness. It was insane to look at it that way. But there it was. You couldn’t reason it away; it had a brutal glamour that surpassed reason, that made reason unnecessary.

  “…And once you’re attuned,” Jay was saying, “you can’t ever be separated. Not even by death. So Eligío’s always going to be alive inside me. Of course I can’t let them find out. I mean”—he chuckled, a sound like dice rattling in a cup—“talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy!”

  Mingolla lowered his head, closed his eyes. Maybe Jay would shoot. But he doubted that. Jay only wanted company in madness.

  “You swear you won’t tell them?” Jay asked.

  “Yeah,” said Mingolla. “I swear.”

  “All right,” said Jay. “But remember, my future’s in your hands. You have a responsibility to me.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Gunfire crackled in the distance.

  “I’m glad we could talk,” said Jay. “I feel much better.”

  Mingolla said he felt better too.

  They sat without speaking. It wasn’t the most secure way to pass the night, but Mingolla no longer put any store in the concept of security. He was too weary to be afraid. Jay seemed entranced, staring at a point above Mingolla’s head, but Mingolla made no move for the gun. He was content to sit and wait and let fate take its course. His thoughts uncoiled with vegetable sluggishness.

  They must have been sitting a couple of hours when Mingolla heard the whisper of helicopters and noticed that the mist had thinned, that the darkness at the end of the tunnel had gone gray. “Hey,” he said to Jay. “I think we’re okay now.” Jay offered no reply, and Mingolla saw that his eyes were angled upward and to the left just like the Cuban’s eyes, glazed over with ruby reflection. Tentatively, he reached out and touched the gun. Jay’s hand flopped to the floor, but his fingers remained clenched around the butt. Mingolla recoiled, disbelieving. It couldn’t be! Again he reached out, feeling for a pulse. Jay’s wrist was cool, still, and his lips had a bluish cast. Mingolla had a flutter of hysteria, thinking that Jay had gotten it wrong about being attuned: instead of Eligío’s becoming part of his life, he had become part of Eligío’s death. There was a tightness in Mingolla’s chest, and he thought he was going to cry. He would have welcomed tears, and when they failed to materialize he grew both annoyed at himself and defensive. Why should he cry? The guy had meant nothing to him…though the fact that he could be so devoid of compassion was reason enough for tears. Still, if you were going to cry over something as commonplace as a single guy dying, you’d be crying every minute of the day, and what was the future in that? He glanced at Jay. At the Cuban. Despite the smoothness of Jay’s skin, the Cuban’s bushy beard, Mingolla could have sworn they were starting to resemble each other the way old married couples did. And, yep, all four eyes were fixed on exactly the same point of forever. It was either a hell of a coincidence or else Jay’s craziness had been of such magnitude that he had willed himself to die in this fashion just to lend credence to his theory of half-lives. And maybe he was still alive. Half-alive. Maybe he and Mingolla were now attuned, and if that was true, maybe…Alarmed by the prospect of joining Jay and the Cuban in their deathwatch, Mingolla scrambled to his feet and ran into the tunnel. He might have kept running, but on coming out into the dawn light he was brought up short by the view from the tunnel entrance.