by Ilsa J. Bick
Bodies.
“I mean it.” Chad gnawed at his sore. “Don’t we got enough problems?”
“You’re gonna give yourself a scar, man.” Bode hip-butted a drawer of silverware shut. The cupboards above the sink weren’t exactly bare, but whoever lived here had a thing for Kraft macaroni and cheese; the cupboards next to the fridge were stacked full, top to bottom. Man, they must have a lot of little kids. Who else plowed through that many Blue Boxes? Not that he minded: he’d choked down so many beans and franks in the bush, he hoped he never saw another hot dog.
Bode squatted, opened the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink, and pawed past cleaning supplies, lighter fluid, trash bags. No real weapons, though, not even a butcher knife. He felt under the sink to be sure—maybe something taped there—but there was nothing.
Weird. Farmers were always shooting shit: groundhogs, sick horses, crap like that. He stood, thought about that, staring at the black rectangle of window over the sink. So where would they stash a weapon? The barn? Maybe down cellar?
Framed in the window, Battle peered back. There aren’t going to be any other weapons here, son. This isn’t any kind of here you’ve ever been.
“A scar.” Chad let out a giddy bray. “Like that’s the worst thing I got to worry about.”
“You don’t have to worry about anything,” Bode said, flatly. To Battle: “What do you mean, this isn’t a here? I’m standing here.”
Yes. Battle’s ruined face glimmered from the window’s murky well. But where are you?
“I’m in a kitchen, Sarge.”
And where is this kitchen?
“Look, Sarge, you got something to say, say it.”
Think, son. Use your head. Does this house look like any farmhouse you’ve ever seen? Does it feel right?
“Sure,” Bode said. “I mean, you know, it’s a house.”
It’s got the right shape. It’s got furniture and there are rooms. There’s food and light. But there are no pictures on the walls, no photographs. Who lives here?
“I don’t know. I haven’t really looked, Sarge, but there have to be bills or something lying around. There’s probably a name on the mailbox.”
Are there? Was there?
“I didn’t notice. It was, you know, snowing.”
“Man, we got to get out of here.” Chad hugged himself. “This place just don’t feel right.”
“You need to calm down,” Bode said. Chad was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Good on patrol; definitely watched your back, and the guy could de-ass a chopper like greased lightning. But he wasn’t any kind of rocket scientist. On the other hand, Chad wasn’t as crazy as Bode, who knew he was nuts. Given Bode’s day job, though, crazy is as crazy does. Battle’s ghost hitching a ride in his head was just so much icing on that proverbial cake. “Let’s just focus on one thing at a time, okay? First light tomorrow, we figure a way out of the valley.”
“A way out?” Chad said. “We don’t even know how we made our way in. Do you remember how we got down here? I sure don’t.”
Bode didn’t either. On the other hand, he’d gotten into some serious smack, so maybe that was understandable. The high had tailed off, though, and while Bode knew from experience that his memory never quite recovered a hundred percent, he really didn’t recall more than jagged fragments and sensations: the stink of piss from the men’s room, a thick sweat-fog hanging over the dance floor.
The moment he squeezed the trigger.
“Bode, I’m telling you, man: the cops catch us, they turn us over to the MPs and it’s Leavenworth. They give you the firing squad for stuff like this.” Chad hugged himself a little tighter. “I told you to let it roll, but no. You had to go and follow the LT out of the bar.”
Bode was tempted to point out that the military’s preferred method for execution these days was hanging, but no use making Chad more anxious than he was already. “Relax. No one saw us.”
“Bode, anyone finds your gun, the cops or the MPs’ll trace it right back to you.”
“Yeah, but we ship out in a week. No way they’ll pull us out of that.”
“How you figure?”
“Man, they’re hurting for guys to fight. No one’ll come looking. Come morning, we get our bearings and drive on out of here. Until then, don’t sweat it. Everything’ll be copacetic.”
“What if the owners here show up?”
Battle: They won’t.
“They won’t,” Bode echoed. “Not tonight anyway.”
“Man, I hope not.” Chad shivered. “House gives me the creeps. Know what bothers me? The food.”
Bode laughed. “Macaroni and cheese makes you nervous?”
Don’t laugh, Battle said. He’s right.
“Bode, that food was ready and waiting,” said Chad. “That’s just wrong. No one goes off during a blizzard and leaves his oven on.”
It was a good point. “If there was an emergency, they might,” Bode said, but he couldn’t convince even himself.
“If there was an emergency,” Chad said, “then it was a long time ago. There were no tracks and the road wasn’t plowed. That casserole ought’ve burnt. But it didn’t. I’m telling you: that’s not right.”
“Well, we’re not going to solve that little mystery now.” Turning away from the window and Battle, Bode scooped up the Winchester and the Remington pump. “Come on.”
Chad’s mouth set in an unhappy line, but he followed because that’s what Chad did best. Yet he—or maybe Battle—had planted a seed, because Bode realized something as they drove away and the house and barn dwindled to bright islands.
There was light. The house had electricity. But there were no power lines. This far out in the country, there would have to be.
So where was the light—the power—coming from?
3
“MAYBE IT’S LIKE gas,” Chad said now. He dug at his sore with a dirty thumbnail. “You know, like some kind of nerve gas or that Agent Orange.”
“Agent Orange?” Eric said. There was another sharp blat of static as he switched channels on his handset. “They don’t use that stuff anymore.”
“Yeah, man, there’s laws,” Bode said. “Besides, you need a bird for that. No way anyone’s flying a chopper tonight.”
Chad’s left foot jiggled as he pick-pick-picked. “Hey, Eric, you know how far it is to the nearest town?”
Sighing, Eric clicked off his walkie-talkie and shoved it into his parka. “No. I’ve never been down here before.”
“You know where we are?”
In the mirror, Bode saw Eric’s reflection hesitate. “No,” Eric said. “I don’t. Where were you coming from?”
“Outside Jasper,” Bode said. He ignored Chad’s sharp, reproving look. “Stopped off at this little cowboy honky-tonk around eight, nine o’clock.”
“Jasper? Never heard of it. What’s it near?”
“Uh …” For a moment, Bode’s mind simply blanked to a white dazzle. Then a word slid onto his tongue. “Casper.”
There was a small silence. Then Eric said, “Where?”
“You know … Casper.” For a weird moment, Bode thought that this was like when you tried to explain to the hootchgirl that you didn’t want any starch for your shirts, only she didn’t speak but two words of English and you kept shouting, No starchee, no starchee! Like that would get her to understand what you wanted, which she never did. “Casper.”
“Where’s that? Is that near Poplar or something?”
“No, it’s …” Bode licked his lips, then blurted, “Cheyenne!” He felt like he’d just passed a really tough exam he’d forgotten to study for. “Yeah, north of Cheyenne.”
“Cheyenne,” Eric repeated.
“Yeah, Cheyenne.” Chad cranked his head around. “You got some kind of hearing problem? The man said Cheyenne.”
“No, no. It’s just … where do you guys think you are?
What state?”
“What state?” Chad repeated. “Wyoming, man. Where else?”
4
ERIC WAS QUIET for so long Bode’s jaw locked. He had to really dig deep to push the word out. “What?”
“Wyoming plates,” Eric said, but he might as well have said aha. “That’s why you have Wyoming plates.”
“Well, yeah,” Chad said. “So?”
“You guys,” Eric said, slowly, “you guys are a real long way from Jasper, Wyoming.”
“Oh hell. Are we in Kansas? We’re in Kansas, aren’t we?” Chad turned to Bode. “I told you we took a wrong turn outside Laramie.”
“You guys aren’t in Kansas,” Eric said.
“Then where the hell are we?” asked Chad.
“You’re … Oh man.” Eric blew out. “You’re in Wisconsin.”
A beat. Then two. Chad broke the silence with a laugh. “That’s crazy.”
“No.”
“What are you talking about, no?” Chad sniggered again and shook his head. “No, he says. How many spiffs you smoke tonight?”
“What?” Eric waved that away. “Never mind. Look, I started out in Wisconsin this afternoon. I know I didn’t take a snowmobile into the storm and end up blown clear to Wyoming. So we’re either still in Wisconsin, or somehow we’ve all ended up in Wyoming.”
“Mountains are right,” Bode said. “Valley’s right for Wyoming.”
“That’s true. But I honestly don’t think that’s where we are.”
“So we’re in Wisconsin?” Chad asked. “Like where in Wisconsin?”
“I’m not sure of that either, but if we are … then we’re north,” Eric said. “I … I don’t know exactly where.”
“No, of course you don’t,” Chad said.
Battle’s head still floated in the mirror, but Bode focused on Eric’s reflection. “What if …” His tongue gnarled. Bode licked his lips and tried again. “What if we’re not anywhere?”
“What?” Chad said.
Eric returned Bode’s look. “I don’t know where we’d be, then.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Chad asked. “We’re right here.”
“Yeah, but where is that, exactly?” Eric said.
Or when. The thought was suddenly there in Bode’s mind, like the rip of a fart you just couldn’t ignore. “Maybe we’re in between, like limbo.”
Eric’s dark brows drew together. “Wouldn’t we be dead then?”
“Dead? You guys are nuts.” Chad bounced an anxious glance from Eric to Bode, then out the passenger’s side window. “Nuts,” he repeated, jiggling his leg, picking furiously at his sore. “I’m not no Catholic, man.”
Bode said to Eric, “Where you shipping out to, again?”
“Marja, I think,” Eric said. “Probably.”
“Well, I never heard of that.” Chad’s voice was tight with fear and anger. “Is that, like, north or south?”
“South … actually, southwest.”
“So, like, close to Phuoc Vinh? Or Dau Tieng?”
“Dau …?” Eric paused, and Bode saw that the other boy couldn’t ignore that awful stink either. “You guys,” Eric said, evenly, carefully, “what war are you fighting?”
Bode’s mouth was dry as dust. He couldn’t speak. A fist of dread had his throat.
“What war?” said Chad, and gave a sour laugh. “Why … ’Nam, of course.”
ERIC
One Step Away From Dead
OH, OF COURSE. A balloon of sudden fear swelled in his chest. Vietnam, of course.
Yet it made a certain loopy sense. Factor in the vintage uniforms, the old Dodge, the way these guys talked—not only their slang but what they didn’t know. Bode and Chad were from the past. Or Eric was in it. Or, maybe, Bode was right and the valley was some crazy kind of limbo.
But it’s also real. How could that be? His right hand closed around Tony’s handset. That’s real. The others are real, and so is Emma. This has to be real. Or he was going crazy. The fear was an acid burn, eating its way up his throat, and Eric thought he might actually scream if he wasn’t careful. Oily sweat lathered his back and neck and face, and he pressed the back of one shaking hand to his forehead, the way he used to do when Casey had been little and got sick. Don’t, don’t do it. His lungs were working like a bellows. Come on, calm down. Sipping air, he breathed in, held it, let go … in with the good, out with the bad … Just hold it together.
What if … what if this was limbo? Maybe he was being punished. Could that be it? God sent him here because of Big Earl? What kind of justice was that? Big Earl was the adult; he hurt people. Big Earl shot at him; he would’ve killed Eric if he had the chance. The beatings had gone on for as long as Eric could remember. Yes, but how long was that, exactly? A day, a minute, five years, ten?
He. Did not. Remember.
No. Eric’s heart knocked in his throat. No, no, no, how can I not know? He remembered how careful he’d been in high school changing for gym, always slipping into a stall or coming in with just enough time to spare so that the locker room had already emptied out. I have scars on my back, my stomach. Every beating’s written in my skin. Why don’t I remember? How could his memory be scrubbed clean like that, as white as all that snow?
Because … because … because it never happened?
Before he could talk himself out of it, he bit the inside of his left cheek, very hard, wincing as his teeth sank into his flesh. There, that hurt. A moment later, there was the warm, salty taste of blood on his tongue, and that was good, and so was the pain. Swallowing a ball of blood, he savored the ache, grabbed the feeling, held it close. See, Ma, I’m real. I feel pain, so I must be real.
Unless the pain was just for show. Or—and this was a truly strange thought—he was real … but only here and nowhere else.
That’s crazy. What are you, nuts? His shirt, sticky with sweat, clung like a second skin. There’s got to be an explanation that makes sense. This has to be a dream, or I’m sick and I’ve got a really high fever and I’m delirious or something.
Or maybe … oh Jesus, oh God … maybe Big Earl hadn’t missed. Maybe that bullet blasted into Eric’s skull and drilled into his brain, and now he was lying in a hospital somewhere, his ruined head in bandages, a tube down his throat, IVs in his veins: hooked up to machines that were breathing for him, keeping him alive—and it was only a matter of time before someone pulled the plug.
Maybe I’m only one step away from dead.
“Oh man.” Chad’s sharp gasp cut through the maelstrom of his thoughts. “Man, you see that?” Chad said. “Off to the right?”
“What is it?” Eric asked, hoarsely. Really, he was grateful to have something else to worry about.
To his right, the night wasn’t exactly there anymore. Instead, an anvil of thick white fog extended from the ground and rose all the way up and across the dome of the sky.
“Oh my God,” Eric said, and felt the sudden kick of his heart in his teeth. “It’s getting closer. Jesus, it … it’s moving.”
“Bode? Bode?” Chad said, his voice rising. “Bode, we got to turn around, man. We got to turn around right now!”
“I hear that.” There was a sudden lurch as Bode jammed the brake, then muscled the stick into reverse. “Hang on.”
“What? No, wait, Bode. Stop!” Eric clamped a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. As frightened as he was of this thing gathering itself in the sky—and freaked out by what might be wrong with him—he loved his brother more. “We can’t turn back now. What about the others?”
“Devil Dog, I’m sorry, but we are bugging out PDQ.”
“But my brother’s still out there!” If this isn’t a fever, a hallucination, a last gasp … But even if it was. Because Casey is here, with me, in this, and that’s on me. “We can’t just leave him.”
“Yeah? You wanna watch us? We get ourselves killed, won’t do him no good anyway,” Chad said, as Bode swung the truck around. “Go, man, go!”
“I’m going.” Bode mashed the accelerator. The truck’s wheels spun in the snow, caught, and then they w
ere churning back the way they’d come, the Dodge’s snow chains chattering over packed snow: chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka-chuck!
“Bode, wait, think,” Eric said. “You’re a soldier. You don’t leave your people behind. Please, don’t do this.”
“Screw that. Just go!” Chad shouted, his voice riding a crescendo of panic: “It’s getting closer! Go, Bode, go, go!”
“I’m going, I’m going!” Bode hammered the accelerator, and the Dodge surged, the engine chugging like an eggbeater. They flew over the snow, going so fast the outside world blurred into a silvery smear. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, you hunk of junk! Move, move move move!”
Not going to make it. Eric knew that. They would never outrun that white cloud or fog or whatever it was. They would spin out, or Bode would lose control and they would die out here, because, despite everything, Eric was convinced that death, like pain, was real here … wherever that was.
“Bode, you’re not going to make it,” Eric said. “Slow down, slow—”
“Shut up.” Bode pushed their speed. “Shut up, shut up!”
“But Bode—”
“Shut up!” Bode stomped the accelerator so hard Eric heard the hollow thud of Bode’s boot. The Dodge rocketed over the snow, slewing right and then left, the wheels spinning, seeking traction, any kind of traction at all. “Marine, get it through your head: we are leaving!”
Chad was still chanting: “Go, Bode, go. Go, Bode, go, go go go!”
“Bode, slow down, you can’t outrun it! You’re going to lose it, dude, you’re going to lose it!” Eric hooked his fingers into the front seat as Bode jinked the wheel, doglegging to the right. The Dodge’s rear swayed. “Bode, you lose it out here, we’re dead.”
“I’m not going to lose it!” Bode shouted.
“You’re going to get us kill—”
“Man, you don’t shut up, Marine or no Marine, I’m tossing you out of this truck, right now!” Bode roared. “You got that? Now shut up!”
“I only—”
“Did you not hear the man? Ain’t you listening?” In the next instant, there was a pistol in Chad’s hand. He jammed the muzzle into Eric’s cheek. “You want me to end this right now?”
