by Liam Brown
The night boy, a young private named Cal, was real jumpy when I showed up, waving his rifle around until he clocked my uniform and stood to attention. Between you, me and the fencepost, I reckon he’d been havin forty winks on the sly, what with his puffy eyes and drool crusted face. Or maybe he was jus’ a bit special. Either way, he settled down once I’d explained the situation to him and seemed pleased to be knockin off early. I watched him totter off towards the distant glow of the camp, suddenly filled with a sense of pride as I looked over at the small cluster of lights. Because that light stands for something, son – hope, righteousness, whatever. Lookin in from the dark, it felt like I was starin at a base on the moon or something; a tiny enclave of good set amongst the endless wickedness of the universe.
After a while though I noticed some of the tents were lit up, illuminated by the unmistakable flutter of LCD screens. I felt sick then, as I thought of my fellow soldiers – the most elite force of Monster-killers ever assembled – hunched over their roll mats watchin porno. Right then the little circle of light stopped lookin like a moonbase and started lookin like a zoo; nothing but a pack of gruntin animals whackin off ‘til they was raw. I turned back to my post in disgust and stared out, the darkness lookin blacker than ever.
The next morning we set off before sunrise. This is yesterday. People were still upbeat, but by now the celebrations were more muted – the reality of spendin two more days trudgin through the desert startin to sink in. Once again I offered to take up the point and spent most of the day by myself, happy enough for some peace and quiet, just me and my thoughts. As before, we stopped about an hour before sunset, settin up camp in a small natural basin that offered a little shelter from the harsh wind that had started up as the afternoon’d wore on. There were no extra rations this time, and although we ate together there was little conversation, our backs, legs and feet achin from two days on the beat. I was jus’ finishin up when Steve came over and started blabbin to me, goin on about his baby girl and whatnot. Even though I was only half listenin, he seemed real happy. I guess that’s something, huh? After dinner the night patrol took up their posts while the rest of us hit the sack, and once again I found myself starin at the inside of my tent, unable to sleep. Just before midnight I gave up and figured I’d take another stroll out to the perimeter and see if I could swap with one of the night boys. No point in us both sittin up doin nothin all night.
As I crept out of the camp and into the darkness, I was struck by how quiet the night was. Now obviously compared to the city, the desert is always pretty quiet. Ya don’t get much late night traffic passin through these parts ha. Still, after a few weeks out here you start to notice it ain’t that quiet. Much like anywhere else, the desert has its own soundtrack, a heartbeat. A pulse. There’s the wind of course, rustlin the shrubs and cacti, howlin through the caves and creeks. But there’s life too – more than you’d expect considerin how downright inhospitable this cunt-crack of a country is. There’s the squawk and chatter of birds in the mornin, desert larks mostly, though you might see the odd raven too, maybe even an eagle if you’re lucky. Then as soon as the sun starts to dip a chorus of crickets clears its throat, with the occasional screech of frog punctuatin the song, though god knows where the little bastards manage to find water. There’s bats too, squeakin and swoopin overhead, and the scratch and scurry of assorted rodents around your feet, all of it cemented together by the whine of mosquitoes and flies, which follow you round pretty much 24-7. Of the two, the flies are the worst, the lack of moisture out here drivin ’em gaga, so that you spend every other second swattin ’em outta your nose, mouth and eyeballs while they’re tryna suck the juice outta ya. There’s bigger things out here too; wild pigs, cattle, badgers even. And then there’s the things you can’t name, odd rustles and grunts you don’t recognise. The scratch of unfamiliar claws on sand, distant screams in the night. It’s enough to give you nightmares. Well it would be, if I could ever get any goddamned sleep that is, ha.
Last night though, the desert was quiet. I mean fuckin silent. No crickets, mosquitoes, nothin. Even the wind had dropped away, and as I approached the edge of the basin the crunch of my footsteps echoed loud and crisp in the cold night air. The noise must’ve given me away to the night boy, and as I approached I saw that it was that Cal kid, wavin his torch and gun around like he was the damn Lone Ranger or somethin. The dumb shit’d probably been sleepin on the job again. ‘Evenin Sir,’ he said, droppin the rifle and salutin as soon as he made me out in the dark. I looked him up and down, his shiny pink face rigid with concentration. A teenager. Tell the truth he didn’t look much older than you son – I’d put money on his balls bein just as smooth too, ha.
‘Give the ‘Sir’ shit a rest, Private,’ I said, tossin him a box a smokes. The kid nodded to me, relaxin as he took out a cigarette and lit up. ‘Couldn’t sleep again, huh?’ he asked, handing me back the box. ‘Not as well as you,’ I shot back. The kid blinked a couple of times, a look of panic flushin his face like he knew he’d been caught out. ‘Ah relax, son. I’m jus’ breakin ya balls. I thought I’d swing by and let you bunk off early again. Seein as it’s such a lovely night and all.’ We laughed at that, the shadows of our cigarettes unspoolin in the torch light. Then the kid thanked me and set off towards camp, the orange glow from his smoke like a sniper’s sight in the dark.
At first I thought it was thunder, which is ridiculous, I know. As if a soldier wouldn’t recognise the sound of automatic rifle fire when he heard it. I guess it jus’ caught me by surprise is all, the short bursts seemin to come from nowhere, rattlin around the basin like rolls on a snare. RATA-TATA-TATA. Pause. RATA-TATA-TATA. Sounded like a whole fuckin marchin band down there I’m tellin ya. It wasn’t until I heard a grenade explode that my brain finally caught up and my training kicked in, muscle memory eclipsin fear as I started to sprint.
When I was a coupla minutes from camp the gunfire abruptly cut away, jus’ leavin the sound of me puffin and pantin as I entered the camp. There was blood everywhere – I mean EVERYWHERE – the circle of green tents decorated with dark crimson arcs, the sand still wet to the touch. ‘Hello?’ I called, raising my rifle to my chest. There was no response. As quietly as I could, I crept over to the Lieutenant’s tent. Sure enough I found him face down on his mat, little pieces of his skull splattered across the canvas.
As I backed away from the mess I heard a loud noise behind me, and I dived for cover, letting off a loud burst of warnin fire as I hit the dirt. ‘HOLD FIRE!’ someone called, our Staff Sergeant Jim staggerin towards me wavin his hands, two others close behind. ‘That you, Corporal?’ he asked, as the smoke cleared. ‘Yes Sir. What the hell’s happened here Sir?’ Jim took a step forward, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Fucked if I know. I was out on the west perimeter when I heard gunfire.’ He paused a second, ‘You hurt soldier?’ I followed his gaze to my chest, finding the front of my jacket smeared red. ‘The Lieutenant,’ I explained, wiping at my top. ‘Who you got with you?’ Jim nodded at the two soldiers behind him. ‘Corporal Doggerel and Private Jettison,’ he replied. ‘They were together over on the north point. We found Steve round the back there. I ain’t sure where the rest of him is… ’
A loud crash interrupted him and we turned to see Doggie and Jett sprintin out towards the edge of the camp, returnin a few seconds later with a wrigglin pink thing pinned between them. ‘Cal!’ I shouted, recognisin the kid I’d relieved an hour earlier, except now he was wearing nothing but his underwear and was screamin his head off. ‘THEY’RE GONNA KILL US MAN! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!’ As they brought him closer I saw he weren’t fakin it, his eyes buggin out his head. ‘Stand to attention Private!’ Jim hollered, and the kid seemed to relax a bit then, instinct takin over as he started saluting over and over like a robot while he stood shiverin in his boxer shorts. ‘Now in your own words Private, can you explain what in fuck’s name’s been happenin round here.’ The kid looked at Jim, then at the two guys holdin him, and then over at me. And the
n, without a word, we watched as a dark stream of piss trickled down his bare leg and soaked into the sand below.
We got Cal talkin in the end of course, though it turned out he knew as little as the rest of us. He was half way back to camp when he heard the first shots. He started runnin and didn’t look back. When he got back everyone was dead. We let him get dressed while the rest of us searched for survivors, stackin the bodies we found in piles to make ’em easier to count. I gave up lookin once I’d counted twenty, but Jim, Doggie and Jett carried on searchin, emptyin tents, shakin out bloodied sleepin bags. Well good on ’em I say. Me, I decided to have a little sit down. I’d seen enough blood for one night.
About a half hour ago Jim came over and dumped Steve’s body at my feet, his chest cavity flappin open as he hit the floor. ‘That’s ’em all,’ he said, pointedly. I shrugged, lit another cig. Jim told me they’d conducted a full search of the site, and nearly all of our equipment had either been destroyed or pillaged in the raid, along with the majority of our food and water supplies. ‘You got somethin to say about that, Corporal?’ I shook my head, suckin up my smoke. It was almost daybreak, the sky turned a sickly white. Jim looked like shit. ‘You got somethin to say?’ he asked again, and once again I shook my head. From where I was sittin the campsite looked like an impressionist painting or somethin, the flattened tents like lily pads on a lake of sand and blood. It didn’t seem like it’d make much difference whether I had anythin to say or not. A sudden commotion on the other side of the camp interrupted us, as Cal burst from his tent, his shirt on back-to-front, screamin his head off again.
‘AHHHHH! WE’RE FUCKED! WE’RE TOTALLY FUCKED!’
Jim shot me one last look before runnin off to join Doggie and Jett, who by now’d already tackled Cal to the floor. As I watched them restrain the poor little prick, twistin his arm up behind his back and pushin his face in the dirt, I couldn’t help thinkin:
The kid had a point.
There had been protests at first. Marches and rallies took place in the streets while politicians squabbled over the finer details of the invasion: Exactly which countries were harbouring Monsters? And how quickly were they capable of launching another attack? Forty-five minutes? Forty-five days? In the end though it all proved to be academic. Within weeks war was everywhere, as much a part of the national conversation as global warming and mass unemployment. In other words, it was boring – simply another voice adding to the vaguely depressing background babble, which tried and failed to compete with the other, far more urgent, concerns of the general public. Namely reality television and the consumption of vast and destructive quantities of alcohol.
Naturally, I was far more interested in the latter.
I was in my final year of college, approaching my finals – a miraculous position to find myself in considering the years I’d spent binging. I’m not just talking about booze either. In the intervening years since the attack (which the press had snappily branded Year Zero) I’d found any number of anaesthetics to keep me distracted: sex, pot, pills, poetry – I even got into religion for a few months following an ill-fated crush on a Jewish boy when I was sixteen – but none of it had really stuck. No, the only constant companion I’d had on my journey from youth to young womanhood was drink. Not usually to the point of incapacitation – just enough to soften the harsher edges of reality, to blur the details.
To numb the memories.
I don’t know whether I’d describe myself as an alcoholic exactly. If I was then I was high-functioning – probably a little too high-functioning for my liking, as I found no matter how drunk I was I could never really escape the mental shadow cast by my sad little family. And believe me, they were sad. Having permanently fled to the sanctuary of her boyfriend’s house, my sister initially seemed to have emerged from the carnage relatively unscathed, graduating from law school with good grades before immediately taking a job down south, about as far away from Mum – and from me – as she could get without falling into the sea. For the next five years or so she led an unexpectedly happy life; keeping a good job, getting married and giving birth to an adorable set of twin girls. During this period I visited my sister a total of three times, on each occasion getting the distinct impression she would rather I wasn’t there. Whenever I did speak to her, she went out of her way not to ask after Mum. She couldn’t even bring herself to say Dad’s name.
One morning, a couple of weeks after my seventeenth birthday, as I lay shivering in bed with a low-grade comedown, I picked up the phone to a whole new galaxy of misery; somehow my sister’s husband had managed to drive his car off the road, killing him instantly and transforming my sister into a widowed mother of two young children at the age of twenty-two. A few weeks later she moved back north to be closer to her family – finally acquiescing to the web of tragedy that had long since swaddled us all, its sticky silken strands stretching all the way back to that fateful summer’s morning eight years earlier. The day our world had ended and begun.
Year Zero.
As for my poor, sweet, broken mother? Well she did eventually come down from her room. At least her body did. Her mind on the other hand remained resolutely locked away upstairs somewhere, cold and distant. Out of reach. Gone were the fun-time breakfasts, the girly nights in painting our toenails and straightening each other’s hair. Stolen. Instead my formerly glamorous mummy had been replaced by a lank-haired, dead-eyed zombie, shuffling listlessly around the house or to the supermarket and back, her mouth flecked with white spit from the head pills, taking slow, shallow gulps of air like an oxygen-starved goldfish, resigned to her fate, going round and round and round…
And completely ignoring me.
Oh yes, your poor mother was left to stagger along the pot-holed pavement of adolescence almost entirely unaided and un-abetted. My first period, my first boyfriend, unexpected eruptions on my face and chest – all of these aberrations were met with little support bar the under-informed whispers of my classmates and the problem pages of Seventeen magazine. Needless to say, I spent the majority of my teenage years feeling conflicted about exactly what I was and wasn’t supposed to be doing, more often than not getting it spectacularly wrong.
Not that I was alone in feeling like this. As I’ve said before, Year Zero left a sizeable hole in most families, and at least half of my friends had lost one if not both parents to the Monsters. Now in theory, this should have made things easier. There should have been a sense of solidarity amongst survivors, a whole network of people to hold out their arms and catch us as we fell: councillors, seminars, how-to-not-fuck-up-your-life manuals handed out at the school gates. And I suppose there might have been those things, if any of us had the energy or inclination to go and look for them. But ultimately I guess we were too damaged and self-obsessed to ask for help. Besides, it was bad enough having to share my personal tragedy with what felt like half the world without having my face rubbed in the ignominy of group grieving sessions. It was like Dad’s death – and my subsequent delinquency – had been co-opted by newspaper columnists and national memorials. None of it belonged to me anymore. We were simply statistics to be wheeled out during debates on foreign policy; our ruined family a coloured slice on some politician’s pie chart. Which is why, I suppose, I spent so many years feeling so unspeakably angry.
In fact, I was fucking furious.
At the politicians, the papers, at Dad for getting himself killed and at Mum for going crazy. I was angry with my school, with my sister, with the government and with my friends. But most of all, I was angry with the Monsters. Many a night I would lie awake, vividly picturing the things I’d do if I was left alone in a room with just one of them, so much so that even when I found sleep my dreams would be stained with green blood and severed tails. Oh, I’d make them suffer if I got the chance.
Except as far as I could tell, there were no Monsters around. At least not recently. Sure there were reports of their activities – road-side bombs, attacks on schools and hospitals – as well as the
occasional well-publicised arrests of a few low-level collaborators, but when it came to nailing the big boys, they always seemed to drift away and vanish, like smoke pouring from the side of an overturned tank. Even the army couldn’t seem to find them, the news reports filled with bored-looking soldiers and politicians defending their on-going occupation of yet another stretch of barren foreign soil, sweating into their expensive suits as they promised to leave no stone unturned, giving cryptic warnings of the horrors that lay in store if they were to walk away:
‘We might be winning the war… but the war is still a long way from won.’
Every so often, news would leak of some new atrocity committed by our boys out in the desert; a secret torture facility or a group of locals that had been rounded up and shot. Generally though, everyone was in agreement. The ends justified the means. There were Monsters out there – hiding in the hills, being sheltered in caves maybe – it was just a case of finding them. And bringing them to justice. Until then there was nothing left to do except
Wait.
And wait we did, the months and years tumbling by in a blur of beer and bourbon, the hangovers and resentment growing in stature until finally I found myself twenty-one years old, peering into the precipice of my final exams. But was I at home studying? Diligently making notes and revising? Of course I wasn’t. No, as if sensing the end of an era, and the looming of a new and even more terrifying phase – of adulthood and responsibility – I was out drinking, burying my head in a bucket of booze, desperately trying to hang on to the last, splintering fragments of my youth. Refusing to grow up, whatever the cost. Which is how I found myself sprawled out at some downtown house party at 3am, surrounded by a bunch of guys I’d never seen before in my life.
