Midnight Skills

by William Allen

  If some harebrained officer decided to prosecute, he figured he was screwed. Then he’d need to decide, how far he was willing to go to evade prosecution. Surprisingly, he hoped he wouldn’t have to kill the captain. She’d been a bit confrontational, but no worse than some he’d dealt with in his own command.

  When she finally spoke again, Luke tried to maintain a placid demeanor. No sense in telegraphing what he was thinking.

  “Sergeant Messner, I feel I need to explain a few things now. I am not exactly here as an intelligence officer, though I am attached to General McMillan’s staff in that department. I have a doctorate in clinical psychology, Sergeant. I was in the reserves when this all started, working in my practice in DeRidder. It was only a short walk to the gates at Fort Polk, and I made that trek with my family, a few days after the pulse hit.”

  “And the general wanted what, ma’am?”

  Captain Hostra gave a slight shrug, but Luke was watching her eyes. She was thinking hard, and Luke wondered how much she knew of the planned operation.

  “A psych eval, Sergeant. An informal one. There’s a mission coming up, and honestly, some people were worried about your suitability. Personally, I now have my own doubts about the suitability of a seventeen-year-old in this role. Why do they want you?”

  “I know we have what my father calls Tier One Operators, Captain. Army Special Forces. Air Force equivalents guarding the Special Weapons at Barksdale. Other forces are also lining up with us because of what happened in Joplin, coupled with the emergence of President Dandridge. My guess, and it is only a guess, is those other forces are occupied with something else.”

  “So, again, why you?”

  “Because I have a track record of surviving where others don’t, and I am willing to do the hard things that make experienced soldiers flinch. I’ve been told I have a talent for killing people, ma’am. I’ve had good tutors both before and after the lights went out, and I’ve been gifted with a skillset I’ve been honing for quite a while now.”

  The silence that followed seemed to pulse with tension, or at least it seemed like that to Captain Hofstra. This tall, young man seemed unaware of the weight his words carried, or indifferent.

  “Do you ever have nightmares about the men you kill, Sergeant?”

  “No, ma’am. Just the innocents I couldn’t save.” Luke’s honest answer seemed to elicit some reaction from the captain, but he couldn’t tell what she thought.

  “What do you think about when you are practicing these skills, Sergeant?”

  “Now? I’m thinking about my men, and planning what to do next. Managing a squad isn’t as easy as it looks, ma’am.”

  “And before? Before you had your squad, what did you think about when you killed people?”

  “When it was just me, I didn’t think about much of anything, ma’am. I mean, I worried if the guy had friends around, or if I would have time to loot the body before somebody else came along. Things like that. Then I had Amy to look after, and I would think about where we would camp next, or whether we could get more gear at the next house we found.”

  “So, before you joined the Army, you were what? A bandit?”

  “A survivor, ma’am. I never touched anyone minding their own business, but if you tried to hurt me or mine, then that made you fair game. Same with anybody preying on others.”

  “So, you took that authority on yourself, then?”

  “Captain, let me tell you a story. You be the judge. Tell me I did the wrong thing.”

  With that, Luke detailed his encounter where he’d gained his first pistol. Of having to listen to the screams and whimpers of the woman being assaulted all day, and how he’d crept into the camp that night and cut the rapist’s throat. The split of the loot, when the woman retained the shotgun and pressed the pistol into Luke’s hand, as the only reward she could bestow upon him.

  When Luke stopped talking, he leaned back to carefully observe the captain. She seemed to be wrestling with something in her mind, almost holding some kind of internal debate. Luke had no idea how much of the real horrors she’d witnessed, ensconced safely behind a secure perimeter. Her next words served to answer Luke’s unspoken question.

  “I knew it was bad out there,” Captain Hofstra finally managed to say, her tongue having trouble finding the words, “but I didn’t see it with my own eyes. And this is a common occurrence?”

  “Every day. Everywhere I went,” Luke replied softly, and for once, the captain saw emotion in the young man’s eyes.

  “Thanks to the training I received from my father, and especially my grandfather, I knew the best thing I could do in a TEOTWAWKI event was to find a safe place to weather the die-off. The problem was, I had to travel all the way from Chicago to northwest Arkansas, before I found any place that even marginally qualified as safe. Everywhere I looked, I saw terrible things. You asked about nightmares, and what I saw done by others I couldn’t help, that’s what used to haunt my sleep.”

  Aware his voice had risen as he’d spoken, Luke stopped and regarded the captain, his eyes cold once again as he regained control over his emotions.

  “Worried I’ve gone over the edge, ma’am? Or did I pass?”

  Captain Hofstra finally frowned but ignored the question by asking her own. This time, she chose to shift the focus to something not as sensitive.

  “How did you make sergeant so quickly? I understand you’ve only been on the line for two months.”

  “I’ve only been in the Guard for two months, ma’am. Like I mentioned before, I’ve been fighting pretty much every day since a week after the light went out. I killed my first person a week after that, well, people. Not sure exactly how many I killed that day.”

  When the captain asked for clarification, Luke gave her a bare bones account of his fight at the rest stop. He refrained from showing her the scar on the back of his head, thinking such action might be a bit juvenile.

  “Cannibals? How did you know?”

  “The half-butchered carcass of the young lady, I think it was female, hanging from the overhead beam was my first clue, ma’am,” Luke replied in a tone just this side of sarcastic, but the captain didn’t seem to notice.

  “And since then?” she finally managed to ask.

  “Well, I tried to avoid confrontations where I could, but the world has become a dangerous place. And I’ve become pretty good at adapting to the struggle. I could already fight, hunt, and track a little before the world went to hell, ma’am. The hardest part, honestly, is like I mentioned before. After I was promoted. Learning to delegate, and to allow other members of my squad to expose themselves to danger, has been a new experience for me.”

  As the captain continued to ask her questions, Luke felt himself relax and tried to answer truthfully, but with a minimum of explanation. If she thought he was crazy, Luke decided, then he would go on from there. He actually lost track of time and was surprised when Captain Hofstra announced their session was concluding.

  “Ma’am, if I may ask, how did I do? What’s the verdict?”

  Captain Hofstra didn’t mince words when she replied. Over the course of their conversation, her face had gone from a professional demeanor, too shocked and horrified, and eventually merged into something Luke could not read. He suspected it was a mixture of resignation and exhaustion.

  “Luke, in the old days, I’d recommend months, if not years of therapy. That would include a whole host of anti-anxiety medications. Under current conditions, I must say, you are still fit for duty. You might experience bad dreams at times when your unconscious mind struggles to process all you have seen and done, but I have a feeling this doesn’t come as any kind of surprise.”

  “No, Ma’am. Already dealing with them. Like I said, I still see the faces of those I couldn’t save,” he said, omitting that his mother’s face was now one of them.

  At that, Captain Hofstra suggested several strategies developed to cope with the nightmares. Some might actually help. When she rose from her se
at in dismissal, Luke was surprised when she extended her hand and offered a firm handshake.

  “Good luck on your next mission, Luke. I can’t go into details, since I really don’t know all the particulars, but what little I do know makes me think this one will be big. God help us, but I think we will need your skills to carry off what the generals have cooking.”

  Luke nodded and reached for the door handle. Thinking about what the captain said, Luke turned back to offer a response.

  “I just want this war over, so I can go home to what’s left of my family. Assholes like Chambers are bullies, but they are also ambitious opportunists. We need to crush their ambitions thoroughly, if the county is ever going to be more than a collection of loosely related states.”

  “That’s pretty deep thinking for someone who just turned seventeen,” Captain Hofstra commented, and her voice seemed different to Luke’s ear.

  “Helps that I was just talking about pretty much the same thing with my fiancé,” Luke replied with a slight grin. “She’s also worried about what comes after.”

  “Sounds like a remarkable, young woman.”

  “Oh, Doctor, you have no idea. Ma’am.”

  With that, Luke slid the door open to find Airman Ramos still waiting. He left Captain Hofstra to her thoughts and she began clicking away at the keys on her keyboard. Luke tried to put her and her questions out of his mind.

  “How’d it go?” Ramos asked, trying to pretend he wasn’t curious.

  “I guess I’m cleared for the next mission,” Luke replied. “Now, can you lead me to the conference room where all the brass is gathered? I think I need to find out just what I’ve stepped in here.”

  Ramos laughed and then waved down the hall for Luke to lead the way. That was something he could do.

  CHAPTER 55

  When they reached the hallway leading to the conference rooms, the airman dropped Luke off at the wide double doors with a nod, directing the young man to head inside and wait. The makeshift security station desk was manned, or occupied, by a female soldier and flanked by four more of her squadmates, arrayed around the chest-high wooden speaker’s podium. Probably repurposed from one of the vacant meeting rooms behind them, Luke figured.

  After all these months of oftentimes fierce fighting since the lights went out, Luke noted the squad members wore patched and mismatched uniforms. Luke didn’t know if they were Guard or Regular Army, but they held themselves like professional soldiers, rifles slung in front on single point slings, and eyed Luke suspiciously in his obviously fresh fatigues with the subdued sergeant’s insignia attached to the center of his chest. He caught eyes on his uniform, and scrutiny shown to the slung rifle and holstered pistol.

  Just as Luke reached the five soldiers manning the desk, the woman, now that he was closer, Luke could see she also wore the stripes of a buck sergeant, held up a hand.

  “Name?”

  “Sergeant Luke Messner, Charlie Company, Second Brigade, Texas Army National Guard.”

  “Got it,” she replied, and he thought he read a small dose of surprise as she checked her clipboard. “The next briefing will start in fifteen minutes. Someone will come for you shortly. Would you care to take a seat while you wait? We’ve set up the Sierra Room next door as a lounge,” she continued, then dropped her voice conspiratorially, “and there’s coffee. We dug it up when we secured the hotel for this meeting.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Luke responded. “That would be fine.”

  The small conference room boasted couches likely liberated from the lobby, and despite their musty smell, proved to be much more comfortable than their appearance suggested. Luke secured a cup of black coffee from the old-style percolator, heat provided by a single ring gas burner, and found himself alone with his thoughts as he assessed what he knew so far.

  The memory of his unexpected reunion with Amy, and yes, with his father and friends as well, nearly threatened to overcome his calculations. Ironically, Amy’s admonition to keep his eyes open, made it easier to set other thoughts of her aside.

  The sound of a door opening and hushed voices eventually roused Luke and he looked over when one of the side doors lining the inner wall of the large room opened. Scanning quickly, Luke saw it was General Hotchkins, and he popped to his feet.

  While the general ambled across the room and approached the coffeemaker, Luke finally allowed himself to see past the obvious and really take a closer look at Hotchkins. This time, Luke noticed the general looked to have aged a decade in the few months since Luke last saw him, and he walked slowly. He was accompanied by another officer Luke recognized but didn’t know by name, and a staff sergeant in full battle rattle who might as well have had BODYGUARD tattooed across his forehead.

  The other officer, a major, Luke thought, was from the General’s staff in Fort Chaffee, and had a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. Luke noticed the major moved carefully, as if one of his legs might not be all that steady. Hotchkins scrutinized the papers on the clipboard and dashed off what Luke thought was his signature, before the major performed an about-face and marched off.

  “General Hotchkins, sir,” Luke said, and the man finally registered his presence, sipping his coffee and coming over to where Luke stood at attention. As he approached, Luke noted the general walked with limp that hadn’t been there when Luke last saw him at Fort Chaffee. He’d missed it the night before, caught up in the surprise of seeing his family in that hanger.

  “At ease, Sergeant,” Hotchkins said, and Luke barely changed posture. Luke wasn’t really that sharp of a soldier, but the general’s past actions and Luke’s respect for the man forced him to observe the military formalities to the best of his abilities. General Hotchkins earned that respect and more.

  “Did you get a chance to enjoy your reunion with Amy last night?” General Hotchkins continued, and Luke fought to keep the blush from his features.

  “Yes, sir. I haven’t had a chance to see her in months now, and we didn’t part on the best of terms,” he admitted. “I was also pleased to catch up with Major Keller. He was one of my tutors, you know.”

  General Hotchkins nodded sagely before he replied.

  “I gathered as much from speaking with your father this morning. He also told me about what’d happened with your mother. Words are never enough, Luke, but I am very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was a cowardly act, but something we have come to expect from these Commie scum.” Luke’s words rumbled ominously, and he caught a glimpse of the staff sergeant shifting from one foot to the other. Luke’s volume lowered when he continued. “I’m just glad my father managed to hunt down the ones directly responsible. I only regret I wasn’t there to see them hang.”

  “You’ve managed to make your point quite clearly, if my briefings are to be believed. You actually snuck into one of their artillery parks and blew the whole thing to kingdom come?”

  “Well, Corporal Silcott scouted the place first, sir,” Luke explained. “I just helped him lay the charges. We took out two batteries of 105s, the cannon cockers, and a motor pool full of vehicles.”

  “Well done. Now, about these beheadings…”

  Luke waited when the general paused, searching for the right words.

  “Luke, some of the men are concerned. You seem to be using methods favored by our enemies in the War on Terror. That’s got more than a few noses out of joint with the Regular Army generals.”

  Luke fought to keep the frown off his face as he parsed the general’s words. Luke lowered his voice when he replied.

  “And what about the Guard units?”

  General Hotchkins gave Luke a knowing smile that seemed to tug at the lines in the man’s face. Luke hadn’t seen the general in months, but Hotchkins appeared to have aged considerably in that time. Had he not known the general was only in his early forties, Luke would have wagered the man was pushing sixty. It was the hair, still cut short and with no sign of thinning, but now almost completely white
, and those lines cutting deep into his cheeks and forehead. The pressure was prematurely aging the man, and that worried Luke. By all accounts, even with a new governor promoted up from the state legislature, all of Arkansas now in civilized hands, looked to this man for direction.

  “The Allied States National Guard commanders seem strangely satisfied by your actions. Of course, we were the ones Chambers nuked, so go figure. And our guys have been out in the mix a lot more than most, instead of sitting in their bases and wringing their hands.”

  Luke caught the general’s sour tone and kept his own face expressionless.

  “Still thinking about that meeting you just finished?” General Hotchkins probed, and Luke knew this was also part of what the general had already revealed.

  “Captain Hofstra let me out of her office without wearing the straightjacket and Airman Ramos wasn’t chasing me with a butterfly net, so I guess it went okay, sir. For some reason though, I think I made her a bit uncomfortable,” Luke admitted with some chagrin.

  “You didn’t go all Jack Nicholson on her, give her a ‘you can’t handle the truth’ speech, did you, Luke?” General Hotchkins asked, and there was a slight twinkle in the old man’s eyes when he asked the question. I guess, thinking about me going off on the captain was amusing, Luke thought with a touch of wonder.

  Fighting not to laugh, Luke kept a straight face and he responded.

  “Never crossed my mind, sir. I just explained the PsyOps elements of my actions. Targeting the stormtroopers and their officers while leaving the food volunteers alone. Or at least, not mutilating their dead.”

  “My God, just listen to us. Fighting Commies. Dealing with stormtroopers. Listening to some of the reports, I can’t tell if we’ve been warped back to the eighties or fallen into a bad Star Wars installment,” General Hotchkins quipped, then he took a step back as if to examine Luke with a closer scrutiny. Luke waited while the general cleared his throat to speak again.