Three Little Snowmen (Damned of the 2/19th)

by Timothy Willard

  "What the fuck does that mean?" Nagle snarled. She was in a bad mood, cold, tired, and if she was anything like me, a little scared.

  "We need to find a generator." I told her, then kicked my boot. "Bomber, pull me out."

  "Hey, Stillwater, in case you didn't notice, the generators are gone, genius." She said as Bomber grabbed my ankles and pulled me out from between the hulking metal behemoths.

  "In the generator room, yeah." Bomber said, and I nodded. "Let's check the war stock's inventory sheets." Nagle nodded and we separated, each of us moving over to sections of the unsecure war stocks.

  We went to each tarp covered stack, pulling the inventory sheets out the clear plastic envelopes that were on top of the stack and quickly scanning them.

  Body bags. Uniforms. Boots. Sleeping bags. TA-50. Tools. All broken down by platoon and squad. Everything we'd need to fight when the Soviets rolled into the Fulda Gap.

  Except fucking generators.

  It was slightly unsettling to see Bomber's, Nagle's, and my own name on an inventory list for a stack of body-bags, our names assigned to a body bag by the serial number on it. It gave me a sick sense of rightness to know that when I was killed, when the Soviet Union rolled into the Fulda Gap, I had a body bag waiting just for me. Nagle's fingers lingered on the case of body bags from the lot number that our body bags were in. I knew what she was thinking.

  Those bags would be our final resting place. We weren't leaving West Germany alive.

  "What about the war stock's secure storage rooms?" Nagle asked when we finished. It was getting colder, even down in the basement which was always cold, which meant that it had to be colder than a witch's ass on a brass broomstick in the rest of the barracks. "Or maybe the War Fighter tunnels?"

  "No keys to the storage rooms and no keycard or code to the tunnels." I answered. "Jakes has the keys, they weren't in the CQ Area."

  "Your key doesn't work?" Nagle asked, clipping her flashlight onto a pocket and jamming her hands into her pants. She hissed in pain as her cold hands met what little warmth the skin of her groin still had.

  "No, it doesn't work on a lot of security doors." I told her, shaking my head. "I can unlock the door of the arms room, the NBC room, and that secure items storage, but I don't have the keys to the cage doors or those heavy locks, so we couldn't get past the bars or the get the heavy duty locks off the doors."

  "Damn." Nagle shivered again, the movement making her large breasts sway, something that grabbed my attention immediately. "And the CQ had the keys, didn't they?" I nodded, and she swore again. "What about the War Fighter tunnels? We can use the door codes to open them."

  "The codes are in the secure items safes in the First Sergeant's, CO's, and the S-2 office." I told her. "Maybe the Kill Team offices."

  "Can you open the doors to those offices?" Bomber asked.

  "Yeah, but we're still missing the keys and combinations to the safes." I told them. Unlike most safes I'd ever seen, the safes that most of the code books, extra keycards, and other secure information were in, had both deadbolt lock systems as well as combination codes.

  "OK, think for a minute." Nancy said. "We have to be able to open the tunnels even if the First Sergeant, the CO, and S-2 aren't here or were taken out prior to reaching the company when the war starts. There's gotta be codes somewhere, easily accessible by people in the barracks."

  "That would make those people mission essential." Nancy nodded as she hugged herself.

  "That would be..." I thought for a moment. "Jakes, me, the LT, you two. Those were on the mission essential list."

  "OK, you're the only one of us who has been CQ." Bomber said. "Did they tell you anything regarding the War Fighter tunnels?"

  I thought about it for a few moments, running through CQ briefings. "Codes to the Warfighter Tunnels are kept in the First Sergeant's Office, CO's office, and S-2 leader's office. The safe combinations are kept in the lockbox in the Supply Room, one of the keys on the CQ ring opens the lockbox. Finally there's a 'Red Card' in the back of the CQ log that is supposed to have instructions and codes, but I don't know what's in it." A Red Card was a red case, about the size of 2 one dollar bills side by side, about a half inch thick, with a grooved line all the way around it across the middle. You were supposed to snap it open in case the balloon went up, but nobody really knew what was in it. It was a secure item that was turned in when the CQ went off shift in the mornings.

  "Can we open it? Bash it open?" Bomber asked, referring to the lockbox.

  Nancy shook her head, taking my cigarette. She took a drag. "You bash one of those open, you might hit a security charge, like on the bunker doors at Atlas."

  She was right. The bunker doors at Atlas had two systems to open them. One were heavy locks, shaped like a brick, solid steel, where the hasps of the door and frame met and were slid into the brick, with an inch thick bolt inside the hardened lock. The other was a keypad that required a swipe of a card to unlock the keypad. The units we were supposed to support had the keycards and the codes to open the doors, but they were in the Red Cards that the unit itself had in their possession, and running one of those cards through caused the whole system to light up back at the V Corps office.

  If you tried to hotwire them, the security charge in the keypad would blow you to hamburger with the security charge and destroy the keypad, locking the bunker down.

  "We need to get moving before we freeze to death." I said.

  "How many of us are left in the barracks?" Bomber asked, shivering. All of our teeth were chattering and I started walking toward the stairwell access, stomping my feet to get the blood pumping and in hopes of banishing the numbness that was starting to set in.

  "CQ is all from the barracks tonight. That leaves ten people we need to find if we count them. If we don't, we need to find six." I answered, remembering the morning report. "That's if nobody else is missing." I finished lamely as I locked the door to the maintenance room.

  "Yeah. If." Bomber agreed, his normal Texas cheer missing. He pulled open the center stairwell access door and the second or two of wind that blasted down the stairwell and over us swept away the stench. Something else was mixed in with the wind, something I didn't pay attention to as we started up the steps.

  In the stairwell all three of our flashlights cut out, leaving us in darkness. A whispering noise surrounded us, and the faint sound of scratching could be heard. A sobbing moan drifted through the stairwell, and I heard either Nagle or Bomber inhale sharply.

  I suddenly had to piss really badly as the lizard reached out and lightly pressed one clawed hand on the flight button and the other on the fight button.

  "I'm out of batteries." Bomber whispered. I nodded in the darkness.

  I could hear Nagle unscrewing her flashlight and I did the same, almost racing her to get it open and drop in new batteries. I stripped the tinfoil and paper off them and dropped them in, then sighed with relief when it lit back up.

  I still remembered my flashlight batteries cutting out and new batteries not getting my flashlight restarted one fateful night before the barracks burnt down.

  We started up the stairs, reached the mid-way landing, turned to go up, and stopped in our tracks, staring at the first floor landing.

  Nagle screamed.

  Bomber cursed.

  I just stared, mouth open.

  Dark red had oozed from the edge of the ceiling that was formed by the 2nd floor landing, running down the wall next to the 1st floor door, and freezing solid. Our flashlights glittered off the frost that covered it, and my brain just refused to process what I was seeing.

  The lizard wasn't inhibited, he slammed his hand on the fight or flight button, snarling as my glands reacted and pistoned combat chemicals into my bloodstream, then slapped the flight button, knowing from what my senses were bringing in, data he could process a Hell of a lot faster than me, that there wasn't anything to fight.

  Bomber moved a split second after I turned and shined the light beh
ind me, making sure that nobody was sneaking up behind us.

  I moved to the side slightly as he went by, pushing by me and rushing up the stairs, heedless of the ice on the steps. Seeing nothing but Nancy's pale face and darkness I snarled, turning away and pounding after Bomber.

  "Run, goddamn it." The echoes of my voice were harsh and inhuman, and the lizard didn't like the echoes that Nancy started as she followed behind me. Ahead of me, Bomber had reached the next stairwell access.

  From above us came shrieks. Terrible, horrible shrieks of pure animal agony that couldn't be made by a human. They went on and on as we hammered up the stairs, Bomber not even slowing when he hit the door. He slammed his shoulder against the door at the same time as he drove his forearm against the unlocking bar, his jacket sleeve hitting the wood cover. I was right on his heels, and could feel and hear Nagle right after me. Nagle tripped me as we went through, and we both went down on the floor, dragging Bomber with us as Nagle reached out for support and grabbed his jacket by accident. I rolled over and kicked at the door wildly until it slammed shut. I scrambled backward until my back hit the wall. I knew my eyes were wild, and I was shaking from more than the cold.

  "What the fuck was that?" Nagle yelled.

  "How the fuck should I know?" I yelled back.

  "It was fucking blood! Oh fuck, it was fucking blood!" Bomber yelled, jumping up to his feet, his boots hitting the ice and sending him sprawling back onto the floor.

  The screaming still kept going, filling the air, despite the fact it should have been muted by the heavy steel door.

  "Who's screaming?" Nancy yelled.

  "Fuck 'em, we gotta get out of here." Bomber yelled back.

  "CQ Area!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet. Nagle was up before me and grabbed Bomber's jacket, pulling him up with fear driven strength.

  All three of us blew through the mid-way doors, the doors crashing as they hit the walls, the springs shrieking as the frozen steel was suddenly stretched. We pounded down the hallway of Titty Territory at a dead run, burst through the doors to the CQ Area and came skidding to a halt.

  It was empty, and we looked at each other and laughed nervously for a moment. A faint sobbing noise from the unisex bathroom sobered us really quickly. We went around the counter and faced the open area of the CQ Area. I opened the drawers of the counter and Bomber grabbed the paperwork with one hand as he dug out his little green notebook and a pen with the other.

  The lizard was wide awake, once again processing data I wasn't even aware of. What doors were open, how thick the ice was, what it looked like outside, air currents, everything that had enabled him to survive millions of years curled up in the back of his descendants skulls.

  While Bomber jotted down the numbers of the occupied rooms, I went into The Closet and checked the gauges.

  No power.

  Temperature had dropped by 5 degrees.

  Wind speed was gusting up to 60 mph.

  When I came out of The Closet Nagle held up the V Corps line and shook her head.

  "Damn it." I cursed. I pointed at the double doors. "We're getting a Hell of a storm out there. Nobody's coming to fucking save us."

  Bomber grinned at me.

  "What's so fucking funny?" Nagle asked.

  "At least I got to fuck a Bigfoot." He said.

  I couldn't help it, I laughed, and so did Nagle.

  It was an inside joke with the three of us, something that always made us smile.

  "All right, let's go get everyone else." I said. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to get the little lizard to calm down and let me think instead of reacting on hardwired impulses. "How many on the first floor?"

  "Nagle. That's it." Bomber said.

  "Second floor?"

  "Everyone but Jakes and Truman." He told me. "They were on CQ, and both of them are on the third floor."

  "Fourth?"

  "Nobody."

  "Good."

  "I'm not going back in that stairwell." Nagle said.

  "You wanna stay here by yourself?" I asked.

  "No."

  "Let's take the forward stairwell." Bomber suggested, and we both nodded.

  "We're still going to have to eventually use that stairwell, so stuff your tampon in." I told Nagle. She glared at me for a second and then nodded.

  "Who do you think the blood's from?" Bomber asked.

  I shrugged.

  "Could it be the building fucking with us?" Nagle asked. Good, she was thinking again and not reacting.

  "Maybe." I answered. "The 'bleeding' that the walls do is supposed to be shitty concrete curing and the rebars rusting." Nagle snorted.

  "Goddamn it, I'm short, I'm not supposed to be dealing with shit like this." Bomber said.

  "Stuff your tampon in." Nancy snarled. "It was just rusty water squeezed out by the cold making the cinderblocks contract."

  "You buy that shit?" Bomber asked nobody in particular.

  "Third floor first." I said, ignoring his question while I was rummaging around in another drawer and coming up with a heavy duty flashlight. One of the ones with the big square batteries. I clicked it off and on, then slapped it a few times. We got lucky, it lit. I handed it off to Bomber, who hefted it with a grin. He led the way, shining the bright white light on the walls so that the whole room glittered from the frost.

  Bomber opened the door to the stairwell and we shined our flashlights in. No blood on the wall, but there was still thick ice that no longer glittered and sparkled, instead it sat sullenly on the walls. We tromped up the stairs to the third floor and pushed out into the hallway. The office space to our right was empty since everyone was gone, but at Nagle's suggestion we swept through it real quick, using my key to open the doors to the bathrooms, the NCO offices, and the offices where the officers plotted their plots and plans.

  When they weren't sleeping or shamming or screwing subordinates.

  We swept through all the rooms, looking for anyone.

  Nobody.

  We left the office areas, heading down the hallway. Since it was the first one, we knocked on Truman's door first, and got no answer. After trying twice more I unlocked the door and we went in.

  It was empty.

  I relocked the door and we headed down to Jakes' room, where we repeated the process.

  When I opened the door the wind hit us in the face, the temperature in the hallway dropping. I could see that his window was open, letting in the snow and the wind. Cursing we went in, shut his window, and looked around.

  Empty.

  The room felt odd, more empty than it should have, and the shadows felt like they were drawing close as the light passed them. The lizard grumbled, and I was aware that the room smelled like cold and snow and suddenly reminded me of the walk-in freezer of the slaughterhouse I'd worked at when I was thirteen.

  I pushed the memory as we walked out of Jakes' room, locking the door behind me. The lizard didn't stop grumbling until the door was locked and I'd followed the instinct to check the handle and make sure the door was locked firmly. I turned away from the door and started heading for the far end of the building.

  We were silent as we pushed through the double doors separating lower NCO's from mid-grade NCO's, ignoring the pinging of the springs from the door and the shouts above us that were followed by the crashing of boots. When we passed the middle stairwell I gave a shudder and Bomber mumbled 'fucking short' which Nancy answered with a punch to the shoulder. We used the far stairwell to move down to the second floor, the air cold and still.

  We got luckier on the second floor.

  It was exactly twenty steps to the first room someone lived in from the far stairwell. Daniels and Hewitt shared a room at the far end of the building on that floor, and Hewitt answered the door after I banged on it a couple of times.

  "What the Hell's going on? It's fucking freezing in here." He said. He was dressed in PT sweats, the blue and gold ugly but issue standard. Heavy insulated reversible shirt, heavy blue sweat pants wi
th gold trim. Officers had a gold stripe down the legs, which made it so they were identifiable even during PT.

  "Furnace and water heater are off, and we've lost power." Bomber said, trying to look past him. "Daniels in there?"

  "Yeah. Why are you banging on my door like a retarded chimp?"

  "I'll tell you later. Just stay in your room, OK?" I said.

  "You woke me up for that shit?" He sounded grouchy, and I was too cold, too scared, and starting to get too angry to put up with his shit. The lizard wanted a fight, a way to bleed off too much fear, building rage, and just plain fear of the dark, not to mention to impress Nancy so he could slap the 'breed' button. I pushed all of that aside, ignoring the lizard's mutters.

  I took a deep breath before I trusted myself to speak. "I'm serious. Don't go anywhere just yet, but wake up Daniels and get dressed." I told him, my voice tight with anger. I'd always had a temper, even as a kid. My Father had taught me meditation and self-control techniques to get a handle on it so it didn't really show up very often.

  But fear was making my temper fray and the lizard wasn't helping.

  "Why?" He asked, his voice and body language still belligerent. I wanted to punch him in the face and scream 'that's why' when he landed on his back.

  "I'm taking a head count, then we're going to figure out what to do." I told him.

  "You're an asshole." He answered, and slammed the door. I was tempted to kick in his door and beat his ungrateful ass. Nagle touched my arm, pulling my attention to her, and she shook her head silently. I let out a deep breath and nodded, and she put her hand on my arm. The rage drained away as I stared into her brown eyes for a long moment. When she blinked the moment shattered and I turned away, angrily cracking my knuckles.

  "Let's get the others." Nancy said. I grunted, not trusting myself to say anything. John just nodded, shining the light down the hallway.

  We all ignored the way the darkness seemed to swallow the light and how the ice on the walls was slick and black looking.

  Bomber led the way, the heavy flashlight dimming slightly as we walked down the hallway. The next room wasn't far, but the way our footsteps seemed muffled bothered me.