"What's that?" Bomber asked. All three of us stood at the door to the middle stairwell.
We knew that on the other side of the door, above us in the darkness, the landing was coated with red ice. To the right of the door, the wall was coated with the same from where it had flowed down the wall from the landing.
Red ice made up of someone's life blood. There was too much of it for whoever had bled everywhere to have survived.
"One of them might be the psycho." I told them.
"Shit." Nagle summed it up. Bomber's heavy flashlight chose that moment to give out, the lens crackling as the lightbulb shattered. When Bomber lifted up the flashlight to shake it, the bottom of the case fell away, steaming liquid falling to the floor. Bomber dropped the flashlight with a curse, kicking it away.
"Figures." Bomber snarled as the remains of the heavy flashlight skittered into the darkness, leaving a trail of battery acid behind it.
"Let's head back." I said. "We need to let the others know what's going on."
Bomber nodded, his face serious. Nagle chewed on her lower lip, her eyes narrowed as she thought about it. Without discussion, we started walking to the end stairwell rather than take the middle one.
I led the way, checking up with my flashlight. Nagle came in next, flashing her light onto the stairs and swearing at the ice that was starting to coat them. Bomber closed the door behind him and we all stood for a long moment in the stairwell. The door screamed, the frozen hinges, springs, and hydraulic cylinder that was supposed to make the door shut slowly all protesting loudly. We waited for the echoes of the sound to die away, the shouts in German from above to stop, a woman's scream that descended into sobs, and someone to run down the hallway above us, before we entered the dark stairwell. After a few moments of silence, broken by the sobbing from upstairs, we began plodding up the steps to the second floor.
We pushed the door open and headed into the hallway. It was cold, but I'd stopped feeling it awhile before. I knew I was shivering, but it was like it was happening to someone else, not to me. We passed the doors of the other people we knew were still in the barracks, glancing at each of them and wondering if the men I'd just spoken about were still in there. After a sobbing moan drifted past and wound around us, I glanced at Bomber and Nagle, and both of them were pale, shaking slightly as they walked down the hallway with me. A woman started screaming as we approached the mid-point doors, her screams gaining in volume to the point that we couldn't hear the springs as we opened the door. The screams abruptly cut off right before we reached Hewitt and Daniel's door, soft sobs that were barely within hearing range replacing them.
I hammered on the door, yelling for someone to open up. After a long minute the door opened with a shriek that echoed down the hallway, and Hewitt popped his head out the door, his short hair tousled.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on yet?" he asked.
"Tell Daniels that we're forming up in Lewis' room, 298." I told him. "Bring all your blankets."
"Fuck you, tell me what's going on." He answered. I could smell the booze on his breath and the urge to smash, kill, and rend flooded back, despite the lizard hammering on the abort button. I wanted to break his face. I'm trying to save him, and he wants to act like a dick.
"Stay in your room and freeze to fucking death then." I snarled back, moving past him and heading to Jacobs' room. He said something that I missed, and Nancy snarled at him to shut up. Hewitt slammed the door as we headed down the hallway, leaving us alone with the dark and the cold.
When we got to Jacobs' room I knocked on the door.
"Who's out there?" Jacobs' voice sounded tight.
"Stillwater, Nagle, and Bomber." I called out. There was a thumping noise and then the deadbolt that all the doors had shot open. The lever style handle turned slowly and Jacobs opened the door slightly, peering out at us. He had his entrenching tool in his right hand, his left on the door handle.
"We're all meeting down in Lewis' room, room 298." I told him, ignoring the entrenching tool.
"Wait for me, I'm going to grab the blankets." He looked pale. "Someone tried my door, and I when I asked who it was, they fucking laughed. When I asked again, they started to unlock my door, still laughing, so I jammed a chair under the door handle." He paused for a moment. "They've got a fucking master key, Stillwater."
"Stay frosty." I told him. Bomber chuckled, and I knew he was looking at the thick frost coating the inside of the hallway.
"Dude, I'm telling you, whoever was laughing like that is messed up. It wasn't a normal laugh, Stillwater." Jacobs continued.
"Grab what you can, be fast, we'll stay with you." I told him, trying to break him out of the fear. He nodded and left the door open as he vanished into the darkness.
He had 2 other roommates, both of whom had gone back to CONUS for Christmas, and he grabbed their blankets too, coming out into the hallway with us. He followed us, carrying a huge pile of blankets in his arms, as we moved to Hernandez's room. Hernandez answered on the first knock, his arms full. His eyes looked a little wild in our flashlights.
"Someone's out here." He told us, lifting what he was carrying. Nancy swept her flashlight onto it and we saw that Hernandez's arms held more than just blankets; hewas holding more than one sleeping bag.
"You grab your room-mate's stuff too?" Nancy asked.
"I busted the locks on their wall lockers." He admitted.
"Good man." Bomber said, taking one of the sleeping bags. "Good thinking. You got batteries?"
Hernandez nodded, moving back into his room. We heard his fridge open then shut, and he came out, stuffing batteries in his pockets. They were wrapped in tinfoil, like pretty much everyone in the barracks did.
"Let's go." I said. He joined us, shutting the door tightly and locking it.
We all walked down the hallway. Outside the wind was howling, inside moans and screams echoed through the dark hallways. Bomber asked Hernandez for a pair of batteries, then quickly changed out his dead ones after Hernandez had handed them to him. It seemed a lot further to Lewis' room than it actually was.
I unlocked the door to Lewis' room with my key and we all went in.
I was half afraid that the room would be empty except for Carter's corpse.
"Lewis?" I asked into the darkness. Our flashlights didn't seem to be penetrating the darkness as well as logic said they should.
"I'm here, Stillwater." He answered from the darkness.
I almost wept at the sound of his voice.
"How's Carter?" I asked, moving further into the room. The others followed me.
"He's shivering, but I think he's warmer." Lewis answered. "I think he'll make it."
"Thank God." Nagle breathed.
"We're going to form up in here; I'll explain when everyone gets here." I said. Nagle walked over and sat on one of the empty beds, taking a blanket offered by Jacobs with a wan smile and wrapping it around herself.
The temperature in the barracks was still dropping.
I was almost ready to go down to their room and drag them out when Hewitt and Daniels showed up. Hewitt wasn't carrying anything, but Daniels had blankets in his arms, including the quilt he usually kept on his bed.
"What the fuck is going on, Stillwater?" Hewitt asked. The lizard hissed at him.
"I don't know." I admitted.
"Someone needs to go down and start the generators." Daniels said.
Nagle barked a harsh laugh and held up her hand when everyone looked at her. "Sorry, it's just that that ain't happening."
"What do you mean?" Hewitt again, still with the nasty tone. I caught myself looking at his hands.
They were clean.
But the lizard still muttered.
"The generators are gone." Bomber answered. "I don't think they were ever there, but even if they were, someone stole them and probably sold them to the Black Market."
"Bullshit." Hewitt snarled. "You three are full of shit."
"Then go check, high spee
d." I snarled back.
I'd hated Hewitt since he'd gotten there in June. He was a nasty, big mouthed bigot who trash-talked about people behind their backs while being all nice to them in person. During REFORGER he'd taken my Walkman from under my pillow and took it out to guard duty with him. I caught him putting it back with dead batteries and he still tried to deny that he'd taken it.
All of that, combined with his attitude, made me want to crack open his fucking skull.
"I don't need to go down and check to know you're fucking lying." He sneered.
"Call me a liar again." I snarled, taking a step toward him. My muscles were still thrumming with the adrenaline from that fucking snowman, and my frustration and fear had built up into a temple throbbing rage. The lizard was watching eagerly, it's tail flicking in a steady tic that corresponded with my accelerating heartrate.
"You're a fucking liar, Stillwater." He sneered, "What are you going..."
Dropping my flashlight and swinging in one smooth motion, I hit him while his mouth was open, catching him right on the lower part of the jaw. I felt one of my knuckles pop and knew I was smiling viciously. He started to spin with the blow, blood flying from his mouth, but I wasn't done with him. I put my left into his stomach, folding him up, and drove a knee into his face when he doubled over. I grabbed him around the neck and took him to the floor. Everything went red as I went down to the floor with him in the darkness, holding onto him and punching. We were both yelling, mine nothing more than wordless rage and Hewitt's squeals of pain.
Bomber and Hernandez started to drag me off of him. When they had me halfway up Hewitt lunged forward, wrapping his hand around my throat. With a roar of rage I tore free of the hands holding onto me and drove my left hand into the center of his face. Something went crunch, pain shot up my forearm, and Hewitt fell backward, his head thumping on the tile. With a wrench on the back of my jacket, Bomber snatched me away from Hewitt.
"Let it go, Ant." Bomber yelled.
"Bust him up, Ant." Nancy added, licking her lips and leaning forward. The lizard informed me that he knew, and thought I should know, that her nipples were probably erect and provided me a memory of them.
"I'm going to beat your ass for that goddamn snowman bullshit, you jumped up little punk!" I yelled, trying to get loose from Bomber, who'd managed to get me into a full Nelson.
Hernandez and Daniels were staring at me as Bomber lifted me off the floor and I kicked my feet, futilely trying to hit Hewitt.
"Let me go, goddamn it, let me go!" I raged. "He's had this coming."
"Let it go, brother." Bomber said in my ear.
Lewis was sitting up, and it was obvious that both he and Carter were naked under all the blankets.
Eyes went from me to Lewis, and I stopped fighting to look over to see what they were staring at, and seeing nothing but both men on the bed naked from the waist up.
"Lewis... why are you and Carter naked?" Daniels asked. Nagle was in the process of kneeling down next to Hewitt, checking his pulse. I looked at her and she nodded, straightening up.
...dammit, I was hoping I'd killed the little weasel...
"Hypothermia." Lewis said. "Gotta warm him up or he's going to die." He laid back down and pulled the blankets back over the two of them. "Arctic survival, man, remember?"
"Oh." Daniels said, then turned to me. "What snowman?"
I filled them in on what we'd seen so far. They all stayed silent for the most part, even though I could tell they had questions for us, but they were used to military briefings, and kept their questions till the end in case the question they asked had an answer later in the briefing.
With a couple of twitches and a groan, Hewitt woke up during the recounting, his glare as he sat up told me that he didn't think it was over. I hoped not. I wanted to beat on the racist bastard some more.
"Blood? No fucking way." Jacobs protested when I reached the part about blood being all over the stairwell.
"Go look." Nagle said.
"Fine." He said. "Bomber, come with me."
"Sorry, dumbass, I'm short." Bomber shook his head.
Jacobs borrowed Nagle's flashlight went out the door, and I locked it behind him.
Less than five minutes later he was hammering on the door. I opened it up and he rushed into the room, his face pale.
"There's fucking blood everywhere!" He half yelled.
"No shit, Sherlock." Bomber answered.
We filled them in on the rest, including the snowman. Thankfully Bomber omitted the part where I almost went charging out into the snow.
There was a loud crash outside the room right as I finished recounting it all, and all of us jumped.
"It's getting cold as fuck in here." Hernandez said, hugging himself and rubbing his upper arms. "We've got to do something."
"I've got a plan." I said, and everyone turned to look at me.
"Bomber, Nagle and I are going to go outside the barracks." I said.
Their looks went from expectant to shocked at the thought of going out into a raging blizzard.
Outside the door to the room there was a long drawn out scream.
Contested Territory
One thing you have to understand.
The mountain itself hated us.
And wanted us to die.
Preferably, while screaming.
Bomber, Nagle and I walked down the hallway, with only my flashlight leading the way. Nagle and Bomber had given theirs to the few that were all gathered in Lewis' room. The barracks creaked and groaned around us, and a steady slamming noise could be heard coming from somewhere in the building.
Frost glittered on the walls and floor, with patches of ice here and there from where the frost had thickened up. When we reached the door to my room there was a swirl of wind around our legs. Once again I caught the odor of something dead and rotting.
"Someone's opened some more windows." Nagle said when we paused next to my door. Upstairs there was a scream of agreement that floated down the stairwell ahead of us.
"Who do you think it is?" I asked, digging my keys out.
"If it's someone from the unit, it has to be either the guys from CQ or someone from the unit that we didn't know was back." Bomber said, rubbing his hands together. "Kee-Rist, it's cold."
We'd agreed to grab the extreme cold weather gear out of our rooms before we followed through with my plan. A plan that held a little bit more than a trace of desperation. Sadly, it was pretty much our only hope, and like most plans born out of necessity and desperation, it carried more than a little bit of risk.
I put my hand on the handle of my door, and reached forward with my key.
And my door fell inward, pivoting at the handle in my hand and smashing me across the shins, knocking me down and taking Nagle with me. I laid there for a moment, a little stunned by the fall, bouncing my head off the ice covered tiles, and the fact that my door had just fallen out of the frame.
Bomber panned the light into my room as I looked up, and my heart sank at the same time as the lizard jerked back in alarm from the monitors in front of his control panel that let him see through my eyes. In my little mental construct, his hands knocked maps and papers from his control panel as he reacted with startlement.
My roommate's and my wall lockers were all open, the doors hanging half off the hinges. Our TA-50 scattered around, down, stuffing blowing out of the room and into the hallway. My desk drawers were yanked out, the three 3-drawer chests broken, my stereo and computer smashed.
My windows were smashed open.
"Someone kicked open your door." Bomber said unnecessarily as Nagle and I got to our feet. The hinges of the door were still slotted into the doorframe, the parts of the hasp that would normally be slotted into the door twisted and warped, or missing all together.
We went into my room and looked around. My blankets were ruined, the quilt my biological grandmother had made me was shredded, the military issue cold weather gear was hanging from the end of the bunk beds, s
liced down the back and stuffing pulled out, and my long johns tied into a noose and thrown over the chair in front of the desk.
My Guns & Roses poster was shredded on the wall, my award letters torn off the wall and laying on the snow dusted floor, and my poor Commodore-64 was shattered in front of the dented refrigerator. It looked like someone had taken my typewriter and used it to beat to death the rest of the electronics in the room. My computer monitor and my roommate's television were smashed and set on the beds, the mattresses torn down the middle and the stuffing ripped out. Ice glittered where water had been poured on the beds.
To top it off, all my roommate's and my clothing was piled in the middle of the room and was nothing more than a mass of ice and cloth. Someone had poured water on the clothing or soaked it in the shower before throwing it in a pile in the middle of my room. There were a few bits and pieces of clothing and TA-50 that had been shredded and left in the wall lockers, but all in all there was nothing usable left.
"I think someone doesn't like you." Bomber said softly, no trace of his usual good humor and his Texas accent thick enough to smother someone. Nagle was moving through the room, staying in the beam of the flashlight, poking around in the wreckage that not too long before had been my room.
"Ya think?" I asked. Someone had even cut the fingers off my black gloves and torn up my trigger mittens before soaking them in water. They had left them on my desk, a chunk of ice, to mock me.
My knives were broken, the hilts and the blades laid out nice and neat on my dresser. My Zippo lighter collection was destroyed, the lighters pulled apart and then crushed and then set up nice and neat on the dresser, next to the knives. My 3.5" and 5.25" computer discs were either broken and scattered around or crumpled up and thrown about.
My alarm clock was smashed and then set back upright on my roommate's dresser, the hands pointing at midnight.
Everything was gone. Everything I owned, everything my roommates owned, was destroyed.
Three Little Snowmen (Damned of the 2/19th) Page 17
