Selected Short Stories Featuring Ghost Dust

by Nicolas Wilson

big metal gate with a keypad. “Seatbelt,” he says, and I thank God I'm already wearing it because before I can even reach down to check we hit it at speed and the gate snaps like a wishbone. The front-end of the car is shattered, engine crumples in on itself. Jack doesn't seem surprised, but still he mutters, “Piece of Asian shit,” as he slams the door on his way out.

  My face hurts, and that's because the seatbelt didn't engage fast enough and I smacked my face into the dash- not the head, so no split open skull, but my face feels like stepped-on gum. Jack pulls me out of my seat. He fared better, whacked his forehead on the steering wheel, and feels bad I got the worst, “Shit, sorry,” he mutters as he hands me the M16A4.

  Lo seems to have assembled whatever dumbfucks he knows and thinks he can trust, because the yahoos who run out into the front lawn obviously aren't security, and don't know the thumb up their ass from the safeties on the M60s they're slogging around. Jack cuts them apart before they even have a chance to stare dumbly at us, long before they realize they're supposed to be firing from cover.

  “Magazine,” he says to me, and while I'm fetching one from the duffel he tells me, “need to be more cautious with bullets. Otherwise things'll get more personal than they have to be.” He doesn't jinx it by saying what I think we both know, at least suspect from the quality of those men: this might be easier than he thought. “Lo likely has the local cops on his payroll; they're paid to stay away, so we should have some time to ourselves.”

  I'm about to step away from the car when he puts his hand up. “Hold, thought I saw something.” A bullet hits him in the arm, the one he was holding up, rips through meat and buries itself in the car's trunk next to me; I think the shooter was going for a two-fer. Maximum effective range for an M16 is 550 yards, but maximum means what it says, that's ideal conditions, in daylight, without a bullet in your arm, with a decent scope. Jack's got iron sights and a leaking hole, and we might be within 400 yards of the house, but it's dark and I can't see shit. “Missed the muzzle flash,” he says, “but the idiot's scope reflected, and he ain't moved.” He's talking, but it sounds more like a meditative chant, and with every word the rifle sways a little less, hones in a little more, then: Krak.

  There's a tense moment, where we wait for return fire or for something to happen, before the sniper tumbles off the roof of the house. “Duct tape,” he says, and I hand him the roll out of the duffel; he wraps one length around his arm, over the bullethole's entry and exit, and tears if off. “That'll do,” he says, and hands it back to me.

  We run for the front door, because there's shit for cover between the car and the front steps, just an open kill zone, and while I keep expecting a bullet without warning it doesn't come. We get to within twenty feet of the house before another M60 barrel pushes through one of the front windows, clears the pane of glass, then starts firing. Jack fires suppressing shots at the window while strafing, pushing me out of their line of fire. We end up behind a big cement column at the foot of the front steps and stop.

  “Bandolier,” he says. In the duffel is a shoulder belt lined with grenades that he throws over his arm. He thinks a moment, then says, “Frag,” to himself, selects a grenade without looking down, pulls the pin and flings.

  It goes into the window right next to the M60 poking out. There's a very loud, “Shit!” that's immediately drowned out by the explosion.

  He starts up the stairs and says, “Indoors, the M16 can get a little cumbersome, but remember it's not an M4- it'll punch through furniture and walls just fine. Stick behind me. And try not to get shot.” I'm already getting numb, that combination of fight or flight and shock, and he stops right before the front door and I walk into him. He points to the other window, already slightly ajar, just like the door was. I pull my M9, and point it at the man huddled next to the open window, waiting, pull the hammer back so he knows I have the drop.

  Jack steps over the tripwire he'd seen, bends over and picks up the claymore that was rigged to the door. “Front towards asshole,” he says, handing it to the man. “That'd have killed you, too, if we tripped it.” Jack shoots him in the head, and he falls to the ground with the claymore still in his hands. I walk in, careful of the wire.

  We walk down the front hall, and he pushes me into the first bathroom, because even big as it is it's a dream kill zone- roll a grenade down, wait for the explosion then fill the smoking remains with holes. But these amateurs keep up their nonsense, actively avoiding good tactical decisions. Then again, nobody ever said smugglers made for good soldiers.

  Jack's just crossing the threshold into the kitchen when a couple more guys flip over a table for cover, holding their MP9s to their chests like they're infants in need of coddling. Jack just shoots through the wood, quick bursts on either end of the table where the men had been. He scoffs.

  I pop out of the nearest room and follow him in, when suddenly there's movement to the side of me in the nook to my left and I spin and fire my M16. It's only as the muzzle flash casts a shadow against the wall that I realize there's a flurry of hair, too much hair, definitely a woman, and a rush of fabric- a dress. And I know what I'll see even before I look down. And Christ, it's his wife or a whore, some innocent gold-digger who didn't need to die here. Jack looks down, turns her hand over, and she's got one of those corkscrew bottle-openers; she was going to stab me. “Lousy way to die, that in your guts,” he says. “Was his wife, but trust me, she wasn't innocent.” I don't think I should trust him, because he's probably lying to keep my head in the game, but I do anyway, because it's convenient to.

  I follow him, stepping over the three men's bodies in the kitchen on the right, when Jack stops and asks, “How many you shoot in the kitchen?”

  “Just the one.” He sees it just a second before me, the pin on one of his grenades is gone. He grabs it, flings it, but it's barely three feet in front of us, suspended in the air like time's stopped, and suddenly the room is all light and sound and pain. First thing I'm aware of is I'm coughing uncontrollably, doubled over on the linoleum. Next thing Jack's shaking me, asking if I'm all right, but it feels far away, and he's a blurred-black blob in an unfocused world.

  But things are starting to make sense. Jack's talking too loud, cause I can feel the force of his words on my face, but I can still barely hear him. “That was genuine VC; unlucky for him it was a flashbang- and I got to my knife before he got to his.” He helps me to my feet. We don't say how lucky we are, but we know if it had been a frag we'd be dead.

  There's a door down to the basement, and a set of stairs going up. Way Jack figures, we leave one to check the other and we might lose Lo, maybe Gordon, too, if we're getting optimistic and thinking he's still alive. “So I need you to stay here. Nobody comes out of that basement.” He takes two magazines for the M16, and heads upstairs.

  He's gone a while, and at first it's quiet. Then there's a burst of M16 fire, and silence. Then more fire, a pause while he reloads, firing again. There's another gap of 5 minutes, where I think about calling up the stairs, only the moment I get up the nerve to I hear his M16 again, and I figure he's about out. Then his 1911, and I count the shots, seven, eight. He's out, and so far as I know, he doesn't have another magazine for either. Several more minutes pass, and I'm getting antsy and thinking about running upstairs with the duffel when his big boots come clomping down the stairs. “Saved the real VC for last.” He reaches into the duffel for another mag for the M16 and the 1911. He's got blood soaking through his shirt from somewhere on his back.

  “More tape?” I ask him.

  “It's not deep,” he says.

  “Yeah, and I bet you ain't got time to bleed,” I say, and immediately I wonder if he'd have actually seen Predator, as I rip off a section of tape. “Roll up your shirt.” He doesn't protest, just does it, and I push the cut together and tape it without another word.

  Then he reaches for the handle to the door down into the basement, but pauses. I'm about to ask what's wrong when he says, “This has bee
n a long time coming, the end of this.” He takes in a deep breath, holds it, then grabs the knob and twists, letting the breath go as the door opens. He's saying goodbye to a life he's lived longer than he'd lived any other, but I don't have time to reflect on its poignancy because in the basement it's likely somebody's going to die.

  At the bottom of the stairs there's a single, reinforced metal door. There are two men standing guard at it, and we make a lot of noise clomping down the steps, enough that they've had more than enough time to ready for us. But they're green, so green the one on the left drops his rifle while the other pulls his fingers off the trigger and raises his MP9 above his head to try and surrender. Jack pulls a bayonet from its sheath and slices the right man's throat in a single motion; he doesn't take prisoners because he's got no place to take them to.

  It seems like all at once I notice inconsistencies; the other guard is skinnier, and then I notice in the dim light that he's older, but he's moving, moving fast. He's got a little pistol, a derringer or something. I want to move, but he's close enough to Jack I think I'll hit him- but Jack's faster anyway, jams the bayonet into the other guard's temple and he goes slack and