1: Prolog

The smell was a surprise. Immediate and unrelenting, it hit at the first cut, and intensified as he went. Blood was part of it, but also piss and shit, fear and sweat, all smashed together in the wounded air. Now, with the final twitches and gasps beginning to ebb away to stillness, the stink had flooded the room like the cold sea in a sunken ship. It laid siege to his senses, invading and infesting his entire being like maggots squirming in a shred of road kill. Time was short. Escaping the scene, and getting shut of the terrible fucking smell now his only concern.

"Still..."

He said it out loud.

"Plan your work and work your plan..."

He chuckled a weird chuckle, thought past the smell, and did just that.

The first few minutes were ugly. He hadn't noticed the red blips there spattered across the screen. He'd clicked around a bit, and when the blue-screen login came up there they were, partially obscuring the cheery white letters FA and BO. It took him three precious minutes scrubbing it off. Luckily, the message itself came much easier than he'd expected, so canceling out the extra clean up. When he was done he read through the post a few times, hit "send", and walked alone into the indifferent October night.

Sam

The garrote had been sharpened to a razor's edge. 1/3 centimeter wide, 3/4 of a meter in length and fashioned from shimmering aluminum alloy, it's polished chrome handles were sheathed in leather to protect the hands. The weapon was an enthusiasts show-piece and illegal in 50 states. Pitt had been staring at it for the last twenty minutes, waiting downstairs for the drugs to take effect. He called out:

Sam? Sam?!

No reply.

Sam!!

Pitt moved to the staircase, shouting toward the crack the hobo had left between door and hall. All that came back was silence between heavy snores. He pushed the door open and entered the room with the wire at the ready.

***

Friday was usually Pitt's night to hunt. This week - however - he'd been busy. Everything had been pushed back one day. He felt strange at first, uncertain as to where he'd find his quarry. Friday was free soup and day-old bread at the " Y" a few blocks from his house. The program turned his neighborhood into a veritable weekly game preserve, filling the streets with people that nobody on earth would miss. Saturday the dinner was only bagels at his Y, but St. Lukes - Baptist, wayyyy across town - had turkey and fries all night.

Pitt stalked past his Y a few times but found nobody. After a few more discrete passes, he realized the YMCA was closed, with it's windows and hallways dark. St. Luke's, he figured, rounding up the weekend clientele with better faire. He was walking back towards his place, resigned to an unavoidable trip across town, when he found him.

Actually, it was Pitt who'd been found. The man - dressed in brown-stained jeans, worn white v-neck and a humid, almost tangible reek - hailed him from a crumbling stoop across the street:

Excuse me! Sir?? Sir? Can I borrow a cigarette, sir??

Cigarettes never failed. If michael Pitt was a hunter, then cigarettes were his decoy. The days of ten-dollar packs had priced most homeless people out of the rolled tobacco market. Pitt himself had quit the lousy things years ago, but found that simply walking with a lit cigarette in-hand attracted all sorts of begging. This particular fellow had spotted Pitt's smoldering butt from clear across the empty street, and began to haggle and bargain when he saw him crossing. The bum wasn't as young as he'd seemed from across the street, Pitt noted. His slumping shoulders, lidded eyes, and rotted-sweat stench screamed opiate withdrawal.

Thank you sir thank you. Sit. Thank you.

Pitt held out three cigarettes instead of just the requested one. The bum was appreciative but obviously dope-sick. Years before, Pitt would have spent hours buttering the guy up, figuring out how best to proceed, even postponing his mission if the signs were wrong. These days, countless hours of successful hunting had streamlined his approach. He handed over the smokes and interrupted the vagrant's effusive babble:

I have dope and pills at my house, and you can stay and eat and get high as long as long as you want, as long as we can be friends. Can you...

He softened his voice and paused a beat, touched the mark lightly, high on his shoulder asking:

What's your name again?

The hobo answered right away:

Uh...Sam, sir.

Sam...Can you be my friend?

***

Truth be told, Sam was a little too young for Pitt's tastes. experience taught him that young ones were more apt to become physically violent during the process. They were far more likely to continue resisting, loudly and physically, even hours and days after resistance had proved plainly, irreversibly useless. Even so, it was late on a Saturday. Soon the sun would be down and the cops would be circling three cars deep on every block. Sam, young as he was, would have to do.

It took Pitt an hour to get the guy into the house and doped up, another 45 minutes to get him into a bath. He'd given the kid only weak, polluted street dope to cure the sickness, but spiked each of the beers he'd served the him with healthy doses of the strong pre-op anesthesia called Versed.

It was a time tested strategy, perfected over many months, and it worked like a charm on the unfortunate hobo Sam, now on spiked beer number three and babbling like a gibbon:

Sam, Hobo Sam, Sam the Hobo, Sam The Bum...

He went on and on, clearly ecstatic at his good fortune:

...And I said I'm your friend Mr. Pitt...but I ain't a faggot right? Ok? You said friends, but I'm not about to be suckin dick for this shit. I'm not into that. Not that I wouldn't, but I ain't....

He stuttered, paused a beat, added:

I'm just not gonna unless I know, um, what's comin back, you know? Like how much? When?

He looked around the room as he spoke, as if all Pitt's worldly possessions might be gifted or not on the relative quality of fellatio yet to come. Pitt shook his head in reassurance:

My friend you mistake me. Here you don't pay with your mouth, at least, not the way you're expecting. Go wash up, the bathroom at the top of the stairs is set up for you. When you get out we can talk more about what I want, and what you'll get.

Dr. Pitt intended to keep his promise. Tip-toeing despite Sam's apparent
Unconsciousness, he pulled up behind the snoring homeless man, lowered the wire, and yanked it closed around his unmoving neck.

****

"SURPRISE!!!" the guy practically screamed it. Pitt started, pulled the wire tighter, then reversed course and pulled it up and away from Sam. The kid was wide awake, laughing at his own ridiculous joke even as he sensed the new wrongness in his host:

Whoa doc. I said...I toleyou... Waif...

The words crumbled in his mouth and spilled out. Pitt had never seen a person conscious after so massive a dose of anesthetic, and stood in front of Jeff well-vexed and momentarily confused as to his next move. There was blood in a perfect arc around the bum's neck, leaking in tendrils down his chest from where the wire had bitten and released. It diluting the bath water to a darkening blend of pink and crimson. Sam fingered his neck, mumbled a lazy demand to the still-motionless Pitt:

Gemme fuckahttaeh...I can I can...whaddafug??

The homeless man's eyes bugged out as he noticed the blood and where it was coming from. For a few seconds, Pitt believed the wire may have cut deep enough to finish the job. Instead of a death-spasm, however, Sam the hobo somehow managed to find his feet. He was now standing up in the tub, barely able to keep his feet, still dripping scarlet and pink, and making loud, unintelligible threats at his still dumbstruck captor:

Whaddafugwajddafugibgoddagoddaguh...heeeeelllll!!!!!!

The bum leaned towards him, tripped on the tub, and fell - soaking and hollering - into Pitt. They hit the floor with a house - shaking thud, and now Pitt found himself crushed beneath his blood-crazed prisoner. The bum was strong from adrenaline and dope, and soon had Pitt bent over the red bath water, trembling in resistance as Sam the bum pushed with all his desperate weight. There was a complete silence as Pitt's lips, nose, eyes and ears were pressed, hard, toward the the bottom of the bath. He had a precious few seconds to ponder the sudden reality of impending death before the darkness closed around him.

Then the weight on his back seemed to evaporate and adrenaline shot through him. He jumped up and back all at once, smashing the hobo against his bathroom sink with a gasp and a howl. They were on the floor once more, but Sam's attack had ebbed quickly after the first few hectic minutes. His body slackened with the passing seconds, and after another short bout grappling, Pitt had him pinned against the floor, face down. He pulled the wire over Sam's head and around his neck, and pulled back with every last electron of available energy. Discretion and quietus were no longer a priority - he needed this man's head and he meant to have it. Pitt sensed release and pulled harder. He gave one final, monstrous heave on the garrote, as a sound like wet yodeling oozed from Sam. There was a hot gush of new blood drenching Pitt's hands and arms. He watched the red tide seep and flow for a few minutes before finally relaxing his grip on the wire.

The hobo rose again, from his belly to wobbling knees, and then - impossibly - to his feet. Pitt felt himself hanging off the wire handles, being pulled like a waterskier behind the raving Hobo. Sam twisted and spun trying to shake Pitt and his wire. Blood was flying everywhere, pulsing in long gushes from the circular gash in Sam's neck. It flooded the area, inches deep underfoot, and sprayed in great slashes across every surface of the room as the two men struggled. Pitt saw broad swatches of red and pink and Scarlett everywhere he looked, so much blood that he wondered if he himself might have been somehow wounded in the confusion, and not noticed. Sam The Bum was screaming now, through his slashed throat, gagging out what Pitt could only hope was a final death-cry. Instead, the homeless man's shrieking only grew, cresting in a red surge of volume and forward motion that brought both men exploding from the bathroom door. Momentum sent them cannonballing off the top of the stairs with Pitt hanging on to Sam like a tundra wolf collaring a wildebeast. There was another, louder howl, this time from Pitt as the two men crashed down and tumbled into a wounded heap at the foot of the stairway.

They hit with a loud "crack!". In the instant before the pain hit, Pitt found himself on top of Sam, with the wire still embedded deep in his neck. As agony went knifing through his left leg, Pitt pulled back on the chrome handles with all his weight.

There was a sound like rent gristle then, and a sudden awful odor burrowing into his nostrils. Pitt's head swam and spun, and he thought he might faint. His mind was still screaming along with the fight, but now there was quiet. He heard a sound like a bowling ball rolling over carpet, and looked down to see the Sam The Bum's head go rolling lazily into his living room.

The hobo's body was twitching and dancing beneath and blood covered most of what he saw. His left leg was pure fire. Even so, Michael Pitt forced himself up, his damaged frame wailing in prsomehow and somehow made his way to the head.

***

He left the entire mess as is, thinking that if this final project was a success, that he'd burn the fucker down and never deal with the clean-up. His leg - on the other hand - was in need of attention. He got the head to the lab only through desperate bursts of effort punctuated by long periods of furious pain. Five hours after the episode in his bathroom, Pitt was finally able submerge the head and cross his fingers. He limped across the room and pressed a series of buttons to electrify the solution in preparation. Then he waited.

His leg. As excited as he was about the project and his research, his leg - broken and useless from his tumble down the stairs - was stealing his attention. The reaction, should it occur at all, couldn't be predicted. He felt certain it would happen, but couldn't say just when. Pitt had just decided on a smallish dose of morphine to counter the pain during the process. He would have success, then he'd take care of his leg. He was almost to the door, hobbling and groaning all the way, when a voice came from the monitor speakers all along the desk under the head's container.

Fucker. What'd you do to me??

Pitt wheeled around, inadvertently settling on his ruined leg. Pain like a bullet went buzzing up through him, and he hardly felt it. Sam The Hobo's eyes were wide open, spinning in their sockets, with his head still submerged in the glass vat. Sam's mouth was working along with the words from the monitor:

What'd you do? What'd you fuckin...holyshitholyshitholyshit...

Ghost / Writer #3

Later that day, long after the rug-shampoo and the strange visitor, Butch Kerns sat basking and thinking in the dead man's sprawling master bathroom. The tub was twice as big as some pools he'd been in, and the bathroom itself was a fever dream of dark wood, mirrors, porcelain, and polished stainless steel. As he soaked, Butch looked out a vast and frameless bathroom window at sunset on Narragansett bay. He thought he could see seals, leaping and playing on a chain of rocks jutting far into the sea from the writer's back yard. None of it did him any good, because despite the luxury and the seals, Butch was stressing.

It wasn't the guy at the door. That
guy - as problematic as he seemed at the time - was long gone. He himself would be gone in a few days with the house, and everything that happened there, locked up behind him forever. It wasn't the guy.

It wasn't the plan either. How many times could the visitor return before flight 83? Not enough. No, the plan was sound - thought Butch - the plan would do. The problem was Coop.

Butch's "partner" had been jumpy from the first about the job, the place, the time, the amounts and the planning. The guy complained and needled him at every bend in the road, and his over-think was contagious. Twelve straight hours he'd endured, Coop guessing, raving and pacing and stage-whispering through each fabricated betrayal:

"Who the fuck WAS that guy?
Is it a cop? A fed? He'd rolled up on a deserted house on a cold autumn day. He didn't have a car, Butch. "

He went on and on, seemingly more put-off by the second, as if the stranger's visit spelled his certain, painful arrest and incarceration or worse. 'clueless fuck hadn't even recognized the guy. The "coincidence" - when and if Cooper eventually discovered it - would send him off into total fear vapor-lock.

Butch figured he'd have aced Coop already under more cooperative circumstances, but in light of the stranger's promise to return, Butch now sensed unnecessary risk. In a perfect world, he'd have done the stranger as well, but who'd miss the guy and how soon? Before flight 83 non-stop Westerly to Bermuda was airborne and away?

"Nah"

Butch spoke out loud in the porcelain cloud of the bathroom:

"Two days, flight 83, 10am from Westerly."

If the guy came back, Butch would meet him at the door with the Colt. When he'd first shown up, Kerns had been busy cleaning the writer's blood and brains out of his wall-wall shag. At the bell-tone, he picked up the Colt, moved to cover. Coop - eating standing up in the kithchen - flashed him a silent look over his shoulder as he moved from the kitchen to the door. He opened it, and two things happened at once:


Butch recognized the man at the door, and - at the same time - realized that the the bloody smudge on the writer's eggshell carpet was plainly visible from the front door.

It was twenty feet away across two big, bright rooms, but from his vantage looking over Coop's left shoulder, the visitor would be looking directly at the spot where the writer had bled his last. Butch had left the bucket there when the doorbell rang, along with a sponge-mop marking a sprawling crimson blotch on the carpet. Butch held his breath, pulled the hammer on the heavy revolver in his hand, and concentrated on not breaking for the cleaning supplies. Instead he leaned an ear to the edge of the door and tried to listen...

Interpreter #15

"Walking side by side with death,
The Devil mocks their every step"


I found the 'Terp as the last of the rags were shot trying to escape. He was sitting alone at the top of FB Rango's high outer berm. I waved, and he threw me a tepid thumbs, shouted something like:

Not bad for half-staff and conventional weapons skip...

I smiled and kept moving. He was right - I knew - but events were not yet complete, and it's bad luck counting chickens. The Rango raid - planned in a day, prepped in five, and decided in twenty minutes, had gone remarkably well. Division had taken strength and experience, redeploying Mase and his entire 12-man detail out of the AO just prior to our move on RIS with no explanation. The move left the column without its black weaponry, and stripped of an invaluable special forces resource, so I was especially proud surveying the aftermath. They'd stolen our heart, but the soul of the column appeared intact.

For a few minutes things had looked bleak. FB Rango - we'd heard - was at the top of a high rocky pass and held by experienced fighting men. As we moved closer, however, intel reports on the FB were looking more and more favorable. There were between 25-30 men holding the base, a much different situation from the countless thousands promised by the rumor mill. Satcom showed five prisoners from the first fight, penned without guards in a cell towards the center of the camp.

I had 50 rangers dug into the woods around Rango, and heavy conventional weapons on a far ridge, sights trained, guns armed, awaiting a word. The wire at FB Rango was guarded by only nine men, and the prisoners were locked behind enough walls to keep them unleaded during the operation.

Nobody - it seemed - knew anything about the cache.

We moved at dawn. I had three snipers in position on the ridge hidden between the tracks. Each was assigned two of the guards. I gave the "go", the guards fell, and 70 men went, unassailed, into FB Rango. After ten minutes of red slaughter the body count machine read 25, and the prisoners were set free and taken to the rear. The dust had settled by the time I found the 'Terp again. He was sitting atop a berm overlooking the southern reaches of valley of Ris, smoking something illegal when he noticed me.

Fuck man fuckiiiiin, take a load off. You wanna ?

He held out the joint. It looked big and inviting, so I felt proud of myself saying "no".

That's right. On duty. And you got scruples too. Ok. I just got off sat phone with A-Group. Your wife says "hi".

That was weird, but not completely out of character. One of the many things that amused Kayla about me was my pleeb security clearance. She talked to the 'Terp and other operators almost daily, and I was was allowed to hear exactly none of it. He went on:

She was concerned. Wanted to know as soon as we secured the base.

I replied with a laugh:

And - of course - all about her dashing husband...

Terp took a long hit and held it a few seconds before blowing it out at the rising afghani moon:

She didn't say, but yeah bro, I felt it. All the way through the phone. She was happy about the cache, thrilled about Rango, and elated about the prisoners.

What prisoners? We got the ordinance?

You didn't hear?

His eyes were drowned red and barely opened but he sounded amused and lucid as always:

We got three rabbits trying to break down the cliff in the back when we clearing the camp. Got em trussed in the basement, awaiting your pleasure. Mine too I guess, since Mase is back in the world...Anyway, we found the rabbits with all sorts of computers and gizmos hooked up to a metal wall. Fuckers found the weapons but couldn't get to 'em. K says we gotta talk with 'em...

"talking" was A-group argot for torture and death. Things were getting away from me. I didn't speak. After an uncomfortable few minutes, the Interpreter spoke up again:

I dunno boss, your old lady is foaming about these guys...Best talk to 'em before she calls back. Powers that be...

I stopped and waited for him to climb down. A few minutes later I was following him down a ladder buried between hooches in the center.

Dank down here dude. These guys ain't in the best condition...

It was more than dank, it was pitch dark. I was looking down about ten feet below me, at the Terp bathed in the only swatch of white light from above. I jumped the last few rungs and looked around at blackness.

Ok follow me sir. Stay close. Treacherous down here...

Treacherous and stinking. There was a concentrated decay smell so thick in that void, it made me want to climb back up. Instead, I felt Terp's hand on my shoulder, guiding me past. I turned my pen light on, and - casting it forward and down - almost jumped backwards over him. The two of us fell through space until the walls checked our stumble. I'd seen the source of the decay-reek in tepid pen-light: Three corpses, dry- rotted and moldering in the wet cellar. Terp...fuckin' with me. I yelled back toward the stairs:

Three dead bodies. Thanks duder, I'll remember this. You forget...

I turned back toward the bodies once more, just in time to catch another, dimmer flash over the dead men. There was a loud spitting noise, and Pain washed over me like a a moon tide. I was dead before hitting the ground.

Unused Band Names...

Notso Fresh and the Giant Douches
Band of Thread
Coward
Ser Robert Strong
Nighty Knight and the California Kings
Dauntless Archibald
Bad Press
Catness
Squrm
Mantis
Ka
Headland
Quash
Kibosh
Polka-dot Stress Test
Wert
Monster Manual
Roar Shock
Horshack
Cyclic
Martian Dunebuggy
Calcify
Mork
Bronn
Gopher
Puzzle
Wet Spot
Wet's Pot
Gimmelshtunk
Tenth Dentist
Smelly Cock and the Roto Roosters
Puce
Fillibuster
Ass Aglet and The Undone Laces
Fairda Middlyn
Pigtail
Arterial Sclerosis and the Hard Hearts
Crooked Pinkerton (sounds like a euphemism for an abhorrent sex act AND a band)
Rabbit Foe Man
Lawn
Biscuit City
Horse-Shaped
Soil
Weapon
Novel T Ford
Flay
Unfair Stereo
The New New New Adventures
Docker's Clutch
Acid-Wash
Hi Voltage and the Ex-Tension Chords
Gort
Suicide Wheeze (the word "Suicide" followed by any other word is a good band name: Suicide Mud, Suicide Canasta, Suicide Blizzard, Suicide Balls...See? Try it! Suicide Porpoise, Suicide Nickel...)
Plaster
Po
Flounder
Hat Gift
Bourbonbon
Myex Wife and the Sloppy Seconds
Glip
Dangit
Stemware
Thorough Bread
Fling
Cyprus
Kermit
Doozie
Banbronnimus
Staff Infection
Glamcake
Scoundrel
Glaszz Toast
Bing Crosby Snorkel Face
Pumpkin Spice
Glass Nipple
Thergo Aye Buttfore and the Graces of God.

Afterwards

"Throw me a line if I reach it in time, I'll meet you up there where the path is straight and high..."



There's water all over Florida. Never mind the whole thing is surrounded by ocean, you can't walk a block without falling in a runoff pond or scummed-over canal. Florida wasn't so much built on top of marshland as it was nestled down in it, a perfect storm of laziness and poor civic planning.

Sgt. Theodore Broach rescued me from the last cleanse. He found me on beach on Long Island, told me about the cleanse that had already come and the one coming up. The last one had cleared New England, he said, and the next one would scrub the rest. The entire east coast north of Athens Georgia would burn for six months, he said. "33 days from now" he said.

33 days to pull hard south on foot, and avoid the bombs and the fire. Long island was an 18 hour car ride from Athens over well-kept interstate pavement, at a carefree 75-80 mph. Going - as we'd have to - on foot, I felt better taking my chances with three weeks of relaxing and a quick nuclear death. I heard TB out politely, told him "thanks, no" and got back to my beaching.

That - by rights - should have ended it, but Broach wasn't having it. He pulled a chaise lounge out to my spot on the beach, threw down his pack, and sat.

There was conversation between us until late that night, and in the end, I left with him. We put almost 1300 miles behind us in 3 weeks, walked the last 100 miles. TB and I spent the next six months in Key West, listening for reports and waiting out a cleanse that never came.

***

Turns out, Broach is actually from Florida. He was raised on the Gulf Coast and knew everything about the shape of the land, how to stay out of sight, and the safest places to hide. He's a talker, is Sarnt. Broach, and he spent the last 300 miles of our run telling me about two things: the water snakes, most of which were "deadly poisonous and fast as herpes", and the cats:

"Cats down south are strange these days" He said in his lazy-sounding whisper of a voice. "Resist the urge to approach them, especial if there's more than one. " A decade of feral generations had apparently altered the genetic purpose of the once- domesticated feline. They'd taken to traveling in packs - "prides" he called them - and they were to be avoided at all costs. "If you do end up crossing paths with one of 'em, resist the urge to run, and for fuck's sake don't get up a tree. They can see and hear much better that you can, and in their world only prey runs. Water - pond, stream, fountain, fucking puddle - whatever there is, you need to get to it. Slow so they don't get suspicious, but fast so you're safe before one of them decides he's hungry. If you can get to water quick enough, you might have a 50/50 chance. "

I didn't believe him, of course. This was a long time ago, when I was still just Danes and he was still just Sarnt. Broach. At this point, by my estimation, he was also the crazy man who'd talked me into an impossible task, and who was now telling me elaborate warnings about evil, predatory house cats. The weirdness of his tale, delivered as it was, in TB's deliberate, emotionless tenor left me weary. Most nights found me shivering and miserable, knowing I should run away as Broach slept, and castigating myself for not having the balls to do it.

By the time we made Florida, worrying about Broach had become a full time job and I'd forgotten all about the bad cats. My partner was a mystery to me back then, and getting weirder by the day. I didn't know him, and I didn't trust him. True, he'd saved my life and given me a reason to go on living, but for all I knew he'd been fattening me up like a game-bird, waiting for his moment to strike.

Bubbling beneath the Broach worries, there was the constant, and growing threat of actual other people. As the days wore on it became clear that folks in the south knew about the coming cleanse, and about the relative safety of the Sunshine State. We saw more functioning human bodies our first day under the Mason/Dixon than we had the entire journey. Mostly, the encounters were at a distance, with neither party hailing the other. As they crawled father south - however - we were actually able to stop and chat.

A former police officer in Dunedin told us they'd start bombing in less than a week.

A woman in a pant suit told them the local McDonald's was plugged in still, and that they had breakfast "all day long now!! Int it great!!?".

A guy in Tampa pulled a gun on us, demanded "loot and a blowjob", then shot poor TB right between the eyes.

The man's aim was true, and it earned him the worst beating one man ever gave to another with an orange plunger dart protruding from his forehead. It was during this beating that Broach and I both had the idea to get the fuck out of Florida.

Our plan was pure simplicity:
We'd break for Alabama and then New Orleans, left on a Friday afternoon with food and supplies stuffed in every pocket. We made 38 miles the first day, and made camp in a town called Brayton Meadow.

***

The weather was perfect that day, and the ground soft with spring. We could have slept in mansions or high rise hotels, but outside seemed so cooperative and accommodating we'd mostly just eat at will, and pass out wherever we lay. We'd done just that in Brayton Meadow when we first heard the pride.

That fucking noise. I'd been fast asleep my first time, but when that insane screaming came blasting down on us I jumped to my feet with my head on a swivel. It was a sound like a violent cat fight, amplified and looped into an echo box and played back at triple-volume. It seemed tangible and mean, less a sound than a force, malevolent and crafty and stalking.

I was terrified. The wails and screams seemed to be all around us, flooding and suffocating the air over our heads. The sound evolved quickly into a waveform of building intensity and punctuated by momentary silences. It was during the silent parts I heard Broach, whispering in my ear like a thought: "The water", he said, annunciating so as to only speak once. With that he turned, and began walking away from me.

***

The previous night, we'd bathed in a nearby drainage ditch filled with clear water that looked almost drinkable. The pipe had been originally purposed as an outflow public early school, but years of neglect had allowed seepage enough to fill a natural pool around the last 50 feet of it's length. The pipe, long buried by the run off, served as a natural causeway running half the length of the pool. I fell in a few steps behind TB and we made for the pond with the hideous yowling getting louder behind us.

***

Tad wasn't running, but he was moving as fast as he could without running. It took all of 60 seconds to get from camp to the water, but when we arrived we saw somebody else had beat us to the spot.

A small girl was standing in the center of our pool at the very tip of the outflow pipe. She looked to be about 10-12 years old, Blonde-headed, fully clothed, and staring up past us at the oncoming cat stampede.

The cats. Whatever I'd been expecting, it couldn't have come close to the real deal. The word "Cat" is not effective nomenclature for the thing that these beasts had become. The years since the wars and the cleansing had honed the breed into a super-efficient predator. They were proud, these cats, and looked bigger around the chest and hindquarters than normal cats. The pride was like watching a freight train grind past at a busy Florida crossing. You kept thinking it could go no further, that nothing could be so long and still move, but yet there it went. The cats were scarred and mangled and maimed. Most of them were fighting and clawing at eachother as they went and a few were bleeding. I saw at least two with missing legs, and one with no hind legs, dragging his stumps in the dusty soil and fending off swipes and scratches the whole way.

They were making their way down to the water hole to investigate further, as TB and I walked out on the pipe. The girl was still facing us, still staring at the cats, still remaining silent.

Within seconds, thousands of yowling, raging cats had surrounded the pond, stacking up 20-30 cats deep, and completely encircled the three of us in the center of the water.

I turned carefully to watch the two tendrils of mobbing feline converge, like a line of fire ants mauling a sugar cube. They were walking in near-perfect rows of ten and sounding off. The cries had become an evil, black chattering that - at times - seemed more in my own head than an actual sound. For a few seconds I felt sure I'd pass out. TB grabbed at me from behind: "Easy duder" he said, barley distinguishable over the screeching parade, "don't wanna leave anybody..."

He stopped short. I was turning around to face him when he gave my elbow a squeeze, gesturing with his glance toward the banks of the pool and a giant water moccasin, wending and twisting it's way towards us on the pipe. At that first glance, the snake couldn't have been less than 20-30 yards away, but it closed -almost instantly - to within 20 feet. I felt instinct taking over, demanding that my feet run, hide, anything to get clear of the danger. I began to move, fighting my own consciousness for command of my arms and legs, when the girl spoke the only words I'd ever hear her say:

"I'm Going". With that, she jumped off the pipe into the muck, and started pulling hard for the waiting cats. As she broke, I heard TB behind me saying "fuck fuck fuck fuck" in a much louder whisper than before.

Ghost / Writer #2

Cort's mind was not on his work. That was unfortunate, because - just at the moment - his work demanded attention. There were periods where Cort's work could easily accommodate other trains of thought simultaneous to it's performance, but this was not one of those times. He wasn't exactly sure of how much danger he was in, but was reasonably certain he was at considerable personal risk, for the simple fact he was about to break into a very expensive house and kill whoever he found inside it. Even so, having breached a deserted outer security wall and traversed fifty yards of gaudy, New England hardscaping, Cort found himself leaving the mission solely to his instincts and thinking - instead - about the end of a story. More specifically, the optimal incarnation of the end of a story he'd written. He'd given Richards too much reality this time. Publishing as planned would bring a deluge of questions with uncomfortable answers. Worse, he hadn't found the time bring it up with Richards.

"Fuck it" he thought, trying to claw his way out of his own head and back to the present. Newport, and the book were for tomorrow. Over the next three days he'd sit with Rich and bring the thing home. The problem was the intervening 24 hours, and how best to spend them without dying and shit-fucking the whole thing.

He was close to the house now. 50 feet or less. He smelled cooking inside, cigarette smoke. Other kinds of smoke. He couldn't stop thinking about the fucking story. What had he been thinking?! What had he done?!

He circled the house three times moving slow through shadow and learning the house. It was a single-floor, with a smallish garage opening to a long straight driveway. One of three similar homes in a tiny cul de sac called Lucas Ct., the Gildge place was set back further than the others. Looking up the driveway from the street, Cort could barely see it. Moving closer, he understood why: It was near 10:00 on a Friday, and Charles Gildge had turned out the lights and gone to bed. Cort moved silently up to the house and pulled up under a window. He heard the sound of canned sitcom laughter from the room and then the unmistakable strident yapping of a woman's voice shilling for Applebees (eat great, even late!). After a few moments Cort began to creep towards the back door.

***

David Gidge HATED his sister Arya. Ugly, mean, constantly harassing, Ari had been the scourge and bane of his days as far back as he could remember. Even so, he'd jumped at the chance to join her for a sleep-over at Grandpa's. Papa's house was a good time. Papa let him watch and eat whatever he wanted. There was no way stupid Ari was going without him. Now it was 10:12, almost two hours past his normal bed time. David was sitting on the floor of what Papa called his "Guest Room" eating a huge bowl of frosted flakes and chasing it with fun-dip. He had his brand new Jason/Empire binoculars hung around his neck, and he was dressed in unmatched pajamas. Spongebob was on, and Dave was sitting with his nose practically touching the tv screen. Ari had been asleep since 8:30.

perfect!

He said it out loud, to nobody, and got up to go get more cereal. That's when he saw the man outside.

The guest room looked out on Papa's giant back yard. Coming to his feet, young Gildge spied movement in the bushes lining the yard's border. At first he thought it must be the wind playing through the brush, but now he saw what was clearly a person emerge from the bushes, ducking low to the ground for a few yards, then dashing across the yard and out of sight. The figure was against the house now - David knew - and close to the back door.

***

The door was unlocked. Cort eased in to the sound of Seinfeld at full blast. Intel on Charlie Gildge, 68, of 48 quarterbridge rd. had the old man loving "Seinfeld", expensive whiskey, and sleeping almost as much as he loved his grandkids David and Arya.

Cort rolled up on him silently, but realized the wasted effort about halfway across the room. Gildge was snoring like a guy who'd passed out drunk hours ago. The air was full of liquor fumes, stale breath and canned laughter. Cort found himself drifting, starting to obsess about the deadline again. He withdrew what looks like a pen cast from gold from the inside pocket of his black Nike windbreaker and moved towards the besotted, sleeping man.

***

David had always felt that he would make a terrific spy. He was fast, and he figured spies would have to be fast to escape other spies. Dave was smart too, and he had a feeling you had to be really super smart to be a good spy. Dave had won Day View Elementary's 1st grade spelling bee only a few short weeks ago, so he was pretty sure he'd be smart enough to spy.

The most important thing for a truly great spy - David knew for a fact - was sneakiness. That was good, David was the sneakiest person he himself had ever met. He could walk undetected through his Grandmother's whole house undetected, and Gram's house was creaky all over. David had once taken a dare to sneak into the principal's office and steal an apple off his desk. He'd collected two rolls of smarties that day, along with a brand new t-shirt baring the word "Benny's" in extravagant script.

Of course the principal's apple had nothing on what Dave was doing right now. The worst thing Mr. Sevey would do to him - could do to him - would be a note home and some skipped recess. The man David was looking at now had entered his father's house undetected, and was now moving towards his father's sleeping, couch-bound form holding what appeared to be a fancy gold pen. The penalty for messing with this guy, he thought with a shudder) would be more than recess.

For a nerve-shredding few seconds, David thought he was going to sneeze. A firm tickle in the very back of his left nostril started to itch and pucker. He tried with all his will to squeeze it back and quell the itch but it was no use.

Then, nothing happened. All at once the irritation subsided and the sneeze protocols reset. Little Davey Gildge fought back the urge to sigh loudly.

He wasn't worried. Looking from where the stranger stood hovering over his father, a stranger wouldn't know about the crawl space between the top of the wall and ceiling. As long as he remained still, David would remain unseen. He watched, rapt, as the stranger moved in. David could see the pen clearly now. It was sparkling and golden, and it looked somehow heavier, more substantial than most. The stranger was hovering directly over his father now, brandishing the shiny gold pen in his dad's face without a word. He craned slightly for a new angle, but before he could adjust he sneezed - loudly - three times.

Interpreter #14

"When you own a big chunk of the bloody third world, the babies just come with the scenery"

Kayla didn't wait for the discretion of close quarters.

We're on "go". By weeks end...

Xino nodded, allowed a polite embrace.They started back towards Kayla's waiting Lincoln for what he knew would be an interesting ride. At least - he thought, as Kayla's man moved from the to open the doors - we'll be warm.

***

She was yaking away full speed even as Xino ducked into the Lincoln:

I'm bringing the skin changers back to see to this. Most of command will be stateside for the next seven days at least. You and Best figure out logistics with the Mech. We don't need the ass or the grunts, so ask Neccas what he's gonna do, his call. If he doesn't feel good about going without his precious Interpreter tell him to split up and dig in. All the names and faces go through you. No docs. No reports.

She let by a moment to for the plan-change sink in, then continued without waiting out the reply:

I want Cort for Gildge Sr, probably the sister as well. A-Group want erasure for ALL principles. I'm taking the brother myself, I want you and Speed to answer the phone as the other names come up. That end is yours, and I'll handle Cort and the brother. AG says seven days.

After it's done?

I don't know, we'll see...

And you're taking the field? How long has it been?

It hasn't been. What you don't know can't hurt me.

I smiled:

That's encouraging. Was it just the Gildge people?

We've had people tracking it for a week now and so far, yes. If it stays that way...

Silence completed the thought. Three minutes later he was back standing outside, freezing once again.

***

He was still weighing her words 20 minutes later, riding in the back of his own comfy Towne Car.

Kayla Bowman tended towards hyperbole, but A-Group had been cleared for D-Day operations for almost a month. Things would be moving soon regardless of security leaks. Was this it? Finally? For a few seconds he basked in the possibilities, but soon he found every heady thought begat a host of strategic questions that he'd yet to answer in his computer models and simulations.

He knew she'd have a plan and he knew it would be risky. Working with Kayla dictated it would be fashioned in his absence and then laid out for him to tweak. After that Kay would readjust as she saw fit before oscar mic swept the entirety of A-Group into whatever lay on the opposite side of it's ultimate, successfully completed mission.

It would work, he knew, no matter what. Even so, the prospect of success didn't leaven the risks or the enormity of the task. When the mission went, the planet - it's people and places and everything in it - would be cast Into play. It was a lot to think about, especially with at least three more innocent citizens who would die to get it done.

Xino had no qualms about murder in general. Killing was his game, and he played it well, erasing game-pieces for the CIA, Naval Intelligence, A-Group, and whoever else could meet his usually stratospheric price. A hit on innocent civilians for the simple crime of receiving an email was something else again. Of course, this late in the game he'd no real choice. He'd carry out the order, tell himself nobody is truly innocent, keep his eyes on the prize and hope judgement - when it came - would favor his side.

***

Interpreter #13

"War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner."



Tits are are awesome, but tits are weird, bro. Fuckinnnn...Why we get so torqued about a little saggy fat with a nipple? Seriously yo. Boobies...

Our Interpreter had been boozing and smoking and was now in search of conversation. I'd put the boys on the wire at ten yard intervals, all of em out there, locked and loaded, so I was the only one around to talk to. I didn't feel like answering back, and so his stabs at conversation had turned to weedy monologues with
Intercollating bouts of dead silence.

We weren't supposed to be there. The unit wasn't commissioned for the recon, and everyone was crabby for the repurposing. I told my people we were the only ones around, that we'd be relieved in time by line infantry and air support. The reality behind the fib was another matter.

Fire base Rango had been as remote an OP as you'd find in this AO. It had no running water, no shower, no barracks. It was in top of a mountain, propped up on the edge of a hanging valley called Ris. The men stationed there never left, never seemed to wire for supplies, never used the fucking radio. After a while the rumors had kicked up good:

Ris is the CIA

Rango is Navy Intel working on another mission completely.

Ris was manned by special forces operators and a secret even from the good guys.

Like most battlefield rumors, the word on Ris was at least half true. Their mission wasn't the same kind of secret as ours, but it was more than they'd have been able to admit in letters home. the spooks had set up Rango years before the war here had begun. It was a listening post. Wired into a satellite net that could read newsprint from eight miles up.

Division intel lost contact with the op, lost contact with a patrol en route to the op, and lost contact with the eye in the sky. Last local word was that one of the mountain tribes stumbled on the base and overran the wire.

The rags shut down the antennae after securing the post and - officially - that's why we were on the scene.. Infinitely more important - and completely secret - was the immense and potent cache of arms buried in the valley floor a thousand vertical feet below FB Rango.

The spooks had been instigating a war, and they meant to give their boys in the field (which am us) the upper hand, even in the enemy's home turf. Buried under the remote op was an underground chamber full of state -of-the-art, deep-black weaponry. No standard ordinance, a stratospheric security clearance was necescary to get within a hundred mile radius of the armaments at Ris. That's where the mech came in.

Division was ok losing the base, slightly erect about losing the antenna, and shaved-cunt crazy over the lost sci-fi gear. Five hours after the last mayday from the FB, we'd been pulled off the our own mission - over a hundred miles south - to recover and secure the cache.
I'd instructed Mason to double the perimeter guard and start counter-directive patrols. The Column dug in just off a highway almost 3 wooded clicks from the target, hidden and dig in deep, ready to rain 100 different kinds of hell on the Ragman.

I had 20 private operators and 10 spec. force guys hidden at intervals around Rango, waiting for words and - in the Terp's case - abusing intoxicants and talkin shit. I'd heard the 'Changers liked to party on mission but the Terp was - as usual - overstating the point. I'd watched him bury two thickly rolled blunts of extreme smelling keff, all the while bombing slugs of brown liquor from a fat silver flask. Once the entire Mech was reasonably well occupied Mase was to come back, with only his team, inventory the cache and help with the re-fit. The Mech had taken it's position, and all the was left was the giving of the word.

Interpreter #12

"I burned the rice, and my soul is ice"


Scott Xino was wasting time. Nothing unusual about it, Xino liked to joke that 99.9 percent of his job was acting busy. Most times people asked about the remaining 1% , in response to which he'd be forced to uncomfortably change the subject. He'd done it just now, on the phone. This time when the guy asked about the 1%, Xino replied by ignoring the question, and starting a rumor about an old friend they both knew:

...So yeah, I guess she had been, lessee, How can I put this? He felt the missus to be showing her vagina to more people than the optimal (and agreed upon) amount of no one . She agreed with him, and left his life. Now he drinks only the cheapest, eats only fart, and cries his nights into days...

Woah. He eats what? Eats fuck?

No, it's...what the shit?

Something insane showing up on his computer straightened Xino in his chair.

What? Take it easy I didn't...

Xino cut him off:

No, no dude. Something on my desk. I'll call ya...

He blipped out of the phone convo and started clicking at his tablet screens.

***

The video was very short, and ten minutes later Xino had watched it at least 20 times. The email containing the vid came from an hyper-secure network fewer than 300 people in the entire world had been cleared to access. It was a blank subject heading with only one horrible sentence - all caps, excessive exclamation points - screaming from above the vid:

GILDGE SENT THIS TO PAIGE!!!

Sometime during the video his phone rang. He didn't have to look down at Kayla Bowman's smiling face on his phone's screen to know she'd be the one answering when he said:

KK, listen I...

The voice on the other end cut him off:

Mall in ten, and hurry! Freezing!

Click...tone...Xino watched the movie another 3 times before grabbing his coat and heading for the Washington Monument.

Ghost/Writer

"I start to think,
and then I sink
into the paper,
like I was ink"



HOME.

He threw his bag, stormed the granite and chrome expanse of his kitchen, emerged triumphant in his favorite room in all the world. Encased entirely in glass, like a greenhouse with a view of the open ocean and miles of rocky coast, entering his living room was like diving into a deep pool of bright sunlight. It always made him feel safe, and the feeling washed over him now like a warm blanket.

There had been trouble, yes, but now he was back. He was home. He had a deadline, a huge advance in-waiting and shitgoddamn he needed it. Austin had been a hot wet mess.

As he'd gotten older, he'd seen his messes had become more complex, much more expensive, and far less susceptible to expedient resolution.
But gazing, now, through his beveled, triple- pain living room wall, out over his boathouse and the natural rock lagoon that formed his back yard, Paul Jacobs wasn't the least bit worried. After all, Paul had Cort, and Cort was on his way.

The rest would fall into place, as always. He was so jacked up he was almost ready to knock the fucking thing out now himself and have done. He could finish before dinner, call that sanctimonious prick Thomas before bed with word of his completion...

No. Fuck no. Cort was on the move, and he needed him. Besides, Paul was fucking tired. Austin - such a fucking mess - had sapped him of his energy along with all his cash. He needed food and THC. No, there'd be no calling Thomas tonight, as much fun as that would have been. Instead he'd let the ideas languish a bit while he tended his depleted stores. After a night's solitary feast, and a long sour diesel- induced sleep, he and Cort would bang out the final sections of "Them" and be done with it. After that, he'd make that call to Thomas.

There was a tap between Paul's shoulders. Not hard, not really, but firmly felt through the leather collar of his coat and the thin cotton of his shirt. At the same time, he saw a flash of red arc through the sunlight and stall low on the glass, near the bottom of the window where deep eggshell shag met beveled triple-pain.

It was a spot of red.

Paul'd meant to whirl, to see who'd tapped him on his back. That's what one does, he thought, when one is

(is what?)

Is..

(tapped?)

Tapped.

But still that red spot. It was tiny, but so well defined on the glass for which he'd paid so much. He could see it down there, in sharp black relief against the blue sea beyond. It was red, and liquid. Almost like paint, or...

He noticed another spot, just above the first. Another just above that. What the hell was happening to his window? Who had...

(tapped him?)

He tried to whirl. The red though...he was sure it had been red against the sunlight, and now black in silhouette.

(blood...)

He bent to it, and the spot began to grow. The drops began to join and now all of them grew and he was falling. Falling from a high place toward that liquid crimson.

Paul's vision began to fray at it's borders, going first grey, and then bright white. He wanted to turn around, but there was red on his window, on his expensive fucking...
He realized he'd bent down too far. His face was on the glass, and his hands.

He died like that, with the red coming up for him, his hands smearing blood-tracks down the heavy, expensive glass, his face stalled out in deep egg-shell shag.


The last thing Paul hears in this life are the voices of unfamiliar men - one calm, one tense - both mushy and distant, as if he were listening underwater in the deep end of a pool:

Jesus fuckin Christ now what? Oh fuck. Fuck...

Take it easy what's different? We needed a place, it's still a place. Whatever. Fuckin guy...

Whatever. Right. We're fucking dead, but whatever. Goddamned FUCKIN' guy.

Paul Jacobs died then, cursed even to the very last by the men who'd killed him.

Interpreter #11

"Easy...I love you as I watch you glide. We'll park beside the ocean on our moonlight drive"


So that's how i got this job...

They drove through the frigid Kazmir night at speeds that felt very dangerous the to Everett Gildge.The interpreter talked the entire time, but with the rush of air over the chassis, and the rocks and dust crunching between bigger road noises, the young Specialist was getting every tenth word and understanding none if it. After almost an hour on high desert hardscrabble, the road got at least semi-passable and the Terp's narrative came into focus:

...Fuck I'd been offered shit like this gig my whole life since I had no dick-hair, yo. The El Tee, though, he's the first white man could meet my price. Six languages, six dialects or more in most of 'em, I know the high roads and the low roads. Gotta cultivate that self-worth, right? Dolladollabill y'all, right? Right bro?

Gildge said:

Where the fuck are we going? I thought Pakistan was East?

Yeah, no bro. That was just some El Tee bullshit about Pakistan. Aint a OP at the Pakistani border dude, fuckinnnnn…(The interpreter used the conjunction “dude, fuckinnnnn…” in place of most traditional punctuation devices.) El Tee told me to get to drive you out beyond the wire and drop you, leave your sorry ass for the snakes and the mouintain lions dude. You goin’ AWOL son! El Tee says: “Take him in the hills, answer all his questions, and put his lights out, yo. Bring me his balls” he says, just like that: "Bring me his BAWWWLes 'Terp"

Gildge reacted, physically, to each and every word. By the time the ‘Terp got to “son!”, the hapless private’s face was contorted and swollen with protests yet-to-come, and his brain was on fire trying to sort out the possibilities. He tried to speak:

What?…What…No...

The ‘Terp let him off the hook just seconds before the questions and the pleading:

TOTALLY FUCKinwhichooobro!!! Bwahhhhh!!

He fell out laughing for almost three whole minutes. Gildge, in contrast, could barely manage a shit-eating smile. He’d not found the gag nearly so funny. Guffawing, gasping for breath, and fucking with the night vision goggles as they went, the interpreter – just at that moment – seemed about as insane and damaged as a person could be. Everett Gildge found himself fighting the urge to wait for a slow-down between speed-jags and throw himself from the moving Humvee. The ‘Terp kept right on after the laughing fit:

Going back ain't a thing to be ashamed of mang. I've seen it before , yo. Shit, many times bro, many times. I hear about these guys, Americans, big tough guys right? Hard. So why they be killin’ themselves faster than the rags can get 'em? I'm sayin' fuck bro...where these guys been workin’? " ‘Cause I know the aint seein' what I see, and they still eatin’ voluntary lead? What the fuck, right? Last week we napalmed a school after barricading the doors. Ain't a guy with us killed anything but ragheads. Shit you seen that fuckin’ bus. Melted that fucker. That's our thing dude. Fuckin hellish. Death squad motherfuckers. We hard. Gotta be!

‘Terp's mention of the bus made Gildge all loopy again. He tried to stem the flood of disgust and confusion, tried to keep the awful images from his mind's eye. It was no use. What the fuck had happened to that bus?

He realized he'd spoken the words inadvertently as he'd thought them and studied the interpreter for reaction. He was relieved to see none, and felt silly for all his worrying. All the noise, he could hardly make out the sound of his own voice much less an...

Glad you asked dude. We are on the way to an ISI station dude, no foolin’. El Tee really was concerned though. He said I could be straight with you if you needed more info. Said fix it on the ride, 'cause the dudes at ISI wouldn’t be able to answer your kind of questions.

He jacked the brakes and the un-belted Gildge went head up against the windshield with a dull thud. Pain exploded in the Corpsman's face as his nose and left cheek absorbed the bump. The 'Terp seemed now to be addressing him from the end of a long dark tunnel, and Gildge found himself momentarily blind and tearing up.

Sorry about the bump. Seatbelt, bro!

They popped off the Main road over a low culvert, and the Humvee screamed as the ‘Terp dipped into the throttle over terrain that seemed not so much a road as a hastily-chosen path between rocks and trees. The moon was low and new. They rode in total darkness, but Gildge had seen enough of the Kasmir to know the off-kilter infinity of hard geography stretching to every horizon. The place was an endless slew of rocks and bigger rocks, scattered over Hills and bigger hills. Everything here was cold, uncomfortable angles and roads far too small, no matter what the size of one's chosen conveyance. It made Everett Gildge cringe just thinking about that hard black void. His babbling, goggle - wearing valet wasn't helping in the least.

***

They’d pulled off the “road” for the Q&A. After almost twenty minutes the ‘Terp said:

So that’s everything I know dude. The El Tee prolly knows more and I’m sure the old man knows more than that fucker. Dude, Fuckinnnn…It’s a fucked up mission. We get a move on, we be at the Paki station in under an hour, unless you alright. We could just turn around, go back, like nothing ever happened bro…

Gildge jumped on it:

No, fuck no, man. Dude’s a fucking psycho. Take me the fuck to Pakistan and leave me. Any place but the fuckin’ Mech man.

Suit yourself homie

The ‘Terp had eased the Humvee back onto whatever path they’d been following, began to speed up again when he slapped his knee, jacked the brakes, and sent Everett Gildge beaming into the windshield once again.

Sorry Bro! Dude, fuckinnnn’ Again!? My bad!

They pulled back off the track and stopped, but ‘Terp kept talking:

Nearly forgot…

He said with a relieved flourish. He took a small notebook from the center console and threw it at Gildge.

Go to the last page where there’s no writing…

Gildge did, leafing through what appeared to be page upon page of the ‘Terp’s unreadable scrawl.

Ok…

He said, opening to the prescribed page.

You gotta sign there. I’ll explain later. Here, bro. Use my pen.

 

Interpreter #10

"These are the days of heroes"


Specialist Everet Gildge was scared shitless.

He'd been a corpsman for almost two years. His first tour had seen him thrown into the bloody, relentless fighting in Bagdad and Feleuja. He'd extended after that and been sent to RIS, a high, remote mountaintop hell where he'd seen rent flesh and scorched earth on 98 of the 140 days he'd spent there.

All of that he'd seen and adapted to and managed with - he thought - at least a modicum of professional remove. Hell, in Ris he'd carried a man up a cliffside draw after a mortar strike. Gildge had gone up and down the draw three times, toting meaty pieces of the guy to a nervous, waiting dust-off.

But nothing had prepared him for the Mech. In the last seven days the unit had killed 789 people, most of them innocent, many of them children. Specialist Gildge knew this because each and every rolling piece in the column had an in-dash Ex-Count readout. He could hear the whole column whooping it's appreciation as the death-works rumbled and the red Ex Count LED flickered and climbed.

They'd taken no prisoners and they'd developed no intel. They'd filed no sit-reps and they'd never visited an OP even to refuel. It was as if Washington had taken all tactics and strategy out of the mission, and just instructed the column to destroy anything and everything that crossed it's terrible path. In the The Mech's war, the bullshit didn't rate. The order was "kill" and the score keeper was the always visible Ex-Count led's.

***

In Bankuti they'd herded all the townspeople into a cave and rocketed the shaft for almost ten minutes straight. In Kandahar he'd watched the LT strap a family of four to the business end of a truck-mounted recoilless rifle and force the husband to scream out "fire in the hole!". In Kirkuk they'd gone house to house for five city blocks. He remembered finding the Interpreter at a top floor balcony, a laundry basket full of rags by his side. He was throwing little bundles of the clothing over the side, watching them fall, giggling as he went. A tremendous joint was clutched and burning, in his teeth.

The 'Terp - thoroughly engrossed in his task - had wheeled on him just as Gildge got close enough
to realize the bundles were not laundry, we're in fact moving, moaning, in some cases crying:

Fuckinnn...wanna hit bro? Take it yourself, though...

He jutted his face towards the horrified corpsman.

kinda got my hands full, Bro!

He laughed through clenched teeth and it made a sound like:

Sh ah sh sh sh sh sh

Gildge thought he saw one of the bundles twitch noticeably just before the 'Terp turned back to his work. Gildge - struck mute in revulsion - watched him suck in a huge, no-handed toke, shoving first the twitching bundle, then the other out into the void as he exhaled.

***

The Mech didn't seem to have a standard COC. Gildge hadn't seen anything even resembling an executive officer, there was only one non-com amongst them, yet the column was lousy with both civilian operators and plainclothes special forces. As far as he could see, The rolling horror that was 5th Mechanized seemed to be controlled - pillar to post - by the LT and his weedy, infant-throwing Interpreter.

And the weaponry...Everett Gildge was a pacifist but he came to the Corps a life-long handgun enthusiast, taught his way around them by his father, Jess, as Jess had been by his own father. By age 16, Everett could name, dissassemble, reconfigure, repair and fire almost 150 different types of personal ordinance. None of them could hold a match against the murderous sci-fi shit the Mech could bring to bear. His head spun and ached remembering back: He'd seen silent, triangular recon drones with no moving parts, miniature hand-held weapons that produced no audible report, but which could  melt any target, instantly, to liquid. He'd watched contact mines setting acres of once-lush forest ablaze at the press of a button. There was a flamethrower mounted on two of the tanks that sprayed a hellish discharge of molten aluminum and white phosphorous more than a football field in width and breadth. They'd used it to set the sleeping villages of Tathu and Tathi on fire. Gildge heard the screams every night since, and he could hear them still, storming his thoughts like line-infantry, stealing his sanity.

What in sweet fuckall - he wondered for the hundredth time that day - am I going to...

Then there was a loud noise, and Gildge looked for the first time and last time, at Tarantula Hawk.

Interpreter #9

"My name is called Disturbance. I shout and scream, and kill a king, and rail at all his servants"

We were expecting to pass a town called Casat, but the road kept on and we never saw it. The square mile it was said to have occupied was littered with garbage and charred remnants. There were holes in the ground, some big enough to sink an F-16 in, others as small as bullet holes. The place was dead, ugly, and completely quiet. We were looking for a place to pull up and dismount when my sat phone started chiming. It was Washington, wanting a quick word.

Afterwards I sent Kruck and Hutchinson for forward recon. That left twenty men for security at 75 yards and 360 degrees. I grabbed Sgt. Mason, told him what they'd just told me:

Division says we are "go" for Arc drones. There's an old firebase two miles from here. Intel says these guys are there, waiting us out. Take two men, and come back with details. He turned to go but I grabbed his, pulled him close:

Find these people quick Mr. Mason. The old man wants erasure.

***

Sargent Mason's sortie took only 40 minutes to find Casat's prodigals. Minutes after his return I lead a six -man detachment up to the humvees, leaving orders for a secure watch until my return. We split two for each of three Humvees. Mase and I in the middle car and the Terp bringing it up with Gildge.

The right side windshield in my Humvee morphed and flashed as we went, a multicolored swirl of numbers and files trying to find the quickest most efficient way to murder 600 people. I watched colors and numbers dance across the screens as a computer modeled scenarios, checking and adjusting for air and weather and random happenstance. After a few minutes there was rhythmic electronic note, like a morse code dot, as the windshield monitors bullet-pointed the three recommended mission packages.

Preference Mase?...Preference Mase?...Preference Mase?...

The words crawled along the bottom of the screens. He opened his mouth, started to answer, then pointed straight ahead:

This is where they are chief.

He Pulled off about 50 yards, doused the lights.

I clicked the Ex-Count machine and now Mason began waving his fingers in the air, scanning through screens, checking and double checking.

The refugee camp lay northeast. There was an mini barracks out there leftover from desert storm. Six rotting Quonset huts and a stair head shack had received the refugees waiting out the horror at Cassatt. Six quonset huts for 700-1000 starving, terrified "enemy combatants" Our erasure mission seemed almost humanitarian.

***

Working fast, I pushed the joystick onto mission pack #1 and gave my security I.d. to ok the sortie.
There were three loud beeps like semi in reverse, and the rear of our humvee split open along its midline. The two sections slid away to clear the Drone's launch. Silently, without bumping each other or anything else, three ARC - 56 drones floated noiselessly up from the hold like vampires rising for a midnight hunt. Once clear of the vehicle, the three flat black triangles broke from the stack formation and floated - no hum, no prop noise, no sound of any kind - over the rear of the Humvee.

Mason would pilot the sortie. Gaines and his men would cover him, and I took the 'Terp forward with me to observe. Ten minutes later we were parked, running, behind a mile long berm flanking the western edge of the hut-camp. Five minutes after that the Terp and I were in position. He spoke:

Gildge is a problem. We should get out in front of it before...

I cut him off, trying to stay focused, but knowing he was right:

He's fine, we'll talk later.

Adding, pathetically:

I'll keep an eye. Here it comes:

Frye Redux

"if you go down in the woods today you're sure of a big surprise! Every bear that ever was will gather there for certain, because today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic..."
~Traditional

-1-

Jeff and Crowe were walking very very slowly, partly because it was getting dark and they were lost in the woods, but mostly because they'd each eaten most of a 1/4 oz of hideously powerful mushrooms. After the inevitable 45 minutes of puking, Crowe had suggested a slow race. They'd been at it almost an hour before Crowe gave succinct voice to the navigation shortfalls:

Crowe: We're fucking lost...Hey!! you're not moving buttfuck! It's a slow race not a fucking "stop" race

Jeff: eat shit dicklick - no such thing.

Crowe: there is cause you made it up, right now.

Jeff: fuck I think we're lost.

Crowe: ya think? Ha! Think! Thonk! Thank! Think think...

And they both laughed for almost 15 minutes. Crowe stopped first because the hilarity was causing eye malfunction. He was picking nettles out of his jeans when a familiar figure came trooping through the underbrush.

•••

Frye sightings were common enough in the woods around EG. There were no homeless people in town, but Frye - shacked up for years in a decrepit Airstream at the base of an abandoned landfill - represented the local lunatic fringe with aplomb. Word was he'd been in a bad car accident years before, and downward spiraled to eventual dump-life in the ensuing decades.

On this day, although the boys hadn't realized it, the old bum had seen them gobbling the 'shrooms at trail side, and followed them up into the woods to beg some. He'd lost the scent and given up, only to have the boy's long, laughter put him back on task. He'd come forth from the trail, arms high in triumph, about to announce his intention, when a gigantic black bear broke from the brush behind him and tackled him to the ground.

-2-

Neither Jeff or Crowe had climbed a tree in a long, long time. Even so, they were both twenty feet up in an old evergreen before Frye had a chance to scream:

F: what the fick what the fuck what the fuggin fuck!!! Fuck! Frye! Fuck!

J: what what I can't see. Is he... What are they doing?

C: fuck fuck fuck!

J: damn is that?...is he?...I can't...

C: Play dead play dead, that's what you do!

J: play dead! Yes!

C & J: frye! Play dead!

•••

It was just about dusk now, and shadows had claimed the woods. After the initial shock the beast had slacked off a bit, stepping back from It's prey, it walked a slow circle, scratching itself as it went. It stank like hell, filling the whole area with a musky, eye-watering cloud.

Just then Frye - moving ten times faster than jeff or Crowe had ever seen him move - seized his moment, gimping quick towards their evergreen and freedom. Unfortunately for Frye, he became confused in his flight because of the "play dead" command from the trees. Frye was mere steps from safety when Crowe and Jeff had started in. He abruptly crouched and lay down on his belly in a pathetic imitation of death, abandoning an almost surefire bid for safety in favor of a half-assed suggestion from the tripping idiots in the tree. The poor old hobo dropped to the ground, and the stinky bear was upon him once again

-3-

The sounds were the worst part. It was almost full dark by now. Flat grey light and mushroom hallucinations were making it hard for Jeff and Crowe to gauge what was happening down below. The sounds, however, - grtistle pops and squishy grunts - weren't painting any kind of positive picture.

The bear had taken a giant bite out of Frye's ass and the reaction was instant: a low, raspy wail that went on for almost a full minute. For the boys watching from the safety tree, the sound touched nerves:

J: fuck is that?

C: the bear farted...

J: shut the fuck up it's getting louder. Is that frye? Frye!

C: sounds like Grover...

***

He was right, the sounds Frye was making were muppet-like, although not by intention. The bear was standing on his legs and munching on parts of his back and shoulders and the pain was driving the degenerate insane.

To Crowe, Frye seemed to be screaming actual words, but in a foreign language. French, he was guessing.

Eventually, the bear consumed enough of Frye's spinal cord to relieve the pain. The feeding, however, went on for hours. Eventually Crowe drifted off to sleep hugging the evergreen, like a new monkey dangling on the teat, leaving Jeff to keep watch over the spontaneous forest buffet that was once the hobo called Frye.

-4-

The bear stayed around for almost two hours. The moon was half and low and the hallucinating Jeff was able to watch the whole affair like HDTV.
After Frye's spine had been partially consumed, the beast moved to his shoulders, arms (left then right), and legs. After this the animal appeared sated. Jeff actually thought the ordeal might be finished when the beast reared back away from the carcass of Frye. Instead of leaving, however, the bear gave a roar, lumbered forward, and took a giant shit on Frye's back. The smell wafted up to Jeff like a chemical weapon, and he almost fell from the tree.

The bear did eventually move on, but - following immediately after - a team of squirrels fell on the remains of Frye. They seemed primarily concerned with Frye's neck and scalp area. As they ate, jeff could hear their tiny jaws snapping and smacking over the fresh meat.

The Squirrels dashed almost 45 minutes later, then came the raccoons. After the raccoons, snakes and bugs, after that there were possums, dogs, cats, and what looked to Jeff like a miniature elephant. All night they pulled up and back from this new meat oasis, and all night Jeff was there bearing witness. He felt the weight of history upon him and proclaimed to the darkness:

Oh Frye! It's all because of you. Frye...why did you play dead. Why did you listen to Crowe. Crowe killed you! You hear me? Crowe! Crowe! Cro...

Fuck you asshole it was your fault.

Jeff was too shocked and too hallucinating to realize Crowe was awake and fucking with him, impersonating Frye (badly) while pretending to sleep. Just the opposite, Jeff had suspected Frye might still have been alive all during the feast, and - thus - bit hard on the idea when Crowe spoke up. He jumped, startled, straight up on his branch, and in doing so shook Crowe from his. The old hippie hit the ground with a wet thud, coming to rest ten feet below in the stinky flesh-pudding that had once been Frye.

New and Unrelated.

"This is a blackout. Don't let it go to waste"
Foo Fighters

He lunged and missed and knew he was finished. The only thing that saved him was the shitty roofing, probably mis-laid by some drunk in the late 1950's, forgotten by everybody until this very moment now, when Gerry King tripped on it. He'd lunged too hard, and now he was going over the side, off of the roof of his father's apt complex. It was of seven Ger might have inherited someday if it wasn't for the fact it looked like he was going to die.

And then he wasn't. He tripped on that sticky shingle, and Instead of flying clear of the roof, hit the three-foot brick escarpment at his midsection. For an instant he rejoiced in his mind, thinking the physics of the event had fallen in his favor...

He was wrong.

He'd bounced forward, off the rail like a heavy stone off tumbling of a jetty. He was going to fall.

***

Mort Coolidge hated Gerry King. Hated him meanly and actively. Had hated him for a very long time. Today though, the hatred had passed into something else. A new phase with a new method had been enacted. Coolidge would inform Gerry King of this in person, just before shooting him in the face. He grabbed his keys, and the pearl- gripped Colt Anaconda his partner had given him for his fortieth birthday. He left his cell, his badge, and his service Smith and Wesson on his kitchen table. He and Gerry King would be on the roof less than ten minutes later with the Colt left behind downstairs next to a half full bottle of Johnny walker blue and two glasses.

***

It was just seconds before the pain loosed King's grip. His wiry frame flew the wall at 170 pounds. Then he'd managed to grab and find purchase at the edge of the roof. Gravity countered by bringing centrifugal force to bear, crushing Gerry's forearm just above the elbow, applying massive sudden force on a fulcrum where there was no joint. King barely had time to feature his new circumstance before reflex opened his clutch and sent him totally, finally, over the edge.

**

Coolidge wheeled aside at just the last second, but he hadn't noticed the wall. He turned quick to face the next charge and instead found only empty space where his enemy should have been. Empty space, and a very low wall.

***

He was Alive. What's more, he never lost consciousness.


He'd whipsawed over as his desperate grab snagged the inside coping of the wall. When his body-weight came to rest, it threatened to snap his arm above the wrist. Before that happened, Gerry King had let go. Instinct from the pain. He never remembered the fall.

***

It had been - he would tell people later- like sleeping without dreaming. An unnatural feeling of losing the sense of time, and just not being, until - boom - you are again.

There's no way to tell how long or what the fuck. He was like a drunk, sleeping off a king- shit bender in a standpipe. Gerry woke up not remembering the act of having gone to sleep. It was a blink. A blip. A spec of time marked only by the act of closing his eyes and opening them up again. In that blip, universes had been realized and gone extinct. Seasons had passed and passed again. Markets had collapsed and languished and restarted again. The world had lived, and continued, and adjusted in all it's gratuitous motion. A billion things had been and become and ceased to be. When Gerry King closed his eyes after falling from the roof of his own building at 415 Windmill Ct., it had been December, 1998. When he opened them again it was January 2013 and everything he'd known had changed.