The Horror

by Martin E. Silenus

  P-Man is yelling at me and pointing, “Hud, Hud, over there!”

  Charlie has just entered the edge of the clearing, three of them. One of them carries a Druganov sniper rifle. I know this guy as we have hunted and been hunted by him. Charlie doesn’t fire at us. Instead the Sniper with the Druganov stands at attention and salutes us as we are reeled up to the chopper! Both of us salute back, not sure why we should, but instinctively sense we should, and we do it.

  In the chopper I look at P-Man and he looks at me, we both look for Charlie, but they have slipped back into the jungle. There is no Charlie and no Tiger either, just green jungle.

  “Can you fucking believe that?” I yell at P-Man, “Charlie knew we are leaving Nam!”

  He just shakes his head, “Guess maybe we got the pass we were wondering about.”

  The devil is outraged, screaming you cannot leave, you are mine for eternity, my legionares...

  It’s all a blur, a blur of Colonel Smith, Bert the CIA freak, of interviews, of positions, co-ordinates, kills, and trying to explain the fucking great tiger. They watch us close when we speak of it and what it did. Watch us close to see if we are certifiably insane. Where was Charlie and the guy with the Druganov, was the tiger his? Why didn’t he kill the tiger, why didn’t you kill the tiger? What do you mean you sense the tiger meant you no harm; how the fuck could you know what a tiger is thinking? We look like drooling combat stunned idiots. This is exactly what we are.

  A blur of doctors to heal the flesh and bone, of doctors to listen and heal the mind. It’s a blur of good food, of rest and relaxation, of meetings and discussions. A blur of being under guard on an airbase which doesn’t exist. A blur of what we did and how we might live with it. And during it all Daria is whispering in my mind and touching my face during the nightmares. In all the nightmares the fucking great tiger is there, watching and prowling. I cannot get a read on the cat, why is he there, what does he represent, am I in danger from this cat, can’t be as he could kill us anytime, nothing makes any sense at all, nothing.

  The devil doesn’t like the huge tiger...why...it is like they are two opposing entities...both aware and distant to the other....a balance of force...

  The tiger is the jungle Hud, my darling, and he can be your ally and your enemy...

  P-man and I talk quietly as we walk the airbase and smoke.

  “I am not liking our visits to this place, every time we are here, we are so fucked up,” I say.

  “Yeah, fucked up heads, the hardest thing to get straight,” says P-man. “I can heal pretty quick from the wounds of combat, but the shit we have done, and seen, and the insanity of it all, I am struggling to get around it. The nights are bad for me, the memories are replayed and scare the shit out of me.”

  “Doc says not to try to make sense of it all, there is no why or how come answer and there never will be,” I say. “War makes no sense and everything which occurs within the war has little logic but long on horror.”

  Colonel Smith encourages us to stay on and work for him. The work is what we know, the compensation is very impressive. I am unstable, I know I am. P-Man declines also saying too much too soon. Smith nods and says the door is always open if we change our minds. He gives us a number on a card to call if we change our minds. It makes me shiver what Colonel Smith does. But I see what has to be done as clearly as he does. I just cannot do it right now without complete self-destruction.

  The layover in Hawaii, more doctors, more military brass, but these guys do not have knowledge as to what our mission was. Just, we are extremely distinguished soldiers. They are curious and want to open us up. Their efforts drive us back to retreat inside ourselves. They do us no service at all. It is unpleasant there and we are eager to continue our journey home.

  Chapter 12: Home

  I am home, if that’s what it is called. It is a nightmare worse than the jungle. I am still in the jungle, but I am not in the jungle. I love Daria so much it makes me sick. When she met me at the airport, I thought I my heart was going to burst. I could see in her eyes the shock of what had come back from Nam, what her Hud had become. But she is patient, so patient to all my ills. I am so fucked up it is beyond belief. The shift from combat ready to civilian is not going well at all. I am still combat ready, I hear all, I assess risk, I imagine, I have weapons within reach, I have nightmares during the daytime. The distortion of reality is... I cannot discern what the current reality is. I’m a creature of death locked in my house prowling, waiting, for the inevitable attack unable to go outside as I cannot cope with the surroundings.

  The devil is with me 24 x 7 whispering in my ears, laughing and howling in glee at my insanity, encouraging me to sign back up for another tour with Smith and come back to my home in the jungle.

  The nights are nightmares, I cannot rest, the prescription pills don’t seem to have much effect. Daria and I go to bed and make love, it is one of my few threads to sanity, I hold her till she sleeps. Then the war begins all over for me again, the killing, the attacks the blood and gore and mayhem. Daria is holding me with a cold cloth on my forehead while I shake and drool. She is reassuring me I am not in the jungle and the city sounds are normal and we are not under siege. I am such a fucking mess, and this is so not what I wanted to have happen when I got back. I am terrified Daria will grow weary of the clusterfuck that I am and leave to rejoin the rest of the world.

  I wonder how P-man is doing, or where he is, I have lost track of so many people. I am scared he might not be feeling what I am feeling and I am insane by myself. Just me and the devil with the distortions of memories.

  The doctors who know of these things say it will go away in time, the memories will fade to the point where I can keep them locked up at night. How long, how long is “in time” and what the fuck happens in the meantime? In the meantime am I the drooling terrified idiot in the circus locked in a cage? I have Smith’s card and phone number stuck on the mirror. How long before I just give up and return to Colonel Smith and the jungle mayhem or maybe just terminate myself, how long...?

  I am so alone...Daria is my only hope, my salvation; if she leaves I am lost!

  Self-doubts, anxiety, angst, so undermining, so destructive, so paralyzing, so power robbing, so adept at keeping you locked in your personal hell. What has happened to me, how have I become what I am? I don’t even know what I am, and I deny any conclusions as to what I have become or may become. There is just the current bubbling acid stew of horror.

  It is suggested if you look very carefully at your life to date with an eye to the themes in your life and how they have shaped you at 10 year intervals, you can predict the next 10 years and thereby conclude what you will be like 10 years hence. It’s a very difficult exercise to do by yourself as we argue with the facts of our lives. We can’t seem to just accept what has happened and thereby what will happen if we continue to apply the observed theme. We deny our future state and we fight against adjusting the current theme. What the hell did you think was going to happen when you ventured down this path? Did you not do any research at all, just blindly reacted like some mindless amoeba?

  Daria reassures me, of performing as necessary during a state of war, reassures me of things which happen beyond reason, beyond horror, during the altered distorted state of physical, emotional and mental carnage. Reassures me of the current reality state, reassures me I must disconnect from the past and re-attach to current constructs and environments. Reassures me by pointing to the warring history of mankind and reassures me I did nothing out of the ordinary such any grunt would have done given the circumstances. I did what I did and must move on, I will not let the past control me.

  The mental discipline to control thoughts, reactions, memories, mind states, backwards thinking, ruminating, poring over what could have been is the hardest most difficult thing I have ever faced. A massive self-re-programming effort to split from the past and engage with the current reality. But what is my direction, I must have a focus, a goal to achieve; it i
s the way I am assembled. I need a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I need the goal to keep the memories in check.

  Some vets move to what is pertinent for their training, police, security, detective work. I don’t feel I can go there as it keeps the memories alive I so desperately need to shed. I want to contact P-man, and I do. It was awkward, very awkward, and once we got past the elation of seeing one another again I had the bad feeling it pulled me backwards. I suspect it affected him the same way. Meeting other Vets was ok but it didn’t work that way with my partner. It just pulled back too many memories I had worked hard to keep in storage. It made me very sad, so terribly, terribly sad.

  After about a year has passed it is a combination of several factors which allowed me to obtain some traction in achieving inner peace and contentment. The ongoing love and support of Daria, the professional help of my psychologist, the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) group I joined, and believe it or not the memory of the huge jungle tiger which stalked us, protected us, while we set right the horrendous wrong which had violated the locals of the jungle.

  One day while Daria was at work I went to the local zoo, to the tiger compound to be exact. They had a beautiful specimen there. I sat and watched the tiger for hours, and he watched me. I wept until I could not weep any longer. The tiger paced and watched me, it seemed to know, animals pick up on sadness and turmoil, they can read humans, and perhaps they can see our auras.

  Daria was and always will be the voice of reason of the here and now, just showing me how to cope with the issues of the day. My psychologist provides the learned theories of my challenges and reflects the education of dealing with our current construct. The PTSD group supports me and shows me I am not alone at all. There are many who suffer the effects of PTSD and only some are from a military or war background. PTSD is far more prevalent across all sectors of society than I could ever have imagined.

  Mother Nature is such that in each area of our world there is a creature who best typifies her. Perhaps it appears as an agent of Mother Nature if you will. In the jungle it was the huge tiger, on the prairies it is the coyote, in the North it is the wolf, and in the far North it is the polar bear. Nature provides me with great peace and contentment as I sit on a grassy hill and watch the goings on of her family of creatures, of which I am one. Daria and the huge great tiger are always with me, they are the primary columns of support which hold my world in place, and I expect and hope they always will be with me.

  Authors Note:

  I want to express my profound respect for the men and women who have served and will serve in our Armed Forces. Their commitment, tenacity, and personal sacrifice are beyond reproach!

  This is the third and final ebook of the series on the Vietnam War and the personal experiences of a couple of young lads that had the misfortune to wind up in the middle of it. Life allows no observers!

  Special thanks to Guy Vanderhaeghe, who encouraged and inspired me to keep writing, to Rita Toews for the excellent cover, to Maureen Cutajar for formatting, to friends and family for ongoing support. And last but not least to my friend Joan who edits my doggerel into readable format.

  Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at Amazon?

  Thanks!

  Martin E. Silenus

  Copyright 2014 Martin Silenus

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoy this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from Amazon. Thank you for your support.

  Recruitment

  Hudson (Hud) Reynolds, age 23, young, stupid, arrogant, drinking brawler, bored to death in the dusty dying town of Ector, Texas. What the hell does a man have to do for some real excitement?

  The US Army happens to be looking for men spoiling for a fight. There have this conflict raging in a little country called Vietnam. When you join up and do a tour or two you have had all the fighting you need, if you come back. Too many good men didn’t.

  RECRUITMENT is a novella prequel to the Trilogy on the Vietnam War. The adventures of Hud and P-man a sniper team in the jungles of Vietnam. If you enjoyed Platoon or Apocalypse Now, you will love Martin E. Silenus’s action adventure book!

  Visit www.martinesilenus.com website, subscribe and get your free copy of RECRUITMENT.

  Race the Devil

  Don’t die today; try very hard not to die today!

  Hud and P-man are a sniper team operating out of firebase Foxtrot. They are good, maybe too good at their skill set, as their ability to perform and survive brings increasingly difficult and dangerous missions. A powerful evil other than Charlie is stalking Hud and P-man. Can Hud’s spiritual link to his beloved Daria tip the balance to level the playing field?

  Race the Devil is the first book in a series on the Vietnam War and the personal experiences of a couple of young lads that had the misfortune to wind up in the middle of it. If you liked Platoon or Apocalypse Now, then you will love Martin E. Silenus’s action adventure book!

  Pick up Race the Devil to discover this exciting new series today!

  Cambodia

  In the jungle there are entities that freeze you in mid-step, turn your blood to ice, make your skin prickly, and make you afraid, very afraid!

  Captain Farris has sniper grunts Hud and P-man humping into Cambodia to a possible Cong supply base to create havoc. The jungle watches and offers beings that our sniper grunts have no way to rationalize. Things that deny reality, even the warped reality of a war zone!

  Cambodia is the second book in the Vietnam War series, and the adventures of Hud and P-man, a sniper team operating from firebase Foxtrot. If you enjoyed Apocalypse Now or Platoon, you will love Martin E. Silenus’s powerful action book.

  Pick up Cambodia to continue this exciting series today.

  Visit http://www.martinesilenus.com today and Subscribe to get free books and special offers for your library of fine reading!