Compost Traumatic Stress

by Brian Koukol

  He'd found a pair of boots.

  On closer inspection, it was a single boot, constructed of full grain leather and half-buried in the narrow rain shadow of a cluster of anomalous knolls. Mort scratched through the fuzzy lichen that clung to it, born from the residue of bacteria and sebum and skin cells that lingered within. He clawed at the ground, digging, inviting desolate Limos beneath his fingernails to feed.

  The boot was mostly uncovered by the time he discovered its mate, fully entombed in the soil beside it. Mort dug them both up, cleared them of dirt inside and out, tucked them under his arm. He knew better than to wear them.

  Mort inspected the lining of the boots, found a name tag for the unfortunate bastard who had become uncoupled from his soles.

  "Mort Louka," he mumbled, decoding the faded lettering.

  It took him a moment to realize he'd spoken his own name.

  He studied the surrounding terrain, looking for any other sign of life. He found it not far away. Purslane. A small, scattered line of it, leading more or less back the way he'd come.

  If they were his boots, then that meant the purslane had fed on his blood. Limos had stolen his ichor.

  He wanted it back.

  Mort dropped to his knees and ripped the closest clump of purslane from its roots. He tore the succulent leaves from their red stems with his teeth and chewed them. Tart, peppery liquid exploded against his tongue, dripping from the corners of his mouth. He picked the stems clean, denying Demeter his body, taking it back. But it still held some of him in the stems. So he ate them too, forcing down the herbaceous, astringent stalks.

  Then he moved on to the next clump. And the next. Until his stomach was rigid and distended. But still there was more.

  Tears streamed down his face. He had to eat it all. He glanced at his bionic arms. He was incomplete, broken. If only he could track down what was missing he could make himself whole again.

  Mort forced down more of the slimy leaves, more bitter stems. His stomach gurgled, then lurched. He vomited all over himself, all over the ground, returning himself to the hungry planet.

  But that wouldn't do.

  He scooped up a handful and brought it to his lips, then hesitated.

  What was wrong with him? Had he gone mad? About to eat his own vomit, and for what? To regrow his arms? To regain a holistic sanity? That was crazy.

  Mort wiped his hand on the ground beside his puddle of spew. In a few months, it might be a spray of peony or nasturtium. He was fertilizer, nothing more. One big sack of shit.

  It was time for him to go home, he realized. Back to his parcel. He needed grounding, and this was not the place for it.

  With the old boots of his old, complete self tucked under a damp armpit, he turned around and trudged back toward heath and home.

  After navigating the minefield of safe, cleansed grassland and finding himself once more before the deadly geoxenic heath, Mort breathed a sigh of relief. The worst was over. Now, with his life on the line, he could concentrate again.

  Despite the peace it provided, the meticulousness required for traversing the heath was exhausting. Still, the second Mort spotted his CHU in the distance, thoughts of rest and recuperation were furthest from his mind. More than anything, and to his great surprise, he couldn't wait to be reunited with Artie.

  The sun was setting as he stepped out of the neighboring rough and into his familiar, well-maintained landscape. He spotted the area that Artie had been chewing on that morning, now delineated by vibrant tufts of earthly vegetation and carmine ruts that had lately nurtured Choke weeds. Artie, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  After a short, frantic search, Mort found the little guy snoozing in the deepening shadows of the makeshift porch, flopped on its side.

  "What are you doing, you lazy lump?" Mort asked it.

  Artie deflated a bit with a gurgle and a fart and rolled onto its other side.

  Mort sat beside it and caressed its splayed scales with his imitation hands.

  "I missed you," he said.

  Bubbles escaped from Artie's mouth, along with a tentative whine.

  "Yeah, it was a tough day for me too," Mort said. He held out his boots. "But I found these again, at least."

  Recalling the recovery of his shitkickers, he also recalled the trail of purslane begotten from his blood. But it wasn't his legacy, he realized. At least not that of the broken him. No, it was the legacy of the old Mort Louka. The whole Mort Louka, with dreams and arms and friends.

  And he'd tried to eat it.

  Guilt grabbed Mort by the throat. He looked up from Artie, into the dwindling chiaroscuro of the neighboring heath. He should run to it, embrace it, end his suffering in its toxic embrace.

  Instead, he brushed off his foot and brought the naked skin to Artie's belly. He took a deep breath as they touched, ready for the flood of euphoria.

  But none came. Artie's belly was dry and cold.

  Disappointed, Mort stormed into his CHU, slamming the door behind him.

  He paced around the tight quarters, trying in vain to hold back the insistent memories. Artie's medicinal narcotic had proved itself nothing but snake oil.

  He needed something to do, so he inventoried the supplies that Mejia had dropped off earlier. There was enough to make a strawberry galette.

  After banging together a dough and sticking it in the icebox to chill, Mort realized it was time to eat something. There were a few slices of game pie left, so he tossed one in the blender with some thinning water and engaged the squealing motor. The liquid sloshed into turbidity, then slowly incorporated into the solids, creating a utilitarian union of foodstuffs.

  When it was ready, Mort shut down the motor, then cocked his head. The machine was no longer running, but the whining of its efforts lingered in his ears. It took him a confused moment to realize that the noise was coming from outside.

  Mort threw open the door to the CHU and scrambled onto the porch. As he emerged, he heard the sound again and followed it to its source.

  Artie.

  The poor little guy was right where Mort had left it, bubbling from the mouth and teetering from side to side on its bloated body beneath the glaring lights.

  He nudged it with the tip of a toe. The Choke goat whined again, so he knelt at its side.

  "You feeling sick, buddy?" he asked, caressing Artie's scales. "Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?"

  It was too dark to go scouring the parcel for possible poisons, but from what he'd seen earlier, Artie had left the human plants alone in favor of the Choke stuff, and it should know which of that was safe to eat. Mort dropped his hand to the little guy's belly. It was still cold, still bloated. Mort's thoughts drifted back to the last pet he'd owned, a hamster named Leroy. Two weeks into their cohabitation, Leroy had given birth to five squirming babies and been promptly renamed Lorraine.

  Mort palpated the goat's abdomen. Was Artie really an Arlene? Was this whimpering pain simply xenic childbirth?

  Whatever was happening to Artie, Mort decided, was worth sending up the chain of command.

  He headed back into the CHU and called HQ on the handset, but he may as well not have bothered. Nobody there knew what to do, or even if Artie's behavior indicated a problem. The only thing they could agree on was that the veterinarian, the only person who might be able to help, was currently drunk off his ass and inoperative. They urged Mort to call back in the morning.

  After disconnecting, Mort wandered back to the porch to see about making Artie a bit more comfortable. The goat was cold. Like Redmond had been.

  He shook away the unwanted memories and headed back inside for some supplies. When Mejia had first dropped Artie off, the little guy had been warm and moist, so Mort decided to try to reproduce that state. He found a few extra blankets and stuffed them against Artie's sides, then filled a mug with warm water.

  The goat looked uncomfortable, so Mort propped its head on his lap while he sponged the water onto the little guy's abdomen. For a
few minutes, Mort found this good, fulfilling work, but boredom soon set in. With it came the dark thoughts.

  He saw Artie in two halves, held together by glistening strings of pink sausages, babbling about the cold.

  He'd treated the wound on her head. She was going to get better. He'd saved her. But he hadn't. The head wound was a lie; the sausages, truth. Limos knew it. Limos was already absorbing her ichor, composting it to present a future blossom, its floral sweetness the stench of death, of loss, of waste.

  Mort jumped to his feet, letting Artie's head loll to one side. He ran into the CHU, to the distracting kitchen. He couldn't look at Artie. He couldn't help Artie. He couldn't help anyone, least of all himself.

  He pulled the dough from the icebox, rolled it into a crust, sliced the strawberries with a shaking hand. He had to stay busy.

  While the galette baked, he paced the inside walls. One foot in front of the other. Focus on the steps. Ignore the whimpering outside.

  When the dessert was done, Mort forced himself to bed without eating any of it. More than anything, he needed to sleep. He needed the morning to come so he could get back to work.

  But he didn't sleep. He lay there, listening to Artie's whimpers. Listening to Redmond's whimpers. Seeing Krev, the golem, break into pieces. Watching Pataba's disappearing act. Damning the drunk veterinarian.

  That gave Mort an idea: Mejia's homebrew ethyl. Mort had made it a point to stay away from the stuff. Addiction preyed on ex-soldiers, he knew. He wasn't going to give that demon a way in.

  But drunk and inoperative sounded like just what he needed. He walked to the sink, opened the cabinet at his knee. The bottle was there, sealed. The fluid within appeared clear and innocuous.

  He popped the top and took a drink. It burned. He relished the pain, took another swig. Then another. When it caught up to him, it caught hard. He staggered to bed, flopped on his face. And slept. For the first time in forever, he slept.

  Something seized the back of Mort's collar and jerked him to his feet. Away from the mud. Away from the bloody shards of Krev's ruined golem.

  He turned his rifle onto the culprit, which turned out to be Pataba.

  "On me!" the Corporal shouted, then scrambled down the hillock toward the remnants of Alpha and Bravo Companies.

  Mort stared at him, dumbfounded, until he noticed the surviving reserves of Charlie Company stumbling down the hill with him. His eyes darted to the wall of amorphous armor, now finally visible again. What he saw brightened his spirits considerably. Along the entire line, any skiff not pummeled into oblivion by the artillery was currently engaged by a surprising number of surviving anti-armor troops from Bravo Company, who were handily picking them apart.

  With a whoop, Mort chased after Pataba. Beyond that line of broken armor, through gyrating wisps of smoke and steam, he could pick out hints of Choke fortifications. The POO site, no doubt, but also something more. Something big.

  Fresh friendly artillery screamed over his head, hitting the distant redoubt and reporting its rage back to them a few seconds later. Gunfire echoed behind them as the engagement between Choke and human infantry wore on.

  Mort forgot about Krev and Redmond and the horrors of war and licked his lips, ready to draw more Choke blood.

  "Get some!" somebody screamed.

  "Oorah!" he offered in return, running down from the hillock in his bare, bleeding feet.

  A triad of Choke air cover shrieked from its fortress, no doubt to punish the Marine artillery. Before they were even overhead, two of the fast movers vaporized at the pointy end of friendly missiles and the third took a hit and dropped out of the sky.

  Right toward Mort.

  There was no time to react. It was in the air and then it wasn't, smashing into Corporal Pataba and throwing Mort backwards into blackness and quiet.

  Mort woke to a headache and an insufferable squeal outside. He glanced at the clock. Five hours until daybreak.

  He pulled the blanket over his head with a groan, but the thin material was no match for Artie's incessant cries. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing sleep to return, willing the planet to rotate away from idleness. But the damn thing kept whining.

  He staggered out to the porch, his head still swirling from the ethyl. The little bastard was just where he'd left it, bloated and cold and dry. And loud as hell.

  Mort knelt at Artie's side and covered the thing's bubbling mouth with his fake hand.

  "You've got to quiet down," he said. "I need to sleep."

  But Artie didn't quiet down. If anything, its cries grew louder. After a moment, Mort noticed that the plaintive whimpers were coming from the gaps in its splayed scales rather than its bubbling mouth.

  Mort clamped down on a few of the scales with his hands, muffling the sound a bit, but they popped back into place as soon as he let go. He glanced through the open door of the CHU, at the bed. He'd finally managed to get some decent sleep, after all this time, and the little bastard had fucked it up.

  "Shut the hell up!" he shouted at Artie.

  He scowled at the pathetic thing. It didn't belong here. It was Choke, and everything Choke deserved extermination. They'd killed his kind, his friends. They'd taken his arms. They'd ruined him. Their very corpses corrupted the land. They were a pox on the universe, and Artie was a collaborator.

  Mort scooped up the pathetic creature and walked it into the parcel. The simpering goat was surprisingly light for its size, which only added to its pitifulness.

  When Mort reached the small depression where he'd spent the night before, he dumped Artie into it.

  "Scream all you want now," he said, then walked back to the CHU.

  It was cruel, he knew, but he didn't care. The safest thing for the little guy was for Mort and his anger to find some way to sleep until morning.

  Back inside, Mort took a few more swigs of ethyl and sat on the side of his bed. He rubbed his hands across his overgrown face and listened. To silence. He sighed and fell onto his back, the mattress breaking his fall. He felt drained, exhausted even. He relaxed his body, determined to drift off.

  And then there it was, on the extreme edge of his senses. A peep. A call. A plea.

  That fucking goat.

  Mort leapt out of bed, grabbed his rifle and a blanket for the body, and was out the door.

  He stomped through the yard, unaffected by the chance of a wayward weed ending him. It would be a blessing. Eternal sleep.

  As he pushed through the brush, Mort heard Artie louder and louder. The little bastard should've known better than to antagonize him. It should've known when to shut the hell up.

  Mort arrived at the depression and threw the blanket to the ground. Then he leveled his weapon right in Artie's stupid, needy face.

  Fury frothed at the corners of his mouth. His lips curled. The rifle shook in his imitation hands.

  Artie screamed. Mort slipped his finger over the trigger.

  And stopped.

  He relaxed his quivering muscles, lowered the rifle, and took a deep breath. The rage escaped with a protracted exhalation.

  Mort took one hand off of his weapon and reached out for the little guy. Artie quieted and stretched for the hand, then took it in its sloppy, viscous mouth.

  Tears moistened Mort's cheeks. He didn't know if Artie was simply trying to save itself or to make him feel better, but he didn't care. He threw his rifle into a nearby clump of orchard grass, rearming the ghost of an unknown soldier, and hunkered down beside Artie, who curled in against him with a murmur.

  Mort dragged the blanket over them both. He wrapped an arm around the goat, felt the rising vibration of sound coming from between the splayed scales. This time, however, the noise didn't antagonize him. It calmed him.

  He let out a whimper of his own and promptly fell asleep.

  The morning was warm and humidan insulating ward between heaven and dirt.

  Mort peeled back a blanket resplendent in dew, exposing Artie and him to Demeter's breath. The goat had defl
ated overnight and no longer whimpered. Mort caressed its back, pleased. The scales were warm and wet, just what he'd been shooting for.

  He stood up and Artie followed suit. Together, they ambled out of the depression and into a sprawling patch of fescue.

  "Feeling better, buddy?" Mort asked, forgetting the emotions of the previous night.

  Artie bubbled from its mouth while Mort directed it toward a tender regrowth of chokegrass. The little guy undulated over and dragged its mucilaginous whiskers across the inky groundcover, but balked at eating it.

  "Aren't you hungry?" Mort asked.

  Scarcely had he the words out of his mouth when Artie puffed back into rotundity and pitched onto his side.

  "Guess not," Mort said, picking up the alien goat and trundling it toward the CHU.

  He set Artie—now whimpering again—down on the porch and retrieved the handheld comm from inside. By the time he returned to Artie, the veterinarian was already on the line, sounding chipper and unimpeded from last night's binge.

  "This is Sook," he said. "What have you done to my goat?"

  Mort laid out the symptoms and the timeline.

  Sook sighed. "Warm and wet is just as bad as cold and dry. Maybe worse. Warm and dry is the goal." A pause, then, "How are its droppings?"

  "I don't know," Mort said.

  "You don't know because you don't know what you're looking for or you don't know because it hasn't been pooping?"

  "I don't know."

  "Right. Take a look at its backside. You may have to manually disimpact it."

  "What? I'm not sticking my hand up that thing's ass..."

  "Just look."

  Mort rolled the bloated goat until he could see the target area.

  "I don't see a blockage," he said. "Just more bubbles."

  The vet sighed again. "Sounds like a poisoning to me," he said. "Has it eaten anything of earthly origin?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Well, you need to check."

  Mort stepped into the parcel. As he made his way toward the area where Artie had been munching the day before, he remembered his other hypothesis. "Is it possible that Artie... that this thing... is pregnant and in labor right now? I had this hamster, Leroy—“