by Mike Kilroy
Zill expressed what she was fighting for firmly. “We’re fighting to stay alive. This is real now. We can, like, really die!”
“So, then let’s not.” Harness interjected.
“Well, General Smarty Pants, what’s our next move?” Zill asked.
Harness began to speak, but stopped. Zack could tell he had an idea, probably a brilliant one, but he kept up his charade.
Brock offered up a plan as only Brock could. “We fire a shot and hope they return fire. Then we can tell which direction they are located at least.”
“Well, Sherlock, that’ll give our location away, too,” Cass mocked.
Mizuki jeered. “So feeble of mind.”
She was really losing it.
“I’ll do it.” Harness pointed his rifle into the air and squeezed the trigger. A rapid fire of three shots rang out.
They held their breath and listened. Finally, they heard shots coming from behind Brock, who peered over the lip of the trench toward the direction of fire. “They’re that way, and not very far, most likely in a trench like this. I’m not well versed on trench warfare. Cass, did your great-grandpap tell you anything about how they fought?”
Cass closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. “He told me there is no winning a trench fight. It’s the ultimate stalemate. And that few survive in no-man’s land.”
Zack found it ironic. This battle was a microcosm of their fate so far: neither side winning, only gridlock.
He was determined to end the impasse.
So was Harness. “I’m so tired of this crap. They’re bluffing, just trying to make us piss our pants. They’ll bring us back. I’m going over. Screw this.”
Before anyone could stop him, Harness flew over the parapet. Zack peeked and watched him sprint, and then stop suddenly, snagged on a line of barbed wire. He fired his rifle in a strafe and yelled, “Got one!” just as a hail of bullets riddled him. He slumped dead and limp, dangling there, snagged on the wire.
“Oh, God. Oh, God, Oh, God,” Zill repeated over and over again.
“Shut up. At least it is over for him and at least he got one,” Cass barked.
Even Brock’s usual monotone voice crackled with fear. “We’re going to be stuck here unless they charge at us, or we charge at them.”
The only question was: Who was going to blink first?
†††
It had been at least twelve hours, Zack thought, and there was not so much as a shot fired. They—whoever they were fighting in this scenario—weren’t making a move. Zack pulled the silver alloy chain, popped the cap off his aluminum canteen and took a sip of his dwindling water supply.
Zack shoved the cork back into his canteen in frustration. “We can’t stay here forever.”
“Neither can they,” Brock answered. “It’s a game of chicken.”
Their opponent lost.
Zack could hear yells coming from the other trench. Quickly, Brock fired a spray in their direction and Zack ducked as bullets kicked mud up around him.
Zill wasn’t so lucky. She took a bullet to the neck. Her quivering hand pressed on her wound, but the blood seeped between her fingers. In just a few seconds, she was dead.
Brock climbed out of the trench and squeezed off more rounds, then was felled.
Mizuki watched it all unfold, her face vacant.
She climbed over the parapet, pointed her rifle slowly and squeezed the trigger. The sound of rapid fire echoed and the kickback staggered her. “How absolutely fascinating,” she muttered, just before she was hit in the chest with a spray of bullets. She grabbed her chest, laughed, and fell backward into the trench.
Zack peered at Cass, who gave him a nod as she crawled out of the trench on her stomach. Zack followed closely behind as he heard bullets whistle by his ear and smack into the muck.
Cass yelled out and grabbed her shoulder, her hand covered in blood. She held her rifle high and fired shots off, and Zack could hear a groan and the sound of a body hitting the ground.
It had happened so fast: hours of waiting followed by mere minutes of terror. Zack covered his head and lay on the ground, listening for activity, but he heard nothing. Finally, he stood and crept forward despite Cass’ yell of, “What are you doing?”
Zack pushed his way through the fog and under the barbed wire. He saw a boy hunched over a girl, weeping and muttering something in German. The boy wore a spiked pickelhaub helmet, gray trousers and a gray jacket. He rubbed the back of his fallen friend.
Zack sprung to his feet and yelled “Stand up!” The German boy stood quickly and stared down at his weapon, lying next to the girl. “Come over here!”
The German boy walked slowly toward him, his hands raised.
“Can you understand me? Do you speak English?”
The boy nodded.
“What’s your name?” Zack asked as he pointed his rifle at the German boy’s chest.
“Gottfried.”
“Well, Gottfried, it’s not your lucky day.”
“Shoot me! Finish me!” Gottfried said in a heavy accent. Zack’s finger quivered on the trigger. “Do it! It must be done!”
Zack knew that was true. It was simple, really. Pull the trigger and it would all be over. He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for forgiveness and squeezed his index finger, flinching in anticipation of the bullets firing.
They didn’t. The rifle had either jammed or was unloaded.
Zack lowered the rifle in surrender, not to the German boy who stood, wide-eyed and shocked before him, but out of surrender to a force he did not understand, a force that would not allow him to take the life of another.
He dropped the rifle to the soggy ground, and slipped his helmet off his head and tossed it angrily to the muck. He took off his overcoat and tunic. He was shocked to see he was wearing a white T-shirt with YOLO written on it. He howled at the irony.
Gottfried stood with his mouth wide open. His eyes were so big, Zack thought his eyeballs would just pop right out of his head.
“What are you doing?” Cass asked as she tried to crawl to her feet, but slumped back down again as blood oozed out of her wound. “You’re gonna do it again. You’re gonna cock this up.”
“No I’m not,” Zack snapped. “I’m done playing. This is ridiculous. World War I? Really? This is pathetic.”
“Who are you talking to?” Gottfried asked, looking around in confusion.
“The beings that have brought us here. I thought they’d punish me if I didn’t fight, if we didn’t win. I thought if I just played along, everything would be okay. But it won’t be okay. It will never be okay. They bring us here, terrorize us, place us in these games, and for what purpose? There isn’t one. There is no purpose. No winner. I refuse to participate in a game with no purpose and no winner.”
Zack tossed the rifle at Gottfried, who flinched as it fell in front of him.
Zack looked up to the cold grey sky. “Did you hear me? I’m done. Do with me what you will. I see through your little game. It’s beneath you.”
Cass yelled, “Zack, you bloody idiot.”
“It’s okay, Cass. Don’t you see?” Zack walked toward Gottfried, who quickly knelt and scooped up the rifle. “They are playing us. They are playing me. They are playing you, Gottfried. They are manipulating us for their own amusement. Join me. Don’t play this game anymore.”
Gottfried scowled. “You coward. You’d give up?”
“No. I’m not giving in.”
Gottfried lowered the rifle as Zack smiled, but then raised it and pushed the bayonet through his stomach. Zack could feel the blade run through his back and a warm gush of blood spill over his hands as he grasped the muzzle of the rifle.
Zack threw his head back and laughed, and then toppled backward, the bayonet sinking into the soft ground and the rifle rising up out of his chest like a planted flag. Gottfried stood over him, his lips curled in a snarl. “You find this funny? There is nothing funny about this.”
On that, he and Zack
could agree. As Zack felt the life draining out of him, he felt at peace for the first time in a long time.
Maybe ever.
†††
Zack forced his eyes open, the dimly lit room spinning. The blood from yet another wound that had killed him was dried on his YOLO t-shirt.
You Only Live Once. Not here, anyway. Not in this hell. Not in this never-ending nightmare.
Zack was glad to be in this cell, though. It meant the safeties were on again. The uncomfortable cot was oddly comforting. There were no people to disappoint, no Jenai to morn. No Harness to belittle and tease him. No Gottfried to ignore the cold facts staring him in the face. He was very much in his own element now.
Alone. Like it was meant to be.
But he wasn’t alone. He heard the clicking and clacking coming from the darkness beyond the swirling aurora of light. It was the same click-clacking he heard when he first arrived.
“Hello? Hello?” Zack said in a hush.
“Hello? Hello?” Zack raised his voice. Jesus, I sound like Sam now.
“Hello, Zack.” It was a male voice, a deep, rich one, a voice much like the ones he heard while listening to talk radio on his iPhone before he went to sleep each night.
Zack had wanted so desperately to talk to someone other than The Six. Now that he had his chance, he found himself at a loss for words.
“Who are you?”
Silence.
“Please,” Zack begged. “Please talk to me. Help me understand why I am here.”
“I am not supposed to be conversing with you, Zack,” the voice answered. “Call me George.”
Zack thought it odd that the alien, or God, or the devil would have a name such as George. Then again, he had been killed multiple times, watched some of the others die and resurrect and been submitted to torturous conditions one minute and joy the next. Anything was possible.
“I’m glad you are conversing with me,” Zack said.
“Why will you not fight, even when we gave you an incentive to do so? Is it not in your nature?”
“Not mine, I guess.”
“You are a violent race. You send men of your species to your orbiting satellite, place a plaque dedicated to your own hubris on a lifeless, barren body to proclaim you come in peace, meanwhile back on your world you bomb cities and slaughter your own people by the thousands.”
“Yes. We are pretty savage as a whole, I guess. But we are individuals, too. Not all of us subscribe to the mean.”
Silence.
Zack was concerned he had lost his audience. “Are you still there?”
“Yes. Where else would I be?”
“Who are you?”
“George.”
“I know. I know. But what are you? Are you an alien?”
Long pause. “Alien?”
“Yes. Different from me.”
“Oh, yes. Very much so.”
“Why did you bring me, bring us, here?”
“To study. To evaluate. To learn. We need you.”
“Need me? Why?” Long pause. “C’mon. Tell me.”
“We are dying.”
“Dying?”
“Yes. Our race is stagnant. We have answered all the questions of the cosmos. We have nothing left for which to strive. We have lost the ability to create. We have lost the ability to enjoy. We only exist. We do not really live. We need to integrate new ideas; new thoughts; new life or we will further wilt and cease to exist.”
Zack took a moment to process what he had just heard.
“This troubles you?” George asked.
“What troubles me is being held against my will and being watched and tortured and killed over and over again. What troubles me is that you let Jenai die without bringing her back.” Zack paused and swallowed the lump that had former in his throat. “What troubles me is that I pulled that trigger.”
“You pulled the trigger, but you did not kill. You could not kill.”
“But I pulled the trigger. I wanted to kill.”
“No. Had you wanted to kill, the rifle would have fired. It did not fire.”
Zack swallowed the lump that had formed uncomfortably in his throat and walked closer to the barrier. He felt its energy stand the hairs on his arms. “What are you saying?”
“If you want something, it happens. If you do not want something, it does not happen.”
“I didn’t want Jenai to die. I want her back.”
Silence.
“Did you hear me?” Zack screamed. “I want Jenai back!”
“There are some things you want that you may not have. It cannot be done. Her biological functions have ceased for too long.”
Zack gritted his teeth. “I don’t care. Bring her back!”
“Are your auditory functions troubling you? Some things you want, you cannot have.”
Zack stomped his foot angrily. “Why are you talking to me?”
“I am curious,” the deep voice boomed. “You are different than the others. But I am confused. We give you comforts of your home. We provide you with things you like. We heal you when you are hurt. We revive you when your body functions cease. Is this not favorable to you?”
“No.”
“This is quite vexing. You are very vexing.”
“We do like the things you give us. We do appreciate not dying, I guess. But we don’t like to be confined and forced to do things for your amusement.”
“What is amusement?”
“Pleasure. You take pleasure from our pain.”
“Oh, no, we do not. We quite dislike it. It is necessary, however.”
“Why?”
“To study you. To see if you are what we need. You deserve further study. That is why one of us is among you.”
Zack’s heart beat faster. “What does that mean?”
“We are with you. Very perplexing race you are. It is very hard to pretend.”
“You have been with us?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you?”
“George.”
Zack sighed and shook his head. He began to chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. “I know you are George. I mean, who have you been pretending to be?”
“One of you.”
Zack screamed in frustration.
The deep voice echoed with concern. “Are you hurt? I can heal you.”
“No, I am not hurt. I am vexed.”
“In that, we share.”
“Go away, George.” Zack lay back on the cot and closed his eyes. There were no answers to be had here. Only more questions.
“I am sorry you are distressed. I should not have spoken with you, Zack Earnest.”
Zack heard some clicking and clacking, loud and then growing softer until it was gone.
†††
Zack stared at the half-empty bag of Olive Garden croutons that sat on the coffee table. He was back in the same house where he appeared in this menagerie for the first time. Zill sat on the chair, her legs swinging wildly over the armrest.
There was an uncomfortable silence. There always was an uncomfortable silence with Zill, but this one was different.
“God! This is never going to end,” Zill bellowed.
It startled Zack. “It doesn’t seem so.”
“Like, I thought if we died, we died. What are we doing back here again? What do they want?”
“For us to save them.”
Zill looked at Zack and cocked her head. “Um, what?”
Zack debated on whether or not to tell Zill about his encounter with George. Zack wasn’t all that sure it was real, anyway. He felt as though he was slowly losing his mind, that reality was becoming so blurred he couldn’t tell what was authentic and what was imagined.
Zack decided to tell her anyway. “I talked to one of them.”
Zill cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, everyone! Come here! Like, quick!”
Harness, Brock and Cass sprinted into the room from the hallway, all with concerned looks on their faces. It took M
izuki another moment to amble into the room as stoic as ever.
“What the hell?” Harness asked.
Zill pointed at Zack. “He talked to one of them.”
Brock’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “One of who?”
“One of the asshats who are keeping us in this hell, who do you think? Duh?”
They all closed in on Zack, surrounding him with wanting, expecting eyes. Zack leaned away from them. He hadn’t wanted to unleash all he had learned on everyone just yet, but Zill had forced his hand.
“Spit it out, twerp,” Harness said in his usual gentle way.
“I was in that cell and one spoke to me. He said they were dying and needed help.”
Brock sat down slowly on the couch beside Zack, pressing his clasped hands and index fingers to his lips. “How interesting.”
“That’s not the worst part.” The eyes in the room swung to Zack again. “He said they have someone with us, pretending to be one of us.”
Those same eyes that focused on Zack swung around suspiciously to each other. What little trust the group had was gone.
In a flurry, accusations were tossed. Harness was the first to point a finger at Brock, calling him a “black robot.” Then the group turned on Cass, accusing her of faking her British accent and using the term “bloody” way too often, and then the ire focused on Zill. “Who has a bloody name like Zill?” Cass asked, condescendingly. Harness chimed in with, “Like, who says like, like so much. You are trying too hard to be a dumb girl.”
Zack knew it was just a matter of time before it would all come back around to him, and sure enough, it did.
“What about Zacky Goody-Two-Shoes,” Harness said, pointing his beefy finger at him. “He was the last one here. He’s certainly weird enough to be an alien. His head is misshapen like one.”
Zack bit his tongue.
Mizuki scoffed. “You always reveal your true natures.”
“Accusing each other isn’t going to help,” Brock blustered. “Why would he tell you, Zack, that there was one of them with us?”
“He wasn’t supposed to be talking to me. I think he just let it slip.”
Zill began to panic. “Oh my God! Oh my God! What do we do about it? I can’t believe one of those creepy aliens has been eating and sleeping with us. Ew.”