The Ghosts of My Lai

by JC Braswell

  “Don’t do this to us.” Williams shimmied down the slope, pushing past the sting in his thigh.

  He thought about Anuska’s children, Anuska’s wife. Bounding over the stream across the burned earth, Williams willed himself forward, waving the choking vapors away. He needed to do this for his friend.

  Anuska ran five strides in front of him. His frame sliced through more dust and smoke. Then Williams saw it: Anuska held the wooden spear he’d fashioned the night before high above his head. The sickness took Anuska.

  “Stop,” Williams yelled. A million thoughts raced through Williams’s mind as he breathed in the fumes, probably from some damn Vietnamese plant toxic to Americans. But he didn’t care. Anuska had already made a decision the night before; Williams wished he’d spotted it sooner.

  Each time Anuska ran the blade down the edge of his primordial spear, he sacrificed another piece of his soul. He was going out on his terms. He just happened to be lucky with this chance encounter. Williams cursed for saying anything, perhaps being too forceful.

  Anuska hollered like an Indian, sprinting across earth, dodging gunfire, a man possessed by something only people who experienced war could understand. Williams tried to keep pace, but his wound betrayed him. His vision blurred. His legs felt like concrete.

  “That crazy son of a bitch. I told you he was crazy.” Simmons leveled a burst of covering fire into the thicket where the Viet Cong had retreated.

  Gunfire whizzed past Williams like lightning bugs in the middle of his grandfather’s field. There was no sound in the world like a bullet flying by your ear for the first time. It was a concoction of fear and surrealism. But Anuska wouldn’t stop, running toward the ground where the grenade exploded. Williams needed to help his mate before he lost him.

  “Hell yeah. Look at Anuska go,” Harris shouted.

  Dave Anuska, father of two and loving husband, a hero of the domestic sort most men in their twenties would laugh at, shouted again. Williams knew the cry—a cry of desperation. It was a death sentence for most.

  Don’t do this to me. Williams propelled himself off a rock and into the smoke from the grenade. He dug his heels into the ground, almost collapsing from the pain, and came to a stop as a breeze took the fog with it, revealing his brother.

  Anuska found his mark, burying his handcrafted spear deep into a Viet Cong soldier’s throat, plasma spurting across his beard and naked body. The Viet Cong soldier reached up, coughing, hacking, his fingers curling in defiance. Peace would come soon.

  Williams exhaled, scanning the rest of the area, listening to the sound of blood trickling down from the white of the soldier’s punctured esophagus.

  Three bodies peppered with bullet wounds and burn marks were sprawled across the barren red soil. Another two men covered with tarred skin in different shades of black and red lay by the riverbank. One remained alive, quivering, whining like a child.

  For a moment the dying soldier leered at Williams, his mouth open in an attempt to speak. The jagged tip of the soldier’s elbow bone protruded from his stub of an arm, and he waved it like a chicken wing. Williams saw what the enemy wanted. He would have unclipped the grenade if he could. Suicide to these bastards was nothing, a way of proving oneself.

  “Not today.”

  Williams aimed his sidearm between the Viet Cong soldier’s eyes—two cavities housing a different type of devil he couldn’t understand. Williams didn’t think of it as an act of vengeance or an act of mercy. It was survival.

  He squeezed the trigger. Hammer hit steel. The gook’s forehead whipped backwards, leaving his body devoid of life.

  Williams felt nothing. Not even compassion, not for these soulless bastards. Women and children were one thing. Viet Cong who betrayed their people were another. The others died for them.

  “Commie prick,” Williams whispered, looking back at Anuska.

  They had made it somehow.

  “Dave.” He needed to bring Anuska back. “Calm down, bud. You’re here with me.”

  Anuska held the trembling soldier like a baby, shushing him as he twisted the crude weapon. Anuska plunged the stick deeper into the soldier’s soft-tissue esophagus. His sinewy frame shook with adrenaline.

  “Not like this, bud.” Footfalls echoed in the haze behind them. “You need to snap out of it. Finish the job and be done with it. Your kids, man, what would they think?”

  “Kids?” Anuska’s eyes were wide. His grin touched both ears. “They’re gone. They’re all gone.”

  “What do you mean?” Williams took a step back, holstering his sidearm. The man who stared back at him was foreign. His words were barely audible.

  “I don’t know about kids,” Anuska laughed while speaking, “I think I killed—”

  A single shot split the tension, bringing the barbaric display to a halt. Anuska slumped forward over the soldier’s body, a smile etched in his face, a hole in the center of his chest spilling his life force.

  “No.” Williams had failed him.

  Williams looked around to the trees for the sniper. As if by miracle, Williams caught the gleam of steel reflecting between the leaves. The sniper had made a foolish mistake, forgetting to blacken the metal casing of his weapon. He watched the shadow turn into a signal. The sniper would try to escape, but Williams wouldn’t let him. The jungle thirsted for more blood.

  Williams dropped his hand to his belt again. His fingers brushed against the leather clip. Yet he did not draw. He watched. Another branch shook as the sniper shifted positions. He wondered if the sniper even realized he’d compromised his position.

  “Come on and shoot.” Williams wished the bastard would fire, would end it all now, but he had a duty to them all. It was a duty explained to him by some unknown child on an Annapolis summer day.

  Sunlight caught the sniper’s scope lens with a flash. Williams stood there. He wanted to see his executioner’s glare, his poise. He trained his Colt on the sniper.

  Four bursts rang through the air.

  Williams lowered his firearm and watched the branches wave back at him. Then came a single snap followed by an exodus of feathers.

  The nameless soldier toppled backwards thirty feet to his fate with a slight yell. Williams listened until the nameless Viet Cong landed in the foliage below with a thud.

  He got the bastard.

  “LT, are you—?” Donovan made it through first, followed by Jackson then Garcia. The three breathed heavy, coughing intermittently. Williams bowed his head.

  “Oh, dear lord. Dear Jesus.” Jackson turned away.

  “Not Dave,” Garcia said.

  Anuska still held fast to his stake lodged in the soldier’s throat. His eyes were frozen, but showed a type of peace that only those who had made it through the war could display.

  “Bullets. Damn bullets.” Harris joined them in the background. The Death Dealers trampled over the sacred ground like hyenas looking for scraps.

  “Check them all for ammo, firearms, maybe some equipment,” Williams grunted as he flipped the listless body off of Anuska.

  “What’s that?” Donovan spoke up, fastening a grenade to his belt.

  “I was too late.” Williams’s fingers shook as he searched Anuska’s body. His fallen mate’s lifeless form watched him, begging him, pleading with him to be left in peace. He was free.

  Williams could still hear Anuska’s voice from a week ago, bragging about his kids, wishing he could be there for the upcoming holiday.

  “What happened, Chris?” Garcia asked, his voice reserved as he joined the group.

  “I told you. I lost him.” Williams fished his finger into Anuska’s pocket. He felt something smooth, paper-thin. It was not the dog tags he was hoping to find. Williams pulled out a crumpled picture of his two kids. Anuska carried them with him, their faces by his heart.

  Williams’s eyes watered as he crumpled the picture in his hand and held it to his own chest. He couldn’t cry. Not in front of them.

  “Damn you, you stupid s
on of a bitch,” Williams whispered to Anuska, his grin slightly retracted as death settled in to take her prize. “Suppose I can’t blame you. I kind of want to be out of here, too.”

  Vietnam never showed mercy, nor would it in the morning. He knew their fate.

  “Never thought the old man had it in him,” Donovan said.

  Williams jumped up as another bullet grazed the ground beside him. Four more bursts followed.

  He survived the fall? Williams whipped his head side to side in hopes of finding their attacker.

  Garcia cried first, taken by the sniper’s fire. He fell beside Williams, clutching his shoulder as blood painted his fingers.

  “Son of a bitch. One more.” Simmons growled. “Over there. He’s running.”

  A lone figure sprinted through the undergrowth in the distance.

  “Impossible. I shot him…I saw him fall,” Williams said.

  Williams looked over at a struggling Garcia who kept pressure on his wound. McEvoy knelt beside him, pressing down on top the medic’s hand.

  “Go get him. He’ll tell others,” Garcia said, groaning between words. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “You sure?” Williams asked.

  “He may know the way out of here.” Garcia’s words trembled as he removed his hand from his wound. He’d been hit for sure, a bullet in his upper right shoulder.

  “Harris, Simmons. With me.” Williams nodded at Garcia before turning towards the heart of the jungle. Simmons was already on the chase.

  SEVEN

  Branches whipped Williams’s face, lacerating his cheeks and forehead as he sprinted through the brush and past a palette of green and brown—a mad canvas with no discernable features.

  He’s lost it, I swear he’s lost his mind. Jackass is going to get us all killed. Williams planted his right foot in the moist soil and launched himself over a fallen tree trunk.

  His leg, burning with both lactic acid and the first signs of infection, buckled underneath as he landed. He grimaced and let out an audible cry, the helicopter shrapnel’s remnants digging deeper into his thigh. It stung like a bastard, but it didn’t matter. He needed to move. Their ticket out of hell slipped away.

  “He’s disappeared. Damn it, LT,” Harris’s words echoed ahead. The recent high-school graduate’s lanky frame slipped through the trees, making it harder for Williams to match him stride for stride.

  “We’re not going to lose him,” Williams shouted, blowing harder with each step. The noxious combination of adrenaline and humidity was taking a toll on his already depleted body. No amount of training mattered at this point. It was all about drive, but he could only take so much punishment.

  “I see him. I see him,” Harris cried, his high-pitched squeal a combination of jubilation and despair. Williams had to hand it to him. The kid didn’t give up. “He’s got him. See him through the trees. Simmons has him.”

  How the hell did Simmons move that fast? Williams dashed forward, ignoring the procession of branches laden with Vietnam’s mutant insects, some of which enjoyed feasting on foreign blood. Yet they were not his greatest threat. By rushing headfirst through the foliage with only the sound of Harris’s voice to guide him, Williams risked triggering one of the hidden snake traps the Viet Cong left behind.

  He knew the consequences. He had already been bitten once, suffering from fever and nausea for several days before recovering from the venom’s punch, but this was too important. If they ever wanted to get out of this shithole, they needed a guide. The Viet Cong sniper would be that guide, sweet justice after killing Anuska and possibly Garcia.

  “Wait.” Nerves in his voice, Harris tripped up in an effort to stop his momentum. “LT, did you see that? Saw something.”

  Williams pulled up alongside the kid. Harris’s face went green.

  “What is it?” Williams braced his hands against his knees. His lungs expanded and contracted at a rapid pace, pushing against his bruised ribs. “Why did you stop?”

  “Saw something right over there.” Harris’s eyes grew wider; his face glistened from the sun above, tendrils of dirt running down his cheek. He pointed to the horizon to their right, where a fuzz-covered caterpillar marched across a leaf in front of them.

  “Where?” Spent, Williams squatted, pulling the younger Harris down by the collar. The kid collapsed like a bag of rocks.

  “There.”

  “I don’t see anything.” It was all the same: a landscape of endless green that had haunted Williams since he’d first stepped foot on the cursed land. Through the verdant passage of alien leaves, Williams realized how deep they had traversed into the unknown.

  “Keep looking right there.” Harris nodded to the left.

  “Another soldier?”

  “I don’t know. I was running, and it just caught my eye. A couple shadows, you know. One was big. The other reminded me a of a girl.”

  “Girl?” Williams watched the land. The Vietnam sun peeked through the natural canopy above, intermittently beating down on their weathered faces ripe with sunburn. A smattering of red feathers flashed as birds sailed overhead, unaware of the war below. A monkey called. Some other unknown animal hollered. Not only did Williams and the others have to worry about those unseen—whether human or beast.

  The jungle floor itself seemed desolate in contrast. The only other sign of life, save the caterpillar and birds above, stood several yards away where Simmons was having his way with their would-be murderer.

  But there was something else. The brush rustled about fifteen yards away to their right with a flash of orange. Williams felt the pressure. His demon stalked him.

  “You sure it was a girl?” Williams whispered.

  “I…I don’t know. Happened real quick. Could’ve been one. Could’ve been two.” Harris’s eyes darted from side to side.

  “You sure it looked human?”

  “I guess...sure. Maybe more Cong. What else would be out here?”

  “Nothing.” Williams kept his paranoia to himself. “It’s nothing. You did the right thing.”

  Williams snaked his index finger around the half-moon trigger of his handgun, ignoring the heated metal’s bite. He aimed the barrel towards another gulley dipping down to a stream. The shithole was full of streams and rivers that carried with it the bane of mankind—mosquitoes. A single bite from the tiny bloodsuckers carried the possibility of a disease that made you crap yourself. Williams imagined walking through the hot, sticky jungle with pants full of crap, suffering for days without a shower. Not exactly comfortable when lost.

  “Do you think you can let go of me? Collar is rubbing against my neck, LT.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.” Williams eased his grip on Harris’s collar, too anxious to realize he still held the young man tight. “Mind plays tricks on all of us. Can’t afford any more losses.” His breathing slowed to its natural cadence as he scanned the horizon. The caterpillar disappeared behind another leaf.

  “Maybe it was just my mind,” Harris said. “Stupid.”

  “It’s ok. Being prepared is good.” If he had to give the bastards any credit, it came in the form of tactics. Much like Swamp Fox in the Revolutionary War, the Viet Cong used the environment to their advantage, blending into the background with chameleon-like precision.

  With a squeak, a large rodent covered with long brown hair darted out from underneath the cover. The damned thing scurried across the ground, kicking up leave on its way across their path. Its adventure ended as the rodent ducked under another overgrown bush.

  “Just a damn rat.” Williams relaxed his bicep and lowered his gun, blowing out a long stream of hot air, thankful, hopeful they would move along soon. He glanced to his right, where Simmons accosted Garcia’s would-be killer.

  “Damn it.” Harris rolled to his back and exhaled, far from the killer a day earlier who mowed down the innocents. “Overreacted again.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Jungle has a habit of playing tricks on you. Sure, it might just be a damned ra
t today, but one of them tomorrow. You let your guard down, it’ll be the death of you,” Williams said, still unsure about what Harris had seen, but he needed to refocus. Simmons’s celebration couldn’t be a good thing. “Let’s get the ogre before he nails our ticket out of here to the tree.”

  Williams grunted as he pushed himself up, his leg protesting as the shrapnel twisted into his muscle fiber. Blood and jungle-piss soaked the temporary bandage. It slid down his thigh a bit as he stood, exposing the blackened wound underneath. It didn’t look natural.

  “You…ok?” Harris asked, glancing between the wound and Williams.

  “They say Lincoln died because they wouldn’t leave the wound alone.” Williams wanted to dig the rest of the metal out, but knew he needed to wait for Garcia’s hands, if Garcia was still alive. Damn thing’s getting worse. Not sure if I’ll bleed out or not. Need to move.

  “I’ll be fine. Let’s get to Simmons. Monster is probably pissing himself to end the gook’s life.”

  The pair made their way to Simmons. The brute found their mark—the Viet Cong sniper who’d started the wild-goose chase after taking a potshot at Garcia.

  Unfortunately, Simmons was the last person they needed to help detain their potential guide. Williams watched the Texan’s grip on reality deteriorate like so many other soldiers before, professing that they were meant to hunt down and kill all the Vietnamese people, no matter friend or foe.

  “Simmons,” Williams commanded, shuffling through the knee-high foliage to the base of the tree where Simmons paced with the glint of a machete in hand. “Do me a favor, bud. Why don’t you go ahead and lower the knife. There’s no use in killing him now. Promise that he’ll get his soon enough.”

  “Lookie what we have here. Maybe your savior, boy?” Simmons’s square jaw jutted forward like a Neanderthal’s. With a symbolic finger to Williams, he pressed his knee down across the smaller Viet Cong sniper’s throat. The sniper gagged in response, his brown face contorting to display his pain. A desperate stare glazed over Simmons’s face as he watched the Viet Cong sniper’s rigid body.