Nightmare Alley

by Len Levinson

  Two Japanese soldiers charged toward him, and he swung from the side, slamming the Japanese soldier to the right on the ear, caving in his skull. Blood and brains spattered in all directions, much of it covering the head and shoulders of the Japanese soldier on the left, who was knocked off balance by the stunned Japanese soldier stumbling into his path.

  Frankie La Barbara caught the Japanese soldier on the left with his backs wing, slamming him on the jaw, knocking it loose on its hinges. Blood welled up in the Japanese soldier’s mouth as he sagged to the ground. Frankie looked around excitedly. No Japanese soldiers were attacking him at that moment, but he saw a group of them around Morris Shilansky, whose back was to the wall of the trench as he tried to fend them off.

  “Yaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!” screamed Pfc. Frankie La Barbara as he charged the Japs, raising his M 1 high in the air. The Japanese soldiers couldn’t hear his voice above the thunderous sounds of American artillery explosions on the other side of the river, and weren’t aware that he was about to descend upon them like the angel of death.

  Frankie swung straight down with all the power in his muscular arms, and the butt of his M 1 rifle whammed onto the top of a Japanese soldier’s head, splitting his skull in two. The force of the blow caused the rifle butt to scrunch into the Japanese soldier’s brains; they flew into the air in all directions, and some of the little pink bits landed on Frankie La Barbara’s uniform, face, and even his lips, but he spit them out and swung backhandedly at the head of another Japanese soldier, connecting hard, flattening out the side of the Japanese soldier’s head, and causing blood to spurt out of the Japanese soldier’s ears, nose, and mouth. The Japanese soldier was flung to the ground by the force of the blow, and Frankie La Barbara swung again, connecting with the next Japanese soldier’s head in a sickening crump sound, fracturing the Japanese soldier’s skull, scattering his brains all over the landscape and all over Morris Shilansky, who was fighting for his life against the wall of the trench.

  Shilansky had bayonet cuts on both of his arms and his face, and there was a gash in his side, but still he fought on, parrying and lunging, ducking and stabbing, always on the move, never presenting himself as a stationary target.

  A Japanese soldier thrust his rifle and bayonet forward, and Shilansky parried it out of the way, coming around with the butt of his M 1 rifle, smashing the Jap in the chops. The Japanese soldier’s lights went out and he fell to the side. Shilansky feinted with his bayonet at another Japanese soldier, but that Japanese soldier was a grizzled old combat veteran, and he didn’t fall for it. Instead he feinted with his own rifle and bayonet, but Shilansky was too smart for that stuff. An obscure instinct deep in Shilansky’s brain told him that the Japanese soldier would feint, so Shilansky followed up with a powerful lunge. The tip of his bayonet flashed in the moonlight as it flew forward, glancing off the Japanese soldier’s breastbone and burying itself between two of the Japanese soldier’s ribs and sinking into the Japanese soldier’s heart, slicing it fatally.

  The wound disgorged great gobs of blood. Shilansky pulled back on his rifle and bayonet, but it was stuck in the Japanese soldier’s chest and wouldn’t dislodge. The Japanese soldier fell to the ground, and Shilansky planted his foot on the Japanese soldier’s ribs and tried to pull his bayonet out, but it wouldn’t come loose. Shilansky was so intent on what he was doing, he didn’t see the Japanese officer standing on the edge of the trench above him, his samurai sword poised to cleave Shilansky in twain.

  Frankie La Barbara, parrying the lunge of a Japanese bayonet, happened to see the Japanese officer out of the corner of his eye.

  “Watch out!” Frankie shouted.

  Shilansky looked up. The Japanese officer began his swing. Shilansky didn’t have time to get out of the way.

  Blam!

  A shot was fired and the Japanese officer faltered. He closed his eyes and the blade of his samurai sword dropped downward, losing its force. Shilansky bounded out of the way, and the Japanese officer fell into the trench, a bullet hole in his back. A few feet from where the Japanese officer had been standing, Lieutenant Breckenridge stepped forward, a wisp of smoke curling upward from the barrel of his M 1 carbine.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge looked around and saw men locked in close combat all around him. They spat and grunted as they tried to stab, kick, and choke each other. A crescendo of violent explosions came to his ears from the other side of the river. Japanese soldiers were everywhere, swarming over the regiment’s position like ants. Reinforcements were needed, but he didn’t have time to call for them. An entire wall of Japanese soldiers, screaming at the tops of their lungs, charged toward him, aiming their bayonets at his chest. Lieutenant Breckenridge dropped to one knee, raised his carbine to his shoulder, lined up the sights, and pulled the trigger as fast as he could.

  Blam-blam-blam-blam-blam! The Japanese soldiers fell to the ground one after the other, tiny red dots on the fronts of their shirts. Lieutenant Breckenridge aimed at the last soldier and pulled the trigger of his carbine.

  Click!

  The clip was empty. The last Japanese soldier was almost on top of him. Lieutenant Breckenridge didn’t have time to reload. The Japanese soldier continued his charge, and Lieutenant Breckenridge jumped to his feet, charging back. The Japanese soldier realized that a giant of a man was coming at him, but the Japanese soldier was brave, and he thought it would be wonderful to the for his Emperor. He shrieked “Banzai!” and thrust his rifle and bayonet toward Lieutenant Breckenridge, who raised his carbine, parried the Japanese rifle and bayonet to the side, and kicked upward with his knee.

  The Japanese soldier’s forward motion caused him to crash into Lieutenant Breckenridge, and then he got the knee. It lifted him a foot off the ground and mashed his testicles into hamburger. The pain was so terrific that the Japanese soldier lost consciousness for a few moments, and when he came to, he was lying on his back on the jungle floor. Lieutenant Breckenridge’s bayonet streaked toward his stomach, and there was nothing he could do about it. The bayonet plunged into the Japanese soldier’s stomach, and the pain was incredible, but still he did not die.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge was going to stab him again, when he heard footsteps coming at him from his left side. He spun around and saw several Japanese soldiers charging toward him. Aware that his carbine was empty, he quickly pushed the button and pulled out the clip, letting it fall to the ground as he reached into a bandolier and plucked out a fresh clip. He tapped that one into the chamber and fired point-blank at the Japs.

  Blam-blam-blam-blam-blam! The bullets blew the Japs away, but behind them were more. Blam-blam-blam-blam! Lieutenant Breckenridge shot them down and then shot at more Japs coming at him from the other side. Spinning around, he shot at Japs attacking him from behind.

  Click!

  Out of ammo again. He reached toward a bandolier and realized when he touched it that it was too light to have any more clips left in it. He groped toward his other bandoliers, realizing with terrible dismay that they were empty too. He was really out of ammo now. Three Japs rushed toward him and he thought, Fuck it, and leaped forward to engage them. One Jap thrust his rifle and bayonet at Lieutenant Breckenridge, and Lieutenant Breckenridge parried them out of the way, slamming the Japanese soldier in the mouth with the butt of his carbine, slashing the next soldier across the face, and kicking another one in the balls. Finally, in the crush of the fight, a Japanese soldier pushed his rifle and bayonet toward Lieutenant Breckenridge’s heart.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge saw the danger at the last moment and slammed the Japanese rifle downward with the bottom of his fist, but he was a split second too late, and the Japanese bayonet sliced open his thigh. The pain was so fierce, it blinded Lieutenant Breckenridge for a moment, but only for a moment.

  “You son of a bitch!” he screamed, holding his carbine in his right hand and mashing it into the Japanese soldier’s face.

  The Japanese soldier staggered backward, blood spurting from his nostrils, and an
other Japanese soldier swung upward with his rifle butt, aiming for Lieutenant Breckenridge’s jaw; but Lieutenant Breckenridge held out his carbine to block the blow, and the Japanese soldier managed to whack the carbine out of Lieutenant Breckenridge’s hands.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge responded by kicking the Jap in the balls, and the Japanese soldier shrieked in pain, dropping his rifle. Lieutenant Breckenridge caught the rifle in midair and smacked the butt into the mouth of another Japanese soldier, then spun around and slashed wildly with the Japanese rifle and bayonet. The bayonet tore a patch of scalp off the skull of a Japanese sergeant with a Nambu pistol in his hand. Lieutenant Breckenridge punched the Japanese sergeant in the mouth with the butt of his Arisaka rifle, and as the Japanese sergeant fell backward, Lieutenant Breckenridge yanked the Nambu pistol out of his grasp.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge turned to the left and saw a Japanese soldier charging toward him. Lieutenant Breckenridge raised the Nambu pistol and pulled the trigger. The pistol fired, making Lieutenant Breckenridge’s ears ring, and the Japanese soldier fell to the jungle floor. Another Japanese soldier rushed toward Lieutenant Breckenridge from the right, and Lieutenant Breckenridge turned in that direction, aimed, and pulled the trigger again. The Nambu fired and the bullet slammed into that Japanese soldier’s mouth, not touching his teeth, but blowing the back of his throat into the air, snapping apart the spot where his spine was connected to his head. The Japanese soldier was killed instantly and collapsed onto the ground.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge spun around and could see no more Japanese soldiers nearby at that moment, but ferocious hand-to-hand battles were taking place not far away, with bayonets clashing against each other and occasional shots being fired. Lieutenant Breckenridge’s heart beat rapidly, and he looked down at blood oozing from the wound on his left thigh, a wound that felt as though a burning torch were being held against his flesh. His uniform was spattered with blood from Japanese soldiers he’d killed, and his hands were slippery with blood and gore. His veins and arteries were full of adrenaline, and he couldn’t stand still any longer. He ran toward the spot where the fighting was the thickest, and his eyes spotted something shiny lying on the ground.

  It was a samurai sword, long and curved, the handle covered with interwoven strips of leather. Lieutenant Breckenridge transferred the Nambu pistol to his left hand and picked up the samurai sword in his right hand. He raised the blade in the air and shouted a wild Rebel yell as he charged into the hottest point of the battle, limping slightly on his left leg because some of the tendons in his thigh had been severed.

  He saw Japanese and American soldiers grunting and farting as they tried to kill each other. Swinging down the samurai sword, he cut a Japanese soldier’s head in half as if it were a coconut. Raising the Nambu pistol, he shot another Japanese soldier in the face and blew his brains out onto other Japanese and American soldiers fighting nearby.

  He swung the samurai sword from the side and lopped off the arm of a Japanese soldier. Backswinging sideways, he smacked the blade into the thigh of yet another Japanese soldier, cracking through the bone and slicing easily through the rest of the flesh. The Japanese soldier’s leg fell off; it happened so suddenly he couldn’t believe it. The Japanese soldier collapsed onto the ground, still wondering what had hit him, and Lieutenant Breckenridge jumped over his body, landing near three Japanese soldiers surrounding Pfc. Jimmy O’Rourke, whose rifle had just been knocked out of his hands.

  Pfc. Jimmy O’Rourke believed that his number had come up. The three Japanese soldiers were going to kill him—he was sure of that—and he had nothing to fight with but his bare hands. All three of them lunged at him at the same time. Jimmy leaped onto the Japanese soldier in front of him, hoping somehow to snatch the rifle out of his hands.

  Meanwhile, Lieutenant Breckenridge was in the middle of a powerful swing with his samurai sword. Its blade sliced through the neck of one Japanese soldier, and the Japanese soldier’s head was thrown into the air like a foul ball off the bat of Jolting Joe DiMaggio. Then Lieutenant Breckenridge jumped in front of the next Japanese soldier, who had been so intent on stabbing Jimmy O’Rourke in the back that he hadn’t even noticed Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  Suddenly the Japanese soldier saw an American giant in front of him, and it scared the shit out of him. This Japanese soldier wasn’t a typical Japanese soldier, because he wasn’t very brave and didn’t think he was strong enough to defeat the huge American officer in front of him, so he turned tail and prepared to run. But he wasn’t fast enough.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge was three-quarters of the way into a powerful downward swing before the Japanese soldier could step away, and the blade of the sword cracked the Japanese soldier’s head in two, then cleaved down into the Japanese soldier’s neck, snapped apart his collarbones, and hacked into his chest, splitting eight ribs apart from his sternum. The Japanese soldier was thrown to the ground.

  Meanwhile, Jimmy O’Rourke’s fingers closed around the Arisaka rifle belonging to the Japanese soldier in front of him. The Japanese soldier pulled on his rifle, trying to get it back, but Jimmy O’Rourke wasn’t about to let it go. Both men tugged on the rifle, huffing and puffing, trying to gain possession of it. Neither wanted to be defenseless on the battlefield, because death surely would come to the man without a weapon. The Japanese soldier tried to kick Jimmy O’Rourke in the balls, but Jimmy O’Rourke twisted to the side in time and received the blow on his outer thigh. He tried to elbow the Japanese soldier in the eye, but the Japanese soldier pulled back in time. The Japanese soldier then tried to kick Jimmy in the shin of his right leg. Jimmy happened not to be looking down at that moment. The toe of the Japanese soldier’s combat boot connected with Jimmy O’Rourke’s right shin, and Jimmy screamed in pain, letting go of the Japanese soldier’s rifle.

  Jimmy jumped up and down on one leg, holding his hurt leg in both his hands, hollering at the top of his lungs, as the Japanese soldier got into position and harpooned his rifle and bayonet forward. Jimmy came to his senses at the final moment and leaped onto the Japanese soldier’s rifle, taking it in his hands again and raising his knee swiftly, despite all the pain, to kick the Japanese soldier in the balls, but the Japanese soldier was a wily son of a bitch, and he pivoted to the side. Jimmy’s knee struck his hip.

  Jimmy O’Rourke was rip-roaring, piss-cutting mad, and that made him stronger than he usually was. He pulled on the Japanese soldier’s rifle, and the Japanese soldier had difficulty hanging on to it. Jimmy pulled again, and the Japanese soldier nearly let it go.

  The Japanese soldier knew he was in trouble. He realized that his American opponent had become stronger somehow, while he was becoming weaker. He decided that the time had come to throw some shit into the game. In a sudden, unsuspected move he turned his rifle loose and jabbed his fingers toward Jimmy O’Rourke’s eyes.

  Jimmy saw the fingers coming and ducked in time. The Japanese soldier’s fingers crumpled against Jimmy O’Rourke’s forehead. Now Jimmy was so mad, he didn’t even give a damn about the rifle anymore; he let it go and grabbed the Japanese soldier by the throat, squeezing with all his strength.

  The Japanese soldier coughed, clamped his fingers around Jimmy O’Rourke’s wrists, and tried to break Jimmy O’Rourke’s grip, but nothing would break Jimmy O’Rourke’s grip at that point. The Japanese soldier knew something about jiujitsu, and hooked his right leg around Jimmy O’Rourke’s calves, pulling in with his leg and pushing forward with his body, trying to trip Jimmy O’Rourke.

  The ploy worked, and Jimmy O’Rourke fell backward; but the ex-movie stuntman knew basic acrobatics, and he spun around in the air so that the Japanese soldier was underneath him when they hit the ground.

  Jimmy hadn’t relaxed his grip one bit on the Japanese soldier’s throat, and now that he was perched on top of the Japanese soldier, with all the leverage on his side, he squeezed harder. The Japanese soldier’s eyes popped out of his head and his face became red as he grabbed Jimmy O’Ro
urke’s wrists and tried to break his hold.

  But Jimmy O’Rourke wouldn’t let go, and his fingers tightened around the Japanese soldier’s windpipe, threatening to cut off his air. The Japanese soldier dug his fingernails into Jimmy O’Rourke’s flesh, hoping that would work, but it didn’t. The Japanese soldier pushed his fingernails in deeper, drawing blood from Jimmy O’Rourke’s wrists; but that only made Jimmy O’Rourke madder, and he squeezed harder, pressing down on the Japanese soldier’s Adam’s apple with his thumbs.

  The Japanese soldier coughed and sputtered. He wriggled and tried to break loose, to no avail. Jimmy O’Rourke clamped down on his windpipe and the Japanese soldier couldn’t breathe. The Japanese soldier panicked, knowing he’d black out at any moment. He bucked like a wild mustang, but Jimmy had ridden wild mustangs during his stuntman days, and he stayed put.

  The Japanese soldier choked. No air could reach his lungs now, and his mind spun around in circles. His grip on Jimmy O’Rourke’s wrists weakened, and Jimmy O’Rourke gritted his teeth, putting all his strength into one last squeeze.

  Snap. It was a soft, subtle sound, signifying that the Japanese soldier’s neck had broken. The Japanese soldier was dead, and his arms flopped down to the ground. Jimmy released the Japanese soldier’s neck and noticed the blood on his wrists where the Japanese soldier had jabbed him with his fingernails. Jimmy felt dirty, somehow. He wanted to be like Clark Gable or John Wayne, killing Japs with dash and bravura, but instead he’d just choked a man to death with his bare hands, and it had been kind of gruesome, like something that would happen in a Boris Karloff movie.