by Chris Lowry
He unbuckled his pants and dropped them.
He locked eyes with Brill and made him watch while Laurette screamed.
Someone shuffled behind Brill.
He struggled, yanked against the ropes, but strong hands pinned him against the table.
In seconds, he was screaming too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He lost count of the hours, the men.
Laurette watched him, the tears gone, replaced with a numb zombie expression as rebel after rebel assaulted her.
They watched him too, white smiles splitting their snarling faces.
They were boys, teens, and a couple of older men with hair starting to gray.
When one finished with her, another assaulted him.
He never saw their faces, just the pain, though the procession must have been the same rebels raping her.
He prayed, he cried and sobbed and tried to beg.
Words were lost in a stream of gibberish as he wailed for them to stop.
Her wails were lost in his.
Blood ran down both of their legs and pooled on the floor, drawn together in a slant to mix in an ever-widening pool.
He lost feeling, he went numb and was thankful, grateful.
If it wasn't an answer to the prayer to stop, at least he couldn't feel the ripping, the tearing.
They grunted on top of him, slapped the back of his head, punched him.
He thought about banging his head against the table, trying to knock himself out, or at least senseless.
But Laurette watched him.
Her eyes locked on his.
She watched him unable to save her, unable to save himself, defend himself.
She watched a parade of rebels climb on him, rape him and beat him.
She watched as they did the same to her, too many, so many until the light in her eyes dimmed.
He watched her die.
She sighed one last time, kept her eyes open and stopped breathing.
Maybe it was blood loss.
Maybe she knew the rebels were going to kill them and she robbed them of that pleasure.
Or maybe they killed something inside of her, the spark she had, and with that spark gone, her body followed.
Brill knew they were killing him too.
Each assault killed a part of him, each forced grunt and punch pushed him one step closer to following Laurette.
They left her dead body on the table edge and now he couldn't see any of them.
He could hear their shuffling, hear them behind him, and he felt them as they turned all of the attention to him.
He screamed, but no sound came out, his voice lost hours or days ago.
CHAPTER
Silenced bullets make a distinct sound when fired in an enclosed situation.
Brill thought the bullets were giant flying bugs.
They whizzed through the room and he heard the thuds and splats, the drips and spatters but of what he couldn't see behind him.
A man in black battle fatigues walked past him.
He wore a balaclava and golden tinted wraparound sunglasses that hid his eyes.
He put two fingers to Laurette's neck.
"Damn," he muttered.
Brill recognized the Afrikaans accent.
Goggles moved to Brill and felt his neck too.
Brill tried to speak, but only a raspy grunt came out.
"This one's still alive."
"The girl?" asked a voice from behind him.
The man in the Goggles shook his head.
"God damn it," breathed the man behind the scarf.
"There goes our bonus. Cut the boy loose."
Golden Goggles pulled an eight-inch blade from his boot and sliced through the twine holding Brill's arms to the table legs.
With the pressure gone, he collapsed to the ground, his legs still bound.
Blood leaked out of his shredded wrists.
Goggles released his legs.
He looked around and jerked a dish towel off a shelf.
He covered up Brill's crotch.
"Give it a minute," said Goggles. "We'll get you up and moving."
Brill rolled over onto his knees.
He pushed himself up on shaky arms, then to his feet.
He stood like a deer trying to walk for the first time. He stumbled over to the wall, leaned over and retched.
There wasn't anything in his stomach but bile.
Goggles tossed the towel to him. Brill wiped his mouth, then folded the towel in half and wedged it between his buttocks.
He was ripped and torn and tried to cover the wounds.
Goggles held out a canteen. Brill took two sips and Goggles pulled it away.
“Too much too fast and you'll sick again.”
Brill leaned against the wall.
There were five dead rebels on the floor, their blood and viscera mixing with his and Laurette's under the table.
Besides Goggles, there were two other men in the room, each to one side of the closed door.
“We're going to get you out of here,” said Goggles. “Think you can walk a bit?”
Brill nodded and pushed up off the wall.
It wouldn't be much of a walk, more like a limp and every part of his lower body ached.
“We'll get you a doctor back at base,” Goggles held on to his shoulder to steady him.
“Arnoux there is a medic but looks like you'll need more work than we can do.”
Arnoux stood to the left of the door.
He bent down and began stripping a pair of camo pants off one of the dead rebels.
“We didn't bring pants,” he said and tossed them to Goggles.
The man slung his rifle behind his back and helped Brill slip into the dead man's pants one leg at a time.
“No time to clean you up more,” said Goggles and he pulled the pants up past Brill's waist.
He pointed to Laurette.
“Grab her Charl.”
The other soldier nodded and cut her body loose.
He slung her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and set his rifle against his shoulder.
Goggles helped steady Brill with arm and readied his rifle with the other.
He nodded to Arnoux.
“Stay close,” he whispered.
Arnoux jerked the door open, peeked around the edge and went through with his weapon raised.
Goggles took Brill out next and Charl brought up the rear.
Brill shuffled next to the soldier, gasping with each step.
The numbness fled his nether regions as blood flooded back in.
He could feel it leaking down his legs, along with other fluids and waste.
The nerves came alive with feeling and he seized up and stumbled.
Goggles halted and made a quick whistle for Arnoux.
The point soldier went to one knee and scanned their perimeter with the sight of his rifle.
“Move,” growled Goggles.
He yanked Brill up by the arm, but his legs still wouldn't work.
Pins, needles and white hot lasers pricked every section of skin.
Ripped muscles spasmed, and each spasm was a new wave of agony.
Goggles dragged him along. Brill pinwheeled his legs, trying to keep up.
“Five minutes to extraction,” said Arnoux as they drew next to him.
“Get the others,” Goggles ordered.
Arnoux disappeared into the nighttime between the jungle brush.
Goggles and Charl struggled under their burdens.
Brill tried to help but each step felt like being stabbed with a searing fireplace poker.
He couldn't breathe, couldn't cry, and fought back on making any sound at all as the soldier half carried him through the bush.
They reached a clearing after two hundred yards.
The trees formed a circle around the edge of the clearing, a black wall full of silent jungle.
Goggles eased Brill down next to the bole of a tree. Charl deposited Laurette's bo
dy next to him.
“Perimeter sweep,” said Goggles.
Charl crept around the edge, black commando fatigues making him impossible to distinguish against the night.
Brill reached out and brushed hair back from Laurette's eyes.
She was cold, stiff, eyes glazed over and milky.
“How long were we there?” he rasped.
“Two days,” said Goggles.
The bushes rustled behind them as Arnoux returned with three other men.
“Their commander escaped,” one of the men reported to Goggles. “We terminated twenty-two.”
Goggles nodded. Charl returned and gave the all clear.
They bent in the grass and waited.
A black helicopter swooped over the edge of the clearing and circled around.
It dropped lightly into the middle of the grass. Charl and Arnoux lifted Laurette.
Goggles and another man lifted Brill. The squad ran for the open chopper doors in a tight formation.
They jumped up and strapped in as the helicopter lifted off.
It was on the ground for less than five seconds.
CHAPTER
They landed at the end of a small airstrip cut into the jungle after an hour in the air.
Brill had no idea where they were, only that they flew just above the treetops in the moonlit sky over the jungle.
Small lights winked in the darkness, flashing by too fast to determine if they were campfires or houses with electrical generators.
A surplus military troop transport rumbled down the airstrip to meet them.
Goggles and Arnoux lifted Brill out of the helicopter and slung one arm over each shoulder to help him into the back of the truck.
Two other soldiers lifted Laurette's body and placed it in a body bag, which they carried to a small cargo plane waiting by an airport hangar.
Brill lifted a hand to wave, then felt stupid for doing it.
They didn't get to say goodbye, they never would.
Goggles clapped him on the shoulder and Brill jumped.
"Arnoux called our Doc to meet us at the compound," he said. "Our commander's going to want to speak with you."
Brill nodded and hunched over.
He couldn't sit up straight, it put too much pressure on the ripped pieces of him, so he shifted over sideways, legs splayed out, and leaned on an elbow.
The truck carried them down the airstrip and past the gated walls of a compound carved out of the jungle.
They rode past an empty firing range, and obstacle course full of bars, and ropes and poles.
There were over two dozen canvas topped wood cabins perched on logs and off the ground, half walls made of screen and mesh to allow air in and keep insects out.
Two larger buildings dominated the center of the compound, a mess hall and Command structure.
The truck pulled to a stop in front of a smaller cabin set to one side of the mess hall.
Arnoux hopped down and helped Brill out.
He carried him into the cabin.
Doc turned out to be a thirty-six-year-old med school trained commando.
He had piercing blue eyes, jet black hair with gray at the temples and razor sharp cheeks.
His large hands were muscled and gentled.
"Put him on the table," he instructed Arnoux.
The soldier deposited him on the padded exam table.
"I'm going to cut your pants off," said the Doc. "They told me you had some trouble out there."
Brill snorted.
"Trouble," he rasped.
Doc took a giant pair of shears and clipped through the pants legs, up one side down the other.
He did the same to the shirt until Brill was on the tabletop naked.
Doc pulled a tray of instruments and bandages over to the table.
"I'm going to examine you," he told Brill. "Let me suture your head wounds. Arnoux, scrub up and let's clean off some of this mess."
Arnoux went to a sink on the wall where he stripped out of a tactical vest and arranged his weapons on a chair.
He washed his hands and arms in the sink with alcohol scrub.
Doc took a gauze and cleaned off Brill's forehead.
"They knocked you pretty good here," he examined the wound. "You're going to need about twenty stitches. Rifle butt?"
"Uh-huh," Brill mumbled.
The Doc stitched him up and continued to clean his head while Arnoux brought over towels and water and began to wipe off his body.
He cleaned his arms, careful at the lacerated wrists, and his torso.
He purposely avoided the legs, and left the first dirty towel on Brill's crotch, covering him.
Brill felt tears of gratitude well in his eyes.
Gratitude at being saved, at being alive, at losing Laurette and what the rebels did to him.
He couldn't catch his breath, his throat closed up, he sobbed.
Doc let him cry. Arnoux moved to his feet and began cleaning.
Blood and gore and filth had crusted up and down his legs, a combination of semen and feces mixed in.
Arnoux poured water across his calves and gently wiped.
When one towel was no longer white, he dropped it on the floor and grabbed another.
Each man worked in silent precision.
Doc finished with the head wounds.
"You'll get to shower after we fix up the other side," he said in a soft voice. "You need to roll over now."
Brill shifted over onto his stomach.
"Dear God," Arnoux gasped.
"I'm going to give you a shot," Doc told him.
Brill watched him put a needle in a bottle and fill a syringe, but he still flinched when the man touched a buttock.
"You're going to feel a small prick," said the Doc.
"Felt more than a dozen," Brill mumbled.
Arnoux snorted and the Doc laughed.
Brill smiled and started crying again.
"Maybe two dozen," he said.
Doc put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down on the table.
"Lay your head down," he said. "I'd tell you to relax, but when the medicine kicks in..."
Brill didn't hear the rest.
CHAPTER TEN
Brill woke up on the table.
He was dressed in a cotton shift that looked like it had been picked up in a bazaar instead of a hospital gown he expected.
He ached all over, but it was a numb pain.
Tubes were connected to veins in both arms.
When he moved his head, he heard Arnoux.
"Ay, you're up."
The medic was tipped back in a wooden chair, legs propped up on the edge of the bed as he thumbed through a worn paperback.
He set the chair down and marched out of the room.
He was back a moment later trailing the Doc.
"Medicine is wearing off," said the Doc. "You weren't supposed to be up for another six hours or so."
He rooted in a drawer and pulled out a syringe.
"It's morphine," he told Brill and grabbed the line leading into his arm.
"Wait," Brill rasped.
Arnoux poured him a glass of water from a pitcher and passed it to him.
"Alright to drink?" the medic asked Doc.
"Slowly."
Brill took two sips of the lukewarm water and his throat relaxed.
His stomach did a quick flip flop but he fought down the nausea.
"He's green," Arnoux said.
"It's a side effect."