by Dave Hazel
Randy took the opportunity to be humorous. “Or maybe the cow would be ticked off that it was gonna die to be a meal. The cow would say, ‘hey you, eat me! Moooooooo’,” Randy said loudly and burst out laughing.
“I get it, I get it,” Mykal laughed loudly and clapped his hands together. “That was a good one Randy, and I will eat that fat friggin cow and enjoy the hell outta that steak.”
The rest of the men ran up behind them. A couple of the men had to be pulled along. They were men who had been stung and injected with the same chemical that caused the hallucinations. When the main body of the men gathered around Captain Diaz and Lieutenant Finley, Mykal pulled away so as not to be in the center of the crowd. It seemed like chaos going on around them and Mykal looked at Towbar as if he was trying to get guidance and direction from the giant.
Suddenly Mykal felt like a little child in a crowded mall and looked to Towbar, the parent, to protect him and keep him safe. He looked to the gorge walls and couldn’t believe the colors that seemed to yell their brightness from the plant life. “Oh wow!” Mykal shouted and raised his hands as if trying to capture the brightness of the colorful rays that were shooting into his eyes. “How the hell did you guys not see this?” He snapped. “Are you friggin blind?” He asked, but with all that was going on around them no one heard him.
Roy Jr., Randy, Towbar and Mathis stayed close to Mykal to watch him and protect him if need be. “We oughta see if we can catch some of those little white dandelion things and take them back to the real world with us,” Roy Jr. joked. “We’d get rich selling that stuff on the streets,” he added in reference to selling illegal drugs.
“The only problem with that,” Mathis said while he pointed to a couple of Marines who broke out into a fist fight. “We don’t know what the long term effects of this stuff will be. Oh damn,” Mathis winced and gasped when Private First Class Chandler hauled off and cold cocked Lance Corporal Cremona, a fellow radio man. Cremona was out cold before he was off his feet and he sailed backward onto the ground. “He nailed him solid and Cremona didn’t even see it coming,” Mathis said while three other men tackled Chandler to the ground.
Chandler was shouting something about Cremona making fun of the color of his socks and he had to defend the dignity of his socks. While being restrained Chandler kept shouting that he was in the right and couldn’t understand why they didn’t agree with him.
Mykal seemed to be off in his own little world and didn’t notice the struggle. He continued to try and funnel the colors and the brightness of the beauty around him. “We need to see if we can put some of these in our flashlights,” he whispered as if he didn’t want the others to hear what he was sharing with his close friends. “If we can get this back to the world this will be a million dollar product. We could sell it to everyone and whenever anyone needs light they can turn on their lighting device and get a rainbow of colors. Not just a rainbow of colors, but a rainbow of friggin bright dazzling colors. If you guys help me with this, I’ll cut you in on the profits. Man, look how dazzling bright these colors are. It’s so damn amazing, ain’t it Towbar?” Mykal whispered.
“Yes my friend,” Towbar played along to pacify Mykal. “The people of your world would love to have such things.”
“I wonder if those plants have any fruit,” Mykal speculated while he stared intently at the colorful plant life. “I’ll bet you when you eat that fruit it will fill you with love, peace and joy and happiness. It’s gotta be,” Mykal declared. “As colorful as the plants are, the fruit of such plants gotta be only good and positive things, right? Am I right? Ain’t I Mathis?”
“Yes Sir, yes Sir,” Mathis replied when he realized Mykal focused on him. “I can feel the love right now.”
Suddenly Mykal started to laugh. “Mathis, you kill me man. You make me laugh all the time. Have you ever thought of doing stand-up comedy? Cuz I swear I would go to all your shows.”
“My friend, Captain Diaz would like us to go back to the Pass and get re-supplied before we continue our journey to rescue Doninka,” Towbar said. “I am going to create the green fog so I will need your assistance to ensure the men all make it back to the Pass.”
“No problem big guy. Just let me know who doesn’t follow orders and I will make sure they get punished to the max.”
“I think they will be fine my friend. I only need you to assist me so I ask you to stand by my side,” Towbar said as he pulled his leather pouch that had the magic powder.”
“Not a problem buddy, you know I love you like a brother so I will do anything you ask of me. Let’s just hurry cuz I gotta come back and rescue Doninka. I love that girl,” he added and his voice started to crack.
“Do you still want that thick juicy steak Myk?” Roy Jr. asked while Towbar began to conjure the green fog.
“You know it man. We’ll share some steaks together and maybe we’ll put some steaks in our pockets so when we come back here, we’ll have some steak to nibble on here and there. Whadda ya think?”
“Cool man,” Roy Jr. said in agreement and couldn’t help but laugh at the odd mental picture.
Suddenly they were enveloped in the wet, slimy green cloud that caused everyone to become dizzy.
CHAPTER TEN 01/15/1984
1. Sunday, January 15th 1984
0813 hours, Camp, In the Pass (8th Day)
“So how are you feeling Mykal?” Captain Diaz asked after he walked into Mykal’s tent.
“I feel great. Honestly I do. How are the rest of the men?”
“They’re all doing just fine, other than Staff Sergeant Valante. But he’s healing up fine.”
“Now, he was the one who shot his own hand, right?”
“Yes,” Diaz said with a sad shake of his head.
“What really happened with that?” Mykal asked while he sat on his bunk to tie his boots.
“When those of you who had been stung by the strange little white floating things, the--”
“The ‘Stinging Snowflakes of Delight’,” Mykal laughed. “It was the name the men came up with for the strange hallucination inducing plant creature things,” he laughed again. “Those things really looked like little white dried out dandelion seedlings, right?”
“Yes. It turns out those stingers injected all of you with some sort of chemical that made all the men high. And believe me when I tell you Mykal, all the men, including yourself acted like they were high or drunk. You were under the effect so you really couldn’t tell, but believe me, it was strange and the men acted out. The medical personal did tests and they said the best they could compare it to would be something like mescaline or LSD or any type of hallucinogen. But they don’t know the long term effects if there are any. It’s possible nothing will be long lasting, but there is no way to know. All the men who had been stung, like yourself, was ‘tripping’ if you will, for about eighteen to twenty-four hours and everyone seems fine now. Most were like you Mykal, who had a ‘fun’ trip, but those who had been stung multiple times, became violent and angry. I’m not sure if you remember, but on the beach there were a few fist fights that broke out. The violent reactions came from those who had been stung more than once. Staff Sergeant Valante had been stung twice. He had a smudge of dirt on his hand and he thought it was a dangerous bug of some kind that was going to eat its way through his hand into his heart. With that fear in his mind he pulled his 9 millimeter and shot his hand, or rather shot at the dirt spot on his hand that he thought was a threat to him.”
“Oh my goodness,” Mykal sighed. “But is he alright?”
“Oh yeah, he made a nasty wound of his hand but he’ll be okay,” Diaz said and nodded. “Besides the fights, there was one soldier who slashed another soldier on the arm with his knife, but it was just a slight flesh wound. It didn’t even require stitches. All the men understood it as an ‘attack from strange creatures on the other side of Towbar’s world’ so not one person was willing to press charges or look to blame anyone who assaulted another.”
�
�Well that’s good, cuz I don’t think I could have stopped the stupid things I was thinking. So we have been here two and a half days now?” Mykal asked.
“Yeah, and if you’re up to it Towbar said he would take us back to where we left off. We have replacements for those we lost and we have everyone resupplied. All the same men are going except for Staff Sergeant Valante and there may be one or two who decided not to return, but I’ll know that when we gather with everyone here in a little bit.”
“So Major Hansen the chief medical officer gave in to my demands?” Mykal asked.
“Yes Mykal. You have to understand where he was coming from,” Diaz said as if he was defending the senior medical person of Towbar One. “If we would have been back in the real world, everyone, including yourself, would have been prevented from going back out into the field so to speak until they could definitively prove there is nothing wrong. It would all have been precautionary because they don’t know what the long term effects of the Stinging Snowflakes of Delight would be.”
“But I’m in charge here,” Mykal argued. “And I’m not going to be stopped from going back,” he added and sounded like he was going to get angry again. “I need to find Princess Doninka.”
“And it is only because they don’t know what the chemical really is,” Diaz replied calmly to appease Mykal. “All their tests came back as inconclusive and so because of that, that they can’t determine what the chemical is and what the long term effects could be, Major Hansen gave in and against his better judgment he yielded to your position and will allow you to go back. With that being said, both Colonel Fisher and Major Chick argued on your behalf that you wanted all those who had been stung and who desired to return with you, to allow them to go back. Bottom line, you won and all the men who wanted to go back are going except for those with serious injuries.”
“Great. I don’t want any more delays. Now, I was thinking about it this morning, are we going to be able to find Lanorear and his clan?” Mykal asked. “Do the Elves have a way of finding them?”
“Better yet, I thought of that before we departed and I left one of our radio sets with Lanorear and showed them how to work it,” Diaz said with a smile. “When we get there we’ll call them and hopefully they will be able to meet up with us, because I think their help in finding the Princess Doninka will be invaluable.”
“Great. I was kinda outta it when I got stung by that damned thing. But I do remember laughing my ass off.”
“Some of the men said you and the others under the strange chemical were saying some bizarre things,” Diaz said with a laugh. “After we came back here the medical personnel said all of you were under the effects for a long time. I think you had been tripping for about eighteen or nineteen hours. Some of the men who had been stung more than once lasted much longer than that. Those who had been stung more than one time lasted anywhere from twenty-four to thirty hours.”
“I do remember laughing and having a good time, but I never did drugs like mescaline or LSD or any stuff like that so I don’t know if that’s what it was really like.”
“I have never been high either,” the straight laced Christian declared. “So I would have no idea. I would honestly be fearful of what thoughts would pollute my mind that would be contrary to my belief in God.”
“I remember seeing strange sights and I remember laughing my ass off for a number of reasons,” Mykal snickered and remembered laughing about how ugly Towbar’s soldier ‘Al Capone’ was. “It was so strange but at times I thought it was great. Everything was bright and colorful and funny and I wanted it to last forever. I wanted to tell everyone that I loved them, but since everyone was carrying weapons I was afraid to say it out loud. But now that my head is clear I don’t wanna go through that again. Hey, what about your bad snake bite?” Mykal asked when he suddenly remembered Diaz had been bitten by the colorful, but deadly, two-step viper.
“I’m fine Mykal,” Diaz replied with a happy smile. “God protected me from the poison because I am a child of God on mission for God. The actual wound, the bite marks,” he said and pointed to the bandage, “is healing up nicely. Starling, Leeno, Blair and the other Elves are amazed. They believe I should be dead.”
“You and Ski have said the same thing about that being a God thing and the proof is in the Bible.”
“It is and I will gladly explain more when you have the time. Everyone is just about ready to depart,” Diaz said after glancing at his watch. “We do have replacements for those who have been killed and those who were injured. We’re going to keep the numbers the same, which means Towbar replaced his men who had been killed and Norg replaced his Dwarven warrior who didn’t make it back. Some of the foreigners want to come along but since we had already picked the replacements we told them not this time. Colonel Fisher said he didn’t want them involved at all and Major Chick said afterward that he wasn’t too concerned because you had already completed your primary mission the first time around.
“It’s the Russian group who are suddenly being very vocal in being a part of whatever we are doing,” Diaz continued. “That’s the primary reason Fisher denied them, because they’re complaining so much. He doesn’t trust the Russians at all, but if you think about it, there is nothing to be concerned with because our time is being spent on the other side of Towbar’s world. But that is the reason they are so upset,” Diaz continued to laugh. “The Russians seem to think we’re doing something sneaky on the other side of the world.”
“Yeah, I agree with you,” Mykal said after a brief pause. He tried to think through the reasons why the Russians wanted to suddenly become more involved. “My entire time in the Air Force, in the Security Police field, we were constantly being warned about Russians and Russian spies. So it’s pretty much imbedded deep in my brain not to trust the Russians, and now that our mission has changed some, ‘They’ the ‘Big Shots’ don’t want the Russians close to anything we’re doing. I honestly don’t care because they can’t get back and forth to the real world unless me or Towbar are involved. So I don’t see why they’re considered a threat. Just between you and me, Colonel Fisher said he’s getting them outta here the first chance he gets,” Mykal said with a sigh. “I mean, that’s fine I guess. I don’t care who is here as long as they’re here to help and not hurt us. But if the powers that be are gonna get their panties in a bunch I’ll just stay away from the foreigners so they don’t pull their hair out. But I honestly don’t have a problem with the Rooskies or any of the foreigners.”
“I know they have their reasons for their concern based on the cold war,” Diaz said and looked to the roof of the tent as he thought through his ideas. “But with our presence here in Towbar’s world, this would be a great opportunity to help mend fences and build the east west relations, at least being here in Towbar’s world. With that being said, I’m a captain and I’ll do what I’m told,” he said with a laugh.
“Unless, they’re fearful that the Russian soldiers might try to hook up with Zizmon-Tarl and make an alliance with him,” Mykal laughed with him and suddenly his laugh ceased. “Then they would gain control of this world through the real ‘bad guy’ and – oh my,” he paused and a sudden fear struck. “That’s far-fetched, but we better keep our eyes on them and maybe Colonel Fisher is right when he says he wants to get the Russians out of here as soon as he can.”
“That is a disturbing thought Mykal,” Captain Diaz agreed and gave a heavy sigh. “I will bring that up to Major Chick and have him present that idea to Colonel Fisher. We will keep the Russians from going to that side of the world,” Diaz declared firmly. “We need to take this seriously. We have the cold war in our world. We can’t have the cold war spill over to this world because it would have devastating results for Towbar and his people.”
“I agree with you one hundred percent. Oh damn, if the Russians did hook up with Zizmon-Tarl and was able to work something out with him, and then had the ability to go back and forth to our world with the green fog operated by Ziggy,
that would not only be bad for Towbar’s people but our people too.”
“Oh wow,” Diaz sighed again. “We better take this very seriously. I will definitely bring it up to both Colonel Fisher and Major Chick,” Diaz added and shook his head.
“Speaking of Major Chick, is he in the area? Cuz I’d like to talk to him before we take off.”
“Yes, he wanted to see us off. As a matter of fact he spent most of the morning at the chow hall so he could eat and chit chat with the men before our departure. I truly respect him Myk,” Diaz said. “He’s one commander who truly loves the men placed under his command. He was devastated by the losses we suffered, but he understands this is war and in war people are going to die and get hurt.”
“Yeah, he’s a great officer,” Mykal said as they walked from the large eight man tent. “There he is, I’ll see ya in a little bit,” Mykal said and left to join Major Chick who walked with Major Innes and Captain Taylor. “Hey Major Chick,” he called to him to get Chick away from Innes and Taylor. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure,” Chick answered and spoke something to the two officers to let them know he would join them shortly. “What’s going on Mykal?”
“Nothing really, I just wanted to touch base with you before we head out. How is everything going here with Colonel Fisher?”
“Everything is going just fine,” Chick said and started to smile. “His attitude did a complete one eighty. What did you say to him?”
“Ah, nothing really,” Mykal lied. “I just told him he’s not gonna screw things up here.”
“Well, that seems to have done the trick,” Chick declared. “He’s still in command and he plans to follow through on the assignment he was sent here to accomplish, but his attitude really did change. I don’t remember the exact specifics, but while your group was gone to the other side of Towbar’s world we were having a discussion amongst the top leaders about some upcoming plans. Someone, I think it may have been Major Innes, made a suggestion and Colonel Fisher quickly jumped in and asked ‘you don’t think Mykal will disagree with that, do you’? We all kind of laughed about it when he left,” Chick admitted.