Three Little Snowmen (Damned of the 2/19th)

by Timothy Willard

  For a split second the lizard was sure that she had vanished.

  "Hurry up," she laughed, holding her hand out.

  The lizard breathed a sigh of relief.

  I took her hand and let her pull me under the water. It was warm and soapy, after a while it was full of steam, giggles, then moans of pleasure. Afterwards I stood behind her in the hot water, rubbing her shoulders, using my thumbs to work the knots out of the muscle.

  "I love you," I told her, putting my arms around her waist and pulling her close, resting my head on her shoulder. She was a little shorter than me, so it was kind of awkward, but nothing too bad. She felt nice in my arms, warm and alive.

  This. This right here. This is all that mattered, all that was important, all I cared about.

  There was shouting in German and the crash of boots on the floor above us and I could feel goosebumps rise up on Nancy's skin.

  "It hate that. It's not so bad in Titty Territory, you only hear it once or twice a night," She shuddered. "How can you boys stand it?"

  I just shrugged, squeezing her tight for a second. "Noises can't hurt you."

  "I couldn't live up here. Not with that," She said when the sounds repeated themselves.

  I just shrugged. "Don't matter."

  She turned in my arms and looked up at me. "Doesn't any of this make you afraid?"

  I shook my head. "Why would it?""

  Nancy shivered again. "People have seen him since, Ant. With that grin. Obviously dead. Trying to get into the barracks, trying to get at people."

  I shook my head. "So?"

  "What if he comes for you? For John? For me?"

  "He won't," I told her, and kissed her gently. "It's just Rear-D."

  She lifted up her hands, her skin hot from the shower, and put her hands on either side of my face. "Ant, honey, are you all right? You've felt off all day."

  She reached down between her legs and then lifted her fingers, looking at them closely. "Honey, did you cum?"

  I shrugged. "No."

  She turned off the water, stepping out of the shower, pulling me with her. "Maybe it was the water. Come on, let's get you dried off and in bed."

  I dried off quickly, perfunctory, scrubbing violently at my close-cropped hair. She led me into the bedroom, climbing up into the top bunk in front of me. She paused half in, looking back at me with a smile, and wiggled her butt.

  That got a smile out of me.

  We made slow, gentle love under the blankets.

  Right up until she got hung up, caught on the edge of orgasm. She pleaded with me for a moment, until I slammed my forehead against hers. The pain, the impact, pushed her over the edge and her nails raked down my back.

  I lied, told her I was cumming, and thrust hard into her several times before collapsing on top of her. I was a long way from coming, I felt detached, distant. The lizard was fretful, tapping the wrong controls. I was aware of how the breezes moved in the room, the sounds of the barracks around us, and the way the cloth felt against my skin. Something was bothering him, something I wasn't able to figure out.

  The barracks had heat, power. We had backup environmentals in case the power went out. Positive air system, medical supplies, everything we could need.

  But something was bothering him enough that I couldn't get off.

  She believed me, or at least was willing to let it go. Afterwards we curled up wordlessly, laying under my quilt, one arm thrown over her. I watched her go to sleep, knowing that eventually she'd wake up to go pee, get dressed, and go back to her room.

  That was all right.

  She was asleep, soundly, snoring softly, and didn't move when I got out of bed. I climbed down, making sure to set my feet properly in case there was frost on the floor. Set your feet down, hold most your weight on the bed, let your body heat melt any ice or frost, then put your weight down. If your luck held, you wouldn't slip and bust your ass.

  I moved over to the desk, pulling out the chair quietly, and sat down. I opened the top drawer, getting out a small bottle of CLP and my finest honing stone. I set them on the desk, then got out the ceramic sharpening rod.

  That done, I pulled the Gerber Mark II fighting knife from the sheathe, and set about slowly sharpening it. Running the blade into the sharpening stone, then rod, to keep the thin edge of the metal from curling over and dulling it.

  The steady vwip vwip of the blade on the stone seemed to soothe the lizard as well as my own nerves. Each stroke of the blade made me feel more grounded, made the noises the barracks made seem less threatening.

  I spent time on the point, making sure it was needle sharp. After that I used a copper brush taken from an M-16A1 cleaning kit to thoroughly scrub the metal grip.

  Once I was finished I put it back in the sheathe, leaving it on the table. It wasn't a standard clip sheathe. It was designed for boots. At the bottom was a short strip of metal that ended in a metal loop that fit around the heel of my boot. At the top was a leather strap that went around my boot.

  Afterwards I stared at Nancy for a long time in the dimness provided by the little nightlight I had plugged in so I wouldn't get disoriented in the darkness. Well, that was the reason I told myself. I just slept better, felt more secure, with the night light.

  I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just staring at her. Like I was memorizing her face. The small "I want" line between her browns that only appeared when she frowned. Her flawless tanned complexion, a result of her half-Hispanic heritage. Her brown hair, towseled now. Every line of her face, like I was memorizing it for some reason.

  Eventually, I stubbed out the cigarette, yawned, stretched, and climbed up into the top bunk. Sliding under the covers with her.

  They were warm.

  So was she.

  It made the night, and the dreams, bearable.

  A Day In the Life

  Why is it that

  the most beautiful things

  Are the deadliest?

  2/19th Company Area

  Restricted Area, Fulda Gap

  Western Germany, Europe

  04 November, 1984

  I finished buttoning up my parka before I leaned against the snow shovel, staring at the plowed road in front of me. The plow had gone by early in the morning, shoving the snow off the street and over the already buried cars. I didn't have CQ again for a couple of days, so Specialist-6 Jakes had asked me out to shovel the walk and dig out the Duty Driver vehicle. I figured why not? I'd finally finished, my lungs burning with the exertion and the lack of oxygen.

  It was promising to be a deadly day.

  I looked around at the snow. Most of the vehicles were buried, silent mounds of snow marking their graves. The trees that were above the snow were all glazed with a thin layer of ice, making them sparkle. The barracks was sitting in ten feet of snow, the wind blowing it around the barracks and I knew that all of it would end up downslope. There was a plate of frozen snow about three feet down, which would keep the snow from blowing away anything beneath it.

  Well, unless someone tossed a grenade onto the ice-sheet to bust it up.

  Leaning the shovel against my chest I dug out my cigarettes and lit one, blowing out and watching the wind whip the smoke away. I grunted, put my smokes away, and leaned against the icy berm of snow at the edge of the street. The shoveling was getting old, and either me or Bomber seemed to be the only ones who drew snow clearing duty, but what the hell. I could be at Graf, where the mud was asshole deep on a tall Indian. Worse, I could be at Atlas, where I'd be sucking up enough rads and chems that I'd probably shoot two-headed babies into someone's belly one of these days.

  I was glad to be in Germany, don't get me wrong. It was beautiful countryside. The people were OK, I guess. They were, people, ya know? The walking dead who just didn't know it yet. Let's be really honest here, sooner or later the Soviet Union was going to come roaring through that Gap, I'd throw everything I had at them, and all of Europe would be reduced to a slag heap.

  It wasn'
t anything personal, it was just the way things are, you know?

  Sitting out in the cold I relaxed, leaning against the snow, trusting in the heavy parka to keep my ass from freezing. The sun set behind me and the street lights across from me came on while I finished my cigarette, rolling the tobacco and cherry into the snow, toeing it out, and putting the butt into my pocket. In Survival Escape Resistance Evasion (SERE for short) school, they'd taught us that the butts don't biodegrade, and are easily spotted by anyone tracking you, where the tobacco and ash is gone pretty quick. They'd taught us what was called "Field stripping" the cigarette and I'd deliberately made it into a habit.

  Funny, how you could program your body for habits, huh?

  The CQ Area was warm when I pushed my way through the "airlock", which was two sets of doors that opened out, preventing the wind from blowing them open, and putting a nice four-foot air gap between the first and second set of doors. I undid my parka and handed it to Jakes, who took it, my trigger mittens, and my face mask and set them on the table at the back of the little area.

  "Gonna put the shovel in the Supply Room?" Jakes asked me, looking up from his porn mag.

  "Toss me the keys," I said. My room key, for some weird reason, was keyed as a master key to most of the door locks in the barracks. I could have opened it without the CQ keys, but I'd been keeping it close to my chest that I had a key to basically everything that wasn't high security.

  "Here," Jakes said, tossing the keyring to me.

  I headed into the Near Stairwell, going down to the bottom floor. I reached out and hit the lights, waiting for them to come on. They slowly flickered to life, clicking steadily. One blew out in a shower of sparks from the end, but in the end the T shaped hallway was lit. I took two steps forward and hung a left through the open archway.

  There was a feeling, something, I couldn't put my finger on it, as I moved into the ready room. It was a large room where we'd draw our weapons, masks, NVG's, ammunition, and anything specialized equipment. Three large chest-high wooden tables for you to check your gear on. Arms Room and Secure Items Room (NVG's, radios, gear like that) on the left. NBC room in front of me. Wall lockers carrying specialized items like fuel tank frames, radio carry frames. On the right was the big double doors leading into the Supply Room.

  The barracks always felt vaguely malevolent, but for some reason it felt like the darkness was really pushing in on me. Almost like it didn't want me down here.

  I pushed away the feeling, ignoring it, compartmentalizing it. It wasn't the Dark Ages, it was the goddamn 1980's. There was no reason to feel like some Victorian Maid confronted with a dark room where there might be mice.

  It was just nerves, that's all.

  I unlocked the Supply Room, pushing through the double doors, and moved over to where the snow clearing gear was. It was chilly, but not too bad. Just above freezing, but there wasn't anything down here that would get really damaged by being frozen.

  Everything on Alfenwehr had to be Arctic certified. Right down to the last boot grommet and compass and chemlight. If it wasn't Arctic rated, it didn't get put on the TO&E for the Group Area. While it could work down at the sites, it didn't show up to the Group Area.

  I sighed, leaning the snow shovel against the wall before turning around. The Supply Room was massive. A quarter of a city block long, stacked with crates. Only uniforms and some TA-50 were in the wooden or cardboard boxes, the important stuff was in the heavy plastic crates the military put everything in. The main difference was the fact that the boxes were all radiation shielded, unlike the cardboard and wooden boxes. There were field computers in some crates, EMP shielded in addition to the other protections. What wasn't in crates was in wall lockers.

  One of the things we were supposed to do, as part of Rear-D, was break all the uniforms and TA-50 down and make sure that every soldier in 2/19th had a loadout in case the balloon went up. Which meant inspecting all that gear and making sure everyone had everything they needed to fight World War Three on a pallet in what would be the War Stocks Room.

  Right now, there was nothing there but pallets. Tomorrow we'd stencil on the walls platoons, sections, and squads and check it against the personnel list. One pallet per soldier. Three hundred and seventy-five pallets for three hundred and seventy-five soldiers, the eventual operating strength of 2/19th.

  I sighed, staring at the Supply Room. at the far side was a pair of double doors. Another room, again, a quarter of a block long. It was more narrow than the Supply Room. Nobody had really decided what to do with it. The best one I'd heard was packing the roll-out gear in it. Stuff like tents, tent liners, cabling, radiation shielding, stuff like that.

  It was kind of exciting, when I stopped to think about it. We were cutting edge, tip of the spear, edge of the shield and all that. I mean, just in the Supply Room there were millions, tens of millions of dollars of equipment. Computers that could take up to a 900 Watt EMP burst and keep right on trucking. Field surgery kits that would let a trained doctor perform meatball surgery. Dental kits that would allow a dentist to completely rebuild someone's jaw for them.

  We had it all. Despite the fact that most of our gear was cast offs from other units that we had to rebuild and refurbish, there was still a massive investment of money and resources that even I could appreciate. It was kind of awe-inspiring when I thought about it.

  The loud crack above me and the low moan through the Supply Room brought me back from contemplating everything around me. That was for people higher ranking than me to worry about, like the Commanding Officer, the Executive Officer, the Top Kick, or Chief Henley.

  Atlas was all I had to worry about, and right now, I didn't even need to worry about that.

  Shoving away thoughts of global thermonuclear war, World War Three, facing off against the Red Steamroller, and all of those thoughts of how I was destined to go out, I headed out of the Supply Room.

  The tumblers were loud as I locked the door behind me. I threaded a seal and wrote down the number in my little green notebook. Everyone in the military carried one in their top left pocket. Hell, it was part of the III Corps revised AR-670-1, which covered uniform wear.

  Mine was full of everything from encoded security codes to lists of how to pack my rucksack.

  I wandered back up to the CQ Area, tossing Jakes the keys before heading up into Hammerhead Hall. The floors were still shiny, thick wax buffed to a high sheen by me and Bomber earlier in the day.

  What the movies don't show you? Half of being a soldier was being a janitor. Strip, wax, and buff floors. Pick up litter. Mow grass. Shovel snow. Clean the laundry room. Sweep the parking lot. Even when you're deployed, you spend time washing, cleaning, scrubbing.

  Ever wonder why so many former service members are such clean freaks or complete slobs? It's simple: Everything had to be spotlessly clean in your life.

  For someone like me, a Nuclear/Chemical/Biological Field Warfare Specialist, if something wasn't cleaned and scrubbed, it was contaminated, and contamination spelled death. Radioactive particles, a thin smear of VX class nerve agent, a small culture of weaponized smallpox. All of those could linger in the single place you didn't clean. Yo put your hand there, and then, well, you die. If things went good, just you, if it was bad, you just took a million people with you as a weaponized disease rips through a globally mobile population.

  I unlocked the door to my room, the warmth spilling out and into the hallway.

  I was used to John Bomber living with me in the three-man room. It was a pretty nice design, to be honest. Just inside the door there was a door to my left that led to a bathroom with a private shower. Most barracks still used twelve-man bays and group showers. There was a short hallway to the open room. On my right were wall lockers. Two upright lockers six feet high, two feet wide, with a large equipment locker above the two. Then a set of three square lockers, where our rucksacks were supposed to go. Then another set. On the left, after the door, another set of two tall, one top wall lockers.
>
  Then the room. A set of windows directly in front of me, with a radiator below then. The windows were an odd design to me. When the handles pointed down, they were locked. When the handle was at a ninety degree angle, they opened into the room from the middle, hinged on the side. When the handle was straight up, they opened from the top about eight inches, hinged at the bottom.

  It was pretty ingenious.

  Fridge next to the radiator. In the corner of the big room on my right was a set of six shelves, then a desk, then a dresser. On the left, a single bed right next to the wall, a dresser against the far wall, then a bunk bed on the outside wall.

  It was a surprising amount of living space.

  It felt oddly empty without John in there. Two of the sets of lockers empty. The bottom bunk and the single bed just made up with military standard OD green blankets, the top bunk with my quilt on it.

  I pulled the chair out from the desk and sat down, staring at the small square end table we'd all been playing quarters around the night before Swopes busted her elbow.

  Sighing, I opened up a desk drawer, pulling a half-finished bottle of Wild Turkey out and setting it on the desk.

  I'd make a drink, get some sleep, and pull CQ duty tomorrow.

  Just another day in the glamorous high-speed modern military.

  Sleep came slowly.

  When I dreamed, I dreamed of Atlas, and a girl named Westlin.

  And how I'd killed her.

  Till That Day

  Your friends, your real friends know

  That you can be angry with them

  And still care about them.

  They know that eventually

  You'll forgive them.

  2/19th Company Area

  Restricted Area, Fulda Gap