"This is gonna hurt." I grinned at her.
"Shut up and do it." She said, unzipping the three layers coveralls one by one and tearing open the two Kevlar vests we'd all layered on underneath the coveralls. Her goosedown jacket had been stolen when the cold weather gear had vanished, and only being in the habit of wearing our jackets had left John and me with our Levi jackets. She opened the layers of clothing wide so I could see her T-shirt, which she pulled out of her pants and let hang loose.
I slipped my hands under her shirt, sliding my hands underneath her breasts instead of cupping them, and the soft weight enveloped my hands. She hissed in reaction to the cold of my hands, and I gritted my teeth as the explosion of painful tingling engulfed them. I couldn't feel my pinky fingers, and I hoped the flesh wasn't blackened and dead.
"Done." Came Bomber's voice from the darkness after a few thumps and a loud *clack* noise. "How you two doing?"
"His hands are fucking freezing." Nagle bitched.
"I can kind of feel them." I answered. "You still got the Leatherman?"
"Yeah, I'm coming back." His footsteps drew closer, the swinging red light of his flashlight bobbing in the darkness.
"OK." I said, pulling my hands out from under Nagle's shirt. They were cold and stiff, but about as warm as they were going to get. I didn't want to drop her core temperature too far, and her skin already felt the same temperature as my hands. She quickly tucked in her shirt and buttoned up while I kept talking, nodding at the water heater. "This thing is supposed to be a four forty system, but let's hope that the Meep can provide enough power to get it to work a little bit."
I kicked the side of the MEP-015 1.5KW generator we'd hauled all the way down, with 2 5 gallon cans of mogas strapped to it. We had two coils of electrical cord on it, along with one of the mechanic's toolkits that had been left outside of the tool truck. I was never so glad someone had broke regs in my life. The toolkits should have been locked up in the tool truck, but someone had gotten lazy and just tossed them into their locker.
"Nagle, you act as my light. John," I said, accepting the Leatherman from him.
"Yeah?" He had turned and was looking in the darkness.
"Don't fuck around. Anyone comes at us, kill them. No warning, no nothing." I told him. The reflected glow of the three flashlights was enough for me to see him nod, his jaw clenched. I looked at Nancy. "I need my knife." She handed it to me reluctantly. I smiled at her, and she smiled back as I laid down and wiggled behind the water heater.
I used my knife and the Leatherman to rip the housing off of the bottom of the water heater, cutting the wiring that led from the junction box to the heater itself, and then tracing it.
Wind howled, creatures in the snow gibbered and screamed, something off in the distance in the dark menace of our barracks kept slamming, and once we heard laughter echo through the room.
The whole time I worked as quick as I could, tracing the wiring and figuring what needed to be connected and what could be abandoned, making sure to disconnect the heater from the barrack's power, disconnect the back-up fans and pretty much tear out anything that wasn't related to the thermostat, the pump, or a couple of the fans. I kept tossing wire away, working quickly, wondering why the Hell they needed all the crap that was inside the water heater.
Nagle and Bomber were silent, only the sound of their breathing once in a while audible over the wind. I started losing track of time, once aware I'd closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
It was then that I realized that I had to get off the pot and hurry up, or I'd freeze to death lying on the floor and John and Nancy wouldn't even know.
John. My best friend. I remembered drinking beer with him at Oktoberfest, watching the German women dance, and how he pulled me into the crowd to push me at a thickset blond woman who caught me.
She spun me around, dancing with me, and her lips were sweet when we kissed while we were dancing.
Nagle...
What? Nagle had been sitting at the table, and when I looked over at her she'd yelled my name, whistled, and clapped. Her clapping rose to a roar and...
FUCK!
My eyes felt gluey when I raised my face into the light, blinking, and I lifted up my hand. I bit the webbing between my thumb and pointer finger, the pain pushing the sleepiness back. Working quickly I took the three phase wire I'd cut away from the wall and dragged it next to the generator, using guesswork to figure out which wire to put into the threaded connection, and tightening down the nuts with my fingers.
"That's it." I said. I was shivering from lying on the concrete floor, my core temperature having leaked away into the bones of the building. I was sleepy and swaying on my feet from having tried to trace all the wires.
I hoped all that time laying on the concrete wasn't for nothing.
"Ant, baby, here." Nagle said, wrapping me in her arms. She wormed one hand in between us and unzipped my coveralls, then hers, and pressed her bare chest against mine, the heat off of her taking my breath away. "John, he's freezing." She complained.
I felt another set of arms go around me, and the chill of the ever-present wind was cut off even as my cold clothing was pressed into my back.
"Goddamn redneck moron." John muttered. I felt kind of bleary. "Come on, man, wake the fuck up." I nodded then laid my head on Nancy's shoulder, letting the two of them hold me up, relishing in the burning hot feel of Nancy's bare breasts. The lizard woke up from where he'd curled up on the floor of his little room and blinked sleepily as my thoughts slowly began to move. I could feel myself warming up, the tingling in my hands and feet moving to painful pins and needles.
"I'm OK." I said after a few minutes. "I think I'm OK."
"Don't scare me like that, silly boy." She told me. "Just stay there, John will handle it."
"Is it hooked up?" John asked, looking at the lash up job I'd done on the generator.
"Yup. Fire it up." I told him. He nodded, bent down, and wound a rope he'd taken from around his neck onto the generator's pull-start wheel.
It took six tries before it fired up.
Something under the water heater began clicking, and John knelt down, reaching out and pressing his thumb against the bright red rubber button.
The water heater clicked, there was a thin whine of the fans coming up to speed, and then pale light erupted from the bottom as the whole oil-tray rails lit up. The generator was making sputtering noises, and John bent down and began fucking with the top of it.
"This thing isn't built for this." He muttered, messing with the fuel feed. "Give me the Leatherman." I handed it to him
"Then we'll get another one in a couple of hours if it burns out." I chattered.
He was using the screwdriver to do something, and the sputtering leveled out into a steady roar from the little meep.
"Got it." He said, straightening up and closing the Leatherman.
"Let's secure the room." I muttered into Nancy's ear, still holding onto her. She felt like she was burning up with fever, like she was made of hot coals.
I'd almost killed myself.
"Wait, Ant, you're not ready." She told me. I felt Bomber's hand touch the back of my grease covered neck.
"You're still really cold, brother." He told me. I just nodded and leaned forward slightly, letting Nagle hold onto me.
I heard John pick up the Makita drill we'd hauled down and watched him vanish into the darkness, only the bobbing of the red lensed flashlight giving him away.
After a few moments the drill whined, and Nagle pulled her hands from under my arms and shoved them down my pants.
I almost screamed as those red hot hands, made of lava or burning iron, cupped my genitals.
"Christ, you're cold." She breathed in my ear.
"Can't... think..." I told her. I knew that I should like her hands cupping me, but all I could think of was how badly it hurt. I knew that the warmth pressed against my chest was important, but for the life of me I couldn't remember why.
"On
ce John's done, we'll go upstairs and I'll warm you up." She promised, then flicked her tongue out and touched it to my earlobe.
And sputtered as she licked the grease I'd smeared my ears with.
There was a loud groan that made the air vibrate, as if the building was giving birth, followed by a couple of loud snapping noises that made me jerk back from Nagle, sure that the support beams had broken and the building was about to collapse on us.
Then the water tank behind me gurgled loudly.
"Feeling better?" Nancy asked me, pulling down her brown T-shirt before zipping up the front of her coveralls.
"Yeah." I told her, following suit. The adrenaline had helped.
The drill had stopped, and I could hear boots coming toward us.
"That you, John?" I asked.
"Ayup." He said, flicking the red light up to his face and smiling. "Got it done."
"Good, let's get the fuck out of here." Nancy answered.
We grabbed the axes, dragged the extra stuff over to 2nd Platoon's war stocks and hid them under the tarp, and hid one can of mogas under HQ Platoon's tarp and the other under motorpool Platoon's tarp.
We headed back out into the small hallway, and Bomber shut the door.
I slapped all four hasps shut and Nagle threaded the heavy duty vehicle locks into them.
"That should give us a little time." I said. John nodded, reaching up and tucking the two-way radio behind the emergency light. The transmit button was taped down.
"Let's head upstairs, check on the others." I suggested.
Another long groan shook the air, this time followed by the sounds of a hundred men hammering on the door, and the air inside the stairwell seemed to shimmer with the enormity of the sounds.
The stench of decay rolled over us again.
"CQ Area. I want to check the barometer and temperature." Nagle said, and we all nodded.
We moved carefully up the middle stairs, the ice on every surface glittering in the light of our flashlights, and by unspoken assent we ignored the red ice that glittered with malicious glee on the wall.
The stairwell was dark, we could hear something moan and rattle down the it, the moan passing us and then cutting off suddenly at the bottom of the stairs.
Somewhere, above us, there was the tinkle of shattering glass.
John led the way, pushing through the door to the hallway. He checked to the left, making sure it was clear, and then motioned for us to follow him out into the hallway. Nancy was pulling drag, and she held her hand out to stop the door from slamming into the frame. John pushed slowly and steadily on the door until the ice broke, and I winced as it clattered onto the tiles and shattered. The doors squealed as we pushed them open far enough to get through, and they crunched when they came together. I saw Nancy wince at the racket. We walked carefully down the long hallway of Titty Territory, trying to be as quiet as possible, finally pausing at the double doors that led to the CQ Area. We all glanced at one another, knowing good and damn well anyone on the other side of the glass would be able to see our colored flashlights. We clicked off the flashlights, and could see light bleeding through from the CQ area, turning the frosted reinforced glass yellow.
"He's in there." Nancy whispered. "Be ready."
All of us nodded, and John pushed the doors open, snow piling up as the doors swept it away in an arc.
Flashlights had been set in the snow to perfectly illuminate the three snowmen sitting in the middle of the CQ Area, surrounded by wind driven snowflakes.
All three of them had BDU softcaps, one had a rodeo buckle, another a black lace bra, and the third had a pair of broken knife hilts jammed into where the eyes would be.
"Fucking bullshit!" John yelled, dropping the axe before balling up his fists and taking one step forward.
That was when the dark figure who had been standing by the stairwell door stepped around, swinging an axe. They put their shoulders and hips into it, getting as much power as they could into the swing as they came around the corner...
and hit John in the stomach.
hate Hate HATE HATE!
A split second, a inconsequential
seeming decision.
The difference between life and death
on Alfenwehr.
John folded around the axe handle with an "oof", pulling it out of the figure's hands and going face first into the snow, his hands at his midsection. The figure laughed, nothing more than a formless shape in the darkness, backlit by the flashlights. John's flashlight had fallen so it shone on the snowmen, who smiled at us with bloody empty heads full of snow and secrets.
"Motherfucker!" I yelled, lunging forward. The lizard was screeching and hammering on the 'kill' button like it was going out of style.
The figure whirled, and I had a hand on it for a second, grabbing a handful of cloth that was torn out of my grasp as it darted into the stairwell.
"Ant, come back!" Nagle yelled, but I was past hearing her. I had steel in my fist and blood in my eye, and there was no way I was going to let the son of a bitch get away.
The figure ran up the stairs and I followed, grabbing the banister on the landing and swinging around in a 180 to follow and maintain my momentum.
And ran into the heel of a boot.
It smashed into my mouth and my nose crunched. Blood filled my mouth and sheeted down my face, from my nose, as I stumbled back against the wall. I lost the axe, hearing it tumble down the dark stairwell, but I spit blood then threw myself forward again, fury filling me.
Killed my best friend!
The figure turned, but I got a hand on its back, grabbing the cloth and pulling.
They crashed into me in the darkness, and we both went down, them on top of me.
An elbow hit my forehead, but I shrugged it off, trying to wrap one arm around the figure's throat, kicking with my feet as we were struggling in the darkness of the stairwell landing.
The elbow hit me again, this time in my nose, driving my head back against the edge of a step, and everything went gray for second, my hands dropping limply to the floor as I lost where I was for a second. Another blow hit my face and pain filled me. I could feel them straddle me.
With a roar I opened my eyes again, seeing the figure sit up on top of me - long, inhuman arms reaching down and hands wrapping around my throat as they leaned forward and put their pressure on me. The lizard screamed in hate, slapping the "COMBAT" button all the way down, and all the hatred roared up inside of me, burning away everything but the need to kill the person trying to strangle me.
I
Their hands weren't quite seated, but they were still starting to squeeze. I could see the white of their teeth, pulled back in a maniacal grin, in the darkness of the hallway. A cool trickle ran down my back as my adrenal glands fired.
Refuse
Nagle was yelling, the flashlight beam skittering around the stairwell, silhouetting the figure's head but not revealing who it was. My senses widened out, the pain flushed from my body as dopamine hit my system in a flood.
To
They'd figured they'd won. I was on my back, and they thought I was dazed, lying on the stairwell landing unable to do anything. I had been underneath him, twitching, my hands at my side and my eyes glazed from the impact against the back of my head. Endorphins swept away everything else, fatigue, cold, fear, all of it.
Die
The roar was wordless, a primal noise that filled the stairwell and blotted away Nancy's voice. My hands came up, between their arms, and swept outward, just as I'd been taught, collapsing their arms at the elbows.
On
In the same motion I grabbed the back of their head in my hands, and I heard them squawk in surprise even as I still bellowed my hate at him.
This
I brought my head up as I pulled them down, still roaring in fury.
God Forsaken
They screamed as my forehead hit their face, and I felt teeth cut my forehead. They punched at me as I let them pull back and
then did it again, feeling something crunch against my brow as their face impacted my forehead.
Mountain...
I did it again, and this time they managed to slip their head out from under my hands when my forehead hit them in the face. They rolled off me, kicking, and the toe of a boot caught my shin even through the padding of the coveralls. I didn't care, and I drove my fist twice more into their head, neither one of them perfect shots, since they glanced off the person's head, but more than enough to keep fighting.
...hate...
"ANT!" Nagle's voice was a scream.
I saw the dim flash of steel reflected in Nagle's frantically searching light, and instead of going for the knife I brought up one arm to block it.
...Hate...
First rule, son, is that you're going to get cut... My Father's voice echoed from when all of us boys were lined up learning another lesson at his knee.
My other hand reached out, fingers finding the ear...
...HATE...
The shock of the knife arm hitting my forearm made my shoulder groan in the socket. If he'd gotten me with the blade, I didn't care. A cut on my arm was a small price to pay for what I wanted from him.
...HATRED FOR ALL MANKIND...
His ear made a good handle, making it so it was easy for me to press my thumb into the dent of his eye socket. I crooked my thumb, pushing as hard as I could, and I felt it sink into the socket, the eyeball squishing to the side.
...eye or ear, motherfucker, you're gonna lose one or the other...
They screamed that time, the knife falling next to my head, and a punch drove my head against the stairs again, the same spot hitting the edge of the stair. I lost where I was and what I was doing, but still roared with rage back at whoever it was. Even with the rage powering me, my arms dropped again and I knew I was running out of steam. I roared in denial as everything went gray, and punched them in the face, aiming for the teeth I could still see clearly, and bright pain burst between my knuckles. They fell back, and I rolled over, trying to get up, but they were faster and above me.
They kicked me twice, scrambling up, and the second shot caught me under the chin, snapping my head back into the tiles. I sat back up and drove a punch into the knee, reaching around behind me frantically. My hand found the knife they'd dropped, the other one trying to block the kicks they were flailing at me, ignoring the ones aimed at my ribs and stomach and protecting my face. The boots thudded into my ribs and I yelled in triumph as my hands wrapped around the hilt. I brought it around, and slashed them across the shin, but another kick caught me on the side of the neck and my already numb and bruised body jerked.
Three Little Snowmen (Damned of the 2/19th) Page 21