He'd have to come through me to get into the barracks.
I had a brawler's reputation, and the shit my brother got involved in splashed me and tarred me with the same brush. I was smaller than my brother by 4 inches and 25 pounds, with less of an explosive temper, not as quick to start swinging a fist as him, and but my rep was nastier than his. We'd both killed, but I was known for being hard and cruel. The story of how I'd cut the East German's throat and then prevented the guy from grabbing the wound while I stared across the remaining distance of the 1K Zone had gotten around the company pretty quickly.
I'd killed. In hot and cold blood. I'd killed face to face, unlike almost everyone else in the unit.
The asshole in front of me had also.
Probably Bomber. Maybe Lewis. Probably Hewitt. Definitely Jacobs. Almost for sure the 4 men on CQ.
For a psycho who had torn up the barracks and killed seven people all that stood between him and the icy claws of a blizzard and the warmth of his hiding spot was another supposed psycho armed with a knife.
It was obvious that he knew he had a problem, and while we kept saying I'd come out second best in the stairwell, I doubted that at that second, staring at me hefting the knife with blood running down my chin and broken teeth, he thought that I'd be easy to take.
All it would take was one good knife thrust, and even if he took me out, I'd still win.
Time stretched out, the split second we stared at each other drawing out further and further. Even the dancing snowflakes seemed to be held in midair, suspended while we stared at one another.
He took a step back from the doorway, shifting his feet and raising his hands in the standard Judo pose, straight out of military hand to hand combat training. The lizard recorded that and threw it in the evidence pile labeled 'this is who the killer was' in case I ever got to write an after action report.
I laughed harshly, swept the knife down on the 550 cord, parting it from the D-Ring it was hooked to.
The cord snapped back at him, vanishing into the snow and wind.
"Buh-bye, pumpkin." I smiled.
And slammed the door.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher off of the wall and turned to the door, slapping the knife into the sheathe real quick. Two hard hits and the pushbar snapped loose of the door. Two more hard hits and the lockbox was crushed and mangled.
Turning around, I rushed up the stairs, tossing the fire extinguisher away as I headed past the mailboxes. I hurried up the stairs to the first floor, and retraced my steps moving fast.
Fuck defense...
I came back to where Jacobs was laying on the floor, ignoring Hernandez glaring at me. I bent down and grabbed the axe Jacobs had dropped when he tripped off the steps, moving into the short hallway that led to the war stocks storage and the furnace room.
Hernandez was yelling something at me, but I didn't pay any attention, moving forward and standing in front of the doorway. Hernandez yelled again, but I stood there, staring at the darkness. All of my attention on the darkness beyond the doorframe.
Snow whipped around, and the wind flowed in from the outside, past me, and up the stairwell. My eyes stung, my teeth throbbed, and my balls hurt from the cold, but I didn't care. Just like Hernandez's voice, the snow, the wind, the cold, the pain, all of it was remote and unimportant.
All that mattered was what I knew was coming down the side of the building, blindly feeling his way through the wind driven snow, one hand on the side of the building.
Come on, bastard...
He took longer than I had been afraid he would if he moved quickly, but not as long as I figured he might if he was overly careful.
I braced my feet as his hand slipped off the side of the building and into the doorway, watched as he turned, hands going out to the sides of the doorway. He was illuminated by my flashlight, and I knew that as soon as he finished turning he'd spot me standing there with the axe.
He had the NVG's on again, which surprised me a little. He hadn't had them on at the orderly room door, and I idly wondered just how much use they were in the freezing cold and the driving snow of the blizzard.
His body language told me that he hadn't been expecting to see me again.
"Hey, pumpkin." I grinned.
And smashed him in the NVG's with the head of the axe, like I was doing a bayonet thrust.
He stumbled back into the snow, and I lost sight of him. Two steps and he'd be off the loading dock, but I wasn't going to lay bets on that he'd fall easily.
Instead, I slammed the door shut, and like the other one, I kicked the chock down and bashed the mechanism all to shit, this time using the axe.
Every instinct I possessed, that the lizard embodied, that my Father had put in me, that had been hammered into me by the DI's, told me to go after him, go on the offensive, pursue him as aggressively as possible and get the momentum back on my side.
Instead, I turned from the door.
Nagle was knelt down next to Jacobs, and when I looked over, she shook her head.
"He's not dead yet." Was all that she said.
"We can't leave him here." Hernandez said. I nodded
"No, we can't." Nagle answered, touching the axe and the dark stain around it, and then looked up at me. "What happened?"
"Jacobs hit a wire, and the fucker nailed him with an axe." I answered. "Is there anything you can do?"
"And then?" She pressed, still examining Jacobs. "Hernandez said you ran away."
I looked at Hernandez, feeling a burn of fury lick through me. I took one step forward, and Nagle held up her hand without taking her attention from Jacobs, stopping me dead.
"What did you do?" She asked, with no particular emphasis on any word.
A couple of minutes were all it took for me to tell them what happened, and Hernandez nodded once I explained my actions. The whole time Nagle checked the injury, even checked the axe, shaking her head.
I had wanted to deny him an easy way to move around away from us, was the simple explanation.
"Grab his feet, Hernandez." Nagle ordered, "I'll grab his arms. Ant, hold the axe, try not to let it move around too much."
I ended up standing next to Nagle, trying to keep her from bumping the axe, which was firmly lodged in Jacob's back.
When he got picked up, he screamed thinly, faintly, and Nagle shushed him gently, calling him baby. Her voice was soft, gentle, almost motherly, with no hint of the tightness I could see in her face.
We moved up the stairs, slowly, and the blood slicked stairwell was no longer the thing that brought out horror like it had the first time we'd seen it. By the time we reached the second floor, blood was dripping steadily from his jacket and onto the tiles. He cried out when the axe got bumped as we were moving into the hallway. Nagle's voice was soft and gentle, in stark contrast to her expression. The wind whipped down the hallway, but not anything like it had before we'd sealed all the doors shut.
I had to hold open the door each time with one hand, keeping the axe steady with the other, and Jacobs kept moaning as we moved. I figured that an axe blow like that would have killed him, since whoever it was had the strength to rupture John's appendix with one blow.
When Carter opened the door to where we were hiding out, the room went silent.
"Put him on the table." Nagle ordered, and I held the axe still while we slid him on the table. "Stillwater, I need the first aid kit." She told me, and I went over and grabbed the first aid kit from where it sat on the wall.
She pulled out the gauze, the tape, and other stuff. She took the rolled up gauze and folded it up neatly into small packs the size of her hand, then climbed up on the table, straddling Jacobs' lower back.
"Hold him down." She ordered, and held out her hand at Hernandez. "Not you, Dez, I need you for something else."
"What?" he asked, while I grabbed one leg and Daniels grabbed the other. Bomber was trying to get up, holding his stomach and swinging his legs down. Lewis was watching with bright eyes, broken cha
ir legs splinting his broken legs.
"Grab the axe-head, and when I tell you to, pull it free by pulling straight up." She ordered. Hernandez nodded, and she looked to make sure that everyone was ready. "All right." She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then stared at the wound. "Do it."
Hernandez pulled it straight out and blood poured out of the wound. For a split second I could see splinters of yellow-ish white in the wound before the blood covered up the splinters of bone. Nagle pushed the gauze into the wound, putting pressure on the wound, putting her full body weight onto it. Jacobs screamed and thrashed, and Nagle yelled at us to hold him tighter, don't let him up.
"He's lost a lot of blood." Nagle said, slapping down a large gauze pad. "I need strips, get me the rest of the cravats." She snapped, all business. The over-sexed and flighty version that everyone had come to know was gone, instead a hard hatchet faced woman, her curly auburn hair pulled back by a tie, hard looking hands covered in blood, with a voice that refused to be ignored, had replaced her.
The version that had walked into a barracks room with a loaded M-16 and emptied the magazine into four men.
Daniels let go of Jacobs' other leg and grabbed the bandages off the table from where Nagle had bandaged and splinted Lewis' legs. He handed them to her, thrusting them at her as if he wanted to be rid of them, and Nagle just pulled them out of his hands and began laying them on Jacobs' back and measuring them, knotting them together quickly.
"All right, when I say, lift him up so I can slide these underneath." She ordered, and Hernandez and Carter nodded. She stared for a moment, and then said "Lift!" When the two other men lifted him, Nagle quickly looped the cloth underneath, and then told them to set him down. The gauze she'd put over the wound was already red with blood that steamed in the cold air.
She cranked the bandages as tight as she could against the folded cloth on top of the pad she'd placed over the gauze that covered the wadding she'd jammed in. Jacobs had fallen unconscious again, and Nagle climbed off the man.
"That's all I can do." She said, looking around. "Anyone else think of anything?"
"Chest tube?" Carter suggested.
"I wouldn't even know where to start." She admitted. "Besides, you use a chest tube to drain excess blood or air from the chest. If I'm right, the axe just sheered through muscle and shattered one, maybe two of his ribs at the spinal root." She sighed and scrubbed her face with bloody hands, leaving smears of blood on her skin. "I'm in way over my head."
"You're doing fine." Hernandez told her, reaching forward and squeezing her shoulder.
"It's up to him now." was all Nancy answered.
The building groaned and shuddered, the vibration evident under my boots. I looked around at the room, barely lit by the few fading flashlights placed at critical points to light up the room.
Bomber was leaning against the wall next to the bathroom, sweat running down his face. Out. Lewis was propped up with two rolled up sleeping bags, eating an MRE. Out. Hewitt had been missing since right after we left. Out. Jacobs was unconscious on the table. Out. Four men on CQ. Out, out, out, and out.
Out of thirteen of us, eight were out.
All we had left was Carter, Daniels, Hernandez, Nagle, and me.
My tongue kept probing the broken teeth, almost relishing the "zing" of pain when I hit the exposed nerves.
Nagle came over and sat down next to me, handing me my own MRE before wiping the blood off of her hands with one of the little wet-naps out of the MRE. I was glad, for the first time in my life, for the Chicken Ala King meal, even though it looked like warmed over cat shit. It wasn't hard to eat with my shattered teeth.
Nagle finished wiping off her hands, then turned to me, put her arms around me, and began quietly crying. The MRE fell to the floor as I wrapped my arms around her, gathering her up and pulling her against me. I held her, glaring at any of the others who stared, and squeezed her tight. It took a little while until the sobs stopped, and she looked at me with reddened eyes.
The tip of her nose was bluish and waxy looking instead of the ever present tan her heritage had given her, the same with her earlobes. She was missing her eyelashes, and her nose was peeling. Her skin was peeling on her cheekbones, and her face was harsh in the shadows cast by the flashlights.
She was still beautiful to me.
"I don't know what to do, Ant." She admitted. "I don't think I can save Jacobs or Bomber." More tears spilled from her eyes. "What do I do, Ant?"
"What you've been doing." I told her. "I don't even understand what you're doing."
She smiled, wanly. "If Bomber dies will you still love me?" Her voice was like a little girl's voice, wounded and afraid.
"It wasn't you." I said. "You didn't hit him with an axe." I felt pain in my mouth, and knew I was snarling. "You didn't kill him, some fucking psycho did."
"But will you still love me?" Her voice was vulnerable, pleading.
I hugged her tight and whispered in her ear. "Yes, Nancy, I'll still love you."
She snuffled again for a little bit, her face against my Levi jacket, her hands holding me tight. She was still shaking, adrenaline still charging through her system, and it took a few moments before she leaned back and smiled at me.
"Thank you, Ant." She said softly, and then pulled away from me to face the others. "We've got to stay here, wait for them to come get us." She said, a bit louder.
"What about Jacobs?" Daniels asked, looking up. Nagle just shook her head.
The barracks rumbled and groaned again.
"We've got to check on that." Carter said, standing up.
"I'll go." I said, letting go of Nagle. I picked up the foil pack of the main meal and jammed it into my mouth, squeezing the contents directly into my mouth and choking it down as fast as possible.
It wasn't food. It was fuel. Fuel for the meat machine.
"Anyone else?" Carter asked, looking at everyone.
"With Stillwater? Fuck that. So far every time someone goes out with Stillwater, they come back all fucked up." Daniels said, folding his arms. "I think I'll stay here."
"Coward." I spat, my mouth gummy with cold paste.
"Fuck you, Stillwater." He answered, standing up.
I balled my fists, dropping the remains of the meal.
"Enough, Ant. Stop." Nancy snapped. I relaxed. Daniels started to sneer. "You too, Dee, just stop. Bad enough he's out there with an axe, we don't need you two killing each other."
I blushed, and Daniels did too.
"Sorry." I told him.
"Still ain't going." He said. I shrugged.
"So, nobody except me and Stillwater?" Carter asked, "Figures."
"No, I'll go." Nagle said, starting to stand up. I put my hand on her shoulder and shoved her down back into her chair. She looked up at me, already angry.
"No you won't, you'll stay here and try to keep them alive." I told her, still staring at Daniels. "We need you to keep them alive." She looked up and nodded.
"Daniels, come with us." Carter said. "Hernandez and Nagle can hold down the fort."
"Fine, but so help me God, Stillwater." Daniels threatened.
"Yeah, yeah." I sneered, touching the knife on my hip. "Any time, Daniels."
He didn't say anything, just moved over and got dressed. I was wearing my Levi jacket over a Kevlar vest, with my red and black checkered flannel over an Iron Maiden T-shirt. I didn't bother with all the coveralls, preferring not to end up sweating.
To be honest, I didn't expect to come back this time.
We opened the door to the platoon area and stared. The broken windows had let in almost six, maybe eight inches of snow, and more was blowing into the room as we stood there.
"Holy shit." Daniels breathed, looking at the snow coating the floor, the ice on the walls, and the complete lack of footprints. Even the ones we made when we hauled Jacobs into the platoon office were gone, eradicated by the wind and new snow.
The building rumbled again.
"We'll ch
eck the first floor." Carter said, and I nodded as he continued. "We'll check the doors, see how far the snow has piled up."
The stairs were freezing, with wind blowing in through the broken window, frost and ice coating the walls and ceiling. We stood at the first floor landing, the two doors leading out, one into the CQ Area, the other into the first floor hallway.
Carter pushed on the CQ Area door, grunting for a moment before giving up. We went into the hallway, to find the hallway doors pushed open by snow. The snow was at least three feet deep in the front of the CQ Area, and when we shined the flashlight we could see that it had pushed into the building, shattering the glass panes on either side of the doors, destroying them, tearing them off the hinges and shattering them. They were twisted up against the stairwell door.
"We're dicked." Carter said, and I nodded. There was another rumble, and I saw the snowpack in the CQ Area push a little deeper into the building. The whole building shook and groaned like it was in pain. "Any ideas?" He asked.
"There's a medical pack in the CQ Area." Daniels said. "We might want to dig it out of the snow."
"If we can't find it, we'll kick open the door of headquarters platoon and see if any of the medic bags are there." Carter said, tromping across CQ area through the snow.
It was only about three inches of packed snow on the far side, and the snow had only spilled over the counter enough to cover it, the phones, and the chairs that had been left.
We could barely see, the dimness seeming to swallow up our meager and pitiful flashlight beams as we skirted the snow that had thrust its way into our building. The snow had pushed open the bathroom doors, broken open the dayroom and the rec-room, and the unisex bathroom door was a wide open maw of darkness.
"This is right below where we're holed up, we might want to move somewhere else in case this part of the building collapses." Carter said, turning to speak to us.
Three Little Snowmen (Damned of the 2/19th) Page 29