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

by Timothy Willard

"How many fingers?"

  I turned my head, and my vision blacked out, sparks shooting across my sight. In a second everything faded in, like an old black and white TV, full of static, which slowly turned to color. I could make out his hand, the fingers blurry, but he was only holding up three of them.

  "Three." I answered.

  "Ant?" Nagle asked. This time from the other side of me. I turned my head, and my vision did it again, this time making nausea twist my stomach. "Ant?" She called again, this time in front of me. I slowly moved my head, seeing everything blur out for a moment, until I was looking at her.

  "What's wrong with him?" Hernandez asked.

  "Nothing." I grunted, tearing open the foil and squeezing the chicken into my mouth. It hurt like the devil, opening my mouth, but fuel for the meat machine took priority even over pain.

  "Concussion for sure." Nagle said, like I wasn't even there. I felt a slight stir of anger; I was sitting right in front of them, for fuck's sake. "Maybe a skull fracture, maybe worse."

  "I'm fine." I said, swallowing my food and ignoring the pain in my mouth. "Have you heard anything else?"

  "No." Carter said. "I'm going to try to get some sleep, it's almost dark."

  I nodded, and my vision shut off again. This time I counted. Two and a half seconds. With a sharp pain in the front of my head right before my vision came back on.

  I could see the blob that I'd decided was Carter move away and slowly turned my head to face where I could hear Nagle breathing. Her face was just a featureless blob; all I was able to make out was her hair, what might be eyes, and a blob.

  "How bad is it?" She whispered, leaning forward.

  "If I turn too fast, I can't see. I can't make out details much farther than my nose." I admitted. "Think I'll be OK?"

  "I don't know." She admitted. "Your face looks like Hell. I put like fifty stitches into you. He stabbed you in the shoulder but left the bayonet in." She chuckled. She shook her head and then took my face in both hands, leaning forward and kissing the tip of my nose. "Only Ant."

  "How bad did he get you?" I asked her, the red welt on the side of her face vanishing as she pulled farther than a foot away.

  She shrugged, or at least I thought that's what the movement was. "He cut my face, and stabbed me the through my right boob." She moved again. "I didn't even hear him come up behind me."

  "He's fucked." I said, grinning. "I think I got him pretty good."

  "No, he's in good enough shape that he smashed the shit out of our generator while everyone was being patched up." She told me.

  "Hey, shut up, I'm trying to sleep." Carter said.

  "Sorry." I said, and then leaned into Nagle till she swam into focus. "I think it's time for Plan B."

  "The Kurt Russel plan?" She smiled, and I nodded slowly as the lizard hissed in approval, figuring out as long as I moved slowly, my vision didn't cut out.

  "When Carter wakes up." I smiled.

  She wiped off my chin with her fingers.

  They were bloody.

  * * * * *

  "I think I should go." Carter told me, a dark blurry form.

  "We need you here in case he goes for the wounded." Nagle told him. I just stood beside her, holding the axe in my hands, with Hernandez on the other side of her, holding an axe of his own. "You stay here, hold down the fort."

  "I wanna go." Bomber said from where he was laying on the mattress.

  "Fine, get up and walk over here." Nagle told him. He tried to sit up and fell back with an outcry of pain. "That's what I thought."

  "Why can't Stillwater stay here?" Carter asked.

  "My fucking plan." I growled.

  "Can you even fucking see?" Carter asked.

  "Good enough." I told him. "You wanna try making me stay?"

  "He's Ant, he's good." Nagle told him, and then turned to the door. "Unlock the door, Dez."

  The locks sounded like thunder, and the door shrieked when it opened, the noise ripping down my spine and making my stomach twist. I swallowed back the bile and looked out into the platoon area.

  I'd spent more than a few hours sitting out there, smoking cigarettes, BSing with everyone else, waiting to find out where I was going for TDY or to the field next.

  The chairs were all covered by snow, pushed against the far wall. The broken windows, which were just dark blurs, let the wind in. Hernandez and Nagle's flashlights panned out, settling on the space about three feet from the door.

  It took my eyes a moment to focus well enough to understand what made both people with me inhale sharply and the lizard snarl.

  Four snowmen, wearing BDU caps, one with a mophead for hair, all with outstretched arms. I could barely make them out, and stood still as Nancy moved close, kneeling down in front of one.

  "Fucker's been in our rooms." She snarled, standing back up with something pink she'd pulled off the face of one. "This is my fucking vibrator." I heard Carter snicker, and Bomber laugh, and she blurred right before John yelled.

  "Don't throw your battery powered fuckstick at me!" John laughed, and then groaned.

  "There's three more out here, so unless you want to play '3 holes no waiting' over there, shut the Hell up, you Texas redneck." Nagle answered. The affection in her tone robbed the words of their sting. All of us chuckled. "Lock the door behind us." She finished.

  We moved out into the snow, and the sound of our boots seeming preternaturally loud to my ears. Nagle smashed down one of the snowmen as she passed them, cursing as she did so. The wind was howling down the hallway and swirling in the platoon area, the cold wind biting at my exposed face. The throbbing in my cheeks and nose receded within a few seconds, and I silently breathed a sigh of relief that the pain had vanished. I probably should have told someone, but what was I going to say? That I was at my limit?

  We were all at our limits.

  The snow dusting the hallway was thick enough to crunch under our boots as we moved into it, the handleless doors blank as we passed by them: Simon's room, where we usually sat and got blind drunk talking about sports, SPC Corman's room, with the Foosball table he'd bought, my brother's room, with the key still stuck in the door.

  "Hey, don't leave me stuck in here, guys." from behind the door of 221. A man's voice.

  We just kept walking, ignoring the door when someone banged on it.

  "Please let me out." A woman's voice pleaded as we kept walking toward the broken midway doors.

  "Fuck you, bitch." Nagle mumbled as we kept going, past my room, where my stuff had been destroyed.

  We stopped at the end stairwell, and Hernandez flashed the light at each of us before Nagle spoke.

  "All right. When we get up there, we work as fast as possible. I'll keep watch, so Ant, Dez, it's up to you." She told us. I nodded, and I think Hernandez did too, but it was too hard to tell in the darkness, with my blurred vision, and the snow blowing in from the shattered window behind me.

  "Roger that." I slurred. My mouth tasted of copper. The cold wind had split open my lips again. And either the stitches had torn or I was bleeding between them, but it didn't matter since I could barely feel the stinging pinch.

  "I'll lead the way." I said.

  "Why you?" Hernandez asked, reaching out and stopping me.

  "I'm expendable." I answered.

  "What?" He said. He looked at Nagle, who was nodding. "Why?"

  "Three reasons." I told him. "Number one, I'm already injured," I looked at Nagle, "I'm probably going to die anyway. Number two: Nagle's the closest thing we have to a medic, and you're still in good shape." I took a deep breath, and admitted the one thing that I had learned through pain when I was small child. "Lastly, I'm a boy."

  I pushed his arm away and headed toward the steps.

  "What the fuck does that mean?" He asked.

  "It means he doesn't matter." Nagle said in soft voice, and I nodded.

  My Nancy...

  She was right. I was a boy, boys didn't matter. Boys went to war and killed innocent women an
d children. Boys worked to provide for the family if they could stay sober long enough to hold a job. Boys were nasty vile creatures who defiled girls. Boys were nothing but violence and stupidity. Boys shouldn't be taught to speak. Boys didn't need to go to school. Stupid boy. Violent boy. Disgusting boy. Nasty boy. Ignorant boy.

  When it was time, boys died to protect those better than them.

  Which was everyone.

  And it was one of those times.

  I moved slowly up both flights of steps, stopping on the fourth floor landing, shifting my grip on the axe. I could feel the hatred and rage pounding at my head, and ignored the nausea, the sparks in my vision, but embraced the pain, hatred, and rage. I welcomed it, nourished it.

  Pain is nature's way of telling you that you're alive, boy... My Father's voice.

  ...I'm really, really alive, Father...

  "Plan B, baby." I said, and then pushed open the door to the 4th floor hallway. Into upper NCO and Officer Country.

  The hallway felt warm after the brutal chill of the stairwell, and I felt a slick sick pleasure at the fact that I was about to ruin someone's day. There was no wind, no snow or ice in the hallway. The air was still, and I could faintly smell the stench of blood in the air.

  "Let's break shit up." I said, then stepped forward and shattered the window at the end of the hallway with the head of the axe. The wind blew over me, ice crystals that hadn't become snowflakes yet biting at my exposed skin.

  Hernandez moved past me, swinging the axe into the first door. I moved past to the next door, leaned back, and slammed my boot against the door, kicking it clean off the hinges. I stomped into the room, breaking both windows with the axe before turning around and walking out of the room. Hernandez was in the first room, and I heard glass shatter.

  We made our way down the hallway, breaking down doors and bashing open windows. When we came to the double doors that separated the hallway, Hernandez and I hacked the hinges off and stood there for a moment, the axes in our hands, when they crashed to the floor.

  The building groaned and shivered around us.

  At the far end I could faintly see that there was some kind of light. It was fuzzy and unable to be pinned down for what it was.

  The light was partially blocked by a shapeless blob filling the vague square of light.

  "I'm coming for you, bitch!" I bellowed down the hallway.

  Kurt Russel Time

  Tell yourself a lie long enough and

  you'll begin to believe it yourself.

  I told myself I wasn't hurt that bad.

  I stepped forward, holding tight to the axe, grinning at the man at the end of the hallway. The lizard was pumping me full of chemicals, hissing to itself as it threw up a dozen plans to handle the other maniac. I felt warmth on my chin and knew that the smile had torn open my lips again, but I didn't care me.

  Behind me, Hernandez and Nagle began working on the next set of doors as I stood there, reaching up to my chest to turn on my flashlight that I'd hooked to my pocket. I couldn't see very clearly, but I wasn't going to need to for what I was going to do.

  It was time to find out if I had what it took.

  NCO's and officers always told enlisted like me that we'd never have what it took in combat, that they'd be Vietnam and we were trash, that our training was designed for pussies and that we were next to worthless. I'd been taught I'd never do a goddamn thing worth a damn in my entire life. It was hammered into us that we didn't have what it took.

  ...time to prove them wrong...

  I began walking down the hallway, deliberately stomping on the floor, hefting the axe as I walked. Each stomp sounded thunderous over the wind, and the building shuddered as I stomped down the hallway toward the shape in the doorway. I felt the power infuse me, even the building was on my side, the pain was a welcome thing that warmed my muscles, drove away the fatigue and nausea, and made everything else, but the shadow at the end of the hallway, fade away. The hatred and rage at everything around me gave me strength. The sound of Nagle and Hernandez bashing open doors and smashing windows receded, all of it remote and unimportant compared to the shape at the end of the hallway.

  When I'd taken a leak, I'd looked in the mirror, using the flashlight to let me see what I looked like. I knew what he was seeing, and I hoped that he wouldn't realize just how bad of shape I was in. My face was a battered, bloody wreck, covered in purple and red bruises, with cuts and stitches in it, my teeth shattered and broken behind my split and swollen lips.

  All I could do was hope he didn't know how bad off I was by how broken up my face was. Hopefully he wouldn't realize that my head felt like even a light tap would make it explode. Or that a sharp blow would probably render me blind again. My face was pretty much fucked.

  At least I'd never been good looking.

  That was all right, though. I was a boy, and if God had intended for me to be pretty, he would have made me a girl.

  I stomped down the middle of the hallway, staring at the blurry shadow in the middle of the double doors at the far end, maybe a half a football field away. Behind me there was more crashing, and I saw the shape shift.

  "Come on, bitch, come on." I snarled, spitting copper tasting spit on the floor. My mouth was full of it, and I knew that I was bleeding again. "Show me what you got, you little bitch."

  I was running on empty but he didn't know that. He didn't know that all I had left was primal rage and a desperate hunger to hurt someone as bad as I was hurt.

  The door at the end of the hallway shut, cutting out the lights, and I stopped walking forward, my ears straining, knowing that all the chance I'd get is a quick dark blur coming at me. I squinted in the darkness, cocking my head back and forth, trying to get sight of him. I pivoted slightly back and forth, sweeping the flashlight clipped to my pocket to each side of the hallway, hoping to catch sight of him in the dim light.

  Another slamming door echoed down the hallway, and I felt the wind push against me and then cut off, changing direction for a brief moment before going back to the wind slicing across my back from where Hernandez and Nagle were kicking in doors and shattering windows.

  Long moments passed, screams echoing through the building. From below us there was a shout and a crash, like a multitude of boots thudding against the floor. Moaning sobs swirled about our ankles or floated above our heads.

  Nagle and Hernandez kicked in each door, broke each window in.

  ...and let in the winter...

  The plan was simple. It was as old as it was effective. It had been used by Rome against Carthage, and it would work in the barracks.

  Destroy the enemy's territory.

  Nagle and Hernandez stayed behind me, and I took two steps forward to the next door when they were done with the ones directly behind me. I kept close watch, barely able to hear above their panting with the effort they were putting out to bash down the doors.

  When they bashed their way into SGT(P) Jakes room, Nagle gasped, and when the glass shattered, both of them hurried out.

  "Jakes is in there." She told me.

  "Yeah?" I squinted toward the end of the hallway, maybe 50 feet away.

  "He's really dead." Nagle told me.

  "Someone cut out his eyes." Hernandez said quietly.

  "Anyone else?" I asked.

  "No, just Spec-Six Jakes and a shitload of blood." She told me.

  "Let's finish this shit." I growled, taking another step forward.

  When we finished, we stood in front of the double doors that led to the officer's offices, Nagle and Hernandez breathing heavily.

  "Where do you think he is?" Hernandez asked.

  "Probably taking on Carter." I spat, then reached out and put one hand on the doors.

  They were warm.

  I kicked the middle of the double doors as hard as I could, in between the handles, and blinked when the light almost blinded me.

  The room was clean. There were maps of the company area, each of the ammunition FSTS sites, the ASP
, our grid coordinates of Western Germany, marked with where units were, manpower strength, equipment. Several white boards broke up the company by platoon, listing everyone's names, room number, and where they were. Up here is where the unit's officers decided what we were supposed to do. Battery powered lanterns had been set up, and some kerosene heaters were scattered around. Against the far wall was set a bunch of OD green gas cans, marked 'KEROSENE'.

  He had a nice little stockpile here.

  "Everyone take a door." I walked over to the first door, kicking it open, and then chopped at the hinges with my axe until the door wouldn't close any better than any door in the hallway. Hernandez started grabbing cans of kerosene and throwing them through the windows. Nagle turned down each of the heaters and then blew out the flames.

  He probably counted on being able to fall back to his lair, get warm, and eat in safety.

  ...Yeah, and then that happened...

  The fifth door is when Nagle found his lair.

  He had a nice little setup in an office with no windows. A kerosene heater, a stack of MRE boxes, and a couple cans of potable water. His sleeping bag was canoed on top of a sleeping pad and a shelter half. A stack of bayonets sat on a desk, next to a half dozen NVG's, and a trio of fire axes. In one of the trashcans were bloodstained field dressings. It took me a minute to figure out what each thing was, all of them nothing but blurry blobs any farther than two paces.

  "What are you doing?" Hernandez asked me when I set the axe on the desk and straddled the sleeping bag.

  "Returning a favor." I replied, unbuttoning my pants.

  While Nagle kicked open the next door I stood there, with the cold wind pulling at me, and pissed all over his sleeping bag.

  The lizard approved, it fit his very primitive views. By marking the territory I took it for myself and took it away from others.

  When I was done, I grabbed the NVG's, looping them around my belt on my bloodstained Levi jeans, and picked up the bayonets. Hernandez was breaking out the windows in one of the mission planning rooms and I passed him a set of NVG's and a pair of bayonets. He let the NVG's hang around his neck, and jammed the bayonets into his back pocket.