SNAFU: Heroes: An Anthology of Military Horror Page 8

  They stood for ten minutes watching the life and death struggle as the creatures tried to make their way free of the Rift. Each man wore only boots and underwear, expressions agog at a sight that only made sense to little boys with Tarzan dreams who spent their Saturday mornings watching cartoons.

  While everyone’s eyes were on the creatures, Andy’s gaze rested on the darkness from whence they came. He felt the Rift watching him. The great gaping hole in the earth was like the eye of that Serbian soldier who’d held Andy’s life in his hands. The capriciousness of Andy’s existence wasn’t lost to him. He wondered if the soldier of his memory wouldn’t decide to fire, the bullet transporting through time to jerk him back to that moment where he’d die and be buried in the ditch with all the other villagers.

  One minute the night was filled with unearthly screams and the sounds of battle, the next all was silent. Two Predators took off south after something, but otherwise everything was still. Sometime during the battle the claxons had been turned off but Andy hadn’t noticed until now. The desert was now eerily quiet. The only sound was the breathing of the soldiers standing in the doorway of the bunker, all in rhythm as they stared into the night.

  Finally someone chuckled.

  “Let’s get some sleep.”

  They turned and headed back to their bunks. Andy remained motionless, unable to simply turn off what he’d seen. The others pushed by him, and as the last of them headed for slumber, Andy reached out and grabbed him.

  “What was that?”

  The man looked Andy in the eye and grinned. “The tarantulas exploded. No problem.”

  * * *

  Andy didn’t get any sleep after that.

  Tarzan had returned to rule his dreams, but he was no longer the King of the Jungle. Where he had once strutted across the great branches of the forest’s ancient trees, now he skulked from shadow to shadow. It wasn’t the Leopard Men or the Ant Men that he feared, nor was it the Golden Lions or the Snake People that sent his heart racing. He was afraid of what he couldn’t see, what he couldn’t know.

  A roar came from somewhere in the forest.

  Tarzan crouched and peered sideways.

  What was it that set him so on edge?

  He squatted there for a time. When he finally moved, he was more like a monkey than a great ape.

  * * *

  “What the hell did he mean when he said ‘the tarantulas exploded’?”

  Leon Batista looked at him and spat tobacco juice along the ground. “Where you from you don’t know tarantulas?”

  “Upstate New York.”

  “They no have tarantulas there?”

  Andy shook his head.

  Leon spat again. He said something in Spanish that was lost to the constant desert breeze.

  Andy paused from checking the ignition line of the mine. He’d been to thirty-seven countries and forty states. He’d even been to Antarctica when he’d had to do an exposé on penguin rustling by Japanese fishermen. He felt the need to demonstrate his worldliness to Leon, but forced himself to hold back. He was supposed to keep his head down and his identity secret. As far as anyone was concerned, he was an Army reservist who’d survived Iraq, gotten into a fight with an off-duty cop in Phoenix, and wanted something more than a regular nine to five. He was a convenience store clerk with saving-the-world dreams.

  “Tarantulas? You know... big fucking spiders?” Batista asked as if Andy were a child. He waggled the fingers of both hands like spider legs.

  “Yeah. I’ve seen them.” Andy mimicked, “Big fucking spiders.”

  Batista glared at him for a moment, then continued. “There are these wasps. They lay their eggs in the tarantulas. Tarantulas no move anymore, then one day poof! Tarantula explodes with baby wasps.”

  Andy felt his grin slip into something akin to stupefaction. There was a wasp that laid its eggs in a tarantula? He felt his mouth moving before he could stop it. “What are these wasps called?”

  Batista rolled his eyes. “Maricone. Where the fuck you been? These are tarantula wasps. Sometimes call them tarantula hawks.” Leon made flying gestures with his arms. “Big fucking spiders. Big fucking wasps.”

  “Yeah,” Andy repeated, “big fucking wasps. And last night? Were those tarantula hawks?”

  Leon Batista laughed and shook his head. He choked on a mouthful of tobacco juice and convulsed before he was able to spit it out.

  “Last night wasps? Those were Rift wasps. Those were gigantesco. Like airplanes, no? You get bit by them, not like the real ones. You’ll walk around thinking you okay, then your stomach gets bigger and bigger and—”

  Andy nodded. So if the wasps were increased in size because of the Rift, then he could only imagine how large the tarantulas had to be. He took one more look at Batista, who seemed to be reading his thoughts.

  “Big fucking spiders.” The man nodded and waggled his arms. “Bigger than me. Bigger than you. Like Cadillac.”

  Andy closed his eyes.

  Spiders the size of Cadillacs.

  Swell.

  * * *

  A sort of manic normalcy prevailed after that, if you can call regular sorties of giant tarantula wasps into the night sky normal. For someplace like Upstate New York, it would have raised an eyebrow. But for those around the Rift, a few wasps here and there were the least of their worries.

  Every other night the wasps would escape containment and try and fight their way to freedom. And every other night, the combined might of the Rift battalion would hurl them back whence they came. During the battles, mine tenders like Batista and Andy would ensconce themselves in the emergency bunker, well away from the action. The first night they’d been too afraid to leave their sleeping bunkers. That one transgression was allowed. But since then, they’d always hot-footed it to the emergency bunker. It was bigger anyway. They quickly became inured to the shrieks and sounds of combat. Great games of spades, old Doug Clegg novels, and even sleep took up their nights as they waited for the battalion’s inevitable victory.

  Then one day visitors came. When they heard the claxons sounded and made their way to the emergency bunker, they found it occupied by thirty-seven dusty Mexicans who’d gotten lost on their way to the border — Douglas, Arizona, and red, white and blue freedom.

  Wide-eyed and certainly wishing they’d never left their homes, the Mexicans huddled together against one wall. Beside them were piles of belongings, a mish-mash of things they thought they’d need, but nothing even remotely capable of protecting them against what the Rift had to offer. Several shuddered beneath a blanket. An old man and woman clutched each other, faces buried in each other’s shoulders, eyes crammed shut. A child cried, his head pressed against the lap of his mother.

  “What the hell?” asked one of the other mine tenders.

  “When did the wetbacks move in?” Batista asked.

  Andy didn’t miss the irony of his friend using the pejorative. “Technically, they aren’t wetbacks.”

  Batista frowned.

  “I mean, they haven’t crossed any rivers yet.” Andy shrugged. “Can’t be wetbacks if they don’t get wet.”

  Batista gave him a look. “You think too much, maricone.”

  The others spread out and found places to play cards, read or snooze. A few of them watched the new guests, but with only cursory interest.

  Andy and Batista found an empty space on the floor. They broke out a deck of cards and began a game of gin rummy. But it became obvious after the first hand that Batista was just going through the motions. His eyes were on one of the girls huddled next to an older man with milky eyes and a missing ear. A sly, hungry look had crept onto Batista’s face and taken control.

  The girl couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Her dark eyes and skin told of Indian ancestry. Her long hair had once been luxurious, but was now more the color of dirt than lustrous black. The hair was twisted and bunched beneath an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap. Her legs were drawn beneath her. Her hands rested on the old man’s
leg.

  She reminded Andy of a girl who’d lived near him at Fort Drum. He’d never known her name, but the memory of her had made him who he was to this day.

  Andy’s father hadn’t been in the Army, but the girl’s father had. He was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division. He was never home, always playing war games, or deployed to some far-flung country. When he was in town, she used to sit on the front stoop of their townhouse, waiting from him to come home. Her eyes were like the eyes of the Mexican girl: wide brown pools where hope shimmered above a surface-tension of fear.

  Andy had been drawn to those eyes when he passed on his way home from school. He was sixteen and she was thirteen, and he wanted to stop and reach out to help her. “Me Tarzan. You Jane,” he’d said in his mind, every time he’d passed. Pounding his chest, he’d let out the famous Tarzan call, grab her by the waist and swing off into the trees like Johnny Weissmuller had done so many times. They’d live a life free of fear, high above the dangerous animals far below. They’d have the monkeys to entertain them and the apes to protect them. Living would be good. Life would be grand.

  But not really.

  Tarzan, that great mythical man who was the source of all courage, wasn’t real. He existed in the pages of paperback pulps, in comic books, in television and movies, and in the minds of every boy who’d sat down and plumbed the depths of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ imagination.

  Andy knew this because of the doctors he’d been forced to see.

  They asked him Do you really think you’re Tarzan?

  Why did you do that to her?

  What were you planning to do to her? And a hundred more questions, each as inane and embarrassing as the others. Why had he done what he had? What had set him off, making him believe that he could be Tarzan?

  He’d run after it had happened.

  An hour later the doorbell had rung. He’d pressed his ear to the closed door of his room and heard most of the conversations that had taken place. When it came time for his mother to confront him, he was sitting on the bed, prepared for the embarrassment. But the embarrassment never came. They hadn’t understood. What had been his vain inglorious attempt to save the girl had been misconstrued as some sort of attack.

  “Why’d you scream at her? Why’d you grab her like that?” his mother had asked.

  “But I didn’t—”

  She cut him off with a chop of her hand. “Don’t lie to me. I just talked to that poor girl’s father. I convinced him not to call the police.”

  “The police...?”

  “He said you need help.” His mother hugged herself as tears began to slide down her cheeks. “I just don’t understand what happened.”

  “Mom. I didn’t do anything.” He spoke quickly, knowing that he had one slim chance to diffuse the situation. “All I did was be Tarzan. I gave the jungle yell, I beat my chest and I tried to rescue her. I wasn’t attacking her, I was...”

  His mother’s shoulders began to shake as she cried harder. Andy had stood and watched as the reality of his behavior and the insanity of it slipped past his excuse. What had he done? Why had he pretended to be Tarzan? What had come over him?

  He’d gone to see some shrinks after that. He’d told his story, and they’d said that it was his father’s fault for not being there. They’d told his mother it was a combination of an active imagination and father issues. She thanked them, threw away all of Andy’s Tarzan books, and made him take the mind-numbing pills they’d prescribed.

  It was all in his mind.

  Finally they’d made him admit that ‘Tarzan doesn’t live here anymore’, as if saying it made it true.

  Less than a year later, the girl’s dad was arrested for molesting her. Andy had been forced to walk home from school a different way since the day he’d scared the girl, but the day after the arrest, he couldn’t help himself. His curiosity had overruled the court order. He’d found the house vacant. The door hung open. Trash and clothes had been scattered as if someone had left in a hurry.

  The emptiness pulled him inside. He went from room to room. Living room. Dining room. In the kitchen, a box of Fruit Loops had been spilled and was now a feast for roaches. Upstairs he found three bedrooms. It didn’t take but a second to figure out that the one with the balloons painted on the wall belonged to the little girl. Stepping inside the room, he’d stood there, trying to soak up the environment. But he’d felt nothing. Whatever had been left of the girl was gone. The closet door gaped and he went to it. The door creaked as he’d opened it and what he saw made him stop.

  A picture had been drawn about knee-high in the left corner. It looked like the figures had been rendered with crayon. Even without knowing, Andy knew who had drawn the tableau. On the faded yellow wall knelt the stick figure of a girl. Standing over her was the hulking figure of a beast, made from slashes of greens and browns and blacks. The slash beast had yellow eyes that seemed to glow in the gloom of the closet. But the figure that most drew Andy was high above them. Hanging from what could only be a vine dangling from a branch was the figure of a man. His face was round, his eyes were tiny circles and his mouth was a larger wavy circle.

  She’d known!

  She’d understood!

  Even though his mother and the shrinks and everyone else had thought he was crazy, this girl had known that all Andy had wanted to do was to save her — her Tarzan to his Jane.

  He looked once again at the kneeling figure. Her head was round too. Her mouth was a frown. Her eyes were smaller circles, and although they were devoid of any emotion, Andy saw within them that strange mixture of hope and fear that had lived in the eyes of the real girl that day he’d taken her into his arms and screamed his Tarzan yell.

  Now Andy recognized it once again within this slight Mexican girl lying beside the old man. Yet somehow it wasn’t the old man that seemed predatory. The way she clutched him was too much like a teddy bear or a kid hugging base during a game of freeze tag. No, it wasn’t the old man that Andy needed to worry about. Following her gaze to its end, he found the hungry leer of Batista. Like the King of the Jungle who found the spoor of a new animal, Andy knew this wasn’t going to end well. He thought about growling at his rummy partner, but knew that the man wouldn’t understand, just like his mother and all of the other adults of his childhood had failed to understand.

  Outside the jungle, no one did.

  * * *

  Two days later the worms came.

  Just after the last sortie of tarantula wasps was hurled back into the Rift, there came a rumbling that set off sensors all around. Twice it stopped, then resumed, strong enough so that even those in the bunkers felt the trembling of the earth.

  All the mine tenders got the call to stand by. The mines were detonated remotely, by controllers using satellite and UAV imagery. But in the event the mines failed to detonate, the tenders would have to wade into battle to get to the hard-wired back-up controls. It was deadly dangerous with little chance of survival. Andy never thought he’d have to perform that specific function. At least he hoped he wouldn’t.

  Andy stood in the open blast door staring into the night. The Rift was lit by sweeping spotlights. The air was clear except for lingering smoke trails from where Hellfire missiles had connected to bring down the wasps.

  Two figures squeezed between him and the door. One was the Mexican girl, the other was her sister. They whispered rapidly to each other and pointed to the Rift. One of the senior sergeants pushed them back. This was no place for children.

  Andy felt the heat of Batista’s gaze scorch him as it followed the girl back inside. He’d tried not to say anything, but his Tarzan vibes kept getting stronger and stronger. When he looked once again at his partner, he found Batista staring at him.

  “You want a piece of her too, maricone?”

  Andy shook his head and tried to look away. But Batista grabbed him and spun him back around.

  “I know your kind. You like to watch.”

  “I—”

  �
�Next time we hit the bunkers I’m gonna do her. You keep look out and I’ll let you watch. I know you’ll like that.”

  Andy didn’t have time to respond. Just then, a one-hundred yard-long worm broke free of the soil in their sector. Its skin was a mottle of purples and reds. Hair covered its upper half, or what Andy thought was hair. Each ten-foot strand moved individually, reminding Andy more of tentacles than anything else. Claymores immediately exploded, daisy-chained to deliver a conflagration over a broad area. Tens of thousands of ball bearings ripped into the creature, chopping it in half. Great gouts of blood and flesh flew through the air. It screamed, the sound like a train using its emergency airbrakes.

  Then died.

  Another worm came after.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  But Andy hardly noticed. Instead, all he could think of was how he was going to keep the girl safe from the predator he worked with. He might have to go talk to her. He looked first at Batista, then at the girl.

  Me Tarzan. You Jane.

  * * *

  Andy had been away from his Network for six weeks. He’d had longer assignments, but had always filed interim reports, sometimes calling every day just so his bosses knew he was doing what he’d been paid to do. Working with the Rift Battalion, he hadn’t even had the opportunity to make a phone call. He couldn’t take notes, he couldn’t record his thoughts on the recorder he’d stuffed in the bottom of his bag, he couldn’t even scratch hieroglyphics in the dirt. Absolutely everything was monitored by a special team of NSA signal interceptors.

  So for all intents and purposes, he’d stepped off the face of the earth. And until his tour was up, he’d remain that way. The soonest he could expect to leave was at the six month mark when they were due to rotate out.

  Yet even that was the subject of speculation. The other new guys couldn’t help but wonder if they were really going to be allowed to leave. Sure, they signed non-disclosure agreements and promised to keep the Rift and its denizens a secret, but since when was the government so trustworthy as to keep its side of any bargain?